Vegetarianism and Veganism

Abstract

Most people, past and present, have never seriously questioned whether it is morally acceptable to eat animals and treat them as resources. However, vegetarianism and veganism, which have a lengthy history in both Western and non-Western cultures, challenge these assumptions and clash with prevailing views about how humans should conduct their lives and make use of the natural world. Religious practices and ideas about diet energized early outlooks of this sort more than clearly focused ethical reflections; but the latter have surfaced periodically, from the Greco-Roman period to the present. Strong, sustained vegetarian and vegan movements today coincide with the rise of the animal rights/liberation movement, and are fueled by concerns about factory farming, climate change, healthy eating, and how to feed a rapidly increasing human population.