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 is argued that beef cattle and hogs are protein factories in reserve.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 7, 2009

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. Consequently, the killing of some animals for food, if done painlessly, is not morally objectionable. According to Benn, only moral agents have rights. It is clear that few animals, if any, are moral agents in this sense.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2008

And the other is taking up vegetarianism. But what about the vegetarian alternative? How do we know but what, once we got used to a vegetarian diet, we would find that our pleasure is scarcely diminished at all? Here what one needs to do is calculate the pleasure, interest, satisfaction, etc.,

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 2, 2009

This man argues that vegetarianism is immoral. on the principle that animals are morally equivalent to humans." Vegetarianism is based on the principle that animals matter, morally. It says nothing about whether animals are "morally equivalent" to humans (whatever that means). Why is it immoral?

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

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.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 12, 2007

If you'd like to read Andrew Tardiff's 1996 essay "Simplifying the Case for Vegetarianism," write to me (by clicking "Contact" in the sidebar) and I'll send a copy. The essay is fabulous.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 24, 2009

According to this BBC story, city officials in Ghent, Belgium, are encouraging all residents to go vegetarian one day a week. As a result, the main menu in restaurants on Thursdays will be vegetarian. Starting in September, schools will serve vegetarian meals to schoolchildren on Thursdays as well.

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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 28, 2010

Let us think of the more moral members of society as a moral elite, much as the generality of scientists form a scientific elite. I hope I do not need to stress that such a moral elite must not be confused with a social or intellectual elite. I am myself not so heroic. I eat eggs though they may come from battery hens.

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 10, 2009

A nice moral bond of union, truly, between colonies and motherland! Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 81) What is likely to be the effect on the national character of such swinish gorging? Good living," unfortunately, is a somewhat equivocal term.

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Animal Person

MAY 28, 2009

Another opportunity for infiltration (heh, heh, heh) has presented itself on Intent.com , which has a " Food and Nutrition " page that already has posts about mindful eating and vegetarianism. Related articles by Zemanta Doctors endorse vegan and vegetarian diets for healthy pregnancies (scienceblog.com). macworld.com). takepart.com).

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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. It is not just a few outspoken animal rights fanatics who hold this view.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2008

There is no doubt a good deal of truth in this last point as well, and we are here presented with a serious moral problem concerning the world food supply. But even this fails to establish a case for vegetarianism. Michael Fox , "'Animal Liberation': A Critique," Ethics 88 [January 1978]: 106-18, at 116-7)

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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 ). The theory is sound. There's no way out.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 16, 2011

He is an unabashed speciesist, putting humans on “a different moral plane from that of other animals” (11) due to various reasons, such as our “vastly greater capacity for symbolic language, culture, and ethical judgment” (11). On page 172, when Herzog writes, “I am conflicted over many moral issues involving animals,” I respond, “No kidding!”

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 31, 2009

Salt , The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 109-10 [italics in original]) The only real cure for the evil is the growing sense that the lower animals are closely akin to us, and have Rights.

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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 Person

JANUARY 18, 2010

While no study has documented how frequent these clashes have become, therapists agree that the green issue can quickly become poisonous because it is so morally charged. She warns wives and mothers not to move a family toward vegetarianism before everyone is ready. When I read that last sentence, I cringed.

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Animal Person

APRIL 30, 2009

Here were some odd points to ponder: I think Bella, the main character, is a vegetarian. The good ones are morally superior to the bad ones because they don't eat humans. The main good vampire says that the good vampires are like vegetarians because they restrict their eating and then says Imagine if you had to eat only tofu all day.

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Animal Person

JULY 22, 2009

Or bake some vegan cookies for a vegetarian friend who's convinced that she cannot survive without eggs and butter. I'm not talking about morality here, I'm talking about language. And the real question is, is there thought--or is there morality-without language? I'd rather trap a feral cat and have her spayed.

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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 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 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.

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Animal Person

AUGUST 12, 2009

But they also haven't made a moral choice to not use animals. If PCRM can get more people to try a "vegan diet" for 21 days as suggested, which is what in my experience used to be called "strict vegetarianism" (and which is no better), that's an actual decrease in animal use for those people. My dogs eat vegan dog food.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

(Peter Singer more broadly examines the moral standing of animals here.) While this belief might not compel us to be vegetarians, it does demand significant changes in the way we raise animals for food, and it forbids wolf hunting as a form of entertainment. Why does this belief not "compel us to be vegetarians"?

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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. Mr. Steiner rightly rejects this view as morally flawed.

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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

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

which may be called the Consistency Trick—akin to that known in common parlance as the tu quoque or "you're another"—the device of setting up an arbitrary standard of "consistency," and then demonstrating that the Vegetarian himself, judged by that standard, is as "inconsistent" as other persons.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 3, 2008

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.

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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'. This is a moral principle, and states that 'the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being'.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 30, 2007

As a longtime vegan with three vegan-from-birth children, I would like to suggest that since vegetarians are generally healthier than meat eaters, there is no excuse for compassionate people to eat animals. There is no moral difference between eating a dog or a pig, a cat or a chicken. Borders Jr.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 17, 2008

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])

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Animal Ethics

MAY 24, 2009

For pastoralism belongs rightly to another and earlier phase of the world's economics, and as civilisation spreads it becomes more and more an anachronism, as surely as flesh-eating, by a corresponding change, becomes an anachronism in morals.

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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

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Of all the ways of influencing behavior, rational persuasion is the most effective, the most secure (in the sense of long-lasting), and the most defensible from a moral point of view. Still others will do so because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that vegetarianism (or demi-vegetarianism) is good for human beings.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 14, 2008

The question of whether animals possess rights is once again topical, largely as a result of the recent surge of interest in animal welfare and in the moral pros and cons of eating animals and using them in scientific research. Arguments to show that animals do have rights, therefore, are at a premium. (

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 26, 2008

Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers is a moral vegetarian.

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