Dear Colleagues: Two items of note came across my desk in the past several days: First, Peter Singer, “father of the animal rights movement,” said in an interview: PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: If we are going to eat animal products then I think there’s a heavy responsibility on us to make sure that the animals didn’t […]
Dear Colleagues: Several weeks ago, I asked for questions that people would like me to address. I received approximately 80 questions. I plan to do several Commentaries in which I discuss at least some of these questions. A number of the questions that I received concern single-issue campaigns so this Commentary deals primarily with that […]
Dear Colleagues: In my previous blog post, Partners in Exploitation, I discussed the various labeling schemes endorsed and promoted by HSUS, PETA, and other animal welfare corporations. Well low and behold, yesterday, I went to the local Whole Foods Market, you know, the one to which PETA gave the Best Animal-Friendly Retailer award, and I […]
Dear Colleagues: Making society feel more comfortable about animal exploitation and encouraging consumption are more often than not an explicit goal of animal welfare campaigns and organizations. For example, many of the large animal advocacy groups in the United States and Britain are involved in promoting labeling schemes under which the flesh or products of […]
Dear Colleagues: This morning’s AOL News carried a story, PETA’S Euthanasia Rates Have Critics Fuming. The story states that PETA: euthanizes over 90 percent of the dogs and cats relinquished to its headquarters in Norfolk, Va. In 2009, PETA euthanized 2,301 dogs and cats — 97 percent of those brought in — and adopted only […]
Dear Colleagues: It is important to understand that there are significant differences among those who regard themselves as vegans. One important difference is between those who maintain that veganism is merely a way of reducing suffering, and those who maintain that it is a fundamental commitment to justice, nonviolence, and a recognition of the moral […]
Dear Colleagues: My newest book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, will be published by Columbia University Press in November or early December. In the first section, I defend the abolitionist approach. In the second section, Professor Robert Garner of the University of Leicester (U.K.) defends the protectionist approach (what I refer to as […]
Dear Colleagues: Opposing Views posted my essay, On Violence. It generated a lively discussion with well over 200 comments. Read the various threads and make up your own mind. If you are not vegan, go vegan! Animal products are injurious to your health and animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. But most importantly, veganism is […]
Dear Colleagues: Unfortunately, there are people who identify themselves as animal advocates who claim that the solution to the problem of animal exploitation is violence. Some of these people have actually engaged in acts of violence against institutional exploiters. Others incite acts of violence by calling on people to use “intimidation” against animal exploiters or […]
Dear Colleagues: The Vegan, the magazine of the The Vegan Society (U.K.), is about to release its Spring 2010 issue. In that issue, I have an essay, Vegetarianism First?, which discusses the notion that we should promote vegetarianism as a “gateway” to veganism and proposes that this is an error on both a theoretical and […]