10,000 Birds
MAY 6, 2011
With those caveats in mind, I took up Dale Peterson’s The Moral Lives of Animals with hope and not a little trepidation. After all, the behaviors we know as “morals&# do make it much easier to live in the groups we humans find ourselves in, and have been forced to adapt as the kinds of groups we live in change.
Animal Ethics
AUGUST 21, 2009
For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. Suppose that tomorrow a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth, beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals. It is wrong for superior aliens to eat humans.
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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. It is argued that beef cattle and hogs are protein factories in reserve.
Animal Person
JULY 3, 2009
" Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals ," By Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce, is the most recent (for me) book that debunks myths about the differences between human and nonhuman animals. Also, Bekoff and Pierce present a descriptive view, not a normative view of morality. There are no judgments.
Animal Ethics
AUGUST 19, 2009
I assumed that Hume was right in thinking that ultimately morality depends on how we feel about things. In advocating utilitarianism to a group of people I therefore had to express my feelings and appeal to their feelings. I described the feelings to which I wished to appeal as "generalized benevolence."
Animal Person
APRIL 1, 2010
Here are some of the my favorite quotes: In reality, species don't evolve toward greater humanness but toward greater adaptiveness in their ecological niche (105). No living group of nonhuman animals--no existing species of invertebrate, fish, amphibian, reptile, bird or nonhuman mammal--is ancestral to humans.
Animal Person
NOVEMBER 18, 2009
Both animal rights groups and animal welfare groups use "compassion" frequently. Furthermore, there's the notion that though you're not for violence, you recognize that the most significant vehicle for the liberation of nonhuman animals, just like the liberation of human animals, probably isn't going to be a petition.
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