Exercise 5.1 Pass the Bacon (or don’t)
Considering the theories (as well as their critics) surveyed here, let us reexamine our opening story and ask the question: Is factory farming a defensible practice? Environmental ethics can be helpful in answering this question, but the answers that arise are far from simple or self-evident. Using books, magazines or the internet, find at least three arguments each from opponents and proponents of factory hog farming. Read the material and then answer the following questions: How much of their arguments are based in ethics? Of the ethical arguments, are they based on ecological or animal rights grounds (or both)? What other factors enter into their support or opposition? Having read from both sides, what is your opinion? Complete the exercise by writing a two-paragraph statement of opposition to or support of this practice.
Exercise 5.2 Animals in Medical and Commercial Research and Testing
One of the longstanding, high-profile overtly ethical debates about nature and society is whether or to what degree animals should be used in medical and commercial research and testing. Locate a recent (published in the last two years) news piece covering some aspect of this debate (possible web search terms and phrases could include “animal subject testing,” “animal testing cosmetics,” “animal rights medical testing,” etc.). Once you have located a current specific debate on the subject, find two (or more) more credible, written pieces on the subject. Read up on the subject and then write an opinion piece. Think of it as a mock letter to the editor of your local paper. Cite your sources.
Exercise 5.3 The Land Ethic
Read Aldo Leopold’s 1948 essay “The Land Ethic” (available on the web: home.btconnect.com/ tipiglen/landethic.html). How does Leopold see the concept of “community” as central to the needed development of a land ethic? Do you think that we (everyday citizens) see ourselves as members of the “land community”? Why or why not? Think of one or more ways in which contemporary society displays a “land ethic.” Think of one or more ways in which it fails to. Discuss.