Day 1: Suffering, intelligence, and the risk argument
a) The ethical vegetarian position
b) For vegetarianism: the argument from pain and suffering
c) For meat-eating: the argument from intelligence
d) The total amount of pain caused by factory farming
e) Biases of vegetarians and meat-eaters
f) Intelligence and the badness of pain
g) The case of mentally disabled humans
h) The argument from moral uncertainty
i) Valuing animal vs. human lives
Day 2: Other defenses of meat consumption
a) Recap of the previous day's arguments
b) The possibility of humane meat
c) Are consumers responsible for meat industry practices?
d) Can one person affect the meat industry?
e) How industries respond to reduced demand
f) Farm animals only exist because of meat consumption
g) Utilitarian & non-utilitarian reasons against eating meat
h) Do animals feel pain?
i) Animals eat each other, so why can't we eat them?
j) Free will and moral agency
k) Should we stop animals from killing each other?
l) Do rights imply obligations?
m) Does morality protect those who cannot understand morality?
n) The social contract theory of ethics
o) Is meat natural?
p) Are animals missing souls?
q) Does the Bible support meat eating?
r) Judging meat eaters
Day 3: Consciousness and rational belief
a) The theory of degrees of consciousness
b) Erring on the side of caution
c) The use of "torture"
d) Why prioritize the animal welfare cause?
e) Is factory farming the world's worst problem?
f) On rejecting positions that "sound crazy"
g) How ethics differs from mathematics and science
h) Where does the "craziness" of extreme animal welfare positions come from?
i) Questioning the vegetarian's empirical premises
j) Questioning the vegetarian's moral premises
k) Biases in favor of meat eating
l) Status quo bias
m) Speciesism
n) Social proof
o) Self-interest bias
p) Empathy and the affect heuristic
q) Problems with intuitions concerning large numbers
r) Empathy and psychopathy
s) Avoiding dogmatism
t) Erring on the side of caution
Day 4: The vegan life, the nature of ethics, and moral motivation
a) Finding good vegan meals
b) Avoiding eggs and dairy
c) Eating bivalves
d) The value of life
e) Why can we eat plants?
f) Killing insects
g) Are vegetarians hypocrites?
h) Unconscious speciesism
i) Are insects sentient?
j) Free range and humane certified meat
k) Animal rights
l) Debating the correct ethical theory
m) Are there objective values?
n) Moral skepticism
o) Why philosophers should not serve on juries
p) Is giving up meat "too difficult"?
q) Are we too selfish to give up meat?
r) Social conformity and the enforcement of morality
s) Are vegans too moralistic?
t) How meat eaters react to vegans
u) Why promote veganism to others?
v) How wrong is meat eating?
w) Comparing meat eaters to Nazis