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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Reader opinions of “factory farming”

This morning's poll got over 600 votes in only a few hours, which may mean it's a bit skewed towards those with the strongest opinions about this.  But here are the results:

What is your opinion of so-called "factory farming"?  
Selection   Votes 
It is a moral abomination, an animal "Holocaust"  27% 167 
It is morally wrong  54% 332 
It is morally neutral  5% 31 
It is a morally justifiable way of providing low-cost food products to people  13% 82 
It is morally commendable by bringing into existence animals who otherwise would not have existed  1%
617 total 

This is a quite remarkable consensus among philosophically-minded folks.  I will be interested to see whether it holds for other issues.  (By the way, a version of the last choice has been defended by Loren Lomasky [Virginia].  In general, it's clear that many philosophers are quite ready to dismiss the cultural and culinary traditions of hundreds of millions of people as having no moral weight.  In this paper, I speculate about the likely practical limits of these moral arguments for vegetarianism.)

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