Moral vegetarianism from a very broad basis

Journal of Moral Philosophy

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 143-165

  Degrazia, David ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Animals; Factory farms; Family farms; Meat eating; Moral status; Unnecessary harm; Vegetarianism

Indexed keywords

EID: 70350052820     PISSN: 17404681     EISSN: 17455243     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/174552409X402313     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. James Rachels also defends moral vegetarianism on very weak moral assumptions ('The Basic Argument for Vegetarianism', in Steve Sapontzis (ed.), Food for Thought [Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004], pp. 70-80). But, for all its merits, Rachels3 discussion is inexplicit about what his key moral assumption is, offers no insights about how to conceptualize animals' moral status, says almost nothing about family farms, does not address the relationship between institutional wrong and individual responsibility, and provides little documentation for his key factual claims
2. See, e.g., Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983)
3. Carl Cohen, "The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research', New England Journal of Medicine 315 (2 October 1986), pp. 865-70
4. Peter Carruthers, The Animals Issue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
5. Evelyn Pluhar, Beyond Prejudice (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995)
6. Barbara Orlans et al., The Human Use of Animals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 20-30
7. and Daniel Bonevac (ed.), Today's Moral Issues, 5th edn. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), pp. 73-96
8. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: New York Review of Books, 1975 [2nd edn. 1990]); Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
9. See, e.g., Mary Anne Warren, Morai Status (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), chs. 3, 4
10. Another possible representative is Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ch, 3, if the correct interpretation of his approach is that persons are to receive full moral consideration and sentient nonpersons less-than-full consideration. Another possible reading is that while only persons have rights, sentient nonpersons are to receive equal consideration through a utilitarian lens - in which case the moral status ascribed to animals is no less than what Peter Singer attributes to them - entailing a hybrid equalconsideration/twotier theory
11. Describe this model, without endorsing it, in Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ch. 3
12. and Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ch. 2
13. In this paper I use the term 'suffering' quite broadly to include all unpleasant or aversive experiences including pain, distress and terror. This broad usage is justified by our need for an umbrella term covering all cases of unpleasant experiences inasmuch as unpleasantness is a morally salient feature common to all forms of experiential harm. Elsewhere 1 have used the term more narrowly to refer to a highly unpleasant emotional experience associated with more-than-minimal pain or distress - and have argued that available evidence suggests that many animals, including the sorts of animals raised on farms, can suffer in this sense (Taking Animals Seriously, ch. 5)
14. See Stephen Clark, The Moral Status of Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)
15. and Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), ch. 13
16. See, e.g., Carol Adams and Josephine Donovan (eds.), Animals and Women (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995)
17. See Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), ch. 6
18. The three are also mutually exclusive, except perhaps where significant indeterminacy blurs die boundary between two of them
19. See, e.g.., Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, The Animal Rights Debate (Lanham, Maryland (USA): Rowman & Littlefield, 2001)
20. My position does not oppose, say, the consumption of a dead animal one finds in the woods
21. For a classic statement, see Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis infield (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 239
22. Carruthers advances both instrumental arguments (The Animals Issue, chs. 5, 7)
23. The festival is described in Michael Markarian, 'Victory at Last: Perseverance Pays Off for Pennsylvania Pigeons', The Fund for Animals 32.3 (1999), pp. 4-5
24. Robert Nozick makes essentially the same point (Anarchy, State, and Utopia [New York: Basic Books, 1974], p. 36)
25. My description draws from the following sources: Michael Fox, Farm Animals (Baltimore, MD: University Park Press, 1984), Part I
26. Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd edn., ch. 3 (which draws mainly from trade journals and magazines of the farm industry); Bernard Rollin, Farm Animal Welfare (Ames, lO: Iowa State Press, 1995)
27. Karen Davis, Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Summettown, TN: Book Publishing Co., 1996)
28. Jim Mason and Peter Singer, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (New York: Rodale, 2006)
29. Melanie Adcock and Mary Finelli, 'The Dairy Cow: Americas "Foster Mother"', HSUS News (Winter 1995)
30. Melanie Adcock, 'The Truth Behind "A Hen's Life"', HSUS News (Spring 1983)
31. Marc Kaufman, 'In Pig Farming, Growing Concern', The Washington Post (18 June 2001): Al, A7
32. and the following webpage and brochures from the Humane Society of the United States: 'Factory Farms' (2005) (http://www.hsus.org/farm-animals/factory- farms/), 'Farm Animals and Intensive Confinement' (1994), and 'Questions and Answers About Veal' (1990). Additional sources will be cited for several specific points
33. See United States Dept of Agriculture (USDA), National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Poultry Slaughter (Washington, DC: USDA, 1998), p. 15
34. and NASS, Livestock Slaughter 1997 Summary (Washington, DC: USDA, 1998), p. 1
35. Cited in Mylan Engel, 'The Immorality of Eating Meat', in Louis Pojman (ed.), The Moral Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 867
36. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Animal Agriculture: Information on Waste Management and Water Quality Issues (Washington, DC: GAO, June 1995), pp. 2, 47
37. Humane Society of the United States, 'Factory Farms'; and USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service (nass@nass .usda.gov)
38. Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1997)
39. For details about cattle raised specifically for beef, broiler chickens, and veal calves, see Animal Rights, pp. 72-73
40. See also Mason and Singer, The Way We Eatt Part 1, which discusses factory farm turkeys in addition to the other animals mentioned
41. Mason and Singer, The Way We Eat, ch. 5
42. Regarding the number of pigs kept indoors, the authors cite National Animal Health Monitoring System, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Swine 2000, Part 1 (Washington, DC: USDA), p. 26
43. Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse, Part III
44. See also U.S. General Accounting Office, 'Humane Methods of Slaughter Act: USDA Has Addressed Some Problems but Still Faces Enforcement Challenges', released 30 January 2004 (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04247.pdf)
45. See citations in note 19
46. As opposed to all family-owned farms. Some massive agribusinesses are owned by families
47. American Dietetic Association, 'Vegetarian Diets' (http://www.eatright. org/cps/rde/xchg/ ada/hs.xsl/advocacy-933-ENU-HTML.htm)
48. http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips-resources/vegetarian-diets.html
49. 'Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian Diets', Canadian Journal of Dietetic Association Practice and Research 64 (2003), pp. 62-81
50. On vegan diets - which are entirely free of animal products (including seafood) - for young persons, see Ann Reed Mangels and Virginia Messina, 'Considerations in Planning Vegan Diets: Infants', Journal of the American Dietetic Association 101 (June 2001), pp. 670-77
51. and Tony Peregrin, 'A Successful Diet for Vegan Children Nourishes the Child', Journal of the American Dietetic Association 101 (June 2001), p. 669
52. Engel, 'The Immorality of Eating Meat', pp. 873-74
53. To his list I added Carl Lewis, possibly the greatest track athlete in history, who states that 'my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet' (Introduction to Jannequin Bennett, Very Vegetarian [Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill, 2001], p. vii)
54. D. Enette Larson, 'Vegetarian Diet for Exercise and Athletic Training and Performing: An Update' (http://www.andrews.edu/NUFS/vegathletes.htm)
55. See Peter Singer, 'Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism', Philosophy and Public Affairs 9.4 (1980), p. 334
56. See Frances Lappe and Joseph Collins, World Hunger (New York: Grove, 1986)
57. David Pimentai et al., 'Environmental and Economic Cost of Soil Erosion and Conservation Benefits', Science 267 (24 February 1995), p. 1117
58. Lucas Reijnders and Sam Soret, 'Quantification of the Environmental Impact of Different Dietary Protein Choices', American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 78 (September 2003), pp. 664S-668S
59. A.K. Chapagain and A.Y. Hoekstra, Water Footprints of Nations, vol. I (Delft, Netherlands: UN ESCO-IHE Institute of Water Education, 2004)
60. Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (2005; http://www .jhsph.edu/Environmenr/Projects/spira-GRACE/); and Jim Mason and Peter Singer, The Way We Eat, ch. 16
61. After arguing that animals have moral rights, Regan attempts to derive obligations not only (1) to abstain from buying and eating meat but also (2) to take more positive steps to end animal agriculture as we know it. The present article does not argue that animals have rights. Nevertheless, it is instructive to note where Regans argument for correlative obligations encounters difficulties. Regan embraces Mill's conception of a right as 'something society ought to defend me in the possession of (The Case for Animal Rights, p. 269)
62. On this basis he argues from animals' right to respectful treatment, which grounds a right not to be harmed, to positive human obligations to assist animals who are being treated unjustly in agriculture. But Regans derivation of positive obligations seems problematic inasmuch as the mere concept of a right (as opposed to a positive right) seems incapable of carrying such heavy normative freight. Consider my right to free speech. Person P violates it. It's plausible to assert - and to interpret Mill as asserting - that society must defend me in my possession of free speech insofar as society must ensure that such violations of free speech are illegal and that the negative legal right is enforced. But it's much less plausible, and would require further argument, to claim that individual citizens have an obligation to assist me by trying to stop P from violating my right. Also problematic, though I cannot pursue the point here, is the assertion that while duties of assistance are generated whenever someone's rights are violated, no duties of assistance are generated by the neediness caused by natural disasters (where no injustice is involved), as Regan argues. On this last point, see Dale Jamieson, 'Rights, Justice, and Duties to Provide Assistance: A Critique of Regan's Theory of Rights', Ethics 100 (1990), pp. 349-62
63. Singer, 'Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism', p. 336
64. Gaverick Matheny, 'Expected Utility, Contributory Causation, and Vegetarianism', Journal of Applied Philosophy 19 (2002), pp. 293-97
65. See Suzanne Hamlin, 'Free Range? Natural? Sorting Out Labels', The New York Times (13 November 1996): C1
66. and Singer and Mason, The Way We Eat, chs. 3, 8
67. See, e.g., Allen Buchanan and Dan Brock, Deciding for Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 197-99
68. See, e.g., S. F. Sapontzis, Morals, Reason, and Animals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), ch. 9
69. I attempt to provide this thesis a strong theoretical foundation in 'The Harm of Death, Time-Relative Interests, and Abortion', The Philosophical Forum 38.1 (2007), pp. 57-80
70. McMahan, The Ethics of Killing, p. 300. Derek Parfit coined the term (Reasons and Persons [Oxford: Clarendon, 1984], p. 391). See Reasons and Persons, Part IV, for much of the reasoning that motivates this problem along with various quandaries in population ethics and in connection with the 'non-identity problem'
71. Regarding the puzzles, see the McMahan and Parfit discussions just cited
72. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, ch. 17. Parfit addresses the problem only in connection with humans
73. See, e.g., James Rose, 'The Neurobehavioral Nature of Fishes and the Question of Awareness and Pain', Reviews in Fisheries Science 10.1 (2002), pp. 1-38. The point that fish lack a cerebral cortex should not be confused with the (incorrect) assertion that they lack a cerebrum, a pair of cerebral hemispheres
74. Lynne Sneddon, V.A. Braithwaite, and M.J. Gentle, 'Do Fish Have Nociceptors? Evidence for die Evolution of a Vertebrate Sensory System', Proceedings of the Royal Society 270(1520) (2003), pp. 1115-1121