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Ethical Vegetarianism: From Pythagoras to Peter Singer » (Reprint)

Book cover image of Ethical Vegetarianism: From Pythagoras to Peter Singer by Kerry S. Walters

Authors: Kerry S. Walters (Editor), Lisa Portmess (Editor), Lisa Portmess
ISBN-13: 9780791440445, ISBN-10: 0791440443
Format: Paperback
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Date Published: January 1999
Edition: Reprint

Author Biography: Kerry S. Walters

Book Synopsis

For vegetarians seeking the historical roots of vegetarianism, for animal rights activists and the environmentally concerned, and for those questioning their consumption of meat, here's a book that provides a deep understanding of vegetarianism as more than just a dietary decision.

Booknews

Brings together primary sources on vegetarianism as a moral choice, by authors including Mohandas Gandhi, Frances Moore Lappe, Pythagoras, Albert Schweitzer, and Leo Tolstoy. Selections are arranged chronologically, from antiquity to the present, and each selection includes an introduction. Appendices overview arguments against ethical vegetarianism. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

	Introduction: Cruel Fatalities	1
Pt. I	Antiquity: The Kinship of Humans and Animals	11
	The Kinship of All Life	13
	Abstinence and the Philosophical Life	23
	On the Eating of Flesh	27
	On Abstinence from Animal Food	35
Pt. II	The Eighteenth Century: Diet and Human Character	47
	The Carnivorous Custom and Human Vanity	49
	Carnivorous Callousness	57
	They Pity, and Eat the Objects of Their Compassion	61
	The Dubious Right to Eat Flesh	65
	A Vindication of Natural Diet	69
Pt. III	The Nineteenth Century: Diet and Compassion	75
	A Shameful Human Infirmity	77
	The World is a Mighty Slaughterhouse and Flesh-Eating and Human Decimation	81
	Human Beasts of Prey and Fellow-Suffering	89
	The Immorality of Carnivorism	97
	The Essence of True Justice	107
Pt. IV	The Twentieth Century: Diet, Rights, and the Global Perspective	113
	The Humanities of Diet	115
	Universal Kinship	127
	The Unpardonable Crime	135
	Diet and Morality	139
	The Ethic of Reverence for Life	145
	The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism	153
	All Animals Are Equal	165
	The Right Not to Be Eaten	177
	An Ecological Argument for Vegetarianism	189
	The Pretext of "Necessary Suffering"	203
	Like Driving a Cadillac	209
	Images of Death and Life: Food Animal Production and the Vegetarian Option	221
	Dietethics: Its Influence on Future Farming Patterns	233
	Contextual Moral Vegetarianism	241
	The Social Construction of Edible Bodies and Humans as Predators	247
App. I	Arguments against Ethical Vegetarianism	253
App. II	Animals and Slavery	259
App. III	Automatism of Brutes	261
App. IV	We Have Only Indirect Duties to Animals	267
App. V	Bibliography of Antivegetarian Sources	271
	For Further Reading	273
	Sources and Acknowledgments	277
	Index	283