Factory Farming A Tension in our Ordinary Attitudes • •
People think that Vick is a bad person because he treats his dogs badly, but factory farming isn't as frowned upon Ex) Fred and Cocoamone Factory 1 Fred is a chocolate lover, has no more cocoamone 2 Learns that puppies have lots of cocoamone 3 Buys a new puppy every week and puts it in a cage 1 Hurts the puppy in a new way 4 Gets cocoamone The Argument from Humane Institutions
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P1. If cocoamone farming is wrong, then factory farming is wrong. P2. Cocoamone farming is wrong. C. Factory farming is wrong. 1 Argument is valid 2 Is it sound? 1 Option 1. Reject P1: There is a morally relevant difference between cocoamone farming and factory farming. 1 Deliberate harm vs. harm X 2 Food vs. not (1) 3 Desire for chocolate vs desire for meat X 4 Profit? (2) 2 Option 2. Reject P2: Animal suffering doesn't matter (much). 3 Option 3. Accept C: Factory farming is wrong. The Argument from Marginal Cases
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Ex) SRHA Farming 1 The Argument from "Marginal" Cases 2 P1. If SRHA farming is wrong, then FF is wrong. 3 P2. SRHA is wrong. 4 FF is wrong. 1 Valid? Yes. 2 Sound? 1 Option 1: Reject P1 2 Option 2: Reject P2 3 Nonrational suffering doesn't matter (much). 4 Option 3: Accept Conclusion. Five Bad Responses
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Comparing suffering across species is impossible. 1 No good reason to think that Factory farming is wrong. 2 We can make rough ballpark comparisons 3 Ex) Case 1 Cut cat
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4 Case 2 Poke you 5 Clearly the first is worse and we can make comparisons 6 Thus, this is not a good response "What I do won't make a perceptible difference." 1 My eating habits won't make a difference, thus what I'm doing isn't wrong. 2 Ex) 100 Bandits and 100 Villagers 1 Each villager has 100 beans 2 Each bandit takes 100 beans from each person 3 Villagers tell bandits that this is wrong 4 In the end, bandit takes one bean from each villager 5 each villager has 99 beans 6 Has bandit done anything wrong? 7 Cycle continues 8 Each bandit has one bean 9 Takes all beans from villagers 10 Did they do anything wrong? "You need meat in order to be healthy." 1 Implausible. 1 People are in india who haven't eaten meat for hundreds of years and they're fine. 2 Chicken nuggets are not healthy. 3 It's hard for someone who is middle class to not get "enough" of something. 2 Not sufficient reason. 1 Ex) The only source of meat nearby is in a baby orphanage next door. 1 Is it more permissible to grille babies? 2 Health isn't enough to justify it. "Our ancestors ate meat, so it's okay for us to eat meat." 1 Several thousand years ago, no one had teeth. Other teeth grow in so we can still chew stuff. Is it wrong to have teeth? "Well, animals eat other animals." 1 It's okay to eat humans because animals eat other animals. 2 It's okay to have sex with animals because animals have sex with other animals.