Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Should Recognize Rights of Farm Animals
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- Kantian Ethics Requires Treating Farm Animals with Respect
- What We Eat is an Inherently Ethical and Moral Act
- AT: “Rights Discourse Bad for Improving Animal Welfare”
Should Recognize Rights of Farm AnimalsFARM ANIMAL RIGHTS ETHIC DESIGNED TO PROTECT ANIMAL INTERESTS Bernard E. Rollin, Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University, 1995, Farm Animal Welfare: social, bioethical, and research issues, p. 18 Thus, the new animal rights ethic we have described in society in general should not be viewed as radically different from concerns about animal welfare, as agriculturalists often mistakenly do. It is, in fact, the form that welfare concerns are taking in the face of what has occurred in science and agriculture since World War II. The demand for rights fills the gap left by the loss of traditional husbandry agriculture and its built-in guarantee of protection of fundamental animal interests.
Bernard E. Rollin, Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University, 1995, Farm Animal Welfare: social, bioethical, and research issues, p. 47 As Kant long ago pointed out, an overriding element of morality is consistency. It is not a demand of benevolence but a fundamental component of justice and fairness, and indeed, of reason. Given that animals used in agricultural research and biomedical research are similar in all morally relevant ways, they are entitled to similar treatment in all morally relevant animals are designed to model animals that will be used in unregulated situations, as in the case of the second lamb mentioned above, and thus should not be treated any better than the animals they model. This argument is open to two responses. First, the fact that pain and suffering is not controlled in farm animals is one of the fundamental reasons for and concerns of the new social ethic for animals. Thus, to argue from what is done under field conditions to what should be done under research conditions is to beg the question. One of the major motivations for welfare research is to change field conditions so as to satisfy public concerns. Indeed, as Hiram Kitchen, the chairman of the AVMA Panel on Pain and Suffering, a group convened to help explain the new research animal laws with regard to the notion of pain and suffering to the research community pointed out to the panel, the law’s demands for controlling pain and suffering articulate the social standard for animal treatment. Thus the fact that agricultural practice deviates from these standards is not a justification for the status quo; it is rather a mandate for agriculture to change its practice to be more in accord with socially mandated standards. Second, many features of research do not replicate the situations the research is intended to model. Rats are not people; cages are not the real world; artificially high doses of toxicants do not reflect natural ingestion patterns; cattle with rumenal fistulae differ from ordinary cattle. Research differs from what it replicates in myriad ways. It could be argued that although providing anesthesia for castration, for example, does indeed not replicate field conditions, it controls a variable, that is, pain and suffering induced by surgery, which can affect what is being studied. As expressed in federal law, the social ethic asserts that the only possible times pain and suffering should not be controlled in animal research of any kind is when it cannot be, that is, either when pain and suffering are the direct objects of study or when one can demonstrate that all possible methods for controlling pain and suffering will inexorably skew what one is looking at in one’s research and that the research is valuable. (Sometimes control of pain and suffering skews the data in a way that can be accounted for predictably.)
Kate Rawles, Lancaster University Lecturer in Environmental Philosophy, 2008, The Future of Animal Farming: renewing the ancient contract, eds. M. Dawkins & R. Bonney, p. 46 There is no such thing as ethics-free farming. Farming by its very nature has relationships with and impacts on animals, on other living things, on ecosystems, on people, and on health. Whether explicitly or not, farming cannot help but take a position on what these relationships and impacts should be – on how these various “others” are to be treated. This means, of course, that there is no such thing as ethics-free food, either. However far removed many of us have become from agriculture, we all eat the products of farming, even if processed beyond recognition, two or three times a day. The future of farming therefore concerns everyone, or at least, everyone who eats, and we are all party to the ethics embedded in farming. In relation to mainstream, industrialized agriculture, this is not necessarily a comfortable place to be. AT: “Rights Discourse Bad for Improving Animal Welfare”ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUPS INCREASINGLY ADDRESSING FARM ANIMAL ISSUES Erik Marcus, Editor-Vegan.com, 2005, Meat Market: animals, ethics and money, p. 64 Organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Farm Sanctuary, neither of which existed before the 1980s, now have tens of thousands of active members and assets in the millions. Meanwhile, traditional animal protection groups like HSUS and the ASPCA have begun addressing farmed animal issues – an area they once largely ignored. And the financial resources of these groups have grown significantly. Assets of HSUS and the ASPCA grew about tenfold between 1982 and 2002.
Erik Marcus, Editor-Vegan.com, 2005, Meat Market: animals, ethics and money, p. 70-1 One of the best things that can happen to farmed animals is when people start questioning the morality of raising animals for food. The animal rights movement inspire vast number of people to ponder the ethical implications of animal farming. Moreover, the movement is blessed with a range of arguments that are beautifully constructed and difficult to refute. ACTIVISTS AND MOVEMENTS EFFECTIVE AT PROMOTING FARM ANIMAL WELFARE Erik Marcus, Editor-Vegan.com, 2005, Meat Market: animals, ethics and money, p. 71 Activists have made astounding progress by pushing for animal welfare. In 1994, the late Henry Spira successfully pressured the USDA to drop its requirement for face-branding cattle imported from Mexico. In 2001, PETA and others successfully convinced the top three burger chains to issue new animal welfare guidelines to their suppliers. And in 2002, Farm Sanctuary and the HUSUS spearheaded a ballot initiative that banned the use of gestation crates at Florida’s pig farms. These achievements are only the start of what is possible, and the great potential of animal welfare is still largely untapped. Right now, in regard to welfare concerns, America’s meat eaters are sitting on the sidelines. We need to get them involved. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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