Brute Ethics – The Animal Ethics Encyclopedia
Lots of great information http://www.animalethics.org.uk
Animal Ethics
If you methodically question the meaning and purpose of life you are a
philosopher, whether amateur or professional. Ethics is the part of philosophy
that asks how people should live their lives and how they should do good and
right to others. Animal ethics is the bit of ethics that deals specifically with
animals: understanding animal-human moral issues through knowledge and reasoning
and acting for the moral good. Thus animal ethics is a practical as well as a
cognitive pursuit. In his book Animal Ethics (2005:12) Robert Garner
says, "Animal ethics seeks to examine beliefs that are held about the moral
status of non-human animals."
An ethical issue is when you think a harm or wrong is happening and something
should be done about it. If we harm people then we must justify why we harm them
and if we cannot justify our actions then we must not harm them. In the same
way, animal ethics critically questions our conduct with animals. Everyone has
some contact with animals directly or indirectly, whether farming or shooting animals,
eating them, or feeding their pets factory farmed
chicken and other animals, going to
the zoo, using
substances tested on animals or washing themselves with animal-based
soap.
Ethics comes from the Greek, meaning “custom.” It is one of the four branches of philosophy, which attempts to understand the nature of morality: to distinguish that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy. Animal rights, or animal liberation may just be one of the greatest justice movements of our time. As it is throughout history, change is slow to come, with government policy and legislation lagging behind public opinion.
Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most people take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and it is this task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. Peter Singer (1986:226): Applied Ethics.
Cruelty prevails in policy
July 9, 2010 David Loken, The StarPhoenix
Like many others, I grew up in rural Saskatchewan. However, I wasn't on a farm but one of the town kids. Maybe this explained my attitude towards nature. I didn't randomly kill rodents and amphibians for sport or entertainment.
I blame the farm upbringing for this confrontational attitude toward nature. Anything that competes with the farm output is an enemy to be destroyed. This anti-nature attitude was prevalent in my youth and manifested itself in the cruel conduct of children. I eventually moved to Toronto to work. When I returned to Saskatchewan years later, the province was more urban and a little more sophisticated.
Deer and other wildlife were becoming more plentiful. Hopefully, fewer kids were being raised to think of nature as the enemy. However, I still see this attitude in public policy: bounties on coyotes and other policies of extermination.
I walk from the Caswell area to work downtown. This spring I started crossing the railways tracks near 25th Street because I liked watching the small "gopher" community under the billboards by the go-cart track.
I thought these little guys might escape notice. After all, they were eating the overgrown weeds. Where they were, there was no park to mar, no danger of anyone tripping in the holes. But I noticed signs last week warning that poison had been placed. By Tuesday, there were no live ground squirrels to be seen.
It seems that those cruel boys have grown up, moved to the big city, and are still killing helpless creatures for no reason. This sort of thing makes me ashamed to say I'm from Saskatchewan.
May 7, 2013 The Tiger Eating Her Cubs and Bad Animal Behavior; Francione v Machan
'Animals live by ethics! Albert Schweitzer on "Altruism"
(1) A flock of wild geese had settled to rest on a pond. One of the flock is captured by a gardener who had clipped its wings. When the geese started to resume their flight, this one tried frantically, but vainly, to lift itself into the air. The others, observing its struggles, flew about in obvious efforts to encourage it, but no use. The entire flock then settled back on the pond and waited, even though the urge to go on was strong, for several days, until the damaged feathers grew sufficiently to permit the goose to fly.
(2) A friend who owned a small cafe and used to throw crumbs for the sparrows, noticed that one was injured and had difficulty getting about. But he was interested to discover that the other sparrows would leave the crumbs which lay nearest their crippled comrade so that he could get his share, undisturbed.'
'When so much mistreatment of animals continues, when the cries of thirsty beasts from our railway cars die out unheard, when so much brutality prevails in our slaughterhouses, when animals meet a painful death in our kitchens, when animals suffer incredibly from merciless men and are turned over to the cruel play of children, WE ALL BEAR THE GUILT FOR IT. We are afraid of shocking people if we let it be noticed how much we are moved by the suffering man brings to animals. We think that others may have become more 'rational' than we, and may accept as customary and as a matter of course the things we have gotten excited about. Once in a while, however, a word suddenly slips out which shows that even they have not yet become reconciled to this suffering. Now they come very close to us though they were formerly strangers. The masks with which we were deceiving each other fall off. Now we learn from each other that no one is able to escape the grip of the cruelty that flourishes ceaselessly around us.'
Unknown: 'A wish changes nothing. A decision with action changes all!'
How the hell can we stop animal cruelty in this country...what will it take? No one in authority gives a damn. Action, not apathy
Unknown: 'Let's NOT forget the billions of animals that suffer and die because of the human race.'
'This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!' John Adams
Justice for animals is the social movement of our times and we must all participate to make it a reality. It’s long overdue. Carmina Gooch
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