Animal Ethics

JULY 14, 2012

Whether individuals have legal rights depends on the laws and other legal background (e.g., the United States) citizens meeting certain requirements have the legal right to vote or run for elected office; in other countries (e.g., Libya) citizens do not have these rights. First, moral rights, if there are any, are universal.

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Critter News

AUGUST 15, 2010

Last week there was a slew of articles about the agreement in Ohio between the farm industry and animal welfare activists to expand cage sizes for calves (veal), hens and pigs. This concession was to avoid a November ballot vote a la California's Proposition 2.

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Critter News

DECEMBER 19, 2011

I hope, when I reach their age, I'm as active and effective as Bob Barker and Betty White are in the animal rights movement. Legendary game show host Bob Barker says it will cost $200,000 to move three elephants from the Toronto Zoo to a California sanctuary, and he doesn't mind paying for it himself. Excerpted from CBC News.

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Critter News

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I used to support the bloodless bullfights held in California. But within the last year, an animal cruelty investigation almost shut one down because spikes were being used to antagonize the bull. This was a clear violation of animal law. Next time, though, I might want to hook up with an animal rights group to protest.

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Critter News

JANUARY 11, 2012

And, this happened in Fresno County which is in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Animal rights activists are behind the burning of cattle trucks at Harris Farms in western Fresno County early Sunday, according to a statement released by a clearinghouse for activists. I grew up there. Full story here at the Fresno Bee.

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Critter News

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

An animal rights group has called for a federal investigation into the death of an elephant at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The Northern California-based In Defense of Animals called for the Department of Agriculture, which does inspections of zoos, to investigate Umoya's death.

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Critter News

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Animal rights group Compassion Over Killing was the first to uncover the alleged systematic slaughter of healthy dairy cows in California. A Seattle law firm is taking on dairies, claiming that a price-fixing scheme has consumers paying too much for milk.

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Critter News

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

War has erupted between Toronto Zoo elephant keepers and the animal rights group helping to co-ordinate a move of three aging elephants to a California sanctuary. Excepted from the Toronto News.

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Critter News

APRIL 16, 2009

Here in Seattle, NARN (Northwest Animal Rights Network) has been staging protests at a local restaurant that serves foie gras. I guess small protests like NARN's seem futile when compared to the overwhelming issue of animal welfare, but you have to think that a number of small protests over time can have a large cumulative impact.

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Animal Person

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

This morning I posted " On California's Animal Abuse Registry Proposal " over at Animal Rights & AntiOppression and welcome any discussion about it.

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Critter News

JANUARY 25, 2012

To offset yesterday's crappy news about California, here's good news from the EU! Full article on Food Safety News. As of Jan.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 24, 2012

Because animals are sentient (i.e., can experience pleasure and pain) and because they not only have but can act on their preferences, any view that holds that pleasures or pains, or preference-satisfactions or frustrations matter morally is bound to seem attractive to those in search of the moral basis for the animal rights movement.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

All that the rights view prohibits is science that violates individual rights. There are also some things we cannot learn by using humans, if we respect their rights. The rights view merely requires moral consistency in this regard. ( If that means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it.

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Critter News

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

She's supposedly a vegetarian and is friends with Walk the Line co-star Joaquin Phoenix who is a huge animal rights activist and vegan. She knew it was an animal skin.and she spent $4,000 on it? I don't know what she's going to do with it, but at least she'll stop carrying it. I still don't understand what she was doing.

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Critter News

DECEMBER 20, 2008

Robyn Shelby, a law student from California, has been volunteering at the temple for seven months and told ABC News, "I haven't seen anything that I don't agree with, and I am very big on animal rights. {accuses} the temple of illegally trafficking and mistreating the tigers, allegations that the temple emphatically denies.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 24, 2012

With regard to wild animals, the general policy recommended by the rights view is: let them be! Tom Regan , The Case for Animal Rights , updated with a new preface [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004], 361 [italics in original] [first edition published in 1983])

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 15, 2012

The rights view is not opposed to efforts to save endangered species. If people are encouraged to believe that the harm done to animals matters morally only when these animals belong to endangered species, then these same people will be encouraged to regard the harm done to other animals as morally acceptable.

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Animal Person

NOVEMBER 21, 2010

if we believe it's our right to do what we want with the lives of other animals. . . . Tags: Activism Books Current Affairs Ethics Language 100 Heartbeats animal rights Jeff Corwin veganism. But again, he's a conservationist, so none of this is a surprise.

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Critter News

FEBRUARY 26, 2009

This short article reports that Vancouver, BC is considering a measure similar to Prop 2 in California, but there are concerns amongst advocates of the poor. Hetty Alcuitas, a volunteer with Grassroots Women, said she sympathizes with the environmental and animal-rights arguments against caged chickens.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 28, 2012

With the argument of the present chapter serving as the backdrop, the conclusion we reach is that to deny consciousness or a mental life to mammalian animals is an expression of human chauvinism. (

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 27, 2012

On Kant's view, rational beings, by which he means moral agents, are ends in themselves (have, that is, independent value, or worth, in their own right, quite apart from how useful they happen to be to others). As such, no moral agent is ever to be treated merely as a means. Moral agents (rational beings) are ends in themselves. (

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Animal Person

AUGUST 10, 2010

Families, so the commercials go, don't engage in untoward aspects of animal husbandry that might hurt the cows. The cows are walking around green fields, similar to those in the criminally misleading California cows commercials. Families are just as capable of horrendous policies toward animals as anyone else.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 12, 2010

A Humane Egg The life of animals raised in confinement on industrial farms is slowly improving, thanks to pressure from consumers, animal rights advocates, farmers and legislators. In California last week, Gov. This requirement would at least relieve the worst of the production horrors that are common in the industry now.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 12, 2012

Quite the contrary, just as would be true in the case of my son, what we should say is that part of the harm done to these animals by factory farming is that they do not know this. (

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Animal Ethics

JULY 8, 2012

Tom Regan , The Case for Animal Rights , updated with a new preface [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004], 197-8 [italics in original; endnote omitted] [first edition published in 1983]) Cruelty is manifested in different ways.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 2, 2007

As you know, the Animal Legal Defense Fund is committed to protecting the lives of animals everywhere. But you may not know that we have filed a lawsuit against Mendes Calf Ranch for its violation of California animal cruelty laws. Video footage here.)

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

Kristof, who takes note of the trend represented by the animal welfare proposition on the ballot in California this fall. 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? Government animal rights regulations may help.

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