Ethical Treatment of Animals

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Ethical Treatment of Animals

What values and obligations should govern our treatment of animals? Is it morally acceptable to have pets and eat animals? If not, why? But even if it is acceptable to eat animals, what standards of treatment should govern our treatment of them? How do we extend values from human ethics to our treatment of animals?

• Resource Needs:

• Fundamental arguments in animal rights; how do philosopher's think we should think about extending moral categories for humans to animals?
• Arguments from animal liberationists to defenders of animal agriculture.
• Information and analysis about the state of industrial agriculture.
• Information on sentience, pain, and natural behaviors of animals

Information

• Post summaries of something you learned about the topic that is important to thinking about it. Consult the resource needs list above for ideas. Use both Google searches leading to authoritative information and online databases, books, and articles linked through Foley Library.

• This report discusses many different aspects of the US livestock and agricultural industry. One of the biggest issues it tackles are CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations), which have become the main method of raising livestock that are meant for slaughter. In the article, it not only discusses the treatment of the animals, but the effect of these CAFOs have on pollution and the US economy as well. The report discusses how the CAFOs have come to exist due to current economic and social conditions, and also talks about different possible solutions and alternatives for a more sustainable system. http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/cafos-uncovered.pdf - Tore Kelln

Arguments

• Post arguments that you find or want to put forward on this topic. You can research arguments by doing a Google search, but also by consulting databases like Philosopher's Index, Academic Search Complete, and Proquest.

• Darwin's evolution argument: humans are no different from animals because we have the same origin. Traditional morality is "speciesist," indicating that humans are above all other creatures and were only created in God's image. Using Darwin's theory of evolution, this idea can be rejected. This implies that humans may have a moral duty to animals because there is not a distinction between the two creatures, and should therefore not be a moral distinction. (Citation: Kaufman, Whitley. "Does Animal Ethics Need A Darwinian Revolution?." Ethical Theory & Moral Practice 17.4 (2014): 807-818. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2016) -Jordan Thurston

• Radical Abolitionism argument: non-human animals have a moral status and animal use should be abolished because of JUSTICE. This counteracts the resource paradigm that animals are resources for humans to use. This paradigm does not address the underlying issue of animal rights, that treatment of animals does not matter as much as injustice towards animals. The resource paradigm (according to this article's argument) is unjust. There is a less radical argument along the lines of radical abolitionism called "welfarism" where animals DO have a moral status, but humans can use animals as long as they do not suffer. This suggests that humans do have a duty to animals, but does not go so far as to say that they cannot use animals as a resource. (Citation: Wyckoff, Jason. "Toward Justice For Animals." Journal Of Social Philosophy 45.4 (2014): 539-553.Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2016) -Jordan Thurston

• Animal Pain: A proper understanding of neurological studies of animal pain begins with the distinction between nociception and pain. Nociception — the capacity to sense noxious stimuli — is one of the most primitive sensory capacities. Neurons functionally specialized for nociception have been described in invertebrates such as the medical leech and the marine snail Aplysia californica (Walters 1996). Because nociceptors are found in a very wide range of species, their presence and activity in a species provides little or no direct evidence for phenomenally conscious pain experiences. The gate control theory of Melzack and Wall (1965) describes a mechanism by which “top-down” signals from the brain modulate “bottom-up” nociception, providing space for the distinction between felt pain and nociception.(Citation: Allen, Colin. "Animal Consciousness." Stanford University. Stanford University, 23 Dec. 1995. Web. 08 Feb. 2016.) -Savanah Van Citters

• Minimization of Animal Pain: Research that involves experiments in which pain is inflicted on animals on purpose should not be abolished, but should be minimized. Because humans have power over animals and animals with physical capability will feel pain, the pain inflicted on animals should be minimized in order to create the greatest welfare for the animals. However, the practice should not be abolished because much of the research is beneficial to the welfare of humans. In order to fully decide whether a particular experiment is ethical, one should consider how useful the research will be, how many trials will need to be conducted, how relevant the research is to human progress, and whether there is a better way to get the same answers. (Citation: Loveless, Sherry; Giordano, James. "Neuroethics, Painience, and Neurocentric Criteria for the Moral Treatment of Animals." Cambridge Quaterly of Healthcare Ethics. 23.2 (Apr 2014): 163-72.) -Nicholas von Flue

Insights

• Post here under your name (or login anonymously and either use your saint name (if you want me to know who you are) or make up your own. Post a brief statement of your views as they are evolving on the topic. What arguments, values, and facts are central (or gaining prominence) in your thinking?