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

JUNE 5, 2016

Addendum: The argument seems to be as follows: It is inconsistent both (a) to eat meat and (b) to condemn (or mourn) the killing of Harambe; I condemn (or mourn) the killing of Harambe; therefore, I may no longer eat meat. Good leftist that he is, Peter Singer doesn't let a crisis go to waste.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 31, 2010

By carrying out a slaughter system that greatly reduces the suffering of chickens, Bell & Evans and Mary’s Chickens show that animal welfare and good business go hand in hand. While ever more consumers are going vegetarian or vegan, almost every consumer is demanding that companies take steps to reduce animal suffering.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 26, 2013

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Animal Ethics

MAY 28, 2008

These beloved animals’ personalities and charming quirks cannot be so easily reproduced. And when one considers that millions of dogs and cats are killed each year in shelters because there are no homes for them, cloning becomes unethical as well. May 21, 2008

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Beyond the environmental impacts of meat production there is a basic ethical issue involved. So here is an even more modest proposal than roasting Fido: Try eating only what animals you are willing to kill with your own hands. Dogs were bred to be companion animals; pigs and cows are raised as food.

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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

FEBRUARY 3, 2009

From the perspective of the land ethic, the immoral aspect of the factory farm has to do far less with the suffering and killing of nonhuman animals than with the monstrous transformation of living things from an organic to a mechanical mode of being.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

To the Editor: Re “ Animal, Vegetable, Miserable ,” by Gary Steiner (Op-Ed, Nov. 22): Mr. Steiner might feel less lonely as an ethical vegan—he says he has just five vegan friends—if he recognized that he has allies in mere vegetarians (like me), ethical omnivores and even carnivores. This made me feel guilty.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 7, 2016

Further, did those who reacted so strongly to Harambe’s killing go home and serve meat to their children? Finally, what of the audience? The hysteria of the crowd surely played a part in escalating an already frightening situation. This horrible incident has raised some tough questions indeed.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2008

These acts of independence are often their last, as, like Tatiana, most animals who attempt to follow their natural instincts are killed. How many people and animals must pay with their lives before we acknowledge that big cats don’t belong in captivity? Jennifer O’Connor Norfolk, Va.,

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 7, 2009

Here is Andrew Revkin's latest post at Dot Earth. Here is the Yes video:

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2011

26), Seamus McGraw says he has a responsibility to kill deer because there are too many. He has volunteered to kill a deer cruelly, ineptly and with an outdated weapon that causes additional suffering to the deer. I’m tired of hearing people who enjoy killing justify it with specious moral platitudes. Animals suffer when killed.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 21, 2008

It should come as no surprise that a facility that profits from tormenting and killing animals would also oppress and abuse humans. Newkirk President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Norfolk, Va., Since then, the paper has repeatedly reported on the abuse of migrant workers at AgriProcessors. July 15, 2008

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 21, 2007

This doesn’t ring true, suggesting as it does that we actually ask the animals to make a sacrifice for our sake. What we are doing is raising and then killing animals so that we can eat them. If we’re going to raise farm animals and then kill them to eat them, we should say so. They don’t volunteer.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 6, 2007

Every time someone buys a puppy or kitten from a breeder, a shelter animal loses its chance at a home and pays with its life. Breeders kill shelter animals’ chances to find good homes. It is time to practice your A B C’s (Animal Birth Control)! Given the current dire shortage of homes, no breeding is responsible.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 27, 2008

And there is no good reason to breed, confine and kill animals for food unless we believe that economic benefit justifies killing. April 23, 2008 To the Editor: You suggest that the raising of animals for food should be done “in ways that are both ethical and environmentally sound.” More and more people do not.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 4, 2009

Someone might hold that it's absolutely wrong to eat meat, just as someone might hold that it's absolutely wrong to torture, lie, or kill the innocent. I can have grounds for my belief even though those grounds won't persuade someone who endorses a different normative ethical theory. Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

April 9, 2009 To the Editor: In making the personal decision of where to place ourselves in our ethical relationship with animals, it is important to evaluate the reality of our words. Egg production, including on free-range farms, entails the mass killing of newborn male chicks, a point made in Nicholas D. Kristof’s column.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 5, 2011

Like the animals that share our homes, roosters experience pain and fear, and they don’t want to die. Many people don’t realize that roosters are confined in tiny cages for most of their lives and killed for their feathers. There are plenty of ways to get a killer look, without killing animals. STEVE POST Holland, Mich.,

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

As regards capricious killing, one hopes so; but what of vivisection, and of the eating of red meat? One then proceeds, however, as one will, to systematize and minimize one's ethical axioms by reducing some causally to others. One thinks also of unborn generations.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 3, 2008

The interests in nourishment and in gustatory pleasure lead man to kill and eat cattle, fish, and fowl. Most people eat lamb chops, and their consciences are clear on this score when they demand that slaughter-houses shall kill food animals as painlessly as possible.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

There are two approaches a vegetarian might take in arguing that rearing and killing animals for food is morally offensive. He might argue that eating animals is morally bad because of the pain inflicted on animals in rearing and killing them to be eaten. Or he could object to the killing itself.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 30, 2013

Want to kill your cat? Feed him or her a vegan diet.'

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Animal Ethics

MAY 6, 2009

Similarly, although there are differences between human beings and other animals, there are no moral differences that justify human beings’ killing and eating animals but not killing and eating one another. Moreover, since it is morally wrong to kill and eat human beings, it is morally wrong to kill and eat animals.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

Second, it might be argued that although it is wrong to kill microorganisms, it is not obvious that eating them kills them. Neither is it obvious, however, that eating microorganisms does not kill them. Let us suppose that some microorganisms that are eaten are killed, e.g., by the digestive workings of the body.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 7, 2009

The Argument from Animal Rights A stronger argument is made by people who maintain that animals have rights. 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. But this is surely dubious.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 21, 2009

Suppose that tomorrow a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth, beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals. Would they have the right to treat you as you treat animals you breed, keep, and kill for food?

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 21, 2010

To the Editor: Re “ Hero Dog From Afghan Base Is Killed by Mistake in Arizona ” (front page, Nov. 19): The story of Target, the Afghan hero dog, is truly heartbreaking. The important lesson, however, one that would add to Target’s legacy, is that all of us who love our dogs need to make sure that they have a tag and, even better, a microchip.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 17, 2008

Preference utilitarians count the killing of a being with a preference for continued life as worse than the killing of a being without any such preference. Then painlessly killing a pig while replacing it with another, equally happy pig is not wrong. Suppose pigs are non-self-conscious. Suppose humans are self-conscious.

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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

MAY 4, 2008

It does not settle such questions as to whether it is right to kill them if they are a burden or if they are enduring pointless suffering, but it does bear in an important way on such questions. Similarly, important conclusions follow from the question as to whether animals have rights.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 8, 2007

There was a senseless killing last night. Police officers speculate that the killing was cult related. Whatever the circumstances, I can't help but think of the killing as a murder. Needless to say, animal-rights and other groups are up in arms. Then—and here's the grisly part—the assailant cut the sheep's head off.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 9, 2009

You should survive as best you can, and killing the birds and eating them is the only way, given the situation as described. Would it be morally permissible for you to kill some people and eat them? On this hard-line view one ought never to kill any nonhuman animal unless it were right to kill a human being in the same circumstance.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 6, 2008

Thanks to Adrian Seeley for calling to my attention this story about PGA Tour golfer Tripp Isenhour, who allegedly intentionally killed a red-shouldered hawk with a golf shot. Isenhour is charged with cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 30, 2007

Barbaro's killing is a case of euthanasia. Euthanasia is often called mercy killing, for obvious reasons: Its motive is mercy. It is done for the sake of the being who is killed, rather than for the sake of some other being or beings or of society generally. It's convenience killing, not mercy killing.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 28, 2007

I can't help but think that, by improving the lives of the animals who are killed to satisfy human gustatory preferences, we are entrenching the idea that animals exist for human use. All we are doing by improving the lives of farmed animals is allowing people to eat meat with a better conscience.

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