It's a good time to be in animal and food ethics: several strong volumes have been published in the last few years, and more are yet to come. Among them, however, Philosophy Comes to Dinner (PCD) deserves special attention. If you work in animal or food ethics, you should read it.

The editors' introduction contains contributor-authored abstracts, which Routledge has made freely available online.1 So, I won't summarize PCD's contents in any detail. Instead, I'll explain why I regard it as such a welcome contribution to the literature.

PCD contains discussions of many fascinating issues—among them, wild animal suffering, the ethics of artificial ingredients, and the virtues and vices of locavorism. But PCD is particularly valuable because it teaches two lessons:

  1. Despite the many sins of industrial animal agriculture, it's hard to explain why individual consumers shouldn't purchase its products.

  2. Even if individual consumers shouldn't purchase...

You do not currently have access to this content.