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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

To the Editor: In “ Hunting Deer With My Flintlock ” (Op-Ed, Dec. He has volunteered to kill a deer cruelly, ineptly and with an outdated weapon that causes additional suffering to the deer. He says he hunts out of a need to take responsibility for his family, who evidently live where the supermarkets offer no meat.

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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the Moral Status of Animals

Animal Ethics

In other words, what they hated—and by no means perversely—was the enjoyment of animal suffering; to the mere fact that the bears suffered as a consequence of human action they were indifferent. That, on the whole, is the Christian tradition. Controversies no doubt remain.

Morals 40
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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the History of Animal Cruelty

Animal Ethics

Whereas it once used to be argued, as by Newman , that the least human good compensates for any possible amount of animal suffering, the current doctrine is that it requires a considerable good to compensate for such suffering. The degree of restriction placed on human behavior, furthermore, is relatively slight.

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H. B. Acton (1908-1974) on Animal Rights

Animal Ethics

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. Furthermore, although we say that animals have rights, we also think we are justified in hunting and eating them. Let us consider the moral question first.

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Prima Facie vs. Ultima Facie Wrongness

Animal Ethics

Jonathan Hubbell, a philosophy major at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the newest member of the Animal Ethics blog, and once again, I would like to welcome him aboard. The point is that even hunters seem to think that they need a reason to justify killing these animals.