Animal Ethics

APRIL 17, 2008

Should we legalize dog meat for human consumption? Saletan discusses some reader reactions to his first post on legalizing dog meat here. Should we be eating dog meat? For a discussion of the issue, see William Saletan’s recent post at the Human Nature Blog. What's next? Soylent green? What do you think?

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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 20, 2008

(Carruthers, The Animals Issue , p. 8) The argument for the immorality of eating meat continues with two additional, undeniable premises: (3) The animals that become that meat are killed. For more detailed descriptions of the conditions in which farm animals are raised, see here , here , and here.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 16, 2008

Here is a New York Times story about the cloning of animals for meat.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 5, 2016

Addendum: The argument seems to be as follows: It is inconsistent both (a) to eat meat and (b) to condemn (or mourn) the killing of Harambe; I condemn (or mourn) the killing of Harambe; therefore, I may no longer eat meat. Good leftist that he is, Peter Singer doesn't let a crisis go to waste.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

Here is proof (in case you needed it) that human beings will eat almost anything.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 23, 2007

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

JUNE 7, 2016

Further, did those who reacted so strongly to Harambe’s killing go home and serve meat to their children? The zoo, surely, carries responsibility for deficiencies in its enclosure. The hysteria of the crowd surely played a part in escalating an already frightening situation. This horrible incident has raised some tough questions indeed.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Kristof writes, by way of apology for his "hypocrisy," that he eats meat ("albeit with misgivings") and has "no compunctions about using mousetraps." Eating meat and using mousetraps are as different (morally speaking) as night and day. Eating meat cannot be so justified. Eating meat cannot be so justified.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 28, 2008

Someone sent a link to this blog post, which shows why economics is known as "the dismal science." It also lends credence to the dictum that economists know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 22, 2009

Here is a New York Times op-ed column by philosopher Gary Steiner.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 13, 2008

Here is a New York Times story about mixed couples, and no, I'm not talking about race, religion, or politics.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

(..)

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 8, 2007

Bob Smith sent a link to this. My first reaction was revulsion. But is it any more revolting than factory farming?

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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

OCTOBER 27, 2009

One of my students directed my attention to this news story.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

The Argument from Brutalization The previous argument was based on an alleged indirect effect on human beings of not eating meat. It is argued that the killing and eating of meat indirectly tends to brutalize people. People who do not eat meat tend to be less cruel and inhumane to persons than people who do eat meat.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

As examples, I would give the following: (1) abstaining from meat for the sake of the animals; (2) abstaining from meat for health reasons; (3) eating meat because one believes (with, say, Roger Scruton) that doing so redounds to the benefit of the animals themselves; (4) eating meat because one likes the taste.

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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. Plant-based diets significantly reduce one risk of these chronic degenerative diseases.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

But the vested interests are very strong, and consumers have become accustomed to artificially low prices for meat. When we understand that these prices require “torturing animals,” we will begin to change this system and also improve our diets. His new column offers hope for animals and help for people.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 8, 2011

To the Editor: Re “ Hooked on Meat ,” by Mark Bittman (column, June 2): The other day, I asked the manager of our local chain grocery store why we were offered only Peruvian asparagus in the springtime. Why do we eat so much meat? Remember when fresh, locally grown asparagus would come in? Why eat produce that has no flavor?

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

Given the people in the world who are hungry or even starving, we should not eat meat, since in eating meat we are, as it were, wasting grain that could be used to feed the hungry people of the world. Second, it seems to assume that not eating meat is the best way to conserve grain. None of these assumptions seems plausible.

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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

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

31) is simply wrong in suggesting that grass-fed beef produces less methane than feed-lot meat. It is the other way around, with grass-fed animals producing up to three times more methane. To replace factory-farmed meat without further tropical forest destruction is impossible.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 14, 2007

Here is a Wall Street Journal column about foie gras.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 24, 2009

Enough has now been said to show that the habit of flesh-eating, involving as it does the sacrifice of vast tracts of land to the grazing of cattle, and the consequent starving of agriculture, is far too costly to be justified, in the face of an extending civilisation, unless by a much clearer proof of its necessity than any which its advocates have (..)

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2013

According to the Wall Street Journal , vegetarians live longer than meat-eaters.'

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Niman gives us is to pay attention to the source of meat products and what our mothers always told us: clean your plate. To the Editor: The claims Nicolette Hahn Niman makes for how greenhouse gases might be reduced while still eating meat may very well be true, and I do not have the expertise to challenge them. The best advice Ms.

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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. Thus John Harris's reply to the Benthamite defence of meat-eating is quite simply: 'Those who use it are saying that they think more about their stomach than their morals, and so a moral argument will probably not affect them'.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 8, 2011

To the Editor: Mark Bittman wants to outlaw confined livestock feeding operations because, he says, they harm the environment, torture animals and make meat less safe (“ A Food Manifesto for the Future ,” column, Feb. It keeps animals safe and comfortable and protects them from predators and disease.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 11, 2008

Of course, the meat is more expensive since it takes lots of real estate to freely graze a herd, and it’s tougher than typical supermarket fare (Americans are used to a style of marbling that’s caused by grain diets and flabby cattle, whereas grass-fed cows are trim from their daily ambles). Andrew Rimas Evan D. Fraser Jamaica Plain, Mass.,

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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

JANUARY 21, 2009

Who Should Not Eat Meat, or What Does a Vegetarian Feed His Dog? Vegetarians certainly cannot think that only vegetarians have a prima facie duty not to eat animals or animal products. Does this mean that a vegetarian would have to feed his dog some meat substitute? Human beings can do without meat.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 4, 2009

(..)

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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

JANUARY 30, 2008

To the Editor: Re “ Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler ” (Week in Review, Jan. 27): Mark Bittman answered my prayers by writing an article exposing how the meat industry contributes to global warming, world hunger and other issues plaguing our world. 27, 2008 To the Editor: “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler” was misguided.

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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. Rather than eating dogs, we all ought to eat exclusively small-farmed, free-range meat.

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