Animals as Food

• situation ethics- personalism and what does agape apply to?

  Personalism is the working principle we must consider the most when addressing issues surrounding animal life and death. SE is focused on agapeic love, which in the bible mainly focuses around humans like in the books of luke and john. and fletcher himself had very strict ideas about what counts as a person, considering Down's syndrome people non-persons.
• situation ethics- personalism and what does agape apply to?

  some situation ethicists may suggest love should be inclusive rather than exclusive, theres no intrinstic reason why animals shouldnt be objects of human care
• situation ethics


  Most situation ethicists would suggest eating animals is not super morally encumbering. Especially for people who have no option, whether that be people of the past pre agriculture or just poor people today who are prevented from exploring other dietary options by their monetary status. though it could be argued that its more loving to explore things like veganism or lab grown meat if you are able to.
• situation ethics


  it could be argued that it would be loving to increase industrial meat farming to try and feed the hungry but it would actually be better to cease it since cows take 15x more grain than meat they produce its more pragmatic and positive to totally stop meat farming
• situation ethics


  some situation ethicists might argue that industrial and factory farming cannot be agapeic because its simply too cruel, with animals living in terrible conditions like in battery farming where they cant move around and are prone to injuring each other out of fear etc
• Support for Moral Status of Animals

  Mary Anne Warren's SCREAM, animals fit the criteria for what counts as a person
• Support for Moral Status of Animals


  aspects that make them human-like, sentience, social organisition or complexity etc
• Support for Moral Status of Animals

  animals cognitive ability, long term memory and simple language like chimpanzees which can learn up to 1500 words and outperform humans on short term memory tests
• Support for Moral Status of Animals

  Bentham, we should do whatever produces the greatest net balance of pleasure over pain in the world, and there's no reason not to include the pains and pleasures of animals in that calculation.
• Opposition to the Moral Status of Animals


  some may argue animals don't possess qualities making them similar to humans, no rationality, souls, consciousness, speech, intelligence
• Opposition to the Moral Status of Animals


  Darwin "a moral being is one who is capable of comparing his future actions or motives and approving or disapproving of them", we have no reason to believe animals can so humans are superior
• Opposition to the Moral Status of Animals


  humans have rights animals lack because of our ability to reason
• Opposition to the Moral Status of Animals

  christine korsgaard- self conscious human reasoning includes "normative self government. more than metacognition but also the ability to change one's mind
• Opposition to the Moral Status of Animals


  Nick Zangwill- we can ask "why did the chicken cross the road?" but the chicken cannot, so we can eat it
• Opposition to the Moral Status of Animals


  human civilisation separates us from the animal kingdom
• intensive farming, or factory farming can be for food or other products. can include crowded, filthy conditions and pain through de-beaking, de-horning and branding
• possible ethical concerns with factory farming include: animal rights and if they have one to life; environmental impact; the meat industry contributing to starvation with the 15x grain statistic; inconsistencies with what animals it is and isn't okay to eat and animal suffering, what right do humans have to hurt animals?
• scripture- dominion


  
  

  • humans have reign/control over the earth
  • genesis 9 "everything that lives and moves will be food for you... I give you everything"
  • genesis 1 "fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish... birds... every living thing that moves on the earth"
• Scripture- stewardship


  • humans should care for animals
  • Genesis "work it (Eden) and take care of it
• Scripture- Leviticus 11


  talks about which things you can or can't eat, you can't eat pig, shellfish, lots of birds, flying insects with four legs. if its the literal word of god christians are missing out on lots of things
• Peter Singer


  • sometimes animals can have more moral status than some humans like mentally disabled people
  • we should treat animals with equity based on their mental capacities, but more importantly on their ability to feel suffering
  • there are different degrees of moral fault in using animals for food: factory farming -> free range -> game hunting ->
  • speciesism and the idea of human superiority is an unjustifiable moral blind spot
• Scripture- saints associate holiness with compassion for animals


  St Macarius was praying in his cave, a hyena appeared and licked his feet, then led him towards her cave. She went in to her cave, and brought her cubs which had been born blind. He prayed over them and returned them to the hyena healed. She thanked him, with a huge skin of a ram and laid it at his feet. He smiled at her as if at a kind person and taking the skin spread it under him.
• Religious perspective


  Dives and Pauper, an early 15th century English commentary on the Ten Commandments states that humans "should have compassion on beast and bird and not harm them without cause and have regard for the fact that they are God's creatures"
• Natural Moral Law- catholic church

  Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, recognizes that every creature is the object of God’s tenderness and rejects "every tyrannical and irresponsible dominion of human beings over other creatures"
• Natural Moral Law- Precepts

  using animals as food doesn't break any primary precepts, natural moral law totally permits it
• Natural Moral Law- hierarchy of souls


  • humans are superior to animals, Aquinas says "although man is of the same 'genus' as other animals, he is of a different 'species'".
  • Humans are capable of determining their actions so are the only beings who we should show concern to.
  • only humans are capable of acheiving unity with god, all other being exist for the purpose for which it is made
• Natural Moral Law- Hierarchy of souls


  • animals are like property "he that kills anothers Ox sins, not through the killing of the ox, but through injuirng another man in property... sin of theft or robbery"
  • animals have instrumental value only- existing for the sake of human use
• Natural Moral Law- hierarchy of souls objection


  it's wrong to interfere with a soul's final end- example of elephant tusks being for fighting, humans interrupt that by turning ivory into chess pieces … The natural end of an animal is to grow to the state of maturity characteristic of its species; human activity should contribute to make that more efficient. An animal’s capacities have value independent of their usefulness to human beings.”

  Judith Barad is arguing that animals have inherent or intrinsic value, rather than simply instrumental value.
• Natural Moral Law- hierarchy of souls objection


  the aristotlian understanding of the soul as an imprint in wax is incompatible with Aquinas' christian one. he shouldn't be using it at all
• Virtue Ethics- hierarchy of souls


  human souls are more important than animal souls, they can use animals how they please. its teleological, all things have a final end / reason to exist, animals exist for humans.
• Virtue Ethics


  factory farming is different than just eating animals to survive, for example chickens are in crowded filthy conditions, fed drugs to encourage abnormal growth so heavy they break their own legs, male chickens are thrown into bags and left to suffocate / ground alive. things like that surely cannot be virtuous
• Virtue Ethics- virtues


  consider the virtue of compassion, toward both the animals themselves and the humans who feel sympathetic toward them. and prudence, factory farming shows little practical wisdom and getting rid of it would be a pragmatic solution to many problems (environmental issues like deforestation and greenhouse gas emition, animal rights, mass starvation)
• Virtue Ethics- bad habit forming behaviour


  cruelty towards animals may cause desensitisation in people towards other humans, negatively impacting society on a larger scale, natural moral law also adopts this idea
• Virtue Ethics


  virtues may only apply to humans, eudaimonia only seems to be achievable for humans because it involves being a free member of society and a philosopher. it's not just about pleasure but is about responsibility, living a good life, and practicing skills / virtues.

  encompasses all aspects of living including the Political, Emotional and Philosophical which animals aren't capable of