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. Nor could he object to the painless killing of wild animals.

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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. It assumes that not eating meat is one way to conserve grain.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. SOME PROBLEMS OF MORAL VEGETARIANISM With respect to traditional moral vegetarianism some problems immediately come to the fore. Who exactly is not supposed to eat animals or products of animals? Not necessarily.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2011

And I suspect that people become vegetarians for precisely that reason: that by doing so they overcome the residue of guilt that attaches to every form of hubris, and in particular to the hubris of human freedom. If meat-eating should ever become confined to those who do not care about animal suffering then compassionate farming would cease.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 9, 2009

A third of a century ago, when the modern animal-liberation movement was in its infancy, Martin published an essay entitled “A Critique of Moral Vegetarianism,” Reason Papers (fall 1976): 13-43. I suspect that many readers of this blog are Christians but not vegetarians. KBJ: There are different reasons to abstain from meat.

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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

FEBRUARY 6, 2008

The strongest part of [Peter] Singer's case against meat eating is his brief discussion of the world food crisis. More specifically, they eat far more meat than is necessary to maintain adequate nutrition. But even this fails to establish a case for vegetarianism.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Some will reduce their consumption of meat for the sake of the animals. Still others will do so because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that vegetarianism (or demi-vegetarianism) is good for human beings. I believe that as time passes, humans will, for various reasons, change their diets.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

But what of the many individual failures, it is asked, among those who make trial of Vegetarianism? The doctor looks wise, shakes his head, and informs a sorrowing circle that it is the direct result of "his vegetarianism." Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 114-5)

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

And there are two relevant kinds of alternatives here: one is treating the animals better before we eat them, the only disadvantage of which is that it would make meat considerably more expensive. And the other is taking up vegetarianism. But what about the vegetarian alternative?

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 21, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Superior Aliens’ Invasion John Harris advances the following consideration to show the immorality of eating meat. Tags: Moral Vegetarianism.

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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. a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 15, 2009

In recent years, MRSA has been found in retail cuts of chicken, pork, beef and other meats—a particularly worrisome trend since MRSA can be contracted simply by handling infected cuts of meat. Just how prevalent is MRSA-infected meat? Better yet, go vegetarian and stop having to worry about poisoning yourself or a loved one.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 30, 2009

Here’s another self-interested reason to not eat meat: Drug-resistant bacteria are routinely found in beef, chicken, and pork sold in supermarkets. To find out more of what the meat industry and pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know, read this Associated Press column by Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 23, 2007

Hi Keith, I am writing to request a copy of "Simplifying the Case for Vegetarianism." This is one of the best essays I have read on the subject of animal ethics. Also I would like to recommend this essay by David DeGrazia to your readers.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 4, 2009

A second vegetarian strategy is simply to reject as immoral the balancing of animal pains against human pleasures. For a vegetarian to employ a deontological stop against those who defend the eating of meat would be to guarantee that vegetarian views will remain, and deserve to remain, the exclusive property of a sect.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 13, 2008

Vegetarianism is overdetermined, in the sense that there is more than one sufficient reason for being a vegetarian. Here is one determination of it.

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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. To suggest that eating one and not the other represents a conflict of ethics is preposterous.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Indeed, our feeling of revulsion may be so intense that we simply can no longer bring ourselves to eat meat. In other words, we become vegetarians, not through any decision of principle, but through being unable to bring ourselves to continue to dine upon the flesh of animals.

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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. Jean Kazez Dallas, Nov.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 26, 2009

To the Editor: Let’s tell people of the quantum jump in energy efficiency that could be accomplished by eating less meat and having what meat is eaten be grass fed and pasture raised by local farmers. It’s easy to cut meat consumption if you start with one day a week of no meat. Bonnie Lane Webber New York, Jan.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 27, 2008

To the Editor: Re “ PETA’s Latest Tactic: $1 Million for Fake Meat ” (news article, April 21): The commercial development of meat from animal tissue won’t result in “fake meat” any more than cloning sheep results in fake sheep. A more accurate name for the end result would therefore be “clean meat.”

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

(Peter Singer more broadly examines the moral standing of animals here.) While this belief might not compel us to be vegetarians, it does demand significant changes in the way we raise animals for food, and it forbids wolf hunting as a form of entertainment. Why does this belief not "compel us to be vegetarians"?

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Animal Ethics

MAY 24, 2009

Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 87 [footnote omitted]) It seems, generally speaking, that the foods which are the costliest in suffering are also the costliest in price, whereas the wholesome and harmless diet to which Nature points us is at once the cheapest and most humane.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

Animals raised for food suffer miserably. The overwhelming passage in November of Proposition 2 in California, which banned tight confinement of many of the animals raised for food, is a fine example of the power of publicity to educate people about the atrocities we commit to those animals who have no voice of their own.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 18, 2008

Cholesterol is found only in foods derived from animals, like meat, cheese and eggs. All food that comes from plants is cholesterol-free, so a vegetarian or vegan diet does wonders for lowering cholesterol levels. That is when I went vegetarian. My cholesterol levels have always made my doctors happy.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 12, 2008

Yet Al Gore does not even mention the need for Americans to reduce meat consumption as we attempt to rescue ourselves from the climate crisis. 9, 2008 Note from KBJ: Some reasons for vegetarianism apply to all animals, from cows, pigs, and sheep to turkeys, chickens, and fish. Michael Radkowsky Washington, Nov.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 6, 2009

It’s a terrible but ultimately not surprising tale, given the continued lack of self-regulation and the emphasis on profit over safety in the meat industry. The only way the meat industry will change its ways is for people to stop buying ground beef and cause sales to plummet. Ann Calandro Flemington, N.J.,

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 10, 2009

Nor is it only among schoolboys that over-eating is rampant, for the tables of the wealthy are everywhere loaded with flesh-meat, and the example thus set is naturally followed, first in the servants' hall, and then, as far as may be, in the homes of the working classes. Good living," unfortunately, is a somewhat equivocal term.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 24, 2008

Not all meat eaters are cold, cruel, selfish individuals insensitive to animal suffering. Many, if not most, of the meat eaters I know are deeply concerned about the fact that the animals they eat are raised in factory farm conditions. Life without meat seems unbearable to them.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 30, 2007

As a longtime vegan with three vegan-from-birth children, I would like to suggest that since vegetarians are generally healthier than meat eaters, there is no excuse for compassionate people to eat animals.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 27, 2008

For those of you who think that vegetarian cuisine must be bland and boring, think again. That should inspire all but the most hardened meat-eaters to give it a try! You'll find the recipe for Spaghetti con Rucola e Ricotta here. There's even an alleged aphrodisiac effect associated with arugula. Bon Appetit!

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 7, 2008

According to Singer , the principle of the equal consideration of interests 'requires us to be vegetarians'. Interests arise, Singer contends, from the capacity to feel pain, which he labels a 'prerequisite' for having interests at all; and animals can and do suffer, can and do feel pain.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 2, 2008

I don’t necessarily advocate vegetarianism, but those looking to improve the sustainability of their lifestyles should take a look at their diet. Reducing meat consumption, particularly of beef, is one of the simplest and most rewarding things we can do. Nadia Eghbal Tübingen, Germany, May 26, 2008

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

Animal rights is neither progressive nor conservative. Think of all the progressives— Michael Moore , for example—who either eat meat or go out of their way to ridicule vegetarians. Many conservatives care about animals as well as human beings. Instead, it seeks to reform it.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I found that it reinforced my feeling that the eating of living, thinking, emotional creatures is just plain wrong. The fact that geese mate for life, and that the mate of the poor goose that was slaughtered would step forward, was enough to make me swear off meat forever, if I hadn’t already.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 2, 2007

To the Editor: Re “ Mr. Puck’s Good Idea ” (editorial, March 26): Thank you for writing about the restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and his desire to buy meat raised humanely. March 27, 2007 To the Editor: Livestock producers raise their animals under humane standards and under the care of a veterinarian. Kristina Cahill Long Beach, Calif.,

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