I just posted a letter that is a response to Xanthro's letter on page 12. He makes good points but I cannot agree with most that he says. One point of his was that suffering should not be alleviated. A second point was that suffering is too confusing a word with too many possible definitions.

I don't agree with him here at all. I think that we have a good sense of what suffering is, and that on the whole we try to avoid it.

So now I ask, is suffering a good thing? Is it something that we don't have a firm grasp of?

I would like to hear other people's thoughts on this issue.

I am not an expert on Peter Singer, or philosophy, or agriculture. But as a scientist, and an academic, I am (something) of an expert in logic and problem solving. The best way to solve a problem is to think of ALL the possible outcomes and implications and then try to choose the best course of action. Peter Singer takes arguments to their extreme. And if you read the Salon interview, he often backs up from that extreme and acknowledges that practicality has it's place. Taking arguments to their extreme can allow you to see all your options, and then find the best one. It is illuminating for society to have people who spend their time laying out all the options. This provides us with more information to help us make a choice, and that is never a bad thing.

You have start somewhere and choosing to minimize suffering as a goal is possibly better than trying to maximize profit or maximize the number of people you kill (that was a bit of hyperbole there...). Personally, I am hard pressed to find a better goal for a world where most of the population espouses belief in an afterlife where admission is based on doing good works here in this life.

I am not trying to defend every word Peter Singer has ever written. But I am going to defend the value of any work that expands the limits of human understanding by provoking us to consider the effects of our behaviour.

Finally, so many of these posts have mired themselves in the minutae of an argument, while pretty much completely missing the point. Local vs global, organic vs agribusiness - ONE IS NOT BY DEFAULT BETTER THAN THE OTHER. YOU MUST CONSIDER ALL THE FACTS. And I do not once remember reading a Singer response that said ALL organic farms were a disappointment or that ALL Kosher slaughter houses failed to live up to espoused standards.

I hope the posts thus far did not represent most readers' opinions. I think this article did a pretty good job discussing one framework for how to solve the problem of living ethically. This is a hard problem. Ignoring possible answers and completely rejecting logic is not the way to solve it.

I read the first several responses to the Singer article, and was surprised at the reactions.

The harsh reactions seem to be caused by a questioning of one's “right” to eat animals and their products.

Singer did say that the notion of “rights” is fuzzy, but this is something I know: every living thing has some aspect of desire, and even if that desire is as simple as a reflex, or instictual, oughtn't it be accorded?

One response called chickens “disgusting.” Do you realize the parallels between speciesism and racism? The labeling of another living thing as such shows ignorance of its “right” (as it were) to be the way it is. By this same token, then, oughtn't individual humans be allowed to be the way they are, eating other creatures? However, it is not the eating of meat that I find dispicable, but rather, the way that individuals treat one another in the world, be they human or non-human animals. Throwing a living being into a wood chipper, for example, could hardly be called acceptable, much less humane. When domestic animals are abused, it makes the news. Each type of animal is different, to be sure, but I hardly believe that some have more of a call to live than others. Cats are as chickens are as humans: they share common ground in that they are all living things which feel pain, and have desires.

Even if one were to disagree with this argument, that living things should not be made to feel pain if it can be avoided, there are the ecological effects of the factory-farming industry to be concerned with.

Just this morning, I was posed with the question “Do you feel unable to make a difference in the world?” I wondered about this, and right now, writing this, I have formulated this answer: If any one action I can do can relieve the suffering of a living thing, I will try my best to do it. There are, of course, an infinite number of paths one can take in her life to “help.” I have been a vegetarian for eleven years, vegan for nine. Surely in this time, my lack of demand for the animal product has done something, somewhere, for some living thing. Singer is not calling on people to make themselves feel pain for the good of the animal; I think this is misinterpreting his argument. What he is asking for is a conscious effort to change one's choices in life if it can matter for another. The choices for fixing the world are infinite, and to “fix” is, I think, what differentiates the human from the animal, and is our highest calling.

"2) Meat is a superior source of nutrition. I'm a former vegetarian so I'm well aware of the kind of commitment and knowledge it takes to eat healthfully without eating meat. It's difficult and most people aren't capable of doing it very well."

If we're going to go on personal experience here instead of facts, I'm a current vegetarian (ten years) who ran a marathon (26.2 miles) in 3 hours and 15 minutes without injuries, and with a very short recovery time. Oh, and that was 14 months to the day after having a spinal fusion, a knee replacement, and three broken ribs (to list a few) caused by a serious accident. It doesn't seem like something a terribly unhealthy person could do, does it? I don't have much special knowledge; I just eat a lot of leafy greens, legumes, and a few free range eggs, and take a multi-vitamin. I never crave meat. It no longer (and in fact didn't after only a few months) looks appetizing. So, I'd say our personal veggie histories cancel each other out. ;-)

Heart disease is the top cause of death in the US. Most Americans are obese. Would you say that the "typical American diet" is really any healthier, just because it includes meat (and lots of it, along with a scary amount of refined and processed crap, saturated fat, chemicals, and preservatives) that what most vegetarians are eating? Even if vegetarians are suffering this , alleged deficiency of protein and amino acids, why aren't we seeing more serious effects?

And yet I've had more strict lectures and viscious indictments of "what I'm doing to my body" from acquaintances and strangers alike, than my friends who smoke cigarettes have recieved for their lifestyle! Most of these are people compared to whom I'm a glowing example of health and contentment.

I'm sorry the writer above personally had a difficult time maintaining a vegetarian diet. With any diet at all, no matter how healthful, there will be people have dificulties (I'm thinking of a gluten-intolerant friend, for example). Of course everyone is different.

I would LOVE, however, to see some actual facts supporting the notion that vegetarians, as a whole, are less healthy than your average Jane/Joe. The accusations fly, but where's the evidence?