Timothy Hsiao attempts to defend industrial animal farming by arguing that it is not inherently cruel. We raise three main objections to his defense. First, his argument rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of cruelty. Second, his conclusion, though technically true, is so weak as to be of virtually no moral significance or interest. Third, his contention that animals lack moral standing, and thus that mistreating them is wrong only insofar as it makes one more disposed to mistreat (...) other humans, is untenable on both philosophical and biological grounds. (shrink)

Timothy Hsiao defends industrial animal agriculture from the “strongest version of the cruelty objection” :37–54, 2017). The cruelty objection, following Rachels Food for thought: the debate over eating meat, Prometheus, Amherst, 2004), is that, because it is wrong to cause pain without a morally good reason, and there is no morally good reason for the pain caused in factory farming, factory farming is morally indefensible.In this paper, I do not directly engage Hsiao’s argument for the moral (...) permissibility of factory farming, which has been done by others :311–323, 2017). Rather, my aim is to assess whether Hsiao’s criticism of one version of the cruelty-based objection is a criticism of all versions of the cruelty-based objection, or objections to factory farming that appeal to the harm or suffering experienced by farm animals. I argue that there are, at least, four distinct kinds of cruelty-based objections to factory farming, distinguishable by their different moral principles or moral observations, and that Hsiao’s criticism of one kind of cruelty-based objection does not generalize to the others. (shrink)

Over the past century, animal agriculture in the United States has transformed from a system of small, family farms to a largely industrialized model—often known as ‘industrial farm animal production’ (IFAP). This model has successfully produced a large supply of cheap meat, eggs and dairy products, but at significant costs to animal welfare, the environment, the risk of zoonotic disease, the economic and social health of rural communities, and overall food abundance. Over the past 40 years, numerous critiques of IFAP (...) have been published, for both academic and non-academic audiences, mostly focusing on our obligations to animals. Here we offer a comprehensive critique of IFAP, focusing not only on our obligations to animals, but also important environmental, social, economic, and public health concerns. Our cumulative argument proceeds in five steps: (1) we briefly review the structure and key characteristics of IFAP; (2) we review the adverse effects of IFAP; (3) we review the historical development and positive rationale for IFAP; (4) we summarize previous moral critiques of IFAP, as well as defenses of it; and (5) we offer a moral critique of IFAP based on the common morality, and in particular on a principle of nonmaleficence, which we take to be the least controversial argument. (shrink)

The responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic was first ascribed to persons associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. However, many scientists suggest that this pandemic is actually a consequence of human intrusion into nature. This opens up a whole new perspective for an examination of direct and indirect, individual and collective responsibility concerning this particular pandemic, but also zoonotic pandemics as such. In this context, one of the key issues are the consequences of factory-farming of animals, which contributes to (...) circumstances in which zoonotic pandemics emerge. Moreover, it is part of a larger economic system, global capitalism, whose logic implies certain coercion toward its participants to keep it essentially unchanged and therefore to make sure that livestock health remains?the weakest link in our global health chain?. However, even though the precise answer to the issue of moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular cannot be given, it is possible to list certain indicators and make a framework helpful in ascribing moral responsibility to certain persons. The paper intends to do so by examining the notion of responsibility and by applying it to the issues mentioned. The results of this analysis show that it is misleading to place moral blame on people involved in actions that directly caused the animal-to-human transmission of a certain virus or on humanity as a whole. (shrink)

This chapter shows how public philosophy presents multifaceted opportunities for us not only to contemplate the ethics and politics of our food supply and food choices but also to act upon these reflections. It also discusses the role of philosophers in food activism and considers the more egalitarian possibilities of food in a post‐COVID‐19 world. Philosophy can be used to assess the ethics and power inequalities within the food industry. The aim is to expand “foodie culture” into an ethical (...) foodie culture while highlighting vegetarian restaurants and creating accessible vegetarian recipes. Food systems include animals, humans, and the ecosystem, which are embedded within neocolonialist practices of “former” colonial powers exercising economic and cultural dominion over formerly colonized nations. Food choice can be a form of activism for anyone but especially for women of color who bear the disproportionate brunt of the harms associated with the factory farming industry and climate change. (shrink)

A compelling look at animal welfare and factory farming in the United States from Mercy For Animals, the leading international force in preventing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting compassionate food choices and policies. Nathan Runkle would have been a fifth-generation farmer in his small midwestern town. Instead, he founded our nation’s leading nonprofit organization for protecting factory farmed animals. In Mercy For Animals, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization’s work; from MFA’s early days (...) in grassroots activism, to dangerous and dramatic experiences doing undercover investigations, to the organization’s current large-scale efforts at making sweeping legislative change to protect factory farmed animals and encourage compassionate food choices. But this isn’t just Nathan’s story. Mercy For Animals examines how our country moved from a network of small, local farms with more than 50 percent of Americans involved in agriculture to a massive coast-to-coast industrial complex controlled by a mere 1 percent of our population—and the consequences of this drastic change on animals as well as our global and local environments. We also learn how MFA strives to protect farmed animals in behind-the-scenes negotiations with companies like Nestlé and other brand names—conglomerates whose policy changes can save countless lives and strengthen our planet. Alongside this unflinching snapshot of our current food system, readers are also offered hope and solutions—big and small—for ending mistreatment of factory farmed animals. From simple diet modifications to a clear explanation of how to contact corporations and legislators efficiently, Mercy For Animals proves that you don’t have to be a hardcore vegan or an animal-rights activist to make a powerful difference in the lives of animals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFast food chains such as McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King are major players in the production, marketing, and consumption of animal‐derived food throughout the world. Animal rights activists are quick to point out the link between the highly efficient factory farms that supply these chains and extreme animal cruelty and environmental degradation. Strategically, fast food is well positioned to leverage change in the methods by which animals are raised and processed for human consumption. Although progress has been made as (...) the fast food industry has responded to pressure exerted by animal rights organizations, there is little indication of true collaborative efforts that would harness the power of the market to bring about substantive changes in the way the consuming public views the issue of animal welfare and food production. (shrink)

The most compelling arguments for ethical veganism hinge on premise-pairs linking the serious wrongness of factory farming to that of buying its products: one premise claiming that buying those products stands in a certain relation to factory farming itself, and one claiming that entering into that relation with a seriously wrong practice is itself wrong. I argue that all such “linkage arguments” on offer fail, granting the serious wrongness of factory farming. Each relevant relation (...) is such that if it holds between factory farming and buying its products, then it holds between some seriously wrong practice and economic transactions of an absurd number and breadth. Hence, all these premise-pairs would, if true, generate unacceptable moral overreach; each premise-pair contains at least one unacceptable member, and the linkage arguments for ethical veganism fail. (shrink)

Factory farming continues to grow around the world as a low-cost way of producing animal products for human consumption. However, many of the practices associated with intensive animal farming have been criticized by public health professionals and animal welfare advocates. The aim of this essay is to raise three independent moral concerns with factory farming, and to explain why the practices associated with factory farming flourish despite the cruelty inflicted on animals and the (...) public health risks imposed on people. I conclude that the costs of factory farming as it is currently practiced far outweigh the benefits, and offer a few suggestions for how to improve the situation for animals and people. (shrink)

This chapter examines some of the ethical issues associated with the persistent use of animals in the fashion and cosmetic industries. There are some cultural differences in the construction of what is considered a human need and what is luxury or simply a desire. Fashion and cosmetics are examples of self-determination, and people may also express their membership of a particular gender, indigenous or ethnicity through their fashion. There is discussion of opposition to the killing of animals for fur clothing, (...) and consideration of both the fur trapping industry and factory farm production. Particular issues are also raised through the killing of endangered animals and environmental pollution from tanning industry. There are also animals used for research aimed at increasing the productivity and efficiency of animals to produce fibre and safe ingredients for the cosmetic industry. The desire to dress attractively, and fashionably, is universal and applauded in most cultures, but our use of animals also shapes our moral community, and may also lead to legal reform. (shrink)

The most popular and convincing arguments for the claim that vegetarianism is morally obligatory focus on the extensive, unnecessary harm done to animals and to the environment by raising animals industrially in confinement conditions (factory farming). I outline the strongest versions of these arguments. I grant that it follows from their central premises that purchasing and consuming factoryfarmed meat is immoral. The arguments fail, however, to establish that strict vegetarianism is obligatory because they falsely assume that eating vegetables (...) is the only alternative to eating factory-farmed meat that avoids the harms of factory farming. I show that these arguments not only fail to establish that strict vegetarianism is morally obligatory, but that the very premises of the arguments imply that eating some (non-factory-farmed) meat rather than only vegetables is morally obligatory. Therefore, if the central premises of these usual arguments are true, then strict vegetarianism is immoral. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus that factory farming of animals — also known as CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations — is morally wrong. The American animal rights movement, which in its early years focused largely on the use of animals in research, now has come to see that factory farming represents by far the greater abuse of animals. The numbers speak for themselves. In the United States somewhere between 20 million and 40 million birds and (...) mammals are killed for research every year. That might seem like a lot — and it far exceeds the number of animals killed for their fur, let alone the relatively tiny number used in circuses — but 40 million represents less than two days’ toll in America’s slaughterhouses, which kill about 10 billion animals each year. (shrink)

This article seeks to do two things: articulate the function of biopolitics as a necessary correlate to human exceptionalism, and argue for the factory farm as a supplementary inverse of biopolitical logic. Human exceptionalism is based fundamentally in a desire to create protected lives, and lives that can be, or even need to be, exterminated. In other words, human exceptionalism is the very definition of biopolitics. However, biopolitical theory was mostly developed around thinking through issues of human genocides, particularly (...) the Nazi Lager. Despite attempts to think the analogies between Auschwitz and a factory farm, such analogies ignore important historical and theoretical specificities. While the biopolitical is an important, even necessary, theoretical understanding of humans’ relations to other animals, it is not sufficient for thinking the realities of factory farming. We need a conceptual apparatus not rooted in the ability to think the horrors of human genocide, but one rooted in the ability to think the horrors of the factory farm. Thus I propose the animals in the factory farm exist in the political ontology of deading life; that is beings who should be alive, but are somehow already dead. This conceptual apparatus is not meant to oppose the thought of the biopolitical, it is meant to supplement the biopolitical—to allow us to think with and beyond the biopolitical. (shrink)

The idea that language is necessary for thought and emotion is a dominant one in philosophy. Animals have taken the brunt of this idea, since it is widely held that language is exclusively human. Michael Leahy makes a case against the moral standing of factory-farmed animals based on such ideas. His approach is Wittgensteinian: understanding is a thought process that requires language, which animals do not possess. But he goes further than this and argues that certain factory (...) class='Hi'>farming methods do not cause certain sufferings to the animals used, since animals lack full awareness of their circumstances. In particular he argues that animals do not experience certain sufferings at the slaughterhouse since, lacking language, they are unaware of their fate . Through an analysis of Leahy’s claims this paper aims to explore and challenge both the idea that thought and emotion require language and that only humans possess language. (shrink)

Because factory-farmed meat production inflicts gratuitous suffering upon animals and wreaks havoc on the environment, there are morally compelling reasons to become vegetarian. Yet industrial plant agriculture causes the death of many field animals, and this leads some to question whether consumers ought to get some of their protein from certain kinds of non factory-farmed meat. Donald Bruckner, for instance, boldly argues that the harm principle implies an obligation to collect and consume roadkill and that strict vegetarianism is (...) thus immoral. But this argument works only if the following claims are true: all humans have access to roadkill, roadkill would go to waste if those who happen upon it don’t themselves consume it, it’s impossible to harvest vegetables without killing animals, the animals who are killed in plant production are all-things-considered harmed by crop farming, and the best arguments for vegetarianism all endorse the harm principle. As I will argue in this paper, each claim is deeply problematic. Consequently, in most cases, humans ought to strictly eat plants and save the roadkill for cats. (shrink)

Knowledge of human uses of animals is an important, but understudied, aspect of how humans treat animals. We developed a measure of one kind of knowledge of human uses of animals – knowledge of factory farming. Studies 1 (N = 270) and 2 (N = 270) tested an initial battery of objective, true or false statements about factory farming using Item Response Theory. Studies 3 (N = 241) and 4 (N = 278) provided evidence that responses (...) to a 10-item Knowledge of Factory Farming Scale predicted a reduction in consumption of animal products (rs = −.17- −.27) and approval of political actions aimed at factory farming (rs = .2 – .24). Path models from Studies 3 and 4 suggested that different kinds of knowledge uniquely predicted different outcomes. The Knowledge of Factory Farming scale was a unique predictor of approval of political actions concerning factory farmed animals but not animal consumption. Knowledge of Animals Used as Food predicted animal consumption but not political actions concerning farmed animals. These results highlight that different kinds of knowledge can be relevant for different animal related outcomes. (shrink)

Prisoners involved in the Attica rebellion and in the recent Georgia prison strike have protested their dehumanizing treatment as animals and as slaves. Their critique is crucial for tracing the connections between slavery, abolition, the racialization of crime, and the reinscription of racialized slavery within the US prison system. I argue that, in addition to the dehumanization of prisoners, inmates are further de-animalized when they are held in conditions of intensive confinement such as prolonged solitude or chronic overcrowding. To be (...) de-animalized is to be treated not as a living being who is sustained by its mutual relations with other living and nonliving beings, but rather as a thing to be warehoused and/or exchanged for a profit. The violence of de-animalization affects both human and nonhuman animals held in control prisons, factory farms, laboratories and other sites of intensive confinement. In order to make the connections between these sites, and to develop forms of solidarity appropriate to our shared animality, we need a post-humanist critique of intensive confinement that breaks with the logic of opposition between human and animal, and articulates our constitutive relationality as (inter)corporeal beings. (shrink)

Reducing your consumption of animal products (even if you don't completely abstain) — and doing so in a public, unabashed way — is key to eliminating factory farming, according to a wealth of research in our fields of cognitive science and ethics. Your personal dietary choices can inspire others to follow suit, thereby transforming the industrial food system.

Sometimes, I can affect whether an individual is created, but not how their life goes if they’re created. If their life will be bad enough, I apparently wrong them by allowing their creation. But sometimes, popular religious views imply that the created individual is guaranteed to have an infinitely good existence on balance. Since, I argue, I don’t wrong someone by allowing their creation when it’s infinitely good for them on balance, these views apparently have unacceptable implications for procreation ethics. (...) After surveying various responses, I tentatively suggest that the best solution may involve adopting an unusual metaphysics of procreation. (shrink)

Utilitarian objections to the consumption of factory-farmed products center primarily on the harms such farms cause to animals. One problem with the utilitarian case against the consumption of factory-farmed products is that the system of production is so vast and complex that no typical, individual consumer can, through her consumer behavior, make any difference to the welfare of animals. I grant for the sake of argument that this causal inefficacy objection is sound and go on to argue that (...) the utilitarian nevertheless has the resources to conclude that at least in some cases it is wrongful on utilitarian grounds for an individual to consume factory-farmed products. When a consumer who believes that factory farming is wrongful consumes the products of factory farms, she endorses wrongful practices, and by doing so she engages in a form of self-harm. Self harm, like harm to others, must be taken into consideration when a utilitarian agent deliberates about the permissibility of her proposed course of action. Therefore, the causal inefficacy objection, while powerful, is not decisive against utilitarian objections to consuming factory-farmed products. (shrink)

Scientists have shown that the practice of factory farming is an increasingly urgent danger to human health, the environment, and nonhuman animal welfare. For all these reasons, moral agents must consider alternatives. Vegetarian food production, humane food animal farming, and in-vitro meat production are all explored from a variety of ethical perspectives, especially utilitarian and rights-based viewpoints, all in the light of current U.S. and European initiatives in the public and private sectors. It is concluded that vegetarianism (...) and potentially in-vitro meat production are the best-justified options. (shrink)

Many philosophers endorse utilitarian arguments against eating meat along the lines of Peter Singer’s, while others endorse deontological arguments along the lines of Tom Regan’s. This chapter suggests that both types of arguments are too quick. Empirical reasons are outlined for thinking that when one eats meat, that doesn’t make a difference to animals in the way that it would have to for either type of argument to be sound—and this chapter argues that this is true notwithstanding recent “expected utility” (...) arguments to the contrary. The chapter then identifies a general puzzle: given that almost everything we do in modern society has some footprint of harm, how does one properly distinguish acts that are permissible among these from those that are not? The chapter explains why this is more difficult than it may initially appear, and it proposes a solution. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that our social and moral environments influence our actions and belief formations. We are never fully immune to the effects of cultural membership. What is not clear, however, is whether these influences excuse average moral agents who fail to scrutinize conventional norms. In this paper, I argue that the lack of extensive public debate about factory farming and, its corollary, extreme animal suffering, is probably due, in part, to affected ignorance. Although a complex phenomenon (...) because of its many manifestations, affected ignorance is morally culpable because it involves a choice not to investigate whether some practice in which one participates in might be immoral. I contend further that James Montmarquet’s set of intellectual virtues can provide a positive account of what it means to act as a responsible moral agent while immersed in a meat eating culture; they also represent the moral and epistemic framework for the kind of public discourse that should be taking place. (shrink)

Michael Morris: Factory Farming and Animal Liberation in New Zealand Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9327-1 Authors Dennis Keeney, Emeritus Professor, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.

I argue that factory farming should be abolished consistent with the principles of classical liberalism. To make my case, I first argue that anti-cruelty is a commitment of classical liberalism. In Section 3, I explain how the commitments of classical liberalism, including a commitment to anti-cruelty, give us weighty reasons to abolish factory farming. Then, I consider and respond to the objection that the property rights of factory farmers override the strength of reasons for the (...) abolition of factory farming. Finally, I conclude by flagging some other possible implications of taking seriously a liberal commitment to anti-cruelty. (shrink)

This article explores the cultural and philosophical foundations of factory farming. Modes of capitalist production play a role: Marx’s analysis of the fourfold alienation of labor can be applied to animal-laborers. However, the harshness with which animals are treated exceeds the harshness directed toward human workers. At root is a cultural anthropocentrism that prohibits viewing animals as moral subjects, removing ethical restraints. Ultimately, the modernist ways in which animals are treated as both like and unlike human workers are (...) related to the rise of Cartesian mechanism. The categories of “human” and “animal” are reconfigured by the image of the “machine.”. (shrink)

There is extensive literature that indicates animals suffer considerably in the practices of factory farming and animal experimentation. In the light of the evidence of this suffering there is an urgent need to answer the question whether our current use of animals is ever morally justifiable. The aim of this thesis is to provide a critical examination of the moral status of animals and of our treatment of animals in these practices. My objective is to assess whether these (...) practices are ever justifiable and whether we have a moral obligation to revise our attitudes towards our use of animals. Animals are often denied moral standing on the basis that they lack certain capacities, such as rationality, language and the ability to think. Further, it is often thought that animals' supposed lack of such capacities could be used as a defence for our use of them in intensive farming and animal experimentation. Thus, in examining the moral status of animals this thesis also examines animals and their capacities in order to determine whether any of the arguments given against the moral standing of animals are sound. In seeking to discover the extent of our moral obligations towards animals and the necessary conditions for moral standing, I will demonstrate that, although animals used in factory farming and experiments do have moral standing, the only consistent course is to extend moral standing to all living things. I will conclude that although the possession of certain much-prized capacities is not necessary for moral standing, many animals do indeed possess such capacities, including the ability to use language. Centrally this thesis calls for a re-evaluation of our attitudes towards animals, particularly in respect of our beliefs about animals used in factory farms and experiments. (shrink)

On the statute books, New Zealand has a strong regulatory system that protects nonhuman animals on farms. Animals are guaranteed the “Five Freedoms,” including freedom to express normal patterns of behavior. This theoretically strong protection is weakened considerably, however, through institutional structures and practices. A loophole in the law allowing practices that violate the Five Freedoms in “exceptional circumstances” is used frequently. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is the government agency that administers animal welfare regulation. This agency is also (...) responsible for increasing primary production, and the farming industry has undue influence with MAF. The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee is appointed by MAF, and this group is also dominated by industry interests, with a view of animal welfare that excludes behavioral concerns. These factors result in a weakening of welfare requirements. Various solutions to increase protection are proposed, including a requirement that all science and public concerns be taken into account when making decisions on animal welfare and that animal welfare be regulated by an independent government body. (shrink)

Factory farming is big business. Since the "products" of factoryfarming are living, breathing, sentient creatures, particular ethical issues are raised in a market system based on efficiency, productivity, costs of production, and profit. This paper focuses on the question of weather food animals in the American market system are subjected to unnecessary pain and suffering before they make it to our dinner plates. The single most important consideration, then, is an exploration of the extent to which economic considerations (...) render factory farming not only lucrative but also necessary under present market conditions. The concern for "unnecessary suffering" moves the paper into an exploration of the extent to which the practices and effects of factory farming raise spiritual concerns which believers ought to address. (shrink)

I examine the risks and opportunities associated with social movement coalition building in attempts to block or curtail the rise of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in the United States. As producers have scaled up animal production facilities, environmentalists and animal rights activists, along with numerous other social actors, have begun anti-CAFO campaigns. I argue that while the CAFO has mobilized a diverse group of social actors, these individuals and organizations do not all have the same interests (aside from resistance (...) to CAFOs), leading to some unlikely allies. These odd alliances provide opportunities for agrifood scholars to study the relationship between the coalitions that social movement organizations form and the support they receive from their respective constituencies. Lastly, I argue that the need for agrifood scholars to address the pitfalls associated with single-issue coalition building extends beyond the unlikely alliance between environmentalists and animal rights activists, as agrifood related crises have led to a proliferation of such coalitions. (shrink)

The term ‘sustainability’ is vague and open to interpretation. In this paper we analyze how firms use the term in an effort to make the concept their own, and how it becomes a premise for further decisions, by applying a bottom-up approach focusing on the interpretation of ‘sustainability’ in the Norwegian salmon-farming industry. The study is based on a strategic selection of informants from the industry and the study design rests on: 1) identification of the main drivers (...) of sustainability, and 2) the application of five different discursive strategies to analyze how the firms maneuver to legitimize ‘sustainability’ in their conduct. We employ the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, which emphasizes how discourses provide different concepts of meaning. The sustainability concept is assessed based on how sustainability is brought into action by social actors in a legitimate way, and how this action results in sustainable practices. The empirical case of the study is the verbal justification of sustainability practices among representatives of the Norwegian salmon-farming industry. We aim to find out how these representatives translate the rather vague directives of the sustainability concept into legitimate choices that resonate with the firms’ contextual environment, hence, how the salmon farmers perceive, explore, interpret, explain, enact, and defend the diverse landscape of sustainability when implementing professional decisions. We found a trend of passive adaptation to external requirements, such as public regulations and regulative requirements from certification bodies. At the same time, there are progressive forces that attempt to improve the sustainability of the farming practices by involvement in research and innovation projects or cooperation with other firms, e.g. the contribution from offshore engineers in developing high seas farms. The strategies outlined and discussed cannot be seen as a typology to categorize the firms. More than one discursive strategy may be involved in one firm’s choice, and the strategies may work on different levels. (shrink)

The genome editing technology CRISPR is described as a technological game-changer because of its flexibility and precision, and as an ethical game-changer due to its ability to engineer traits in living organisms without crossing species, avoiding a significant objection to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In salmon farming, applications of CRISPR in breeding hold the promise of handling environmental and fish welfare challenges yet require social acceptance. Adopting an empirical bioethics framework, this stakeholder interview study shows that respecting species borders (...) is important, but not decisive, for acceptance among Norwegian stakeholders. The main objections are based on moral reflections about technology use and outcomes. These reflections combine principles and pragmatic deliberations of moral costs and benefits, suggesting that CRISPR applications with environmentally and ethically significant benefits can be socially acceptable. This indicates that the game-changing potential of CRISPR relies on the characteristics of the editing and the context in which the application takes place. (shrink)

Animal welfare theorists tend to assume that most animals in captivity—especially those living in our homes and in sanctuaries—can, with sufficient care and environmental enrichment, live genuinely good lives. This misguided belief stems from the view that animal well-being should be assessed only in terms of the felt experiences of animals. Against this view, I argue that in assessing how well an animal’s life is going, we ought to consider two distinct kinds of welfare: experiential welfare and subject welfare. Once (...) we take seriously the notion of subject welfare, which pertains to the non-sentient nature of animals, we will be forced to accept the unfortunate reality that most, if not all, animals in confinement—including those living in our homes and in sanctuaries—fare quite poorly and live lives that should be characterized as having overall ill-being. (shrink)

Paul Copan and Wes Jamison’s recent book, What Would Jesus Really Eat?, attempts to offer moral and theological vindication for the factory farm industry and, more generally, for eating animals. It thereby aims to provide “comfort” for Christians to “overlook animal suffering” and, if they choose, to continue eating factory-farmed meat. In this review, I argue that various key arguments in the book rest on questionable premises and elide relevant distinctions. As a result the key thesis of (...) the book—that Christians are permitted to eat meat, including from factory farms—has not been vindicated over against arguments to the contrary. I finish by offering a few strategies for pursuing a more conscientious diet and suggest that Christian philosophers can do more to serve the aims of conscientious consumption. (shrink)

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." --Genesis 1:24-26 In this crucial passage from the Old Testament, God grants mankind power over animals. But with this privilege comes the grave responsibility to respect life, to treat animals with (...) simple dignity and compassion. Somewhere along the way, something has gone wrong. In Dominion , we witness the annual convention of Safari Club International, an organization whose wealthier members will pay up to $20,000 to hunt an elephant, a lion or another animal, either abroad or in American "safari ranches," where the animals are fenced in pens. We attend the annual International Whaling Commission conference, where the skewed politics of the whaling industry come to light, and the focus is on developing more lethal, but not more merciful, methods of harvesting "living marine resources." And we visit a gargantuan American "factory farm," where animals are treated as mere product and raised in conditions of mass confinement, bred for passivity and bulk, inseminated and fed with machines, kept in tightly confined stalls for the entirety of their lives, and slaughtered in a way that maximizes profits and minimizes decency. Throughout Dominion , Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible's message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter's argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and "scientifically proven" notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives. The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us. (shrink)

Jocelyne Porcher sets out to “reinvent” our relationship to animals in order to better “live with” them. This article provides a critical examination of her thesis that farm animals can be seen as proper workers, in a sense that precludes the sort of unjust exploitation that she ascribes to factory farming. Contrary to Porcher, the article considers relationships between humans and domesticated species which do not entail killing or even work for food production purposes. The present critique focuses (...) on the distinction between the (industrial) “animal productions” and the (traditional) “husbandry” practices ; the notion of animal worker and its implications ; finally, the assumptions leading Porcher to overlook possible alternative relationships. (shrink)

1. Animal Cruelty Industrial farming is appallingly abusive to animals. Pigs. In America, nine-tenths of pregnant sows live in “gestation crates. ” These pens are so small that the animals can barely move. When the sows are first crated, they may flail around, in an attempt to get out. But soon they give up. Crated pigs often show signs of depression: they engage meaningless, repetitive behavior, like chewing the air or biting the bars of the stall. The sows live (...) like this for four months. Gestation crates will be phased out in Europe by the end of 2012, but they will still be used in America.1 In nature, pigs nurse their young for about thirteen weeks. But in industrial farms, piglets are taken from their mothers after about ten days. Because the piglets are weaned prematurely, they develop a lifelong craving to suck and chew. But the farmers don’t want them sucking and chewing on other pigs’ tails. So the growers routinely snip off the tails of all their pigs. They do this with a pair of pliers and no anesthetic. However, the whole tail is not removed; a tender stump remains. The point is to render the area sensitive, so the pigs being chewed on will fight back. Which they do.2 Over 113 million pigs are slaughtered each year in America.3 Typically, these pigs are castrated, their needle teeth are clipped, and one of their ears is notched for identification —all without pain relief.4 In nature, pigs spend up to three quarters of their waking hours foraging and exploring their environment.5 But in the factory farms, “tens of thousands of hogs spend their entire lives ignorant of earth or straw or sunshine, crowded together beneath a metal roof standing on metal slats suspended over a septic tank. ”6 Bored, and in constant pain, the pigs must perpetually inhale the fumes of their own waste. These pigs often get sick, and their ill health is exacerbated by the overcrowding. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture compared hog farms containing over 10,000 pigs—which is the norm—with farms containing under 2,000 pigs. (shrink)

Critics of industrial animal agriculture have argued that its practices are cruel, inhumane, or otherwise degrading to animals. These arguments sometimes form the basis of a larger case for the complete abolition of animal agriculture, while others argue for more modest welfare-based reforms that allow for certain types of industrial farming. This paper defends industrial farming against the charge of cruelty. As upsetting as certain practices may seem, I argue that they need not be construed as cruel or (...) inhumane. Any link between industrial farming and cruelty or inhumanity is contingent on certain cultural, behavioral, and psychological facts that are person-dependent. For many people working in animal agriculture, these facts do not obtain. To be sure, industrial animal agriculture has real moral hazards that must be carefully avoided, but all that this shows is that working with animals is not for everyone. (shrink)

What was once the factory is now the university. As deindustrialization spreads and the working class is decentralized, new means of social resistance and political activism need to be sought in what may be the last places where they are possible: the university and the art world. Gerald Raunig's new book analyzes the potential that cognitive and creative labor has in these two arenas to resist the new regimes of domination imposed by cognitive capitalism. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's concept (...) of "modulation" as the market-driven imperative for the constant transformation and reinvention of subjectivity, in Factories of Knowledge, Industries of Creativity, Raunig charts alternative horizons for resistance. Looking at recent social struggles including the university strikes in Europe, the Spanish ¡Democracia real YA! organization, the Arab revolts, and the Occupy movement, Raunig argues for a reassessment of the importance of cultural and knowledge production. The central role of the university, he asserts, is not as a factory of knowledge but as a place of creative disobedience. (shrink)

This review essay examines several recentbooks about agriculture, including two books on thelinks between cultural and biological diversity intraditional agriculture, two books on the US farmcrisis, and a collected volume examining globalaspects of agricultural restructuring andsustainability. Finally, a history of ``alternative''agriculture provides a framework for thinking aboutthe ways the different cases shed light on the complexrelations between tradition and innovation inagriculture. A historical perspective highlights theextent to which ``alternative'' is a relative term. Themonocrop, ``factory'' mode that dominate US agriculturetoday (...) certainly differs from what has characterizedfarming for most of history and in most of the world.Small-scale, more or less organic, diversified farms,which appear so ``alternative'' in the present context,have until lately counted as the norm, here andelsewhere. These books also highlight both the dangersof the currently dominant industrial agriculture andthe potential for genuine alternatives. (shrink)