Abstract

This chapter gives an account of why it is wrong for someone to consume meat from factory farms. The central concern here is the “inefficacy objection,” according to which a person’s consumption of animal products makes no difference to whether any future animal is harmed. The account offered is designed to bypass Christopher Kutz’s “Individual Difference Principle,” which seems to underwrite this objection. The chapter’s view is that to consume meat from factory farms is to wrongfully participate in the production of huge amounts of pain and suffering—that is, to be complicit in the production of that pain and suffering.