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On "Wild Justice"

Animal Person

" 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.

Morals 100
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On "The Wild"

Animal Person

The animals on farms are created for the sole purpose of human consumption. And their lives of exploitation, torment, torture and slaughter cannot be compared to an animal's life in the wild. Finally, people who object to our moral stance jump species and say we should object to the lion killing the gazelle.

Gazelles 100
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Hal Herzog's "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat"

Animal Person

Well, as it turns out neither a trip to a slaughterhouse nor killing an animal yourself is powerful enough to make people go vegan. The bottom line is that there are many reasons why human-animal interactions are so often inconsistent and paradoxical. He watched cockfighting and killed and skinned animals, but won’t eat veal.

Vegan 100
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SPECIESISM, by Joan Dunayer, Part Deux

Animal Person

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.

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On "Compassion," "Nonviolence" and "Justice"

Animal Person

Being vegan because you want to live as nonviolently as possible and you don't want to contribute to violence and you don't want to respond to violence with violence is admirable to some, though refusing to support the defense of sentient nonhumans when you probably would if they were humans bothers me. Or vegan pumpkin pie.

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Philip E. Devine on the Overflow Principle

Animal Ethics

I propose that the moral significance of the suffering, mutilation, and death of non-human animals rests on the following, which may be called the overflow principle: Act towards that which, while not itself a person, is closely associated with personhood in a way coherent with an attitude of respect for persons.

Morals 40
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Robert Young on Killing Animals

Animal Ethics

Does my proposal as to what makes killing another human being generally a major moral wrong in any way help us with deciding what, if anything, is wrong with killing non-human animals and foetuses? Systematic cullings in the absence of feasible alternatives, therefore, may be morally permissible.

Killing 40