Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2011

I propose that the moral significance of the suffering, mutilation, and death of non-human animals rests on the following, which may be called the overflow principle: Act towards that which, while not itself a person, is closely associated with personhood in a way coherent with an attitude of respect for persons. Philip E.

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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. But this is surely dubious.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 23, 2008

I can't be sure, since the editorial opinion is so jumbled, but the board seems to be arguing that people should continue to eat meat, provided the animals whose flesh they consume are not made to suffer. Would the board say the same thing about humans?

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

That system may treat sentient animals like car parts, ruin antibiotics we need for human medicine, and destroy rural communities by polluting our air and water, but at least it’s “efficient” (a word Mr. Hurst hammers three times). Farm Animal Welfare, ASPCA New York, Feb. BOBBIE MULLINS Norfolk, Va., SUZANNE McMILLAN Dir.,

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

To the Editor: It’s mind-boggling that in spite of overwhelming evidence that the consumption of animal products is directly responsible for a host of human diseases , greenhouse gas production and indescribable animal suffering, the general public continues to satiate its taste buds and support factory farming.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 16, 2011

In addition to the effects of these invasive species on ecosystems, there are also compelling humane and public safety arguments for restricting trade. There is a list of human victims of captive snakes, including a 2-year-old girl who was strangled in her crib by a pet Burmese python who had escaped from its enclosure.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2011

He has volunteered to kill a deer cruelly, ineptly and with an outdated weapon that causes additional suffering to the deer. Animals suffer when killed. 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.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 29, 2008

The degree of restriction placed on human behavior, furthermore, is relatively slight. Whereas it once used to be argued, as by Newman , that the least human good compensates for any possible amount of animal suffering, the current doctrine is that it requires a considerable good to compensate for such suffering.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 7, 2008

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. This, however, is precisely what factory farming does.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 30, 2011

Ross, The Right and the Good [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988], 137 [first published in 1930]) Note from KBJ: Since the concepts of desert and good or bad disposition do not apply to animals (who are not moral agents), their pleasure is intrinsically good and their pain intrinsically bad.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 25, 2008

"The French have already discovered," Bentham wrote, "that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. " but "Can they suffer?" It is enough that they are capable of suffering.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 22, 2008

Common-sense, rational reforms reflect the emerging consensus of mainstream animal protection groups like the Humane Society of the United States and millions of Americans who care about animals. Our findings follow many other studies demonstrating mental anguish in traumatized animals.

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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. Indeed, doesn't it entrench the idea that they are resources for human use? Imagine arguing not that human chattel slavery ought to be abolished, but that it ought to be reformed so as to inflict less suffering on the slaves.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 25, 2008

And by this they mean not only that it is wrong to enjoy torturing animals—which few moralists would ever have wished explicitly to deny, however little emphasis they might have placed on cruelty to animals in their moral teaching—but that it is wrong to cause them to suffer unnecessarily. Controversies no doubt remain.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

The case for ethical vegetarianism starts with several uncontroversial premises. Virtually everyone agrees that: (1) It is wrong to cause a conscious sentient animal to suffer for no good reason. Cohen, The Animal Rights Debate , p. Most people hold that it is wrong to cause animals unnecessary suffering.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 28, 2010

This last implies of course an improvement in ethics, as opposed to morality, as I have defined it, unless we already understand 'Do as you would be done by' as applicable to whales, cattle, chickens, and so on, as it is to human beings.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

To the Editor: Re “ Humanity Even for Nonhumans ,” by Nicholas D. Animals raised for food suffer miserably. April 9, 2009 To the Editor: In making the personal decision of where to place ourselves in our ethical relationship with animals, it is important to evaluate the reality of our words.

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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

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.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 7, 2008

What have humane people to say to the tremendous mass of animal suffering inflicted in the interests of the Table?

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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.

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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

MAY 24, 2009

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

MARCH 5, 2007

To the Editor: The euthanasia of more than 1,000 dogs and cats at the main animal shelter in Las Vegas is surely a major tragedy in the sheltering field (news article , Feb. 16), and the rapid spread of diseases at a facility packed with 1,800 animals required swift action to prevent even more suffering and loss of life.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 14, 2007

Notice that the author is not opposed to the use of nonhuman animals as resources for human consumption. She simply wants to minimize their suffering before they are killed (painlessly?) Notice that we (including, I assume, the author) would never allow such treatment of a human being. I can't imagine what it is.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 23, 2009

When it is asked whether animals have rights, and whether human beings have duties to them, the question, I think, is partly moral and partly verbal. It is this latter view, I believe, that is in the minds of some of those who deny that animals have rights. Let us consider the moral question first.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

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. 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?

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 27, 2011

What is the optimal temperature for the alleviation of suffering, for both humans and sentient nonhuman animals? How many different species of animal or plant would there be if the globe warmed, as opposed to how many there are today? What is the optimal temperature for food production?

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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

MARCH 8, 2009

But keep in mind that many lactovo vegetarians care about how animal products are produced, not just the fact that they are animal products. These people abstain from eggs and dairy products the production of which involves suffering for the animals. The same would be true of Martin’s hypothetical animal legs.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 21, 2010

To the Editor: In your July 12 editorial “ A Humane Egg ,” you disparage the modern, sanitary housing systems for egg-laying hens, which have improved chickens’ health and well-being, improved consumer food safety and kept eggs a nutritious and economical staple on kitchen tables and restaurant menus nationwide.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 24, 2007

14): To the animals being slaughtered, it does not matter whether their killers are local or whether they will be eaten or displayed on a wall. Their suffering is the same. It’s time to stop pandering to hunters and the gun lobby and turn to humane measures to control the deer population and outlaw this barbaric pastime.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 11, 2007

Animals as well as humans can suffer pain, deprivation, and unwanted death. An exception for vegetables is thus consistent with the categorical imperative; an exception for humans with respect to eating animals is not. Vegetables cannot.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 4, 2008

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

AUGUST 22, 2007

Though it may be too late for too many, we can only hope that diseased animals are not left in pain but are humanely euthanized to end their suffering. In 2005, a survey commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare showed that the Chinese are similar to Americans in their concern for animals.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 28, 2008

From this perspective, the animal-rights debate seems considerably less urgent and a relatively "safe" area of controversy. One wonders why here (as elsewhere) there is so much concern for the plight of animals and evidently so little for that of humans.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 31, 2007

Just days before Barbaro was humanely put down, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act was reintroduced in Congress. In an incredible juxtaposition to the fanfare of Barbaro, more than 100,000 horses were slaughtered last year in the United States and shipped to Europe and Japan for human consumption.

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