Eating meat is a natural instinct
Regarding 'Slaves and slaughterhouses' (Monday, Oct. 8, 2007):
Sometimes a person gets so enthralled in a bout of moral superiority that they begin displaying prejudice toward others. In this oped, Alex Barnard '09 condemns "meat-eaters" and tells us that we must somehow "justify" our dietary actions. All a person is doing by eating meat is following their instincts, just as a wolf does when it hunts and eats another animal. If, as the author argued, we're just other animals, why then is it so wrong for us to do what other animals do, and eat other animals for nutrition? We've done it since the dawn of time, and while it's possible to get necessary nutrition from other foods, it's completely unnecessary. We have slowly over time invented better and better ways to hunt our food, so the current slaughterhouse is merely the modern version of our spear, so a few hunters can provide for many. It's impossible to kill an animal "humanely." It's killing, whether you're nice about it or not. So if killing a "fellow animal" is wrong, then the problem is not in how we kill the animals, but that we are killing and eating them at all. In other words, the militaristic vegan/vegetarian — I say militaristic to differ from one that does not aggressively discriminate against others — is really just in a state of denial of their own human nature. While we may have overcome the prejudice of pigmentation, it seems that a more pointless prejudice has arisen to fill the gap in the form of the logically flawed moral argument of extremist vegetarianism. Alan Rice '10
Argument cannot be extended to pumpkins
Regarding 'Letters to the Editor' (Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007):
David Baumgarten '06's letter sarcastically extending the animal rights argument to pumpkins certainly caught my attention— not because of its creativity, but because of its striking resemblance to an 18th century letter from another white male resistant to moral advancement. When Mary Wollstonecraft published "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" in 1792, an anonymous parody entitled "Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" soon appeared. If we can extend rights to women, the author argued, then why not animals? Clearly, both were foolish: Women and animals do not have men's capabilities, and should not have men's rights.
Today, we understand that justice should extend to women and to children, to Cambodians, to Iranians and to American minorities. We grant human beings the right to live according to their own interests, free from suffering and exploitation. Extending this justice to animals — who feel pain, loneliness, joy and fear just like humans — is not a stretch. Considering the interests of pumpkin and bacteria, in contrast, is just a silly distraction that aims to protect meat-eaters from taking responsibility for their unethical consumption. Unless Baumgarten has never taken a biology class or pet a dog, I'm sure he realizes that animals have brains and nervous systems that make them sentient while pumpkins and bacteria do not. Still, I understand his response; it is much easier to mockingly redirect the conversation than to think critically about your own choices. Jenny Palmer '09 President, Princeton Animal Welfare Society
Erroneous arguments
Regarding 'Letters to the Editor' (Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007):
This letter is evidence for anyone wondering why Harvard is #2 in the U.S. News and World Report rankings — apparently, their graduate schools are so desperate they accept those who can barely read. Ridicule must be the first line of defense for the barely literate, for Baumgarten '06, seemingly incapable of grasping Barnard's argument, was reduced to exactly that. Barnard's argument rested on the outlandish assumption that it is wrong to inflict suffering on a being that feels pain, whether human or animal. That doesn't mean that we must treat animals in our emergency rooms, grant them rights of marriage or pass public accommodation laws on their behalf. It does, however, lead to the wild conclusion that it may be unethical to keep animals in filthy cages, for the duration of their miserable lives, so that we may brutally murder them and decorate our dinner plate with their flesh. How many recognize that animals feel pain, yet choose to do nothing? Jordan Bubin '09
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$56,000 in debt at graduation is not the financial aid Princeton advertises
Avi CheslerTake my story as an example — despite repeated evidence, both before and after taking out loans, that I would be unable to pay what Princeton asked of me — the University never set a cost that I could truly meet loan-free.
In the Garden State’s service and the service of humanity
Olivia Ragan, Lauren Aung, and Madison LintonIt is important to cultivate in students interest in local and state level change, because it is the most direct way to give back to the New Jersey community that sustains the University.
Why do two-thirds of your summer research wages go to Princeton, anyway?
Isaac BarsoumThe income that students earn from employment is not “miscellaneous.” So Princeton must decide: Does it want its students — all of them, not only those who can afford it — to be able to work on the important research happening at Princeton, or be forced to go home?
The income that students earn from employment is not “miscellaneous.” So Princeton must decide: Does it want its students — all of them, not only those who can afford it — to be able to work on the important research happening at Princeton, or be forced to go home?