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Dennis Brasky wrote: Others argue that the human capacity for abstract thought makes us capable of suffering that both qualitatively and quantitatively exceeds the suffering of any non-human animal. Philosophers like Jeremy Bentham, who is famous for having based moral status not on linguistic or rational capacities but rather on the capacity to suffer, argue that because animals are incapable of abstract thought, they are imprisoned in an eternal present, have no sense of the extended future and hence cannot be said to have an interest in continued existence. Here Steiner muddies the water. Bentham never suggested animals should be allowed to suffer because they cannot reason. He argued they should not be allowed to suffer precisely because they feel pain. He never minimizes the physical pain felt by an animal by suggesting their (supposed) lack of reasoning faculties minimizes their suffering. One could argue the opposite: that because animals feel pain in their so-called "eternal present", that experience is magnified due to their inability to project its end. In any event, for a mammal stuck in the eternal present of factory farm hell, such thoughts would be mere fantasy, as their suffering would never diminish until their untimely and gruesome death. Cognizance of THAT reality may increase one's level of suffering, but I fail to see how one could measure the difference. What would you use, a suffering meter? Would that include a decibel meter to measure the volume of the animals' screams? That they should or should not be killed in a "humane" manner for consumption is another argument entirely. See the below for more discussion on THAT topic. Personally, I have no "beef" with thoughtful individuals who eat meat on occasion and take the time and effort to find local family farms who minimize the suffering of their farm animals. Most people do not take the time to do this, however, and one wonders, given all the information out there regarding sensible vegetarian alternatives, whether or not these folks simply lack the energy and creativity to transform their diets. Nor do I have a problem with people who hunt game, as long as they take the time to practice their marksmanship and shoot to kill, not to maim. One should be wary, however, of all the free range propaganda labels in the big box grocery stores. Greg McDonald http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/ A third response is simply to reject rational nature as the touchstone of moral considerability. This is the kind of direct argument that utilitarians have traditionally made. They argue that the truly morally important feature of beings is unappreciated when we focus on personhood or the rational, self-reflective nature of humans, or the relation a being stands in to such nature, or being the subject of a life. What is really important, utilitarians maintain, is the promotion of happiness, or pleasure, or the satisfaction of interests, and the avoidance of pain, or suffering, or frustration of interests. Bentham, one of the more forceful defenders of this "sentientist" view of moral considerability, famously wrote: "What other agents are those who, at the same time that they are under the influence of man's direction, are susceptible of Happiness? They are of two sorts : (1) Other human beings who are styled Persons. (2) Other animals, who, on account of their interests having been neglected by the insensibility of the ancient Jurists, stand degraded into the class of Things. Under the Gentoo and Mahometan religions, the interests of the rest of the animal kingdom seem to have met with some attention. Why have they not, universally, with as much as those of human beings, allowance made for the difference in point of sensibility? Because the laws that are have been the work of mutual fear - a sentiment which the less rational animals have not had the same means, as men have, of turning to account. Why ought they not [to have the same allowance made]? No reason can be given. . . . . "The day has been (and it is not yet past), in which the greater part of the Species, under the denomination of Slaves, have been treated by the Laws exactly upon the same footing - as in England for example, the inferior races of beings are still. The day may come, when other Animals may obtain those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of Tyranny. The French have already 91790) recognised that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned, without redress, to the caprice of a tormentor. "It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it should fix the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown Horse or Dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" ..... Consider factory farming, the most common method used to convert animal bodies into relatively inexpensive food in industrialized societies today. An estimated 8 billion animals in the United States are born, confined, biologically manipulated, transported and ultimately slaughtered each year so that humans can consume them. The conditions in which these animals are raised and the method of slaughter causes vast amounts of suffering. (See, for example, Mason and Singer 1990.) Given that animals suffer under such conditions and assuming that suffering is not in their interests, then the practice of factory farming would only be morally justifiable if its abolition were to cause greater suffering or a greater amount of interest frustration. Certainly humans who take pleasure in eating animals will find it harder to satisfy these interests in the absence of factory farms; it may cost more and require more effort to obtain animal products. The factory farmers, and the industries that support factory farming, will also have certain interests frustrated if factory farming were to be abolished. How much interest frustration and interest satisfaction would be associated with the end to factory farming is largely an empirical question. But utilitarians are not making unreasonable predictions when they argue that on balance the suffering and interest frustration that animals experience in modern day meat production is greater than the suffering that humans would endure if they had to alter their current practices. [To butt in here, one could argue quite reasonably and forcefully that the abolition of factory farms would likewise diminish the suffering of consumers due to ecological, dietary, and public health considerations]. Fuck the owners and their supposed "economic interests". Importantly, the utilitarian argument for the moral significance of animal suffering in meat production is not an argument for vegetarianism. If an animal lived a happy life and was painlessly killed and then eaten by people who would otherwise suffer hunger or malnutrition by not eating the animal, then painlessly killing and eating the animal would be the morally justified thing to do. In many parts of the world where economic, cultural, or climate conditions make it virtually impossible for people to sustain themselves on plant based diets, killing and eating animals that previously led relatively unconstrained lives and are painlessly killed, would not be morally objectionable. The utilitarian position can thus avoid certain charges of cultural chauvinism and moralism, charges that the animal rights position apparently cannot avoid. [It would be nice if someone could point out how one kills an animal painlessly. Do they receive a morphine injection before their heads or chopped off, or their throats are slit?] ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
