A Thinking Reed

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

Vegetarianism/veganism

  • Debating conscientious carnivorism

    Mother Jones has a roundtable on whether vegetarianism is always better for the environment than omnivorous diets, featuring Jonathan Safran Foer, Joel Salatin, and Anna Lappé, among others. It seems possible that at least some meat-containing diets can be on an environmental par with, or even superior to, some vegetarian diets (particularly those containing lots 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

  • Meat-eating and Benedict’s rule

    Here’s another tid-bit from that Christian Century article on food that I blogged about last week: Benedict saw lack of dietary discipline as a sign not of strength but of weakness. In particular, he restricted meat to children, the sick and the elderly. By eating meat unnecessarily, healthy adult members of his community would enjoy 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

  • Causal impotence and reasons for vegetarianism

    Scu at Critical Animal says: I think a lot of people spend time explaining why we shouldn’t (or should!) kill animals and/or treat them as property. But where are explanations on the justification for vegetarianism/veganism as a necessary component of opposition, besides arguments about economic boycott? If you define an economic boycott as something intended Read more

  • The return of the sanctimonious carnivore

    Via Jean Kazez, two (quite possibly bogus) trend stories about “vegetarians” jumping on the “happy” meat bandwagon: here and here. I’m with Jean in thinking that almost any step toward better treatment of animals is a good thing. If more people are buying humanely raised meat, then animals are suffering less, which is all to Read more

  • Jean Kazez’s philosophy and animal ethics blog

    I just came across the solo blog of philospher Jean Kazez, whose posts at Talking Philosophy I’ve always enjoyed greatly. Prof. Kazez also has a new book on animal ethics that looks to be well worth reading. Germane to some recent discussions here, she has two posts on the vegetarianism vs. veganism debate that are Read more

  • Saturday morning Southern-style tofu fry-up

    I’m in the process of making this recipe for crispy tofu with bourbon BBQ sauce, and it promises to be delicious. I found a helpful tutorial on frying tofu here. And I’m using Bulleit Bourbon for the sauce, a spicy bourbon with a fairly high rye content. Yum! Read more

  • Vegan versus vegetarian utopia

    In his book Ethics and the Beast, Tzachi Zamir makes an interesting “speciesist” case for animal liberation. But for the purposes of this post I want to focus on his argument in favor of moral vegetarianism, and against veganism. That he makes this argument is surprising since most liberationists, I think it’s safe to say, Read more