Why "Happy Meat" Is Always Wrong

By Magnus Vinding

The "happy meat" position does not challenge our large-scale mistreatment of non-human beings, but rather serves to support it. That is among the core claims of this essay, which argues that the rejection of the "happy meat" position is critical if we are to end the extreme horrors that humanity inflicts upon other animals.

"Magnus Vinding argues powerfully against eating 'happy meat'." — Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, author of The Life You Can Save and Animal Liberation

"Like child abuse, animal abuse can be practised with more or less cruelty. Magnus Vinding argues persuasively that we shouldn't be doing it at all. In his latest work, Vinding explores the insidious concept of 'happy meat' – a tribute to the human capacity for self-deception. Harming other sentient beings should not be a lifestyle choice in any civilised society." — David Pearce, author of The Hedonistic Imperative

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magnus Vinding
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498998291

Magnus Vinding

Magnus Vinding is the author of Speciesism: Why It Is Wrong and the Implications of Rejecting It (2015), Reflections on Intelligence (2016), You Are Them (2017), Effective Altruism: How Can We Best Help Others? (2018), Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications (2020), Reasoned Politics (2022), and Essays on Suffering-Focused Ethics (2022).He is blogging at magnusvinding.com

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Why Happy Meat Is Always Wrong

In this essay I would like to delve into an issue that is often raised as an objection against veganism, namely the issue of so-called happy meat.

As I define it, the happy meat position is that it is justifiable – in practice – to bring non-human animals into existence in order for us to eat their flesh, as long as we make an effort to treat them well. Note that this is a distinctly practical position, meaning that it concerns what can be justified in the real world rather than in some hypothetical world. (Thus, a purely theoretical happy meat position that is not related to our actual world will not be my concern in this essay; for a defense of ethical views that rule out happy meat directly at the theoretical level, see my book Suffering-Focused Ethics as well as Teo Ajantaival’s Minimalist axiologies sequence.)

I will seek to refute this happy meat position in two different ways, each of which, I think, lend significant support to its wrongness. The first way is the simplest one: I will briefly point out that according to some basic and widely accepted ethical principles and intuitions, the happy meat position is not justifiable. Yet not everyone will be convinced by this line of argument. Some might object that this first approach