Animal Ethics

AUGUST 19, 2009

In the past I have been concerned to advocate a normative utilitarian theory from the point of view of a non-cognitivist meta-ethics. I assumed that Hume was right in thinking that ultimately morality depends on how we feel about things.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 1, 2010

As regards animals, the position is clear. If an animal has the relevant moral capacities, actually or potentially, then it can be a possessor of rights. It may for this reason be morally appropriate for us meanwhile to act towards the former animals as if they are possessors of rights. (H.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Ethical vegetarianism is the thesis that killing and eating animals is morally wrong whenever equally nutritious plant-based alternatives are available. The case for ethical vegetarianism starts with several uncontroversial premises. It is not just a few outspoken animal rights fanatics who hold this view.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 14, 2008

The question of whether animals possess rights is once again topical, largely as a result of the recent surge of interest in animal welfare and in the moral pros and cons of eating animals and using them in scientific research. Arguments to show that animals do have rights, therefore, are at a premium. (

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 13, 2008

First of all, I want to tell you how much I enjoy Animal Ethics. I especially liked your posting from Gardner Williams’ “The Moral Insignificance of the Total of All Value.” It’s a job-matching site for all jobs related to animals, like training, grooming, veterinary medicine, caretaking, zoo positions, and much, much more.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 30, 2007

The volume „Tierrechte – eine interdisziplinäre Herausforderung“ (literally „Animal Rights – an interdisciplinary challenge“ has just been released from Harald Fischer Verlag (publisher), Germany. The results of the lectures are written down in this book. More information on the book can be found here. We really appreciate it!

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Human Grain Shortage All of the clearly moral arguments for vegetarianism given so far have been in terms of animal rights and suffering. Tags: Moral Vegetarianism. KBJ: I’m speechless.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

I believe that this view of the moral status of animals is radically mistaken, not because its distinguished proponents are somehow misinformed about the facts or insensitive in their attitudes, but rather because they misunderstand the basic terms of their own moral vocabulary even as applied to human beings.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 5, 2007

I don't expect that many readers will be converted to the cause of animal rights by reading this book. Nor have I dealt with advances in the legal protection of animals both in practice and in theory. I have focused exclusively on moral theory. Nevertheless, I believe that a good theoretical argument is worth the effort.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 4, 2008

If I can show you that one of your moral principles entails that it's wrong to eat meat, then, to avoid contradiction, you must either abandon the principle or abstain from meat. Philosophers are trained to do this. Their only tool is the law of noncontradiction, which says that no proposition can be both true and false.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 4, 2008

There is no inconsistency in rejecting plant rights while accepting animal rights. If Smith thinks that plant rights and animal rights stand or fall together, then he is confused, for there is a morally relevant difference between plants and animals, namely, that only the latter are sentient.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 23, 2009

I will conclude with some remarks about the rights of animals. When it is asked whether animals have rights, and whether human beings have duties to them, the question, I think, is partly moral and partly verbal. Let us consider the moral question first. Even congenital idiots look like men.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 24, 2012

The initial attractiveness of utilitarianism as a moral theory on which to rest the call for the better treatment of animals was noted in an earlier context. Because animals are sentient (i.e., Because animals are sentient (i.e.,

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

It would remain true, of course, that the vegetarian diet is more limited, since every pleasure available to the vegetarian is also available to the carnivore (not counting the moral satisfactions involved, of course—which would be question-begging), plus more which are not available to the vegetarian so long as he remains one.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 15, 2012

If people are encouraged to believe that the harm done to animals matters morally only when these animals belong to endangered species, then these same people will be encouraged to regard the harm done to other animals as morally acceptable.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 11, 2008

But it seems to me, nevertheless, that in general, animals are among the sorts of beings of whom rights can meaningfully be predicated and denied. We must now ask ourselves for whose sake ought we to treat (some) animals with consideration and humaneness? Joel Feinberg , "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations," chap.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 27, 2012

That Kant should hold such a view should not be surprising; it is a direct consequence of his moral theory, the main outlines of which may be briefly, albeit crudely, summarized. As such, no moral agent is ever to be treated merely as a means. Moral agents are not nonrational, do not have "only a relative value," and are not things.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

There are also some things we cannot learn by using humans, if we respect their rights. The rights view merely requires moral consistency in this regard. ( Tom Regan , The Case for Animal Rights , updated with a new preface [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004], 388 [first edition published in 1983])

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Animal Ethics

JULY 30, 2007

This arises from the fact that we have duties to animals and to infants. We had better therefore take the less complicated case of animals, which we commonly suppose not to be even potential moral agents. It may of course be denied that we have duties to animals. It is not at all clear which is the true view.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 18, 2006

Currently, I am very interested in social and political philosophy and ethical issues. I felt a strong sense of connection to the ideas of Peter Singer while taking Ethics from Keith. Currently, I do not believe that killing an animal is prima facie morally wrong. So, I took the plunge.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

A column entitled "Ag Industry Threatened by Animal Rights" appeared in today's High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal [ HPMAJ ]. The column, which you can read here , is a call to arms to factory farmers to fight back against those individuals and organizations working to protect farm animals from the abuses inherent in factory farms.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 16, 2007

To inflict death or pain on animals for scientific or medical research is wrong morally, and ought to be prohibited. This follows from everything said in the text about the rights of animals. This does not mean that animals may never be deliberately harmed or become subjects of research.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 30, 2012

In 2002 the German Parliament amended Article 26 of the Basic Law to give nonhuman animals the right to be “respected as fellow creatures” and to be protected from “avoidable pain.” Half of the sixteen German states already have some sort of animal rights provisions in their constitutions.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2007

Here are three paragraphs from a recent essay by Roger Scruton : As I suggested, science provides authority for this weird morality only when clothed in moral doctrine. The sleight of hand that gave us the “selfish” gene gives us the rights of baboons. And that explains, in part, the appeal of the animal-rights movement.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 11, 2007

An exception for vegetables is thus consistent with the categorical imperative; an exception for humans with respect to eating animals is not. Franklin, Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy [New York: Columbia University Press, 2005], 45 [endnote omitted])

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 21, 2007

My original interest was narrow: animal rights. That book exposed me to natural history (Aldo Leopold, Henry Beston, and Stephen Gould), wilderness (Roderick Nash), and moral philosophy (John Rodman and Peter Singer).

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

Kristof’s thoughtful exploration of animal rights, I was astonished to read that he continues to eat animals, like geese and pigs, for which he obviously has such affection and respect. Government animal rights regulations may help. Jules L Garel Columbus, Ohio, July 31, 2008

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 23, 2009

There are intractable practical differences between environmental ethics and the animal liberation movement. Very different moral obligations follow in respect, most importantly, to domestic animals, the principal beneficiaries of the humane ethic. Every paragraph is interesting.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. Most moral vegetarians list fish and fowl as animals one should not eat. The ability to feel pain is not an obviously plausible way of morally distinguishing microorganisms from other organisms. What Meat Should Not Be Eaten?

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. In fact, animals used for food do suffer a great deal. But is it true that by eating meat one is giving one’s tacit consent to the cruel treatment of animals? KBJ: I addressed this claim earlier.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 14, 2012

Those rights set forth in the Bill of Rights, for example, were not rights that citizens of the United States could claim as legal rights before these rights were drawn up and the legal machinery necessary for their enforcement was in place. First, moral rights, if there are any, are universal.

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