Year of Award
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Master of Arts (MA)
Degree Name
Philosophy
Department or School/College
Philosophy
Committee Chair
Christopher Preston
Commitee Members
Albert Borgmann, Laurie Yung, Neva Hassanein
Keywords
environment, animal agriculture, ecomodernism, cultured meat, technology
Publisher
University of Montana
Subject Categories
Applied Ethics | Ethics and Political Philosophy | Sustainability
Abstract
In this paper I explore a relatively new technology that is being developed to try and solve some of the major issues with modern animal agriculture called cultured meat. I cover the short history of this technology and where it is at currently before addressing two different ways of evaluating the ethics of cultured meat. Responding to much of the praise for cultured meat based on consequentialist ethics, I lay out reasons for skepticism and how some of these estimates might be overblown due to those people advocating for it being situated in the ideology of ecomodernism. I argue that ecomodernism makes one more likely to accept technological solutions as the primary solution rather than seeing the fuller context of social and political conditions that have created the problem. In my final chapter, I address how cultured meat is not going to repair the damaged relationship humanity has to the nonhuman world and that it actually furthers an orientation of control and domination towards nature. I conclude that cultured meat cannot solve the complicated issue of animal agriculture but it may be useful as a addition to other solutions rather than the solution.
Recommended Citation
Anthos, Valan, "Meat Reimagined: the Ethics of Cultured Meat" (2018). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 11203.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/11203
© Copyright 2018 Valan Anthos