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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the Moral Status of Animals

Animal Ethics

One restriction on the absolutism of man's rule over Nature is now generally accepted: moral philosophers and public opinion agree that it is morally impermissible to be cruel to animals. That, on the whole, is the Christian tradition. Controversies no doubt remain.

Morals 40
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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

To the Editor: In “ Hunting Deer With My Flintlock ” (Op-Ed, Dec. He has volunteered to kill a deer cruelly, ineptly and with an outdated weapon that causes additional suffering to the deer. He says he hunts out of a need to take responsibility for his family, who evidently live where the supermarkets offer no meat.

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On ANIMAL EQUALITY, by Joan Dunayer

Animal Person

Dunayer devotes a chapter each to the language used in hunting, zoos, "marine parks," vivisection and "animal agriculture." Field & Stream executive editor David Petzal defines fair chase as 'stalking an animal on its own terms.' An animal's own terms are 'Don't hunt me'" (49). "At Overly generous inclusion?

Animal 100
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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the History of Animal Cruelty

Animal Ethics

Once a definite social movement got under way in the West with its objective the restricting of man's treatment of animals, it moved with relative rapidity. Moral philosophers began to regard it as an obvious truth that it is wrong to treat animals cruelly.

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H. B. Acton (1908-1974) on Animal Rights

Animal Ethics

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. Let us consider the moral question first. Similar considerations, I suggest, apply when we ask whether it is proper to say that animals have moral rights.

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Prima Facie vs. Ultima Facie Wrongness

Animal Ethics

He thinks that the treatment of animals in factory farms is morally unjustifiable, and yet, he continues to support those practices financially by purchasing and eating meat and animal products. It goes something like this: Yes, I agree that factory farming is morally unjustifiable and ought to be abolished.