“I like meat.”
That may explain why you want to eat an animal. It does not explain why you are entitled to kill an animal in order to do so, because preference and justification are not the same thing.
You can enjoy something without having the right to obtain that enjoyment at someone else’s expense.
Pleasure does not create entitlement
Taste is sensory pleasure.
There is nothing inherently wrong with pleasure, far from it. Food can be pleasurable. Sex can be pleasurable. Entertainment can be pleasurable. The ethical problem begins when obtaining our pleasure requires the use of somebody else’s body without their consent. At that point, “but I enjoy it” is no longer enough. Now, stay with us, because this will be uncomfortable.
Trigger warning ⚠️
Someone might enjoy violent assault. Someone might enjoy murder. Someone might enjoy sexual assault. Their enjoyment explains why they do it. It does not justify what happens to the victim.
So why should taste be treated differently?
Moving the pleasure from the hands or genitals to the tongue does not suddenly make it ethically neutral. “I really enjoy bacon” may describe a stronger desire than “I quite like bacon”, but it creates no greater entitlement to the pig’s body.
Pleasure can explain what you want.
It cannot establish your right to take it.
Their inability to consent is not permission
Animals cannot consent to humans using their bodies. Much like infants or humans with certain disabilities.
That does not mean everything we do without an animal’s consent is automatically wrong. A human child or a dog cannot meaningfully consent to emergency surgery either. But surgery is performed for their benefit. Killing a pig because you enjoy their flesh is not.
The pig’s inability to consent is being used entirely for somebody else’s benefit. The same applies to cows on dairy farms. Humans control their reproduction, their milk and ultimately what happens to their bodies because humans want the products produced from them. None of this is done because the cow needs humans to drink her milk. It is done because humans enjoy what we can take from her.
When someone cannot consent, their inability to say yes does not magically become permission.
Animals resist restraint. They try to escape. They avoid pain. They protect themselves and their young. They are the individuals who experience what happens to their bodies. Their inability to sign a contract or speak in a language humans understand does not turn those bodies into human property.
Something horrible happens to them. Something pleasurable happens to you.
This is what the taste argument really amounts to. An animal loses their autonomy and life. You gain a pleasurable eating experience.
Those interests are nowhere near equivalent. A pig has an interest in avoiding fear, pain and death. A chicken has an interest in what happens to their body. A cow has an interest in continuing to live. Against all of that sits a flavour preference lasting a few minutes. The relevant question is not whether a pig and a human are identical.
They are not.
The question is much simpler:
Is the pleasure you get from eating a particular sandwich worth more than the pig’s life? Saying “I like meat” does not answer that question. It avoids it.
And now we can increasingly get the pleasure without the victim
The argument becomes weaker still when alternatives can produce extremely similar experiences.
NECTAR blind-tested 122 plant-based meat products with 2,684 omnivores and “flexitarians” in 2025. The average plant-based product did not beat the animal equivalent, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But 20 products were rated the same as or better than their animal counterparts by at least half of testers.
Impossible and MorningStar Farms plant-based nuggets even tied with chicken in blind testing.
Another study involving 175 consumers compared beef, hybrid and plant-based burgers. The most animal-like plant-based burger was the most preferred option, ahead of the 100% beef burger.
Dairy alternatives are showing similar progress in some categories.
In one blind comparison of Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend and cow’s milk in lattes, 35% preferred the oat version, 35% preferred cow’s milk and 30% had no preference. That means 65% either preferred the plant-based version or did not prefer the cow’s milk version.
At that point, what exactly is the cow being used for? But animals do not need perfect substitutes to deserve consideration There is a trap here.
We should not accidentally argue that animals deserve to live once humans invent sufficiently convincing replacements. Their bodies were never ours because vegan cheese was imperfect. Imagine defending dog fighting because other entertainment was not quite as exciting. We would immediately recognise the problem.
So grant the taste argument completely.
Maybe your favourite steak really does taste better to you than every vegan alternative. Maybe your favourite cheese has never been perfectly replicated.
Now what?
Why does that difference in pleasure grant you authority over someone else’s body? That is the part “I like meat” never explains.
Taste explains the desire
People eat familiar foods because they enjoy them. Food carries memories, culture, habit and comfort. Of course taste helps explain why people continue eating animals. But explaining behaviour is not the same thing as defending it.
Tradition can explain behaviour.
Convenience can explain behaviour.
Habit can explain behaviour.
Pleasure can explain behaviour.
None automatically makes the behaviour ethical. The question was never whether you enjoy eating animals. You probably do. I certainly did. The question is why that enjoyment should give you the right to use somebody else’s body when they cannot consent, when the consequences for them are enormous and when increasingly similar pleasure can be obtained without them.
“I like meat” explains the reward.
It does not justify the victim.
Taste pleasure can explain why you want to use someone else’s body. It cannot explain why you are entitled to it.