Defenses of ethical vegetarianism take various forms and can be based in a wide variety of moral theories. In this post, I present three common defenses of ethical vegetarianism and also describe two more contemporary defenses of eating meat.
Tag Archives: moral principles
A Quick Look: Philosophical Views on Early-Term Fetal Rights
The philosophical debate surrounding abortion often focuses on whether a fetus (or other pre-fetal individuals) is a person. This post explores a few different angles regarding early-term fetal rights and fetal personhood.
A Quick Look: Some Moral Justifications of Legal Punishment
Many people think that legal punishment, the deliberate infliction of harm on convicted individuals, is morally justified. In this week’s post, I present a few ways that philosophers have attempted to justify such punitive practices.
A Quick Look: Defenses and Criticisms of Metaethical Constructivism
In the last post we saw Mackie’s view that moral facts do not exist. Contra Mackie, moral realists hold that there are independent objective moral facts. But if we reject both of these positions, how can we make sense of the existence of moral principles? One solution is that moral principles are something we construct. This week, let’s take a quick look at what some philosophers have to say about metaethical constructivism.
A Quick Look: Mackie’s Error Theory and Moral Anti-realism
Do objective moral values exist? Or are they fictions that are incompatible with the natural world? Let’s take a quick look at what some philosophers have to say.
Sidgwick’s Prudence is Too Demanding
Introduction Henry Sidgwick considers three axioms to be self-evident moral principles.[1] In this post I will only use two of them: the Axiom of Prudence, which states that we should be impartial about different times in our own lives; and the Maxim of Benevolence[2], which states that we should regard the good of others impartially, thatContinue reading “Sidgwick’s Prudence is Too Demanding”
Dallas Havens 