In the immediately prior post I noted the young age at which farm animals are slaughtered. In his fine 2014 book Meat Logic: Why Do We Eat Animals?, author Charles Horn provides a table of "Approximate Lifespans" for pigs, cows, and chickens, with entries both for natural lifespans and for ages at slaughter. Pigs can live 10-12 years according to Horn, but are slaughtered at about 6 months; cows can live more than 20 years, but "meat" their demise after 18 months; and, chickens, which live some 8 years naturally, are killed in about 7 weeks. (Veal is another awful story altogether.) That is, chickens get less than 2 percent of their natural lives, though cows get some 8% and pigs some 5%. But given the conditions of their lives, for many of them, the brevity is surely a blessing.
Friday, June 28, 2019
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Farm Animal Lives
The fact that people commonly consume meat from pigs, cattle, chickens, and so on means that there are many more of these animals on earth than there otherwise would be. (The statistics from Sapiens repeated in the immediately prior post suggest populations consisting of "about a billion sheep, a billion pigs, more than a billion cattle, and more than 25 billion chickens.") This fact is sometimes presented as a sort of defense of factory farming and human consumption of animal products: the large effective demand for animals ensures more animals are given the opportunity to live. To be an effective defense of meat consumption, however, at a minimum the "life under current conditions is better than no life" claim would have to be true. For pigs that are kept in small crates all their lives, or for chickens crammed into unholy warehouses and subjected to anesthetic-free beak trimmings, the claim itself is at least doubtful.
But if we grant that, for farmed animals, "life under current conditions is better than no life," does that admission serve to justify the pain and torture and early deaths humans inflict upon them? We surely would not think so with human victims: who would endorse, for human children, a "husbandry regime" supposedly justified by the "logic" that "it is OK if we torture you and kill you at a young age, as long as the life that we subject you to is marginally better than not having been born"? [In the background (or foreground) of many discussions of animal welfare is the question, is it morally OK to treat non-human animals with less consideration than we provide to our conspecifics? In arguing "yes," sometimes the points raised are, like the positive-value-of-life claim, surely unacceptable when applied to humans. These points are textbook examples of "begging the question," supporting unequal consideration for non-human animals with logic that would not be convincing when applied to humans: such logic can only be convincing in the case of non-human animals if you already accept that they do not merit equal consideration.]
Another point is that humans don't seem to put any moral stock in trying to maximize the number of positive-net-value lives brought into being. People with substantial resources don't feel compelled to have tons of children, even though additional children would be likely to have good lives; nor do they continually breed their pets to bring more lives into being. Is such reluctance to produce more beings capable of worthwhile lives itself immoral? If not, then is there anything immoral about the reduction of the number of farm animals on earth that would come with diminished demand for animal products?
A variation on this theme is sometimes called "the logic of the larder"; I hope to return to larder-logic in the future...
But if we grant that, for farmed animals, "life under current conditions is better than no life," does that admission serve to justify the pain and torture and early deaths humans inflict upon them? We surely would not think so with human victims: who would endorse, for human children, a "husbandry regime" supposedly justified by the "logic" that "it is OK if we torture you and kill you at a young age, as long as the life that we subject you to is marginally better than not having been born"? [In the background (or foreground) of many discussions of animal welfare is the question, is it morally OK to treat non-human animals with less consideration than we provide to our conspecifics? In arguing "yes," sometimes the points raised are, like the positive-value-of-life claim, surely unacceptable when applied to humans. These points are textbook examples of "begging the question," supporting unequal consideration for non-human animals with logic that would not be convincing when applied to humans: such logic can only be convincing in the case of non-human animals if you already accept that they do not merit equal consideration.]
Another point is that humans don't seem to put any moral stock in trying to maximize the number of positive-net-value lives brought into being. People with substantial resources don't feel compelled to have tons of children, even though additional children would be likely to have good lives; nor do they continually breed their pets to bring more lives into being. Is such reluctance to produce more beings capable of worthwhile lives itself immoral? If not, then is there anything immoral about the reduction of the number of farm animals on earth that would come with diminished demand for animal products?
A variation on this theme is sometimes called "the logic of the larder"; I hope to return to larder-logic in the future...
Thursday, April 18, 2019
On _Sapiens_ by Yuval Noah Harari
I was a latecomer to Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a long-running bestseller, but better late than never. One of the surprises of the book for me was the inclusion of significant material about the mistreatment of non-human animals.
In discussing the domestication of animals, Harari (page 92) provides current population counts: "about a billion sheep, a billion pigs, more than a billion cattle, and more than 25 billion chickens." But the process of domestication was cruel and these animals suffer from profound misery (page 93): "...it's hard to avoid the impression that for the vast majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural Revolution was a terrible catastrophe [pages 96-97]."
The Industrial Revolution doubled down on the horrors. Harari (pages 342-346) provides some of the details of factory farm practices for hens and pigs. Here's one sentence on milk production: "Many dairy cows live almost all of their allotted years inside a small enclosure; standing, sitting and sleeping in their own urine and excrement [page 342]." Those "allotted years" are quite short relative to natural lifespans, too, though perhaps that is a blessing under the human-dictated circumstances.
Harari notes animal welfare again in the brief afterword. Here's the penultimate sentence: "We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction [page 444]."
My copy of Sapiens includes a short Q&A with Harari at the end. He is asked how he was personally affected by writing Sapiens. His answer is about non-human animals, referencing his research into the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. "I was so horrified by what I learned that I decided to limit, as far as possible, my personal involvement with the meat, dairy, and egg industries."
The Sapiens website contains a section entitled "Ecology" which collects many of Harari's thoughts on non-human animals. Here's one telling paragraph:
"The disappearance of wildlife is a calamity of unprecedented magnitude, but the plight of the planet’s majority population—the farm animals—is cause for equal concern. In recent years there is growing awareness of the conditions under which these animals live and die, and their fate may well turn out to be the greatest crime in human history. If you measure crimes by the sheer amount of pain and misery they inflict on sentient beings, this radical claim is not implausible."
The conditions for domesticated farm animals that Harari describes are related in much greater detail in books and articles devoted to animal welfare. But Harari's extremely popular book includes these descriptions, almost in a matter-of-fact manner, when it could have passed them over entirely. Politics and policy can undergo profound changes when something that everyone "sort of knows" transmutes into "common knowledge," something undeniable, where everyone knows it and everyone knows that every one knows it (and so on, ad infinitum). Sapiens both reflects and, I hope, promotes this transformation in the animal welfare arena.
In discussing the domestication of animals, Harari (page 92) provides current population counts: "about a billion sheep, a billion pigs, more than a billion cattle, and more than 25 billion chickens." But the process of domestication was cruel and these animals suffer from profound misery (page 93): "...it's hard to avoid the impression that for the vast majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural Revolution was a terrible catastrophe [pages 96-97]."
The Industrial Revolution doubled down on the horrors. Harari (pages 342-346) provides some of the details of factory farm practices for hens and pigs. Here's one sentence on milk production: "Many dairy cows live almost all of their allotted years inside a small enclosure; standing, sitting and sleeping in their own urine and excrement [page 342]." Those "allotted years" are quite short relative to natural lifespans, too, though perhaps that is a blessing under the human-dictated circumstances.
Harari notes animal welfare again in the brief afterword. Here's the penultimate sentence: "We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction [page 444]."
My copy of Sapiens includes a short Q&A with Harari at the end. He is asked how he was personally affected by writing Sapiens. His answer is about non-human animals, referencing his research into the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. "I was so horrified by what I learned that I decided to limit, as far as possible, my personal involvement with the meat, dairy, and egg industries."
The Sapiens website contains a section entitled "Ecology" which collects many of Harari's thoughts on non-human animals. Here's one telling paragraph:
"The disappearance of wildlife is a calamity of unprecedented magnitude, but the plight of the planet’s majority population—the farm animals—is cause for equal concern. In recent years there is growing awareness of the conditions under which these animals live and die, and their fate may well turn out to be the greatest crime in human history. If you measure crimes by the sheer amount of pain and misery they inflict on sentient beings, this radical claim is not implausible."
The conditions for domesticated farm animals that Harari describes are related in much greater detail in books and articles devoted to animal welfare. But Harari's extremely popular book includes these descriptions, almost in a matter-of-fact manner, when it could have passed them over entirely. Politics and policy can undergo profound changes when something that everyone "sort of knows" transmutes into "common knowledge," something undeniable, where everyone knows it and everyone knows that every one knows it (and so on, ad infinitum). Sapiens both reflects and, I hope, promotes this transformation in the animal welfare arena.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
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.
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.”
**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.”
Monday, February 25, 2019
Initial Post, February 25, 2019
Just a place to keep track of issues around non-human animal policy, especially issues with an economics bent.
As always, John Stuart Mill's warning applies: "The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind, that for him these pages were not written."*
*Mill was an early voice for better treatment of animals.
As always, John Stuart Mill's warning applies: "The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind, that for him these pages were not written."*
*Mill was an early voice for better treatment of animals.
[Update, October 5, 2023: I have also begun to use this blog as a residence for bullet-point "summentaries" of various animal policy articles.]
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