Huemer has defended phenomenal conservatism, the idea that it is reasonable to assume that things are as they appear, except when there are positive grounds for doubting this.
Huemer has argued that immaterial souls exist.[9] He has defended reincarnation in his paper "Existence Is Evidence of Immortality".[10] In 2022, he debated Graham Oppy on the existence of souls.[11]
Animal ethics
In 2016, Huemer debated Bryan Caplan on the ethical treatment of animals, including insects.[12] In regard to killing insects, Huemer has argued that insects are not raised in horrible conditions like animals in factory farms, animal farming requires killing more insects as they are fed vegetable foods and it is "much less likely that insects feel pain".[13] Huemer has commented: "In the overwhelming majority of actual cases, meat eaters do not have any reasons that could plausibly be claimed to justify the pain and suffering caused by their practice."[14]
His Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism (2019) is a series of dialogues on the ethics of eating meat. Peter Singer, who wrote the foreword to book, commented that "In the future, when people ask me why I don't eat meat, I will tell them to read this book."[15][16]
Ostroveganism
Huemer is an advocate of ostroveganism, a plant-based diet with the addition of oysters and other insentient bivalves.[13][17] Ostroveganism has been described as a type of "new omnivorism".[17]
^Schroeder, Mark (2009). "Review: Huemer's Clarkeanism: Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 78 (1): 197–204. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2008.00239.x. JSTOR40380419.
^Skoble, Aeon J. (2014). "Reviewed Work: The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Huemer". The Independent Review. 19 (1): 144–147. JSTOR24563269.