Hypocrisy and animal advocacy
Submitted by An Animal-Friendly Life
Hypocrisy on the High Seas
In a new article published by the German newspaper, Die Welt, Australian philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer attempts to shift the international debate over whale hunting and slaughter from protecting an endangered species to protecting whales as “social mammals with big brains, capable of enjoying life and of feeling pain – and not only physical pain, but very likely also distress at the loss of one of their group.” In doing so, he turns the tables on Westerners who condemn whale hunting while continuing to support other forms of hunting, and to consume the bodies and secretions of other morally relevant ‘factory farmed’ beings. However, it is odd that he narrows the hypocrisy to consuming factory farmed beings. After all, animals bred, confined and killed in non-intensive conditions have as much an interest in avoiding pain, suffering and death as factory farmed animals, much less free-swimming whales.
