Editing Meat (section)

=== Ethical issues ===

{{Main|Ethics of eating meat}}

Ethical issues regarding the consumption of meat include objecting to the act of killing animals or to the [[intensive agriculture|agricultural practices]] used in meat production. Reasons for objecting to killing animals for consumption may include [[animal rights]], [[environmental ethics]], or an aversion to inflicting [[pain]] or harm on [[sentience|sentient animals]]. Some people, while not vegetarians, refuse to eat the flesh of certain animals for cultural or religious reasons.<ref name="Sandler 2014">{{cite book |chapter=3. Should we eat animals? |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0XXZBAAAQBAJ |title=Food Ethics: The Basics |last=Sandler |first=Ronald L. |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-135-04547-0 |location=London |access-date=11 February 2018}}</ref>

The founders of [[Western philosophy]] disagreed about the ethics of eating meat. [[Plato]]'s ''[[Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'' has [[Socrates]] describe the ideal state as vegetarian.<ref name=Buscemi>{{cite book |last1=Buscemi |first1=Francesco |title=From Body Fuel to Universal Poison: Cultural History of Meat: 1900–The Present |date=2018 |publisher=[[Springer Nature|Springer]] International Publishing AG |isbn=978-3-319-72085-2 |pages=10–16}}</ref> [[Pythagoras]] believed that humans and animals were equal and therefore disapproved of meat consumption, as did [[Plutarch]], whereas [[Zeno of Elea|Zeno]] and [[Epicurus]] were vegetarian but allowed meat-eating in their philosophy.<ref name=Buscemi/> Conversely, [[Aristotle]]'s ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]'' assert that animals, as inferior beings,<ref name=Aristotle>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=The Politics |last2=Jowett |first2=B. |location=Ancient Greece |page=I. 8. 1256b |orig-date=355-323 BCE}}</ref> exist to serve humans, including as food.<ref name=Aristotle/><ref name=Buscemi/> [[Augustine]] drew on Aristotle to argue that the universe's natural hierarchy allows humans to eat animals, and animals to eat plants.<ref name=Buscemi/> [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosophers were likewise divided. [[Descartes]] wrote that animals were merely animated machines, while [[Kant]] considered them inferior beings for lack of discernment: means rather than ends.<ref name=Buscemi/> But [[Voltaire]] and [[Rousseau]] disagreed; Rousseau argued that meat-eating is a social rather than a natural act, because children are not interested in meat.<ref name=Buscemi/>

Later philosophers examined the changing practices of eating meat in the [[modern age]] as part of a process of detachment from animals as living beings. [[Norbert Elias]], for instance, noted that in medieval times cooked animals were brought to the table whole, but that since the [[Renaissance]] only the edible parts are served, which are no longer recognizably part of an animal.<ref name=Buscemi/> Modern eaters, according to [[:fr:Noëlie Vialles|Noëlie Vialles]], demand an "[[Ellipsis (linguistics)|ellipsis]]" between meat and dead animals.<ref name=Buscemi/> [[Fernand Braudel]] wrote that since the European diet of the 15th and 16th century was particularly heavy in meat, European [[colonialism]] helped export meat-eating across the globe, as colonized peoples took up the culinary habits of their colonizers.<ref name=Buscemi/>