Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 10, 2009

Does my proposal as to what makes killing another human being generally a major moral wrong in any way help us with deciding what, if anything, is wrong with killing non-human animals and foetuses? ones to do with the painfulness of the methods of rearing and killing.) I believe it does help.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. It is argued that the killing and eating of meat indirectly tends to brutalize people. People who do not eat meat for moral reasons tend to be less brutal than people who do eat meat. The case of Hitler need not count against (2).

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 3, 2008

The argument for vegetarianism is not based on any claim about the wrongness of killing animals—although some careless reviewers read this claim into my book, no doubt because they assumed that any moral argument for vegetarianism must be based on the wrongness of killing.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

I suspect that many regular readers of Animal Ethics are already vegetarians. That's because those who read Animal Ethics with regularity know that there are many compelling reasons to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. This precept is variably stated as follows: Avoid killing or harming any living being.

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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

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

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

The predicament in such a non-moral case will concern only the individual and a few associates. When the ultimate values concerned are moral ones, on the other hand, and more particularly altruistic ones, the case is different; for the individual in such a dilemma has all society on his conscience. It need not.

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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. Wolves eat sheep.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 4, 2009

Thus John Harris's reply to the Benthamite defence of meat-eating is quite simply: 'Those who use it are saying that they think more about their stomach than their morals, and so a moral argument will probably not affect them'. Deontological stops are not uncommon in philosophical discussions of moral questions.

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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

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

MARCH 3, 2008

Its validity is limited by other moral imperatives. The interests in nourishment and in gustatory pleasure lead man to kill and eat cattle, fish, and fowl. And I believe that in most cases man is morally justified in thus reducing the satisfactions of the food animals. But few people do this.

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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.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 12, 2008

The Indiana Daily Student wrote an article today encouraging people to kill and eat man's best friend! It's morally permissible to eat cows. It's not morally permissible to eat dogs. It's not morally permissible to eat dogs. There are no morally relevant differences between cows and dogs.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 29, 2008

The great strength of a pure utilitarianism, whether it be couched in terms of the maximization of aggregate happiness, on the one hand, or of desire satisfaction, on the other, is its unity, its capacity to adjudicate non-arbitrarily between all competing moral claims.

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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

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

The dark secret behind factory farm profits—cruel and inhumane animal husbandry—is getting out. Factory farmers treat animals inhumanely for no good reason. Since morally decent individuals oppose treating animals inhumanely for no good reason, factory farming is becoming an increasingly hard sell.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2010

Either the vegetarian argues on utilitarian premises, or he tries to supplement or replace his utilitarianism with some plausible non-utilitarian principles implying the wrongfulness of rearing and killing animals for food. Either the vegetarian argues on utilitarian grounds or the vegetarian argues on nonutilitarian grounds.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 7, 2008

This is a moral principle, and states that 'the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being'. According to Singer , the principle of the equal consideration of interests 'requires us to be vegetarians'.

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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. Animals cannot give consent.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 14, 2007

She simply wants to minimize their suffering before they are killed (painlessly?) Perhaps she would argue that there is no double standard, i.e., that there is a morally relevant difference between human animals and nonhuman animals that justifies the difference in treatment. and their bodies dismembered and processed.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2011

It is asking the burger-stuffer to come clean ; to show just why it is that his greed should be indulged in this way, and just where he fits into the scheme of things, that he can presume to kill again and again for the sake of a solitary pleasure that creates and sustains no moral ties.

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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. And that explains, in part, the appeal of the animal-rights movement. To live with a human being is hard; to live with a mere animal is easy.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 17, 2008

The plea that animals might be killed painlessly is a very common one with flesh-eaters, but it must be pointed out that what-might-be can afford no exemption from moral responsibility for what-is.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

He doesn’t recognize the public health and ecological harms caused by industrial food animal production methods, including increased antibiotic resistance, polluted drinking water, huge fish kills and impaired air quality leading to respiratory illness. But let’s not play psychiatrist with other animals’ minds.

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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. Killing a hog can be avoided.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 6, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Speciesism If there is some doubt whether the arguments from monkeys and from glass walls should be considered moral arguments, there can be no doubt about the moral import of the argument from speciesism.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

Since our food is delivered to us on a bun or in big bags of frozen parts, it’s easy to eat it and not think about what it was or how it was killed. If people had to see what these animals are subjected to or take an active role in their deaths, I believe many more people would think before they eat.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 23, 2007

As the lead prosecutor in this case told the jury, this poor infant was not killed by a vegan diet. It’s appalling that anyone would think that a diet based on a dubious morality would build a human infant. He was starved to death by parents who did not give him breast milk, soy-based infant formula or enough food of any kind.

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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. Not only are they killed in cruel ways, but it is well documented that they are raised in ways that cause them great discomfort and agony. KBJ: I addressed this claim earlier.

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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. Self-consciousness is morally significant; species, like race or sex, is not.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 16, 2010

What if it's customary to allow guests to torture or kill one of the tribe? In other words, there are moral limits to science, as to law. Can you possibly understand them if you refuse? Can you possibly understand them if you refuse? Some things, I think you will agree, are more important than understanding.

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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

DECEMBER 24, 2006

Each semester when I teach Contemporary Moral Issues, on the first day of class I begin with a survey. One of the questions on the survey is: "Is it morally permissible to kill animals for fur coats?" Just how do Chinese workers kill raccoon dogs?" Documentary video reveals that this does not kill the dogs.

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