If you go back in time you'll find tribes that were essentially only concerned with their own tribal members. If you were a member of another tribe, you could be killed with impunity.

Had Rumsfeld said at any time 'get me a report on what's going on', he could have had it. You're right, it depends on choices that we make, which parts of the world we want to be in immediate contact with.

If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?

We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.

Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics.

Unfortunately for ethical egoism, the claim that we will all be better off if every one of us does what is in his or her own interest is incorrect. This is shown by what are known as "prisoner's dilemma" situations, which are playing an increasingly important role in discussions of ethical theory... At least on the collective level, therefore, egoism is self-defeating - a conclusion well brought out by Parfit in his aforementioned Reasons and Persons.

I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature.