Andrew Tardiff's Article: Simplifying The Case For Vegetarianism

Simplifying the Case for Vegetarianism is an article written by Andrew Tardiff as part of the academic journal Social Theory and Practice; published by Florida State University, Department of Philosophy in 1996. Tardiff was a part of the department of philosophy at Rhode Island College and wrote other articles, including A Catholic Case for Vegetarianism and Vegetarianism Virtue: Does Consequentialism Demand Too Little? In the article, Tardiff begins by referencing Tom Reagan in his book The Case for Animal Rights, that there are five qualifications of an acceptable moral theory, including “Consistency, scope, precision, conformity to reflective intuition, and simplicity.” He then goes on to illustrate a few hypothetical situations in order to establish uncontroversial moral

He realizes that if he doesn 't alter his stride he will step on it and crush it. Is it morally permissible for him to crush the turtle? Most of us would say no,” establishes that animals have some sort of moral significance in that we would not kill them unjustifiably (Tardiff). Tardiff then delves into the precise moral reasoning behind the simple example, before moving on to the next scenario, “Suppose now that someone is driving down this country road and sees the turtle on one side and some kind of marsh plant on the other. Suppose that they are situated such that the driver can 't avoid them both. There isn 't time enough to stop but plenty of time to steer around one or the other, and no oncoming traffic. What should he do? We judge that all things being equal, he should steer around the turtle even though this means killing the plant.” Tardiff explains that this example demonstrates how when we have no choice, we should choose the life of an animal over that of a plant, other things equal. In the final example, Tardiff establishes that we