Ethical Vegetarianism

Kerry S. Walters is Professor of Philosophy and Lisa Portmess is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Gettysburg College. Professor Walters is the editor of Re-thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, also published by SUNY Press.

"Ethical Vegetarianism offers just the right mix of 'food for thought.' The movement for a more peaceful world has for too long hungered for a book like this. Here, truly, is a volume devoted to what we eat that belongs alongside those more numerous books describing how to cook it." — Tom Regan, author of The Case for Animal Rights"The writings of history's most important proponents of ethical vegetarianism are gathered here in one volume. This book is a wealth of information for all those concerned with ending the sufferings of animals." — Ingrid E. Newkirk, President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals"This book is noteworthy for three reasons. First, it gathers together several interesting selections from the ancient world and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—not available elsewhere—so that the reader can see some of the historical background to current debates on animal rights. Second, the book contains several well-known authors whose thoughts on the moral status of animals have been largely, and unfairly, neglected. And thirdly, this book brings together several contemporary approaches to animal rights so that the reader can see the different ways in which this stance can be intellectually supported." — Daniel Dombrowski, author of Hartshorne and the Metaphysics of Animal Rights

• Introduction: Cruel Fatalities Part I. Antiquity: The Kinship of Humans and Animals Pythagoras (c. 570-490): The Kinship of All LifeSeneca (c. 4 BCE-65 CE): Abstinence and the Philosophical LifePlutarch (c. 56-120): On the Eating of FleshPorphyry (c. 233-306): On Abstinence from Animal Food Part II. The Eighteenth Century: Diet and Human Character Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733): The Carnivorous Custom and Human VanityDavid Hartley ( 1705-1757): Carnivorous CallousnessOliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): They Pity, and Eat the Objects of Their CompassionWilliam Paley (1743-1805): The Dubious Right to Eat FleshPercy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): A Vindication of Natural Diet Part III. The Nineteenth Century: Diet and Compassion Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869): A Shameful Human InfirmityWilliam A. Alcott (1798-1859): The World is a Mighty Slaughterhouse and Flesh-Eating and Human DecimationRichard Wagner (1813-1883): Human Beasts of Prey and Fellow-SufferingLeo Tolstoy (1828-1910): The Immorality of CarnivorismAnna Kingsford (1846-1888): The Essence of True Justice Part IV. The Twentieth Century: Diet, Rights, and the Global Perspective Henry S. Salt (1851-1939): The Humanities of Diet|J. Howard Moore (1862-1916): Universal KinshipRomain Rolland (1866-1944): The Unpardonable CrimeMohandas Gandhi (1869-1948): Diet and MoralityAlbert Schweitzer (1875-1965): The Ethic of Reverence for LifeTom Regan (1938- ): The Moral Basis of VegetarianismPeter Singer (1946- ): All Animals Are EqualThomas Auxter (1945- ): The Right Not to Be EatenPeter S. Wentz (1942- ): An Ecological Argument for VegetarianismStephen R. L. Clark (1945- ): The Pretext of "Necessary Suffering"Frances Moore Lappé (1944- ): Like Driving a CadillacHarriet Schleifer (1952- ): Images of Death and Life: Food Animal Production and the Vegetarian OptionJon Wynne-Tyson (1924- ): Dietethics: Its Influence on Future Farming PatternsDeane Curtin (1951- ): Contextual Moral VegetarianismCarol J. Adams (1951- ): The Social Construction of Edible Bodies and Humans as Predators Appendix I: Arguments against Ethical VegetarianismAppendix II: Animals and SlaveryAppendix III: Automatism of BrutesAppendix IV: We Have Only Indirect Duties to AnimalsAppendix V: Bibliography of Antivegetarian SourcesFor Further ReadingSources and AcknowledgmentsIndex