Temperance and Eating Meat

AbstractThis paper provides an account of the Aristotelian virtue of temperance in regards to food, an account that revolves around the idea of enjoying the right objects and not enjoying the wrong ones. In doing so, the paper distinguishes between two meanings of “taking (or not taking) pleasure in something,” one that refers to theidea of the activity and one to theexperience of the activity. The paper then connects this distinction to the temperate person ’s attitude towards enjoying the right things and to hitting the mean by enjoying the right object, at the right time, and so on. Throughout, the paper uses eating meat as a case in point, to both illustrate and inform the discussion. In the penultimate section, the paper argues that temperance ad mits of various conceptions depending on what is right and wrong in regards to eating meat. The paper concludes by responding to three objections.
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research