Animal Ethics

AUGUST 21, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. 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. Most animals are probably not persons.

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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 is argued that beef cattle and hogs are protein factories in reserve.

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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

APRIL 22, 2007

Hi Keith, Here are some links to some exceptionally moving and informative online audio lectures on vegetarianism & animal ethics from a Christian perspective. They are by Matt Halteman , an excellent philosopher from Calvin College. If you would inform them of this resource, that'd be great.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 14, 2009

To the so-called ethical, no less than to the political school of thought, the question of Vegetarianism is unwelcome, obtruding as it does on the polite wordiness of academic discussion with an issue so coarsely downright: "You are a member of an Ethical Society—do you live by butchery?"

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Animal Ethics

MAY 14, 2008

The question of whether animals possess rights is once again topical, largely as a result of the recent surge of interest in animal welfare and in the moral pros and cons of eating animals and using them in scientific research. Arguments to show that animals do have rights, therefore, are at a premium. (

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Animal Ethics

MAY 4, 2008

The issue as to who or what may be a possessor of rights is not simply a matter of academic, conceptual interest. If, for instance, it is determined that gravely mentally defective human beings and monsters born of human parents are not the kinds of beings who may possess rights, this bears on how we may treat them.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 5, 2007

I don't expect that many readers will be converted to the cause of animal rights by reading this book. Franklin, Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy [New York: Columbia University Press, 2005], xvii-xviii) I hope that this book will help this cause along.

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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

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. Also, I am not a vegetarian, though I attempted to be one last year (an experience I plan on posting about). So, I took the plunge.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 7, 2010

And here we see the inevitable logic of Vegetarianism, if our belief in the Rights of Animals is ever to quit the stage of theory and enter the stage of fact; for just as there can be no human rights where there is slavery, so there can be no animal rights where there is eating of flesh. "To

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2011

And while it is as rational beings that we are in the first place entitled to respect, the respect due to us as rational beings overflows to our animal nature, and to those creatures which, while 'dissociated from us by their want of reason' are nonetheless associated with us in sharing our animal capacities including the ability to suffer pain.

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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

OCTOBER 31, 2009

The only real cure for the evil is the growing sense that the lower animals are closely akin to us, and have Rights. Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 109-10 [italics in original])

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

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. What the vegetarian wants, surely, is that we should stop eating meat even if our liking for it exceeds our revulsion at the suffering endured on factory farms.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 19, 2011

To the Editor: Re “ Egg Producers and Humane Society Urging Federal Standard on Hen Cages ” (Business Day, July 8): I’m a vegetarian who turned vegan after coming to terms with the fact that just because I was eating hormone-free, antibiotic-free, even free-range organic eggs didn’t mean that egg-producing hens were living a cruelty-free life.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

which may be called the Consistency Trick—akin to that known in common parlance as the tu quoque or "you're another"—the device of setting up an arbitrary standard of "consistency," and then demonstrating that the Vegetarian himself, judged by that standard, is as "inconsistent" as other persons.

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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. Others will do so for the sake of the environment. Others will do so for health reasons.

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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

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. Why does it not call for the abolition of factory farming?

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

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. That’s right, for me—but it may not be for others.

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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

FEBRUARY 1, 2007

Dear Keith, Hope you are well—I enjoyed reading "Simplifying the Case for Vegetarianism"—thanks again. The article and the comments that accompany it throw up many other interesting points in their own right; not least relating to the many creative, convenient myths that people create to justify their flesh-eating habits.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 30, 2009

But the Bush Administration reversed that decision five days before it was going to take effect after receiving several hundred letters from drug companies and farm animal trade groups. Protect your own health and the future effectiveness of antibiotics: Go vegetarian in 2010! Contact your U.S. Make a conscious choice to not eat meat.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 6, 2009

Only then will these companies “do the right thing,” if only to ensure their continued survival. 4, 2009 To the Editor: I have been a strict vegetarian most of my life, and, as such, I have never lacked reasons—ethical, economic and health-related—to continue this lifestyle. Starting today, I’m no longer eating ground beef.

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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. We pay lip service to more humane treatment of the animals that we eat, but how many of us look beyond the label on the package of chicken cutlets? To the Editor: Nicholas D.

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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. Vegan vegetarians who eat only vegetables, fruit, and nuts do not completely remove all microorganisms from their food, even with repeated cleaning.

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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. Becoming a vegetarian is not merely a symbolic gesture. First, it is dubious that becoming a vegetarian would have much effect on present practice. causing a decline in U.S.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2008

Eat right. Now that 2008 has arrived, I'd like once again to encourage new and old readers alike to make this the year that they stop supporting animal cruelty in all of its forms. If you currently eat meat, make a commitment to reduce your consumption of animals in January and stop eating them altogether in February.

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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. According to this argument, the view that eating the meat of nonhuman animals is morally permissible but eating the meat of human beings is morally forbidden is analogous to racism or sexism. This argument of the vegetarian has a point.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

10, 2008 To the Editor: Your editorial is exactly right: for our sake and theirs, we need to eat fewer animals. The number of chickens, turkeys, pigs, cattle and other animals raised and slaughtered in the United States has been growing steadily for decades. A shift toward more vegetarian options would indeed benefit us all.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

McWilliams insists that vegetarianism is "the most powerful political response we can make to industrialized food. He thinks we would rightly "frame the matter as a dire political issue." Such a dire political issue requires a political response. It's a necessary prerequisite to reforming it.

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