Jeff McMahan doesn’t like carnivores. Not one bit. In a pair of controversial op-ed pieces in the New York Times “The Stone” forum, the Rutgers University philosopher has argued that our species has a moral duty to eradicate the world’s rapacious, pain-inflicting predators and replace them with specially-engineered herbivores with big doe-eyes and which smell like angel kisses.

To his credit, McMahan recognizes that the program of eradication and replacement he favors is not feasible. If were were to remove all carnivores in one fell swoop, he recognizes, we may well create “a Malthusian dystopia in the animal world, with higher birth rates among herbivores, overcrowding, and insufficient resources to sustain