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J. Baird Callicott on Factory Farms

Animal Ethics

From the perspective of the land ethic, the immoral aspect of the factory farm has to do far less with the suffering and killing of nonhuman animals than with the monstrous transformation of living things from an organic to a mechanical mode of being. They have become, in Ruth Harrison 's most apt description, "animal machines."

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Moral Vegetarianism, Part 3 of 13

Animal Ethics

The ability to feel pain is not an obviously plausible way of morally distinguishing microorganisms from other organisms. Scientific research and expertise are needed here. The question can be raised: Why should these organisms be killed and others not be killed? Why wouldn’t they? KBJ: I agree that this is a factual question.

Morals 40