Animal agriculture = wrong ?
Given that :
- meat is not necessary for almost all humans
- many farming systems are now capable of developing plant-based meat alternatives
- no livestock farming can take place without causing suffering to the animals: separation of mother and offspring, slaughter when they have not even reached half their life expectancy, etc.
how can we still justify livestock farming?
Please do not hesitate to make several arguments at once. Thank you in advance for your insights!
- meat is not necessary for almost all humans
- many farming systems are now capable of developing plant-based meat alternatives
- no livestock farming can take place without causing suffering to the animals: separation of mother and offspring, slaughter when they have not even reached half their life expectancy, etc.
how can we still justify livestock farming?
Please do not hesitate to make several arguments at once. Thank you in advance for your insights!
Comments (60)
Ecology and climate change.
Cattle grazing takes huge tracts of land from the natural environment, displacing wildlife, causing massive loss of oxygen-producing forest, and polluting. On a small scale - independent family farms with a few milk cows - this causes no problem, as the cattle can browse in orchards and fallow fields; on the industrial scale, it wreaks havoc
The beef and dairy industries contribute substantially to global CO2 and methane emissions. Not just from the infamous bovine belches, but from all of the machinery involved in their slaughter, processing, transport and refrigeration.
While a lot of people don't mind about the animals' suffering, they might consider the health effects on humans of a meat-heavy diet.
We've been consuming Impossible Meat (plant-based mince products) for a couple of years, but it is literally twice the cost of regular mince. I've often admired vegetarianism, and have even tried to 'go vegetarian' for quite long periods, but living in a meat-based culture, and having been brought up consuming meat, it's hard to find the motivation to continue with it.
It turns out that lab-grown meat is astronomically expensive. See this gift link to long essay on the problems besetting lab-grown meat, NY Times, February 2024.
Quoting LFranc
I created a similar discussion 4 years ago: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9917/is-purchasing-factory-farmed-animal-products-ethical/p1
Justifications included:
1. Not being sure that factory farmed animals experience suffering
2. That people need to eat
3. That we cause suffering by driving vehicles but don't ban that
4. That if it wasn't for that outlet the workers would just take their frustrations out on society and their intimate partners
5. That it's no worse than exploitative third world factories that we also contribute to
6. Factory farming is not inherently cruel and abusive. Cruelty and abuse occur in human workplaces and shelters too
7. We are playing a game with each other. There are clear winners and losers.
8. It's more rational to be an egoist and prize our hedonic welfare over others
9. We shouldn't interfere with nature
10. Animals are an easy source of protein
11. Eating animals is responsible for our evolutionary success
Yeaaaaah... no. All the power to them, but let's not throw reality out of the window. Same with solar panels.
Ours wasn't that hard. After we moved to the country, my SO asked where to build the chicken coop. I said I didn't want chickens. "Why not?" "Who's going to kill them? Not me!" "Me either. But wait, that's hypocrisy, having other people do your killing." "Yes, it is." "So what's the alternative?"
We bought a vegetarian cookbook and agreed to try it for a month. Turned out okay. Turned into a year, then 35 years.
We still eat eggs (free range, local) and some dairy products (oat milk mostly, but real sour cream and cheese) and I put some chicken soup on the dry cat food.
We're still hypocrites, but feel a little better about it.
I'd rather not have the meat substitute. Vegetarianism is good enough.
If you are still craving meat, so you turn to fake meat, then that's not sustainable in the long run. The idea is to knowingly removing meat from your recipes.
I appreciate the article. It seems like the economics for synthetically grown meat is still in its infancy. I hope for it to be a catalyst for cheaper food that doesn't entail slaughterhouses of livestock. Some of those videos of what goes on there really can have an impact on a compassionate person.
In an ideal situation, livestock farming could possibly reduce suffering/pain below the level that happens in nature. All animals die but under controlled conditions they could go unconscious without having any anticipatory stress. When we put animals down due to illness/disability we often believe this to be a humane act. However, in the never ceasing drive toward the economic bottom line, abject forms of negligence and abuse are probably inevitable.
Often I feel we project our own capacity to suffer onto animals but I think we're far worse off in terms of our capacity to suffer. For example, we suffer the guilt/awareness of doing harm in the satisfaction of our pleasure, where animals have no concern. They don't know the globe is warming and that their burps/farts are doing it on our behalf. We're each materially responsible for so much, so much hinges on our ability to perform toward a complicated future which we desire but never really reach (we're always reaching, have the most insatiable/paradoxical needs), while animals just get to be. Humans are probably the most angst ridden animal in the history of Earth.
(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/582423
That must be comforting.
Still, it's not entirely about 'capacity', is it? It's more about how many of us - the ones who use most of the world's resources and gobble up most of the animals - escape suffering, or hope to; whereas, for a steer, piglet or fryer chicken, a horrible death in adolescence is inevitable.
Quoting Nils Loc
With excellent reason. As Mark Twain said: "Humans are the only animal that blushes - or needs to."
The question becomes whether we can give more than we consume, whether we can do something unnatural, and NOT consume meat, not crowd thing out, and whether this would be better for us and the animals and plants we dont consume (because they will all go on devouring, hunting, eating meat, causing suffering and torturing each other).
It becomes a moral question by choosing not to be natural, but to be human.
Just so, and well farmed animals will suffer less stress, be better fed, and protected from disease and parasites than their wild cousins. Even the most organic and vegan farmer has to control their plot and slaughter the pests that will seek to exploit her industry - slugs, caterpillars, aphids, wire-worms, etc. Suffering is part of life, as is consumption of other life. Not to mention the starving rabbits and feral goats that gather along the fence-line looking longingly at the lush vegetation they are being deprived of.
Like, , I don't eat meat because I don't like killing it, but do eat eggs and cheese. And I feed my vegetables with sheep and goat droppings and dead seaweed. Real experience of the natural world encourages a more realistic attitude to life; the problem with humans is not their cruelty but their proliferation.
We are in overshoot. This is a natural phenomenon that can happen to any species when it becomes out of balance with its environment. Dutch Elm disease, for instance, rampaged through Europe some years ago and killed off most of the elm trees. And now it is not rampaging much any more because it has killed off most of the elm trees that it used to live on. Humans are likewise destroying the ecosystem that they depend on, and the population is about to crash. Unfortunately, that crash is worldwide and will take many many species and whole eco-systems with it. And the human suffering along with it is already growing and will be huge.
Quoting unenlightened
I don't think any comparison to nature is valid. We took ourselves out of nature a long time ago, and have done everything our clever imagination could invent to protect ourselves from nature. The only thing nature gives animals that we refuse them is liberty - one of the things we most prize for ourselves.
The operative word there is "well". Factory farming doesn't do well by animals and factory living doesn't do well by humans. With an industrial mindset, we tend not to do things well - just more. It's the same with travel and dwellings and clothing and work. Not better, just bigger, taller, slicker, faster, more.
(I lived on a small family farm in my youth, where the life of the pigs and chickens was comfortable enough, if short, but I hated the more gentle killing, too. I hated gutting, plucking and cleaning the entrails - kids' work. I hated the smells, the fluids, the mess. Milking the goat and looking for the eggs was all right.)
Maybe its hard to justify livestock farming but maybe a livestock farmer can still justify livestock farming in order to make a living with little other alternative.
Maybe he doesn't need to justify it. Not everyone has the same sensibilities.
But I do question why a farmer who operates on a large enough scale to make a living in the livestock side of agribusiness wouldn't have choices, both is what he cultivates and how he goes about it.
Well yes but I am not sure those kinds of answers are the ones you had in mind when you brought up the question. That seems implied when you gave the question: "How can we still justify... "
Quoting Vera Mont
I guess it depends on economics. I'm sure if more ethical choices were economically more lucrative, farmers would jump on it. I can't speak for whether such possible changes present significant economic risk to farmers that threaten their livelihoods. Possibly for some in some places.
Only I didn't ask that question, and I don't think the OP was asking how the farmer justifies his living, but how the consumer justifies his food choices. That's just a guess, of course.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Most agribusiness is not owned by 'a farmer'. Many farms are held by families, so the decisions are made by several senior members. The living they provide can be precarious, but many of these farmers have changed their methods according to the consumers' changing preferences and to reduce their dependence on suppliers. However, the corporate investors don't need to be responsive to public sentiment or local market conditions.
There is always risk. But there is also much to be gained - and not strictly in terms of financial return. Farmers who adopt sustainable methods, stop using chemical fertilizers, etc. do have smaller yields in the first couple of years, but also save money, as well as their own health and that of their soil. Dairy farmers who don't remove newborn calves from their mothers do have to give up part of their milk quota for six months, but the cows produce better quality milk and live twice as long, and the calves thrive. The long term benefits of an ecological or ethical choice are not immediately obvious. There is always choice.
Aha, apologies!
Quoting Vera Mont
Well my perception is the phrase "how can we still justify livestock farming?" could conceivably include all of these kinds of moral predicaments and similar.
Quoting Vera Mont
So you think that sustaining their living is not a justification because the risks from making changes are not risky enough?
Not from my POV. (Remember, I didn't ask anyone to justify anything.) We all have different perspectives, convictions and sensibilities. Whether a justification is valid, each person has to negotiate with their own conscience. But it's an interesting question.
Nothing is guaranteed. Many farmers do not sustain their living when they refuse to change. Many lose their farms and livelihood, are bought out by corporations or foreclosed by banks. There is risk in change and risk in no change; there is risk in farming and in every walk of life; there is risk in life. I'm saying, consider your options, your long-term goals and your priorities.
It's their belching rather than their farting.
I do object to heavily industrialized agriculture -- for both animals and plant crops -- which is driven by the usual capitalist impulse to cut costs and maximize profits. Two examples: a) producing corn for ethanol as 10% gasoline and b) massive feedlots which are harmful to both ecology and animal health.
The way we produce plant food, requiring heavy inputs of petroleum and chemicals, is a disaster area.
Quoting unenlightened
It isn't clear to me, at this point, what a "balance" between our species and "nature" would look like. When were we in balance with nature, and what did that look like? We could at least move toward balance, even if we can't reach it.
Rural life in the 1950s looked more balanced. Farms tended to be quite a bit smaller; herds of beef and hogs were tiny, compared to the huge feed lot operations now. Farming was mechanized, but the equipment was not yet gargantuan. Nostalgia? Probably -- back then agriculture was changing towards what it is now.
Dutch Elm Disease took out elm trees across this continent in the 1960s -1970s, just as another blight took out chestnut trees years earlier. There are some presumably DED resistant varieties available. Two trees of this variety are doing well on my street.
Yes, fair enough; and I guess most people (I think... in normal societal circumstances anyway... not sure about some extreme kinds of moral trolley-esque thought experiment) would say it was not justified if the topic was human life, regardless of these risks, so not without precedent.
It's not all that hard to understand the principle of the thing. If herbivores have no control on their population, then they will breed until their numbers exceed the ability of the grassland to sustain them. Then they are in overshoot. They eat the grass down to the bare earth and then starve. Then the population crashes and eventually the grassland recovers, or else some other vegetation is established that supports a new population of consumers. I can hear the buffalo on their philosophy forms saying " Well I like grass, what you want me to eat?" as the desert encroaches.
One of the things that happened with the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone is that certain areas around the rivers became more dangerous because the view is limited and wolves can get close. So these areas were less grazed and the vegetation became more diverse allowing another habitat and expansion of other species. [More diversity equates to more resilience of the ecosystem.]
Imagine that human intelligence could replace the predator, such that we could agree to keep, say, half the land, and half the ocean free from human exploitation. That would be a smart move for a dominant species that knew it needed to have a sustainable relationship to its environment. If only we were a bit more smart!
I think we're heading for apocalypse. See the four big dust clouds on the horizon? One of them can be nuclear cloud.
Quoting unenlightened
Forever and ever, amen!
Exactly. When addressing such a broad range of practices, better to target the very worst practices than the topic as a whole since there are both positives and (the well appreciated) negatives. Pretending that ranching is solely negative is a gross oversimplification.
I have not yet seen a model of cattle ranching that's good for the cattle, the environment and the climate. Migrating herders of ancient times probably did no great harm, but I can't think of one good thing to say for barbed wire fences.
Per the eminent anti-ranching Bing Crosby & and the Andrews Sisters
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in
Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in
Thank you very much. It was likely a discussion about this had been created already but I couldn't find it.These arguments didn't convince me but it was interesting to read them. From 3 to 6, these are "two wrongs make a right" fallacies.
But doesn't "being human" mean "not being just natural"?
Not being bound in chains from infancy and fed water and paste until one dies of natural causes is "not necessary" for almost all humans. So, that, in and of itself, is not an argument.
Who's to say plants don't have an even greater sense of consciousness and feelings of pain, loss, and joy simply because the science we have can't detect it and would suggest otherwise? Maybe it's the livestock who are the ones creating suffering by eating grass and various plants, which are actually sentient, and are the real victims here who we are protecting by controlling and raising livestock? The philosopher really can't say with any absolute certainty. Science is about progression of understanding with the acknowledgement some things, grand things, are currently unknown, hence the point of science itself. Otherwise the very first person who even "science'd" would have discovered everything the moment he did an experiment and we'd have had the technology we have today in the 1600s.
I don't think an animal has quite the same deep societal understanding of the concepts of "mother" or "father" as a human does. It's just a familiar visual image, that when approached or drawn close to, produces milk or whatever sustenance that results in its own survival. It's literally just a teat and source of warmth so it doesn't die. There's no emotion involved.
We can justify livestock farming simply by doing nothing and removing our self, metaphorically, from the equation altogether. In a world without humans who have opposable thumbs and technology, it is a free-for-all where animals kill each other without intelligent reason (other than hunger ie. survival) in perpetuity. Day in and day out, nonstop. The suffering and "separation" would exist regardless if we were present or acting agents in the situation or not. So, as intelligent beings who can prevent this process, if benefited from perhaps 1 animal while we save 1000 that would otherwise die, become extinct, or suffer, it's really self-evident. This stuff is so elementary it shouldn't have to be explained, really.
Now, should we, as a society, feed immoral people who don't care about life and animals? That's a valid line of inquiry. However considering the fact people lie anyway so as to prolong their own existence (meaningful or not), it's not a feasible thing to consider. Like when they outlawed (or largely discriminated against) non-Christians from employment. For good reason, the peasants often stole because they had no moral backbone or belief in consequence toward actions not immediately prevented. Overnight, everybody became "Christian", and the word, or principles behind the idea became a joke. But that's a tale for another day.
I recently saw a video about a bovine dairy where it's working very well. This is one way: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/29/mums-ask-when-cows-and-their-calves-separated-rise-ethical-milk-vegan but methods have advanced since then. The farmer I saw leaves the calves with their mothers for the morning feed, then puts them in a separate field and gives them the substitute until they can digest grass. The cows do give her less, but they're not stressed as the intervals of separation grow gradually longer. These are relatively small farms, and I wouldn't be surprised if they all specialized in cheese for the squeamish customer. Cream cheese and cottage cheese don't require rennet and older cheeses can be made with microbial rennet.
There may be more interesting developments along with cloned meat; I'm not at the cutting edge on the science.
Motherhood is not a human societal concept. It's a deeply embedded animal instinct - one for which many birds and mammals and even some fish risk their very lives. If the crying of a bereft cow doesn't convey enough pain and sorrow to a human, the deficiency is not in the cow's understanding of motherhood.
Quoting Outlander
And what if we have the opposite effect? Suppose we benefit from 150, waste 50, extirpate 799 and save 1? (I'll do the research to support my numbers if you produce some to support yours.)
Quoting Outlander
Or maybe because they were hungry and ground under the landowner's heel? But that's a question for another tale.
"good for the cattle"? What does that mean? Remember domesticated animals were invented to provide goods and services for humans. Commonly that involves their death or at minimum living in an unnatural situation. If humans don't need the goods and services of domesticated animals the option isn't living a wonderful life, it's to not exist at all.
I agree with you that small scale ranching leads to a better (less bad) quality of life for the animals, that's all I'm saying, take aim at the worst offenders, not the whole inductry.
I agree, it's worth it to me to choose higher quality (thus more expensive) meat and dairy not only for the quality of the product but also to compensate ranchers who practice more expensive techniques.
They were not invented - like one of our vehicles or tools. They were bred from enslaved wild cattle. How does that justify mistreating them? There is a difference between 'unnatural' in the benign sense of domesticity and the reality of feed lots on the way to a slaughterhouse, usually in their early teens. (And, of course, we must not even mention chicken factories!)
There is no heavenly edict that requires us to keep breeding cattle, pigs and lambs for eternity.
'Not existing' has already happened to all the thousands of species we wiped out to make way farming and the highways to bring food to the cities. Not existing also happens to every baby prevented by a condom. Personally, I would prefer not to be born into a short, miserable life, in which I have no choices.
Quoting LuckyR
I'm not familiar with a model of small scale ranching (what numbers? on what acreage? what procedures?) that would be beneficial to cattle.
And I already am holding up the factory farms - not just in beef production; turkey and pig farms are probably worse; industrial scale corn and wheat are not doing the ecology any favours, either - as the epitome of bad ways to feed ourselves. I've already pointed out some positive changes small farmers are making to dairy production. I'll add here: free range eggs (which is what I buy, and they're twice as good as the factory version for the same price).
And I maintain that farming shouldn't be "an industry" like making shoes or car parts.
As far as I can tell we're in basic agreement, my only point is that to be fair, we should take into account the "purpose" of domesticated animals as being fundamentally different from the lives of wild animals.
The word 'purpose' always pulls me up short. I understand the purpose of a sickle or a canoe: something made by n intelligent being to accomplish something he wanted to do.
When we talk (all too frequently!!) about purpose in our own lives, we attribute that purpose to a deity (I am a mere sickle in the hand of Ceres) or else we must define our purpose, each for herself.
I reject the idea of gods; I don't want to be their thing. I do not wish to be a god and make other sentient creatures my things.
We could compromise and strike some kind of equitable deal with domestic animals that doesn't elevate us to godhood or reduce them to thingness, but it's not an easy one to find. I applaud the people who are trying; I try to buy my protein from such people - and try to avoid buying it off an assembly line.
The relationship will never be easy or mutually beneficial until our technology catches up with the best of our intentions. The technology is rapidly approaching; the intention need serious improvement.
I get that domesticated animals aren't exactly akin to a sickle, however they're not like a wild animal either. Their genetics were crafted by humans to fulfill a human designed function. This function is their "purpose", really a quasi-purpose, hence the quotation marks.
I know that. I also know that, because they are our property, made for our use, we tend to treat them like inanimate objects. And we have no real need - I mean need, as distinct from profit and desire - to have such vast numbers of captive, miserable animals. We have alternatives.
Since these strains have been adulterated to a point where most of them could not survive in the wild, the best way to let them go extinct is simply to stop artificial breeding programs. Allow the strongest and hardiest to mate at will and see if the offspring become adapted to life in the wild then release them gradually in small herds.
The rest will have to be slaughtered for the die-hard carnivores among us, as we wean ourselves off easy supermarket meat. The same people who, once the domestic livestock is no more available, will go after the surviving cattle and pigs in the wilderness and hunt them - probably with floodlights and overpowered military weapons. But the animals will at least have a chance at autonomous life.
I have no illusions about my species. Small gestures by well-meaning humans will be made - and many will succeed, but be ignored. Flocks of hens with no rooster lay eggs anyway; no reason they need to be kept in cages or have their beaks cut off. Dairy cows and goats can be induced to lactate without giving birth. Sheep don't need lambs to continue being sheared. Cheesemaking doesn't need rennet from calves. But a lot of people don't want to know, because the present system is quite lucrative, efficient and convenient.
Technology will continue to advance - while civilization lasts. We already have every possible food supplement; better vegetable-based processed food will become available - and the price would come down if the demand increased. Vat grown meat is also making progress, and will continue to be opposed by the meat lobby and rejected by hard-core carnivores. ('It's not natural!' - as if factory farming were.)
Humane eating is possible, and would become easy with humane human reproductive policies. But we're not going to have the benefit of either, because more powerful interests don't want it.
Wait, is it true that if we released farm animals in the wild they would ALL just die? What if we released them in an appropriate environment? What if we were to release them gradually, to allow time for adaptation?
Quoting Vera Mont -> Vera Mont answered this a bit already
They wouldn't just die. Nor would they be killed by predators, since we've already killed most of the predators. But they wouldn't find enough habitable territory or pasture for a normal herd existence. And I have no doubt the yahoos with their automatic weapons would mow them down as easy game, then let most of the carcasses rot where they drop, since they can only carry one steer in the pickup and store only half in their freezer; the rest would have to be smoked. Lots of time and work.
Divesting ourselves of meat culture wouldn't be a simple one-step procedure. It would have to be thought out, planned and implemented properly, with central co-ordination and global co-operation. Do you see humankind capable of that, for any endeavour except a war? We can't even get our act together in the last minute and a half to extinction.
How phasing out meat could work (other threats permitting) is a decline in the demand and increased demand for more sustainable protein sources. One by one, ranchers would have to sell up or change to a different method or different product. The freezer trucks would not be repaired or replaced and fall out of service. One slaughterhouse would close and then another, awaiting conversion to luxury bunkers or gymnasiums. Economies adapt to new circumstances. If there is time....
Per Wikipedia:
(I only knew about this because I once ran lights for a local civic theater run of the biographical musical Red Hot and Cole.)
:up:
Alas, a non question. If everyone went vegan (highly unlikely, but it's a thought experiment), it would happen gradually. Thus as demand dropped over time, the amount of domesticated animals bred would drop to keep operating expenses down and profits up. Thus when demand hit zero, there would be close to zero animals to "release into the wild".