No society has succeeded in abolishing the distinction between ruler and ruled... to be a ruler gives one special status and, usually, special privileges. During the Communist era, important officials...
In the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, for example, a group of fishing families had lived since 1914 on islands in the Sirinhaém River estuary. In 1998 the Usina Trapiche sugar refinery pe...
In the Talmud (a record of discussions of Jewish law and ethics by ancient rabbis) it is said that charity is equal in importance to all the other commandments combined, and that Jews should give at l...
If you agree that bringing someone into existence can be bad for that person and if you also accept the argument that bringing someone into existence can't be good for that person, then this leads to...
If a flock of chickens is without water on a hot day, and all you have to do to prevent them from dying slowly and painfully is turn on a tap, you ought to turn it on. If to do so you have to walk a f...
I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes; but when nonvegetarians say that human problems come first I...
I couldn’t care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas.
From the perspective of an effective altruist, Tzu Chi does some surprising things. After the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, Tzu Chi raised funds to distribute hot meals to survivors,...
Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty. Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong, and hence whaling is unethical.
Everyone has boundaries. If you find yourself doing something that makes you bitter, it is time to reconsider. Is
Dharma Master Cheng Yen is a Buddhist nun living in Hualien County, a mountainous region on the east coast of Taiwan. Because the mountains formed barriers to travel, the area has a high proportion of...
Ben West points out that even from a selfish perspective, earning to give allows you to have things that people believe make them happy, like money and a high-status job, while still getting the fulfi...
As for the cages themselves, an ordinary citizen who kept dogs in similar conditions for their entire lives would risk prosecution for cruelty. A pig producer who keeps an animal of comparable intelli...
You might hold an ethical position that it's wrong to lie, but if you have plans for a war in Iraq, and you want to keep them secret for practical reasons - to reduce casualties, perhaps - and someone...
So, basically, my view is I don't want to support the exploitation of animals, and within reason, I will do what I can to avoid it, but it's not like it's a religion for me. It's not like I consider I...
While it is absurd to blame Marx for something he did not foresee and certainly would have condemned if he had foreseen it, the distanced between Marx's predicted communist society and the form taken...
When we use animals to convert crops into meat, eggs, or milk, the animals use most of the food value to keep warm and develop bones and other parts we can’t eat. Most of the food value of the crops w...
When we eat plants, food takes on a different quality. We take from the earth food that is ready for us and does not fight against us as we take it.
Whatever the theoretical possibilities of rearing animals without suffering may be, the fact is that the meat available from butchers and supermarkets comes from animals who were not treated with any...
What we must do is bring nonhuman animals within our sphere of moral concern and cease to treat their lives as expendable for whatever trivial purposes we may have.