Rose K. (hotdogcolors) reviewed on 8/10/2006 + 2 more book reviews

I just finished reading Animal Liberation, and it was very good! I highly recommend it to everyone! Here and there, I disagreed with his opinions, but mostly he was spot-on! I also made sure to remind myself that the book is quite dated (hard to forget, considering the yellowness of the pages;)). But enough of his arguments were based on logic and morality that cannot be dated that it really continues to hold water. Perhaps the amount of gratuitous animal testing that continues to go on has recently diminished (although I don't know that), but we all know that some continues. Perhaps the stats on factory farming are outdated, but if what I've heard and observed is true, factory farming is more widespread than in the past, and every trend is towards farm consolidation.

One of the things I disliked, for example, was this passage: "Most people have difficulty enough in taking a step towards vegetarianism; if asked to give up milk and cheese at the same time, they could be so alarmed that they end up doing nothing at all". That was an uncharacteristic display of laziness and acquiescence from him. The rest of the book is an unapologetic demand for moral vegetarianism. So I found it hypocritical of him to be this moral absolutist, preaching this spirited sermon in his book, and then back down when it came to veganism. He spends a lot of time proving logically that meat-eating is purely a function of choice- a choice he disagrees with, yet when it gets to something that clearly conflicts with his comfort level- something that is the logical extension of any moral argument for vegetarianism, he backs off. Weak. (Note, you know I am not a vegan. I just recognize veganism's logical strength and the logical gulf in Singer's arguments.) ( See http://99catsaway.livejournal.com/649811.html for more of my thoughts!)

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