Animal Ethics

MAY 4, 2008

Some ideologues even compare the Nazi death camps to normal practices of animal husbandry. For example, Charles Patterson wrote in Eternal Treblinka —a book specifically endorsed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—that "the road to Auschwitz begins at the slaughterhouse."

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 12, 2009

He believed, of course, that one ought always to do one's duty and also that only acts motivated by respect for moral law have moral worth. Kant's ethics is as much an ethics of self-esteem as it is an ethics of duty. I conclude with two brief comments.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 4, 2007

Hello Keith: I recently completed a documentary on the science, ethics, and politics of animal agriculture entitled "Beyond Closed Doors." The film contains personal interviews with prominent professionals such as Dr. Temple Grandin, Dr. Bernard Rollin, Dr. John Webster, Steve Wise, and many others.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 16, 2006

Love, of course, isn’t sufficient for being a philosopher (it may not even be necessary), but Jonathan has a genuine aptitude for philosophy. He received the highest score in both my fall 2005 Social and Political Philosophy course and my spring 2006 Ethics course.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

According to the HPMAJ column, "Loos told cattle producers the livestock industry must show the public that there are moral and ethical justifications for taking the life of an animal to feed a person. There is no ethical justification for treating an animal inhumanely for no good reason.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

To that extent, he will be not only a vegetarian, but also a vegan, one who abstains not only from meat but also from animal products. One might of course defend the consumption of animal products, while opposing the eating of meat, on the ground that killing a steer, say, produces more suffering than separating a cow from her calf.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

Nonhuman animals can suffer. The right is defeasible, of course, as it is in the case of humans. Second, it is not a necessary condition for the possession of rights (legal or otherwise) that one be a person. That fact alone suffices to grant them a legal right not to be made to suffer. Dentists make people suffer.)

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 10, 2009

For instance, to kill animals which have these similarities to human beings in the course of pointless or duplicative experimentation, in the course of providing cosmetics, furs and other items readily producible without such killings, or merely for sport, is morally wrong according to the account I have proposed.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

And most of us, of course, just don't know about this. How do we know but what, once we got used to a vegetarian diet, we would find that our pleasure is scarcely diminished at all? Human ingenuity is great, and undoubtedly a skilful vegetarian cook can come up with quite a panoply of delicious dishes.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Legislation forbidding cruelty to animals represents the use of coercion against the interests of the individual coerced, and not to further the interests of any other person (it may do so but need not to be justified). Yet it is legislation that few of us should wish to condemn as lacking in justification. (It

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 9, 2009

His book on atheism is among the best I have read on that topic, which is why I used it in my Philosophy of Religion course many years ago. (I I use different books in my courses to keep things interesting for me.) My examination will not be complete, of course. The contrast would be, for example, “health vegetarianism.”

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 31, 2008

Nothing I have said in earlier chapters and nothing I will say in subsequent chapters is intended to deny this fact, which animal rightists correctly insist upon. But animals lack that reflective awareness which enables us to see our experiences and acts as our own (and thereby, of course, unlike animals, to be responsible for our acts). (

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 31, 2007

When I was in law school, many years ago, I wrote a lengthy term paper entitled "The Legal Status of the Wolf ( Canis Lupus ) in Michigan, 1805-1982" for a graduate history course I was taking.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 30, 2007

You eat a dog, of course! How do you protest fox hunting? See here for details.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 7, 2008

What have humane people to say to the tremendous mass of animal suffering inflicted in the interests of the Table?

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

Not in words, of course, but they can answer in ways that we can understand if we are paying attention. To the Editor: Re “ Don’t Presume to Know a Pig’s Mind ” (Op-Ed, Feb. 20): Blake Hurst, a former hog farmer and president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, cautions that “we can’t ask the pigs what they think.”

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 29, 2008

Biological warfare against human beings is generally condemned but not biological warfare against animals. In all these cases, of course, a minority opinion would support laws which go further than the present laws in limiting the circumstances in which men are entitled to cause pain to animals.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 7, 2009

In particular, it has been argued that animals have a right to life. So, even if animals are killed painlessly and raised for food in humane ways, it is wrong to kill them. The question is, of course, whether animals do have a right to life. The answer to this question turns on what is meant by having a right.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 28, 2006

Mylan recently provided a list of additional books, which I will add in due course. I still think of this blog mainly as a resource for scholars, which is why I added a bibliography. Thanks for visiting. Please spread the word to your friends, colleagues, and students.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 6, 2008

The bird was buried on the golf course—perhaps in an effort to hide the evidence—but was later dug up by Florida investigators. According to the report, Isenhour repeatedly hit balls directly in the hawk's direction until he hit the hawk.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 11, 2008

Many of the higher animals at least have appetites, conative urges, and rudimentary purposes, the integrated satisfaction of which constitutes their welfare or good. 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.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 11, 2008

Of course, the meat is more expensive since it takes lots of real estate to freely graze a herd, and it’s tougher than typical supermarket fare (Americans are used to a style of marbling that’s caused by grain diets and flabby cattle, whereas grass-fed cows are trim from their daily ambles).

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 27, 2008

Classical thought stopped short of that, of course. The reductio ad absurdum of the classical choice is modern "individualism" in its "Romantic" form—the cult of individual eccentricity. The preference for differentiation at the species level is an unjustified presupposition of the philosophic tradition.

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Dolphins Non Human Humane Morals 40

Animal Ethics

JANUARY 17, 2008

Whoever thought President Bush was a pro-animal environmentalist? People like Adolf Hitler are pro-animal environmentalists! The point, of course, is that there is no necessary connection between (1) a person's attitude toward animals or the environment and (2) his or her normative political theory.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 3, 2007

The animals took the place of humans. We humans did not have to die for our sins—innocent, pure animals took our place. Through the course of history, countless animals died to save human souls. Before the time of Jesus, humans found their salvation through animal sacrifice.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 9, 2008

Governor Palin thinks the proposed listing is a backdoor way of forcing the federal government to change course on global warming policy, but it does no such thing. Though hunting still plays a role and led to a bilateral treaty with Russia, ratified last September, climate change is the major threat to polar bears today.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 24, 2007

Check out Moskowitz and Romero’s website Post Punk Kitchen , where you can watch streaming videos of their cable cooking show by the same name. Watch out Emeril! Your days are numbered.] On the left sidebar of the Post Punk Kitchen site, you’ll find links to recipes.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 30, 2007

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.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2008

Second, many of the things you can do to stop supporting animal cruelty—like not buying or wearing fur or fur trim—require minimal effort and no expense! Of course, since that is so easily accomplished, you may have already fully succeeded in carrying out that aspect of resolution 11 long ago. Do it for the animals.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2006

Second, many of the things you can do to stop supporting animal cruelty—like not buying or wearing fur—require minimal effort and no expense! Of course, since that is so easily accomplished, you may have already fully succeeded in carrying out that aspect of resolution 11 long ago. Join me in resolving to do right by animals in 2007.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

Today, we eat well over 220 pounds a year, and it’s not uncommon for many Americans to eat animal products at every single meal. This comes at an enormous cost to animal welfare, the environment and of course public health. A shift toward more vegetarian options would indeed benefit us all. We can start at our next meal.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2006

How many problems can be solved—in their entirety—by a single person, even over the course of a lifetime? But that's not the only way to look at it, and I would argue that it's not the right way. Surely not.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

The trouble is, of course, that it is not clear what tacit approval is supposed to mean. According to the present argument, these people would be inconsistent: they would be explicitly advocating elimination of cruelty and tacitly approving of it. Such a supposition seems ludicrous to me.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

He requests that after his death his wife prepare a lavish dinner with him as the main course. Suppose there is a man who wishes to end his life but regrets never having given his poor and hungry family any pleasure. The members of his family have no objections; on the contrary, they rather relish the idea.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 23, 2006

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. In his fresh and candid first post (available here ), Jonathan admitted that he is struggling with the issue of ethical vegetarianism.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2008

Of course, the critics could be wrong, but if so, the responsibility for setting them right rests with one man: Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. Critics in and out of Congress have been quick to question the motives for the delay.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 24, 2006

Of course, no one wants to look like an ingrate. Imagine if retail stores all over the country this year were inundated with dissatisfied customers returning fur garments and alleged "faux fur" garments on December 26. That might make retailers reluctant to carry fur-trimmed and "faux" fur-trimmed jackets for next year's holiday season.

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