Animal Rights Rights, and non-existence vs life as livestock animal

[Second Summer]

Three AR-related books from 2014 are reviewed in one go by Adam Roberts in the 2014 Christmas and New Year Special of New Scientist:
Divinanimality
Total Liberation — University of Minnesota Press
Book Details : Interspecies Ethics

A couple of eyebrow-raising quotes from the review:

This poses larger questions, though. The vast populations of cows, pigs and chickens exist only because we raise them for food. A world of vegetarians would be a world without such animals because there would be no economic reason to raise them. The claim that non-existence is morally preferable to one that ends in premature abattoir death seems, at the least, debatable.

(I suppose he means to say "a world of vegans".)

Unlike these authors, I am more cautious, tending to clap the phrase "animal rights" in scare quotes. That's because I'm committed to a model of rights that is simultaneously inalienable and defined by their reciprocal relationship to social duties. Accordingly, I'm not sure I make sense of a concept of "rights" that doesn't include "responsibilities". My rights are the limiting case of how society must treat me; my responsibilities are the structures of obligation I owe to society. The two necessarily go together. If animals have rights, what are their responsibilities?

Still, the review does seem to have a couple of redeeming and interesting qualities - it talks about the phrase "animal abuse denial" which it says is introduced in one of the essays in The Link Between Animal Abuse and Human Violence (2009). Also, apparently Interspecies Ethics talks about young elephants (both African and Indian) who are fighting an insurgency against human oppression!

Full article here: On the pain of others: The case for animal rights - life - 22 December 2014 - New Scientist (22. Dec. 2014)

 

[flyingsnail]

The non-existence issue I think poses the most issues for those advocating a utilitarian approach, for example, since death can be done painlessly wouldn't raising animals in conditions that are fulfilling for the animal result in more pleasure?

In any case, Interspecies Ethics seems like its worth reading....the others not so much.

 

[Blobbenstein]

since death can be done painlessly

how do you know it can be done painlessly?
Has anyone who has died by any means returned to do a full report?

 

[Moll Flanders]

If it was a choice between not existing at all or being exploited, farmed and then being sent to be butchered at a young age I know which one I would prefer.

 

[Second Summer]

The non-existence issue I think poses the most issues for those advocating a utilitarian approach, for example, since death can be done painlessly wouldn't raising animals in conditions that are fulfilling for the animal result in more pleasure?

In other words, happy meat raised in a stimulating environment on green pastures, and then one day swiftly and compassionately put to sleep. It could happen, surely?

This example could even be transferred to the human world, were a man, John Henry, is living a happy, fulfilling life as a telephone sales agent in Topeka, Kansas. One day he decides to board a tour bus en route to Disney World, but end up being surreptitiously chloroformed along with the other 18 passengers. Sure, John Henry's life ended somewhat prematurely, before his 25th birthday, and before he managed fulfill his life's ambition of becoming a professional W.O.W. player. Unbeknownst to him, his whole life was based on a lie! In fact, the lives of the other 18 passengers on that tour bus were based on lies too. Their whole existence had been planned for them from the beginning, even before they were born! Sure, they all had this strange sense that something was amiss. Some of the females had vivid memories of pregnancies, of births and babies, but somehow all their babies had disappeared one by one. The males, on the other hand, had somehow never managed to be with a lady, in the biblical sense. All the Topeka passengers found it strange, but also strangely comforting, that there was a tall fence around the city so that they could never escape, until that fatal spring day when they boarded the Disney World tour bus.

Their lives had been carefully planned so that the total amount of pleasure would offset the total amount of suffering by a safe margin that was determined by a board of philosophers who were professional ethicists and therefore able to calculate these numbers based on what they thought the people's lives would be like. At regular intervals, the board would meet to re-evaluate the numbers based on how the lives of the "doomed 19" had developed. If anyone had been down on their luck, the board would make arrangements so that they would win the lottery or inherit a sum of money or somehow be promoted at their work.

Conclusion: Happy meat is a horrible concept and we should be careful playing God with all sorts of utilitarian approaches.

 

[flyingsnail]

Conclusion: Happy meat is a horrible concept and we should be careful playing God with all sorts of utilitarian approaches.

For there to be a conclusion....there needs to be an argument. I'm not sure how your story addresses the issue of so called "happy meat" in the utilitarian framework. The issue the article mentions is primarily an issue for utilitarianism, are you rejecting utilitarian ethics?

 

[flyingsnail]

how do you know it can be done painlessly?
Has anyone who has died by any means returned to do a full report?

Based on current science, we can euthanize animals (and people) without suffering.

If it was a choice between not existing at all or being exploited, farmed and then being sent to be butchered at a young age I know which one I would prefer.

I think you're tainting the alternative, the idea is that the animals can live more or less normal lives up until the point of slaughter. I'm not sure how realistic it would be to raise animals like this for commercial meat production....but the question at least deserves a good answer.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Based on current science, we can euthanize animals (and people) without suffering.

science is based upon evidence. I was just asking if there was any actual report from someone who had died..

We don't KNOW what it is like for an animal to die in a slaughter house.

Personally I suspect that it does involve suffering.

What happens to an animal spiritually?

I have this vision of animals becoming ghosts, one after the other...just standing around the slaughter house, wondering what happened.

Don't give me 'science'. I know science is about the unknown, just as much as the known.

 

[Second Summer]

For there to be a conclusion....there needs to be an argument.

I left the task of inferring arguments from my post as an exercise for the reader.

I'm not sure how your story addresses the issue of so called "happy meat" in the utilitarian framework. The issue the article mentions is primarily an issue for utilitarianism, are you rejecting utilitarian ethics?

It always feels awkward having to explain your own jokes. "Rejecting" would be much too strong, but there was an attempt at illustrating a few of the shortcomings.

 

[Tom L.]

One of the quotes from the first post:

This poses larger questions, though. The vast populations of cows, pigs and chickens exist only because we raise them for food. A world of vegetarians would be a world without such animals because there would be no economic reason to raise them. The claim that non-existence is morally preferable to one that ends in premature abattoir death seems, at the least, debatable.

I would address this concept thus: the biosphere is not limitless- there is only so much space and food for animals and humans. Raising animals for human consumption necessarily displaces other animals who could have lived in that space and grazed/browsed on that land.

Even if you accept that some domesticated animals are now unable to live on their own without human protection, they need not become extinct if people don't eat them anymore. For example, many breeds of domestic cattle were kept for other things besides meat or milk; they were also draft animals. The argument that this would be exploitation of animals certainly stands. But an ox's life on a farm, protected from diseases and predators, with a reliable supply of food for the work they provide, and perhaps affection as well, doesn't seem like a bad life to me.

 

[flyingsnail]

It always feels awkward having to explain your own jokes. "Rejecting" would be much too strong, but there was an attempt at illustrating a few of the shortcomings.

Alright, but I'm just not sure how the story dealt with the issues. It seemed like an attempt to appeal to emotions rather than reason.

 

[Blobbenstein]

there is great reason in emotion.