Customer Reviews

Ethical Vegetarianism

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What Walters and Portmess have done is to bring together important arguments about the use of animal flesh as human food from classical writers to the present day. A veggie reader like this is something I've wanted to see since I became vegetarian several years ago, and I'd encourage anyone who is thinking seriously about what they eat and why to give it a look. To the book's great credit (and usefulness), the editors include a very useful appendix of anti-vegetarian writings, which is a useful resource for the inevitable arguments that meat-eaters offer vegetarians. I am very much lookin forward to the volume of religious writings on vegetarianism that the editors have in the works. This book is a great contribution to telling the truth about vegetarian history (which is anything but trendy) as well as a fine collection of compassionate, ethical, and important voices. Keep it next to your cookbooks in the kitchen.

My wife, a vegetarian, gave me (up to this time a nonvegetarian) this book for Christmas. After reading it, I'm a believer. I never took all the health arguments for vegetarianism seriously, but it's hard to deny this book's claim that a meatless diet is the right thing to do. I especially liked the selections from contemporary vegetarians-Peter Singer, Mary Moore Lappe, Harriet Schleiffer, Carol Adams. They point out that meat eating not only needlessly tortures and kills millions of animals, but that it is also economically wasteful. For me, this is the strongest argument. If youre thinking about going vegetarian, read this book.

The editors did an excellent job of choosing, organizing and editing this fascinating book. The book includes writings from over 30 people (including relevant biograpical info), and useful bibliographies both pro- and anti-vegetarian. I spent a lot of time at libraries looking through the compact shelving until I discovered this book and found a lot of what I needed already organized and laid out before me. A must-read for all those interested in vegetarianism and humanity's relationship with other animals!

I've read several of Walters's other books, and so I decided to give this one a try. It's basically a collection of essays going all the way back to the ancient Greeks that defend vegetarianism as a moral choice. This is a new concept for me. I always thought people went vegetarian because they wanted to stay healthy--you know, the narcissistic types who wanted to live to be a hundred and to have a beautiful body. The cool thing about this book is that it showed me that vegetarianism is a lot more than that. Maybe it's time to throw away the ground beef and stay away from fast food places.

"Ethical Vegetarianism offers just the right mix of 'food for thought.' The movement for a more peaceful world has for too long hungered for a book like this. Here, truly, is a volume devoted to what we eat that belongs alongside those more numerous books describing how to cook it." -- Tom Regan, author of The Case for Animal Rights

"The writings of history's most important proponents of ethical vegetarianism are gathered here in one volume. This book is a wealth of information for all those concerned with ending the sufferings of animals." --Ingrid E. Newkirk, President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

"This book is noteworthy for three reasons. First, it gathers together several interesting selections from the ancient world and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries--not available elsewhere--so that the reader can see some of the historical background to current debates on animal rights. Second, the book contains several well-known authors whose thoughts on the moral status of animals have been largely, and unfairly, neglected. And thirdly, this book brings together several contemporary approaches to animal rights so that the reader can see the different ways in which this stance can be intellectually supported." --Daniel Dombrowski, author of Hartshorne and the Metaphysics of Animal Rights

Ever wondered what to say when your relatives hassle you at Thanksgiving because you won't eat turkey, or when friends roll their eyes because you're the only person at the barbecue hanging out at the veggie tray? Then you need this book. It's everything you need to know about the morality of vegetarianism--and its UNDERSTANDABLE! Don't go home for the holidays without it.

The attitude of the person who wrote the review entitled "Give Me a Break" is precisely why books like this one are so badly needed. Vegetarianism isn't just a matter of diet. If it was, it would be pretty unimportant. The decision to not eat animals has much wider consequences on the environment, human population, the economy, and of course animals. Walters and Portmess spell out all the ethical reasons for adopting vegetarianism in this fantastic book. Too bad "Give me a break" won't open himself/herself to them.

Mad cow disease, hoof 'n mouth disease, swine and poultry epidemics, topsoil erosion and depletion, water pollution, human starvation caused by feeding most of our grain to food animals: how much more do you need to figure out that eating meat leads to some pretty unmoral consequences? Okay, how about the horror of slaughter houses, factory farms, and cattle trucks? Not enough? Fine. Then how about what butchering and animals does to our respect for life in general? Each of these considerations, and more, are made by Walters and Portmas in this fine book on ethical vegetarianism. It's hard to believe what harm we've done over the centuries to ourselves, the environment, and animals, but what we choose to eat. I wish there was a copy of this book in every restaurant and supermarket. (For other great veggie resources, check out my list entitled "Hoof 'n Mouth Vaccine.)

Any body who has read more than two or three books on veganism and vegetarianism runs across references to Pythagoras, Henry Salt, Francis Moore Lappe, Leo Tolstoy, etc. etc. as people who wrote important works on vegetarianism. But their books are hard to find. This book steps in and presents the central writings of these and many other people who have defended the notion that diet is a moral moatter. Very helpful, very well organized.

This is an irreplaceable resource for the serious vegetarian. It collects ancient and modern defenses of vegetarianism, has a few representative anti-vegetarian writings, and finishes up with a good bibliographic essay. I can't count how many times I've referred to someof the articles (especially ones in the ancient tradition) in conversatin. Walters and Portmess have done an excellent job