Animal Ethics

AUGUST 31, 2008

My view, then, is not that which it has often been taken to be in discussion and which Singer, Regan, Clark, and others blast in their work; I am not suggesting that, because they lack language, animals can be factory farmed without suffering. Animals can suffer, which they could not unless they were conscious; so they are conscious.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

To suggest that eating one and not the other represents a conflict of ethics is preposterous. However, I agree with Mr. Foer that factory farming has to go. Rather than eating dogs, we all ought to eat exclusively small-farmed, free-range meat. In the name of moral consistency I became a vegetarian four years ago.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 5, 2007

To the Editor: “ A Factory Farm Near You ” (editorial, July 31) does not mention any issue of the morality of factory farming—treating living beings as factory products. Cruelty to animals on such a scale should be the centerpiece of any discussion on raising animals for food.

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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. Duty requires us, therefore, to eat our friends.

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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. These birds are some of the most abused animals in agriculture.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

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.” I served on the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which released a report in 2008 that detailed exactly how much these “efficiencies” are costing America.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Ethical vegetarianism is the thesis that killing and eating animals is morally wrong whenever equally nutritious plant-based alternatives are available. The case for ethical vegetarianism starts with several uncontroversial premises. It is not just a few outspoken animal rights fanatics who hold this view.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 4, 2006

It is designed to distinguish between two types of farming. Note that this debate is independent of the debate about the moral permissibility of eating fish. If organically raised fish suffer less than nonorganically raised fish, it is an accident, morally speaking.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

The column, which you can read here , is a call to arms to factory farmers to fight back against those individuals and organizations working to protect farm animals from the abuses inherent in factory farms. To learn more about Arizona's precedent-setting victory for farm animals, see here.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 26, 2007

It might be argued that any decrease in suffering for farmed animals is good, morally speaking. Someone might argue that there is no incompatibility between (1) working to decrease animal suffering and (2) working toward the abolition of factory farming. What do you think of this ?

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2008

Modern livestock farming on a grand scale also wastes a colossal amount of feed grains on animals which, in times past, would simply have fed off the land. There is no doubt a good deal of truth in this last point as well, and we are here presented with a serious moral problem concerning the world food supply.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

In fact, a whole lot of semi-vegans can do much more for animals than the tiny number of people who are willing to give up all animal products and scrupulously read labels. Farm animals also benefit from the humane farming movement, even if the animal welfare changes it effects are not all that we should hope and work for.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

To the Editor: Re “ A Farm Boy Reflects ” (column, July 31): Hats off to Nicholas D. Kristof, who takes note of the trend represented by the animal welfare proposition on the ballot in California this fall. And thanks to federal corn and soybean subsidies, factory farms saved an estimated $3.9

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 21, 2007

If we’re going to raise farm animals and then kill them to eat them, we should say so. March 14, 2007 To the Editor: Contrary to the assertions in Nicolette Hahn Niman’s attack on modern pork production, America’s 67,000 pork producers treat their animals humanely. Catherine di Lorenzo Woodbine, Ga.,

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2008

There is a difficulty about drawing from all this a moral for ourselves. But then we can say this because we can say that all those are bad moralities, whereas we cannot look at our own moralities and declare them bad. It is natural to feel sympathy for animals who are suffering. This is bad faith.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 23, 2007

I’ll leave the question of infant care to the physicians, but I know firsthand that an adult vegan can enjoy robust physical health without contributing to the cruel suffering of animals on today’s factory farms. It’s appalling that anyone would think that a diet based on a dubious morality would build a human infant.

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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. This includes refusing to support business firms that cause, or profit from, animal suffering. The question arises: Why should such indirect causal influence have any moral import?

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 15, 2006

As such, they are likely to be better moral reasoners , as well, both in their ability to identify moral reasons and in their ability to appreciate these reasons. Given their knowledge of nutrition already hinted at in Gale's reasoning above, they realize that no one needs to eat animals or animal products in order to be healthy.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 20, 2007

12): While this is a step in the right direction toward reducing the animal abuse inherent in all factory farming (from the chicken’s point of view), it’s still a long way from what nature intended. Let chickens be chickens, and avoid the whole moral dilemma by going vegan. Jean Bettanny Port Townsend, Wash.,

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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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