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Vegan Food For Thought: Moral Constructions Of Animals, Ryan F. Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how humans make moral sense of and with animals. Each substantive chapter is devoted to one of three topics: animal selfhood, veganism, and animal rights. In chapter two, I examine animal selfhood and its moral implications. I argue that animal selves, particularly in an elemental Meadian sense, are potentially real, but in most cases are unobservable or unverifiable phenomena. I also argue that any moral theory of animal rights based on animal selfhood is limited by the empirical and epistemological limitations of substantiating animal selves. In chapter three, I present the interactional strategies ethical vegans employ when …