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

AUGUST 16, 2011

Well, as it turns out neither a trip to a slaughterhouse nor killing an animal yourself is powerful enough to make people go vegan. He watched cockfighting and killed and skinned animals, but won’t eat veal. So why the hell do you continue to participate in the killing of chickens for food, yet cockfighting is no longer on your list?”

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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

AUGUST 18, 2011

Hal Herzog writes about how many people who say they are vegetarians will also say they ate meat within the last 24 hours. And of course, many self-identified vegetarians eat fishes and/or chickens. A good friend said he "loved" animals the other day and my response was, "Yeah, you love them grilled." You say a prayer and Poof!

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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 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 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.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Beyond the environmental impacts of meat production there is a basic ethical issue involved. So here is an even more modest proposal than roasting Fido: Try eating only what animals you are willing to kill with your own hands. Rather than eating dogs, we all ought to eat exclusively small-farmed, free-range meat.

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Animal Person

MAY 6, 2009

The book, which I have not read, that saved Derrick Jensen 's life is called The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith, who was a vegan for 20 years, suffered serious medical problems, and started feeling better when she recommenced eating animals. Throughout the book, Keith mocks vegetarians and vegans.

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Critter News

APRIL 1, 2009

He asked whether cows, chickens, sheep and some of the other animals that we eat are usually treated and killed in a humane manner. The meat industry will say yes, of course, all animals are treated and killed humanely. The eventual kill is quick, clean, and painless. Here is my opinion. They are no good to you alive.

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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.

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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.). product that comes from an animal ). product that comes from an animal ).

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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.).

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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. Not only are they killed in cruel ways, but it is well documented that they are raised in ways that cause them great discomfort and agony. Consequently, one ought not to eat meat until actual practice is changed.

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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 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. He is against it for himself and his family. This is very silly.

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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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Animal Person

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

There was no meaningful discussion about our inefficient use of resources (grain and water) in the feeding of animals to kill to feed people. And the wife says that one thing the family does is eat less meat and eggs (and they raise the animals on their land), but even that is glossed over.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2011

It is asking the burger-stuffer to come clean ; to show just why it is that his greed should be indulged in this way, and just where he fits into the scheme of things, that he can presume to kill again and again for the sake of a solitary pleasure that creates and sustains no moral ties. Duty requires us, therefore, to eat our friends.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 15, 2009

According to Stephanie Woodard's column in Prevention published today, the CDC reports that "certain types of MRSA infections kill 18,000 Americans per year—more than die from AIDS." Just how prevalent is MRSA-infected meat? The most obvious way to limit your risk of contracting MRSA is this: Don't handle or consume meat.

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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

AUGUST 21, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Superior Aliens’ Invasion John Harris advances the following consideration to show the immorality of eating meat. Would they have the right to treat you as you treat animals you breed, keep, and kill for food?

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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

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. Jean Kazez Dallas, Nov. This made me feel guilty.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 4, 2009

A second vegetarian strategy is simply to reject as immoral the balancing of animal pains against human pleasures. Thus John Harris's reply to the Benthamite defence of meat-eating is quite simply: 'Those who use it are saying that they think more about their stomach than their morals, and so a moral argument will probably not affect them'.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 16, 2010

Keith: As a historian or even an anthropologist, one could make the argument that being a vegetarian limits one's ability to understand other cultures. I, like you, am not a complete vegetarian. What if it's customary to allow guests to torture or kill one of the tribe? Food is such an important part of history.

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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 16, 2009

The meat and dairy industries want to keep their operations away from the public’s discriminating eyes, but as groups like PETA and the Humane Society have shown us in their graphic and disturbing undercover investigations, factory farms are mechanized madness and slaughterhouses are torture chambers to these unfortunate and feeling beings.

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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

DECEMBER 23, 2006

In his fresh and candid first post (available here ), Jonathan admitted that he is struggling with the issue of ethical vegetarianism. He thinks that the treatment of animals in factory farms is morally unjustifiable, and yet, he continues to support those practices financially by purchasing and eating meat and animal products.

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