Steiner argues that even "free range" chickens may lead miserable lives, and that the only truly moral response to widespread cruelty to animals is "to forswear the consumption of animal products of all kinds." But, he writes,

You just haven't lived until you've tried to function as a strict vegan in a meat-crazed society. [...] To be a really strict vegan is to strive to avoid all animal products, and this includes materials like leather, silk and wool, as well as a panoply of cosmetics and medications. The more you dig, the more you learn about products you would never stop to think might contain or involve animal products in their production - like wine and beer (isinglass, a kind of gelatin derived from fish bladders, is often used to "fine," or purify, these beverages), refined sugar (bone char is sometimes used to bleach it) or Band-Aids (animal products in the adhesive). Just last week I was told that those little comfort strips on most razor blades contain animal fat.

In his expression of how difficult it is to lead a truly ethical life, he has an unlikely companion: designer Todd Lynn, who has used fur in his collections. Lynn says,

I don't have a problem with people following their principles, but what bugs me is when people pick and choose. People are really misinformed about the products they wear. Nobody argues with the pesticides used on cotton plants that will kill wildlife. To think that silk or cotton doesn't do damage to the environment is a lie.

The difference between the two men is that Steiner views the sheer difficulty of a vegan lifestyle as a problem with society, while Lynn seems to be excusing fur on the grounds that other products are just as bad. But both underscore the fact that if you want to be a truly ethical consumer, it's extremely difficult to live in the modern world. It's an argument I used to hear all the time when I was a strict vegetarian — that soy cultivation was just as toxic to the environment as livestock, and that if I really wanted to be consistent I would have to eat only unprocessed, unpackaged, organically grown foods. Of course, this argument conflates environmental degradation with morality — if what you really care about is animal welfare, then it doesn't really matter if soy farms use a lot of petroleum. On the other hand, it's absolutely true that if you want your eating and buying habits to be both morally correct and healthy for the planet, your life will be very, very hard.

There are a number of possible solutions to this problem. One is to throw up your hands and not worry about ethics, which The Observer's Elizabeth Day, who interviewed Lynn, says more people are now doing with respect to fur. She points out that former PETA supporter Naomi Campbell now stars in an ad campaign for a furrier. And she quotes a spokesman for a fur trading group who says,

Fur has never been more popular. From 1998 to 2008 there has been year-on-year growth in global sales for fur. People now are more comfortable showing their love of fur.

Given the economic climate, though, fur-love may not be the biggest obstacle to ethical consumption. Rather, many of us may be too cash-strapped and stressed out to consider the larger implications of what we're buying, eating, and wearing. Steiner's solution to the difficulty of living morally — sucking it up, potentially losing friends, and making your life a rebuke to a system that thoughtlessly exploits animals and the earth — is the most ideologically consistent one. But it's also the most difficult one to sell to people who already have a lot of problems. We may need voices like Steiner's to remind us of the problems of consumption, but when it comes to advice for living, we might require a softer touch.

The question of whether radicalism or moderation is better at effecting social change is an age-old one. But in the case of our personal habits, swift, radical change on a large scale may be an unachievable goal. Steiner seems to disdain a dining companion who says, "I'm really a vegetarian - I don't eat red meat at home." This position can be annoying for vegetarians, as it leads them to be served chicken at dinner parties or pressured to eat "just a little" meat. At the same time, people who give up red meat do reduce their carbon footprints, as do people who avoid all meat one or two days a week. For those who believe meat is murder, giving it up sometimes probably doesn't seem like much of a compromise. But people who do so have given some thought to their consumption practices, and may be open to more. They may be the early adopters of a system which, while not perfect, cares more about animal welfare and environmental conservation than the old one that put animal fat in razors. Strict vegans might do well to treat these occasional vegetarians not as enemies, but as allies.

Animal, Vegetable, Miserable [NYT]
Would You Rather Go Naked? Not Any Longer [Observer]

The report, which will be released today by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, surveyed 7,000 people in various age groups nationwide about their past behavior and their personal ethics. They found that teens who admit to cheating on exams in high school are much more likely to lie to a customer, cheat on taxes, or lie to their spouses. Additional findings, as reported in the L.A. Times include:

Teens 17 and younger are five times more likely than those older than 50 to believe that lying and cheating are necessary to succeed (51% vs. 10%), those in the 17 and younger group are nearly four times as likely to deceive their boss (31% vs. 8%) and three times more likely to keep change mistakenly given to them (49% vs. 15%).

More young adults ages 18 to 24 reported lying to a spouse or partner than did the 41- to 50-year-old members of their parents' generation (48% vs. 22%), more made an unauthorized copy of music or a video (69% vs. 27%) and they were more likely to have misrepresented or omitted a fact in a job interview (14% vs. 4%).

The Josephson Institute of Ethics issues regular surveys on the ethics of teens, and they report seeing a steady increase in the number of kids who admitted to cheating, lying and stealing in the past years. However, this is the first study that has linked teenage dishonesty with adult misdeeds. Robert A. deMayo, a professor of psychology from Pepperdine University, believes that the erosion of teen ethics may be linked to the growth of new technology, which provides a huge amount of feedback that reinforces negative behavior by normalizing it. "The young do that in a widespread fashion and say yes, they know it's wrong; yes, it's stealing, but everybody is doing it. It becomes normalized, it becomes almost irrelevant that it's against the letter of the law," he said.

The question of teen morality feels especially salient this week, after the horrible gang rape of a 15-year-old girl in Richmond. This morning, Anna N. delved into the reasons why something like this could happen, and while the bystander effect may play a part, there was clearly much more going on than simply diffusion of responsibility. As much as I don't want to draw a parallel between this study and the Richmond case, it is difficult to read about teen ethics without immediately going back to this terrifying example of a group of young adults who lacked the basic human decency to report a violent assault.

But here's the thing: Kids - and teens - usually have to learn this behavior somewhere, and while peers do play a huge part, so do parents. Rich Jarc, director of the Josephson Institute, says he's worried about the implication of their recent findings: "When you see that teens are five times more likely than adults to think it's OK to cheat to get ahead, we have a problem. Just think if five times the number of people in business, politics and banking hold those beliefs. That's alarming."

It is alarming, but on the other hand, these teens did not spring fully formed into the world. Perhaps even more importantly, teens have always cheated on tests, lied to people, and even stolen. The study examines is based on self reports; is it possible that more teens are simply admitting to their misdeeds than ever before? Based on purely anecdotal evidence, this seems somewhat likely. I will admit, I was kind of a cheater in high school myself. I cheated on tests, cheated on a boyfriend, and routinely lied to my parents. However, my desire to cheat was vastly overwhelmed by my compulsive honesty. No sooner had I told my parents a lie than I would turn right around and confess, which made their job of reigning me in far easier. Judging from the growing trend of confessional journalism - pioneered by none other than the loathsome Liz Jones - people are becoming more and more likely to put it all out there in some (possibly misguided) desire to unburden their conscience. Maybe we're going to see a generation of liars and cheaters, but maybe we are looking at the next generation of obsessive and somewhat self-destructive truth-tellers.

Fortunately, deMayo points out that there is a silver lining: Teens today are much more tolerant than ever before. He notes that many young adults express more positive views about ethnic and gender rights than previous generations. "We want to denounce young people as immoral, but certain basic values that represent American ideals of freedom and equality seem to be on the rise with young adults." At least we have that.

Seeds Of Adult Dishonesty Sowed In Youth, Study Says [L.A. Times]

The survey has 68 questions (all posed as statements) and is supposed to take 20 minutes. You're instructed to respond on a scale, with choices like "Totally Disagree, " "Very Slightly Disagree," "Strongly Agree" and "Totally Agree."

But: However loosely your moral compass is wound, it's pretty easy to cheat this test, since with many of the questions, it's so obvious how you should respond, if you want to get hired.

For instance, Question 13:

I have problems with long hours at work.

Who in their right mind — who really wants a job — is going to admit this?

Question 14:

Most employees get high on the job at one time or another.

Question 41:

Smoking a marijuana cigarette is the same as having a drink.

Question 5:

In previous jobs I've had problems getting to work on time, but that's behind me now.

Question 30:

Some people work as well slightly high as they do sober.

You know what? Some people do. Some people work better high. Are you going to say so when you want to work at Urban Outfitters? No. No, you are not.

Even more amusing are the questions about stealing. As you may know, Urban Outfitters has quite frequently been accused of ripping off other designers. (More here, here, here, here; and then there's an entire site called Urban Counterfeiters.)

But there were several questions hinting that prospective employees had better not even think about stealing from UO.

Question 32:

In some instances an employee who steals small items should be overlooked if he/she does an otherwise outstanding job.

Hey, I'm gonna work super hard and only walk out of here with some earrings. Or a purse. Hire me?

Question 55:

Most employees steal at one time or another.

Psst. Everybody's doing it. Hire me?

Question 44:

A person who takes $5.00 a year from his/her employer is a thief.

I steal, but only a little. Hire me?

Question 20:

In previous jobs I've stolen small items, but I will never do it again.

Unless I go back on crack. Hire me?

It would be really interesting to see how the creative types at Urban Outfitters — who knock off T-shirts, shoes and jewelry — and whose sister company, Anthropologie, doesn't like black people — would reply to these questions:

Question 24:

A company's policies and procedures should be followed without deviation.

Question 38:

Cheating is the way a majority of individuals succeed in business.

Question 23:

An employee should criticize his/her company when he/she believes it to be wrong.

But maybe the answers lie here:

Question 4:

A good employee should always support the organization when outsiders criticize it.

Question 7:

Some rules should be altered to fit the specific situation.

Related: Urban Counterfeiters
Earlier: Anthropologie Doesn't Care About Black People

New research published today from Cambridge University reports that high levels of testosterone in the amniotic fluid of pregnant woman are linked to the development of autism traits by the age of eight in a study of 235 children from birth. The findings mean that it may be possible to detect autism through an amniocentesis, like Down Syndrome.

But doctors say that now is the time to start debating if having a prenatal test for autism would be desirable, even if it was scientifically possible. "There is a test for Down's syndrome and that is legal and parents exercise their right to choose termination, but autism is often linked with talent. It is a different kind of condition," said lead researcher Professor Simon Baron-Cohen in The Guardian.

Autism is a developmental disability that involves a biological abnormality in the brain, but it is not a learning disability or a mental health problem. The test would not be able to identify whether a child would be born with high-functioning autism that can be associated with an increased ability in certain areas like math or music or on the low end of the spectrum with disabilities so extreme they cannot communicate. But Baron-Cohen says, ethically the same issues apply wherever the person is on that spectrum.

A test for autism means that parents may choose to terminate a pregnancy if they discover their child may develop the condition, but it could also lead to new treatments. There are drugs that block testosterone that could theoretically be given in the womb, but Baron-Cohen says even developing a treatment for autism is controversial. "What would we lose if children with autistic spectrum disorder were eliminated from the population?" he asked.

Even if there was a way to treat autism, there is still the question of whether it is a naturally occurring condition or one caused by environmental factors. Though autism rates have risen dramatically in recent years, there is still debate over whether the "autism epidemic" is due to increased awareness and diagnosis or an actual increase in autism cases. According to Babble, in a new study in California, where autism rates have increased more than 500 percent in 10 years, researchers determined that the increase in autism is likely due to external factors and are investigating the effects of metals, pesticides and infectious agents on neurodevelopment. This may confirm what many have suspected, that thought there are genetic predisposition to autism, environmental factors are at work as well.

New Research Brings Autism Screening Closer To Reality [The Guardian]
New Study Says Autism is Environmental [Babble]

For starters, the inquiry surrounded the firing of Monegan, which has been ruled legal. This will allow her to claim — as she's doing — that the legality of her consequential actions has been upheld. Furthermore, her other actions — which she's claiming were technically outside the scope of the investigation — aren't likely to have many consequences other than in terms of public relations and were completely ineffective. Wooten remains a trooper, never got denied his worker's comp and no one besides Monegan ended up on the outs. She'll be dirtied, slightly, by the allegations that she attempted to get her former brother-in-law fired, but most people pretty much already knew that she did that.

If she and her advisers were smart, they would have made much more of the restraining order her sister filed, the ugliness that supposedly came her way, the events that Wooten showed up at that he was asked to stay away from, and generally painted her as so legitimately concerned for her own safety and that or her sister's that she maybe went ever-so-slightly over the line in trying to make sure no harm came to her sister or her own family. Luckily for those of us that don't want to see people sympathize too much with her, her advisers came from the locked-down, deny-everything school of political management and thus were unable to see a better narrative than "she didn't do it" and now that it's confirmed that she did, they're not going to have an easy time finding a new narrative.

Though, it is kind of ironic that she was claiming that she fired the guy for going to Washington to lobby for more money to combat domestic violence when what kicked this all off were allegations against Wooten (that were never proved) of domestic violence.

Alaska Inquiry Concludes Palin Abused Powers [NY Times]
Branchflower Report [NY Times]

Is it all just the selfish pursuit of recycling our genes and keeping the Human Race from going extinct? Readers, I pondered all this and the ethics of throwing a fat man in front of a trolley to save five thin workers — most people wouldn't do it, apparently for biologically-ingrained moral reasons —over the weekend, when I ventured deep into the 90 zillion word philosophical abyss that was the cover story of the New York Times Magazine. I did it so you wouldn't have to, and I probably should have just gotten drunk because all I got for ya:

Far from debunking morality, then, the science of the moral sense can advance it, by allowing us to see through the illusions that evolution and culture have saddled us with and to focus on goals we can share and defend. As Anton Chekhov wrote, "Man will become better when you show him what he is like."

The Moral Instinct [NY Times]

Anthony Kleanthous, a senior policy adviser at WWF, said most of the luxury companies did well in some areas but were weak in others. "Luxury companies do not consider their products to be particularly damaging to the environment," he said. "They just don't think people are going to be asking the questions. But there has been a paradigm shift." In fact, in a recent survey of 950 high-income American adults, 57% said they'd pay more for a brand that had socially responsible practices. 70% look for brands with "superior environmental records."

Meanwhile, Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, and designer Tom Ford seem to agree. They attended the International Herald Tribune conference on luxury, and spoke about so-called "ethical luxury" — products that "define their owners or wearers as people with human and ecological consciences." Said Ford: "Luxury is not going out of style. It needs to change its style. We need to replace hollow with deep." (He also mourned the state of luxury in the 1990s, when "luxury went from hard to find to hard to miss.")

And if making luxury products eco- and employee-friendly winds up inflating price tags, so be it. As Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, says in a Q&A in AdWeek: "Affordable luxury is a contradiction in terms. Those luxury brands racing to transform themselves into affordable luxury by making deals with mass retailers have forgotten that their business model is not just about stamping out more products."

Do luxury brands have a responsibility to be ethical? Can they be, while selling fur, ostrich, fine cashmere? And would they make a difference in the world? And, despite what the survey said (people lie!) do luxury consumers actually care how something was made? Or do they just want the logo?

Luxury Brands Fail To Make Ethical Grade [Financial Times]
At IHT Luxury Conference, Ethics Are In Vogue [International Herald Tribune]
Q&A: A Social Approach for Luxe Brands [AdWeek]
Earlier: My Week With A $4000 Snakeskin Handbag

HYPNOTIC:

um why does she have so many lines around her eyes shes been rich for like 10 years
my mom is 54 and doesnt have that many wrinkles wtf

JERSEYLICIOUS:

They took away half her arm! And gave her Elisha Cuthbert's face shape (and age). And God forbid an almost-40 year old woman has a few lines around her eyes. Wow. Just... wow.

ONCEUPONATIME:

Wow! She DOES have arms! I was wondering how the flock she was holding herself up. And, ya know, she still looks really good...for a human. (As opposed to the Cherry 3000 version on the "finished" cover.)

MISSMADE:

I really want to kill myself after the thought "Wow. They did a good job."
What the fuck is wrong with me.

PISSER:

I re-touch for a living and to be quiet honest these boys (because it's usually men that re-touch) went liquify happy on her arm.

TRIXIE FROM TORONTO:

All I want for Christmas is my own personal photo-shopper.

THEGINTHECITY:

I feel pretty darn good about myself right now. My arms and backfat look just like Faith Hill's (real) arms and backfat!

CONNPOSSIBLE:

for some reason, I cant stop laughing that they even rounded out that wisp of hair on the left side of her face.

SHEISTOLERABLE:

What's amazing is 90% of what they did to her body could've been skipped if she just sat up straight. This is fabulous, though. Worth every pen-well, maybe not, but still fabulous.

THATSHOT:

You'd think they could do something about her roots after going thru so much trouble.

EDITRESS:

thank you, jezebel! i had heard legends of elizabeth hurley's nickel sized pores and drew barrymore's back fat, but there is nothing like an animated gif to drive it home.

ONE_MORE_SALUTE_TO_VANITY:

That's it. I'm off to revive Ophelia.

C_WEBB:

Wow. You could take all the scraps they snipped and make a picture of Nicole Richie.

THENWEMADEOUT

It's not just her arm - her thigh is about 1/2 the size of the original too. WHY DID THEY DO THAT to her jaw?? Can none of these celebrities put it in a contract that they refuse to be photoshopped into oblivion?? That Dove ad has nothing on this scary jumping comparison.

THEREMUSTBEAPONY:

She looks like the typical overly tanned gone-to-fat desperate-to-look-younger (dressed inappropriately for her age) middle-aged woman who was once unimaginatively hot-ish. In other words, pre-photoshop, she looks a lot like me. Prettier hair though, but yes, thinning; and maybe the camera does add 10 lbs because i think she's quite a bit more of a fatty than me too. Personally, I can never get past the distorted look of her "WHAAATTTTT??!!" into the camera when she was outraged at not being named Country Enertainer of the Year, particularly as she was already taking bows before the name was announced ... and losing to Carrie Underwood who is younger, hotter, and ostensibly more talented. I feel for her (Faith) ... as least my fade into into ignomity is a private undocumented one. But i'm not a sore loser either.

SALLY TOMATO:

Eh, this isn't so incendiary. Can you get your hands on someone we all collectively hate next time? I for one would love to see Posh looking more Miss Havisham than Fembot.

MCPASTRY

It's also interesting that she looks more down-to-earth, female-friendly in the untouched photo because her pose in comfortable and open, whereas the touched up version makes her look more come-hither-ly, as if men are buying redbook. Although I wonder if market research says that women respond to sexy pics of women better than friendly pics of women...does anyone know?

MAULLEIGH:

I hope someone didn't get fired for this. I worked at a fashion catalog where we had early pictures of a famous model girlfriend in really stupid outfits. I kept thinking of uploading them to the internets but didn't cuz I figured I'd LOSE MY JOB if I was ever found out.

LADYSHARK :

What is more shocking with Faith Hill on Redbook is how they seem to have taken her character away: "when it's her with all lines and beauty marks - she's got character and then suddely she's just another pretty empty painted up doll face," my friend Froglozoid said. And me to reply: "Yeah, it's not the same soul."

LENSDOG:

Are you kidding? I've worked with the lady and she is a great talent, but like most female stars she is very concerned about her appearance, and undoubtedly had a big say in what pictures would appear on the cover. That doesn't make here a bad person; there is a long history of female stars protecting their publicity photos. This is just the technique of the new century, and I'll bet George Hurrell would approve.

MEECH:

As a artist with a background in anatomy — I think this is priceless. They've given her a severe case of Scoliosis by whittling her back into an hourglass curve! They've also eliminated all the "slow" lines of the body (the concave areas where the body can bend on itself) to eliminate any hint of actual flesh on thiose bones. It's Mannerism at it's best — the artificial trumping the natural.