Animal Ethics

JANUARY 24, 2007

Most people are shocked and appalled when they first read descriptions of factory farming and learn about the horribly inhumane conditions in which the billions of animals destined for dinner tables are raised, and they are even more appalled when they first see documentary footage of the institutional cruelties inherent in factory farming.

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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

MARCH 8, 2009

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 a genetically engineered animal’s legs periodically fell off, would not its legs be more like a product of an animal (analogous to eggs) than a part of the animal?

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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

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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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

MAY 23, 2007

To the Editor: Re “ Death by Veganism ,” by Nina Planck (Op-Ed, May 21): I am a nutritionist who testified as an expert witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of the parents of Crown Shakur. As the lead prosecutor in this case told the jury, this poor infant was not killed by a vegan diet. Contrary to Ms.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

In fact, animals used for food do suffer a great deal. Not only are they killed in cruel ways, but it is well documented that they are raised in ways that cause them great discomfort and agony. Now there is no doubt that the actual treatment of animals used for food is immoral, that animals are made to suffer needlessly.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2009

Who exactly is not supposed to eat animals or products of animals? This problem is especially acute with respect to carnivorous animals. What animals is it morally wrong to eat? If animals could be created by genetic engineering, could they be created so that there were no moral objections to eating them?

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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 truly is horrific and despicable to treat animals so badly. All that follows from that assumption is that it is morally permissible to eat some meat.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

But the method she advocates for reaching those goals—raising grass-eating, pasture-foraging farm animals—would appear to be notoriously difficult to reproduce on a scale large enough to harvest enough meat, at a reasonable cost, for all the people wanting to eat meat in this country, let alone the world. Lois Bloom Easton, Conn.,

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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. First, I will raise some questions that usually are not asked, let alone answered, by moral vegetarians.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

Most moral vegetarians list fish and fowl as animals one should not eat. Vegan vegetarians who eat only vegetables, fruit, and nuts do not completely remove all microorganisms from their food, even with repeated cleaning. First, it may be argued that only animals who can feel pain are not to be eaten. What is forbidden meat?

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