Beef cattle on the range
I did a search on "factory farming", and the top ranked site was www.factoryfarming.com--surprise, surprise! They cover factory farming processes for many different animals, but I here focus on beef, because that's my favourite meat:
That already sounds pretty bleeding-heart. If they are born and live on the range, then how is this different from their being out in the wild, where there are no veterinarians either?
I don't think that that objection is unanswerable. I presume that Singer would argue that if they are the property of humans, then humans have a duty of care towards them that they would not have if they were in the wild.
Still rather hard to contrast. A head of cattle will have absolutely no expectation one way or the other of having cancer eye itself, let alone veterinary treatment for it. If you were a human, then you would have an expectation of medical treatment if you were in someone's custody, and your preference would be frustrated if you were denied this care. It makes no sense to say that an animal's preference for medical care is getting frustrated for denying it treatment for cancer eye, as yucky a condition as that otherwise is.
Ah, but what Singer will argue is that on the one hand, you have the interests of the ranchers, who want to save money on veterinarians. On the other hand, you have the cows, who have a preference not to undergo the pain and suffering of cancer. What Singer will say is, isn't the animals' interests of avoiding pain and suffering more important than the inconvenience of the ranchers of avoiding veterinary care for them?
One of the things that I notice about these arguments from utilitarianism is that they are all based on subjective experience. This is significant when it comes to the interests of the cattle, because their subjective experience does not include the detailed knowledge of the world that ours does. Singer is arguing that from a cow's subjective experience, we must consider its interests in avoiding pain and suffering. Yet from a cow's subjective experience, it also has absolutely no expectation of help from a human being who is going to come out and give it medicine to make it better. See, when Singer says that we are to think ethically, he actually has in mind that we step outside ourselves and place ourselves into the points of view of other people (or animals)1. However, there seem to be serious difficulties with this at the outset, at least for the kinds of conclusions that Singer wants to draw from this basic approach. For if we put ourselves into the point of view of a cow, we have no expectations of anything better than what we actually receive. We simply don't know any better. So if we're hanging around out on the range, and we suddenly get cancer eye, then we're hardly going to be in anguish about our lack of veterinary care, as a human being undoubtedly would be in anguish about her lack of medical care, in that situation. And if the cow doesn't have any expectation of getting the care that might fix its condition, then how does this impinge upon us to actually provide it?
Well, for example, look at Singer's argument on that TMP site we looked at this morning. Jonathan Glover raised a similar objection to Singer as a preference utilitarian, that "people's preferences are not necessarily what's best for them or even what they would consider would be best for them if they were in full knowledge of the facts. The example he gave was of the rights of women in rural India who, if you asked them, wouldn't think about a change in the status quo, but presumably from any objective viewpoint they would be much better off in their society if there were more respect for women's rights." Singer said, "'Well I think we should be talking about the preferences that people would have if they were well informed and choosing calmly. [...] [W]omen in India, may, if they are informed about various possible ways in which people live, have somewhat different preferences. So they at least need to be exposed to the options in order to have informed preferences about them." It seems to me that Singer can consistently claim that if the cow knew about such things as veterinarians, then she would most definitely have a preference for that treatment. This hypothetical preference should be respected. I know that an obvious difference in the case of the cow is that you cannot just go out and inform a cow of the alternatives to her way of life the way you can to a woman in Bangladesh. But the point is that in Singer's ethics, you are making a very enlightened and informed decision based on the point of view of each of the sentient beings affected by your actions, considered equally.
Still sounds rather bleeding heart--if the cow doesn't know any better, then who cares?! I think we've identified a difficulty in Singer's basic moral reasoning that we can further explore--in another section!
1Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, Second Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p.13.
Many beef cattle are born and live on the range, foraging and fending for themselves for months or even years. They are not adequately protected against inclement weather, and they may die of dehydration or freeze to death. Injured, ill, or otherwise ailing animals do not receive necessary veterinary attention. One common malady afflicting beef cattle is called "cancer eye." Left untreated, the cancer eats away at the animal's eye and face, eventually producing a crater in the side of the animal's head.
That already sounds pretty bleeding-heart. If they are born and live on the range, then how is this different from their being out in the wild, where there are no veterinarians either?
I don't think that that objection is unanswerable. I presume that Singer would argue that if they are the property of humans, then humans have a duty of care towards them that they would not have if they were in the wild.
Still rather hard to contrast. A head of cattle will have absolutely no expectation one way or the other of having cancer eye itself, let alone veterinary treatment for it. If you were a human, then you would have an expectation of medical treatment if you were in someone's custody, and your preference would be frustrated if you were denied this care. It makes no sense to say that an animal's preference for medical care is getting frustrated for denying it treatment for cancer eye, as yucky a condition as that otherwise is.
Ah, but what Singer will argue is that on the one hand, you have the interests of the ranchers, who want to save money on veterinarians. On the other hand, you have the cows, who have a preference not to undergo the pain and suffering of cancer. What Singer will say is, isn't the animals' interests of avoiding pain and suffering more important than the inconvenience of the ranchers of avoiding veterinary care for them?
One of the things that I notice about these arguments from utilitarianism is that they are all based on subjective experience. This is significant when it comes to the interests of the cattle, because their subjective experience does not include the detailed knowledge of the world that ours does. Singer is arguing that from a cow's subjective experience, we must consider its interests in avoiding pain and suffering. Yet from a cow's subjective experience, it also has absolutely no expectation of help from a human being who is going to come out and give it medicine to make it better. See, when Singer says that we are to think ethically, he actually has in mind that we step outside ourselves and place ourselves into the points of view of other people (or animals)1. However, there seem to be serious difficulties with this at the outset, at least for the kinds of conclusions that Singer wants to draw from this basic approach. For if we put ourselves into the point of view of a cow, we have no expectations of anything better than what we actually receive. We simply don't know any better. So if we're hanging around out on the range, and we suddenly get cancer eye, then we're hardly going to be in anguish about our lack of veterinary care, as a human being undoubtedly would be in anguish about her lack of medical care, in that situation. And if the cow doesn't have any expectation of getting the care that might fix its condition, then how does this impinge upon us to actually provide it?
Well, for example, look at Singer's argument on that TMP site we looked at this morning. Jonathan Glover raised a similar objection to Singer as a preference utilitarian, that "people's preferences are not necessarily what's best for them or even what they would consider would be best for them if they were in full knowledge of the facts. The example he gave was of the rights of women in rural India who, if you asked them, wouldn't think about a change in the status quo, but presumably from any objective viewpoint they would be much better off in their society if there were more respect for women's rights." Singer said, "'Well I think we should be talking about the preferences that people would have if they were well informed and choosing calmly. [...] [W]omen in India, may, if they are informed about various possible ways in which people live, have somewhat different preferences. So they at least need to be exposed to the options in order to have informed preferences about them." It seems to me that Singer can consistently claim that if the cow knew about such things as veterinarians, then she would most definitely have a preference for that treatment. This hypothetical preference should be respected. I know that an obvious difference in the case of the cow is that you cannot just go out and inform a cow of the alternatives to her way of life the way you can to a woman in Bangladesh. But the point is that in Singer's ethics, you are making a very enlightened and informed decision based on the point of view of each of the sentient beings affected by your actions, considered equally.
Still sounds rather bleeding heart--if the cow doesn't know any better, then who cares?! I think we've identified a difficulty in Singer's basic moral reasoning that we can further explore--in another section!
Notes
1Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, Second Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p.13.
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