The Moral Pitfalls of Cultivated meat : Complementing Utilitarian Perspective with eco-republican Justice Approach
Moyano, Cristian (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filosofia)

Date:	2022
Abstract:	The context of accelerated climate change, environmental pollution, ecosystems depletion, loss of biodiversity and growing undernutrition has led human societies to a crossroads where food systems require transformation. New agricultural practices are being advocated in order to achieve food security and face environmental challenges. Cultivated meat has recently been considered one of the most desired alternatives by animal rights advocates because it promises to ensure nutrition for all people while dramatically reducing ecological impacts and animal suffering. It is therefore presented as one of the fairest means of food production for the coming decades, according to utilitarian arguments. However, food security, environmental concerns and animal welfarism guided by a short-term utilitarianism could have techno-optimism bias and could result in some forms of oppression such as anthropocentrism. I argue that there are still deep-rooted moral issues in food systems that are not addressed primarily by lab-grown meat, mainly derived from a loss of sovereignty. Food practices developed in high-tech labs with artificial interventionism constrain the ability of living entities (that are used as food) to flourish on their own terms. This paper aims to explore how sovereignty entitlements for humans and nonhumans are often overlooked by advocates of cultivated meat and the moral challenges it may pose. Accordingly, a more than utilitarian approach framed by ecological and republican justice is proposed here to shed light on some pitfalls of food chains based on cellular agriculture.
Grants:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2019-105422GB-100
Note:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Cultivated Meat ; Utilitarianism ; Sovereignty ; Eco-republicanism ; Capabilities ; Flourishing
Published in:	Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, Vol. 36 (november 2022) , ISSN 1573-322X

DOI: 10.1007/s10806-022-09896-1
PMID: 36467858

17 p, 851.3 KB

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