They are raised in wire cages no bigger than this page -- often three to a cage -- and thus are never able to spread their wings or to establish a normal pecking order. They are so unable to move that their feet grow around the wire (Spira, 2005). Packed confinement makes them try to kill each other. The "remedy" for this is to cut off their beaks. The optimal (profitable) speed for chopping beaks off is four beaks per minute. Workers in a hurry often miss and chop the flesh instead. In egg factories when egg production slows or stops, the chicken is placed in total darkness with no food or water for three days. Faced with certain death, a last-ditch reproductive response is triggered and she lays a flurry of eggs (Scully, 2003).
Animals forced to live this way are not healthy, and obviously, from a utilitarian standpoint it would be in their best interests not to be sick.
Disease organisms are a nasty, inevitable part of raising animals this way. While massive doses of hormones are given to promote rapid growth (the shorter the lifetime, the more the profit), massive doses of drugs must be given to control diseases. Pharmaceutical industries now provide twice the drugs for animal consumption as for human (DeGrazia, 2003). One has only to compare the liver of a healthy chicken who lived in a barnyard to that of a factory-raised chicken to get the point. The liver of a healthy chicken is pinkish-red and shiny. The liver of a factory-raised chicken is dull brown-to-gray, green around the edges, and may contain tumors.
The opposition argues that speciesism is not only plausible and logical, but essential for right conduct. They assert that there is a great moral difference between human animals and other animals. No animal has the value that a human being has. Animal pain does not bear as much moral weight as human pain. They argue that equating speciesism with racism and sexism is ridiculous, unfounded, and morally offensive (LaFollette & Shanks, 1996). Animal liberationists, on the other hand, feel that the comparison is apt because it forces humans to focus on their tendency...
Peter Singer Explication of Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" Peter Singer's objective in "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is to raise activism in the general public with regard to ending famine and conditions of abject poverty. The focus of the article concerns the public's need to take greater action. His argument stems from his view that "At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in
Peter Singer and Chitra Divakaruni each offer a powerful commentary on world poverty. Both of their respective essays, "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" and "Live Free and Starve" demonstrate good writing skills and rhetoric are therefore worthy pieces for inclusion into any book club. However, of the two authors only Divakaruni has first-hand experience of poverty. Singer's argument, while more shocking and powerful than Divakaruni's, falls short because of
Singer's goal is a very noble one. Through his article, Singer is attempting to dispel many of the more common notions of moral obligation and charity. His article attempts to provide the reader with concrete notions of moral obligation as they relate to overall human behavior. He presents various notions such as the need to help others irrespective of proximity or geographic preference. Singer, through his article also provides
Famine, Affluence, Morality," Peter Singer, discuss: a. Explain Singer's goal article, present Singer's argument supports position. b. Explain counter-arguments Singer's position addresses article, summarize Singer's responses counter-arguments. "Famine, affluence, and morality" by Peter Singer In his essay "Famine, affluence, and morality," Peter Singer asks why the major industrial nations of the world fail to act in assisting poorer and destitute nations, despite the fact they have enough resources to do so.
This situation has been self-perpetuating for decades, and all because the leader of the rebel army has not been stopped. There is no longer any real revolution going on, by all appearances, but merely a ragtag group of armed and half-crazed men forcing a large group of children to do their violent bidding, and a government that is at once largely powerless to stop it and at the same
Equality Taylor's "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" was a direct satirical response to Mary Wollstonecraft's "1792 "Vindication of the Rights of Women." The title of Taylor's treatise suggests that the author is making a direct comparison between women (the subject of Wollstonecraft's work) and animals, beasts, or "brutes" (the title of Taylor's work). Therefore, Taylor's central argument against women's rights is that women are animals. If we do not
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