24Etikk i praksis. Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics (2013), 7 (1), s. Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects Stellan Welin Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Sweden, [email protected] Cultured meat, or in vitro meat, is one of the ideas that are being proposed to help solve the problems associated with the ever-growing global meat consumption. The prospect may bring benefit for the environment, climate, and animal ethics, but has also generated doubts and criticism. A discussion of the possible environmental benefit and of animal ethics issues in relation to cultured meat production will be given. A perceived ’unnaturalness’ of cultu- red meat may be one of the strongest barriers for public acceptance. This will be discussed and rejected. As to our relations with nature and animals, it is plausible that cultured meat will lead to improvement rather than to deterioration. The issue of public acceptance and some of the problems of introducing this new product on the market will also be discussed. Keywords: cultured meat, naturalness, environment, animal ethics Introduction Once upon a time, all meat was obtained from hunting wild animals. This was the first stage in meat production (Welin et al. 2012). It is still predominant in fisheries, where the fish still is ’hunted’ by big fleets of fishing ships. There are not too many wild big animals left for hunting, nor are the stocks of fish what they used to be. Where there is a conside- rable hunting, like the hunting of moose in Sweden, there is a regulated regime keeping the stock at an approriate level. In the area of fisheries, problems are more difficult as the fish moves across national boundaries and on international water. Many of the stocks of fish around the world have been depleted and are on the brink to collapse. The second stage in meat production was herding and slaughtering of domesticated animals. This meant unintentionally that the kind of meat to be eating from farm and range animals was restricted to the animals human had managed to domesticate. A similar kind of procedure has taken place in relation to fish, although there is no need to first domesticate the fish. The third stage in meat production is about to happen. The idea is to produce meat (muscle tissue) from animal stem cells with tissue-engineering techniques. A successful meat production in this way will constitute a radically new way of obtaining meat, namely without using animals at all. In this paper, I will discuss the new technology of cultured meat. First I will give a very short description of some of the technical aspects. After a short overview of the problems 24 – 37 Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 25 Stellan Welin with present day meat production in relation to environment and ethics I turn to the pos- sible advantages of cultured meat in these aspects. Two other issues will be discussed relating to ’naturalness’ and our relation wit.

1. 24Etikk i praksis. Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics (2013), 7
(1), s.
Introducing the new meat. Problems and
prospects
Stellan Welin
Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping
University, Sweden, [email protected]
Cultured meat, or in vitro meat, is one of the ideas that are
being proposed to help solve the
problems associated with the ever-growing global meat
consumption. The prospect may
bring benefit for the environment, climate, and animal ethics,
but has also generated doubts
and criticism. A discussion of the possible environmental
benefit and of animal ethics issues
in relation to cultured meat production will be given. A
perceived ’unnaturalness’ of cultu-
red meat may be one of the strongest barriers for public
acceptance. This will be discussed
and rejected. As to our relations with nature and animals, it is
plausible that cultured meat
will lead to improvement rather than to deterioration. The issue
of public acceptance and
some of the problems of introducing this new product on the
market will also be discussed.
Keywords: cultured meat, naturalness, environment, animal
ethics

2. Introduction
Once upon a time, all meat was obtained from hunting wild
animals. This was the first
stage in meat production (Welin et al. 2012). It is still
predominant in fisheries, where the
fish still is ’hunted’ by big fleets of fishing ships. There are not
too many wild big animals
left for hunting, nor are the stocks of fish what they used to be.
Where there is a conside-
rable hunting, like the hunting of moose in Sweden, there is a
regulated regime keeping
the stock at an approriate level. In the area of fisheries,
problems are more difficult as the
fish moves across national boundaries and on international
water. Many of the stocks of
fish around the world have been depleted and are on the brink to
collapse.
The second stage in meat production was herding and
slaughtering of domesticated
animals. This meant unintentionally that the kind of meat to be
eating from farm and
range animals was restricted to the animals human had managed
to domesticate. A
similar kind of procedure has taken place in relation to fish,
although there is no need to
first domesticate the fish.
The third stage in meat production is about to happen. The idea
is to produce meat
(muscle tissue) from animal stem cells with tissue-engineering
techniques. A successful
meat production in this way will constitute a radically new way
of obtaining meat, namely
without using animals at all.

3. In this paper, I will discuss the new technology of cultured
meat. First I will give a very
short description of some of the technical aspects. After a short
overview of the problems
24 – 37
Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 25
Stellan Welin
with present day meat production in relation to environment and
ethics I turn to the pos-
sible advantages of cultured meat in these aspects.
Two other issues will be discussed relating to ’naturalness’ and
our relation with
nature, before I, at the end, turn to the question how cultured
meat can be introduced.
Some possible adverse effects of the impact of the technology
of cultured meat will also
be discussed.
The reader may wonder what kind of value system and ethics
lies behind the argu-
ments of the chapter, and even more why some kind of
arguments have been singled out
and not others. I think it is fair to say that most of the
discussion has to do with consequ-
ences, hence a kind of general consequentialist approach.
Consequences should produce
outcomes that are good. Exactly what kind of ultimate values I
cherish is not completely
clear to me but welfare is just one such value. Animal dignity
figures below; the conser-

4. vation of pristine nature is another. I would tentatively classify
myself as a kind of (gene-
ral) consequentalist believing in a list of objective values and
that I have good reasons to
believe in these values (Parfit 2011: 43–57). But the reader
should be warned that is this
is mainly a ’pro-paper’ promoting cultured meat. I discuss some
counterargument but
there are most probably more.
The technology of cultured meat
The challenge is to select suitable cells from animals and make
them proliferate in a bio-
reactor. The cells to grow in the bioreactor must be some kind
of stem cells (that is the
only kind of cell that proliferates) and these can be obtained in
two ways. Both alternati-
ves will use material from dead or live animals to start the
process. The first method will
need just one animal (or one for each cell line) but the second
method need continuous
supply of animal material.
The first method is to develop the cells to grow in the
bioreactor from an embryonic
stem cell line. Such a cell line is in principle immortal and has
to be obtained from some
early stage animal embryo, which can be done without killing
animals. It is the same tech-
nology as when human embryonic stem cells are created. This is
done by using in vitro
fertilization.
In our case, a number of unfertilized eggs must be obtained
from a female animal.
This is done like in the human case with hormone stimulation.

5. The unfertilized eggs are
fertilized by sperm in a petri dish. The fertilized eggs develop
in the Petri dish for about
five days. At that stage, the fertilized eggs have developed into
a blastocyst, which consists
of a membrane and an inner cell mass. The inner cell mass are
the embryonic stem cells,
each of which can develop into any cell in the body. The
embryo is destroyed and the
embryonic stem cells are put in a suitable medium. If treated in
the right way – not giving
too much nutrition among other things – the embryonic stem
cell line can in principle go
on forever.
The not-yet-solved problem is how to control the development
of these embryonic
stem cells into appropriate adult stem cells, preferably muscle
stem cells, which can pro-
ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2013 26
liferate in a bioreactor. But there is large interest in medicine to
understand such develop-
ment and one may expect this to be mastered in due time.
The other way is to take a biopsy from a living or dead animal
and obtain the adult
muscle stem cells. This is a more direct method and can be used
immediately. A new
biopsy is needed whenever a new batch of meat cells is to be
produced.
The first feasible product will be minced meat. Fillet and other

6. forms of vascularized
meat may be the next goal. Due to the interest in medicine to be
able to tissue engineer
complicated human tissues and organs for transplantation
purposes, there is good hope
that technologies to grow vascularized meat will be developed.
It is also easier to tissue
engineer a muscle for eating than for actual use in the body. A
muscle for eating need not
be functional, one has not to worry about connections with
nerves; it is enough if it is edi-
ble.
Problems of conventional meat production
Conventional meat production often involves intensive farming
and is a source or increa-
sing concern for several reasons. Animal welfare has been on
the moral agenda for a long
time, but widely accepted solutions for the problems of
intensive husbandry have not
been forthcoming. Environmental impacts of livestock have
been added to the agenda of
concern through the publication of the FAO report ‘Livestock’s
long shadow’ (Steinfeld
2006). Among other things, the report pointed out that livestock
is responsible for appro-
ximately 18% of the total anthropogenic emitted greenhouse
gases, which is more than
the transport sector. Land use, water use, pollution, and energy
use are also matters of
concern.
To make matters worse, global demand for meat increases: it
has doubled since 1970
and is projected to double again before 2050 (Ilea 2008). This is
due to global rise in popu-

7. lation as well as prosperity; when people get richer, meat
consumption increases. At the
same time, there is widespread food insecurity in many parts of
the world and starvation
threatens regularly. The situation is made worse by the fact that
meat and other food stuff
now are items on a commercial market and price may rise due to
market speculations and
the operation of the stock market.
The demand for more meat has also lead to more land being
used for grazing and
more land is also used for feed production. At the same time,
the growth of cities often
occur on good agrocultural land (Ananthaswamy 2002). This
means that grazing land
and areas for feed production often move into new areas
formerly not used by man. In
Latin America former pastures has been turned into soya beans
fields and the cattle have
moved deep into Amazonas (Rother 2003). The pristine part of
nature is increasingly
taken over by human activities. There will be fewer areas on the
globe untouched by
human activity. I regard this encroaching upon the ’wild’ nature
as one bad effect of pre-
sent day meat production.
Another aspect in conventional meat production is that only a
part of the slaughtered
animal is eaten. For a pig or chicken the edible part is
calculated to be approximately 70%.
Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 27

8. Stellan Welin
For a cow the edible parts are estimated to be around 50%.
Around 80% of all energy input
into raising animals for slaughter is input just to live – an
aspect obviously very important
and in focus in animal ethics (LivsmedelsSverige 2009).
Some of these problems can be mitigated by better management
policies. One study
using the European Commission integrated product policy
estimated that the environ-
mental impact of meat and dairy production can be reduced by
20% (Eder & Delgado
(eds.) 2008). This still leaves a considerable environmental
impact from conventional
meat production.
There are also other troubling aspects. Some animals like the
broiler have been bred
by human intervention to be so effective (meat produced per
input energy) that they grow
at an amazing pace. If they are not slaughtered ’in time’ their
bodies grow so heavy that
their legs cannot support them. Many of the breeding practices
have produced animals
that hardly can be said to have happy lives. Animal breeding is
much more sensitive from
an ethical point of view than plant breeding; a plant does not
experience anything. Plants
are not sentient beings, nor are the muscle cells in the
bioreactor used for production of
cultured meat. If suffering is taken seriously we should regret
some of the result of animal
breeding.

9. Moral views on killing animals are divided (McMahan 2002;
Cavalieri & Singer 1994),
but there is general consensus that animal suffering is an evil
(DeGrazia 1996). In parti-
cular, present indoor intensive meat production is not good from
the point of the welfare
of the animals (Singer 1975). There are also huge problems in
present-day slaughter house
practices (Eisnitz 2006). The problems of present-day slaughter
houses may be overcome
to a large extent and more humane methods introduced for
killing animals, but it all costs
money. Animal welfare and animal ethics regulation in meat
production comes at a price.
If a country introduces more strict control for keeping animals
and for slaughtering, this
will increase prices on meat and the consumers may very well
buy cheaper imported
meat.
There is also tension between reducing the environmental
impact of conventional
meat production and good animal ethics. The best way to reduce
greenhouse gas emis-
sions from cattle could be to keep them indoor all the time and
to capture the gases. This
goes contrary to good animal ethics as it will deny the animal
some of their natural habits
like being outdoors. Maybe, one can argue that animals can be
as happy indoors as out-
doors – especially if they never have seen daylight and do not
know about the world out-
doors. A utilitarian solution could be to treat the indoor animals
with suitable drugs to
make them happy – if this will be allowed by the food security
agencies – but such solu-

10. tion runs counter to my own sense of ’animal dignity’. One can
also try to breed the ani-
mals in such a way – if this is possible – that they are more
complacent and ’happy’ in the
offered environment. The more radical attempt would be to try
genetic engineering to
have the same or ’better’ results. It is unclear if such meat
product will be accepted by con-
sumers. Such procedures again run counter to most conceptions
of ’animal dignity’ (Gav-
rell Ortiz 2004).
ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2013 28
Potential advantages of cultured meat: The environmental
impact
Cultured meat has many potential advantages compared to
conventional meat pro-
duction, not least a diminished environmental impact. A
lifecycle analysis, undertaken by
Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos (2011) was based on the
working of early bioreactors.
In their analysis, they assumed that cyanobacteria can be used
as the source of nutrients
and energy. The lifecycle analysis of cultured meat was then
compared with other publis-
hed lifecycle analysis of various forms of conventional meat
production.
They estimated that cultured meat involves 7–45% less energy
than conventionally
produced meat (only poultry has lower energy use), 78–96%
lower emissions of greenho-
use gases, 99% lower land use, and 82–96% lower water use.

11. These figures indicate that
cultured meat holds great environmental promise. For example,
the dramatic reduction
in land use opens the prospect that much of this land may be
used for other purposes,
such as arable farming or just return to wilderness.
The study by Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos (2011) is
admittedly a rather prelimi-
nary one based on many assumptions. When a larger system is
set up, it is important to
make a new lifecycle analysis to see if the early findings still
hold. When we take into acco-
unt that the bioreactor used for cultured meat need only feed
cells that will go directly to
the meat product – compared to conventional breeding where a
large amount of energy
is used for living and to grow and sustain many inedible parts –
the conclusion seems
rather plausible.
This early study is a strong argument to investigate the
environmental issues related
to cultured meat in more detail and on a larger scale. To do that
one needs a scaled-up
facility for cultured meat production set to get more realistic
and reliable measurement
results. It would also be interesting to make a large-scale
lifecycle analysis of meat con-
sumption and production in a region to get a clue as to how
much environmental impact
mitigation a scaled-up cultured meat production might provide
compared to conventio-
nal meat production.
If it is possible to base nutrients for the cells in the bioreactor

12. on blue–green algae as
in the study by Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos, transportation
can be decreased. This is
another environmental benefit. Furthermore, the meat
production needs small areas and
can be done in cities, thus freeing areas in the countryside for
possible return of the ’wild
nature’. Others may see this move to cities of food production
as a threat. I see it in our
present situation as a benefit.
Potential advantages of cultured meat: Animal ethics
If meat can be produced in bioreactors, animals need not be
kept and slaughtered. In so
far as meat production causes suffering, cultured meat could
replace these practices and
thus lead to great reduction in suffering. In the future, meat
might thus be produced
partly as cultured meat through tissue engineering, and partly
through practices of
raising animals that live good lives and are slaughtered in a
painless way. A world with less
suffering is a better world.
Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 29
Stellan Welin
Another potential advantage is related to health. Many animal
diseases have made it
clear that meat from animals has its dangers. In cultured meat
production, it will be easier
to keep control of pathogen contamination.
Hopkins and Dacey (2008) have given an early overview of

13. moral arguments for and
against cultured meat. On the pro-side, they emphasized its
animal-friendly character.
On the other hand, they noted and discussed many objections,
such as potential danger
and unfavorable first responses, but they found none of them
convincing (van der Weele
2010). Hopkins and Dacey (2008: 595) conclude that ’the
development of cultured meat
is not merely an interesting technological phenomenon, but
something we may be mor-
ally required to support’. It is not yet possible to judge the real
merits of cultured meat, as
it does not yet exist, but I agree with the conclusion that
research efforts and development
work should be encouraged from a moral point of view. Still,
there are many open ques-
tions concerning the implementation and impacts of cultured
meat in the future, in par-
ticular in relation to consumer conceptions. In the next two
sections, I will discuss two
kinds of criticism of cultured meat. One is about naturalness
and the other has to do with
whether introduction of culture meat may damage our relation
with nature.
Cultured meat: Natural or unnatural?
One of the counterarguments against cultured meat, also
discussed by Hopkins and
Dacey, is that it is ’unnatural’. They notice that on one hand
this seems to be a primary
objection for many people. There is no clear and generally
accepted conception of ’natu-
ral’, or of ’artificial’.
Ideas of unnaturalness seem, however, to play a large part in

14. much resistance at least
in Europe to new food technologies. One may only think of the
controversies around
genetically modified crops. Part of the skepticism can probably
be related to health con-
cerns but part of it has to do with the unnaturalness of the
procedures. Whether or not a
good argument can be made for the unnaturalness of cultured
meat (or GMO) one has to
take such perceptions seriously.
In a more restricted form, ’natural’ may mean something like
‘not produced by
humans’. But ‘not produced by humans’ as a characterization of
naturalness will not do.
Complications and exceptions keep popping up. Human children
are natural, but what if
they are born after in vitro fertilization? Surely such children
are natural even if produced
in a non-natural way? A product may thus be natural even if
produced in an unnatural
way. Presumably, everything produced in a natural way (in this
case without human inter-
vention) is natural. We will have to distinguish between natural
human acts and techno-
logical (unnatural) human acts. In the case of cultured meat,
arguments can easily be
given for its (relative) unnaturalness as well as its (relative)
naturalness, as will be briefly
illustrated.
Hopkins and Dacey end their brief discussion of naturalness by
pointing out that it is
precisely the alleged ’unnaturalness’ of cultured meat that
makes it attractive: it may be
’superior to what nature offers—humans can live out their

15. natural propensity to eat meat
ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2013 30
while also sparing animals from the horrors of that propensity’
(Hopkins & Dacey 2008:
587).
Arguments for the ’naturalness’ of cultured meat, on the other
hand, was the subject
of a small nocturnal and semi-serious competition held at a
recent meeting on cultured
meat in early autumn 2010 in Hindås, Sweden. The challenge
was to argue that cultured
meat is more natural than conventional meat. The jury chose
two co-winning arguments.
The first stated that in factory farming, animals lead such
unnatural lives that cultured
meat can only compare favorably:
Arguably, the production of cultured meat is less unnatural than
raising farm animals in intensive
confinement systems, injecting them with synthetic hormones,
and feeding them artificial diets
made up of antibiotics and animal wastes. At the same time, the
conventional production of meat
has led to a number of unnatural problems, including high rates
of ischemic heart disease and food-
borne illness, as well as soil and water pollution from farm
animal wastes. If cultured meat is unna-
tural, it is so in the same way that bread, cheese, yogurt, and
wine are unnatural. All involve proces-
sing ingredients derived from natural sources. (Josh Balk,
September 1, 2011)

16. The second winning argument states that tissue engineering is
not as unnatural as we may
think because it closely resembles very natural processes:
Life on Earth started with a single cell, a natural event. Our
lives start with a single cell, undoubtedly
very natural. Cultured meat originates from a single cell, just as
the plants that we eat. Consumption
of cultured meat is a very natural thing. (Henk Haagsman,
September 1, 2011)
As the examples illustrate, choosing a context of comparison is
a crucial element with
regard to naturalness arguments and their normative power.
Depending on how we frame
the question and handle the discussion, we may come to any
conclusion of naturalness of
cultured meat. There are many things and technologies that can
be regarded as ’unnatu-
ral’ but some of them we regard as good and some as bad. In the
same way, many ’natural’
situations are bad for various reasons. The HIV infection can be
said to have a natural and
biological origin and is not produced by humans. These facts do
not turn HIV infection
into something good. Whether cultured meat is ’unnatural’ as
argued by Hopkins and
Dacey or ’natural’ as argued by the two winners in the nocturnal
competition in Hindås,
does not settle the question of the value of cultured meat. It can
be good or bad regardless
of its natural or unnatural status.
Will cultured meat alienate us from nature?
One possible bad aspect of the technology of cultured meat is

17. that it may alienate us from
nature and animals. As mentioned above cultured meat can be a
step in our retreat from
nature to live in cities. As we have seen, cultured meat is a
hopeful development in at least
some respects; think of the predictions of reduced land use, as
estimated by Tuomisto and
Teixeira de Mattos. This will mean fewer areas affected by
human activities. This is good
for nature but may at the same time alienate us from nature.
Whether or not such aliena-
Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 31
Stellan Welin
tion has a positive component at all is not obvious. Presumably,
the ’alienation’ that we
sleep inside sheltered buildings is a good thing; if we feel as
strangers when we encounter
nature and animals is not a good thing.
The idea of cultured meat generates worries about human
relations with nature. Cul-
tured meat fits in with an increasing dependence on technology,
and the worry is that this
comes with an ever greater estrangement from nature. Cultured
meat, more specifically,
might undermine our relations with animals. Are we, by turning
to technology, evading
the challenges in human–animal relations and giving up on
animals?
A similar question in relation to animals can also be asked of
veganism and vegetari-

18. anism that involves no slaughtering of animals. To some extent
the risk of alienation from
nature is less with veganism and vegetarianism as compared to
cultured meat. The pro-
ducer and consumer of vegan or vegetarian products may prefer
living in the countryside;
cultured meat could very well be produced in cities.
In his book on sustainable forms of meat consumption, Simon
Fairlie (2010) is an
energetic spokesman for this worry. The book is set up as an
argument against veganism:
Fairlie argues that veganism is not the most convincing
response to the problems of meat.
Instead, he recommends eating very moderate amounts of
sustainably produced meat.
Land use is a central topic in his book, and Fairlie tries to
envision what a vegan lands-
cape and a vegan future might look like. Vegans, he notes, have
a strong tendency to
resign from nature, to leave nature to its own and create a form
of ’apartheid’ between
humanity and the natural world (Fairlie 2010: 226). At a time
when the organic sector is
campaigning for slow food and real meat, vegans increasingly
look ’in the very opposite
direction’: toward factory-produced processed forms of protein.
And cultured meat, says
Fairlie (2010: 228), ’is the dream product that lies at the end of
this road’.
It is a rather strange picture Fairlie paints. Why should vegans
create some apartheid
from nature? It seems to me that vegans and vegetarians,
contrary to Fairlie’s statements,

19. can integrate in the rural landscape without too much problems.
The only apartheid that
follows with veganism and vegetarianism is that there will be
no farm animals for meat.
And why should cultured meat be the natural outcome of a
vegan lifestyle?
It is far from clear to what extent cultured meat will be
acceptable to vegans. From my
own experience, talking about cultured meat often gives mixed
responses from vegetari-
ans and vegans. Some who abstain from meat, for what may be
said to be a primarily ethi-
cal reason, welcome the prospect of cultured meat. Such can be
eaten with a clear cons-
cience. No suffering is involved in its production. The other
reaction by some vegetarians
and vegans is one of utter disgust; it is something they will
never eat. One may suspect
that it is the issue of naturalness once again. Far from being the
natural outcome of a
vegan lifestyle, cultured meat is rather a prolongation of our
present meat-loving culture.
Cultured meat is in many ways a conservative technology
compared to being vegan if
used to alleviate environmental impact or animal suffering.
Changing to cultured meat
consumption allow us to continue meat eating and this change
will at the same time have
good consequences for animals and for the environment.
In Fairlie’s (2010) picture of future developments, cultured
meat is very close to the
genetic engineering of factory farmed livestock that is ’dumbed
down’ so that it could not

20. ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2013 32
feel pain. He wonders: ’Are we witnessing the first signs of a
convergence of interests bet-
ween factory farming, veganism, and genetic engineering’.
(Fairlie 2010: 229). Thinking
further and including transhumanist prospects, Fairlie pictures a
thoroughly technologi-
cal vegan future, in which suffering is eradicated by biological
engineering, and contacts
with nature have come to an end. He warns that if we value our
relations with nature and
animals, the vegan agenda is not so innocuous as it might seem.
A core danger is that the
vegan detachment from the natural world would rob us of our
own animal identity: ’[W]e
are what we eat, and by eating animals we help to ensure that
we ourselves remain ani-
mals’ (Fairlie 2010: 231). This, however, is a curious and
hardly convincing argument,
comparable to a claim that eating human flesh will make us
human.
Apparently, for Fairlie, in order to have valuable relations with
nature we have to eat
not just meat but once alive animals, a view that helps to
explain why he thinks that a
vegan future is a ’tragedy’. If the world turned completely to
cultured meat and abandoned
all slaughtering practices and hunting, the cultured meat future
should as in the vegan
case be a future were we do not eat animals once alive.
I doubt that such an ’animal-free’ future would be a tragedy as

21. Fairlie thinks. I also
strongly doubt that the prospect he sketches is a plausible one.
Is it really likely that cul-
tured meat is part of a development that will put an end to our
relations with nature in
general and with animals in particular?
The opposite is more plausible. To begin with, it can be noted
that cultured meat is
being developed to help solve the problems of the ever-growing
consumption of meat.
These problems are not caused by vegans but by meat eaters,
and the goal of cultured meat
is thus not primarily to satisfy vegans, but to offer an
alternative for meat eaters. A vegan
view of the future is therefore not evidently the most relevant
context for discussing cul-
tured meat.
With regard to nature in general, the prospect of large decreases
in land and water use
is very promising, as was noted before, if cultured meat
technology is introduced on a
large scale. As to farm animals: the goal of cultured meat is to
diminish the demand for
conventional meat. If the decrease is sufficiently substantial, it
might be possible to put an
end to factory farming, replacing its products with cultured
meat.
Any remaining demand for ’real’ meat from once alive animals
could then be met by
animals raised in animal friendly ways. This arrangement would
put an end to the more
’unnatural’ ways of raising animals, thus hugely improving our
relations with animals. It

22. might also free large amounts of land that are now needed to
grow animal feed. If part of
that land were converted to new forests, for example, our
relations with nature would also
improve as well as being beneficial to the environment.
If there is pristine unpolluted wilderness around, this does of
course not ensure that
we will actually experience it. Maybe we will just travel by
from city to city. But if there is
no such nature around at all, there is no possibility to
experience it. Fairlie is worried that
we completely abandon eating once alive animals. I believe that
few people buying plastic-
covered meat in the supermarket experience any positive
relation with animals. I do not.
In a cultured meat future with some free grazing outdoor
animals, there is actually more
possibilities to experience a relation with animals. And we
should not underestimate the
Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 33
Stellan Welin
possibility of keeping animals as pets or as companions. In
Sweden, horses are not used
on the farm any longer, but there are more horses in Sweden
than ever.
How can cultured meat production be brought about?
That something is technologically possible does not guarantee
that it will play a role in
society. There are many things we can do that we do not do.
Even rather spectacular tech-

23. nological feats may not really take off or it will at least take
very long time. One simple
example is the possibility of colonizing the moon and perhaps
Mars. This possibility was
opened up in 1969 with the success of the American Apollo
program and a number of
successful landings on the moon with human crews. For better
or worse, there does not
seem to be any particular interest to creating a human colony on
the moon or anywhere
else. On the contrary, nearly all efforts are put into robotic
missions. This is of course not
without good reasons: robots are cheaper, more reliable, and –
most important – one does
not need to rescue them if something goes wrong. The robots
can just be left to perish.
Cultured meat is on a much earlier stage. There is no military
interest in cultured meat
like the interest to develop powerful and reliable rockets. There
is some interesting
science to be learned from successful production of cultured
meat but most of the new
science is probably not in Nobel Prize area. Very much is
development.
To mention just one example of needed development, if cultured
meat production will
start from an animal embryonic stem cell line, such lines must
be produced. When the
first human embryonic stem cell lines were created in 1998,
there was an enormous inte-
rest in putting up funding for the science. But after successful
creation of many lines, the
science is not so exciting any longer. It is much more a question
of technology, of devising

24. good laboratory practices, of creating storing facilities etc. It is
difficult to get science fun-
ding for that. Normally, industry will step in to develop the
technology.
What industry should be interested in developing cultured meat?
A simple observa-
tion is that much of the present-day meat-processing industry is
closely linked to farmers.
In many countries, it is not unusual that such meat processing
industry is owned by the
farmers collectively. Unfortunately, the two main arguments for
cultured meat – environ-
mental benefit and animal welfare increase – at the same time
are criticisms of the con-
ventional production. The main reason to develop cultured meat
is that the conventional
meat production is flawed. The present-day meat-processing
industry will not be too
happy about that.
Furthermore, most of the meat industry is fairly low-tech.
Producing cultured meat is
a high-tech endeavor not very well suited for such a branch. The
meat today comes origi-
nally from the countryside where farms and ranches are
situated. Cultured meat can pre-
ferably be produced in cities. It may even be seen as a serious
threat to a living countryside
and could trigger popular protest. Compare the protest by
French farmers against McDo-
nald’s. Other possible advantages of cultured meat, for example,
to produce whale meat
without whale hunting, may not be received too favorably in for
example Norway. After
all, declaring that cultured whale meat is better from a moral

25. point of view than ’natural’
ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2013 34
whale meat from hunting indicates strongly that there are some
moral problems with
whale hunting.
Suppose industrial support was available. What kind of product
should be launched
first? At the previously mentioned meeting in Hindås, the main
idea was to produce min-
ced meat. This is obviously what is most easily done. To
develop vascularized meat is a
longer process. The drawback of ordinary minced meat is,
however, obvious. First of all,
this is a cheap standard product. Not fancy at all. Second,
ordinary minced meat is cheap.
It will be difficult in the beginning to compete with the price.
If we look to other areas of technological innovation, the first
product is often a luxury
item advertised to a small group of exclusive buyers. New
technological devises for cars
appear first in luxury models. These cars are bought by affluent
people who have no big
problem if the car with the fancy equipment has some problem;
they may have another
car or just take taxi. After development of the device to a
reliable cheap product, the
devise is incorporated in standard cars.
Is there any fancy product for cultured minced meat? Indeed,
there is. The range of

26. meat we eat today is restricted to animals that humankind has
succeeded in domestica-
ting and some wild game. With the technology of cultured meat,
any kind of meat can be
produced, not just pigs, cattle, and chicken to take the most
common. It is not more dif-
ficult to tissue engineer meat from a red-listed and rare animal
than from meat from a
pig, a cow, or a chicken. To be able to eat, for example, sushi
produced from an exotic
source could be a way to sell more expensive products. It can be
advertised as an ethical
way of enjoying a new thrilling gastronomic experience,
preferably served with a selec-
tion of exquisite wines in some fancy surroundings.
Some possible drawbacks and dangers
As with all new technologies there are risks and problems
ahead. Some are related to the
transition period and other can be more long-lasting. What will
happen if less developed
countries cannot export meat to richer countries? Will this be a
drawback or can this
mean more food security in such countries? From a European
perspective, introducing
cultured meat may bring ’meat independence’ to Europe. As
explained above, there will
also be less need of energy and nutrition input than for
conventional meat production.
This will harm countries that today export, for example, soy
beans for feed to Europe. All
of these aspects need to be studied and ways found to mitigate
negative consequences.
What will happen to employment in the agricultural sector in
countries with a large-

27. scale introduction of cultured meat production? Such production
could preferably move
into cities to get shorter transports, another environmental
benefit but perhaps not so
good for the countryside. On the other hand, all large-scale
technological innovations
induce changes in employment. New technologies mean also
that some skills are no lon-
ger as important as before. That is a process that has already
taken place many times. In
the old days, all farmers – the majority of all inhabitants in a
European country – knew
Introducing the new meat. Problems and prospects 35
Stellan Welin
how to slaughter animals. In our days, these skills and
knowledge is absent among the
general population. Only specialists working in the
slaughterhouses know the technology.
Can the cultured meat technology run out of control and cause
dangers? That we eas-
ily lose control over new technologies and that they start to live
a life of their own is a
theme in the American philosopher Langdon Winner’s book
’Autonomous technology’
(Winner 1977). Could this happen to cultured meat technology?
Yes in one sense. Once
introduced to the market and working successfully it will be
difficult to turn back to pre-
sent-day conventional meat production and to present-day
conditions in the countryside.
If the technology at all is born into market function, it will be

28. difficult to kill it. But why
should we?
What kind of risk can we expect from the new technology? It is
after all a typical trait
of our modern industrialized countries that some of the really
big hazards and dangers
are manmade. We live in a ’risk society’ (Beck 1992). The
dangers from nuclear power and
global warming are all produced by humans, in particular by the
development of science
and technology. The irony is that we need even more science
and more technological
development to combat present-day problems. The technology
of cultured meat can be
seen as such a solution to certain environmental and animal
ethics problems. It can lessen
the large environmental impact of ’conventional meat
production’ and improve life for
animals. But what new dangers are introduced?
Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to know that in advance.
When it already has hap-
pened we learn the lessons and there have been active attempts
not to just have ’late les-
sons from early warnings’ but to learn and react already on the
early warnings (EEA
2013). I will try to look at some possible environmental hazards
and at the risk to health.
The culturing of the cells will take place inside a closed
container. There is no risk that
the cells can survive and proliferate in nature if they are
released. The environmental
effects will all be more indirect. It will probably be more forest
and less open space in the

29. countryside as there is less need for areas to grow feed and also
for grazing. As I indicated
above, I believe that there will still be freely grazing animals
around, so there is reason to
believe that there still will be open areas without forest.
Furthermore, it may be good for
the climate if there is more forest, and it will be good for the
wild animals.
Will health risks increase? At first look it seems that possible
health risks with the meat
can more easily be controlled in the cultured meat process than
in the conventional bree-
ding. It is a closed container, there will be a sterile environment
and pathogens from the
outside can be screened out. After the production in the
bioreactor the cultured meat
needs to be processed. This introduces the same kind of risks
and problems that we have
in conventional meat production.
Is there a risk that the stem cell line is contaminated? Yes, and
that must be controlled
each time a new batch of cultured meat is started up. It seems
also wise to have more than
just one stem cell line and that we also have the possibility to
take biopsies. So overall it is
hard to see what extra risks cultured meat introduces regarding
human health.
ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 1 2013 36
Concluding remarks
From my value perspective – which I think is not uncommon –

30. it would be a good idea
to move the technology of cultured meat forward. Whether or
not it will eventually
succeed in replacing meat from once alive animals, we cannot
know. But the possibility
merits a serious attempt.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to the kind permission of the publisher for using text
from the extended abstract
(Welin & van der Weele 2012). A special thanks to the cowriter
Cor van der Weele of that
extended abstract. I want to particularly thank Cor van der
Weele for the valuable inputs
in the discussion of Fairlie’s book and for her arranging the
contest on ’naturalness’ at the
Hindås meeting.
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http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm
The Case for Animal Rights*
TOM REGAN
I regard myself as an advocate of animal rights — as a part of
the animal rights movement. That
movement, as I conceive it, is committed to a number of goals,
including:
• the total abolition of the use of animals in science;

34. • the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture;
• the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and
trapping.
There are, I know, people who profess to believe in animal
rights but do not avow these goals.
Factory farming, they say, is wrong - it violates animals' rights
- but traditional animal
agriculture is all right. Toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals
violates their rights, but
important medical research — cancer research, for example —
does not. The clubbing of baby
seals is abhorrent, but not the harvesting of adult seals. I used
to think I understood this
reasoning. Not any more. You don't change unjust institutions
by tidying them up.
What's wrong — fundamentally wrong — with the way animals
are treated isn't the details that
vary from case to case. It's the whole system. The forlornness of
the veal calf is pathetic, heart
wrenching; the pulsing pain of the chimp with electrodes
planted deep in her brain is repulsive;
the slow, tortuous death of the racoon caught in the leg-hold
trap is agonizing. But what is
wrong isn't the pain, isn't the suffering, isn't the deprivation.
These compound what's wrong.
Sometimes - often - they make it much, much worse. But they
are not the fundamental wrong.
The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view
animals as our resources, here for
us — to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for
sport or money. Once we accept
this view of animals - as our resources - the rest is as

35. predictable as it is regrettable. Why
worry about their loneliness, their pain, their death? Since
animals exist for us, to benefit us in
one way or another, what harms them really doesn't matter — or
matters only if it starts to
bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy when we eat our veal
escalope, for example. So, yes,
let us get veal calves out of solitary confinement, give them
more space, a little straw, a few
companions. But let us keep our veal escalope.
But a little straw, more space and a few companions won't
eliminate - won't even touch - the
basic wrong that attaches to our viewing and treating these
animals as our resources. A veal
calf killed to be eaten after living in close confinement is
viewed and treated in this way: but
so, too, is another who is raised (as they say) 'more humanely'.
To right the wrong of our
treatment of farm animals requires more than making rearing
methods 'more humane'; it
requires the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture.
How we do this, whether we do it or, as in the case of animals
in science, whether and how we
abolish their use - these are to a large extent political questions.
People must change their
beliefs before they change their habits. Enough people,
especially those elected to public
office, must believe in change - must want it - before we will
have laws that protect the rights
of animals. This process of change is very complicated, very
demanding, very exhausting,
calling for the efforts of many hands in education, publicity,
political organization and activity,
down to the licking of envelopes and stamps. As a trained and

36. practising philosopher, the sort
of contribution I can make is limited but, I like to think,
important. The currency of philosophy
is ideas - their meaning and rational foundation - not the nuts
and bolts of the legislative
process, say, or the mechanics of community organization.
That's what I have been exploring
over the past ten years or so in my essays and talks and, most
recently, in my book, The Case
* In PETER SINGER (ed), In Defense of Animals, New York:
Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 13-26.
for Animal Rights. I believe the major conclusions I reach in
the book are true because they are
supported by the weight of the best arguments. I believe the
idea of animal rights has reason,
not just emotion, on its side.
In the space I have at my disposal here I can only sketch, in the
barest outline, some of the
main features of the book. It's main themes - and we should not
be surprised by this - involve
asking and answering deep, foundational moral questions about
what morality is, how it should
be understood and what is the best moral theory, all considered.
I hope I can convey something
of the shape I think this theory takes. The attempt to do this will
be (to use a word a friendly
critic once used to describe my work) cerebral, perhaps too
cerebral. But this is misleading. My
feelings about how animals are sometimes treated run just as
deep and just as strong as those

37. of my more volatile compatriots. Philosophers do — to use the
jargon of the day — have a right
side to their brains. If it's the left side we contribute (or mainly
should), that's because what
talents we have reside there.
How to proceed? We begin by asking how the moral status of
animals has been understood by
thinkers who deny that animals have rights. Then we test the
mettle of their ideas by seeing
how well they stand up under the heat of fair criticism. If we
start our thinking in this way, we
soon find that some people believe that we have no duties
directly to animals, that we owe
nothing to them, that we can do nothing that wrongs them.
Rather, we can do wrong acts that
involve animals, and so we have duties regarding them, though
none to them. Such views may
be called indirect duty views. By way of illustration: suppose
your neighbour kicks your dog.
Then your neighbour has done something wrong. But not to
your dog. The wrong that has been
done is a wrong to you. After all, it is wrong to upset people,
and your neighbour's kicking your
dog upsets you. So you are the one who is wronged, not your
dog. Or again: by kicking your dog
your neighbour damages your property. And since it is wrong to
damage another person's
property, your neighbour has done something wrong - to you, of
course, not to your dog. Your
neighbour no more wrongs your dog than your car would be
wronged if the windshield were
smashed. Your neighbour's duties involving your dog are
indirect duties to you. More generally,
all of our duties regarding animals are indirect duties to one
another — to humanity.

38. How could someone try to justify such a view? Someone might
say that your dog doesn't feel
anything and so isn't hurt by your neighbour's kick, doesn't care
about the pain since none is
felt, is as unaware of anything as is your windshield. Someone
might say this, but no rational
person will, since, among other considerations, such a view will
commit anyone who holds it to
the position that no human being feels pain either - that human
beings also don't care about
what happens to them. A second possibility is that though both
humans and your dog are hurt
when kicked, it is only human pain that matters. But, again, no
rational person can believe
this. Pain is pain wherever it occurs. If your neighbour's causing
you pain is wrong because of
the pain that is caused, we cannot rationally ignore or dismiss
the moral relevance of the pain
that your dog feels.
Philosophers who hold indirect duty views — and many still do
— have come to understand that
they must avoid the two defects just noted: that is, both the
view that animals don't feel
anything as well as the idea that only human pain can be
morally relevant. Among such thinkers
the sort of view now favoured is one or other form of what is
called contractarianism.
Here, very crudely, is the root idea: morality consists of a set of
rules that individuals
voluntarily agree to abide by, as we do when we sign a contract
(hence the name
contractarianism). Those who understand and accept the terms
of the contract are covered

39. directly; they have rights created and recognized by, and
protected in, the contract. And these
contractors can also have protection spelled out for others who,
though they lack the ability to
understand morality and so cannot sign the contract themselves,
are loved or cherished by
those who can. Thus young children, for example, are unable to
sign contracts and lack rights.
But they are protected by the contract none the less because of
the sentimental interests of
others, most notably their parents. So we have, then, duties
involving these children, duties
regarding them, but no duties to them. Our duties in their case
are indirect duties to other
human beings, usually their parents.
As for animals, since they cannot understand contracts, they
obviously cannot sign; and since
they cannot sign, they have no rights. Like children, however,
some animals are the objects of
the sentimental interest of others. You, for example, love your
dog or cat. So those animals
that enough people care about (companion animals, whales,
baby seals, the American bald
eagle), though they lack rights themselves, will be protected
because of the sentimental
interests of people. I have, then, according to contractarianism,
no duty directly to your dog or
any other animal, not even the duty not to cause them pain or
suffering; my duty not to hurt
them is a duty I have to those people who care about what
happens to them. As for other
animals, where no or little sentimental interest is present - in

40. the case of farm animals, for
example, or laboratory rats - what duties we have grow weaker
and weaker, perhaps to
vanishing point. The pain and death they endure, though real,
are not wrong if no one cares
about them.
When it comes to the moral status of animals' contractarianism
could be a hard view to refute
if it were an adequate theoretical approach to the moral status of
human beings. It is not
adequate in this latter respect, however, which makes the
question of its adequacy in the
former case, regarding animals, utterly moot. For consider:
morality, according to the (crude)
contractarian position before us, consists of rules that people
agree to abide by. What people?
Well, enough to make a difference - enough, that is, collectively
to have the power to enforce
the rules that are drawn up in the contract. That is very well and
good for the signatories but
not so good for anyone who is not asked to sign. And there is
nothing in contractarianism of the
sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone
will have a chance to
participate equally in framing the rules of morality. The result
is that this approach to ethics
could sanction the most blatant forms of social, economic,
moral and political injustice,
ranging from a repressive caste system to systematic racial or
sexual discrimination. Might,
according to this theory, does make right. Let those who are the
victims of injustice suffer as
they will. It matters not so long as no one else — no contractor,
or too few of them — cares
about it. Such a theory takes one's moral breath away ... as if,

41. for example, there would be
nothing wrong with apartheid in South Africa if few white
South Africans were upset by it. A
theory with so little to recommend it at the level of the ethics of
our treatment of our fellow
humans cannot have anything more to recommend it when it
comes to the ethics of how we
treat our fellow animals.
The version of contractarianism just examined is, as I have
noted, a crude variety, and in
fairness to those of a contractarian persuasion it must be noted
that much more refined, subtle
and ingenious varieties are possible. For example, John Rawls,
in his A Theory of Justice, sets
forth a version of contractarianism that forces contractors to
ignore the accidental features of
being a human being - for example, whether one is white or
black, male or female, a genius or
of modest intellect. Only by ignoring such features, Rawls
believes, can we ensure that the
principles of justice that contractors would agree upon are not
based on bias or prejudice.
Despite the improvement a view such as Rawls's represents over
the cruder forms of
contractarianism, it remains deficient: it systematically denies
that we have direct duties to
those human beings who do not have a sense of justice - young
children, for instance, and
many mentally retarded humans. And yet it seems reasonably
certain that, were we to torture
a young child or a retarded elder, we would be doing something
that wronged him or her, not
something that would be wrong if (and only if) other humans
with a sense ofjustice were upset.
And since this is true in the case of these humans, we cannot

42. rationally deny the same in the
case of animals.
Indirect duty views, then, including the best among them, fail to
command our rational assent.
Whatever ethical theory we should accept rationally, therefore,
it must at least recognize that
we have some duties directly to animals, just as we have some
duties directly to each other.
The next two theories I'll sketch attempt to meet this
requirement.
The first I call the cruelty-kindness view. Simply stated, this
says that we have a direct duty to
be kind to animals and a direct duty not to be cruel to them.
Despite the familiar, reassuring
ring of these ideas, I do not believe that this view offers an
adequate theory. To make this
clearer, consider kindness. A kind person acts from a certain
kind of motive - compassion or
concern, for example. And that is a virtue. But there is no
guarantee that a kind act is a right
act. If I am a generous racist, for example, I will be inclined to
act kindly towards members of
my own race, favouring their interests above those of others.
My kindness would be real and,
so far as it goes, good. But I trust it is too obvious to require
argument that my kind acts may
not be above moral reproach - may, in fact, be positively wrong
because rooted in injustice. So
kindness, notwithstanding its status as a virtue to be
encouraged, simply will not carry the
weight of a theory of right action.

43. Cruelty fares no better. People or their acts are cruel if they
display either a lack of sympathy
for or, worse, the presence of enjoyment in another's suffering.
Cruelty in all its guises is a bad
thing, a tragic human failing. But just as a person's being
motivated by kindness does not
guarantee that he or she does what is right, so the absence of
cruelty does not ensure that he
or she avoids doing what is wrong. Many people who perform
abortions, for example, are not
cruel, sadistic people. But that fact alone does not settle the
terribly difficult question of the
morality of abortion. The case is no different when we examine
the ethics of our treatment of
animals. So, yes, let us be for kindness and against cruelty. But
let us not suppose that being
for the one and against the other answers questions about moral
right and wrong.
Some people think that the theory we are looking for is
utilitarianism. A utilitarian accepts two
moral principles. The first is that of equality: everyone's
interests count, and similar interests
must be counted as having similar weight or importance. White
or black, American or Iranian,
human or animal - everyone's pain or frustration matter, and
matter just as much as the
equivalent pain or frustration of anyone else. The second
principle a utilitarian accepts is that
of utility: do the act that will bring about the best balance
between satisfaction and frustration
for everyone affected by the outcome.
As a utilitarian, then, here is how I am to approach the task of
deciding what I morally ought to

44. do: I must ask who will be affected if I choose to do one thing
rather than another, how much
each individual will be affected, and where the best results are
most likely to lie - which
option, in other words, is most likely to bring about the best
results, the best balance between
satisfaction and frustration. That option, whatever it may be, is
the one I ought to choose.
That is where my moral duty lies.
The great appeal of utilitarianism rests with its uncompromising
egalitarianism: everyone's
interests count and count as much as the like interests of
everyone else. The kind of odious
discrimination that some forms of contractarianism can justify -
discrimination based on race or
sex, for example - seems disallowed in principle by
utilitarianism, as is speciesism, systematic
discrimination based on species membership.
The equality we find in utilitarianism, however, is not the sort
an advocate of animal or human
rights should have in mind. Utilitarianism has no room for the
equal moral rights of different
individuals because it has no room for their equal inherent value
or worth. What has value for
the utilitarian is the satisfaction of an individual's interests, not
the individual whose interests
they are. A universe in which you satisfy your desire for water,
food and warmth is, other
things being equal, better than a universe in which these desires
are frustrated. And the same
is true in the case of an animal with similar desires. But neither
you nor the animal have any
value in your own right. Only your feelings do.

45. Here is an analogy to help make the philosophical point clearer:
a cup contains different
liquids, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, sometimes a mix of
the two. What has value are
the liquids: the sweeter the better, the bitterer the worse. The
cup, the container, has no
value. It is what goes into it, not what they go into, that has
value. For the utilitarian you and I
are like the cup; we have no value as individuals and thus no
equal value. What has value is
what goes into us, what we serve as receptacles for; our feelings
of satisfaction have positive
value, our feelings of frustration negative value.
Serious problems arise for utilitarianism when we remind
ourselves that it enjoins us to bring
about the best consequences. What does this mean? It doesn't
mean the best consequences for
me alone, or for my family or friends, or any other person taken
individually. No, what we must
do is, roughly, as follows: we must add up (somehow!) the
separate satisfactions and
frustrations of everyone likely to be affected by our choice, the
satisfactions in one column,
the frustrations in the other. We must total each column for
each of the options before us.
That is what it means to say the theory is aggregative. And then
we must choose that option
which is most likely to bring about the best balance of totalled
satisfactions over totalled
frustrations. Whatever act would lead to this outcome is the one
we ought morally to perform
— it is where our moral duty lies. And that act quite clearly

46. might not be the same one that
would bring about the best results for me personally, or for my
family or friends, or for a lab
animal. The best aggregated consequences for everyone
concerned are not necessarily the best
for each individual.
That utilitarianism is an aggregative theory — different
individuals' satisfactions or frustrations
are added, or summed, or totalled - is the key objection to this
theory. My Aunt Bea is old,
inactive, a cranky, sour person, though not physically ill. She
prefers to go on living. She is also
rather rich. I could make a fortune if I could get my hands on
her money, money she intends to
give me in any event, after she dies, but which she refuses to
give me now. In order to avoid a
huge tax bite, I plan to donate a handsome sum of my profits to
a local children's hospital.
Many, many children will benefit from my generosity, and much
joy will be brought to their
parents, relatives and friends. If I don't get the money rather
soon, all these ambitions will
come to naught. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a
real killing will be gone. Why,
then, not kill my Aunt Bea? Oh, of course I might get caught.
But I'm no fool and, besides, her
doctor can be counted on to co-operate (he has an eye for the
same investment and I happen
to know a good deal about his shady past). The deed can be
done . . . professionally, shall we
say. There is very little chance of getting caught. And as for my
conscience being guilt-ridden, I
am a resourceful sort of fellow and will take more than
sufficient comfort - as I lie on the
beach at Acapulco - in contemplating the joy and health I have

47. brought to so many others.
Suppose Aunt Bea is killed and the rest of the story comes out
as told. Would I have done
anything wrong? Anything immoral? One would have thought
that I had. Not according to
utilitarianism. Since what I have done has brought about the
best balance between totalled
satisfaction and frustration for all those affected by the
outcome, my action is not wrong.
Indeed, in killing Aunt Bea the physician and I did what duty
required.
This same kind of argument can be repeated in all sorts of
cases, illustrating, time after time,
how the utilitarian's position leads to results that impartial
people find morally callous. It is
wrong to kill my Aunt Bea in the name of bringing about the
best results for others. A good end
does not justify an evil means. Any adequate moral theory will
have to explain why this is so.
Utilitarianism fails in this respect and so cannot be the theory
we seek.
What to do? Where to begin anew? The place to begin, I think,
is with the utilitarian's view of
the value of the individual — or, rather, lack of value. In its
place, suppose we consider that
you and I, for example, do have value as individuals — what
we'll call inherent value. To say we
have such value is to say that we are something more than,
something different from, mere
receptacles. Moreover, to ensure that we do not pave the way
for such injustices as slavery or
sexual discrimination, we must believe that all who have
inherent value have it equally,

48. regardless of their sex, race, religion, birthplace and so on.
Similarly to be discarded as
irrelevant are one's talents or skills, intelligence and wealth,
personality or pathology, whether
one is loved and admired or despised and loathed. The genius
and the retarded child, the
prince and the pauper, the brain surgeon and the fruit vendor,
Mother Teresa and the most
unscrupulous used-car salesman — all have inherent value, all
possess it equally, and all have
an equal right to be treated with respect, to be treated in ways
that do not reduce them to the
status of things, as if they existed as resources for others. My
value as an individual is
independent of my usefulness to you. Yours is not dependent on
your usefulness to me. For
either of us to treat the other in ways that fail to show respect
for the other's independent
value is to act immorally, to violate the individual's rights.
Some of the rational virtues of this view - what I call the rights
view - should be evident. Unlike
(crude) contractarianism, for example, the rights view in
principle denies the moral tolerability
of any and all forms of racial, sexual or social discrimination;
and unlike utilitarianism, this
view in principle denies that we can justify good results by
using evil means that violate an
individual's rights -denies, for example, that it could be moral
to kill my Aunt Bea to harvest
beneficial consequences for others. That would be to sanction
the disrespectful treatment of
the individual in the name of the social good, something the
rights view will not — categorically

49. will not —ever allow.
The rights view, I believe, is rationally the most satisfactory
moral theory. It surpasses all other
theories in the degree to which it illuminates and explains the
foundation of our duties to one
another - the domain of human morality. On this score it has the
best reasons, the best
arguments, on its side. Of course, if it were possible to show
that only human beings are
included within its scope, then a person like myself, who
believes in animal rights, would be
obliged to look elsewhere.
But attempts to limit its scope to humans only can be shown to
be rationally defective.
Animals, it is true, lack many of the abilities humans possess.
They can't read, do higher
mathematics, build a bookcase or make baba ghanoush. Neither
can many human beings,
however, and yet we don't (and shouldn't) say that they (these
humans) therefore have less
inherent value, less of a right to be treated with respect, than do
others. It is the similarities
between those human beings who most clearly, most non-
controversially have such value (the
people reading this, for example), not our differences, that
matter most. And the really
crucial, the basic similarity is simply this: we are each of us the
experiencing subject of a life,
a conscious creature having an individual welfare that has
importance to us whatever our
usefulness to others. We want and prefer things, believe and
feel things, recall and expect
things. And all these dimensions of our life, including our
pleasure and pain, our enjoyment and

50. suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our continued
existence or our untimely death - all
make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as
experienced, by us as individuals. As
the same is true of those animals that concern us (the ones that
are eaten and trapped, for
example), they too must be viewed as the experiencing subjects
of a life, with inherent value
of their own.
Some there are who resist the idea that animals have inherent
value. 'Only humans have such
value,' they profess. How might this narrow view be defended?
Shall we say that only humans
have the requisite intelligence, or autonomy, or reason? But
there are many, many humans who
fail to meet these standards and yet are reasonably viewed as
having value above and beyond
their usefulness to others. Shall we claim that only humans
belong to the right species, the
species Homo sapiens? But this is blatant speciesism. Will it be
said, then, that all - and only -
humans have immortal souls? Then our opponents have their
work cut out for them. I am myself
not ill-disposed to the proposition that there are immortal souls.
Personally, I profoundly hope I
have one. But I would not want to rest my position on a
controversial ethical issue on the even
more controversial question about who or what has an immortal
soul. That is to dig one's hole
deeper, not to climb out. Rationally, it is better to resolve moral
issues without making more
controversial assumptions than are needed. The question of who

51. has inherent value is such a
question, one that is resolved more rationally without the
introduction of the idea of immortal
souls than by its use.
Well, perhaps some will say that animals have some inherent
value, only less than we have.
Once again, however, attempts to defend this view can be shown
to lack rational justification.
What could be the basis of our having more inherent value than
animals? Their lack of reason,
or autonomy, or intellect? Only if we are willing to make the
same judgment in the case of
humans who are similarly deficient. But it is not true that such
humans — the retarded child,
for example, or the mentally deranged - have less inherent value
than you or I. Neither, then,
can we rationally sustain the view that animals like them in
being the experiencing subjects of
a life have less inherent value. All who have inherent value
have it equally, whether they be
human animals or not.
Inherent value, then, belongs equally to those who are the
experiencing subjects of a
life/Whether it belongs to others - to rocks and rivers, trees and
glaciers, for example — we do
not know and may never know. But neither do we need to know,
if we are to make the case for
animal rights. We do not need to know, for example, how many
people are eligible to vote in
the next presidential election before we can know whether I am.
Similarly, we do not need to
know how many individuals have inherent value before we can
know that some do. When it
comes to the case for animal rights, then, what we need to know

52. is whether the animals that,
in our culture, are routinely eaten, hunted and used in our
laboratories, for example, are like
us in being subjects of a life. And we do know this. We do know
that many - literally, billions
and billions - of these animals are the subjects of a life in the
sense explained and so have
inherent value if we do. And since, in order to arrive at the best
theory of our duties to one
another, we must recognize our equal inherent value as
individuals, reason - not sentiment,
not emotion - reason compels us to recognize the equal inherent
value of these animals and,
with this, their equal right to be treated with respect.
That, very roughly, is the shape and feel of the case for animal
rights. Most of the details of
the supporting argument are missing. They are to be found in
the book to which I alluded
earlier. Here, the details go begging, and I must, in closing,
limit myself to four final points.
The first is how the theory that underlies the case for animal
rights shows that the animal
rights movement is a part of, not antagonistic to, the human
rights movement. The theory that
rationally grounds the rights of animals also grounds the rights
of humans. Thus those involved
in the animal rights movement are partners in the struggle to
secure respect for human rights -
the rights of women, for example, or minorities, or workers.
The animal rights movement is cut
from the same moral cloth as these.
Second, having set out the broad outlines of the rights view, I
can now say why its implications
for farming and science, among other fields, are both clear and

53. uncompromising. In the case of
the use of animals in science, the rights view is categorically
abolitionist. Lab animals are not
our tasters; we are not their kings. Because these animals are
treated routinely, systematically
as if their value were reducible to their usefulness to others,
they are routinely, systematically
treated with a lack of respect, and thus are their rights
routinely, systematically violated. This
is just as true when they are used in trivial, duplicative,
unnecessary or unwise research as it is
when they are used in studies that hold out real promise of
human benefits. We can't justify
harming or killing a human being (my Aunt Bea, for example)
just for these sorts of reason.
Neither can we do so even in the case of so lowly a creature as a
laboratory rat. It is not just
refinement or reduction that is called for, not just larger,
cleaner cages, not just more
generous use of anaesthetic or the elimination of multiple
surgery, not just tidying up the
system. It is complete replacement. The best we can do when it
comes to using animals in
science is - not to use them. That is where our duty lies,
according to the rights view.
As for commercial animal agriculture, the rights view takes a
similar abolitionist position. The
fundamental moral wrong here is not that animals are kept in
stressful close confinement or in
isolation, or that their pain and suffering, their needs and
preferences are ignored or
discounted. All these are wrong, of course, but they are not the

54. fundamental wrong. They are
symptoms and effects of the deeper, systematic wrong that
allows these animals to be viewed
and treated as lacking independent value, as resources for us -
as, indeed, a renewable
resource. Giving farm animals more space, more natural
environments, more companions does
not right the fundamental wrong, any more than giving lab
animals more anaesthesia or bigger,
cleaner cages would right the fundamental wrong in their case.
Nothing less than the total
dissolution of commercial animal agriculture will do this, just
as, for similar reasons I won't
develop at length here, morality requires nothing less than the
total elimination of hunting and
trapping for commercial and sporting ends. The rights view's
implications, then, as I have said,
are clear and uncompromising.
My last two points are about philosophy, my profession. It is,
most obviously, no substitute for
political action. The words I have written here and in other
places by themselves don't change
a thing. It is what we do with the thoughts that the words
express — our acts, our deeds - that
changes things. All that philosophy can do, and all I have
attempted, is to offer a vision of what
our deeds should aim at. And the why. But not the how.
Finally, I am reminded of my thoughtful critic, the one I
mentioned earlier, who chastised me
for being too cerebral. Well, cerebral I have been: indirect duty
views, utilitarianism,
contractarianism - hardly the stuff deep passions are made of. I
am also reminded, however, of
the image another friend once set before me — the image of the

55. ballerina as expressive of
disciplined passion. Long hours of sweat and toil, of loneliness
and practice, of doubt and
fatigue: those are the discipline of her craft. But the passion is
there too, the fierce drive to
excel, to speak through her body, to do it right, to pierce our
minds. That is the image of
philosophy I would leave with you, not 'too cerebral' but
disciplined passion. Of the discipline
enough has been seen. As for the passion: there are times, and
these not infrequent, when
tears come to my eyes when I see, or read, or hear of the
wretched plight of animals in the
hands of humans. Their pain, their suffering, their loneliness,
their innocence, their death.
Anger. Rage. Pity. Sorrow. Disgust. The whole creation groans
under the weight of the evil we
humans visit upon these mute, powerless creatures. It is our
hearts, not just our heads, that
call for an end to it all, that demand of us that we overcome, for
them, the habits and forces
behind their systematic oppression. All great movements, it is
written, go through three stages:
ridicule, discussion, adoption. It is the realization of this third
stage, adoption, that requires
both our passion and our discipline, our hearts and our heads.
The fate of animals is in our
hands. God grant we are equal to the task.
# First Homework:
- About the article “Introducing the new meat. Problems and
Prospects.” By: Stellan Welin.
The question is:
· “The New Meat” Golden Line

56. · Pick a quotation that you find particularly compelling or
important to the argument of the essay and write one paragraph,
which articulates why that quotation is important to the overall
understanding of the essay.
· Give a solid real world example of the quotation
# Second Homework:
· About the article “The case for animal rights” by Tom Regan.
The question is:
· “The Case for Animal Rights” Golden Line
· Pick a quotation that you find particularly compelling or
important to the argument of the essay and write one paragraph,
which articulates why that quotation is important to the overall
understanding of the essay.
· Give a solid real world example of the quotation
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