The Problem with PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has done real harm to nonhuman animals. Anyone who cares about animals should refuse to support this group. It has been co-opted by the establishment; it uses sexist imagery and methods; and, worst of all, it entrenches the view that animals are resources for human use. Read what law professor Gary L. Francione has to say about PETA in this wide-ranging interview. (His critique of PETA comes near the end.)

Animal Liberation and Utilitarianism

Peter Singer (born 1946) is a towering figure in animal ethics, so let's clear something up once and for all. I will direct people to this entry whenever they make the mistake I'm about to identify. In 1980, Singer began an essay with the following stirring words:

I am a utilitarian. I am also a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I am a utilitarian. I believe that applying the principle of utility to our present situation—especially the methods now used to rear animals for food and the variety of food available to us—leads to the conclusion that we ought to be vegetarian. (Peter Singer, "Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism," Philosophy & Public Affairs 9 [summer 1980]: 325-37, at 325)

Five years before this essay appeared in print, Singer published Animal Liberation (New York: Avon Books, 1975), which has been called "the bible of the animal-liberation movement." In this book, Singer argued against two "speciesist practices": (1) the raising and killing of animals for food and (2) the use of animals in scientific experiments and tests of consumer products.

So Singer is all of the following: (1) a utilitarian, (2) a vegetarian, and (3) the author of Animal Liberation, in which he makes a case for vegetarianism. Moreover, he is a vegetarian because he is a utilitarian. It does not follow from any of this that the argument of Animal Liberation is utilitarian. In fact, it is not, as Singer himself said in 1999. Responding to criticism by Robert C. Solomon, he wrote:

Solomon refers to my Animal Liberation, and suggests that the emotional impact of the photographs included in that book had more impact than the 'ethereally controversial utilitarian attack on "speciesism" that accompanied them'. But the text of Animal Liberation is not utilitarian. It was specifically intended to appeal to readers who were concerned about equality, or justice, or fairness, irrespective of the precise nature of their commitment. (Nor, for that matter, do I think there is anything in the least ethereal about it.) Significantly, the book succeeded in persuading thousands of people to change their diet and become involved in the animal movement. (Peter Singer, "A Response," chap. 13 in Singer and His Critics, ed. Dale Jamieson [Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999], 269-335, at 283)

Singer is a smart man and a good philosopher. He knew in 1975 and knows now that not everyone is a utilitarian. Many people are, but many are not. If the argument of Animal Liberation presupposed utilitarianism, then he would be cutting off much of his audience. People who aren't utilitarians would say, "This argument doesn't apply to me; I reject its main premise." That would be self-defeating, since Singer wanted to persuade as many people as possible to change their beliefs and behavior. The premises of Animal Liberation can be accepted by people of any (or almost any) theoretical persuasion. This gives the book a wide audience.

Here is a handout that I distribute to my Ethics students when we discuss Singer's 1974 essay "All Animals Are Equal" (first published in Annual Proceedings of the Center for Philosophical Exchange 1 [summer 1974]: 103-11). This essay, published when Singer was twenty-eight, is the basis for the main argumentative chapter of Animal Liberation. I showed the handout to Singer a few months ago. He suggested some minor changes in wording but said it accurately reconstructs his argument. As he put it in e-mail correspondence, the argument is compatible with utilitarianism but does not presuppose it. In other words, it's a nonutilitarian argument but not an anti-utilitarian argument. You will note that the argument is entirely free of theoretical commitments.

Misunderstanding Moral Argument

In a long, interesting comment on one of my posts, Mary writes: "eat what you like and let the rest eat what they like." With all due respect, Mary, you make it sound as though I'm coercing you into giving up meat. No. I'm trying to persuade you to give up meat. There's a big difference between coercion and persuasion! The main difference, and it's a morally important one, is that only persuasion is respectful of the person.

How does persuasion work? By drawing out the implications of what your interlocutor already believes or values. Have you read Mylan Engel's essay "The Immorality of Eating Meat"? If not, please do. There's a link to it on the left side of the blog. Mylan tries to show you that you are already committed (without knowing it) to vegetarianism. There are three things you can do in response to his argument (assuming you want to avoid self-contradiction). First, deny that you have the beliefs and values he says you have. Second, show that even if you have those beliefs and values, they do not commit you to vegetarianism. (In other words, find fault with the structure—validity—of his argument.) Third, accept his conclusion and become a vegetarian. Please read (and think about) his essay. Nobody is trying to force or coerce you into anything. Law is coercive; morality is persuasive. And don't say that Mylan is imposing his values on you. He's imposing your values on you!

Addendum: Mylan's essay is on my university's server, which is down for maintenance for a few days. Please keep trying the link until it works.

Red Meat

The following was posted as a comment on my blog entry, "Becoming a Vegetarian (or Demi-Vegetarian)":

I happened upon your blog from the blogger main page and have been fascinated ever since. I very much enjoy the issues brought up and discussed. This post in particular has really gotten me to think. To be honest, I very much enjoy the taste of beef. I do not enjoy the way in which beef is a[c]quired—the farming or the slaughtering. But I find it interesting when people give up red-meat, but not other meats. Chickens and turkey[s] are raised in terrible environments and treated just as badly with practices such as debeaking and layering. Perhaps you can shed some light on why red-meat is usually the first meat to go from diets and not other meats. I can think of many reasons myself, but I enjoy your thoughts and writings and would love to hear what you have to say especially considering that you have the actual experience. Personally, I'm not a big fan of poultry and would give that up before beef, must [much] to the dismay of our fellow [?] bovine mammals.

Let me say, first of all, that I appreciate the feedback. Mylan, Angus, Nathan, and I hope that this site becomes a worldwide forum for philosophical discussion of the moral status of nonhuman animals. This means give and take, not lecturing. Please spread the word about the blog. And please—all of you—keep the questions coming. We will do our best to respond to them. Right, guys? Guys? Are you there?

You say you enjoy the taste of beef but do not enjoy the farming or the slaughtering. Have you tried various soy-based beef substitutes? One common reaction to this suggestion is, "Yuck!" But seriously, I eat hamburgers, hot dogs, and lunch meat—all made with vegetables. They're delicious. The technology is amazing. Even the texture is mimicked. But suppose you conclude that these items aren't as tasty as the real thing; isn't that a reasonable price to pay to avoid contributing to the suffering and death that you say bothers you? I don't mean to be censorious, but you did ask me. Try the soy products. They're available even in traditional grocery stores such as Kroger and Albertson's. If you have specialty stores such as Whole Foods Market in your area, you will find an amazing assortment of vegetarian foods. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps other readers can make recommendations as to brand and so forth.

As for why some people "give up" red meat but not other meats, it probably varies by person. One reason that springs to mind is that beef is less healthy than, say, poultry. If you're wondering about me in particular, red meat (beef and pork) was just the first meat to go from my diet. I didn't want to go whole hog (or quit cold turkey). I was chicken, sheepish, cowed. I don't know why I started with red meat; maybe it was because cows and pigs are bigger and more humanlike. Have you ever looked into a cow's eyes? I don't think I saw any moral difference between the various meats (or animals); nor is there, in my judgment. One reader of this blog pointed out a while back that, other things being equal, it's worse (morally) to eat chickens than cows or pigs. His reasoning was that the same amount eaten would require more deaths, and also that cows and pigs aren't (in general) treated as badly as chickens.

By the way, I have always considered pork red meat, despite the pork industry's slogan, "The other white meat." What do you suppose explains that slogan? Think like a rhetorician.

Alan R. White on the Kinds of Things Which Can Have Rights

A right is something which can be said to be exercised, earned, enjoyed, or given, which can be claimed, demanded, asserted, insisted on, secured, waived, or surrendered; there can be a right to do so and so or have such and such done for one, to be in a certain state, to have a certain feeling or adopt a certain attitude. A right is related to and contrasted with a duty, an obligation, a privilege, a power, a liability. A possible possessor of a right is, therefore, whatever can properly be spoken of in such language; that is, whatever can intelligibly, whether truly or falsely, be said to exercise, earn, etc. a right, to have a right to such logically varied things, to have duties, privileges, etc. Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, a necessary condition of something's being capable of having a right to V is that it should be something which logically can V.

In the full language of 'a right' only a person can logically have a right because only a person can be the subject of such predications. Rights are not the sorts of things of which non-persons can be the subjects, however right it may be to treat them in certain ways. Nor does this, as some contend, exclude infants, children, the feeble-minded, the comatose, the dead, or generations yet unborn. Any of these may be for various reasons empirically unable to fulfil the full role of a right-holder. But so long as they are persons—and it is significant that we think and speak of them as young, feeble-minded, incapacitated, dead, unborn persons—they are logically possible subjects of rights to whom the full language of rights can significantly, however falsely, be used. It is a misfortune, not a tautology, that these persons cannot exercise or enjoy, claim, or waive, their rights or do their duty or fulfil their obligations. . . .

. . .
It is a misunderstanding to object to this distinction between the kinds of things which can have rights and those which cannot on the ground that it constitutes a sort of speciesism. For it is not being argued that it is right to treat one species less considerately than another, but only that one species, that is, a person, can sensibly be said to exercise or waive a right, be under an obligation, have a duty, etc., whereas another cannot, however unable particular members of the former species may be to do so.

(Alan R. White, Rights [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984], 90, 92 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

Becoming a Vegetarian (or Demi-Vegetarian)

I stopped eating red meat (i.e., all animal products except turkey, chicken, fish, and eggs) on 11 February 1981, when I was twenty-three years old. I was in law school at the time, hence cooking my own meals. Something happened while I was reading Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation. I can't say that Singer persuaded me, rationally. It was more like he emboldened me or gave me permission to change my diet. I had always loved animals and felt uncomfortable about eating their flesh, but I didn't know anyone who was a vegetarian and thought I'd be viewed by my family and friends as a crank. My family had always eaten meat, and still does.

As I read Singer, I kept thinking, "Here's someone who is extremely intelligent and who thinks it's wrong to eat meat." I also liked the fact that Singer made no appeal to emotion or sentiment. He was a hard-headed, factually grounded philosopher. Singer became my model and my inspiration. However much I was mocked by family and friends for giving up red meat, I would know that Singer, at least, was on my side. This may seem silly to some, but it's hard for young people (I consider twenty-three young) to take moral stands by themselves. Young people are herd animals. I knew that becoming a vegetarian would require vast changes in my life. I would have to learn how to cook. I would have to learn about nutrition. I would have to adjust my social life. How do you say to a host, without seeming rude or boastful, that you don't eat meat?

As I explain to my students when I lecture on Singer, a decision to become a vegetarian doesn't change one's tastes or desires all of a sudden. For some time prior to giving up red meat, I had stopped at a Burger King outside Flint, Michigan, on my way home from college classes. I always bought a hamburger and a cup of coffee for the long drive to Vassar. It was part of my routine. Once I stopped eating red meat, I had no reason to stop at Burger King. For a long time thereafter, I missed stopping there and missed the taste of the hamburger. Driving by was a forlorn event. Meanwhile, my mother continued cooking meat for my family. I enjoyed the smell and secretly wished I could eat what she cooked. The point is, I still craved meat after I gave it up. This must be counted as a cost of becoming a vegetarian.

But eventually, to my surprise, my affect caught up with my will. I found, as time went by, that I no longer craved meat. I became indifferent to it. And then, miracle of miracles, I came to be disgusted by it. To this day, I cannot watch television advertisements showing frying or broiling hamburgers, with grease dripping from them. It sickens me. Nor can I look at raw meat being sliced. It's interesting how the various parts of the self strive for integration. My moral beliefs (cognition), my volition, my affect, and my conative or desiring side have reintegrated themselves. I assume this happens to others and not just to me. So if you're contemplating becoming a vegetarian, or just giving up red meat (as I initially did), don't fear that you'll be gustatorily frustrated for the rest of your life. You'll probably be frustrated for a while, and may even curse your decision from time to time, but eventually you'll feel integrated again. It's a wonderful, liberating feeling.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

Like most of you (or at least those who haven't been out shopping), I've been reading a lot (see here, for example) about mad-cow disease. It's interesting on many levels: epidemiologically, agriculturally, economically, politically, and morally. One thing is clear: The cost of beef and beef products will increase, perhaps significantly. Consumers will demand, and government will require, a more stringent inspection regime, the cost of which will be passed on to consumers by producers. Some consumers will switch to other, comparatively cheaper meats, such as pork, turkey, and chicken; but others will eliminate beef from their diet without replacing it. I can't but think that mad-cow disease will be a good thing for farm animals generally.

While I'm on the subject, is anyone besides me dumbfounded by the fact that otherwise intelligent, reasonable, even sensitive people eat beef? Have you been reading the stories about how it is produced? Cows live in filthy, stinking conditions. They walk about in their own feces and urine, with flies thick on their bodies. The slaughterhouse is covered in blood, guts, and gore. Either beef-eaters don't know about these conditions or they know and don't care. I can't believe they don't care. So maybe reading stories about where their neatly wrapped hamburger and steak comes from will make a difference to their behavior. You are what you eat.

From Today's Dallas Morning News

PETA's terrorist attacks

I love animals as much as the next person (maybe more), and abhor the wearing of fur, but People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' new anti-fur campaign has gone over the proverbial edge.

In case you hadn't heard, when PETA folk eye a fur-wearing mom at The Nutcracker ballet performance this holiday season, they approach her kids and thoughtfully provide them with a comic-book type of leaflet entitled "Your Mommy Kills Animals!"—which graphically shows a mom stabbing a helpless rabbit with a bloody knife, among other things.

Quite simply, there is absolutely no excuse for terrorizing and traumatizing innocent children for the fur-wearing sins of their mother. It's reprehensible.

In the past, PETA supporters' civil disobedience in support of animal rights and, yes, even some occasional red paint were understandable. Now, they've lost all credibility.

Perhaps they should rename their organization "People Exemplifying Terrorist Actions."

Mark Monse, Coppell

Gary L. Francione on PETA's Sexism

[I]n recent years, the promotion of animal causes has increasingly relied on sexist and racist imagery. For example, the fur campaign has from the outset been tainted by sexism. The trapping or ranching of animals for fur is certainly barbaric and immoral, but fur is no more or less morally obnoxious than leather or wool. The primary difference is that furs are worn by women, and wool and leather, although also worn by women, are worn by virtually all men. Fur became an early target of the animal rights movement, and from the outset the imagery was, not unexpectedly, sexist. An early poster shows a pair of women's legs (no torso, no head, just legs) clothed in black stockings and spiked high heels. The woman is dragging a fur coat, which is trailing blood. The caption read, "It takes up to 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat. But only one to wear it." And in the nineties, PETA has promoted its "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" ads, featuring billboards with naked models, as well as demonstrations in which women appear naked. In one particularly notable example, a PETA staff person "stripped" on Howard Stern's radio station in order to make her point about fur, and Stern described each phase of the event in considerable detail. Unfortunately, some animal advocates have harassed women wearing furs. The fur industry is certainly indefensible according to any moral standard (other than an extreme form of ethical egoism), but using sexist imagery or assaults on women to make that point is extremely problematic not only because it is violent but because men wearing their expensive wool suits need not worry about animal rights advocates harassing them.

(Gary L. Francione, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996], 74-5 [footnote omitted])

Whom Do You Trust?

Ultimately, each of us is responsible for his or her safety. This is true of eating, flying, and everything else. After the horrific attacks of 11 September 2001, each of us had (and still has) to decide whether to fly. Now that mad-cow disease has been documented in a United States herd, each of us has to decide whether to eat beef. (Many of us don't eat it anyway; I'm referring to those who do.)

Do you trust statements emanating from the beef industry? Do you trust statements emanating from the United States Department of Agriculture, which is in the pocket of the beef industry? We know that the beef industry is aggressive to the point of dishonesty in marketing its products. Think of all the slogans over the years designed to make people think beef is essential to health: "Real Men Eat Beef"; "Beef: It's What's for Dinner"; and so on. Lately, the beef industry has been trying to persuade women (how's that for sexism?) that cooking beef is quick and easy. Why, in just thirty minutes you can have beef on the table for your husband and children. The not-so-subtle implication is that if you don't feed your family beef, you're not a good wife and mother.

I wouldn't trust the beef industry with a nickel of my money, much less with my life and health. This is cynical, but I think cynicism is warranted in this case, given the industry's duplicity and demonstrated lack of concern for consumer health. I say the same thing about the airline industry after 9-11. It got to the point where airline representatives were calling Americans weenies for not flying. "Fraidy cat!" "Wuss!"

As most readers of this blog know (but some may not), the beef industry is so sensitive to lost profits that it uses the law to attack critics. Here in Texas, there is a "disparagement" law that allows the industry to sue those who disparage its products. That is an abuse of legal processes. But the industry, at least in Texas, is powerful. It is almost a separate branch of government. At least the airline industry isn't built on deprivation, suffering, and death, like the beef industry.

I hope Americans stop eating beef. It won't be for the right reason (which is concern for the animals whose flesh is consumed), but doing the right thing for the wrong reason is better than doing the wrong thing. What's the industry going to do, sue mad-cow disease? Pass a law requiring that every citizen eat beef? Ha!

Speciesism

Quoting Richard Ryder on speciesist language piqued my curiosity about the origin of the term "speciesism," so I did some detective work. Here is the result.

Richard D. Ryder on Speciesist Language

Some aspects of the language I use may surprise the reader. This is because I have tried, when appropriate in the context, to dismantle the speciesism inherent in the words we use. Phrases like 'men and animals', for example, insult not only women but nonhumans also, for humans are animals too.

Using the word 'animal' in opposition to the word 'human' is clearly an expression of prejudice. So how can this be avoided when describing those sentient creatures who are not of the human species? Does a phrase such as 'animals and human animals' help? It might, but it is rather clumsy. Slightly less cumbersome is the phrase 'nonhuman animal' and its inevitable abbreviation 'nonhuman'. To some this may itself sound speciesist, in that it could be asserting that human is the norm and that nonhuman is inferior. All I can say is that no such inferiority is intended or understood. In the absence of other appropriate words I use 'nonhuman' or 'nonhuman animal' in the hope that their use reminds the reader, as it does me, of the kinship between those of my own species and others.

Admittedly, in dealing with the past, it is difficult to use new terms and concepts consistently, so the early chapters do contain some speciesist phrasing. I defend the use of the word 'animal' in the title on the grounds that the revolution to which I refer applies to the human animal as well as to others; and because the revolution, to a large extent, is about the concept of 'animal' itself.

The hostility towards so-called ant[h]ropomorphism during this century has been so extreme that the use of certain adjectives, pronouns such as 'he' or 'she' and verbs in a nonhuman context has been abhorred, particularly by those intellectuals who should have known better. Nevertheless, if I believe it appropriate I have, and without shame, deliberately attributed behavioural and emotional qualities to nonhumans which some may regard as far-fetched. So, if I believe a dog is angry then I say so, and if she is a dog who feels angry with speciesists, then I sympathize!

(Richard D. Ryder, Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989], 2)

Cross-Reference

Was Jesus a vegetarian? See here.

Happy Holidays!

Sophie, Shelbie, and I wish all of you a happy, safe holiday season. Give your loved ones big sincere hugs.

Ambrose Bierce

Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

This is a dog,
This is a cat,
This is a frog,
This is a rat.
Run, dog, mew, cat,
Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

Elevenson.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

For Your Holiday Gift Needs

I hope this isn't unseemly (or excessively so), but I want to plug a book by my fellow blogger, Angus Taylor, who hails from the Great White North (British Columbia). Four years ago, he published a book entitled Magpies, Monkeys, and Morals: What Philosophers Say About Animal Liberation (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1999). I don't recall how or why I acquired it, but when I read it, I was amazed. Everything I had been reading for the past twenty years was there, elaborated, analyzed, synthesized, and critically discussed. All the theories, all the arguments, all the topics. I was so taken by the book that I offered to review it for the prestigious journal Ethics. Here is my review (a book note, actually). Somewhere along the line I made contact with Angus, whom I didn't know, and here we are, blogging together.

A few months ago, the second edition of Magpies was published. Lo and behold, I'm quoted on the back cover, as if I were an important philosopher! The book's title has changed to Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003). Please acquire and read this book. Not because it will make Angus money (we don't do this stuff for money, I assure you), but because it will improve the quality of discussion and debate about the moral status of nonhuman animals. The book, as I say in my review, is beautifully written—and it's fair. Angus may have a view about the moral status of animals (which you can discern for yourself by reading his blog entries), but he doesn't argue for it in the book. The book is an overview, meant to educate. The bibliography, by the way, is superb. It will take you as deeply into the philosophical literature on animals as you care to wade.

Thanks, Angus, for applying your skills to this important topic. And thanks for joining this blog! Happy holidays, everyone.

Aldo Leopold on the Lessons of Darwinism

It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise.

Above all we should, in the century since Darwin, have come to know that man, while now captain of the adventuring ship, is hardly the sole object of its quest, and that his prior assumptions to this effect arose from the simple necessity of whistling in the dark.

(Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, with Essays on Conservation from Round River [New York: Ballantine Books, 1970 (1949)], 116-7)

Deconstructing My Egg Carton

My egg carton has a number of alluring (and cryptic) phrases, but only one of them, so far as I can tell, has moral significance.

The logo depicts a farmhouse with the words "FARMHOUSE EGGS" above and below it. One might be tempted, upon reading this, to think of a cozy henhouse with straw-filled nests and pleasant roosts, but a farmhouse is not a henhouse. The egg farm near my childhood home in Vassar, Michigan, had a farmhouse, and believe me, there were no henhouses on the premises. It was chicken hell.

The logo says "ALL NATURAL" and "HAND GATHERED." It's not clear what the former expression refers to. "Natural" usually contrasts with "artificial." Eggs aren't artificial, so they must be natural. It's natural for hens, even factory-farmed hens, to lay eggs. The latter expression, I think, is meant to mislead. The eggs in the egg farm near my childhood home were hand gathered by either the sons of the proprietor or hired help. When laid, the eggs rolled downward on a wire mesh. Someone came by once or twice a day to "gather" them by hand. The term "gathered" suggests an egg basket carried by a farmer's wife clad in an apron.

On the left of the carton it says, "From Natural Grain Fed / Free Roaming Nesting Hens." How or what the chickens are fed seems irrelevant to how they're treated, and therefore morally irrelevant. The chickens in the egg farm near my childhood home were fed grain. Was it natural? It's not clear what that means. Grain is natural as opposed to artificial, so the word "natural" may add nothing but favorable emotive meaning to the term. Lots of products in grocery stores have "natural" in their title. Natural is good.

The only phrase that's morally relevant, in my view, is "Free Roaming Nesting Hens." The main complaint about factory egg farms is that the chickens are kept in cramped quarters. If they're free-roaming, that would vastly improve the quality of their lives. But who knows what "roaming" means? Does it mean the chickens have the run of an enclosure? Perhaps they have only a little more room than the chickens in factory farms—room to turn around, for example. But any more room to move about is good, morally speaking. PETA certainly thinks so.

Someone might say, upon reading this, that I'm naive. "Do you believe that stuff, Keith? Sheesh!" But why shouldn't I? I have no reason to disbelieve it. If I can't believe what it says on an egg carton, why should I believe what it says on any product container? Should I believe that the computer I purchased has an eighty-gigabyte hard drive in it, or that it was put together in Austin, Texas, simply because it says those things on the box? Maybe I should conduct a personal investigation. I should go to the place where the eggs are produced and see for myself what "free roaming" means. Is that reasonable? Wouldn't it require that I conduct personal investigations of the soy products I buy? After all, why believe it when it says "Meatless Fat Free Slices" on my Deli Slices? Why believe it when it says "Meat Free Soy Protein Links" on my Smart Dogs? This sort of skepticism sweeps too broadly.

"But why eat eggs at all?" you ask. "Even if you're right that the chickens from whom these eggs came were free roaming, it doesn't follow that no suffering was involved." I agree. I'm not doing the best I can. But I'm doing better than if I ate any old eggs, as I did until recently. I'm doing less than the best—by my own standards—but not nothing. You can criticize me for not doing my best as long as you also praise me for doing something. To criticize me for not doing my best is to imply that morality is all or nothing—that there is no morally relevant difference between eating any old eggs and eating eggs from free-roaming hens.

Imagine if we adopted that attitude in other realms. If you're not playing in the major leagues, you may as well not play baseball. If you're not doing everything you can for your spouse, you're acting immorally. If you're causing any animal suffering at all, you may as well be skinning cats alive for the fun of it.

A Letter to The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re "Middle Ground on Dogs" (editorial, Dec. 13):

When the World Trade Center fell, dogs (over the New York City Housing Authority's 40-pound maximum, which you support) cut their feet on shards of glass and crawled through unstable debris, risking their lives to search for victims. Dogs sniffing for explosives protect the lives of airline passengers. When a plane crashes, dogs crawl through twisted metal searching for survivors; as passengers, these dogs are required to travel as baggage.

Dogs sniff out drugs; in Iraq, dogs risk their lives sniffing out land mines. They guard and warn of fire. When someone is missing, dogs search for clues while humans helplessly tag along. Dogs provide eyes and ears for the disabled.

Most of all, dogs provide humans with a unique and valuable gift—unconditional love. Let's stop merely exploiting dogs and give them the respect and honor they deserve.

JEANNE ISENSTEIN
New York, Dec. 14, 2003

Doug Peacock on the Grizzly Bear

If grizzlies are to survive in the modern world, the bedrock assumption must be that these animals, grizzlies, have the right to live a bearish life. To proceed from this assumption will be costly. Bears will always be in the way of commercial, industrial, and economic development. Grizzlies will always be dangerous. It is within the range of the "natural behavior" of any grizzly to kill a human during his or her average life span. The combination of a grizzly's disposition on a particular day and the nature of its confrontation with any particular human is also probably unique. It would probably never happen again. Nonetheless, it is the unwritten law of grizzly bear management that any bear who kills a human must die. Otherwise the agencies involved could be sued.

What grizzlies need most for survival is protection from humans who kill them and sufficient habitat for all their needs: den sites, food, beds, and cover or sufficient area for security.

(Doug Peacock, Grizzly Years [New York: Zebra Books, 1992 (1990)], 352-3)