Critter News

APRIL 24, 2009

We've argued in previous posts that factory farming is simply not conducive to animal welfare. Better conditions for animals hurt the bottom line. Animal welfare is a cost of doing business, not a moral obligation. The pig industry, says Dr MacDougald, is marked by generally poor production and financial analysis.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 9, 2009

A third of a century ago, when the modern animal-liberation movement was in its infancy, Martin published an essay entitled “A Critique of Moral Vegetarianism,” Reason Papers (fall 1976): 13-43. You will, therefore, agree with Martin about moral vegetarianism but not about Christianity. One is health.

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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. One might assume—although again this assumption may not be jusitified [sic]—that Mr. One might assume—although again this assumption may not be jusitified [sic]—that Mr. Morse was using this consideration as a moral argument for vegetarianism.

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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 Person

JULY 26, 2009

There has to be something I can do to reduce all of the suffering of the animals we use as food, I thought. I mean, where do they get their morals from? Luckily, I think I've found a way to assuage my conscience about all of the suffering, environmental devastation and negative health impacts of eating animal products all day.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 24, 2015

Forty years ago, the suggestion that nonhuman animals have moral rights—indeed, many of the same rights as human beings—would have been met with incredulous stares, if not outright ridicule. Fast forward to the present. Other results from this Gallup poll can be found here.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 16, 2011

Hal Herzog’s “ Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat ” (Harper 2011), though fascinating, is ultimately depressing for vegans and animal rights activists. Over at Animal Rights and AntiOppression , we’ve been discussing tactics and sharing our thoughts and experiences about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to advocacy.

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Animal Person

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

There is a rational, and for some people a spiritual, case for being a vegetarian: Killing animals is wrong. If you eat meat you cannot logically find it morally or ethically repugnant to eat a particular meat (I’m setting cannibalism aside here.). product that comes from an animal ). product that comes from an animal ).

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

The problem of the unjust use of farm animals is large, growing, historical, institutionalized, governmentally encouraged, and fundamentally unregulated at either the state or federal level. Farm animals are treated essentially as raw materials. Instead it aids industry boards that exist solely to sell animal products.

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Animal Person

MARCH 9, 2010

A handful Animal Person readers since May of 2006, when I started this then-daily blog, have asked me if I've read Joan Dunayer. And now that I've read Animal Equality and begun Speciesism , I think I know why. Dunayer devotes a chapter each to the language used in hunting, zoos, "marine parks," vivisection and "animal agriculture."

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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 Person

JULY 22, 2009

Kelly wondered whether the term "vegan" is " worth fighting for " given the latest trend of seemingly oxymoronish (waiting for that one to hit Webster's) terminology from the mouths of people who want to find a way to use animals, yet make it appear that they're not. Before 6pm, he doesn't eat animals. Is vegan a diet ?

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Animal Person

APRIL 30, 2009

Thanks to Adam at AbolitionistVegans.org for: Win Free Vegan Products at AbolitionistVegans.org During the next few weeks, we will be watching activity in the forum and in the comments on the front page to select users as recipients for several vegan products to be shipped out by the vendors for food, fashion, and household items.

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Animal Person

MAY 30, 2009

Bea directed me to an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Parker , the "chair man " (my emphasis) of the Animal Agriculture Alliance at CattleNetwork, which apparently is "The Source for Cattle News." If any "drastic measures" are employed, they are to remove animals from suffering, not to impose our dietary choices on others.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2013

My only hint that this program — actually a Fuji TV production rebroadcast by the Canadians — was based on literature was the theme song, which promised “the stories you’ve read about all come to life.” Children’s programming concocted by educators instead of marketers was ok, and so were nature programs.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 30, 2012

The legal rights of nonhuman animals might first be achieved in any of three ways. For example, the Treaty of Amsterdam that came into force on May 1, 1999, formally acknowledged that nonhuman animals are “sentient beings” and not merely goods or agricultural products. Wise , “ The Evolution of Animal Law Since 1950 ,” chap.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

There are two approaches a vegetarian might take in arguing that rearing and killing animals for food is morally offensive. He might argue that eating animals is morally bad because of the pain inflicted on animals in rearing and killing them to be eaten. Nor could he object to the painless killing of wild animals.

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 17, 2014

Now, in 21st century America, we’re entertaining new considerations, in keeping with our modern understanding of wild animals and conservation. A new willingness among scientists to consider certain moral and ethical implications with respect to wild animals, where previously utilitarian ideas prevailed, including ideas of intrinsic value.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

I think it is safe to say that yes, an intelligent animal is unhappy, even downright miserable, being confined to a crate two by seven feet for months on end. I served on the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which released a report in 2008 that detailed exactly how much these “efficiencies” are costing America.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 7, 2008

This is a moral principle, and states that 'the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being'. According to Singer , the principle of the equal consideration of interests 'requires us to be vegetarians'.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

A column entitled "Ag Industry Threatened by Animal Rights" appeared in today's High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal [ HPMAJ ]. The column, which you can read here , is a call to arms to factory farmers to fight back against those individuals and organizations working to protect farm animals from the abuses inherent in factory farms.

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Animal Person

JUNE 27, 2009

.: One message is that there's nothing wrong with eating animals, and in fact it's fantastic and thrilling and a win-win-win (people-planet-profits) when you eat animals that were "produced" by Polyface Farms. We eat animals, and the CAFO system is an evil, filthy, cruel one, but it doesn't have to be that way.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 5, 2007

To the Editor: “ A Factory Farm Near You ” (editorial, July 31) does not mention any issue of the morality of factory farming—treating living beings as factory products. Cruelty to animals on such a scale should be the centerpiece of any discussion on raising animals for food.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

The predicament in such a non-moral case will concern only the individual and a few associates. When the ultimate values concerned are moral ones, on the other hand, and more particularly altruistic ones, the case is different; for the individual in such a dilemma has all society on his conscience. It need not.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

To the Editor: Re “ Animal, Vegetable, Miserable ,” by Gary Steiner (Op-Ed, Nov. In fact, a whole lot of semi-vegans can do much more for animals than the tiny number of people who are willing to give up all animal products and scrupulously read labels. Go vegan, go vegetarian, go humane or just eat less meat.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Beyond the environmental impacts of meat production there is a basic ethical issue involved. So here is an even more modest proposal than roasting Fido: Try eating only what animals you are willing to kill with your own hands. Dogs were bred to be companion animals; pigs and cows are raised as food.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 14, 2007

Here is a New York Times op-ed column about pork production. Notice that the author is not opposed to the use of nonhuman animals as resources for human consumption. Are the lives of nonhuman animals less important, to them, than your life is to you? and their bodies dismembered and processed. I can't imagine what it is.

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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. One cannot produce eggs or dairy products on a large scale without the wholesale exploitation of animals.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2008

But this question of Butchery is not merely one of kindness or unkindness to animals, for by the very facts of the case it is a human question of no slight importance, affecting as it does the social and moral welfare of those more immediately concerned in it. Henry S.

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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. There is no doubt a good deal of truth in this last point as well, and we are here presented with a serious moral problem concerning the world food supply. One can only agree.

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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 Ethics

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I have had no other animal products (no beef, pork, lamb, or turkey, for example) since 1982. That depends on whether there are morally relevant differences between chickens and fish on the one hand and cows, pigs, and sheep on the other. (I Surely that counts for something, morally. I, for example, am a demi-vegetarian.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 21, 2007

To the Editor: I appreciate Nicolette Hahn Niman’s efforts in raising awareness about the conditions in which pigs are raised (“ Pig Out ,” Op-Ed, March 14), but I was struck by her comment that it is incumbent on us to ensure that animals have decent lives because we ask them to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. They don’t volunteer.

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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. It’s time that our tax dollars no longer finance the inhumane conditions—for workers and animals and the climate—of factory farms. To the Editor: Re “ A Farm Boy Reflects ” (column, July 31): Hats off to Nicholas D.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 23, 2007

It is not enough to simply cut animal products (or carbohydrates, or calories) out of one’s diet. Although vegans do not eat foods derived from animals, we do eat everything else—and enjoy a delicious array of high-nutrient foods, including grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits and herbs prepared in tantalizing combinations and textures.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. In fact, animals used for food do suffer a great deal. Now there is no doubt that the actual treatment of animals used for food is immoral, that animals are made to suffer needlessly. milk production.

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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. Finally, if you know someone who gravitates toward the philosophical issues around our use of animals, this is a good book. Ever, in fact. Not great, but good. But why does he say "vegetarian?"

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