Plutarch The Morality Of Eating Meat

After coming to college, there is nothing I appreciate more than a nice juicy steak, and it is something I eat as much as possible. However, not everyone shares the same love for meat as me, many different authors, poets, and even philosophers have their own differing opinions. Plutarch, a Greek philosopher from around 100 C.E. had very negative opinions surrounding the idea of eating meat. Similarly, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), an English poet, shared a lot of very similar views and arguments as Plutarch. Furthermore, the piece “In Vitro Meat”, by Stellan Welin et al gives present-day opinions and arguments surrounding eating meat. This article presents new ideas, possibilities, and solutions for those who are against eating meat that will be available in the near future. Although these writers are from different times, and with different backgrounds, they all shared an underlying question of the morality surrounding eating

The act of eating meat has caused many questions of morality to arise over the years; starting with Plutarch questioning the morality of slaughtering animals, Shelly writing about the physical act of eating meat, and Welin et al questioning whether growing meat in a lab is morally okay. The first morality question is asked by the Greek philosopher Plutarch when he speaks about the way meat was being “harvested” in his time. To begin, Plutarch brings up his first major issue expressing his disapproval of the idea that people hold the power to decide which animals live and die. Plutarch brings up multiple examples of why he believes this throughout the article, one of the more powerful points was when Plutarch(n.d) said, “Catch the harmless and tame sort, and such as have neither stings nor teeth to bite with, and slay them”(p. 9). This observation by Plutarch helps build his case, pointing out how most of the animals that humans eat are the ones that are virtually helpless