Animal Ethics

APRIL 11, 2008

," Andrew Revkin explores the brave new world of growing meat cultures in vitro as a more humane and possibly more environmentally friendly way of producing meat. In his post, Revkin cites Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University. First of all, people can change. metric tons per year?

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Animal Ethics

JULY 7, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. 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. The subject is a large and controversial one.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

What the utilitarian who defends human carnivorousness must say, then, is something like this: that the amount of pleasure which humans derive per pound of animal flesh exceeds the amount of discomfort and pain per pound which are inflicted on the animals in the process, all things taken into account. Is this plausible?

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 8, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. What Is an Animal Part? The last example suggests the difficulty of making a clear distinction between an animal part and an animal product. If so, the lactovo vegetarian should have no qualms about someone’s eating such legs.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Human Grain Shortage All of the clearly moral arguments for vegetarianism given so far have been in terms of animal rights and suffering. Nobody wants existing animals to be slaughtered.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Glass-Walled Slaughter Houses Mel Morse, former president of the Humane Society of the United States, once remarked: “If every one of our slaughter houses were constructed of glass this would be a nation of vegetarians.”

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 21, 2008

From the ecological point of view, for human beings universally to become vegetarians is tantamount to a shift of trophic niche from omnivore with carnivorous preferences to herbivore. The human population would probably, as past trends overwhelmingly suggest, expand in accordance with the potential thus afforded.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 27, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. ARGUMENTS FOR MORAL VEGETARIANISM A variety of arguments have been given for vegetarianism. I outline two arguments of this sort in what follows in order to illustrate some of the difficulties in evaluating moral vegetarianism.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

But what of the many individual failures, it is asked, among those who make trial of Vegetarianism? The doctor looks wise, shakes his head, and informs a sorrowing circle that it is the direct result of "his vegetarianism." Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 114-5)

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Ethical vegetarianism is the thesis that killing and eating animals is morally wrong whenever equally nutritious plant-based alternatives are available. The case for ethical vegetarianism starts with several uncontroversial premises. It is not just a few outspoken animal rights fanatics who hold this view.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2008

Modern livestock farming on a grand scale also wastes a colossal amount of feed grains on animals which, in times past, would simply have fed off the land. But even this fails to establish a case for vegetarianism. Michael Fox , "'Animal Liberation': A Critique," Ethics 88 [January 1978]: 106-18, at 116-7)

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2007

The author, Daniel Lazare, is hostile to vegetarianism. Why is it that so many progressives think it's silly to accord moral status to animals? In fact, as anyone with any sense knows, it destroys human life, depriving fetuses of activities, experiences, projects, and enjoyments.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 17, 2008

The plea that animals might be killed painlessly is a very common one with flesh-eaters, but it must be pointed out that what-might-be can afford no exemption from moral responsibility for what-is. Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 51-2 [italics in original])

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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. a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2008

It cannot be too strongly stated that the appeal of Vegetarianism, as of all humane systems, is not to heart alone, nor to brain alone, but to brain and heart combined, and if its claims fail to win this double judgment they are necessarily void and invalid.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 3, 2008

In setting out to write this paper, my intention was to fill a gap in my book Animal Liberation. There I argued that the interests of animals ought to be considered equally with our own interests and that from this equality it follows that we ought to become vegetarian.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 18, 2007

Since a number of "Animal Ethics" readers reside in the northern Illinois area, I thought I would call your attention to an exciting lecture that is taking place on Northern Illinois University's campus. She specializes in Environmental Ethics, Human-Animal Ethics, and Moral Psychology. Jenni, Ph.D.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2011

A great number of animals owe their lives to our intention to eat them. If we value animal life and animal comfort, therefore, we should endorse our carnivorous habits, provided it really is life , and not living death, on which those habits feed.

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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. Similarly, important conclusions follow from the question as to whether animals have rights.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 7, 2010

And here we see the inevitable logic of Vegetarianism, if our belief in the Rights of Animals is ever to quit the stage of theory and enter the stage of fact; for just as there can be no human rights where there is slavery, so there can be no animal rights where there is eating of flesh. "To

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 31, 2009

The only real cure for the evil is the growing sense that the lower animals are closely akin to us, and have Rights. Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 109-10 [italics in original])

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

To the Editor: Re “ Animal, Vegetable, Miserable ,” by Gary Steiner (Op-Ed, Nov. 22): Mr. Steiner might feel less lonely as an ethical vegan—he says he has just five vegan friends—if he recognized that he has allies in mere vegetarians (like me), ethical omnivores and even carnivores. Jean Kazez Dallas, Nov.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 24, 2008

Before leaving this question of "consistency," as affected by the gradations of our duty of humaneness to animals, a few words may be said on the practice of fish-eating. Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 57-8 [italics in original])

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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.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 14, 2009

I foresee a day, perhaps not far in the future, in which it is illegal to raise cows, pigs, and other animals for food. The ground for this will not be animal welfare, as you might expect, but environmentalism. The natural environment, unlike individual animals, is inanimate, unconscious, and insentient.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 14, 2009

To the so-called ethical, no less than to the political school of thought, the question of Vegetarianism is unwelcome, obtruding as it does on the polite wordiness of academic discussion with an issue so coarsely downright: "You are a member of an Ethical Society—do you live by butchery?" Can you say "cognitive dissonance"?

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Animal Ethics

JULY 12, 2010

Does Vegetarianism progress? Revolution in personal habits, be it remembered, is even more difficult than revolution in political forms, and needs a greater time for its fulfilment; and looked at in this light, Vegetarianism has made as much progress, during the past half-century, as any other cause which aims at so far-reaching a change.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 18, 2008

Humans, and most animals, produce cholesterol naturally, but the problem is when we “supplement” this biologically occurring substance. Cholesterol is found only in foods derived from animals, like meat, cheese and eggs. That is when I went vegetarian. My cholesterol levels have always made my doctors happy.

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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. For a vegetarian to employ a deontological stop against those who defend the eating of meat would be to guarantee that vegetarian views will remain, and deserve to remain, the exclusive property of a sect.

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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? Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 42 [italics in original])

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 7, 2008

According to Singer , the principle of the equal consideration of interests 'requires us to be vegetarians'. 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.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

Animal rights is neither progressive nor conservative. Think of all the progressives— Michael Moore , for example—who either eat meat or go out of their way to ridicule vegetarians. Many progressives care only about human beings. Many conservatives care about animals as well as human beings.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2007

22): The solution to scarcity of water in the United States could be solved rather quickly if more people became vegetarians. Just think of the savings in water use if we didn’t have the need to raise millions of animals for human consumption! Christy (Op-Ed, Sept. Roy Esiason Granville, N.Y., 22, 2007

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 18, 2006

My personal perspective regarding Animal Ethics is not fully formed, which is one of the reasons why Keith and I felt it would be a good idea for me to post on here. I have always felt a sense of connection to animals since as far back as I can remember, and the current manner in which they are treated in factory farms disturbs me.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 19, 2011

To the Editor: Re “ Egg Producers and Humane Society Urging Federal Standard on Hen Cages ” (Business Day, July 8): I’m a vegetarian who turned vegan after coming to terms with the fact that just because I was eating hormone-free, antibiotic-free, even free-range organic eggs didn’t mean that egg-producing hens were living a cruelty-free life.

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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. Laura Frisk Encinitas, Calif.,

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 30, 2009

Many of these antibiotics are routinely added to the feed of healthy animals to promote rapid weight gain. Department of Agriculture have all declared drug-resistant diseases stemming from antibiotic use in animals a "serious emerging concern." Slaughter’s bill banning the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed.

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