Animal Person

FEBRUARY 6, 2010

He writes: There is a rational, and for some people a spiritual, case for being a vegetarian: Killing animals is wrong. If you eat meat you cannot logically find it morally or ethically repugnant to eat a particular meat (I’m setting cannibalism aside here.). I'm intrigued by his mention of cannibalism, even if to set it aside.

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Animal Person

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

There is a rational, and for some people a spiritual, case for being a vegetarian: Killing animals is wrong. If you eat meat you cannot logically find it morally or ethically repugnant to eat a particular meat (I’m setting cannibalism aside here.). But as Cohen experiences, humans don't live "in theory."

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Ethical vegetarianism is the thesis that killing and eating animals is morally wrong whenever equally nutritious plant-based alternatives are available. The case for ethical vegetarianism starts with several uncontroversial premises. Nor ought we kill them without reason. Cohen, The Animal Rights Debate , p. Running time: 12 Minutes.

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Critter News

APRIL 13, 2009

The only cool thing is that Gene Bauer's views on the meat industry are so similar to those expressed on this blog a few weeks ago. Humane treatment runs counter to the entire industry when the point is to make money by processing these animals as fast as possible. Unfortunately, this goal tends to run counter to humane goals.”

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

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. It is argued that the killing and eating of meat indirectly tends to brutalize people.

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Animal Person

MARCH 29, 2009

There is a general consensus that vegetarianism and veganism are different philosophically. And human psychology says that humans are far more social than rational creatures. One of the most important aspects determining human behaviour is their social environment. How about this?

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. SOME PROBLEMS OF MORAL VEGETARIANISM With respect to traditional moral vegetarianism some problems immediately come to the fore. Who Should Not Eat Meat, or What Does a Vegetarian Feed His Dog? Not necessarily.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 9, 2009

A third of a century ago, when the modern animal-liberation movement was in its infancy, Martin published an essay entitled “A Critique of Moral Vegetarianism,” Reason Papers (fall 1976): 13-43. I suspect that many readers of this blog are Christians but not vegetarians. KBJ: There are different reasons to abstain from meat.

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Animal Person

JULY 21, 2009

One manager told PETA Eats that most people prefer the vegetarian lettuce wraps over those with chicken. Oh, the humanity! Not only do they have vegan entrees, but they will substitute tofu for any meat in any dish, so you can eat just about anything on the menu! Balderdash, I tell you! C: What a relief.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Human Grain Shortage All of the clearly moral arguments for vegetarianism given so far have been in terms of animal rights and suffering. It assumes that not eating meat is one way to conserve grain.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

What the utilitarian who defends human carnivorousness must say, then, is something like this: that the amount of pleasure which humans derive per pound of animal flesh exceeds the amount of discomfort and pain per pound which are inflicted on the animals in the process, all things taken into account. Is this plausible?

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2010

Either the vegetarian argues on utilitarian premises, or he tries to supplement or replace his utilitarianism with some plausible non-utilitarian principles implying the wrongfulness of rearing and killing animals for food. Either the vegetarian argues on utilitarian grounds or the vegetarian argues on nonutilitarian grounds.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 14, 2009

It will be said that animal husbandry is one of the most inefficient and destructive industries on the planet, and that the planet cannot survive unless humans change their diets. I believe that as time passes, humans will, for various reasons, change their diets. Some will reduce their consumption of meat for the sake of the animals.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 27, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. ARGUMENTS FOR MORAL VEGETARIANISM A variety of arguments have been given for vegetarianism. I outline two arguments of this sort in what follows in order to illustrate some of the difficulties in evaluating moral vegetarianism.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 16, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Glass-Walled Slaughter Houses Mel Morse, former president of the Humane Society of the United States, once remarked: “If every one of our slaughter houses were constructed of glass this would be a nation of vegetarians.”

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2008

The strongest part of [Peter] Singer's case against meat eating is his brief discussion of the world food crisis. More specifically, they eat far more meat than is necessary to maintain adequate nutrition. But even this fails to establish a case for vegetarianism.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 16, 2011

The bottom line is that there are many reasons why human-animal interactions are so often inconsistent and paradoxical. Thousands of studies have demonstrated that human thinking about nearly everything is surprisingly irrational” (65). . The campaign to moralize meat has largely been a failure. But I’m merely making his point.

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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. I believe, however, that there is another remedy, and one more in keeping with the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

But what of the many individual failures, it is asked, among those who make trial of Vegetarianism? The doctor looks wise, shakes his head, and informs a sorrowing circle that it is the direct result of "his vegetarianism." Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 114-5)

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Animal Person

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

With regard to cruelty and suffering, it's clear from the film that the human animal has been profoundly negatively affected by climate change, but there is no attention given to nonhuman animals. There was no meaningful discussion about our inefficient use of resources (grain and water) in the feeding of animals to kill to feed people.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 30, 2009

Here’s another self-interested reason to not eat meat: Drug-resistant bacteria are routinely found in beef, chicken, and pork sold in supermarkets. To find out more of what the meat industry and pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know, read this Associated Press column by Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza.

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Animal Person

JANUARY 23, 2010

God thinks vegetarians are evil, and we want to please god. Second, if the people who believe this would eat all of their "meat" unseasoned and raw, after having killed the source animal with their bare hands and ripped open the carcass with nothing but said hands and some teeth, I'd feel like maybe their argument was at least sincere.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 18, 2008

Humans, and most animals, produce cholesterol naturally, but the problem is when we “supplement” this biologically occurring substance. Cholesterol is found only in foods derived from animals, like meat, cheese and eggs. That is when I went vegetarian. My cholesterol levels have always made my doctors happy. July 10, 2008

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

Think of all the progressives— Michael Moore , for example—who either eat meat or go out of their way to ridicule vegetarians. Many progressives care only about human beings. Many conservatives care about animals as well as human beings. Moore looks like he has eaten one too many hamburgers.)

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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 Ethics

APRIL 27, 2008

To the Editor: Re “ PETA’s Latest Tactic: $1 Million for Fake Meat ” (news article, April 21): The commercial development of meat from animal tissue won’t result in “fake meat” any more than cloning sheep results in fake sheep. A more accurate name for the end result would therefore be “clean meat.”

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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'. By forgoing meat in our diets, we can reduce, if not eliminate, this massive suffering of animals, merely through bringing market forces to bear upon factory farming. This, however, is precisely what factory farming does.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

But there is a net loss in all meat production, not just of farmed fish or feeding fish to land animals being raised for food. And while there are varying estimates, it takes between 3 and 15 pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat. But “encouraging healthy, less meat-based eating habits” will do nothing to ameliorate the situation.

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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. Alexander Mauskop New York, Nov. Chris Taylor Lawrence, Kan.,

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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. The fact that geese mate for life, and that the mate of the poor goose that was slaughtered would step forward, was enough to make me swear off meat forever, if I hadn’t already.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 2, 2007

Puck’s Good Idea ” (editorial, March 26): Thank you for writing about the restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and his desire to buy meat raised humanely. March 27, 2007 To the Editor: Livestock producers raise their animals under humane standards and under the care of a veterinarian. That is never humane.

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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

APRIL 16, 2009

To the Editor: Re “ Humanity Even for Nonhumans ,” by Nicholas D. If human beings were confined, mutilated and killed, would we call it “humane” if the cages were a few inches bigger, the knife sharper, the death faster? Animals rescued from so-called humane farming establishments have been found in horrific condition.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2008

If you currently eat meat, make a commitment to reduce your consumption of animals in January and stop eating them altogether in February. If you are already a vegetarian, make this the year that you decide to go vegan. i) Do attend socially conscious circuses like Cirque de Soleil that exclusively feature human performers. (j)

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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. Consequently, one ought not to eat meat until actual practice is changed. The question that must be raised, however, is how the conclusion not to eat meat follows from this. Consequently, one ought not to eat meat.

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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. What Meat Should Not Be Eaten? What is forbidden meat? Most moral vegetarians list fish and fowl as animals one should not eat. Has the vegetarian who eats microorganisms along with his salad sinned against his own principles?

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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. According to this argument, the view that eating the meat of nonhuman animals is morally permissible but eating the meat of human beings is morally forbidden is analogous to racism or sexism. For this another argument is needed.

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