Animal Ethics

MAY 4, 2008

The issue as to who or what may be a possessor of rights is not simply a matter of academic, conceptual interest. If, for instance, it is determined that gravely mentally defective human beings and monsters born of human parents are not the kinds of beings who may possess rights, this bears on how we may treat them.

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Animal Person

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Some go vegetarian first, then vegan. Then there's me, going vegetarian then vegan, and then eating filet mignon and salmon for a year before going vegan again, and my husband who went vegan overnight after being an omnivore for 38 years. But they too lead one to accept "ethical meat" as an option because their focus is on suffering.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

In other words, we become vegetarians, not through any decision of principle, but through being unable to bring ourselves to continue to dine upon the flesh of animals. What the vegetarian wants, surely, is that we should stop eating meat even if our liking for it exceeds our revulsion at the suffering endured on factory farms.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 16, 2011

Hal Herzog’s “ Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat ” (Harper 2011), though fascinating, is ultimately depressing for vegans and animal rights activists. Over at Animal Rights and AntiOppression , we’ve been discussing tactics and sharing our thoughts and experiences about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to advocacy.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 7, 2008

According to Singer , the principle of the equal consideration of interests 'requires us to be vegetarians'. Interests arise, Singer contends, from the capacity to feel pain, which he labels a 'prerequisite' for having interests at all; and animals can and do suffer, can and do feel pain.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2011

And I suspect that people become vegetarians for precisely that reason: that by doing so they overcome the residue of guilt that attaches to every form of hubris, and in particular to the hubris of human freedom. If meat-eating should ever become confined to those who do not care about animal suffering then compassionate farming would cease.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2011

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.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

22): Mr. Steiner might feel less lonely as an ethical vegan—he says he has just five vegan friends—if he recognized that he has allies in mere vegetarians (like me), ethical omnivores and even carnivores. Go vegan, go vegetarian, go humane or just eat less meat. Suffering and injustice are inherent in life, and time is short.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

I suspect that many regular readers of Animal Ethics are already vegetarians. That's because those who read Animal Ethics with regularity know that there are many compelling reasons to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 24, 2009

It seems, generally speaking, that the foods which are the costliest in suffering are also the costliest in price, whereas the wholesome and harmless diet to which Nature points us is at once the cheapest and most humane.

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Animal Person

MAY 30, 2009

If any "drastic measures" are employed, they are to remove animals from suffering, not to impose our dietary choices on others. Often confused with American Humane Association, they raise tens of millions, not to ‘save the animals’ as most people assume but to further the causes of vegetarianism and ending animal agriculture."

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2008

As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I found that it reinforced my feeling that the eating of living, thinking, emotional creatures is just plain wrong. Kristof’s thoughtful exploration of animal rights, I was astonished to read that he continues to eat animals, like geese and pigs, for which he obviously has such affection and respect.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

Animals raised for food suffer miserably. After time in the Marines, I veered strongly away from eating creatures, thinking of their suffering. In my 40s, I became a vegetarian because I was saving sick and injured birds, and I just couldn’t eat them and save them. That’s right, for me—but it may not be for others.

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Animal Person

JUNE 8, 2009

The tiresome Hitler was a well-known vegetarian comment is included in this segment, but I found it irksome long before that. He's right with his implication that stopping the seizing of pets and strays simply created a more efficient, effective means of commodifying and torturing dogs and cats. Part III: Pepper Goes to Washington.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 18, 2006

I simply believe that when animals are killed it ought to be for a good purpose, and in a manner that is respectful to their capacity to suffer. Also, I am not a vegetarian, though I attempted to be one last year (an experience I plan on posting about).

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 4, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. 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.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 6, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. KBJ: Martin is right that this is a moral argument. This argument of the vegetarian has a point. The vegetarian, to make his case, must draw a line—a morally relevant line—between the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom.

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Animal Person

OCTOBER 26, 2009

He always refers to himself and his wife and his child as "vegetarian." But why does he say "vegetarian?" That bothers me, as there's a significant difference in motivation for vegans and vegetarians and he sounds like one, yet calls himself the other. You never have to wonder if the fish on your plate had to suffer.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. Most moral vegetarians list fish and fowl as animals one should not eat. Vegan vegetarians who eat only vegetables, fruit, and nuts do not completely remove all microorganisms from their food, even with repeated cleaning. KBJ: Nothing.

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Animal Person

MARCH 29, 2009

There is a general consensus that vegetarianism and veganism are different philosophically. The underlying premise is that you can know what is right (such as me knowing what's right then eating cow flesh in the form of filet mignon for a year), but that by no means will necessarily manifest in your behavior. How about this?

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2008

Eat right. If you are already a vegetarian, make this the year that you decide to go vegan. What counts as eating right? By eating a low-fat vegan diet centered around whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, you will be eating right. Lose weight. Quit smoking. Exercise more. Drink less alcohol. Get out of debt.

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Animal Person

MARCH 18, 2010

Nobody stopped me" brings me to the parents, who were all omnivores (though there were two ex-vegetarians) and who were all thoroughly unaware of the language the children were using to refer to animals. We do that with cats and dogs already, right? That made sense to me for some reason and nobody stopped me.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

McWilliams insists that vegetarianism is "the most powerful political response we can make to industrialized food. He thinks we would rightly "frame the matter as a dire political issue." Such a dire political issue requires a political response.

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