For a variety of reasons, many people are interested in cutting back on animal foods, such as meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs. Some of them are motivated by the health benefits of eating more plants. Another main motivator for eating a plant-based diet is its environmental benefits. In addition, many people are interested in decreasing animal food intake because of concerns about animal welfare or for other moral or religious reasons.The bottom line: more and more people are lightening their intake of animal foods in pursuit of a more sustainable, plant-based lifestyle.
the moral animal ebook download
In this easy-to-read introduction, animal rights advocate Gary Francione looks at our conventional moral thinking about animals. Using examples, analogies, and thought-experiments, he reveals the dramatic inconsistency between what we say we believe about animals and how we actually treat them.
Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? provides a guidebook to examining our social and personal ethical beliefs. It takes us through concepts of property and equal consideration to arrive at the basic contention of animal rights: that everyonehuman and non-humanhas the right not to be treated as a means to an end. Along the way, it illuminates concepts and theories that all of us use but few of us understandthe nature of "rights" and "interests," for example, and the theories of Locke, Descartes, and Bentham.
Why Veganism Matters presents the case for the personhood of nonhuman animals and for veganism in a clear and accessible way that does not require any philosophical or legal background. This book offers a persuasive and powerful argument for all readers who care about animals but are not sure whether they have a moral obligation to be vegan.
In recent years there has been increasing attention paid to our complex, multifaceted relationships with other animals, and in particular, the depth and breadth of various societal uses of animals. This has led to a reconsideration of their moral and social status, which has sometimes challenged the interests of those who use animals. In such a contested domain, sound evidence and reasoning become particularly important. Through firm commitment to such principles, this book explores the biological foundations for the moral consideration of animals and for evolving conceptualisations of animal welfare. It reviews in detail the welfare concerns associated with numerous forms of animal use. The inclusion of key recent developments such as climate change, pandemics, and antimicrobial resistance, ensures this text is among the most current in its field. The ethical implications of the various uses of animals by society are considered, and chapters provide important recommendations for reforms of practice, law, or policy. The status of animal law internationally, and in major world regions, is reviewed. Finally, the book considers human behavioural change and strategies for improving stakeholder communication and education.
472. In recent years pressing questions have been raised with regard to the use of new forms of biotechnology in the areas of agriculture, animal farming, medicine and environmental protection. The new possibilities offered by current biological and biogenetic techniques are a source of hope and enthusiasm on the one hand, and of alarm and hostility on the other. The application of various types of biotechnology, their acceptability from a moral point of view, their consequences for human health and their impact on the environment and the economy are the subject of thorough study and heated debate. These are controversial questions that involve scientists and researchers, politicians and legislators, economists and environmentalists, as well as producers and consumers. Christians are not indifferent to these problems, for they are aware of the importance of the values at stake.[1001]
The issue of animal rights begins with the question of what sort of beings are deserving of moral regard. Do we only treat human beings or include animals as well? It also begs the question, how are we supposed to treat animals? Do they have moral rights? When animals suffer, can we equate it to human suffering? Should we ban both experimentation on animals and large scale commercial farming of animal? What is the moral status of animals? Do we have a moral obligation to become vegetarians instead of eating animals?
In order for us to redress the situation, we must determine the moral status and worth of every sentient being. Regan therefore comes up with the rights view which addresses the foundation of our duties to one another as humans and by extension, towards animals. We must recognize that our value as individuals is independent of our usefulness to each other. Likewise animals have inherent value and sanctity of life that ought not to be violated.
According to peter Singer, liberation of all forms needs an expansion of moral horizons, extension and re-interpretations of basic moral principles of equality. We need to make a mental switch with regard to our attitudes towards animals. We need to consider the equality of animals as well. Singer argues that just as we are against racism, sexism, we should be against speciesism. Possessing a high degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to exploit another and also for humans to exploit non-humans.
But there are ethical concerns about this type of research, which raise questions such as whether the moral status of nonhuman animals is altered by the insertion of human stem cells, whether these studies should be subject to additional prohibitions or oversight, and whether this kind of research should be done at all.
Moral psychology is the study of how human minds make and are made by human morality. This state-of-the-art volume covers contemporary philosophical and psychological work on moral psychology, as well as notable historical theories and figures in the field of moral psychology, such as Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, and the Buddha. The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology's fifty chapters, authored by leading figures in the field, cover foundational topics, such as character, virtue, emotion, moral responsibility, the neuroscience of morality, weakness of will, and the nature of moral judgments and reasons. The volume also canvases emerging work in applied moral psychology, including adaptive preferences, animals, mental illness, poverty, marriage, race, bias, and victim blaming. Collectively, the essays form the definitive survey of contemporary moral psychology.
Another spring of our constitution, that brings a great addition offorce to moral sentiments, is the love of fame; which rules, with suchuncontrolled authority, in all generous minds, and is often the grandobject of all their designs and undertakings. By our continual andearnest pursuit of a character, a name, a reputation in the world, webring our own deportment and conduct frequently in review, and considerhow they appear in the eyes of those who approach and regard us. Thisconstant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection,keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noblenatures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, whichis the surest guardian of every virtue. The animal conveniencies andpleasures sink gradually in their value; while every inward beauty andmoral grace is studiously acquired, and the mind is accomplished inevery perfection, which can adorn or embellish a rational creature.
THERE is a principle, supposed to prevail among many, which is utterlyincompatible with all virtue or moral sentiment; and as it can proceedfrom nothing but the most depraved disposition, so in its turn it tendsstill further to encourage that depravity. This principle is, thatall BENEVOLENCE is mere hypocrisy, friendship a cheat, public spirit afarce, fidelity a snare to procure trust and confidence; and that whileall of us, at bottom, pursue only our private interest, we wear thesefair disguises, in order to put others off their guard, and expose themthe more to our wiles and machinations. What heart one must be possessedof who possesses such principles, and who feels no internal sentimentthat belies so pernicious a theory, it is easy to imagine: and also whatdegree of affection and benevolence he can bear to a species whom herepresents under such odious colours, and supposes so little susceptibleof gratitude or any return of affection. Or if we should not ascribethese principles wholly to a corrupted heart, we must at least accountfor them from the most careless and precipitate examination. Superficialreasoners, indeed, observing many false pretences among mankind, andfeeling, perhaps, no very strong restraint in their own disposition,might draw a general and a hasty conclusion that all is equallycorrupted, and that men, different from all other animals, and indeedfrom all other species of existence, admit of no degrees of good or bad,but are, in every instance, the same creatures under different disguisesand appearances. 2ff7e9595c
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