Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

The film Partitions (running time: 14 min) by Audrey Kali gives an intimate glimpse of the ethical struggles that five small-scale meat farmers face when their animals are slaughtered. In this film, we see farmers interacting with the animals they will eventually transform into food (chickens, pigs and cattle).

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

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.” For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

Animals raised for food suffer miserably. The overwhelming passage in November of Proposition 2 in California, which banned tight confinement of many of the animals raised for food, is a fine example of the power of publicity to educate people about the atrocities we commit to those animals who have no voice of their own.

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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. And thanks to federal corn and soybean subsidies, factory farms saved an estimated $3.9 To the Editor: Re “ A Farm Boy Reflects ” (column, July 31): Hats off to Nicholas D.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

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. It is argued that beef cattle and hogs are protein factories in reserve. The eating of non-grain-eating animals, e.g., fish and wild game, is morally permissible on this view.

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Animal Person

OCTOBER 26, 2009

I immensely enjoyed "EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED" (even on the big screen) and eagerly anticipated "EATING ANIMALS" by Jonathan Safran Foer. The good news is that if you know someone who needs to be schooled on all of the sordid details of factory farming, and appreciates good writing, this is a great book. Ever, in fact.

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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. Virtually everyone agrees that: (1) It is wrong to cause a conscious sentient animal to suffer for no good reason. Animal abuse is a crime in all fifty states, and rightly so.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 10, 2010

Buying dairy products supports them. That doesn't mean that 99% of dairy products are from family farms , as the average number of cows on each family farm is just over 100. Families, so the commercials go, don't engage in untoward aspects of animal husbandry that might hurt the cows. The cows' tails swing in the breeze.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

But there is a net loss in all meat production, not just of farmed fish or feeding fish to land animals being raised for food. Feeding grain to chickens, pigs and cows is even more inefficient, with 70 percent of grain grown in the United States going to animals raised for food. Danielle Kichler Washington, Nov. 11, 2008

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 25, 2008

Even “factory” agriculture has its limits. And it is not just at the slaughterhouses but at the factory farms where these animals are tortured from the very beginning of their lives to the horrible end. What we do to animals shows how we feel about other species. Peters Paso Robles, Calif., Bertha Rogers Delhi, N.Y.,

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 23, 2006

Jonathan Hubbell, a philosophy major at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the newest member of the Animal Ethics blog, and once again, I would like to welcome him aboard. It goes something like this: Yes, I agree that factory farming is morally unjustifiable and ought to be abolished.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 3, 2009

Bea directed me to the Animal Welfare Special Report at TheHill.com , in which Rep. David Scott (D-Ga), who is the chairman of the Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture draws a line in the sand regarding the animals we use and how we use them. Translation? Let the games begin.

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