Papers by David Morris
Thesis Chapters by David Morris
In the past decade the National Secular Society (NSS) have made their voice clear on the subject ... more In the past decade the National Secular Society (NSS) have made their voice clear on the subject of whether animals should be stunned prior to being slaughtered in the UK, arguing that to slaughter an animal without first stunning it is inhumane. They amplify the concerns for non-human suffering that are raised by the Humane Slaughter Association (HSA) and the British Veterinary Association (BVA) and in so doing contribute a secular underpinning to a slaughter that is humane. In this essay I am going to think through the debate over the human slaughter of non-human animals in order to explore this construction of a seemingly exclusive pair: humane (secular) and inhumane (religious) slaughter. I will argue that it is not the suffering of these beings that concerns the NSS, but the suffering incurred by a secular society when a legal exemption on the stunning of animals is afforded exclusively to religious groups in the UK; namely Jews and Muslims. I will not be constructing a defence of the Jewish shechita or Muslim halal methods of slaughter, or provide prescriptive elaboration of the methods. This is instead an approach to the secular and its methods of self-assurance.
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Papers by David Morris
Thesis Chapters by David Morris