Ethical And Practical Justification Of Vegetarianism In Western Cultures

Vegetarianism existed in the west from the beginning. Ancient vegetarians askedpeople to abstain from meat consumption based on ethical reasons. It was acceptedand practiced by few people, and vegetarians belonged to a minority group. Incontemporary time, however, vegetarianism has become a new fad among Westerners.More theories and ideas from other fields such as environmental protection andnutrition support the idea of vegetarianism. Since the environmental movement beganin1970, writers on vegetarianism increasingly raked an environmental approach intheir argument, and, due to the declining health conditions in western countries andincreasing cost of health care, they also began to point to the adverse effects of animalmeat on health and adopt a practical and scientific approach.Vegetarianism shifts from the ethical concern to the practical and scientific one.This thesis’s focus is to analyze the reasons behind this change. This thesis studies theevolution of western vegetarianism. Many vegetarians through out western historyhave contributed to the development of vegetarianism. These writers include ancientphilosophers such as Pythagoras and Porphyry, etc, modern writers such as Thoreau,Salt, Singer and Campbell, etc. By analyzing works and social backgrounds of thesewriters, this thesis has explained why vegetarianism evolves from an ethical one to apractical one. This thesis will help to better understand western culture.