by Matthew C. Halteman
Basic Books
11/12/2024, hardcover
SKU: 9781541602052
A new approach to going vegan "as a joyful celebration of life on this planet" (Bryant Terry) that is a gateway into a better life for us all
Perhaps you've looked at factory farming or climate change and thought, I should become a vegan. And like most people who think that, very probably you haven't. Why? Well, in our world, roast turkey emanates gratitude, steak confers virility, and chicken soup represents a mother's love. Against that, simply swapping meat for plants won't work.
In Hungry Beautiful Animals, philosopher Matthew C. Halteman shows us how--despite all the forces arrayed against going vegan--we can create an abundant life for everyone without using animals for food. It might seem that moral rectitude or environmental judgement should do the trick, but they can't. Going vegan must be about flourishing, for all life. Shame and blame don't lead to flourishing. We must do it with joy instead.
Hungry Beautiful Animals is more than philosophy: it's a book of action, of forgiveness, of love. Funny and wise, this book frees us joyfully to want what we already know we need.
Reviews:
"Welcome to Halteman's affirming vision for all of us hungry beautiful animals. Settle into time with an author who believes in our ability to transform moral burdens into gifts of consciousness and lives of abundance. Park feelings of shame, guilt, or blame at the door--they aren't needed here. Instead, in this readable, entertaining, evocative, and joyful book, Halteman offers us vulnerable, questing, caring animals a compass for our compassion and recipes for our individual and collective flourishing." -- Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat
"I read Hungry Beautiful Animals across three sittings in a single day. So much of what's good about it will be apparent to any reader: its enthusiasm and empathy; its open-heartedness and open-mindedness; its welter (not pejorative!) of funny and helpful stories; its presentation of the complexity of the food system; its idea that because food is so important to so many memories and because animals are so important to food, animals are sites of nostalgia that a Tofurky for Thanksgiving doesn't really help with; its presentation of vegan commitments as extensions of good ideas we learned in kindergarten; its arguments about shame and change and identity protection; the first sentence of every chapter. I enjoyed reading this sharp, funny, welcoming, helpful, and catholic invitation to going vegan." -- Tyler Doggett, professor of philosophy and graduate faculty of Food Systems, University of Vermont
About the Author:
Matthew C. Halteman is professor of philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and fellow in the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, UK. He is the author of Compassionate Eating as Care of Creation and coeditor of Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments About the Ethics of Eating. He lives in Grand Rapids.