Timothy Hsiao In Defense Of Eating Meat Summary

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Summary-Response Paper #3 “In Defense of Eating Meat” is an article written by Timothy Hsiao from the Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, published by Springer Netherlands. Timothy Hsiao received his master’s degree in philosophy from Florida State University and currently teaches at Florida Southwestern State College. The article provides a thorough argument for the morality of meat eating. In the article, Timothy Hsiao begins with an outline of one school of thought of vegetarians that it is morally wrong to eat meat because of the pain caused in the killing of animals and that eating meat is unessential to survival. Hsiao then establishes his argument that even though eating meat may not be necessary, our “nutritional interests” are a valid enough reason to kill animals. The following section argues that sentience is only a relevant consideration in association with sufficient moral standing and that because animals are not part of the human “moral community,” they have no moral standing and therefore, their pain is a “non-moral” welfare interest, trumped by the “moral” welfare interests of humans (Hsiao). …show more content…

A strong stance is taken in the article about the author’s position on the issue and what he does and does not agree with, “Note that I am not taking the Cartesian position that animals are incapable of feeling pain” (Hsiao). This allows the reader to have a better understanding of the article and what the author specifically argues