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A network of beliefs and values (an ideology) underlies much of our behavior. While meat-eaters may not acknowledge that they have an ideology, I argue that they do by attempting to identify and deconstruct its elements. I also include numerous historical and philosophical observations about the origins of meat-eaters’ ideology. Explaining and examining ideologies may encourage discussion about a particular area of life (for example, dietary choice) and stimulate change in relation to it. Both adherents to vegetarian/vegan approaches and meat-eaters who wish to become less dependent on animal food sources (for ethical and environmental reasons) can benefit from the broader understanding that such an analysis provides.

Home politics affects anyone who lives with other people, because transforming a space into a home involves negotiations of various sorts. Wherever people live together, there is bound to be a regime for gaining power and advantage or agreeing to share them. ‘Home politics’ outlines how the boundaries between public and private life are blurred by utilities and electronic technologies and also considers how roles in the home are negotiated and how they have changed over time. Reconciliation of interests and harmonious cohabitation are challenging projects. The issue of domestic abuse is discussed along with the lasting effects of colonization and the politics relating to homelands and home occupancy.

‘People, objects, and identity’ considers how the home is a major focus in the construction of self-identity and how people carve out home space even within institutions. It suggests that a home is always a house plus many other ingredients, but a house is a home minus many elements. These elements include the people who matter to us and the objects we choose to keep in our homes. The links between home, objects, and personal identity are dramatically illustrated by two stories focusing on the Holocaust. They demonstrate that destroying homes and their occupants’ ties to place also amount to erasing things that mould identities and create networks of memories.

There are indefinitely numerous new ideas and technologies that might develop and improve the quality of life if humans have the good sense to protect their planet’s health, learn to live in peace with one another, and choose to share resources and opportunities more equitably. Only in this way will there be a future that is worth living in. ‘The future of home’ reviews the central ideas of home and the concept that home is universal and essential for grounding ourselves in the world. We can expect homes—whatever their type—to exist and continue serving the same needs in the future as they have always done.

Dwelling is both an activity and a location in which that activity takes place. ‘Dwelling and dwellings’ considers some of the many types of abodes in which dwelling has occurred or does so today, and reflects further on the deep significance that may be attached to dwelling. It looks at the shape and function of areas of the home and how previous dwellers of a home may affect the dwelling for future inhabitants. It also discusses the transient accommodation of nomadic peoples. It concludes that homes provide ways of connecting with one another, with our surroundings, and with the history of the place we are in.

What we put into our concept of home through acts of memory and imagination is an enormous part of what home means to us. ‘Remembering, imagining, and other mindwork’ looks at reviving the past through remembering the home; nostalgia; and what returning home means to us. It also considers homes as symbolic expressions. Homes communicate from within, by virtue of their patterns of placement, construction, and use; and they are interpreted from without, according to certain presuppositions and perspectives. Homes model, mirror, elaborate, symbolize, appropriate, and incorporate meanings from the world at large. In these ways, home is connected with larger spheres of existence and narrative, establishing cultural identity.

No discussion of home is complete without taking account of homelessness. ‘Homelessness and uprootedness’ discusses the different categories of homelessness: those who chronically have no home; those who no longer have a place to call home because of circumstances; migrants who have had more than one place to call home, but confront issues of who they are and where they truly belong; and those who are spiritually homeless. It also considers the ‘unmooring’ of modern culture: how much of present-day life is characterized by fragmentation of interests, cynicism, a sense of exile, alienation and disillusionment, and lack of faith in authorities. Having a home can never be taken for granted.

Home is a place, so when thinking about home, our concept of place needs to be stretched in order to accommodate quite different dimensions of meaning. ‘The importance of place’ considers the range of home sizes; the concepts of embeddedness and placelessness; and the impact of landscapes, ecosystems, and bioregions in shaping inhabitants’ lives and cultures. The momentousness of place in shaping human evolution, history, the distinctiveness of cultural groups, present-day political realities, and the character of individual lives cannot be overestimated. What we think of a place and enjoy or lament about it is determined by a great many factors, which shape our sense of what and where we call home.

Homes are central to human life, but defining what home is can be problematic. Home is a fundamental and universal concept, yet it has multiple associated and layered meanings for different people in a great range of circumstances. ‘The many faces of home’ considers the somewhat elusive notion of home. It looks at the many origins of the word ‘home’, how home is understood in other languages, positive and negative attitudes to home, and the concepts of parochialism and cosmopolitanism. It concludes that home, for all of its immediate and more traditional associations, is actually a multi-faceted, problematic notion, and for many, an almost undefinable thing.

Schopenhauer had important things to say about ethics in both normative and meta-ethical senses, but his impact on the evolution of moral theory has been minimized by the unfortunate neglect of his philosophy in general. A contemporary assessment of his ethical views reveals that they are both imaginative and interesting, not least because they challenge assumptions held by more canonical figures in the history of philosophy, both before and after his time. Since the roots of ethics are currently being vigorously re-examined, it is regrettable that Schopenhauer's ideas have been omitted from mainstream discussion in the field. I attempt to remedy this lack by investigating how his ethics of compassion contributes to the following areas: reconciling ethics with strict determinism; naturalizing ethics; developing the philosophy of education; seeking inner peace and world peace; re-visioning our relationship with non-human animals and the environment. As this list indicates, Schopenhauer's moral theory has r...

The food we choose to eat tells a good deal about who we are and how we stand in relation to nonhuman animals and nature as a whole. Though most people are concerned about the state of the world and about their own health, they tend not to reflect very much, if at all, on what results from their dietary choices, and therefore see nothing wrong in eating meat I question this attitude. Specifically, I argue that, for the same reasons we should care about pain, suffering, well-being, and death in humans, so should we care about the fate of animals we traditionally designate as sources of meat Caring is supplemented in my argument by considerations of justice, and I contend that for reasons of caring and justice, we should be vegetarians, consistent with the aim of minimizing the harm we cause by our lifestyle choices. Finally, I examine what it means to take responsibility for our diets and challenge meat eaters to come to terms with the wrongdoing that is inherent in the livestock industry today.

In this article, the author attempts to supplement Joan Dunayer’s critique of vivisection by first stating and then exploring in some detail “the ideology of biomedical and behavioral science,” which consists of several mindsets that resist the development of noninvasive animal science and science that does not rely on animal research. Other issues examined are animal rights versus animal welfare, the bogus concept of “necessary suffering,” the tendency to deny or minimize animal pain and suffering, and the phenomenon of “compartmentalization” (or psychological distancing). A focused account of all these elements, the author argues, enables understanding of where vivisectionists are coming from and why they are so resistant to radical change in their methods.

I begin by asserting that a vegetarian, even a vegan diet, from a nutritional standpoint, is at least as healthy as, and in all probability healthier than, one which centers on or includes meat. Scientific evidence supporting this claim is beginning to accumulate, and abundant material is available for those who wish to pursue the issue (Anonymous 1988a; Anonymous 1988b; Barnard 1993; Chen 1990; Melina, Davis, and Harrison 1994; White and Frank 1994). In addition, every good bookshop today has several vegetarian and/or vegan cookbooks, and many titles currently on the market contain excellent chapters on the fundamentals of vegetarian nutrition as well as references to contemporary nutritional research. For these reasons I shall not attempt to summarize here the evidence in favor of a vegetarian diet. My second preliminary claim is that meat-eating in general is, and in particular certain kinds of meat-eating are, unhealthy. The statistical correlation between high meat consumption and increased probability of colon, breast, and other cancers, heart disease, and atherosclerosis far and away the leading causes of death in North America has been well established by many independent researchers (Barnard 1990; Fiddles 1991; Mitra 1991; National Research Council 1989; Robbins 1987). This realization prompted Health and Welfare Canada (a federal government department) to issue a new version of Canada 's Food Guide to Healthy Eating, which appeared in 1992. Alternatives to meats (such as tofu and legumes) are accentuated, as are 5-10 servings per day of vegetables and fruits and 5-12 servings per day of grain products. Critics maintain that an even greater shift toward a vegetarian diet might have been endorsed in the Guide had it not been for the extraordinary (and entirely predictable) behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts of the livestock industry ("Industry Forced Changes" 1993).

Most people, past and present, have never seriously questioned whether it is morally acceptable to eat animals and treat them as resources. However, vegetarianism and veganism, which have a lengthy history in both Western and non-Western cultures, challenge these assumptions and clash with prevailing views about how humans should conduct their lives and make use of the natural world. Religious practices and ideas about diet energized early outlooks of this sort more than clearly focused ethical reflections; but the latter have surfaced periodically, from the Greco-Roman period to the present. Strong, sustained vegetarian and vegan movements today coincide with the rise of the animal rights/liberation movement, and are fueled by concerns about factory farming, climate change, healthy eating, and how to feed a rapidly increasing human population. Keywords: duty and obligation; ethics; harm; moral status; practical (applied) ethics

Have humans evolved as violent and warlike? Studies of peaceful societies, historical trends of warfare and violence, and cooperation say otherwise. Evolution is not destiny; human choices are important interventions in the process. A science of intentional change, using alternative learning techniques that support human interactions based on nonviolence and peaceful coexistence, might help to evolve a culture of peace.

The impulse toward violence and cruelty is endemic to the human species. But so, likewise, is the impulse toward compassionate behavior. Victor Nell acknowledges this, but he does not explore the matter any further. I supplement his account by discussing how compassion, specifically in the moral education of children, can help remedy the problem of violence and cruelty in society.

This essay begins at the intersection of two controversies that are of considerable importance to contemporary discussions about the relationship between our species and the restofnature. One concerns the question of whether a compelling case can be made for vegetarianism on moral grounds. The other has to do with the debate between proponents ofanimal rights and ethical holists over which kind of theory provides a more adequate foundation for a new environmental ethic. My remarks have their origin in some personal observations as well. Over the past decade and a half I have been a participant in numerous conferences, seminars and workshops on themes having to do with animal rights or animal liberation; I have also been involved in many centering on problems in environ­ mental ethics. These have all been positive experiences for me in one way or another, and have, I believe, expanded the horizons ofeveryone present. Yet I could not avoid noticing that when I am at an animal rights or animal liberation conference it is a foregone conclusion, an essential premise, that all food presented to delegates shall be vegetarian, even vegan. In contraSt, conferences occupied with topics in environmental ethics conunonly display no such commitment; and as a matter of fact, I fmd myself at these gatherings surrounded by persons discoursing earnestly on the subtleties of biocentrism, the land ethic, value· theory, deep ecology, Gaianism, and so forth who are simultaneously tucking lustily into steaks, chops, bacon, and even veal with no apparent qualms. At one recent conference on environmental ethics and sustainable development, of some fifty participants. only two others besides myself had requested vegetarian meals. At another, a workshop on environmental ethics and higher education, I was the only one of thirty participants not eating meat. In case it may be thought that too much weight is being placed here on one source of evidence, it should also be noted that of seventeen general anthologies of contemporary work in environmental ethics or environmental philosophy that have appeared since 1974, only one contains an essay specifically devoted to agricultural issues.1None contains an essay that treats the topic of meat as an environmental problem. The same omission is found in monographs in these fields. (Ecofeminists, however, do engage this issue2 and appear to be the only group of theorists for whom it is anything like a central concern. What this entails will be considered briefly in section 5.) What does it all mean? Before I attempt an answer let me say that I fmd