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R. G. Frey on Animal Suffering

Animal Ethics

My view, then, is not that which it has often been taken to be in discussion and which Singer, Regan, Clark, and others blast in their work; I am not suggesting that, because they lack language, animals can be factory farmed without suffering. Animals can suffer, which they could not unless they were conscious; so they are conscious.

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Moral Vegetarianism, Part 1 of 13

Animal Ethics

He is the author of several books, including Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990) and The Case Against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991). You will, therefore, agree with Martin about moral vegetarianism but not about Christianity. One is health.

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Tom Regan on Utilitarianism

Animal Ethics

The initial attractiveness of utilitarianism as a moral theory on which to rest the call for the better treatment of animals was noted in an earlier context. Because animals are sentient (i.e., Because animals are sentient (i.e., But utilitarianism is not the theory its initial reception by the animal rights movement may have suggested.

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R. G. Frey on the Principle of the Equal Consideration of Interests

Animal Ethics

This is a moral principle, and states that 'the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being'. This, however, is precisely what factory farming does.

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R. G. Frey on Feeling and Principle

Animal Ethics

If our liking for meat is in fact more intense than our revulsion at the suffering endured on factory farms, then we are going to remain meat-eaters, with the result that, if the vegetarian has grounded his case in an appeal to our feelings, then that case is in jeopardy.

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Plant Rights

Animal Ethics

If Smith thinks that plant rights and animal rights stand or fall together, then he is confused, for there is a morally relevant difference between plants and animals, namely, that only the latter are sentient. Animal rights ideology holds that moral worth comes with sentience or the ability to suffer.

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Julian H. Franklin on Animals and Plants

Animal Ethics

Animals as well as humans can suffer pain, deprivation, and unwanted death. Franklin, Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy [New York: Columbia University Press, 2005], 45 [endnote omitted]) Vegetables cannot. Hence there is a very fundamental and relevant sense in which we cannot harm a vegetable.