Namit Arora: On Eating Animals

[Spencer Lo]

The author wrote a rich essay, IMO, and provided many informative links throughout. One passage in particular struck me:

What’s needed in my view are not theories of rights or liberty for animals, nor talk of "speciesism" or utilitarian optimization—at least not primarily—but narratives and experiences that reawaken us to a sense of kinship with farm animals, which is the ground upon which we build our obligations to them. (I can recommend the documentary film, The Emotional World of Farm Animals, as a place to begin.) There is no evidence that farm animals suffer any less than dogs or cats. They too are lovable, intelligent, and have individual personalities and social-emotional lives; many of them even bond with humans. They too have behaviors that in our pets we describe as fear, elation, loneliness, anxiety, playfulness, etc. More of us rediscovering this may be a prerequisite to bringing greater dignity to their lives and deaths—and in doing so, greater dignity to our own.

 

Rest here: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2012/06/on-eating-animals....