Animal Ethics
JULY 28, 2008
To the Editor: Re “ Mustangs Stir a Debate on Thinning the Herd ” (front page, July 20): The Bureau of Land Management is charged with protecting wild horses and burros on the Western rangelands. Faced with budgetary constraints, however, it might put to death some of the 30,000 horses it is holding—a herd as big as the community of free horses still roaming the West.
Animal Ethics
JULY 24, 2008
I see skunks ( Mephitis mephitis ) on a regular basis—usually in the evening—during my walks with Shelbie. I worry not only about her being sprayed (which has happened a couple of times), but about her being bitten. There have been reports recently of rabid skunks in this area. While Shelbie has had a rabies vaccine, it's best not to take a chance. Tonight, as darkness fell, I saw a large black object moving slowly across the meadow about 75 yards in front of me.
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Animal Ethics
JULY 23, 2008
Hi Keith, My name is Evelyn and I'm a big fan of Animal Ethics, reading it regularly, I enjoy your posts and share your love for animals. I'm writing a blog about animal rights and have linked back to you here. I would really appreciate if you could link to my blog or exchange blogrolls links with me, so more people would reach our blogs ;-) I will also be honored if you would let me post a guest post on your blog or vice versa.
Animal Ethics
JULY 21, 2008
Yet, in the case of domesticated animals especially, many people, particularly lonely people, regard (and often want to regard) their pet as a kind of lesser human being, with a less rich but still plentiful mental life which explains why their cat or dog behaves as it does. Their pet loves them, they often say, and tries to be faithful to them, and they in turn try not to hurt its feelings (for example, by leaving it alone or ignoring it) and to return this deep affection.
Animal Ethics
JULY 22, 2008
I continue to receive—and to reject—comments from people who don't use their full names. Unless I see a full name, I delete the comment without reading it. I don't understand the impulse to write anonymously. Imagine Peter Singer sending a note to Tom Regan anonymously. The very idea is absurd. Singer and Regan are adults. Each is able and willing to defend his views.
Animal Ethics
JULY 22, 2008
To the Editor: “ What’s Next in the Law? The Unalienable Rights of Chimps ,” by Adam Cohen (Editorial Observer, July 14): The Spanish Parliament’s decision to grant rights to apes is indeed groundbreaking, and will foster philosophical discussion about animal protection for some time. But Americans need not await the resolution of the academic debate, which is more about form than substance, before acting to protect animals.
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Animal Ethics
JULY 14, 2008
I've been reading the literature of animal rights for nearly three decades, and contributing to it for the past decade or so. This New York Times column has to rank as the worst thing I've read. The author fails to distinguish legal rights from moral rights, fails to distinguish the question whether animals do have legal rights from the question whether they should have legal rights, fails to analyze the concept of a right (i.e., fails to tell his readers what it is to have a right), fails to di
Animal Ethics
JULY 15, 2008
More common in Western thought than theriophilia has been theriophobia, the fear and hatred of beasts as wholly or predominantly irrational, physical, insatiable, violent, or vicious beings whom man strangely resembles when he is being wicked. Thus in a state of nature "man is a wolf to man" (Hobbes). A society founded on the principle of satisfying appetites is "a city of pigs" (Plato).
Animal Ethics
JULY 12, 2008
In the popular mediaeval tradition, as contrasted with official theology, there are many legends which associate saintliness and martyrdom with kindness to animals: even Jerome has his lion, to say nothing of Androcles. Vicious animals in that tradition were like the Gadarene swine , inhabited by demons. They might be brought to trial for their misdeeds and punished by the extremest of penalties—a form of distinction which, no doubt, they would willingly have foregone.
Animal Ethics
JULY 13, 2008
Our analysis must not be misinterpreted as an attempt to champion altruism in relation to animals. It merely reaffirms the principle of justice. That is why there can be no general philosophical injunction that we subordinate our interests to those of animals under any circumstances. Each time we are confronted with a conflict between our own and an animal's interest, we must decide, after making fair allowance for each, which of the two interests deserves to be given preference.
Animal Ethics
JULY 11, 2008
To the Editor: Re “ Dog Eat Your Taxes? ” (Op-Ed, July 9): It may be amusing for Ray D. Madoff to criticize Leona Helmsley’s charitable giving by saying her fortune “is going to the dogs,” but those of us who give to the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rescue organizations feel otherwise. After Hurricane Katrina, after the floods in the Midwest, after the fires in the West, the humane societies across the country rescued and cared for lost animals and then sought to reunite
Animal Ethics
JULY 8, 2008
To the Editor: Re “ Of Whales and National Security ” (editorial, July 2): Today’s threats to national security are not “exaggerated”; they are increasing. With the price of gasoline topping $4 a gallon, consider what could happen if a rogue state with quiet diesel-electric submarines were to threaten tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States Fifth Fleet will prevent that from happening.
Animal Ethics
JULY 7, 2008
What have humane people to say to the tremendous mass of animal suffering inflicted in the interests of the Table? By the unthinking, of course, these sufferings, being invisible, are almost wholly overlooked, while the deadening power of habit prevents many kindly persons from exercising, where their daily "beef" and "mutton" are concerned, the very sympathies which they so keenly manifest elsewhere; yet it can hardly be doubted that if the veil of custom could be lifted, and if a clear knowled
Animal Ethics
JULY 31, 2008
I agree with Nicholas Kristof that factory farms will eventually be banned by law. I also agree that it will be a good thing. Addendum: Here are comments on Kristof's column.
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Animal Ethics
JULY 30, 2008
I got a nice surprise in the mail today: a complimentary copy of this , which contains my 1998 essay "Doing Right by Our Animal Companions." Expensive, eh?
Animal Ethics
JULY 17, 2008
Preference utilitarians count the killing of a being with a preference for continued life as worse than the killing of a being without any such preference. Self-conscious beings therefore are not mere receptacles for containing a certain quantity of pleasure, and are not replaceable. To take the view that non-self-conscious beings are replaceable is not to say that their interests do not count.
Animal Ethics
JULY 21, 2008
To the Editor: “ What’s Next in the Law? The Unalienable Rights of Chimps ,” by Adam Cohen (Editorial Observer, July 14), unfairly characterized PETA’s efforts. Few people know the depth of our work, as it is mostly our stunts that make the news. While cruelty to animals is a serious matter that should elicit widespread public outrage, efforts to reach the public through more serious means often fall on deaf ears in a world in which sex sells and there are both a war and an economic downturn.
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