Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part III

This post is continued from "Stephen Law v. Peter Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part I" (2008, December 10) and "Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part II" (2008, December 20), below.

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In the previous two parts of this now longish essay, I've argued that the most serious problem in Law's support of his thesis that it is immoral to eat meat occurs immediately after his introduction, where he fails to take seriously enough, and fails to answer, both the idea that what matters is the quality of life lived by the animal and the animal's capabilities (2003). When we apply the principle that it ia morally wrong to cause needless suffering, which can be physical, psychological or otherwise, to particular circumstances, it appears, for example, that the Wilson's christmas turkey may be enjoyed with no moral worries: it led a happy life, free of suffering and worry, and was killed painlessly before Mrs Wilson turned it into christmas dinner. Gemma is free to choose not to eat this particular turkey, but it not at all clear that she has any good reason for objecting that it is immoral to eat it. On the other hand, eating mass produced chickens grown in cramped and painful mass production facilities of the type run by companies like CP is immoral: it is morally wrong to eat chicken produced under such inhumane and morally ugly conditions. If you have not already read them, you might like to read, or go back and reread, the first two parts.

At the end of both parts I and II, I suggested that although I think eating meat is in fact morally acceptable, that not everyone who agrees with me on that, and especially not everyone who has agreed with my supporting argument so far, would be so happy when they considered just what their agreement entails.

Ideas, principles and arguments have consequences, and just as you cannot ignore opposing arguments in a persuasive essay, neither can you ignore the consequences of your own supporting ideas. For example, people often argue that smoking must be banned in restaurants because it is unhealthy, in particular, that it harms non-smokers. This sounds plausible, but is really an awful argument. When analysed, it relies on the more general principle that if something is unhealthy or harms other people, then that is a good enough reason that it must be banned: smoking certainly harms others; therefore, it must be banned wherever there are others. The trouble is that smoking is not the only thing that is unhealthy or that harms others. The very tasty kao kha mu (ข้าวขาหมู) that is readily available on the streets of Bangkok is also unhealthy and harmful: it is full of very unhealthy fats and contains approximately zero vegetables, unless you cound some garlic and chillies. If we accept the principle that anything that is unhealthy or harms others must be banned, then all those sellers of that tasty Thai dish must be banned and perhaps thrown into prison! Worse, cars produce pollution that is unhealthy and harmful to everyone in Bangkok, including millions of non-motorists, therefore the government must ban the use of all private cars in Bangkok. These examples might sound ridiculous, and they are. However, they are ridiculous because the general principle is ridiculous. There is nothing ridiculous about the fact that pollution from cars is unhealthy. That is just a well established fact. The problem is in the principle that it is right to ban anything that is unhealthy or harms others. And once we realise that this principle is seriously flawed, it becomes much less obvious that it is right for the government to ban smoking in restaurants. There might still be good supporting reasons for such a ban, but they have to be better than the simple idea that anything unhealthy should be banned.

Similarly, there are consequences elsewhere of agreeing with the general moral principle that I've borrowed from Peter Singer to support the idea that eating meat is not necessarily immoral as Stephen Law argues. Those consequences are so upsetting to many people that Singer received death threats when he published them, which is not so unusual for philosophers. People think that philosophy is a nice, safe sort of occupation messing around with books and words, which is true, but those words have often upset people so much that the writers were either threatened with death or actually murdered. For example, Socrates, often seen as the father of Western philosophy, was murdered by the Athenian mob of democrats in 399 BC because of his ideas. The charges brought by the politician Meletus were that Socrates was corrupting the young and did not believe in the gods (Plato, trans. 1997); perhaps Peter Singer is not in such bad company.

The conclusion of my reason for disagreeing with Stephen Law's thesis that eating meat is immoral is a homework exercise: what are the consequences of the opposing argument I've outlined in parts I, II and III above that so upset people that they wanted to kill Peter Singer? What do you think about those consequences? Do you still think that the argument is right, that it is morally acceptable to eat meat? Feel welcome to share your ideas in a comment.

(I would not advise ending a TOEFL essay with a homework exercise for the marker, although a final question might be OK.)

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References

Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files (pp.124 - 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Plato. Euthyphro. Gallop, D. (trans., 1997). In Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (p. 1 - 23). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Singer, P. (2002). Animal Liberation. New York: ECCO.

Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part II

This post is continued from "Stephen Law v. Peter Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part I" (2008, December 10), below.

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In her reply to her father's idea that there are relevant differences between human and non-human animals that justify humans killing and eating other animals, Gemma suggests, but then fails to follow up, the argument that Peter Singer makes. Certainly, Gemma, and Law with his long quote from Peter Singer (2003, p. 130), do make us think about what the implications of her father's suggestion must be, but they do not in fact show that eating meat is immoral. Law skips over this as though he had fully addressed this opposing argument and shown that it was weak, but he has not. Singer, who is more honest, and courageous, follows where reason leads. In Animal Liberation and his other writings, Singer presents powerful arguments that what an animal, such as a human being, a monkey or a chicken is capable of doing, thinking and feeling are the factors that must be considered to decide what are right and wrong ways of treating that animal; to do otherwise is to be guilty of speciesism, which I think Law presents fairly clearly and shows to be morally wrong.

For living things without any nervous system, such as all plants and some very simple animals, there is no reason to think that they can think or have any feeling, so there can be no moral problem in using them for our purposes. They cannot have any purposes, desires, intentions or any other preferences of their own, so we can not do them any moral wrong by chopping them up for dinner. However, as we come across increasingly more complex animals, that changes. The principle that Singer suggests we use is that we may not cause pain to an animal except for a compelling reason, a reason so strong that not causing the pain would be more immoral than causing it, just as a doctor who refused to give an injection because he didn't want to hurt the patient would be acting wrongly if his refusal put the patient in danger. Singer also points out that pain can be of various kinds: physical, mental and psychological. In the case of less complex animals, the only pain is likely to be physical, although this is a matter for zoologists to tell us by doing the necessary research. Prawns and fish, for example, probably do not have very strong emotions and are therefore unlikely to feel emotional pain, although they probably feel some physical pain: fish certainly react to being caught on hooks as though they are in pain. Chickens have more sophisticated nervous systems, and not only feel physical pain, but also seem to suffer depression, anxiety and other emotional pains when put under stress. More complex still are the nervous systems of the mammals we like to eat: cows, pigs, dogs and other mammals all suffer physical pain as much as we do and for the same reasons; they also clearly display emotions, and can suffer the pain of loss, separation, stress and other psychological pains. I assume that no one is so barbaric as to eat apes these days, but they are so very similar to humans that abusing them for no very good reason would be almost as bad, as morally wrong, as abusing humans. For SInger, it is causing needless pain or suffering that makes eating meat wrong, and the more complex an animal's nervous system, the greater the possibility of such pain and suffering being caused in turning it into our lunches and dinners.

If we take a closer look at chickens, or turkeys, we can see the serious mistake that Law makes even before he introduces the concept of speciesism. Immediately after his introduction, where Law clearly states the very strong thesis he is going to support, Gemma complains about the "miserable life that poor [turkey] led" (Law, 2003, p. 125), to which her mother replies that in fact "it never suffered at all, in life or in death" (p. 125). Law then ends this discussion, and moves on to start supporting his much stronger thesis that eating meat is morally wrong even if no pain is involved, but he has not actually answered Gemma's mother's opposing argument, and the same ideas about quality of life and capacity for enjoying life come up again in the discussion of Peter Singer's ideas and in the section "The Mentally Impaired" (p. 129 - 130). In his work, Singer makes what I think is a strong case for his idea that what matters in determining how we are morally obliged to treat non-human animals is their capacity to feel, think, wish, suffer and have goals. I think that's a reasonable enough proposition that I'm not going to present Singer's arguments any more than I explained them in the previous paragraph. But if you think Singer is wrong about this, please feel welcome to argue - you might think it sounds OK now, but then change your mind when you get to the end of this explanation of why I think Law is wrong. Oddly, Law also says something like this on page 125: "The issue is that it was a living thing capable of enjoying life." And as Gemma's father then tells her, a turkey isn't really capable of very much enjoyment, so if we apply Law's own criteria here, which is consistent with Singer's more explicitly developed ideas, it does appear that it was morally acceptable to kill the turkey that had led a life free of suffering before being painlessly killed, and if the killing was morally right, then it is also morally right for Gemma to eat its dead body.

What has been shown so far? All that I've supported is that it can be morally acceptable to eat meat under certain conditions: that the animal not be caused needless pain in its life or in turning it into dinner. This general principle then needs to be applied to particular cases. Gemma's mother sounds right in saying that a turkey that was raised comfortably on a farm and killed painlessly may be morally eaten. However, most chickens that are eaten are not raised in that way: they are raised in cramped, dark sheds, with little or no fresh air, no exercise and no treatment of any medical problems. That is, they life miserable lives so that they can be killed to needlessly satisfy human tastes for chicken. This would seem to be morally wrong, so we should not eat chicken from mass producers such as the CP Group as doing so causes animals to suffer needlessly. KFC is probably also morally wrong. It is, however, perfectly moral to eat chickens that have been raised under decent conditions and killed painlessly. For people in some European countries, strict laws now make it possible to be assured that the chicken they eat was not produced by causing pain or suffering. Similar analyses can be made for other animals that we like to eat, but as the animal's nervous system and emotional life and goals more nearly approach the human, it becomes more difficult to justify eating them. For an animal as intelligent and emotionally aware as a dog, it could only be acceptable to kill and eat it to actually avoid starving to death, so people who eat dogs today are almost always acting immorally.

to be continued ...

Still to come in part III: the consequences that I think those who have agreed with me so far might not like. Can you guess what they are yet?

I didn't realise this would be quite so long when I started. I'm trying to keep it as short as possible, but there also needs to be enough support for my ideas.

Continued at "Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part III" (2008, December 22), above.

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References

Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files (pp.124 - 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Singer, P. (2002). Animal Liberation. New York: ECCO.

New house

I so glad to see new house peteraep.blogspot.com. First time I saw, it was nothing difference. But, next time I found there were a little bit different.
I really like new comment text field. it's more convenient to post comments and easier to understand for new users.

second, mini email icon, we can send email easily. And... I found only 2 new features.

If someone found more, tell me please!!!

Stephen Law v. Peter Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part I

In his dialogue "Carving the Roast Beast", the philosopher Stephen Law both presents strong arguments to support his claim that eating meat is immoral and effectively addresses the strongest opposing arguments to his thesis (Law, 2003). There is, however, a weakness at the beginning of his dialogue which he does not address and which refutes Law's main idea. Because of relevant differences between most humans and the non-humans that we normally eat, it is morally acceptable to kill and eat animals, although the reasons that support that have further consequences that Law does briefly touch on.

First, Law is right to point out that religious teachings are not relevant. Religions are not, and cannot be, a reliable guide to what is moral. As Law notes, the Christian bible clearly endorses eating meat, but it also endorses slavery and other clearly immoral behaviour. Buddhism's first precept does suggest that Buddhists today should not normally eat meat, but that does not mean it is immoral, just that Buddhists break their first precept if they eat meat. Law is right to repeat the point made by Plato more than 2,000 years ago in the Euthyphro, also a dialogue, that the teachings of religions and gods do not make things moral or immoral, but that such teachings require solid reasons to support them (Law, 2003, Appeals to the Bible sect., p. 136-7; Plato, trans. 1997).

So, why is Law wrong about the morality of eating meat? In the section titled "The Mentally Impaired", Law includes a long quotation from the philosopher Peter Singer, whose argument appears to support Law's answer to the argument presented by Mr. Wilson that the mental and other differences between humans and the animals that they eat is what makes it morally acceptable to enjoy eating them (2003, p. 128 - 130). However, in Animal Liberation, Singer actually uses the example Law quotes as part of a larger argument that is very different to Law's (2002, p.1 - 23). Singer was the first major philosopher to make a powerful argument that presents and argues against speciesism, which Law explains at the beginning of his dialogue; however, Singer acknowledges that there can be, that there must be, very real differences between humans and other animals, and that those differences are both relevant to, and do in fact justify, treating human animals differently to non-human animals, even though it is the relevant differences that justify the different treatment, not the mere fact of being a human or a non-human animal. That is, Singer would object right at the start of Law's dialogue, where Gemma's parents accept that there are no relevant differences between the numerous different types of animals: humans, apes, pigs, dogs, cows, chickens, and so on. There clearly are very substantial differences, and some of those differences are the kind that do justify different treatment of and moral distinctions amongst the various types of animal that inhabit the Earth. As Mr Wilson tells us: "turkeys are, frankly, pretty dim," whereas human beings are "highly intelligent creature[s]" with "a highly sophisticated range of emotions" (Law, 2003, p. 128). Gemma does not deny these facts about humans and turkeys, but instead answers her father's opposing argument with Singer's idea in the long quotation on page 130. It's a good answer, but not good enough.

to be continued... Can you guess where this argument might be going? Why do I think most people might dislike this answer to Law even more than they dislike Law's ideas?

Continued at "Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part II" (2008, December 20), above.

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References

Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files (pp.124 - 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Plato. Euthyphro. Gallop, D. (trans., 1997). In Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (p. 1 - 23). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Singer, P. (2002). Animal Liberation. New York: ECCO.

To response immediately!!!

Hi everyone!! I'm Mark. Today I gonna answer a famous question that you wanna know after I haven't updated this blog for long time. That question is .... the question is.... is... how Peter can response emails nearly immediately! how peter know the email is sended to him.

Actually, There are many way to do, but now I will give you particular way to do like Peter. I guarantee it's very easy!!

Let's Start!!
1. Go to this site http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_windows.html
2. Download it
3. Install it
4. During install, there is a dialogbox. you enter your Email and Password into text boxes.
5. Done!! You can see this icon like this.

if there is someone sent email to you, you will see the popup like this!!

see? Very easy! and useful. You can use it on your computer.

You will know when homework is sended to you!! Arrr!!!

requirement
1. Your computer must have Windows XP or Vista.
2. Your computer must have the internet.
3. You must have a Gmail Account.
4. You can install some program on your computer.

Alcohol - MARK

The poplar substances in Thai are alcohol. Thais mans have been drunk alcohol for long time ago, but it’s not popular with Thais women because of Thai culture. We can realize that almost festival in Thailand usually have alcohol inside. Mostly Thai restaurants also have alcohol for selling. In the evening, we can see alcoholics around Thailand.

There are many health problems in Thailand. Many alcoholics die from hepatitis. My grandfather was dies because of hepatitis as well. My brother father was alcoholic. He was no energy and didn’t want to do anything. But now he stop to drunk, his health is much more better.

Health problems from cigarette (AOM)

There are any health problems in Thailand due to use of cigarette; for instant, Heart disease and lung cancer. We are already known that the effect of smoking cigarette is lung cancer, but heart disease is the one in the list of disease that kill smoker. People who smoke cigarettes are more likely than nonsmokers to develop blocked blood vessels to the heart and become to be heart attacks. Here are some reasons why people become to smoke cigarette. Some people get started smoking with their first cigarette from friend or their family. Someone become to smoke because they think that the person who smoke cigarette is cool or fashionable. Although people have known how cigarette affect to body, it is difficult to give up cigarette. This is a link that tells some tip to quit smoke. http://www.thailabonline.com/tobacco2.htm.

Nan on alcohol

The basic purpose of drinking alcohol is to get drunk in India surprises me. Actually, not only in India but also everyone who want to get drunk. I know that drinking alcohol is part of celebration. When they’re drinking with friends, the atmosphere are surrounded by laughing. The next day after celebration, the laughing is replaced by garbage, broken glasses or something I don’t want to see from drinkers’ mouth. I don’t think getting drunk is good feeling. However, I like to see the funny behavior of my friends when they get drunk. My friend danced on a chair for 4 hours. When she got up on the next day, she wondered why her legs hurt. She didn’t remember anything. I told her but she didn‘t believe me. Next time, I have to record her behavior by video camera.

Arto:I like to drink alcohol with my friends

Alcohol is most famous in Thailand. Some people starts drink it since sixteen years old. The ages that start drink alcohol tend to younger. Alcohol is used in many purposes such as making friends, participation in society, traditional celebration. My faculty is engineering which drink a lot because engineer must participate in society. When I was in university, usually I hang out with my friends. Surely, I use alcohol to enjoy with my friend. It makes us more close together because we drink it a lot after that we make something funny. Some friends is talkative, some friends cry when he drunk. It makes me see friend’s dark side. After the night, we talk together about last night that who makes something strange. On the other hand, many problems occur due to alcohol such as car accident, crime, and diseases. In short, the government should curb alcohol and give more information to people.

Peter on Drugs in Australia

In Australia, the most popular and commonly used drug is alcohol. People use alcohol all the time for numerous reasons. People drink wine with meals, especially dinner, where it is also common to serve small quantities to children. I remember the excitment of my first small glass of wine at a family dinner when I was around twleve years old! Australians drink beer when they go to teh pub to relax with friends, or at the traditional Aussie barbecue. I'm not a very good Aussie: I hate beer and I don't much like barbecues either! But I was very fond of nice wines when I was at university: a dinner party with friends just wasn't teh same without a couple of wines, and formal dinners at my college at Sydney Uni, were always accompanied by appropriate wines. 

Unfortunately, alcohol is not a very nice drug, much worse than some illegal drugs like marijuana and heroin, so teh biggest drug problems in Australia, as in most countries, are caused by alcohol. It is very weird that alcohol is legal when other, less harmful drugs are not! I think everyone in my family uses alcohol, but like most people who use alcohol and other drugs, including illegal drugs, they do not have any problems from the alcohol they use, even when a couple of my brothers sometimes get drunk, it doesn't cause any real problem. However, alcohol is also a cause of violence, because a lot of people do become violent then they drink wine and things. Alcohol also used to be a major cause of car crashes in Australia, but that is not a problem now. The laws about drinking and driving are very severe and very strictly enforced, so people do not drive when they use alcohol. 

Addictive substance - maa

Are there any health problems in your country as results of drug use?

Drug abuses in Thailand cause both physical and mental health problems. Different types of drug uses also cause different type of diseases. Some diseases are top epidemic problems for long time. For example, sharing needles of Heroin or other drugs among injection drug user is a significant risk of HIV transmission or Hepatitis B or C virus infections. Higher numbers of smoking people tend to increase chronic diseases such as, vascular or respiratory diseases, including communication diseases like Tuberculosis. Some alcoholic or addicts with tobacco, marijuana or inhalants progress some psychiatric disorders in long term. Also drug uses for “rapid effects” are indirect causes of sexual transmission diseases, because of unawareness of condom use. Drug abuses are a cause for many health problems, apart from other causes, such as genetic, environment, or behaviors and these problems do not happen not only my country but other countries as well.

Reading habit - MARK

I don't read a book too much. Many time I spent with surfing the internet for updating news technology, open source software, game, comic and Japanese animation. Of course, they are mostly Thai. Some website I have to read English but don't much. Sometime I read novel from Oxford publisher, but now I have already finished all books I have.

I prefer to read essay in class because in this term we start to write a essay, knowing other essay is better for writing our essay writing. Moreover a essay usually has academic vocabularies we should know for student who want to study aboard. Essays have many complex sentences, so we need someone to help, Peter is a good person to help us to make we understand the sentences, and using that technic in our writing as well. For novel, I agree, it's fun and relex, but we can read it by ourselves in any free time. it does not have to have someone to help. I think, there is the time only 2 weeks for learning in this term, so we should get knowledge as must as we can. In sum, I prefer reading essay in next reading.

What do I read? : Am

I often carry "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips", the book that I don't only read it in my free time but I also try to read when I don't really have time. I bought it because I want to have something to read while I'm waiting for something. Newspapers and magazines are too big to put in my purse. I want a useful book that can give knowledge in short time. Moreover, I don't want to read a long material because sometime I have only 4-5 minutes or not over 10 minutes for reading. The writer could make difficult grammar easy. She uses plain English with fun and sincere style. This way even though, I don't understand some grammar, I don't feel bored. However, I don't finish it yet because I don't have time.

By the way, I prefer an article to a novel because of my reading habit above. I like to print out an article from the Internet in 1 or 2 pages, and fold them in my purse and read if I have a chance.

My reading habits - MAA

When I have some time during the week, I usually read academic articles related to my career. I need to update info, or just some parts of them for my work. Still, I prefer to read the Buddha‘s biography or how to books than those articles. I started reading the Buddha cartoon books and then the stories of the Buddha in the past few years. I like it. It proves my reading skill and makes me calm. When I read it, I feel relax. When I travel, I often bring it with me. I can read in everywhere and every time. I am now reading English practice books and just started for a “power of now”. The last one is quite difficult for me not only vocabularies, but also understanding some sentences. Sometime I stays at some pages long time.

PS - I am interested a noval for the next class reading.

Hana

1) What do you read?
I read a Bangkok Post because I wonder news in social situations. I don’t read every part. At First, I read a title. If title is interesting, I read an article. My interesting field is events and incidents. I’m not interested in economics and politics. And I like mystery books such as Sherlock Holmes (author: Arthur Conan Doyle), so I often read a mystery novel.

2)Would you prefer an essay or a novel?
I think novel is better because essay is someone's opinion or information but novel is imaginary story. So, novel is more interesting to me.

Nan on reading habits

I like traveling, so I often read travel guide books and travel magazines. They have beautiful pictures, but not many paragraphs. The writers make me feel like I’m there. Last month, I heard that The Princess Diary is a funny story. I believed them and I liked movies version. I went to book store and read for some pages. It’s not as fun as I expect but I still like novel. Harry Potter is one of the most nevel that i like. Sometimes, I read articles about financial planning because financial freedom is one of my goal.

I prefer a novel for our next class reading.

Art:I like to read a novel

Art: I like to read a novel more than essay because the novel tell the all story that make excited and follow it. The novel is easy to imagine about the actor and action of the actor. I like fantasy story such as “Harry Potter”. It is fun because the author writes the story that it’s not real and she bring the reader to magic world – not reality. She can relate the magic thing include with reality. “Harry Potter” make me open thinking and visionary thinking.

What I love to read >Aom<

I usually read a short story when I have free time, or in the BTS. I love read romantic story and fantasy story because I like to imagine while I read it. I don’t have much idea to create anything including an idea to write an essay, or paragraph that why I like to read fantasy story because I thought that may be the book influence my imaginary. Sometime I read an essay for find information to support my idea and give me more idea to write my paragraph, but if I have to choose between essay and novel, I prefer to read novel.

How about my first essay? -- MAA

Nov 16 evening: Since I got the five choices, I read each choice roughly. I have no ideas about them. I checked the references which came along with. I searched and read it all (I cannot recall what the internet told me). I went back to the choices and looked for the purpose of each choice. I got it, the questions. I still did not select any choices.

Nov 17: I thought about this on the way sometimes. I reviewed the questions again in the evening. I selected one! Why I chose this? I feel bored (sorry I don’t know other words softer than “bored”) about the others: abortion, eating meat vs moral, and democracy. The two others are interesting: marry and culture. I select the “culture” question, because there would have more vocabularies related to this aspect that I have not know before. I selected this, but I still did not how to answer that question. Does my country’s ministry of culture do more to help or to harm my country’s culture?

Nov 18: Peter picked up the key words of each question in class. I still thought about the question of my choice sometimes and also searched what the ministry does to help the culture in Thailand. I got a lot of positive information, but just few info about the harm, such as How about the roles of the ministry’s culture for a case of murder in the newspaper. It was not much clear and I did not understand the points of that article.

Nov 20 evening: Peter suggested looking at the definition of each key word. I used the Longman dictionary to list the definition of the “culture”. There are six definitions of the culture. I still could not answer that question and writer thesis statement.

Nov 21-22: I stopped thinking about this to do something which was more important.

Nov 23: I was trying to have a thesis statement to send for the assignment with deadline today. I have reviewed a Thai newspaper with the hope that they may say something about this ministry. However, they did not tell anything about the ministry. I went back to the details of this choice. Aha! That passage says the ministry of culture is a part of the government, but I still unknown how to answer the question. Because it hardly has the harm by the ministry. However, I ought to have a thesis statement now. Finally at late tonight. I wrote this statement just to answer the question but I still have no idea for the rest of that essay.

“Although the Ministry of Culture provided many supports and preserves good traditional cultures in Thailand, some people argue that actually they are behind the government who sometimes release the violation of those cultures.”

The second statement does not much change from the first statement.
“Although the Ministry of Culture provided many supports and preserves good traditional cultures in Thailand, some people argue that actually they are behind the government who sometimes release the violation of those cultures themselves”

Nov 24: We discuss each of our thesis statement together. I have chance to look back mine. Hmm! There is something wrong with my essay. My answer does not clear enough. I have changed to this statement (3rd).

“Although the Ministry of Culture provides many supports and preserves good traditional cultures in Thailand, I think they are an important part behind the government who sometimes release the violation of those cultures happen in the country simultaneously.”

Nov 25: The day that I have to send the first paragraph of the essay, the introduction part. I still cannot find any reasons to support this. I just received the Peter’s comment today. I went back to read the question again. I saw this “more”, so I thought I should change my answer. Also that is why I could not find any supports for the pervious answer. I can start the first part now. Woo!

Peter's Essay - Is Meat Murder?

The essay questions that we are working on this week and next week are all new. This is the first time I've given them to students, although I have used similar questions to some of them in the past. What is new for all of them is that they all require one or more definition paragraphs to answer the question. The definition of a term is essential to a strong answer to all of the questions. 

Because the questions are all new, I've decided that I will also write an answer to one of them. And since the popular choice is the one I thought was most difficult, number 5 on the list, I've started working on my answer to that one. 

Initially, I was just going to write notes in MS Word about what I did, my writing process, but then I thought it might be more useful to publish them here, so that's what this blog post is about. Please feel free to do the same thing if you like! You might find it useful, and I am sure your classmates will find it a valuable source for ideas. 

These are my notes so far, just copied and pasted:

21/11/2008
19:52 - 20:47 = 55 minutes – mainly research for “Meat is Murder” slogan, also think about approach to answer. Etymology = Pali / Sanskrit. Hmm? Maybe. (Kill is Old English, from 1205, and relatively easy, but the question is about a text originally in Pali, not English.)

20:48 - 21:23 = 35 minutes. Cum.Total = 90 minutes – decided to research the Pali etymology of Pāṇātipātā Google search best = Pāṇātipātā pali dictionary. Looks like useful info to use.  Looked at others first, not so useful. 35 minutes not bad to get this information. Reference citation is a bit messy, but I’ve noted the page URL. 

This is the time I've spent sitting in front of my computer actively working on an answer. I spent some time thinking about it before then, and scribbled a few ideas. I think I've got a clear idea about what my thesis statement will be and how I might be able to support it, although it will probably change as I do more research and get more ideas. But that's normal: essays do change as they are being written, so I'll probably have to revise my provisional thesis statement. I think I've spend perhaps 2.5 hours working on my answer so far. 

And I'm keeping careful note of sources that might be useful. At the moment, there are 13 tabs open in my browser from the searches I've made this evening. I think three of them are useful. 

I'll add updates as comments as I continue to work on my answer. 

My favorite dictionary : Am

"Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" (7th edition) is my favorite dictionary because first there is a package which offers CD-Rom for installing in a computer. I can both find the words from the dictionary and from my computer, which is very convenient. In addition, there are many kind of interesting words to learn about, for example, new words which are up to date such as "bird flu", and cultural words such as "car boot sale". Moreover, example sentences are very useful for me to learn how the words work in context. That's important to choose the right word in each case.

About the character of the dictionary, I like the vocabulary items in blue. That's comfortable to look at and easy to find. Besides, there are the pictures to describe some words such as "goat" and "sheep", to show me how they are different. This makes me understand more about them.

These are the reasons why I like this dictionary.