Developing a Virtue of Eating Well: Laudato Sí and Animal Economies

Abstract

In Laudato Si, Pope Francis recognizes the sinfulness of capitalist greed and condemns anthropogenic ecological and animal cruelty. Yet, the specific manifestations of such violent economies and paths toward revolution remain underdeveloped in his thought. I aim to further develop Francis’ revolutionary ethic concerning the more-than-human by addressing problems in modern food economies, which exist via unsustainable and unnecessarily cruel production methods. I argue for human responsibility to resist such systems insofar as possible, re-imagining what it means to “eat well” as a path toward a revolution in global food economies. Eating well entails a willingness to sacrifice animal sacrifice to whatever degree individuals and communities are able, choosing diets that do less damage to ecological health and that minimize animal cruelty. I begin to develop such an ethic through an Earth-centered re-imagination of the virtuous fasting practices already present in the Christian tradition.