Animal Ethics

MAY 23, 2008

To the Editor: Re “ A Disgraceful Farm Bill ” (editorial, May 16): While the farm bill recently approved by Congress deals with enormous agricultural policy issues, it also includes three important provisions to protect animal welfare. These new penalties would give the law some much needed teeth.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Their interests are primarily protected, if at all, through archaic state anti-cruelty statutes that were not passed in contemplation of the factory-farm or genetic engineering. Though factory-farming and biotechnological techniques massively violate the moral rights of farm animals, they have no remedy.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lawmakers, perhaps as a result of an international treaty, will prohibit the intensive rearing of at least large hoofed animals for food, on the ground that it is damaging to the natural environment. It is that coercion (via legal prohibition) is not a proper method of protecting animals, at least if the aim is to protect animals.

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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. I shall endeavor to protect and take care of all living creatures.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 23, 2008

Klinkenborg’s conclusion that an international effort similar to what is happening to address the current global financial crisis will be necessary to protect species prompts a question. What would it cost to stabilize our planet’s biological health by protecting species and their natural habitats? 16, 2008

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2011

It is only the prejudice of our species that justifies culling the deer population while protecting our own. Beyond that, though, is the tragedy of the doe’s sole contact with a human: a moment that could have initiated a communion between the two was instead reduced to carnage. BRANIGAN President, Make Peace With Animals New Hope, Pa.,

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 30, 2012

The European Community and the member states signatory to the treaty are required “to pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals.” In 2002 the German Parliament amended Article 26 of the Basic Law to give nonhuman animals the right to be “respected as fellow creatures” and to be protected from “avoidable pain.”

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 17, 2008

Sadly, the situation in Puerto Rico is replicated in countries around the world where hundreds of millions of dogs live as strays, abandoned by the humans they have come to depend on for food, shelter and companionship. Allan Kornberg Boston, March 11, 2008 The writer is executive director of the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

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. If the goal is not moral perfection for ourselves, but the maximum benefit for animals, half-measures ought to be encouraged and appreciated. Chris Taylor Lawrence, Kan.,

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 19, 2007

It is an animated website aimed at educating and inspiring children about endangered species, and all of our characters actually exist in a real-life camp in Tanzania which protects black rhino and wild African hunting dogs. Thanks so much—Amanda (one of the Dotty Humans) Please have a look and let us know what you think!

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 13, 2008

Recent investigations by nonprofit groups in California, Ohio and Pennsylvania have revealed the atrocious living conditions of egg-laying hens, though their owners said they were humanely cared for. Consumer boycotts and protective laws are desperately needed. Karen Davis Machipongo, Va.,

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

They’re about protecting a system that produces cheap food. There are more humane alternatives available that would reduce that condition, and according to experts at Iowa State University, some forms of alternative sow housing could actually cost less in dollars and labor—savings that could potentially reach the customer.

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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.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

It is simply projustice, insisting only that the scope of justice be seen to include respect for the rights of animals. The animal rights movement is not for the faint of heart. To overcome the collective entropy of these forces-against-change will not be easy.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 16, 2007

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. They may be killed in order to protect the health of humans (and other animals) if they are infected with a serious disease and cannot be quarantined.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 11, 2008

So far McCloskey is on solid ground, but one can quarrel with his denial that any animals but humans have interests. I should think that the trustee of funds willed to a dog or cat is more than a mere custodian of the animal he protects. The animal itself is the beneficiary of his dutiful services.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

What the utilitarian who defends human carnivorousness must say, then, is something like this: that the amount of pleasure which humans derive per pound of animal flesh exceeds the amount of discomfort and pain per pound which are inflicted on the animals in the process, all things taken into account. Is this plausible?

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Animal Ethics

JULY 2, 2007

Dear Keith, I work with Wesleyan University Professor Scott Plous (founder of Social Psychology Network), and I'm writing to let you know of a new web site related to animal protection. The site uses a unique interactive technology to offer "human-like" interviews that probe the ethical dimensions of diet and lifestyle choices.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 14, 2012

The legal rights individuals have arise as the result of the creative activity of human beings. Theoretically, one could, it is true, create legal rights that accord with or protect moral rights, but that is not the same as creating these moral rights in the first place. When it comes to legal rights, not all individuals are equal.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 2, 2007

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. That is never humane.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 29, 2008

Around the world, animal migrations are disappearing because of conflicts with development, agriculture and other human activities. Migratory birds protect forests and crops from insect pests; butterflies, bats and other migratory species are important pollinators. The loss of migration is of more than aesthetic importance.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 30, 2009

In the 1970s, the FDA proposed a ban on penicillin and tetracycline in animal feed, but the proposal was defeated after criticism from interest groups. In 2008, the FDA issued its second limit on the use of cephalosporins in cows, pigs, and chickens, citing the importance of cephalosporin drugs for treating disease in humans.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 30, 2007

Because animal flesh sold for human consumption abroad must be inspected by a USDA inspector, the court ruling may mean that the few remaining horse-slaughtering plants in the U.S.—including A detailed exchange concerning the ethics of eating horses, including several posts by me, can be read here. is available here.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 21, 2007

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. They do so because it’s the moral and ethical thing to do, and it’s in their best economic interest. Catherine di Lorenzo Woodbine, Ga.,

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2007

But one thing they all have in common is the strongest desire imaginable to love you, protect you and bond with you. When that happens, you’ll understand the bond between human and companion animal of which Mr. Phillips wrote. You can find purebreds, mixed breeds and designer dogs. Sherrill Durbin Tulsa, Okla.,

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2008

I imagine that we agree in our rejection of slavery, eternal damnation, genocide, and uncritical patriotic self-abnegation; so we shall agree that Huck Finn , Jonathan Edwards , Heinrich Himmler , and the poet Horace would all have done well to bring certain of their principles under severe pressure from ordinary human sympathies.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 10, 2010

The United States Department of Agriculture has been broken for a long time, and it is clear that it cannot protect the American public from illness and death from contaminated meat products. Instead of allowing companies to find ways to turn food a dog might reject into cheap human food, shouldn’t the U.S.D.A.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2009

Vegetarians certainly cannot think that only vegetarians have a prima facie duty not to eat animals or animal products. Presumably it would include all human beings, whether they are in the habit of eating animals or not. But why would it not extend to all animals, including carnivorous animals?

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Even the most ardent defenders of the morality of using animals for food and as “tools” in scientific experiments admit that premises (1) and (2) are true and acknowledge that (1) and (2) capture something central to our moral relationship to animals. Cohen, The Animal Rights Debate , p. Ethical synergy at work.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 29, 2006

There is one animal product that Dr. Spock recommends feeding newborns and infants. That animal product is human breast milk. Human breast milk is a near perfect food for human newborns and infants. 105-6) Dr. Spock is not alone in his endorsement of breast-feeding human infants. The answer is "Yes."

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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. 503 ) was approved in the U.S.

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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. Of course, when hamburgers aren't at stake, most of us think that it would be morally wrong to kill an animal for no good reason.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 2, 2006

Bush signed the “ Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act ” into law this past Monday (November 27, 2006). The law protects animal enterprises from courses of conduct designed to disrupt their normal profitable functioning. They enacted it to make animal abusers and the corporations that profit from that animal abuse richer.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 25, 2008

So why would they not insist that the cow that became their steak was treated humanely? And as the slaughtering of animals is not high tech, certainly no trade secrets would be at risk with the imposition of cameras. The vast number of meat eaters brake for geese, call the A.S.P.C.A. I think most would, enthusiastically. 21, 2008

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