Speciesism: Vivisection and Factory Farming

Introduction

Speciesism is a prejudice against other animals on account of their belonging to a different species than ourselves. A paradigm speciesist position would take the form of an argument that the interests of other animals do not need to be taken into consideration in practices such as vivisection or factory farming because such animals are not human.

The term 'Speciesism' arose through the work of writers such as Richard Ryder, Tom Regan and most notably Peter Singer. These writers have become part of the Animal Liberation movement that criticise and seek to bring an end to practices such as factory farming and many aspects of vivisection because they involved discounting or ignoring the interests of other species where no great benefit to human interests is concerned.

A central claim of such writers is that our concern for others should be based on their capacity to suffer rather than on what species they belonged to or what appearance they have. We all have an interest in living a pleasurable life, relatively free of pain. Pleasure and pain matter to all of us who feel them. As such we are obliged to consider all those who feel pleasure and pain. Disregarding one population's interests on account that they are not human is simply arbitrary.

According to Peter Singer a fundamental tenet of moral thinking is the principle of equality. We often say that all people are equal. This cannot mean that everyone has the same abilities because we all vary in terms of intelligence, artistic creativity, physical strength and so forth. Instead it is best explained as a principle that says everyone's interests are deserving of equal consideration regardless of whether they are black, white, male or female or features relating to what they look like.

Whilst my interests may matter more to me than they do to another, for instance it matters more to me that I avoid being tortured than it does to someone else, from the moral or impartial perspective each person's interest in not being tortured are deserving of equal consideration. The principle of equality then requires that identical interest are deserving of equal consideration regardless of who has them. This principle underpins the rational basis that Humanists use in support for Universal Human Rights but it also has wider implications extending to other animals.

However a speciesist violates the principle of equality by treating the interests of other animals in avoiding suffering as if they did not carry much significance, as if their suffering was not really that important. Peter Singer draws an analogy of 'Speciesism' with 'Racism' in order to point to our tendency to unreflectively accept the contemporary moral standards around us even when those standards may be based on a biological prejudice.

As Singer puts it:

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of another race. White racists do not accept that pain is as bad when it is felt by blacks as when it is felt by whites. Similarly those I would call 'speciesist' give greater weight to the interests of members of their own species when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of other species. Human speciesists do not accept that pain is as bad when it is felt by pigs or mice as when it is felt by humans.

Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, p, 51.

However we are fallible and even our deeply held views and practices may be wrong. Like our ancestors who did wrong, perhaps unknowingly, they were not inherently wicked people, so to we may do wrong through not reflecting on our existing practices critically. Our attitudes to those of different races or a different sex have changed; we no longer think that it is justified to discriminate against others on the basis of their race or sex. Racism and sexism are the wrong basis for discrimination because a bare biological difference is not morally relevant. Of course there are differences between the sexes, and between races but this does not entail that one group has the right to disregard the interests of another.

However our attitudes towards animals are still in the process of change. Whilst there are laws that protect pets like cats, dogs, hamsters from the cruelty of their owners when it comes to animals like cows, pigs, chickens and ducks such creatures do not have the same level of protection. But are there really radical differences in the abilities of such creatures to suffer from cruelty? Should our existing laws be extended to prevent unnecessary cruelty to farm animals?

Is Discrimination based Purely on Species Membership Morally Arbitrary?

It seems difficult to deny the Animal Liberationist charges that Species membership is in itself morally arbitrary. Species membership simply points to a biological divide based on our ability to reproduce with other members of a population and the offspring of that population. There are biological differences between the sexes {cross species distinction} and between race {sub-species distinction} but this does not in itself show that one sex or race is not worthy of moral consideration. Similarly it appears arbitrary to draw a distinction between primary species and other rather than biological class {mammals} or biological order {primates}. Of course there are differences between the species but so what? Are appearance, skin colour, height, or anatomy morally relevant features that justify discounting the interests of one group or not?

Thought experiments also help bring out the arbitrariness of discrimination purely on species membership. Consider the possibility that there is life on other planets. Such life would have a different evolutionary origin from ourselves, but the creatures could possess similar capacities to ourselves. There could be rational, autonomous moral agents just like ourselves with the capacity to suffer through maltreatment. It seems that it would be morally arbitrary to refuse to grant that they would be a candidate for having moral standing in the same way that European settlers would be morally arbitrary to refuse to grant moral standing to Native Americans.

The same point can be made by considering what sort of considerations we would like to have bestowed on us if we had a different genetic origin from the one that we did in fact have as well as a different appearance. Mark Rowlands explains it by analogy to the novel by H.G.Wells:

Imagine for example a sort of Dr Moreau scenario. You begin your existence as a fertilized non-human ovum. Then through a combination of genetic manipulation, vivisection, surgery or whatever you were transformed into something that looked, acted, and felt human. Indeed not being aware of your origins you spend your life thinking that you are human. Scientific testing eventually reveals your mistake. Would you then accept that you don't, in fact have any moral status? That the considerations that you thought you were due, as a human being, was inappropriately applied and should now be withdrawn? Presumably you would not accept this and rightly so. ... whatever consideration and respect you thought you were due before the discovery of your true genetic character, you are still due after the discovery. And, if this is right, bare species membership cannot be what is crucial, morally speaking.

Mark Rowlands, Animals Like Us, p,40.

Speciesism In Practice

Food

Chickens. By far the majority of chickens produced in the UK and USA are intensively farmed. Chickens are classed into layers for laying eggs or broilers to be eaten. Chickens deemed not good enough for eating may be gassed or thrown into plastic sacks where they will either die of suffocation, crushing by the weight of others, or may be ground up whilst still alive.

Layers are de-beaked with a red hot guillotine that slices off the beak. The beak contains sensitive tissue and such de-beaking is done with anesthetic. It is akin to having one's toe nails trimmed by slicing off part of the toe. From there the chickens are moved to a battery cage approximating the size of an A4 sheet of paper that does not allow room for turning or stretching wings. Chickens being social creatures maintain a 'pecking order' where chicken lower down the order stay out of the way of more dominant chickens. The forced close confinement of battery farming does not allow for this hence the de-beaking is an attempt to prevent chickens being pecked to death in such close confinement.

In such close confinement chickens cannot roost, breath fresh air, bathe in sunlight or even stretch their wings. There are often layers of excrement and corpses of their colleagues who have succumbed to the stressful conditions. Such close living conditions and unable to form a hierarchy in flock of ten thousand leads to a tendency to fight and cannibalism. Instead of ameliorating the cause of such unnatural behaviour the environmental lighting conditions are altered to near darkness in order to reduce aggression.

Pigs. Pigs are most often raised in total confinement farm systems. The sows {female pigs} spend most of their lives in gestation crates. These crates are about 7 feet long and 2 feet wide with only enough room to eat, sleep, stand or lie down. With no room to walk, turn around, groom, or socialise and packed in close confinement with others boredom, tail biting sometimes escalating into biting each others backs breaks out. Porcine stress syndrome is common in such conditions including skin problems, excessive panting and sudden death. Again rather than removing the source of such unnatural behaviour farmers cut or chops off pig's tails, and use pliers to break off the pigs teeth without painkillers.

Cows. Veal production has been considered to be one of the cruellest confinement systems. Calves are taken from their mothers within a day of birth and placed in narrow wooden stalls, lined up in rows within a confinement building. For between 18 and 20 weeks each calf is restricted to a space only slightly larger than their own body and has its neck tied to restrict movement. They are fed a milk replacement which is deficient in iron and so as to induce sub clinical anaemia in order to make the flesh white enough for gourmet cooks and restaurants. No roughage is permitted and the calf is unable to even lick his own urine or faeces in its bid to satisfy its craving for iron.

Ducks. Ducks are raised for both meat and fatty liver called 'foie gras'. Producing 'foie gras' involves a brutal practice whereby large numbers of ducks are kept in small pens whilst a mixture of corn and fat is forced into their mouth through a pipe attached to a pump. The massive quantities of food that the bird is forced to consume makes its liver swell up to ten times its normal size. This process can result in the birds suffering from lameness, throat injuries and ruptured livers.

Vivisection or Animal Experimentation

Not all experiments on animals are done for vitally important purposes. Many experiments are carried out for rather trivial interests such as bringing out a new cosmetic or cleaning product, such items we clearly have no serious need for.

Experimentation on animals have involved the notorious LD50 tests {'LD50' stands for lethal dose, 50%} involved administering lethal doses cosmetics, drugs, weed killer, toothpaste or other consumer products can be forcibly pumped into the subjects stomach before half of the group die. The tests do not promote vital human interests because the products, a new brand of toothpaste, lipstick, shampoo do not serve vital human interests i.e. interests whose frustration would cause much misery and suffering to humans

The Draize test is another test that does not promote vital human interests. This involves the subjects, typically rabbits or dogs being placed in a holding device from which only the head protrudes, with eyelids pulled open and a test substance such as shampoo, bleach, over cleaner, ink etc being placed on the eye. Subjects will then be observed for eye swelling, bleeding, infection and the like. In some cases total loss of vision may follow.

Other experiments appear to serve no other purpose than the experimenter's curiosity. For instance at Princetown university experimenters kept 256 young rats without food or water until they died. They concluded that young rats under conditions of fatal hunger are less active than normal adult rats. In Taiwan 1977 weights were dropped onto the spines of rats from increasing heights. They concluded that greater injuries were caused from dropping weights from increasing heights.

Perhaps one of the most famous or infamous animal researcher was the Psychologist H.F. Harlow who spent 15 years researching into the effects of maternal deprivation and social isolation on monkeys and apes. He showed that monkey mothers that are so disturbed by the experimental conditions will smash their babies' heads on the floor and rub it to and fro as well as succeeding in making monkeys so depressed that they huddle in a corner alone unable to interact with others. Recent procedures in the US involve rhesus monkeys being shaken and spun in the dark to measure the correlation between brain damage and eye movement. It is hard to see any benefits gained by such experiments to humans. If there are benefits they are minimal and far outweighed by the suffering to the animals.

Peter Singer (1993) proposes a simple test for speciesism with regards to animal experimentation. If we are unwilling to exchange an orphaned human infant with irreversible brain damage who has similar abilities to that of the rabbit or monkey that is being experimented on then we are guilty of speciesism. But if we don't believe that experimenting on orphaned infants with brain damage is worth the speculative attempt to find a cure for cancer, some other ailment, or some new cleaning product then we should not be prepared to experiment on other animals that have a similar capacity to suffer and be harmed by such a practice. Failure to acknowledge this represents a form of hypocrisy or inconsistency in our thinking according to Singer.

Objections to Speciesism

The special characteristics objection

Most objections to Speciesism do not try to justify the way that we treat animals by reference to a bare biological divide or difference in species membership. Instead they attempt to point out some salient characteristic that members of the one species have that the other lacks e.g. language, intelligence, or reason. This characteristic then serves as the basis on which to include and exclude those whose interests are deserving of moral consideration. For instance someone might say that the reason why animal interests do not deserve moral consideration is because they are not as intelligent as humans, not capable of the same level of communication with language, or not capable of reasoning about things like morality as most humans are.

However attempts to divide what is deserving of moral consideration and what is not based on any or all of the above three features is beset by what the problem known as 'the argument from marginal cases'.

The argument from marginal cases aims to show that whatever special characteristics that are selected to differentiate humans from non-humans such as language, reason or intelligence there will be some humans who possess such ability at the same level as other non-humans. For instance whilst it is true that most humans are more intelligent, can reason better, and have more sophisticated communication abilities than other animals there are some humans i.e. those born with moderate to sever brain damage or diseases related to old age that may diminish their powers to the average dog or horse. Therefore if it is claimed that animals because of their lack of intelligence, reasoning, or linguistic abilities lack moral entitlements then we are going to have to hold that those humans who have a similar ability {perhaps less if compared to chimps and great apes} lack any moral consideration.

But should we hunt humans who have diminished powers of intelligence or reasoning abilities around the countryside with hounds, or experiment on them, or kill them so that we can turn their skin into handbags? Now unless you are very ill it is manifestly obvious that we should not hunt or practice vivisection on new born infants or those with mental deficiencies. So the correct conclusion to draw is that we cannot rely on intelligence, reasoning or language abilities to tell us who have and who doesn't have any moral entitlements.

Mark Rowlands has set out the structure of the argument from marginal cases:

First we take some proposal of what counts as relevant difference between humans and animals. So:

Premise 1: X is proposed as a morally relevant difference between humans and non-human animals.

The next step is to point out that not all humans have X, whatever that is:

Premise 2: There are certain human beings who do not possess X.

Conclusion: Therefore, either (a) those humans possess no more moral rights than animals, or (b) the claim that X is a morally relevant difference must be abandoned.

Mark Rowlands, Animals like us, p 44-45.

Since it seems perfectly clear that option (a) holding that some humans do not possess any moral entitlement is absurd or immoral then the only other option is to claim that whatever factor is proposed that separates us from other animals must be a morally arbitrary factor in deciding what has moral consideration.

Animals eat other animals so why shouldn't we eat them?

Benjamin Franklin expressed this objection in his autobiography. He recalls of how he had been vegetarian for a while, when he was fishing with some friends who were filleting a fish that they had caught and were about to fry. When it was cut open, there was another smaller fish in its stomach. "Well", said Franklin, "If you eat one another, then I don't see why we may not eat you?", and proceeded to do just that. He also admitted that the fish smelt 'admirably well' and this swayed his reasoning.

However, we could reply that animals generally do not have a choice in whether they eat one another. So it cannot be right that they 'deserve' to be eaten because they eat one another. Secondly since animals do not have a choice over what they eat they cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. We on the other hand do have a choice in what we eat and so we can be responsible for our actions.

It is natural for humans to eat other animals

This argument is sometimes expressed in the form that there is a law of nature (a perceived form of Darwinian 'survival of the fittest') upon which the stronger animal preys about the weaker. The argument then concludes that since we can eat other animals that it is right to do so.

This response has two mistakes. The first is factual: the mass production of intensive factory farming in modern society does not look anything like a natural process. Some animals are being force fed, kept in conditions divorced from their natural habitat and fed restricted diets. Whilst a few primitive cultures still hunt for their food this has nothing to do with the society in which we live.

The second mistake resides in the assumption that what is natural is what must be right. It was once considered natural for a woman to produce an infant every year or two from puberty to menopause, but this does not mean that it is wrong to interfere with the process though contraception. We have a biological tendency towards aggression, our hormones can sometimes prompt us to have sex at inappropriate times or with inappropriate others but we do not praise or sanctify such tendencies. Instead we think that morality should tame not lionize these tendencies. Therefore if some natural tendencies are permitted whilst others are prohibited, then it follows that the bare tendency or inclination cannot be what is moral (or immoral).

So in conclusion there is no convincing reason to think that current forms of speciesism are natural and even if they were that would not be a reason for morality to promote or even permit such speciesism.

Summary

In factory farming animals are treated like machines that convert their flesh into cash. The process involves inflicting large amounts of suffering on such animals. The fact that we are prepared to inflict large amounts of suffering on animals while they are alive in order to satisfy the desire to have meat on our table at a relatively cheap price is a clear indication of Speciesism at work. We indirectly support such cruelty by purchasing factory farmed products. If we are to take the principle of equality seriously then we are required to put ourselves in the place of a farmed animal as well as in the place of the meat eater. Does the pleasure we get from eating an animal justify the suffering that it has to endure for most of its life whilst be raised and killed for that meal? It seems that we must conclude that the substantial interest in not being raised in a factory farm and slaughtered is stronger than our trivial interest in eating a beef burger as opposed to a bean burger. After all there is no shortage of food that we can eat that does not require an animal to suffer in a factory farm.

In animal experimentation millions of animals are experimented on for either trivial reasons that has little or no real benefit to humans, or for rather speculative reasons in the hope for finding a cure for a medical condition such as cancer. Even in the latter case the known cost of suffering and loss of life is weighed up against the unknown speculative benefit. In terms of a cost-benefit perspective the majority of animal experimentation looks untenable. Further if we have qualms about using infants or impaired humans to experiment on for such speculative gains we should have qualms about using animals that have a similar capacity to suffer.

Bibliography

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Author: Julian Bennett (Show email address.)