Sometimes the argument you allude to is put like this: animals kill animals, so why can't we? I've heard many people say this to justify eating chickens, pigs, lambs and the like, and that's just strange, if you think about it. Somehow because a chicken and a tiger are both "animals"--that is, non-human--the chicken is supposed to be accountable for the tiger. If people would just restrict themselves to making this sort of argument in advance of going tiger hunting, it wouldn't be so bad. But then, I think in that case your answer is a good one. Because of our big brains and our capacity for morality, we should hold ourself to a higher standard. Unless under attack or just trying to survive, I can't think of any good reason to kill a tiger.

There is always a more elegant and thorough way to address any philosophical question--that's why we're all still at it here in the world's second-oldest profession!

But granting this, it seems to me that your own assessment is precisely right--our epistemic advantages over (at least most) other animals also bring with them greater ethical responsibilities. The cat can't consider whether playing with the live mouse until it dies (and then some more afterwards) is something he or she should be doing, but for us to be cruel or cause needless and excessive suffering is blameworthy.

A further point, however: Some of what constitutes our greater epistemic advantages can also yield a degree of epistemic disadvantage, which is why the exercise of epistemic modesty and an open-mindedness to relevant evidence is essential to good reasoning on questions like yours. Human beings, at their best, can indeed comprehend suffering and recognize it as having negative value. Part of the way in which we are able to do this is via our capacity to imagine ourselves undergoing such suffering. But this empathy, which can yield great advantages in our ethical reasoning, can also mislead us: Many of the animals (and, in extreme cases, even plants) that some count as worthy of such empathy are actually very poor targets for it. One who worries about the suffering he causes to the tomato plant in picking its fruit should probably find some other target for concern! What we need always, to make the best decisions, is the best information thoughfully assessed.

Good question, and I think it has a lot of philosophical import. Here's why. What we might call a "true lie" is one where the liar knows what she is doing. She knows that she needs to do or say something to alter what her target believes in order to get him to do something the liar wants. Contrast this with a "behavioristic lie," one that has the effect of getting the target to behave a certain way but without the "liar" knowing how she is doing it. Take the case of a 3-year-old girl who has learned that saying "I'm tired" often gets her out of doing something she doesn't want to do. One night her dad says "It's time to go to bed," so she repeats her standard ploy, "I'm tired." She does not seem to know how her lie works!

This difference between "true lying" and "behavioristic lying" seems to make a big difference. Behavioristic lying might not require any especially impressive cognitive abilities. Well, behavioristic learning itself is pretty impressive--and it allows more interesting and flexible forms of deception than, say, animal mimicry (the viceroy butterfly isn't doing anything cognitive in "pretending" to look like the poisonous monarch butterfly). But it's not as impressive as true lying. Your dog's behavior, if it is just behavioristic lying, does not seem to require understanding your mental states--your beliefs, desires, or intentions. Rather, your dog, like the 3-year-old girl, may have simply learned from past experience what works to get what she wants (e.g., to get fed or taken for a walk). Real lying, on the other hand, seems to require understanding that others perceive the world differently from you, they have different desires, beliefs, and intentions than your own. One cannot intentionally manipulate others' beliefs (i.e., truly lie) unless one understands that they have beliefs that can be manipulated (i.e., that can be false).

I happen to think the ability to "truly lie" may be unique to humans' (though perhaps it shows up in some other higher primates or dolphins or perhaps even dogs given their long co-evolution with humans). And I think it likely evolved because of our ancestors' complex social interactions (including reciprocal altruism) and in tandem with our remarkable ability to interpret, explain, and predict the behavior of others and ourselves in terms of beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. Once you've got that ability, you may be on your way to being able to think about alternative possibilities, choosing (freely) in light of such thinking about alternative future outcomes, thinking symbolically, doing philosophy, the whole shabang! Though I'm a bit leery of saying that so much of what makes us human is tied to our remarkable ability to truly lie...

Thank you for the question. Having taught an animal rights class for many years, I'm embarrassed to admit I'd never run into this argument. I've now tracked it down to this very interesting excerpt from Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which I think I'll put on my syllabus. So thank you!

Analogies are both helpful and distracting. Using analogies to explore the ethics of meat-eating is helpful to the extent that people are so accustomed to the practise that many can barely see that it raises an ethical issue. But analogies are distracting as well. We think the bat-swinger acts wrongly. Should we think the same of the meat-eater? Well, only if the bat-swinger is in all morally relevant ways like the meat-eater. But now we have to work hard to see whether that's the case.

I think meat-eaters can rightly say that they're somewhat different. The meat-eater isn't so unfeeling as to have his pleasure while simultaneously watching a cow howl in pain. The dirty-work is done "out of sight, and out of mind." So the analogy might make us think worse of the meat-eater's character than we really should.

Yet I think the analogy does draw us to a correct assessment of the act of meat-eating, if not the character of the meat-eater. Considering that we have equally healthy alternatives, it really is just a certain pleasure we get from meat-eating, at the cost to animals of considerable suffering and death. There are alternative pleasures to be had. Even if inferior, it's hard to believe that the extra pleasure we get from meat-eating really justifies us in imposing so much harm on animals.

You aimed your question at "meat-eating philosophers in this forum," so let me explain: I don't eat meat, but I do eat a little fish, plus "humane" eggs and milk (which aren't really all that humane, if you read about the subject). My diet does cost animals a certain amount of death and suffering. I'm prepared to say I can't justify that, but would make this plea for myself (and meat-eaters). It's much easier to see the wrongness of harming animals for gastronomic pleasure than to change your habits. Eating habits are deep-rooted, in every possible sense, so patience (with yourself, with others) is a virtue here, even more than it usually is.

I agree with the you that spaying/neutering raises difficult moral questions. On its face, it's abusive, since sterilization probably lowers quality of life for animals. So why do animal protection groups like the Humane Society encourage it? Because sterilizing animals lowers the number of unwanted animals that wind up being euthanized in animal shelters. As it is, an animal is euthanized every 6 seconds.

On the issue of sterilizing humans, here's food for thought. Suppose that excess human populations were euthanized in "people" shelters. Make that one every 6 seconds. If that were the situation, and it could not be altered, it might not seem so terrible to sterilize people as a way of reducing the number of killings. Sterilizing to prevent later killing, makes a certain amount of sense in both cases.

Of course, we wouldn't put up with killing humans to control overpopulation, while even many animal protection groups don't object to killing animals for that purpose. That's the question that probably is the most basic one here. Why is it permissible kill animals to reduce overpopulation, if it's wrong in the human case? I think the answer is that, while killing is never trivial, there are major differences between killing people and killing animals having to do with the way human beings contemplate and value their futures.

So the answer to your question is--we sterilize animals to prevent having to kill them later, and we can justify killing animals for that purpose (but couldn't justify killing people for that purpose) because of very basic differences between animals and people.

I think the basic reason why it is acceptable to sterilize non-human animals and not impoverished people is that animals do not have reproductive rights, but people do. I think it is a fundamental human right to have choices regarding when to have children, with whom to have them, and how many to have. Being very poor does not weaken one's claim on human rights. (Even people who philosophically or religiously object to contraception believe in reproductive rights to a limited extent. They believe they have the right to let nature or God make the reproductive choices for them.)

Animals, on the other hand, have no reproductive rights. This may seem odd, given the recent progress in animal rights. I am sure there are animal right activists who believe that pets ought to reproduce without human intervention, but this must be a small minority. Most mainstream animal rights groups urge sterilization to benefit animal welfare.

I don't think we ought to eat the pig, if we have no more serious reason to do so than liking the taste of pork chops or bacon. I don't think it's necessary to use "retarded humans" as leverage to see that. Liking the taste of pork is just too trivial a reason for taking a life--even a pig's life.

That being said, there's no reason not to think it's more revolting and morally worse to eat a retarded human. It is more revolting because it's more revolting--that's an emotional-sensory reaction that doesn't operate by the rules of logic. Eating people is revolting in the way sex with animals is revolting. The roots of these reactions are obviously deep.

As to why it's morally worse to eat a retarded human, you might think of it this way. It's wrong in just the way it's wrong to eat a pig, but it's wrong in an additional way as well. So there are two layers to the wrongness, instead of just one. The additional layer has to do with an implicit agreement. Some day you might be that retarded human, or that could be your child or your mother. We would like to protect ourselves and our loved ones from this eventuality. If we had a chance to set up a rule against eating retarded people, we would do so. In fact, you might as well say that we have set up such a rule, if only implicitly. The rule is (simply) "no eating people".

If you dine on porkchops, you do what's morally wrong. But if you dine on humanchops, you do something doubly wrong. You take a life without a sufficiently serious reason, plus you violate an agreement that's implictly in place. (Plus, you give yourself an upset stomach, because it's revolting.)

Given the difficulty in finding balanced treatments of these issues, you might try to achieve a balance of your own by reading people with strong opinions on either side of the issue. So in addition to reading Singer's Animal Liberation, which is the classic statement of the position in favor of animal rights, you might also read Peter Carruthers' The Animals Issue, which argues that animals do not have moral standing.

It's hard to find books that are "balanced" or nuanced. For the most part, people who address the ethics of animal use tend to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum. They are for some sort of radical equality between humans and animals, or they think there are no major problems with the way we now treat animals. There's the further problem that books about animals and ethics tend to look at the big picture instead of the details. Thus, the quite interesting issues about meat vs. fish vs. dairy vs. leather tend not to be dealt with.

The book that comes closest to meeting your needs (that I can think of) is The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. Singer is the author of Animal Liberation and by all means a staunch animal advocate, but this is a rather nuanced book, and it's also very practical. It's really about the decisions we all make in our daily lives. The authors look at the ethics of eating "humane" animal products (vs. none or factory farmed), they look at dairy, eggs, and the issue of seafood, and also at environmental and workplace issues. The book's message is really more about "better and worse" choices, as opposed to good vs. evil.

By the way, maybe you don't need to call yourself a pseudo-vegetarian. How about, instead, a "doing your best" vegetarian?

Interesting question. In Texas (for example), animal cruelty laws forbid torturing, killing, "seriously injuring," or cruelly confining an animal. There is no exemption for pet owners; you don't get to do just anything you want to your own pet. Though it seems like "seriously injuring," having a vet remove testicles, rip out claws, slice off tails, etc., is not taken to be a violation.

In the case of farm animals, it's clear what the statute says about such things. You can castrate, clip beaks, cut off tails, and kill farm animals because the statute explicitly says "generally accepted" treatment of farm animals is exempt. I think this is implicit in the clauses about pets. Generally accepted veterinary practice is exempt.

As to the moral, as opposed to the legal issues, I think all these things need careful thought. You are basically arguing, I take it, that there has to be a limit on what can be done to pets. It surely can't be right to put your cat through a sex change operation. I agree. A pet owner ought to think of a pet not merely as a means to his own satisfaction; the animal's good has to be the first consideration (though perhaps not the only consideration).

Looking at things that way, I have a hard time believing it's ethical to have cosmetic surgery performed on animals--and that's what ear-clipping and tail-docking amount to.

Declawing is rather different. Some people would not save the lives of cats at shelters unless they had the option of declawing them. They don't mind keeping cats from climbing trees, since they think they're better off inside, where they live longer lives. They think cats can live happy lives without being able to exercise the instinct to scratch. If you value your furniture hightly, and attach high importance to saving and prolonging lives, declawing won't seem like a bad option. Personally, I don't value my furniture all that highly, and think quality of life is significantly higher for cats who retain their claws and get to explore the outside world. I have cats with claws, and furniture that doesn't look that good.

Neutering is a tricky issue. It does seem to take away a lot of quality of life to neuter animals. They lose out on a big part of their lives, and neutered males are deprived of testosterone. This might be quite a loss. Again, the issue is about quality and quantity of life. To allow animals the fullest possible lives, you'd have to be able to accept the idea that huge numbers will wind up as strays, and eventually be killed at animal shelters.