http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190206-what-the-meat-paradox-reveals-about-moral-decision-making
This article brings up what I find a very interesting and pressing question: How can the average human, as an omnivorous eater, be ethical in their consumption of meat, despite the disorder and neglect that is ever present in the meat packing industry? This problem is presented in this article as the "meat paradox."
From an early age we are taught to eat food without giving it a second thought about where it comes from. In today's world where all information is at our fingertips, we are provided with information contradicting what we grew up knowing. We were raised being taught that just because generations of people have raised and killed animals for consumption, it's not necessarily "okay" to do this. There are many reasons behind this logic; some argue that not using every part of animal mitigates the humanity and usefulness of raising and killing them, while others fight against the conditions in which the animals are brought up, deeming them to be unethical.
We then contemplate: is it ethical to birth and rear animals, just to kill them solely for consumption? If so, does the living environment they inhabit matter in the meat that we receive? All of these things are questions that are circling in the world today and impacting what we eat, and are starting to take a regulative hold in the food industry. There is still overconsumption of meat however, and therefore excess work in the meat packing industry. Since there is an extreme demand for meat, the care of the animals has drastically declined in order for quantity over quality to be in affect. We try to justify the consumption of meat by saying that if we buy organic or free range meat then it's not so bad, but how much do those actions really improve things without set regulations? The same products are still going to be pushed onto the shelves, and will still be consumed en masse. Therefore, I do not believe that we have an obligation as an individual to go hunt for our dinner in the woods, or even buy free range meat; I think that the obligation lies on the regulatory industry as a whole, to correct the issues that are obviously unethical regarding the behaviors of meat production plants. That being said, modern technologies are very close to being able to reproduce synthetic meat from organic material. While it is obviously not guaranteed, I can only hope that this issue, come 15 years, will be nothing above obsolete.
1. Does the population’s overall level of consumption of
processed meats justify the mass production methods used in the industry?
2. If we have the opportunity to purchase meats that claim
to treat their animals better, is it realistic to consider icing out the other
producers, so the only option left is to purchase the ethically produced meat?
3. What kind of laws do you think would allow for stricter
requirements of raising animals for meat production? Why aren’t these laws already
in affect?
4. How is a disconnect created between animals that are for
show (pets) and animals that are raised for consumption?
5. Do you think that packaging companies using phrases like “free range” and “grass fed” is effective at persuading customers specifically that they treat their animals better?
5. Do you think that packaging companies using phrases like “free range” and “grass fed” is effective at persuading customers specifically that they treat their animals better?
6. If we don't put every part of an animal to use, is it still
worth raising and killing the animals if they go to waste?
"Dr. Oliver had mentioned at the beginning of the semester keeping the discussions of the bioethics of animals to a minimum"
ReplyDeleteI hope I didn't say that. As a dog-lover and the son of a veterinarian I definitely do NOT want to exclude our furry friends!
Or the unfurry ones, either.
DeleteAgain, I refer y'all to Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma"... he confronts the ethics of carnivory head-on, and concludes that it is possible to be an ethical meat-eater - but not a mindless and uninformed one. See his discussion, in particular, of Polyface Farm. His "An Animal's Place" condenses the argument and begins deliciously:
ReplyDeleteThe first time I opened Peter Singer's ''Animal Liberation,'' I was dining alone at the Palm, trying to enjoy a rib-eye steak cooked medium-rare. If this sounds like a good recipe for cognitive dissonance (if not indigestion), that was sort of the idea. Preposterous as it might seem, to supporters of animal rights, what I was doing was tantamount to reading ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' on a plantation in the Deep South in 1852.
Singer and the swelling ranks of his followers ask us to imagine a future in which people will look back on my meal, and this steakhouse, as relics of an equally backward age. Eating animals, wearing animals, experimenting on animals, killing animals for sport: all these practices, so resolutely normal to us, will be seen as the barbarities they are, and we will come to view ''speciesism'' -- a neologism I had encountered before only in jokes -- as a form of discrimination as indefensible as racism or anti-Semitism.
Even in 1975, when ''Animal Liberation'' was first published, Singer, an Australian philosopher now teaching at Princeton, was confident that he had the wind of history at his back. The recent civil rights past was prologue, as one liberation movement followed on the heels of another. Slowly but surely, the white man's circle of moral consideration was expanded to admit first blacks, then women, then homosexuals. In each case, a group once thought to be so different from the prevailing ''we'' as to be undeserving of civil rights was, after a struggle, admitted to the club. Now it was animals' turn.
That animal liberation is the logical next step in the forward march of moral progress is no longer the fringe idea it was back in 1975. A growing and increasingly influential movement of philosophers, ethicists, law professors and activists are convinced that the great moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals.
So far the movement has scored some of its biggest victories in Europe. Earlier this year, Germany became the first nation to grant animals a constitutional right: the words ''and animals'' were added to a provision obliging the state to respect and protect the dignity of human beings. The farming of animals for fur was recently banned in England. In several European nations, sows may no longer be confined to crates nor laying hens to ''battery cages'' -- stacked wired cages so small the birds cannot stretch their wings. The Swiss are amending their laws to change the status of animals from ''things'' to ''beings.''
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/magazine/an-animal-s-place.html
I would say the best way to change the meat industry is to be informed and speak with your wallet. Companies exist to make money and typically use whatever is the path of least resistance for their industry. If we do our research, make our purchases wisely, and convince others to do the same, the meat industry will change. As for synthetic meats, I'm not really comfortable with the idea that some scientist or machine created my New York strip. Of course, we could argue that some of the hamburgers in fast food joints might have been made in an undisclosed lab, but that's beside the point.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's just a fun video for how we got here.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
I agree with Nathan, allow your wallet to speak on the behalf of your ethics, support meat companies that treat their animals ethically. I personally have reduced my consumption of milk after I learned that a cow does not naturally produce milk year round :(
ReplyDelete