In “Why Do Species Matter?”, Lilly-Marlene Russow argues that humans have a moral obligation to protect and to ensure the continued existence of things of aesthetic value which includes some but not necessarily all animals. In this paper, I will argue that the subjectivity involved in determining aesthetic value makes it an insufficient element for determining moral obligation to the protection and preservation of some animals.…
Garner combines an examination of the politics and philosophy of the issues relating animals and the nature. The book includes major theoretical and empirical incidents such as the campaigns and public controversies over the export of live animals and the use of animals in research, the impact of genetic engineering on animals and the latest developments in the debate over…
Nibert argues about the treatment of domesticated animals on factory farms. Many campaigns, legislations, and ballots have made people switch over to a safe and friendly way of obtaining our food. This strategy called the new welfarism promotes continued oppression of domesecrated and the underlying global injustices and dangers that accompany it (Nibert 259). The welfarism reflects the historical pattern of elites consuming our “meat.” The more affluent consume our chemical free, “humanely” produced “meat,” while the majority consumes the cheap toll that the animal industrial complex profitably can produce. There is not enough land to “free range” the amount of individuals necessary for the growing, socially created need for the domesecrated animal products. All of this can cause the scarcity of water, oil, global warming, diseases, and etc (Nibert 261). In Kenya for example, where ten of thousands are poison have been poisoned, or raised by ranchers who ordered the murder. Facing the reality, not the least of which is violence and exploitation against the growing number of domesecrated animals, is to practice and promote global veganism. Affordable plant based food is all around the world, criticism of people who have no motive to exploiting show be redirected…
“Care Ethics and Animal Welfare” is an article written by Daniel Engster from the Journal of Social Philosophy, published by Wiley Periodicals in 2016. Daniel Engster received his PhD from the University of Chicago and is a professor in the Political Science department at the University of Texas in San Antonio.…
The book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by American writer and journalist Michael Pollan, was published in 2006, and the following year it was nominated as a winner for the best food writing. The author of the book describes four fundamental ways that people have obtained food: nowadays industrial system, the big organic operation, the local independent farm, and the hunter gatherer. Along the way, Pollan insists that there is a basic relation between the logic of nature and the logic of human industry; the way we eat represents the depth of engagement with the natural world, and that industrial eating ruins important ecological connections. In fact, the modern agribusiness has lost touch with the natural cycles of farming, in what respect livestock and crops bound in relatively beneficial circles. Thus, Pollan discusses the common question of what people should have for dinner. The question posed in this book has profound political, economic, psychological, and moral suggestions for all omnivores, the most unselective eaters. Pollan suggests that particular dilemma of food preservation and technologies have created hardship by making available foods that were prior seasonal or geographical. Indeed, relationship between society and nature, once moderated by culture, now finds itself disoriented. Also, Pollan, in his book tells about serial visits and explorations of the food-production system from where the majority of American meals come from. He explains that this industrial food chain is extensively based on corn, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals. Doubtlessly, nowadays the corn plant is developed to manipulate American diet through different mixture of biological, cultural and political factors. Moreover, the author comes to the point where the principles of organic farming have lost the purpose of the organic movement and thus, have adopted many methods of industrial…
More than 95% of animals raised for food in the U.S. are raised in intensive confinement facilities, often called "factory farms." Participants learn about the realities for animals, the impact on the environment and the health implications of modern agriculture practices. We also explore the alternatives for a more compassionate and just society.…
Even though there has been innumerable technological advancements since the Cenozoic Era, humans still depend on nature to fulfill their degree of wealth and material comfort. For example, various items we use on a daily basis originate from nature in some way such as the following: flooring, walls, roofs, tables, chairs, running water, envelops, utensils, toiletries, cotton bed spreads, sheets, clothing items, and more. Moreover, individuals are constantly taking from nature for many different reasons but we are never giving anything in return. Due to technology being extremely common in the daily life of an individual in the 20th century, rapidly developing along with the constant desire for things to be completed at a quicker and more efficient pace, it is incontestable that technology is diminishing our relationship with nature because instead of going outside and witnessing the miracles of nature, individuals “increasingly see nature as teenagers see war in computer games, from above, with the omniscient viewpoint of a satellite” (Smith). Despite the fact that majority of a person’s commodities proceed from nature, citizens in this technologically advanced day and age are spoiled by the simplicity of merely pressing a bottom to receive their desires, wants, and needs. Nevertheless, what would…
Finally, Pollan argues that the harsh treatment of animals on industrial farms has risen due to the lack of human connection with the slaughtering of animals. The author explains, "The disappearance of animals from our lives has opened a space in which there’s no reality check, either on the sentiment or the brutality” (Pollan 363). This suggests when animals are out of sight, the human concern about the killing of those animals lessens.…
Peter Singer’s “Down on the Factory Farm” and E.B. White’s “Death of a Pig” illustrate practices of raising animals for human consumption. The care and environment provided for the animals by both White and the factory farmer’s that Singer discusses can be labelled as ‘animal husbandry’. White and the factory farm worker’s animal husbandry methods can be deemed as ethical, or unethical. Bernard E. Rollin defines good animal husbandry as “keeping the animals under conditions to which their natures [are] biologically adapted, and augmenting these natural abilities by providing additional food, protection, care, or shelter” (6). Through this definition of ethics and the criteria established by the “Principles” found in James P. Sterba’s “Reconciling Anthropocentric and Nonanthropocentric…
The author argues inherent value. Regan points out animals should be able to experience life with inherent value of their own. Addressing commercial animal agriculture, the author declares "The fundamental moral wrong here is not that animals are kept in stressful close confinement or in isolation, or that their pain and suffering, their needs and preferences are ignored or discounted." Regan continues the only way to right the wrong would be to stop…
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.” This quote about animal abuse is from Thomas Edison, an engineer known for his life changing innovations that continue to impact on our world today. Animal abuse is a long-debated problem, often causing the world’s population to split into two sides over the dispute. On one side, are those who say that humans are far superior to animals and other living beings who have been put here solely to feed or entertain us. On the other hand, there are those of us who recognise that these “inferior life forms” should have the same rights as us, and so they deserve the same treatment.…
“We love all animals, it’s just people we’re not too crazy about,” is a comment made by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) (Fegan 1). This outrageous comment insinuates PETA puts animals’ rights before the rights and needs of humans, which is not the way nature intended. The PETA organization has been around since 1980 affectively with their hyped-up, illogical stories of how we need to treat animals as equals and grant them rights that only we, as humans, should enjoy. These are assumptions and claims which are used to further their cause and are not founded in reality. Contradictory to PETA’s beliefs, animals should not have the same rights as humans, because that is the law of nature. According to Erasmus Darwin, who stated “Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!”. (Science Quotes by Erasmus Darwin) I do not intend to condemn animal rights activists, since people are entitled to their own opinions, but rather discuss why this way of life may be harmful to themselves and others.…
In his article, An Animal’s Place, Michael Pollan describes the treatment of animals by contemporary meat-processing industries. He starts out by talking about a movement that concerns with better treatment of animals and mentions a book, Animal Liberations written by Peter Singer. In the book, Singer “demands that you either defend the way you live or change it.” Singer argues along the premise of equality and says “If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans for the same purpose?”…
Rollin, Bernard E. "Factory Farming Is Unethical." Animal Rights. Ed. Shasta Gaughen. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Contemporary Issues Companion. Rpt. from "Farm Factories." Christian Century 118 (Dec. 2001): 26. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.…
Humans are perceived to be the most evolved and advanced form of life on earth today, especially in comparison with other animals on the planet. The actions of both humans and animals have been analyzed for centuries, as seen in the works “Meat and Milk Factories” by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, “An Elephant Crackup?” by Charles Siebert, and “The Solitary Stroller and the City” by Rebecca Solnit. In each of these essays, the author delves deep into the actions of either humans, animals, or both; and comparing their findings shows startling results. Singer and Mason explore the world and practices of animal farming, and reveal the violent lifestyle that these animals must endure. By comparing their work to Siebert’s and Solnit’s pieces, the revelation is that these procedures are not only comparable to human life, but are actually utilized by humans as well. If the application of farming procedures is seen in human lives, then humans behavior has not developed, so violent control is constantly used to overpower others.…