Is it animal abuse to spay/neuter an animal? Most people justify spay/neutering by pointing out that if we sterilize animals, there will be fewer needier animals. But if that's true, why not forcibly sterilize people in third world countries (at least in areas with population problems)?

I agree with the you that spaying/neutering raises difficult moral questions. On its face, it's abusive, since sterilization probably lowers quality of life for animals. So why do animal protection groups like the Humane Society encourage it? Because sterilizing animals lowers the number of unwanted animals that wind up being euthanized in animal shelters. As it is, an animal is euthanized every 6 seconds. On the issue of sterilizing humans, here's food for thought. Suppose that excess human populations were euthanized in "people" shelters. Make that one every 6 seconds. If that were the situation, and it could not be altered, it might not seem so terrible to sterilize people as a way of reducing the number of killings. Sterilizing to prevent later killing , makes a certain amount of sense in both cases. Of course, we wouldn't put up with killing humans to control overpopulation, while even many animal protection groups don't object to killing animals for that purpose. That's the...

Why is it more moral to eat a pig than it is to eat a retarded human with the intelligence of a pig? What can account for our revulsion at one and not the other aside from the fact that one would-be morsel looks like us and the other doesn't? Let us assume that the retarded human in question has no friends / family who would be traumatized by his being eaten.

I don't think we ought to eat the pig, if we have no more serious reason to do so than liking the taste of pork chops or bacon. I don't think it's necessary to use "retarded humans" as leverage to see that. Liking the taste of pork is just too trivial a reason for taking a life--even a pig's life. That being said, there's no reason not to think it's more revolting and morally worse to eat a retarded human. It is more revolting because it's more revolting--that's an emotional-sensory reaction that doesn't operate by the rules of logic. Eating people is revolting in the way sex with animals is revolting. The roots of these reactions are obviously deep. As to why it's morally worse to eat a retarded human, you might think of it this way. It's wrong in just the way it's wrong to eat a pig, but it's wrong in an additional way as well. So there are two layers to the wrongness, instead of just one. The additional layer has to do with an implicit agreement. Some day you might be that retarded...

Dear philosophers, I'd currently call myself a 'pseudo-vegetarian', in that I don't eat meat, but I do eat fish and dairy foods, and use other products derived from animals (e.g. leather, wool). I became a vegetarian when I was five; arguably, when it was easier for me to hold a black-and-white moral viewpoint. I would now like to re-evaluate my vegetarianism, so that I can make an informed and (hopefully) ethically coherent decision about the foods I eat and the products I use. Are there any books you could recommend for me to read? I studied some philosophy at university, and would be interested in reading some balanced discussions of animal rights, vegetarianism and veganism. Thank you for reading this e-mail, and thank you in advance for your help.

It's hard to find books that are "balanced" or nuanced. For the most part, people who address the ethics of animal use tend to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum. They are for some sort of radical equality between humans and animals, or they think there are no major problems with the way we now treat animals. There's the further problem that books about animals and ethics tend to look at the big picture instead of the details. Thus, the quite interesting issues about meat vs. fish vs. dairy vs. leather tend not to be dealt with. The book that comes closest to meeting your needs (that I can think of) is The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. Singer is the author of Animal Liberation and by all means a staunch animal advocate, but this is a rather nuanced book, and it's also very practical. It's really about the decisions we all make in our daily lives. The authors look at the ethics of eating "humane" animal products (vs. none or factory farmed), they look at...

Pet owners neuter their animals. They rip out their claws, shave their fur, slice off their tales, and clip their ears. What if I, for whatever reason, wanted to give my dog a sex-change operation? I’m not sure what would drive somebody to do such a thing but should it be considered acceptable? Would that be crossing a line? Would it be cruel? Is it a pet owner’s right since the pet is his/her property? Where do animal cruelty laws come into play?

Interesting question. In Texas (for example), animal cruelty laws forbid torturing, killing, "seriously injuring," or cruelly confining an animal. There is no exemption for pet owners; you don't get to do just anything you want to your own pet. Though it seems like "seriously injuring," having a vet remove testicles, rip out claws, slice off tails, etc., is not taken to be a violation. In the case of farm animals, it's clear what the statute says about such things. You can castrate, clip beaks, cut off tails, and kill farm animals because the statute explicitly says "generally accepted" treatment of farm animals is exempt. I think this is implicit in the clauses about pets. Generally accepted veterinary practice is exempt. As to the moral, as opposed to the legal issues, I think all these things need careful thought. You are basically arguing, I take it, that there has to be a limit on what can be done to pets. It surely can't be right to put your cat through a sex change operation. ...

Peter Singer has popularized the term "speiciesism." It's the idea that we are biased or prejudiced towards our own species. Therefore, the argument says, we should have equal consideration for animals. However, this won't apply to animals. The lion will still eat the gazelle, the sharks will eat the dolphins, and any carnivore will eat any animal. I can imagine Singer replying that animals don't have the rational capacity to do ethics. The ideas that Singer presents only applies to us humans. But if this is the case, isn't that a form of speciesism?

I don't think your prediction about how Singer would reply is accurate. Start with human meat eating. As a Utilitarian, Singer thinks it's right or wrong in any specific instance depending on whether it maximizes total happiness. Today in western countries (and more and more everywhere), we raise and kill animals in ways that cause them a great deal of misery. We get some pleasure at a result, but looking at the total picture, it's very hard to believe our meat-eating practices maximize total happiness. Singer does not extrapolate automatically to every single imaginable case of meat-eating. So of course he also doesn't automatically extrapolate to animals. Even if an animal did have the ability to make moral decisions, it's not obvious they'd always be wrong to continue their carnivorous ways. Take a hypothetical lion, Leo, about to eat Gabe the gazelle. Of course, he's not going to do much good for Gabe by eating him, but it could be that he will maximize total happiness. You'd have...

Peter Fosl says "it makes no sense to characterize the conduct of a being that's not a moral agent in moral terms." I wonder about this. If a child's not a moral agent yet, can we not say she does something wrong, though not blameworthy? It's hard to say why that wouldn't be the right way to talk about gratuitously cruel orcas or cats. Of course, using moral labels wouldn't tell us what we ought to do--intervene or not intervene. In many cases, trying to stop animal wrongs ("wrongs"?) will likely do more harm than good.

Setting aside the sort of lies told by parents to children, are there any lies which, in the panelists' view, it would benefit people in general to believe? (For instance, you might think that although there is no god, religious belief is so beneficial as to outweigh a strict concern for truth.) Or is it the case that there is no lie worth believing?

There are some ideas in ethics that I consider it valuable for people to believe, even though I'm not sure that they are strictly true. For example, the ideas in the UN declaration of human rights are not so much true as approximations to the truth. Jeremy Bentham might have been correct when he said rights were "nonsense upon stilts." But rights talk is powerful and inspiring, and a good way of abbreviating a more complex set of ethical realities. Although I can't make myself take rights talk 100% seriously, it does get taught in schools and through the media, so that people come to believe in rights, and I wouldn't want to get in the way of this process.

I believe that speciesism is correct. However I am confused about how I should feel about campaigns to kill pests like possums, rats, stoats etc which destroy native and often endangered birds, animals and plants. I understand that speciesism doesn't say that you can never kill an animal, you merely have to give it equal consideration. In this sense killing the pest could be justified if doing so produced a better outcome. But then I arrive at the problem of humans, which (I assume) would in many situations be a greater threat to our native birds, animals and plants. I can't help but feel that the answer may lie in the fact that we can do something about humans which destroy the environment by convincing them we shouldn't, it's not as easy to reason with the average possum. However this seems inadequate given the fact that these people are very, very unlikely to ever be convinced. How can we justify killing pests in moral terms in light of speciesism?

I have nothing to add to Douglas Burnham's response, but can't resist a terminological quibble. "Speciesism" is the term Peter Singer (following Richard Ryder) uses to mean a prejudice against animals. So if you think animals should receive equal consideration, as Singer does, you're going to want to call yourself something other than a "speciesist." Unfortunately, there's no standard term for your view. Singer says "all animals are equal," as the animals say in the book Animal Farm . As I recall, the pigs who use that slogan call themselves "animalists," but it doesn't have much of a ring to it.

When a child asks a question like "Where do babies come from?", why do all parents consider giving an answer that is far from the truth? once on TV, a parent, in respnse to this very question raised by his baby, he stated:"When a father and a mother love each other very much, they close their eyes, and they make a wish.". For a child, that seems pretty convincing, but not at all truthful. My question is: is that really moral?

I don't think it's wrong to lie to children, if there's a good reason for the lie. I recall my daughter hearing the word "rape" and asking what it is at a very early age. I said I didn't know with a "that's not important" tone of voice. Sure, I could have made an honest statement about her being too young for the subject, but it seemed pointless to make her feel disrespected, or to let her go on wondering about the matter. But does it make sense to lie about where babies come from? I frankly don't understand why parents feel so giggly and embarrassed about the subject. I told my twins the facts of life gradually, probably starting around the age of 3 or 4. When they asked how sperm gets into the mother's uterus, at about age 5, I told them the truth. (They thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.) If a parent lies about where babies come from, are they immoral? Some lies can cause children anxiety, and then there's reason to disapprove. For example, a friend of mine was...

I am a married man of 11 years with two children under 9 years. My wife and I are on the verge of a divorce and are waiting until after the holidays and figuring out the logistics of the house, finaces and child care. Nine months ago I met a younger married woman and since then we have been having an affair. We talk, text, email almost every single day. We see each other once or twice a month sometimes 2-4 days at a time. The emotional, mental and physical realtionship we have is amazing. We are like bestfriends and lean on each other for daily life issues. While my marriage is over her marriage is just starting the process of needing to change things drastically or it is over forever. She has been married for 4 years and has no children so while there is not as much to worry about it is still a very hard decision and she is taking things day by day. There is no doubt that we love each other but we obviously know there are many obstacles. 1) we are married 2) I have two children and she has none (and I...

If you really want to take a philosophical approach to your situation, then there are all sorts of things to think about--the ethics of divorce, the special responsibilities we have to children, the ethics of having affairs, the nature of romantic love, as opposed to the love we feel for our children. If you look at all those issues dispassionately, you may very well have to conclude that you have a duty to at least try to repair your marriage and preserve your children's home. I suspect, from the way you ask the question, that you want the advice that having a soul mate is more important than anything else and worth fighting for no matter what. I'm afraid I can't think of any good reason to believe that's true.

When I help poor people with medicines, food, my own work or with money, I am also contributing to the growth of population in the Earth in the sense that I make it more probable that more people live and have offspring. Population is also a challenge to the life in the Earth and is probably one of the main reasons of poverty, environment destruction and wars. So perhaps making something good at the present could be a bad idea for the future. Is this right?, or is it just a excuse for not helping people in need?

As much as your factual assumptions probably strike you as commonsensical, they are actually problematic. You are assuming that larger families have an especiallynegative impact on the environment. It seems like that must be true, but in fact our impact depends on our lifestyle. For example, average carbon emissions here in the most affluent nations are about 34 times what they are in the poorest nations. For that reason, havingone child in the US is much more of a threat to the environment than having eight in animpoverished African or Indian village. Thinking about environmental impact instead of simply aboutpopulation may eliminate your worries about helping people in developingcountries. But perhaps not. Possibly what really bothers you is the feeling that people don’t deserve to behelped, if they make the foolish choice to have so many children. Of course, the children shouldn’t be blamedfor their parents' mistakes, but setting that aside, it’s important...

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