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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.
For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. So, even if animals are killed painlessly and raised for food in humane ways, it is wrong to kill them. Presumably most animals—even infants—would have the right not to suffer. But this is surely dubious.
There are two approaches a vegetarian might take in arguing that rearing and killing animals for food is morally offensive. He might argue that eating animals is morally bad because of the pain inflicted on animals in rearing and killing them to be eaten. Or he could object to the killing itself.
For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. If so, the lactovo vegetarian should have no qualms about someone’s eating such legs. But keep in mind that many lactovo vegetarians care about how animal products are produced, not just the fact that they are animal products.
There I argued that the interests of animals ought to be considered equally with our own interests and that from this equality it follows that we ought to become vegetarian. Peter Singer , "Killing Humans and Killing Animals," Inquiry 22 [summer 1979]: 145-56, at 145 [italics in original; endnote omitted])
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. The contrast would be, for example, “health vegetarianism.”
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?”
Let's deconstruct: The interview reminds me of how the industry views us and how little they know about the community of people who care about the lives of the animals brought into this world for one reason only: to kill and eat them. Of course, Lobo is missing the point entirely. I wish their mission was to end animal agriculture.
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.
It does not settle such questions as to whether it is right to kill them if they are a burden or if they are enduring pointless suffering, but it does bear in an important way on such questions. If animals have rights, the case for vegetarianism is prima facie very strong, and is comparable with the case against cannibalism. (
The plea that animals might be killed painlessly is a very common one with flesh-eaters, but it must be pointed out that what-might-be can afford no exemption from moral responsibility for what-is. Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 51-2 [italics in original])
Currently, I do not believe that killing an animal is prima facie morally wrong. 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. I do not believe that the current factory farm system in place lives up to both of those standards.
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.
He writes: There is a rational, and for some people a spiritual, case for being a vegetarian: Killing animals is wrong. Do they suffer any more or less in death? If sentience and suffering and "the mysterious unity of life" are really your concerns, you aren't going be eating any body. Are they any more or less sentient?
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.
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.
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. 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.
For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. Similarly, although there are differences between human beings and other animals, there are no moral differences that justify human beings’ killing and eating animals but not killing and eating one another.
Do they suffer any more or less in death? There is a rational, and for some people a spiritual, case for being a vegetarian: Killing animals is wrong. But it's also remarkable in that Roger Cohen, a 50-something man who writes for the New York Times, wonders: But do pigs have any more or less of a soul than dogs? I think not.
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. We all do. Cohen, The Animal Rights Debate , p.
There was no meaningful discussion about our inefficient use of resources (grain and water) in the feeding of animals to kill to feed people. 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.
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.
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. It’s all good advice from the point of view of doing better by animals.
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.
By carrying out a slaughter system that greatly reduces the suffering of chickens, Bell & Evans and Mary’s Chickens show that animal welfare and good business go hand in hand. While ever more consumers are going vegetarian or vegan, almost every consumer is demanding that companies take steps to reduce animal suffering.
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.
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. Since our food is delivered to us on a bun or in big bags of frozen parts, it’s easy to eat it and not think about what it was or how it was killed. To the Editor: Nicholas D.
Animals raised for food suffer miserably. 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? After time in the Marines, I veered strongly away from eating creatures, thinking of their suffering. Laura Frisk Encinitas, Calif.,
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.
The tiresome Hitler was a well-known vegetarian comment is included in this segment, but I found it irksome long before that. In 10 or 15 years of life, he suffered through multiple surgeries and infections and endless hours of restraint in a plastic chair. Part III: Pepper Goes to Washington. And for what? But not shocked enough.
In his fresh and candid first post (available here ), Jonathan admitted that he is struggling with the issue of ethical vegetarianism. He clearly thinks that it is wrong to cause animals to suffer unnecessarily, but he appears to be somewhat ambivalent about killing animals (provided the killing is carried out humanely).
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