Animal Ethics

AUGUST 24, 2008

Neither Aquinas nor Kant nor Newman denied, however, that animals could suffer: Descartes and Malebranche thought differently. It is impossible, they argued, to be cruel to animals, since animals are incapable of feeling. For animals did not eat of the Forbidden Tree.

Suffering 40

Suffering Animal Suffering 2004 Vivisection 40

Animal Ethics

JULY 24, 2012

Because animals are sentient (i.e., can experience pleasure and pain) and because they not only have but can act on their preferences, any view that holds that pleasures or pains, or preference-satisfactions or frustrations matter morally is bound to seem attractive to those in search of the moral basis for the animal rights movement.

Los Angeles 40

Los Angeles Animal Rights Movement Factory Farm Factory Farming 40

Animal Ethics

JULY 8, 2012

The central case of cruelty appears to be the case where, in Locke's apt phrase, one takes "a seeming kind of Pleasure" in causing another to suffer. Some cruel people do not feel pleasure in making others suffer. Let us term this sadistic cruelty. Indeed, they seem not to feel anything.

Cruelty 40

Cruelty Los Angeles Suffering Inhumane 40

Animal Person

JUNE 8, 2009

Engber mentions that in 1972, the USDA put into place "a special exemption for rats, mice, and birds, allowing scientists to treat them however they saw fit—in cages of any size, in experiments with any degree of pain and suffering. The fact that we care about--and fight for--animals based on how cute we have deemed them to be is disgraceful.

Animal Welfare 100

Animal Welfare Monkeys Animal Welfare Act Vivisection 100