I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. I think it ought to be governed by the standards of how it affects the individual animals, just as we'd want to deal with institutions that deal with humans by how they affect individual humans.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

We should give the same respect to the lives of animals as we do to the lives of humans.

We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex.

We may feel the pain of falling back from a level of affluence to which we have grown accustomed, but most people in developed countries are still, by historical standards, extraordinarily well off.

If they [animals] were really to get the equal consideration that I believe they should, we wouldn't have commercial animal production in this country.

It's also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America's reputation and prestige around the world; and that's just starting now to hit home in the United States.