The Silence of the Yams

(E&A) If the ethics of animal use falls on deaf ears, there's always this commonsensical advice from the author of Omnivore's Dilemma.

Bring it on!

(E&A) Not to leave any critical rock unturned, here's as essay from Capitalism Magazine, defending a objectivist "morality of reason" against the "left's [emotional/relativistic] assault on moral values." An excerpt:

The absurdities of the left stem precisely from its irrationality--its pervasive emotionalism, its insistence on doing whatever "feels right," its contention that there are no fixed truths, its credo that morality is anything one wishes it to be. The left maintains that no objective principles exist to validate moral judgments. From its multicultural equalization of all societies--savage or civilized--to its belief in an indefinable, "evolving" Constitution, the left rejects the logic of objective standards and enshrines the arbitrariness of subjectivism. Thus, what the left's opponents should disavow is not secularism per se, but rather the replacement of a religious variant of unreason--blind faith--with a secular variant: blind feelings.

The real alternative to the leftist claptrap is a morality of reason. Such a morality begins with the individual's life as the primary value and identifies the further values that are demonstrably required to sustain that life. It observes that man's nature demands that we live not by random urges or by animal instincts, but by the faculty that distinguishes us from animals and on which our existence fundamentally depends: rationality.

What does this say about Matt Silliman's efforts to found an objective basis for moral judgment in the capacity of conscious valuers to value themselves and others?

The Devil Made Me Play It

(A&P) Here's a brief description of the so-called "Devil's interval" (an augmented 4th or diminished 5th), the sort of thing Plato would never allow in his Republic.

All or Nothing at All?

(E&A) Ethicist and animal rights activist Tom Regan has always maintained an absolutist -- rather than gradualist -- stance on the elimination of animal agriculture and experimentation. Developments like these do seem to provide some evidence in favor of his claim (in The Case for Animal Rights and elsewhere) that "we don't fix unjust institutions by tidying them up."

Praxis and Thesis XI

(E&A) Here's a link to K. Marx's 11 "Theses on Feuerbach." Note especially II, VII, and XI.

Click here for a concise discussion of praxis (and its Aristotelian roots).

On Marx on religion, see my November 06, 2006 post.

Vegetarianism and Global Warming

(E&A) Curiously absent from recent (mainstream) discussions of global warming is any mention of our self-destructive addiction to meat and other nonhuman animal products. Intensive methods of animal agriculture now produce more than 20% of all greenhouse gases attributable to human activity (in the form of both CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, with the latter having an even more severe impact on the world's climate). Sociologist Dan Brook sums up the situation this way:

Vegetarianism is literally about life and death -- for each of us individually and for all of us together. Eating animals simultaneously contributes to a multitude of tragedies: the animals' suffering and death; the ill-health and early death of people; the unsustainable overuse of oil, water, land, topsoil, grain, labor and other vital resources; environmental destruction, including deforestation, species extinction, mono-cropping and global warming; the legitimacy of force and violence; the mis-allocation of capital, skills, land and other assets; vast inefficiencies in the economy; tremendous waste; massive inequalities in the world; the continuation of world hunger and mass starvation; the transmission and spread of dangerous diseases; and moral failure in so-called civilized societies. Vegetarianism is an antidote to all of these unnecessary tragedies.

The editors of World Watch concluded in the July/August 2004 edition that "the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future -- deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease." Lee Hall, the legal director for Friends of Animals, is more succinct: "Behind virtually every great environmental complaint there's milk and meat."

Global warming may be the most serious global social problem threatening life on Earth. We need to fight global warming on the governmental and corporate levels, and we also need to fight global warming on the everyday and personal levels. Now we need to fight global warming -- with our forks.

Frank's Place

(A&P) Here's a link to Frank Galuszka's homepage. Note especially his detailed reflections on the significance and genesis of his artwork.

It has been Decided!

Yet another reason to avoid the passive voice. But note: Quinn's final two examples of the passive voice are, in fact, past tense yet active verbs.

Both "mistakes were made" and the more informative "mistakes were made by the Decider," are passive. However, and contrary to Quinn, sentences of the form "the Mistaker decided" (and, obviously, "the Decider made mistakes") are not.