Josh Milburn, "Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully" (Oxford UP, 2023)

About this episode

Josh Milburn discusses the ethics of food systems in relation to animal rights and explores the possibility of non-vegan food systems that respect those rights.

How would we eat if animals had rights? A standard assumption is that our food systems would be plant-based. But maybe we should reject this assumption. Indeed, this book argues that a future non-vegan food system would be permissible on an animal rights view. It might even be desirable. In Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully (Oxford University Press, 2023), Josh Milburn questions if the vegan food system risks cutting off many people's pursuit of the 'good life', risks exacerbating food injustices, and risks negative outcomes for animals. If so, then maybe non-vegan food systems would be preferable to vegan food systems, if they could respect animal rights. Could they? The author provides a rigorous analysis of the ethics of farming invertebrates, producing plant-based meats, developing cultivated animal products, and co-working with animals on genuinely humane farms, arguing that these possibilities offer the chance for a food system that is non-vegan, but nonetheless respects animals' rights. He argues that there is a way for us to have our cake, and eat it too, because we can have our cow, and eat her too. Josh Milburn is a British philosopher and a…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Josh Milburn

Topics covered

• animal rights
• food systems
• veganism
• ethics
• justice
• farming

Keywords

• animal rights
• food justice
• vegan food systems
• ethics of farming
• plant-based meats
• cultivated animal products

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Oxford University Press

More episodes of New Books in Animal Studies

• Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026) · May 30, 2026 · 49 min
• Kenneth G. Zysk, "South Asian Animal Divination: A Critical Anthology" (Brill, 2025) · May 14, 2026 · 41 min
• Sezai Ozan Zeybek, "Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) · March 9, 2026 · 41 min
• The Vet at the End of the Earth: Adventures with Animals in the South Atlantic · March 5, 2026 · 60 min
• Anne Mendelson, "Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood" (Columbia UP, 2023) · February 22, 2026 · 1h 6m
• Thomas Zeitzoff, "No Option But Sabotage: The Radical Environmental Movement and the Climate Crisis" (Oxford UP, 2026) · February 19, 2026 · 58 min