I Don't Understand The Notion That Modern

If We Compare A Severely Defective Human Infant With A Nonhuman Animal, A Dog Or A Pig, For Example, We Will Often Find The Nonhuman To Have Superior Capacities, Both Actual And Potential, For Rationality, Self-consciousness, Communication And Anything Else That Can Plausibly Be Considered Morally Significant.

Somebody Who Eats Twice As Much Factory-farmed Products As He Or She Needs To Is Clearly Doing Twice As Much Damage To The Planet. From A Utilitarian Point Of View, That's Twice As Bad.

Had Rumsfeld Said At Any Time 'get Me A Report On What's Going On', He Could Have Had It. You're Right, It Depends On Choices That We Make, Which Parts Of The World We Want To Be In Immediate Contact With.

...the Nervous Systems Of Other Animals Were Not Artificially Constructed - As A Robot Might Be Artificially Constructed - To Mimic The Pain Behavior Of Humans. A Capacity To Feel Pain Obviously Enhances A Species' Prospects Of Survival...it Is Surely Unreasonable To Suppose That Nervous Systems That Are Virtually Identical Physiologically, Have A Common Origin And A Common Evolutionary Function, And Result In Similar Forms Of Behavior In Similar Circumstances Should Actually Operate In An Entirely Different Manner On The Level Of Subjective Feelings.

There Has Been Opposition To Experimenting On Animals For A Long Time. This Opposition Has Made Little Headway Because Experimenters, Backed By Commercial Firms That Profit By Supplying Laboratory Animals And Equipment, Have Been Able To Convince Legislators And The Public That Opposition Comes From Uninformed Fanatics Who Consider The Interests Of Animals More Important Than The Interests Of Human Beings.