Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary L. Francione & Anna Charlton

Author:Gary L. Francione & Anna Charlton [Francione, Gary L. & Charlton, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Abolitionism
Amazon: B00DLTN43C
Publisher: Exempla Press
Published: 2013-06-23T21:00:00+00:00

But… Aren’t there laws that require the “humane” treatment of animals?

Yes, there are laws that supposedly require that we treat animals “humanely” and that we not inflict “unnecessary” suffering on them. They exist in every state in the United States; they exist at the federal level; and just about every country in the world has some law requiring “humane” treatment.

Despite any differences, all of these laws share one feature in common: they are useless.

First, these laws do not prohibit uses that are unnecessary; they supposedly prohibit only treatment that is not necessary to achieve a given use. We have seen that eating animals and animal products is not necessary for human health. Therefore, all of the suffering incidental to using animals as food is unnecessary! It all runs afoul of what we claim to embrace as an uncontroversial moral principle: that animals matter morally and that we need some justification for imposing suffering and death on them — and that the pleasure of taste can’t suffice as a justification for consuming animal products just as the pleasure of watching dogs fight can’t justify what Michael Vick did.

So if we think that the existence of laws requiring “humane” treatment is even relevant, we have misunderstood the issue. Even if these laws were effective, which, as we will explain below, they are not, there would still be a great deal of animal suffering under the very best scenario. And a situation of less unnecessary suffering is still in conflict with the notion that we claim to accept that we can only justify necessary suffering. And necessary suffering requires some conflict, some compulsion. Our palate pleasure fails on that score just as Vick’s amusement at watching dogfights failed.

This point cannot be emphasized enough because so many people, when confronted with the argument that we cannot justify eating animals or animal products, react almost spontaneously with this “But.” What they fail to see is that the moment we start talking about a law that prohibits imposing “unnecessary” suffering in the context of an activity that is itself not necessary, we are talking nonsense. A rule prohibiting “unnecessary” suffering or requiring “humane” treatment in the context of dogfighting would make no sense because all of the suffering incidental to dogfighting is unnecessary. So to talk about the “humane” treatment of animals we eat or use to produce meat, dairy, eggs, or other animal products is to talk about reducing suffering, but where none of the suffering is necessary, such an approach entirely misses the point!

Let’s consider an example from the human context. Assume you have a rule that prohibits the “unnecessary” suffering of rape victims and requires their “humane” treatment. Now if person X decides he is going to rape person Y, it is always better if he harms Y less than more. It is better if X does not beat Y in addition to committing the rape. But if someone proposed a law that prohibited the infliction of “unnecessary” suffering on rape victims and

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