Analyzing Arguments in Defense of Eating Meat

How important is philosophy?  In his book The Fundamentals of Ethics, Shafer-Landau reflects on how to structure arguments and what makes them sound or logically reasonable.  During his introduction on pages 11-14, Landau breaks down the argument regarding if eating meat should be considered immoral.  He explains how the popular justification in which it is ok for humans to kill animals because animals kill each other isn’t a sound argument because the conclusion isn’t properly supported.  In order to have a sound argument, the premises need to be completely true and must logically guaranty the truth of the conclusion.  He outlines how animals and humans aren’t considered to be on the same moral playing field, which means they obey by different rules of the natural world (11).  Humans actually have ethics, while animals do not, and the false premise eliminates the validity of the argument.