Singer Mason blog post

I didn't think of Iraqis as humans

The way Green views Iraqis is not totally different to the way we humans view animals now days. While Green uses war to justify his actions, humans are still struggling to find a way to justify their actions in regard to animals. By viewing the Iraqis as animals, Green uses this dehumanization to justify the violence he inflicted on them, but are we really all that much different than animals? The nature of animals, and especially farm animals, is changed by the relationship we have with them. The words "chicken" and "bird" probably have 2 different meanings in your mind, but should they? We say all the time, “don’t treat me like an animal”, but have you ever related it to the moral status that we give animals? Similar to Green, humans today use dehumanization to justify the ethics of eating animals, but most of these defenses of eating meat can be easily turned on their heads.

The first defense of eating meat is the contract view of ethics. People say that they have no duties to animals because animals have no duties to them, but how can you use this to justify the exploitation of them? Those who think like this believe that there are bargains between humans and animals, and an animals like cows and chickens trade their milk and eggs for food and protection from prey. This logic should be disregarded because animals are unable to make contracts with humans, so it is unfair to assume that there is this mutual contract of bargaining.

People will also use the concept of meat eating being “natural” to justify it, but to what extent? Factory farming isn’t natural by any means. Animals’ eating of other animals is “natural” because animals kill as a matter of instinct, so eating animals because they eat each other isn’t justifiable. This doesn’t fall in line with similar ethics we have today; example being how it is not ethically okay to kill someone because you see them kill someone else. But what if the person has no idea what is going on? People will say that animals have no self-awareness or reasoning ability, and this is what separates them from humans and justifies the killing and eating of them. This then, would separate babies and those with severe intellectual disabilities from humans also, wouldn’t it? Would this, then, justify the killing and/or eating of something so “human”? Animals feel pain, and pain is an evenly undesirable feeling, so why is it okay to cause an animal pain, but causing a baby pain is seen as a horrible thing? If animals aren’t human because they don’t possess these same traits, then how can we view babies and the disabled as “human”?

Another popular defense is the argument of domestication. Domesticated farm animals are thought to be “more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own”(p.7). Do you believe that bringing something into existence is benefitting it, even if it suffers and lives a terrible life? With regard to abortion and bearing a child, the choice of whether or not to have the baby is made by the couple, and usually with regard to their own personal interest. This ethic of human interest is rooted from the Western Ethic of speciesism, and it is shared by humans and animals alike. Holding a species above others was a direct cause of slavery, and factory farming is indifferent to slavery. When cultural practices are harmful, they should not be allowed to go unchallenged. If a widespread cultural practice is wrong, we should try to change it (p.5), as we did with slavery.

So, in terms of eating ethically, what is okay? While it is true that eating well-cared-for animals is more ethical, for those unable to raise their own animals, it is hard to be sure that the meat you buy and eat is meat from these well-cared-for animals. Farms like the Polyface Farm were supposed to be examples of this ethical farming, but after inspection, the animals were still in an environment where “suffering was the norm.” Therefore, these farms are not the solution. What is, you may ask? The authors of these readings believe that if there was no demand for meat and farm products, then there would be no factory farms. Thus, if people want to eat ethically, the solution is to simply not eat meat. This may sound crazy, but what good could come out of this?

The truth is that factory farming actually adds to world hunger. The amount of people fed from an acre of land used for growing crops is actually 10 times more than the amount of people fed from an acre of land used for beef. It is also possible that human health would increase from this because it has been proven that increased meat consumption leads to increases in heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. It is important to remember that this conclusion by the authors, that the solution is to stop eating meat, is entirely made with regard to the ethics, or morality, of eating meat. Conscious carnivores help the problem also, but their beliefs aren’t as openly displayed as the beliefs of vegetarians, simply because it is apparent that they aren’t eating meat at all, while one might not notice that one is simply eating less meat. So if you are thinking ethically about eating meat, cutting down on meat consumption will help, but the only solution is to stop eating meat altogether so that there will be no demand for it. No matter what your view is, you can’t deny that factory farming and the overall treatment of animals in our society today is wrong, and we should each contribute to change it.