The Enormity

In the previous post, I asserted that "if animals possess even a small (but positive) independent standing in the social calculus, then their current treatment at our hands constitutes an ongoing, massive crime." What is the evidence for that assertion?

It's the scale of the suffering and death that is all but unfathomable: “Over 150 million animals are killed for food around the world every day—just on land. That comes out to 56 billion land animals killed per year. Including wild caught and farmed fishes, we get a daily total closer to 3 billion animals killed.” – from the “How Many Animals Are Killed for Food Every Day?” webpage at Sentient Media.

Any tiny intrinsic valuation of farm animal welfare, then, would be of utmost importance in judging socially “optimal” policies. If land animals have 1/100 the "standing" of human beings, then 560 million "human equivalents" are impacted (in life and premature death) annually by farm and slaughter conditions. And that is just the land animals used for food. In the US alone, more than 10 million animals are used in research annually, with the vast majority being birds, rats, and mice -- species that are explicitly excluded from the protections of the Animal Welfare Act.

Beyond the sheer scope of animal lives and deaths, the other type of evidence requisite to establish the ongoing enormity concerns the welfare shortfalls typically visited upon these animals. More on that evidence in the days ahead.

The Theme?

How much should the interests of non-human animals count in assessing the desirability of alternative policies and practices?

A continuum of possible answers to the above question (which might be rephrased in a legalistic manner as the degree of standing possessed by animals) suggests itself. At one pole of the continuum is the possibility that animals should not have any independent standing, so that their interests are consulted only to the extent that humans are affected by animal interests. At this pole, animals are just matter, blocks, stones, (worse than) senseless things. At the other end of the continuum* is the full-standing pole, where animal interests enter independently into the social cost-benefit calculus, to the same extent as human interests. This pole occupies the position corresponding to Singeresque equal consideration for animal interests.

The theme that I want to explore is that, independently of precisely where on the continuum animal interests are located, current practices affecting animals are woefully sub-optimal. In a sense, this contention suggests that animal policy is not a particularly hard problem: we know that better social outcomes require improved animal welfare, and we are not in any immediate danger of going too far, of providing too much protection for animals. Of course, the higher the degree of standing accorded to animals, the further we eventually must travel -- but the direction we should head, for now and for a good while longer, is clear.

Perhaps my contention is wrong, and that, if animals possess no independent standing, we already are doing enough to protect their interests. In that case, current practices are not sub-optimal, and we are in danger of overshooting the animal-welfare mark. OK -- but we are not sure that "no independent standing" is right, either; maybe "equal consideration" is right. We are uncertain as to precisely (or even approximately) where on the continuum animal interests actually should fall.** But such uncertainty does not counsel for complacency, for acceptance of the status quo. The proper response to unavoidable uncertainty is to search for policies that are fairly robust, policies that produce pretty good (or at least not disastrous) outcomes independently of where the truth lies.*** And if animals possess even a small (but positive) independent standing in the social calculus, then their current treatment at our hands constitutes an ongoing, massive crime. Uncertainty over  animal standing presents a powerful argument for significant improvements in the promotion of animal welfare.

*We could go beyond the full-standing position, to points where animals receive greater consideration than humans. One argument for adopting an "animal primacy" position is that in most settings (farms, homes, research labs, zoos) in which we deal with animals, they are our involuntary captives, and we have near-total control over their living conditions. With such power comes significant responsibilities. Adult humans whom we annoy (often) can absent themselves from our presence; not so with our captive animals.

**And it is possible that the "correct" location for animal interests varies on a species-by-species basis.

***Bertrand Russell, from Unpopular Essays: “When you act upon a hypothesis which you know to be uncertain, your action should be such as will not have very harmful results if your hypothesis is false.”