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

Feb 21, 2026

Josh Milburn, a political philosopher who studies animal ethics and food systems, explores rights-respecting non-vegan food futures. He questions strict vegan assumptions and discusses humane farming, cultivated animal products, invertebrate sentience, and how liberal states might accommodate diverse food values. The conversation imagines practical alternatives that could respect animal rights while widening dietary options.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

An Ideal Theory For Slaughter-Free Farming

Milburn frames the book as ideal theory exploring a just food system that may be non-vegan.
He envisions slaughter-free, rights-respecting animal uses very different from current agriculture.

INSIGHT

Food And Reasonable Pluralism

Milburn stresses liberalism requires accommodating reasonable, plural conceptions of the good.
He argues food practices tied to meaning (religion, family, craft) deserve serious accommodation if rights allow.

INSIGHT

Triaging Invertebrate Protection

He distinguishes invertebrates as probably sentient, plausibly sentient, or probably non-sentient for policy.
For plausibly sentient animals he recommends a precautionary right against inflicted suffering.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

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 Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Loughborough University. He has previously worked at the University of Sheffield, the University of York, and Queen's University (in Canada), before which he studied at Queen's University Belfast and Lancaster University. He is the author of Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022), and the regular host of the animal studies podcast Knowing Animals.

Kyle Johannsen is a philosophy instructor at Trent University and Wilfrid Laurier University. His most recent book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network