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Review: The Moral Lives of Animals by Dale Peterson

10,000 Birds

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.

Morals 113
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Bernard E. Rollin on the Moral Status of Animals

Animal Ethics

Philosophers have shown that the standard reasons offered to exclude animals from the moral circle, and to justify not assessing our treatment of them by the same moral categories and machinery we use for assessing the treatment of humans, do not meet the test of moral relevance. 41 in A Companion to Bioethics , 2d ed.,

Morals 40
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NYT Opens the Door to the Humane Myth

Animal Person

In this morning's New York Times editorial " There Is No 'Humane' Execution ," we have an imperfect yet nevertheless baby step toward acknowledgment of the HumaneMyth. We went from an abolitionist angle--that executing people is morally wrong--to the death penalty needs to be repealed to eliminate problems during the execution.

Humane 100
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Moral Vegetarianism, Part 12 of 13

Animal Ethics

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Brutalization The previous argument was based on an alleged indirect effect on human beings of not eating meat. Conversely, vegetarianism, it is argued, tends to humanize people.

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Moral Vegetarianism, Part 10 of 13

Animal Ethics

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The implication is certainly that it would be inconsistent for us to think that it is morally permissible for us to eat nonhuman animals but wrong for superior aliens to eat us. It is wrong for superior aliens to eat humans.

Morals 40
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Moral Vegetarianism, Part 7 of 13

Animal Ethics

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Speciesism If there is some doubt whether the arguments from monkeys and from glass walls should be considered moral arguments, there can be no doubt about the moral import of the argument from speciesism.

Morals 40
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An Open Letter to Outdoor/Feral Cat Supporters

10,000 Birds

I look at the photo, and am enraged by how cruel and callous human beings can be. I look at these birds, and am enraged by how cruel and callous human beings can be. There is no moral ambiguity here. Cats are domestic animals highly susceptible to a host of diseases, many transmittable to humans.