A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Animal Rights and Issues

  • Friday links

    – Many people have pointed to this omnibus post at Mother Jones that provides background, context, links, and ongoing updates on the situation in Egypt. – Marvin writes on understanding apostolic poverty. – At the blog Memoria Dei, a post discussing feminist theologian Mary Daly’s use of women’s experience as an analogue for the divine. Read more

  • Friday links

    – Jim Henley on the high road and the low road – The July issue of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics focuses on poverty and development – How easy would it be to fix Social Security? – The Twilight series: not just bad, but morally toxic – Who you callin’ a pescatarian? – Marvin writes Read more

  • Links for Friday

    – Derek on the church and (in)fallibility and communing the unbaptized – Animal advocacy and pragmatism – This is your brain on gadgets – BLS has been writing a fascinating series of posts on the church and A.A. – The thought of Paul Ramsey – The AV Club’s June round up of all things metal Read more

  • The crooked path from metaphysics to morals

    Guest-blogger “Aeolus” at In Living Color flags a book by Rod Preece that attempts to set the historical record straight on Christianity’s attitude toward animals. The assumption among many animal advocates has been that Christianity reinforced a hierarchical attitude that was inherently detrimental to animal well-being, and that only a more science-based approach, heavily indebted Read more

  • More on HSUS vs. big ag

    Thanks to commenter Hillary, who identified herself as affiliated with the Humane Society of the United States, for pointing out another (lengthy) article on HSUS’s political strategy and the controversy it’s engendered. Definitely worth a read. Read more

  • Animal rights, human wrongs

    Nice article from the National Journal (via Scu) on the current political and legal landscape for the animal rights/protection movement. What’s striking to me is the contrast between the modesty of the goals of organizations like the Humane Society and the rhetoric of their opponents. Somehow, giving farm animals enough space to stand up and Read more

  • What would ethical egg production look like? And how would we get there?

    To make the point of the previous post a little more concrete, let’s think about what truly ethical egg production would look like from a “moral vegetarian” perspective. Remember, the moral vegetarian isn’t opposed to all forms of animal use, but opposes those uses that constitute exploitation (i.e., harm the interests of the animals involved). Read more

  • Vegan versus vegetarian utopia revisited

    Jean Kazez and Scu of Critical Animal both have critical posts on this essay on veganism by philosopher Tzachi Zamir. The argument appears in a slightly different form in his book Ethics and the Beast, and I discussed it a bit here. While I, as a “moral vegetarian” (to use his terms) find Zamir’s argument Read more

  • First Things still unable to grapple with animal rights arguments

    I know I should stop expecting First Things to publish thoughtful pieces on animal issues, but this review of a review of Safran Foer’s Eating Animals by David Mills is particularly bad: The reviewer seems to assume, but does not even try to argue, that food animals deserve a long and fulfilling life (whatever fulfilling Read more

  • Gary Steiner on the moral status of animals and the “intellectualist” bias

    Marilyn tipped me off to this very interesting-looking book by philosopher Gary Steiner: Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status, and Kinship. Looks like the book came out in 2008, but I wasn’t previously aware of it. Steiner provides a summary of the book’s argument here . Interestingly, Steiner takes a tack that Read more