-
8. Pragmatism and the Production of Livestock
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
8 Pragmatism and the Production of Livestock Erin McKenna Do nonhuman animals have moral standing? Do nonhuman animals have interests that we must consider when making decisions about how to act in the world? Do we have moral obligations to, or responsibilities for, nonhuman animals? These are some of the more abstract philosophical questions that stand behind such questions as, Are we justi¤ed in liquefying the eyes of rabbits so we can feel safe using toxic chemicals to clean our homes and beautify our bodies? Should we use our closest living relative, chimpanzees, who share 98.76 percent of our genetic structure, to test nasal sprays and hepatitis vaccines, or to do research on HIV? Is it OK to raise animals in intensive factory farm conditions so that humans can have a ready and inexpensive supply of meat? Humanity has been debating questions about its use of nonhumans throughout the ages. For example, vegetarianism is nothing new. Ancient scholars argued for various forms of vegetarianism on religious and philosophical grounds. The Bible gives humans plants and fruits to eat ¤rst and then animals only after the Fall; religions whose doctrines include belief in the transmigration of souls forbade the consumption of meat because it might lead to eating a friend or relative.Health reasons have been cited from the beginning as well—eating meat was seen to slow the body and the mind. Eating that caused the suffering of another was also seen to harm character; further,the slaughtering of nonhuman animals was thought to harden us to pain and suffering, thereby leading to bad character and bad habits with regard to our treatment of all other living things, including humans. Injuring character is an argument that has been used against using animals (human and nonhuman) in experimentation and testing as well. In addition, many have questioned how productive or helpful such testing is. While we share a great deal in common with our animal cousins, toxic reactions and medical protocols often differ between, and even within, species. Nonetheless , experimentation continues and the mass production of animal ®esh is a huge industry. I believe that practices of use and consumption are the result of humans’ sense of place in the world. Humans have a history of separating ourselves into groups and believing that one group is better than another. Racism, classism, nationalism, and sexism are all examples of this tendency, of which, as others have argued, speciesism is another and often overlooked manifestation. There is a high cost to speciesism, however, and we cannot continue to ignore it. Speciesism endangers our health and well-being in many ways. We believe we are justi¤ed in raising and slaughtering billions of animals to eat them as food. This diet contributes to heart disease and cancer, and it depletes water and topsoil while making the land toxic. We believe we are justi¤ed in running toxicity tests on millions of animals, but ¤nd that human reactions do not always match the reaction of our nonhuman counterparts. We believe we are justi ¤ed in using countless animals, from rats to chimpanzees, in medical experiments , though many of these experiments provide misleading—and even fatally misleading—results. We need to realize that our disregard for the well-being of others puts ourselves at risk. Such inattentiveness directly affects our health and our outlook on and treatment of the environment on which nonhuman and human animals alike depend . It also endangers us indirectly, leading to habits of objectifying and using other living beings as disposable objects.1 By ignoring our own connectedness to other living beings, and thus failing to understand our interdependence, we risk destroying ourselves and other life. Yet when we do acknowledge this connectedness we usually combine it with objecti¤cation and subjugation, and so fall back into the same habits that endanger all life on this planet. We must expand our understanding of community to include nonhuman animals in our social and moral universe. I will use the philosophy of William James and of John Dewey to argue for just such an expansion. Some Philosophical Perspectives on Nonhuman Animals I will brie®y present some basic information about human animals’ use of nonhuman animals for food, examining these practices primarily from a pragmatist point of view. A quick overview of some more standard approaches to such issues will help to explain what makes a pragmatist approach different and perhaps useful. The ¤rst two standard positions—deontological and utilitarian theories— are...