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Good news for animals.

From the Mailbag

Keith,

Farm Sanctuary, the nation's leading farm animal protection organization, is extremely close to reaching our goal of collecting 10,000 signatures on our "Truth Behind Labels" petition to the USDA to tell them their "naturally raised" label is not natural. We're currently at 9,556 signatures—96% of the way there! I am writing to you today to ask for your help in getting this petition signed, sealed and delivered by urging your readers to sign our petition to let the USDA know we won't stand for their deceptive claims.

Here's some background:

Most people believe that the "naturally raised" label implies animals have access to sunshine, fresh air, freedom of movement and the ability to perform natural behaviors. Yet, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently allowed companies to slap a "naturally raised" label on meat and meat products that come from animals whose upbringing was far from natural.

Cramped crates aren't natural living conditions for calves and sows. Cows and pigs need fresh air, sunlight and open space to engage in natural behaviors such as grazing and rooting for food, taking mud baths, and raising their young. Furthermore, such a label misleads the public and exploits consumer trust in advertising and packaging claims and in government regulation of agriculture.

Readers can sign the petition here.

Many thanks!!!

Meredith

Turtles All the Way Down

Here is a post from Ethics Soup.

Belgian City of Ghent Goes Vegetarian!

According to this BBC story, city officials in Ghent, Belgium, are encouraging all residents to go vegetarian one day a week. Thursday has been officially designated "Veggie Day." As a result, the main menu in restaurants on Thursdays will be vegetarian. Starting in September, schools will serve vegetarian meals to schoolchildren on Thursdays as well. The city is promoting vegetarianism as a way to reduce its environmental footprint and to help tackle obesity.

In this interview with BBC World Service, Tom Balthazar, deputy mayor of Ghent, explains in more detail why Ghent is going vegetarian on Thursdays.

Note from KBJ: I'm sure Mylan will agree with me that it would be better, morally, if the vegetarian diet were being adopted for the sake of the animals. A Kantian (though not Kant himself) would say that while the act is right, in the sense of being in accordance with duty, it has no moral worth, since it is not done from duty. In other words, the right thing is being done for the wrong reason.

Are Animals Free Riders?

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Your editorial against my proposal to thin the elk herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (“Elk Hunting in the Badlands,” July 8) missed the mark in several key respects.

First, nobody has proposed creating “a broad precedent for public hunting in the national parks.” My proposal applies very narrowly to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And it does not call for an unregulated hunt; instead, it leaves full discretion to the National Park Service to set appropriate rules for the volunteer hunters who would help to thin the herd.

You also suggest that my proposal would result in shooting of bulls (male elk), as opposed to cows (female elk). My proposal does no such thing. It leaves the National Park Service full latitude to determine which elk should be culled.

Finally, you suggest that it would be less expensive to use “hired sharpshooters” than volunteer hunters. This simply defies common sense. Paying sharpshooters and using helicopters cannot possibly be less expensive than allowing North Dakota hunters to volunteer their time, at no cost, and to take the animal carcasses out of the park themselves—exactly the kind of solution Teddy Roosevelt would have wanted.

Byron Dorgan
Washington, July 9, 2009
The writer is a Democratic senator from North Dakota.

Another Reason to Go Vegetarian

We can thank factory farming for yet another antibiotic-resistant supergerm: Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). MRSA is a form of staph bacteria resistant to antibiotics (including methicillin). According to Stephanie Woodard's column in Prevention published today, the CDC reports that "certain types of MRSA infections kill 18,000 Americans per year—more than die from AIDS." Woodard goes on to note:

MRSA is so common in the United States that it accounts for more than half of all soft-tissue and skin infections in ERs. The CDC estimates that invasive MRSA infections (those that entered the bloodstream) number more than 94,000 a year. Even more troubling, if you add up the other types of illnesses MRSA can cause, including urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and inpatient skin infections, the total could be 8 to 11 times more than that, reports a study by epidemiologist William Jarvis, MD, of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. The numbers are high and rising: From 1996 to 2005, MRSA-related hospitalizations increased nearly tenfold.

In recent years, MRSA has been found in retail cuts of chicken, pork, beef and other meats—a particularly worrisome trend since MRSA can be contracted simply by handling infected cuts of meat.

Just how prevalent is MRSA-infected meat? It's hard to say because the government still has not instituted a comprehensive MRSA inspection process, but independent research conducted by Tara Smith, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa, suggests that MRSA-infected animals may be widespread indeed. Smith studied two large Midwestern hog farms and found ST398, the virulent strain of MRSA, in 45 percent of farmers and 49 percent of hogs.

The most obvious way to limit your risk of contracting MRSA is this: Don't handle or consume meat. Instead, seek out nonmeat protein sources such as beans, lentils, tofu, soymilk, and in small quantities, nuts and seeds.

Unfortunately, MRSA can be passed from person to person. If you work out in a public gym, disinfect workout equipment before you use it. Wash hands thoroughly after shaking hands with others (especially after shaking hands with those those who eat and handle meat).

Where do antibiotic-resistant supergerms like MRSA come from? All evidence points to factory farms. Factory farms are concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) where animals are raised intensively and permanently confined in warehouses and sheds. Ninety-seven percent of all poultry are raised in sheds containing over 100,000 birds, and hog facilities routinely house thousands of hogs in the same building. The animals either stand in their own waste for the duration of the animal-rearing cycle, or the waste drops down into manure pits below the facility. These unsanitary conditions, coupled with the stress of confinement, compromise the animals' immune systems. To prevent large-scale losses due to disease and also to promote rapid growth, the animals are routinely fed low levels of antibiotics and growth hormones. Nearly 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to farm animals. The nearly constant exposure to low levels of antibiotics creates a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria to emerge. We've seen this with E. coli 0157:H7 and campylobacter. MRSA almost certainly owes its widespread existence to the unsafe factory-farming practice of adding antibiotics to animal feed.

You can read more about MRSA risk and about how the routine use of antibiotics in factory farms contributes to such diseases in Stephanie Woodard's column in Prevention available here.

The Bottom Line: The government cares more about protecting agribusiness profits than it does about protecting the health of consumers. Do your part to help prevent more outbreaks of new antibiotic-resistant supergerms. Write to your state and federal representatives and urge them to pass legislation banning the routine, non-therapeutic use of antibiotics on factory farms. Meanwhile, protect yourself and your family from such germs by refusing to purchase or consume any meat produced on factory farms. Better yet, go vegetarian and stop having to worry about poisoning yourself or a loved one.

Moral Vegetarianism, Part 9 of 13

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post.

The Argument from Animal Rights

A stronger argument is made by people who maintain that animals have rights. In particular, it has been argued that animals have a right to life. So, even if animals are killed painlessly and raised for food in humane ways, it is wrong to kill them. The question is, of course, whether animals do have a right to life.

The answer to this question turns on what is meant by having a right. The subject is a large and controversial one. On some very sophisticated analyses of rights it is at least debatable whether all animals have the right to live. For example, on Tooley’s analysis, having a right to life is the same as being a person. A necessary condition for being a person is having the capacity for desiring self-continuation, and for this it is necessary to have a concept of the self.

Now, although it is plausible that adult animals of some very intelligent species, e.g., dolphins and chimpanzees, have such a concept, it is not clear that adult animals of other species do and it is very likely that young infants of any species do not. It is also probable that very subnormal adult human beings do not. On this analysis of right, then, many animals and some human beings may well not have the right to life although most human beings and some animals do have such a right.

This would not necessarily mean that animals have no rights. Presumably most animals—even infants—would have the right not to suffer. As Tooley puts it, although “something that is incapable of possessing the concept of a self cannot desire that a self not suffer, it can desire that a given sensation not exist. The state desired—the absence of a particular sensation—can be described in purely phenomenalistic language and hence without the concept of a continuing self.” Given this view of rights, then, many animals probably have no right to life, but all of them have a right not to have pain inflicted on them. Consequently, the killing of some animals for food, if done painlessly, is not morally objectionable.

KBJ: Martin forgot about the human beings who lack a right to life, including infants. They, too, may be killed and eaten on the view under consideration, provided, of course, that they are killed painlessly. I say this not because I advocate such a thing, but to call the view into question. Any view or theory that has an unacceptable implication is unacceptable.

Some vegetarians have argued that it is impossible for one to maintain without absurdity that animals have a right not to suffer pain and yet have no right to life. For it is argued that since every animal will suffer at least once in its life, we have a duty to kill all animals painlessly to prevent this future suffering. To avoid this absurd consequence, it is said, we must admit that animals do have a right to life.

KBJ: I have never heard anyone make this argument. I have been reading animal-rights literature and discussing animal rights since the early 1980s.

I do not believe that this conclusion does follow, however. The absurd consequence would follow only if preventing animals from suffering was the only or at least the overriding factor to be considered. But this is surely dubious. After all, killing all animals would completely upset the ecological balance of nature; it would destroy some creatures of great aesthetic value; it would destroy certain food sources for future generations; and so on. Consequently, any future suffering that could be prevented by killing animals now would have to be weighed carefully against other factors. It is certainly not obvious that these other factors would not tip the scale and allow many animals to live. Thus, humane nonvegetarians may argue that it is enough to try to prevent suffering to living animals as best we can without killing them in advance to prevent their possible suffering.

Some philosophers have disagreed with Tooley’s analysis of person, and consequently with his analysis of right, and have given alternative analyses. But far from supporting moral vegetarianism, these alternative analyses seem to make moral vegetarianism even more difficult to support in terms of animal rights. S. I. Benn, in a critique of Tooley, has argued that a person is a moral agent, a being having “the conceptual capabilities of considering whether to insist or not on his rights, of manipulating, too, the ‘pulls’ it gives him on the actions of others, capable, in short of having projects and enterprises of his own.” According to Benn, only moral agents have rights. It is clear that few animals, if any, are moral agents in this sense. Consequently, on Benn’s analysis, few if any animals have rights of any sort. Benn argues, however, that just because a being does not have rights it does not mean that it is morally permissible to treat it cruelly. In fact, he maintains that some actions are seriously wrong for reaons [sic] other than that they violate rights. The question remains whether it is seriously wrong to kill animals for food. Clearly, given Benn’s analysis, in order to establish that it is wrong to eat animals for food, another sort of argument is needed, an argument that is not based on an appeal to animal rights. An argument of this type is in fact implicit in Benn’s position, and I will consider it presently.

KBJ: There are two types of rights: autonomy rights, which protect autonomy, and welfare rights, which protect interests. Only moral agents have autonomy rights. If no animals are moral agents, as seems plausible, then no animals have autonomy rights. But this says nothing about whether animals have welfare rights. Since (most) animals are sentient, (most) animals have at least one important interest, namely, the interest in not suffering. This interest can serve as the basis of a welfare right. There is, in short, no logical barrier to animals having rights.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

In “Betraying the Planet” (column, June 29), Paul Krugman asserts that those of us who oppose government regulation to deal with climate change are committing “treason against the planet.” I think Mr. Krugman is committing treason against reasoned debate.

One of the most compelling arguments against climate-change regulation is not that global warming isn’t occurring but, rather, that the dangers of further regulation far outweigh its likely benefits. Government regulation is inevitably a political animal; it’s never guided purely, or even largely, by disinterested science.

Is it treasonous to worry about the influence of interest groups on regulation? Is it treasonous to fear that centralizing more power in Washington will result in unforeseen negative consequences? Is it treasonous to believe that the threat to our well-being posed by further constraints upon markets is worse than the threat posed by higher temperatures?

Donald J. Boudreaux
Fairfax, Va., June 29, 2009
The writer is chairman of the economics department at George Mason University.

Seal

Here is a New York Times story about seal meat.

Statistics

There were 1,917 visits to this blog during June. That's an average of 63.9 visits per day.

Humor

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Thank you for Nicholas D. Kristof’s plea for food-policy reform (“Lettuce From the Garden, With Worms,” column, June 21). Though factory-style production worsens it, the root problem is animal use. Since using animals is cultural, not part of our biological nature or in any way necessary, animal use is by definition inhumane—unkind where we could as a society choose kind.

It is inhumane to humans as well, E. coli or not, since animal protein and animal fat in the diet significantly increase chronic-disease risk, and using animals is a huge environmental problem regardless of method.

So the solution is simple. But our colleges of agriculture and our state and federal governments prefer the problem to the solution, responding to years of reasoned requests for change with public relations exercises.

David Cantor
Founder and Director
Responsible Policies for Animals
Glenside, Pa., June 24, 2009

Commitment Contracts

One of my readers sent a link to this interesting blog post.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Greening the Herds: A New Diet to Cap Gas” (news article, June 5):

Your article about reducing methane emissions from dairy cows is welcome because of the attention it draws toward the substantial contribution that both beef and dairy cattle make to global warming.

In stating that the heat-trapping ability of methane is 20 times that of carbon dioxide, however, your report significantly understates the size of the problem. That figure is based on the impact of methane over the next century.

If, however, as many climate scientists believe, lowering our impact on climate change within the next 20 years is necessary to avoid passing a point of no return after which catastrophe may become unavoidable, then methane is 72 times as potent at trapping heat as carbon dioxide. (The difference is due to the fact that methane breaks down much more rapidly than carbon dioxide.)

Given this potency, an 18 percent reduction in methane emissions from cattle isn’t going to be anywhere near enough to turn dairying or beef production into sustainable industries. Reducing the size of the national cattle herd is the only feasible solution.

Peter Singer
Geoff Russell
Barry Brook
Melbourne, Australia, June 6, 2009
The writers are, respectively, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, an independent researcher in Adelaide, Australia, and professor of climate change at the University of Adelaide.

Moral Vegetarianism, Part 8 of 13

For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post.

The Argument from Actual Practice

Still, it may be objected that this is to overlook actual practice. In fact, animals used for food do suffer a great deal. Not only are they killed in cruel ways, but it is well documented that they are raised in ways that cause them great discomfort and agony. Consequently, one ought not to eat meat until actual practice is changed.

Now there is no doubt that the actual treatment of animals used for food is immoral, that animals are made to suffer needlessly. The question that must be raised, however, is how the conclusion not to eat meat follows from this. One argument is this: The present practice of treating animals used for food is immoral and should be changed. So, if one wants to change the present practice, the best means is to stop eating meat. One ought to adopt the best means. Consequently, one ought not to eat meat. This seems to be one of Singer’s basic arguments.

Becoming a vegetarian is not merely a symbolic gesture. . . . Becoming a vegetarian is the most practical and effective step one can take towards [sic; kbj] ending both the killing of non-human [sic; kbj] animals and the infliction of suffering upon them.

KBJ: Singer’s claim is that one should not contribute, even incrementally, to animal suffering. This includes refusing to support business firms that cause, or profit from, animal suffering. As he puts it, “Until we boycott meat we are, each one of us, contributing to the continued existence, prosperity, and growth of factory farming and all the other cruel practices used in rearing animals for food” (Animal Liberation, 167).

There is at least one premise in this argument that seems questionable, namely, that the best means to change this practice is to stop eating meat. First, it is dubious that becoming a vegetarian would have much effect on present practice. Unless vegetarians were a large movement it would have little appreciable effect on the economic market. Surely the idea suggested by Singer that if only one person becomes a vegetarian he or she can know that his or her actions will contribute to the reduction of the suffering of animals is absurd.

KBJ: This misrepresents Singer’s view, which I described above.

Second, even if it did have an economic impact, it is unclear whether this would cause a reduction in animal suffering. Knowing the irrationality of the market on the one hand and the cunning of meat producers on the other, one may well have doubts. Cattle might be overproduced because of government subsidies and new markets found for meat. Meat-packing companies might encourage, for example, an increased dog population to take up the slack.

In other contexts a similar phenomenon has occurred. It has been recently reported in the Boston Globe (Jane O’Reilly, “The Bottle and the 3rd World,” July 8, 1976, p. 26) that in order to compensate for a declining birth rate in the U.S., infant formula producers expanded their market to Third World countries, saturating some of these countries with mass advertising. This advertising created a need; it did not fill any need. It is certainly likely that a similar phenomenon would occur if vegan vegetarianism became a widespread movement in the U.S. causing a decline in U.S. milk production.

More important, it might be a much more efficient means of changing practice to stage protests at meat-packing companies, put pressure on congressmen, and work through existing humane organizations. One suspects that the SPCA and the American Humane Society have done more to stop cruelty to animals than vegetarians ever could. That these organizations have not gone far enough and that wide areas of animal cruelty still exist does not show that their methods are wrong. In any case, which various political strategies would be most efficient for achieving humane treatment of animals is an empirical question. Vegetarianism is not obviously the best strategy, and its worth would have to be shown.

KBJ: Martin acts as though each of us can do only one thing. Each of us can—and should—do many things. The simplest thing to do is to abstain from meat.

A different argument from actual practice can be made, however. It need not be claimed that refraining from eating meat is the best way to change the situation. It can be argued instead that by eating meat one is giving one’s tacit consent or approval to the present situation, that the only way to be true to one’s moral conviction that the present treatment of animals is inhumane is not to eat meat.

But is it true that by eating meat one is giving one’s tacit consent to the cruel treatment of animals? It is certainly not clear what one gives one’s tacit consent to in following a practice. If I visit Arlington Cemetery, do I give my tacit consent to the various wars that produced the graves? Certainly not. If I pay my taxes during the Vietnam war, does this mean I am tacitly supporting the war? It certainly is not clear that it does. What if I don’t eat meat? Do I tacitly approve of Hare Krishna? That is absurd. The argument from tacit consent becomes extremely implausible when one remembers that most of the greatest workers for the elimination of animal suffering down through history have been nonvegetarians. According to the present argument, these people would be inconsistent: they would be explicitly advocating elimination of cruelty and tacitly approving of it. Such a supposition seems ludicrous to me.

The trouble is, of course, that it is not clear what tacit approval is supposed to mean. One suggested analysis that may capture part of what might be meant is this: One tacitly approves of a practice or institution X by doing A if and only if doing A is instrumental in keeping X in existence. Consequently, to say that by eating meat one is tacitly approving of cruelty to animals is to say eating meat is instrumental in keeping the practice of cruelty in operation.

Interpreted in this way, however, the claim is either false or dubious or without force, depending on how one interprets “instrumental.” “Instrumental in keeping X in existence” could mean a necessary condition for keeping X in existence. But my eating meat is not such a necessary condition for cruelty to animals. It could mean a sufficient condition for keeping X in existence. My eating meat, however, is not a sufficient condition for cruelty to animals. A more plausible candidate is this: “Instrumental in keeping X in existence” could mean “being part of a sufficient condition for keeping X in existence.” I am not at all sure that my eating meat is a part of a sufficient condition that brings about cruelty to animals in operation, but suppose it is. The question arises: Why should such indirect causal influence have any moral import? The effect of my not eating meat on the way animals are treated would be virtually nil.

KBJ: I addressed this claim earlier. The argument, to repeat, is that one should not contribute, even incrementally, to animal suffering. This sort of argument is common, by the way. One should not support business firms that pollute, that use slave labor, that discriminate on the basis of race and sex, and so forth. It’s a matter of expending one’s resources in accordance with one’s values.

There is another reason that could be given for not eating meat in view of the present inhumane treatment of animals. It would be a way of protesting present practice, a way of saying, “I disagree strongly with the treatment of animals used for food.” Certainly, not eating meat could have this protest function. But so could lots of other things: wearing an animal rights button, picketing meat-packing houses, and so on. The important question seems to me to be: Which kind of protest will be most effective in educating people to the cruelties? It is certainly not obvious that not eating meat will have the greatest effect. Indeed, it seems to me that more effective protest techniques are available, for example, advertisements in the newspapers and protest marches.

KBJ: Once again, Martin is assuming that one can do only one thing. One can do many things.

Although it might be argued that there is something of an inconsistency in persisting in eating meat while maintaining that animals are being treated cruelly in producing meat, it is hard to see why this is so. It does not seem to be true in general that one is inconsistent if one uses a product that is produced by some process that one believes violates one’s moral principles. Am I inconsistent if I drink fluoridated water rather than buy pure water when I believe that the government has no right to fluoridate water? Am I inconsistent if I am opposed to exploitation and buy an automobile from a company that I believe produces cars by exploiting labor? (If I were, then there would be an inconsistency in a Marxist living in a capitalistic society or buying anything produced by that society.) The answer seems to be: not necessarily. It is not obvious why the case of eating meat is different. We do well to remember that an inconsistency between an agent’s moral principles and his practices can only be shown via the agent’s other beliefs concerning the practice. Consequently, a moral principle and what might seem like an inconsistent practice can be consistent given other appropriate beliefs.

In sum, then, not eating meat may well be used as a protest against cruelty to animals. But there is certainly no moral duty to protest in this way even if one thinks animals are being treated cruelly, and indeed, such a protest may not be the best means available. So it would seem that the argument from actual practice is not strong enough to justify not eating meat.

KBJ: The “argument from actual practice,” properly understood, is plenty strong enough to justify not eating meat.

Canned Meat

Here is proof (in case you needed it) that human beings will eat almost anything.

Antibiotics

Here is information about the use of antibiotics on "industrial farms."

Statistics

This blog had 2,758 visits during May, which is an average of 88.9 visits per day.

Sonia Sotomayor on Empathy

For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir—rice, beans and pork—that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events. My Latina identity also includes, because of my particularly adventurous taste buds, morcilla, [sic]—pig intestines, patitas de cerdo con garbanzo—pigs' feet with beans, and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito, pigs' tongue and ears. I bet the Mexican-Americans in this room are thinking that Puerto Ricans have unusual food tastes. Some of us, like me, do. Part of my Latina identity is the sound of merengue at all our family parties and the heart wrenching Spanish love songs that we enjoy. It is the memory of Saturday afternoon at the movies with my aunt and cousins watching Cantinflas, who is not Puerto Rican, but who was an icon Spanish comedian on par with Abbot [sic] and Costello of my generation. My Latina soul was nourished as I visited and played at my grandmother's house with my cousins and extended family. They were my friends as I grew up. Being a Latina child was watching the adults playing dominos on Saturday night and us kids playing lotería, bingo, with my grandmother calling out the numbers which we marked on our cards with chick peas.

(Sonia Sotomayor, "A Latina Judge's Voice," Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 13 [2002]: 87-93, at 88)

Note from KBJ: Does Judge Sotomayor have empathy for animals? Apparently not. Does she have empathy for fetuses? Does she have empathy for white males? What good is empathy if it's selective?