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Tom Regan on Cruelty

Animal Ethics

The central case of cruelty appears to be the case where, in Locke's apt phrase, one takes "a seeming kind of Pleasure" in causing another to suffer. Some cruel people do not feel pleasure in making others suffer. For example, a woman is not cruel if she occasionally fails to feed her cat. Let us term this sadistic cruelty.

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Meat, Cancer, and the Cumulative Case for Ethical Vegetarianism

Animal Ethics

Virtually everyone agrees that: (1) It is wrong to cause a conscious sentient animal to suffer for no good reason. Causing an animal to suffer for no good reason is cruel, and our ordinary commonsense morality tells us in no uncertain terms that cruelty is wrong. Most people hold that it is wrong to cause animals unnecessary suffering.

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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

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 Advocates' Successes Have Factory Farmers Running Scared

Animal Ethics

The dark secret behind factory farm profits—cruel and inhumane animal husbandry—is getting out. Factory farmers treat animals inhumanely for no good reason. Since morally decent individuals oppose treating animals inhumanely for no good reason, factory farming is becoming an increasingly hard sell.

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Moral Vegetarianism, Part 8 of 13

Animal Ethics

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. KBJ: Singer’s claim is that one should not contribute, even incrementally, to animal suffering.

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Prima Facie vs. Ultima Facie Wrongness

Animal Ethics

He clearly thinks that it is wrong to cause animals to suffer unnecessarily, but he appears to be somewhat ambivalent about killing animals (provided the killing is carried out humanely). are raised in cruel, inhumane factory farms. Over 95% of all animals raised for food in the U.S.