Page 1 of 4 Public Health, Ethical Vegetarianism, and the Harms of the Animal Food Industry William O Stephens* Department of Philosophy, Creighton University, Omaha, USA Review Food is and always has been a serious issue for public health, agriculture, the environment, and ethics. First, a brief sketch of the history of the philosophical vegetarianism is offered. This overview will allow several contemporary concerns about agricultural systems, resultant environmental harms, threats to public health, food insecurity, and dietary choices to be historically contextualized and interrelated. The conceptual map presented more or less chronologically here does not pretend to be comprehensive. But despite its necessary incompleteness and unavoidable selectivity the hope is that it may prove of modest use to inform food-secure consumers who enjoy a range of healthy food options, desire to safeguard public health, support sustainable agriculture, maintain ecological integrity, and work for climate stability. In the Western hemisphere, the idea of philosophical vegetarianism has a history of nearly 1,000 years in ancient Greece. The belief that it is wrong to eat animals was propounded by many of the most eminent ancient philosophers: Pythagoras, Empedocles, Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle as head of the Lyceum, Plutarch, Plotinus, and Porphyry. Porphyry, a prolific polymath, compiled a wide range of arguments against vegetarianism, critiqued them in detail, and defended at length his own Plotinian arguments for vegetarianism, in his work De Abstinentia ab Esu Animalium [1]. In ancient Rome, Pythagoras’ arguments for philosophical vegetarianism won over the Stoic philosopher, statesman, orator, and dramatist Seneca, who reported improved health and vigor as benefits of abstaining from meat. Seneca believed that Stoic philosophy, which grounds the virtues of wisdom, justice, and temperance in pursuit of living in agreement with nature, dictates simple, simply prepared, frugal meals of foods that are close at hand. Thus, Seneca advocated moderate, unfussy eating and condemned foods requiring great labor, expense, or trouble. Seafood, imported foods, meat from hunted animals, and exotic mushrooms he criticized as decadent luxuries. The respected Roman Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus also emphasized the virtues of simplicity and frugality in eating. He argued that the proper diet consists of the least expensive and most readily available foods: raw fruits in season, raw and cooked vegetables, milk, cheese, honeycombs, and cooked grains. Like Seneca, Musonius rejected meat as too crude for human beings and more suitable for wild animals. Musonius concluded that responsible people favor what is easy to obtain over what is difficult, what involves no trouble over what does, and what is available over what isn’t, because doing so promotes self-control and virtue of character. For him, these values called for a lacto-vegetarian diet *Corresponding author: William O Stephens, Department of Philosophy, Creighton University, USA. Received Date: June 28, 2019 Published Date: July 02, 2019 ISSN: 2687-8100 DOI: 10.33552/ABEB.2019.02.000529 Archives in Biomedical Engineering & Biotechnology Mini Review Copyright © All rights are reserved by William O Stephens This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ABEB.MS.ID.000529. Abstract In the West, the history of philosophical vegetarianism began in ancient Greece and Rome, not the 1970s. Yet as the global human population has grown, so has the world’s population of domesticated livestock. The expanding industrialization of the animal food sector is guilty of various serious environmental and societal harms, including climate change and public health threats. The meat industrial complex, perpetuated by the ideology of carnism, is too inefficient, too damaging, and too costly to sustainably feed a growing human population. The virtuous choice is to replace meat, eggs, and dairy products with plant-based foods. Keywords: Vegetarianism; CAFO; Meat industrial complex; Carnism; GHG; 4Ns