AnalPhilosopher

1. We eat cows. What is the real difference in this instance?
2. Horses have no natural predators left in any real numbers to keep their numbers down, so man must do this. Is this a bad thing?
3. Inhumane practices, when they do occur, should be stopped. Killing is and of itself not necessarily evil. Animals do not die of old age in the wild. They get old. They get slow. A predator kills and eats them. Most herbivores do not die a "nice" death no matter how you cut it. That is their purpose in the grand scheme of things: to run or be eaten.
Keep it going. Just work better to reduce the pre-killing suffering.

Yes, they should end horse slaughtering.
Just because someone in another culture wants to eat a cat doesn't mean we should take our unwanted cats to a cat slaughterhouse!!

Child prostitution is allowed (or exists) in other cultures, so should we sell orphans to Asia?

Killing horses is wrong and the methods are cruel, and we should end animal suffering now!

And by the way the whole "natural predators" argument is pretty lame and unfounded, especially in rural areas. Here's a natural predator to horses: HUMANS!

OK, I'll play.

The first point I would like to make is that I do not approve of many animal farming practices (for reasons to numerous to go into here). I am in agreement with most of the points that Mylan Engel thoroughly makes on this subject, which is the bulk of his reply. The system definitely needs to be improved for all animals. But because I think the system is presently bad, does not mean I think we should be rid of it. It should be improved.

However, on the point of animal rights and the need for predators, I must disagree.

Animals only have rights because we humans give it to them. Have you ever heard or seen of a negotiated settlement between an antelope and a grizzly? An animal cannot enter into an agreement with a human or any other animal for that matter. Ask a lawyer if animals have the right of consent. Animals cannot enter into treaties or negoitiate a deal. For a human to do so on their behalf still does not make them moral agents. I want reciprocity. If an animal has no moral obligation to me, I have no moral obligation to it. I feel that way about people. I will treat you the way you treat me. I may/do have legally imposed moral obligations, however. If I choose to minimize an animals suffering (and I do), it is because it makes me feel good about myself (for various reasons), not because I owe the animal anything. Just because an animal feels some pain does not make a hunter or slaughterhouse employee a Dr. Mengele. Living, alone, will cause pain at some point and time. Most livestock processors will try to minimize it.

KBJ, are animals considered property by the legal system?

The second point I wish to make concerns animal population control. Spaying and neutering are too expensive to work on wide scale. Baits are too inconsistent and when tried have been found wanting and cause collateral damage. Sorry, but predation is the best way to precisely control herbivores. Man is the best predator for the job. We will not have lions, bears and wolves running lose in proximity to where people (and their farm animals)live. I view horses, sheep, deer, fish, and cows as one and the same: equals on the food list. That most Americans do not, is because of socialization in our culture. I can live with it. Mylan Engel is correct that we could stop breeding so many, but when has common sense ever directed human behavior? In most of the world people are treated as disposable commodities. Is it any suprise that animals would be too?

I have a friend who is a strict vegan. I have no problem with vegetarianism. As I get older I eat less meat and more vegetables all the time (seems to agree with me). But vegetarians need to realize that I and most people do not look at animals as little furry people. We look at them unsentimentally as nutrients on the move.

If we eat cows, I do not see why horses are to be treated different.

Kevin writes: "The system definitely needs to be improved for all animals. But because I think the system is presently bad, does not mean I think we should be rid of it. It should be improved."

Unfortunately, the system will not be improved as long as people support the status quo with their purchases. As long as people turn a blind eye to the harsh realities of factory farming and continue to purchase the flesh of animals raised in factory farms, factory farms will remain the main source of our supply of animal products. The only effective way to bring about change in the way our food is produced is to boycott those industries that raise animals inappropriately. The only thing that will make factory farmers stop raising animal in inhumane confinement systems is the pinch of the wallet. Ethical vegetarians and vegans are boycotting factory farms. They refuse to support institutionalized cruelty with their purchases. If one is sincerely opposed to treating animals inhumanely and thinks that it's wrong to treat animals cruelly for no good reason (as Kevin apparently does), one should not pay someone else to treat animals cruelly. Refuse to be a part of the problem. Boycott the industry and be part of the solution.

Kevin writes: "However, on the point of animal rights and the need for predators, I must disagree."

For starters, if you go back and look at my original comment, you will not find the phrase "animal rights" appearing anywhere. The question is not a question of "animal rights." It is a question of "right and wrong conduct." I based my entire argument on the claim that it is morally wrong to cause an animal to suffer for no good reason. Virtually everyone accepts this claim. Virtually everyone also accepts the claim that cruelty [the unnecessary infliction of suffering on a being that does not deserve it] is wrong. These aren't controversial principles. Any moral theory that entailed that cruelty was a good thing and that there should be more of it would immediately be dismissed as a nonstarter. That entailment [that cruelty is good and ought to be encouraged] would be regarded as a reduction ad absurdum of the moral theory in question.

In their original comments, both Kevin and James maintained that killing the horses was o.k., but agreed that we should not cause the horses to suffer. Why should we limit the pre-killing suffering and pre-killing cruelty? They don't say, but presumably because they, like virtually everyone else, agree with the above two principles, i.e. Principle 1 — that it is wrong to cause an animal to suffer for no good reason; and Principle 2 — that cruelty [as defined above] is wrong.

Starting with these two uncontroversial principles I went on to argue that causing horses to suffer for no good reason is morally wrong. This follows directly from Principle 1. I then argued that since people [including the people of Belgium and France] can easily meet all of their nutritional requirements without eating horse flesh there is no good reason to subject horses to all of the pain, suffering, and torment inherent in their inhumane transport and slaughter. What about taste? Is taste a good reason to subject horses to pain, suffering, torment, and untimely death? Not if one can enjoy other foods (that don't require horse suffering) just as much or even nearly as much. If I enjoy 9 gustatory pleasure units from eating spaghetti with a zesty marinara sauce and 10 gustatory pleasure units from eating spaghetti with a tomato and horse meat sauce, surely that one extra pleasure unit isn't a good reason to cause an animal such horrific suffering. Notice, at no point in the argument is there any mention of animal rights. It doesn't matter whether the being in question is an animal or a human. It doesn't matter whether the being in question has rights. All that matters is whether the being in question is capable of suffering. If a being is capable of suffering, we shouldn't cause it to suffer for no good reason. That's what the two principles above entail.

I suspect that most people reading this blog accept Principle 1 and Principle 2. In all the years that I have been teaching philosophy and lecturing on the subject, I have never met any student (or any person attending one of my lectures) who argued that it was morally permissible to cause animals to suffer for no good reason. Nor have I ever met anyone who maintained that cruelty [the unnecessary infliction of suffering on a being that does not deserve it] is morally permissible. So, as I said, I suspect that most readers of this blog are committed to Principle 1 and Principle 2. But people frequently fail to realize all of the entailments of the principles to which they are committed, often through no fault of their own. Up until about 35 or 40 years ago, most people thought that a diet devoid of meat was nutritionally inferior to a diet that contained meat — most people thought that you could not meet all of your nutritional needs without eating meat. If people think that their very survival depends on eating meat, then they will quite naturally think that that [their survival] is a sufficiently good reason to allow an animal to suffer. The problem is that we now know that no one needs to eat meat to survive or to be optimally healthy. In fact, most health experts candidly admit that plant-based [vegan] diets are among the most heart-healthy, cancer preventative diets that one can consume. [Don't take my word for it, check out the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada's Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets here:

Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets

Here is an excerpt from the Abstract of the ADA's Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets:
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. . . . This position paper reviews the current scientific data related to key nutrients for vegetarians, including protein, iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B-12, vitamin A, n-3 fatty acids, and iodine. A vegetarian, including vegan, diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, use of fortified foods or supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients. Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."
The entire abstract and the entire position paper can be found at the above link, as can full citation information.]

Since we can meet all of our nutritional needs with a plant-based diet entirely devoid of meat and that doing so greatly reduces our risk of the degenerative diseases that kill most Americans prematurely, we now know that there is no good reason to eat meat. People eat meat because they like the taste, and for no other reason. That hardly seems a good reason to subject animals to all the pain, suffering, and frustration inherent in factory farming, and the pain, suffering, and fear inherent in inhumane handling, transportation and slaughter. With just a little bit of culinary ingenuity, even the most unskilled of cooks (like myself) can cook up very tasty vegetarian dishes. If you try one and don't like it, don't think that reflects poorly on all vegetarian dishes. Try a different dish. In a very short time frame you will find lots of vegetarian dishes that you like just as much (or at least nearly as much) as some of your favorite meat-based dishes. Since, with minimal effort, you can get the pleasures of tasty meals without eating meat, not even "I like the taste" is a good reason to cause animals to suffer.

The upshot: Given what we now know from nutrition science, there is no good reason to cause animals to suffer in factory farms, because there is no good reason to eat them. Consequently, anyone committed to Principle 1 and Principle 2 above is also committed to the wrongness of causing animals to suffer in factory farms. Most people today think that it is wrong to cause an animal to suffer for fur coats because no one needs a fur coat to be warm or stylish. To cause an animal to suffer in a leg-hold trap or to suffer from animal electrocution so as to become a fur coat is wrong because it is causing these animal to suffer unnecessarily and that just is cruelty. We now know that no one needs to eat meat (people no more need to eat meat than they need to wear fur coats). Consequently, Since we don't need to eat meat to survive or be optimally healthy or even to enjoy tasty meals, all of the suffering that animals experience in factory farms is unnecessary and cruel, and therefore wrong. [One needn't appeal to "animal rights" to make the case for ethical vegetarianism. My argument makes no such appeal.]

Kevin writes: "But vegetarians need to realize that I and most people do not look at animals as little furry people. We look at them unsentimentally as nutrients on the move."

If that were true, then Kevin wouldn't have been bothered by the suffering caused to the horses in the first place. But, like most people, he was bothered by the suffering. [That's empathy and compassion at work — two of the principal moral virtues.] Animals may not be "little furry people" [I certainly never claimed that they were.], but they certainly are more that mere "nutrients on the move." They are sentient beings capable of feeling pleasure, pain, joy, fear, frustration, and suffering. It is precisely because they can experience pain and suffering that we naturally think that they should be treated humanely and that they should not be caused to suffer (just for the sake of a fur coat or a horse burger).

Kevin writes: "The second point I wish to make concerns animal population control. Spaying and neutering are too expensive to work on wide scale. Baits are too inconsistent and when tried have been found wanting and cause collateral damage. Sorry, but predation is the best way to precisely control herbivores."

Virtually all of the 100,000 to 300,000 horses that are slaughtered in the three horse-slaughtering facilities in the U.S. are pleasure horses whose owner no longer wish to take care of them. The rest come from industries like the pharmaceutical industry that keep pregnant horses permanently confined and constantly dehydrated so as to collect their concentrated urine which is then used to make Premarin, a drug used to treat menopausal symptoms in women. [That's right, the principal ingredient in Premarin, ladies, is concentrated horse urine. That's enough to cause a hot flash right there!] However, we are not slaughtering wild horses. In fact, it is illegal to slaughter wild horses and wild burros in the U.S. They are protected by The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act that was passed in 1971. For what it is worth, according to the Bureau of Land Management's September 2000 report there were only 43,629 wild horses and 4,995 burros in total in the Western United States [Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming]. Having 48,629 horses and burros spread throughout ten states is not exactly a large number of equine animals. Even so, the Bureau of Land Management does use sterility drugs to keep the number of horses at a sustainable level.

Kevin writes: "If we eat cows, I do not see why horses are to be treated different."

The fact that we mistreat one species does not make it right to mistreat another species. This is truly a case of "Two wrongs don't make a right." What we do to cows and pigs and chickens in factory farms is wrong [for reasons already spelled out above]. The fact that we wrongly treat cows, pigs, and chickens inhumanely does not make it right to treat horses inhumanely.

James writes: "But the realty is that vast numbers of people do eat meat, and will continue to do so, because they like meat. Why is this not immoral? Because meat eaters (and to be clear, I am one) do not see killing livestock as morally equivalent to killing people."

First, nowhere in my argument do I claim that killing livestock is morally equivalent to killing people. Let us grant what I suspect that most people reading this blog believe, namely, that killing an innocent person is worse than killing an innocent cow. The fact that it is worse to kill a person than it is to kill an cow doesn't entail that it is o.k. to kill a cow, it only entails that if you were in a situation where you were forced to choose between killing a person or killing a cow, then you should kill the cow. Two acts A and B can both be wrong, even though A is worse than B. In such a situation, you should do neither A nor B, unless you have no other option, in which case you should do B.

Second, my argument focuses primarily on causing animals to suffer unnecessarily, not on killing them [though I think most people think that it is wrong to kill animals unnecessarily, as well]. The argument offered doesn't require us to rank the value of human lives and animal lives equally. We're not deciding between killing one or the other. We are deciding between eating food item #1 whose production requires horrific suffering on the part of the animal that became that food item and equally (if not more) nutritious food item #2 that doesn't cause animals to suffer that way. Anyone who thinks that it is wrong to contribute to unnecessary suffering is committed to the wrongness of choosing food item #1.

James also writes: "To suggest otherwise is like the guy who considered the killing of chickens, "genocide." Oh, please - The results of the Holocaust and the output of factory farms are separate an unequal matters."

I never suggested that the killing of chickens is comparable to the killing of Jews in the Nazi holocaust [though some Jewish scholars have made the comparison]. Nevertheless, James hasn't provided us with any reason to think that the massive slaughter of chickens is a "separate and unequal matter" compared to the Nazi holocaust. Let's again grant what most of you already accept that human lives are more intrinsically valuable than animal lives, but that animal lives have some intrinsic value. Now, if animal lives have some intrinsic value, then there ought to be some number of animal lives (maybe million, maybe 10 million, maybe 100 million) that is equal in value to the life of one human. It is estimated that 5.2 million Jew were killing in Nazi death camps during WWII. Each day, in the U.S. alone, 25 million chickens are inhumanely slaughtered. Each year, in the U.S. alone, over 8 billion chickens are inhumanely raised, inhumanely transported and inhumanely slaughtered. Worldwide 50 billion livestock animals are slaughtered every year (not counting fish, crustaceans or other aquatic animals). That's roughly 10,000 times more animals killed per year than the total number of Jews killed in Nazi Death Camps. 500 billion in the last decade alone. The numbers are staggering. I'm not suggesting that this is an evil comparable to the Nazi holocaust, but it is certain an evil. To "justify" our privileged place in the moral hierarchy, people routinely appeal to our "humanity". Our humanity, it is said, is what distinguishes us from the beasts. Where is the humanity of subjecting 50 billion innocent animals to a lifetime of pain, frustration, and suffering, topped off with a horrific inhumane death, just because we humans like the taste of their flesh. Maybe we have lost our humanity and with it our privileged place in the moral order.

On the property status of animals:

Kevin asks: "KBJ, are animals considered property by the legal system?"

Under the U.S.'s current legal system, animals are considered property (or, in the case of those not "owned" yet, potential property). The question is not whether animals ARE considered property. The question is whether animals SHOULD be considered property. We can't infer that animals should be considered property just because they currently are considered property.

Prior to the Civil War, the U.S. legal system sanctioned the "ownership" of human slaves. Under that legal system, human slaves were considered property. Today, we look back at that legal system with contempt and regard it as profoundly unjust. Today, no one thinks that humans SHOULD be considered property. We wonder how any nation founded on ideals such as ours could have treated some human beings so badly and unjustly. The fact that slaves were treated as property does not entail that they should have been. In fact, we are quite confident that they never should have been treated as property.

There may come a time in the future when people look back at our current legal system [a legal system that sanctions the "ownership" of animals and their wholesale exploitation] with the same contempt that we feel toward the legal system of our slave "owning" predecessors. If animals are conscious, sentient beings whose lives matter to them (as most ethologists now believe), and not mere things, then we are doing them a grave injustice in treating them as property.

Question for Mr. Engel: If you had the complete power, what specifically would you have happen, through law, the courts, and policy changes, to make U. S. citizens abide by your foundational premise "that it is morally wrong to cause an animal to suffer for no good reason?"

Kevin writes: "I think that to eat an animal is a good reason to make it suffer. Mr. Engel does not. We have reached an impasse. I merely argue against 'unnecessary suffering'. Not necessary suffering. Once again, we are back to what is necessary."

First, I should note that in his very first comment Kevin did not think that our desire to eat animals justified our causing them to suffer. There he wrote: "Inhumane practices, when they do occur, should be stopped." Period. There he maintained that killing an animal in order to eat it was OK, but causing it to suffer in order to eat it was not. So, at least when our exchange began, Kevin did not think that one's desire to eat an animal was a good reason to make that animal suffer.

Second, whether or not we are at an impasse remains to be seen. In his most recent comment, Kevin continues to endorse the principle that it is wrong to cause "unnecessary suffering." He also adds that it is OK to cause "necessary suffering." What does "necessary" mean? To say that something is "necessary" is to say that it is something that cannot be done without. According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, something "necessary" is something that is "absolutely required: essential, indispensable." Things that are necessary for our survival are absolutely required for our survival; they are essential NEEDS, as opposed to mere WANTS or DESIRES. Here are some things that are necessary/absolutely required for our survival: Water, oxygen, and food. Meat, however, is not absolutely required for our survival. When plant-based foods are available, meat is not needed for our survival at all. How can I be so sure? Simple. If eating meat were essential for our survival, then the hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide would have long since died out, but they haven't. They are alive and well.

Is eating meat necessary for optimal health? No, quite the opposite in fact. Numerous epidemiological studies have demonstrated that vegetarians, and especially vegans, have far lower rates of heart disease, cancer, strokes, hypertension, and diabetes compared to meat-eaters. For example, the famous Framingham heart study has been tracking the daily living and eating habits of thousands of residents of Framingham, Massachusetts since 1948. Dr. William Castelli, director of the study for the last 20 years, maintains that based on his research the most heart healthy diet is a pure vegetarian diet. Perhaps vegetarians suffer from other illnesses or die of other diseases earlier than their meat-eating counterparts. Not according to Dr. Castelli: “The vegetarian societies of the world have the best diet. Within our own country, they outlive the rest of us by at least seven years, and they have only 10 or 15 percent of our heart attack rate.” Castelli adds: “Vegetarians not only outlive the rest of us, they also aren’t prey to other degenerative diseases, such as diabetes, strokes, etc., that slow us down and make us chronically ill.” Dr. Dean Ornish has also documented the heart-protective effects of plant-based diets, as has Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell University is the director of the Cornell/Oxford/China Study, the largest epidemiological study ever conducted. The data collected in this study has led Campbell to conclude that 80-90% of all cancers can be controlled or prevented by a lowfat (10-15% fat) vegetarian diet. For more information regarding the health benefits of plant-based diets, check out the American Dietetic Associations Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets here:

ADA Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets

An enormous body of scientific research confirms that meat consumption is not necessary for optimal health nor is it necessary for promoting longevity.

Perhaps eating meat is "necessary" in some weaker sense in that it is not necessary to satisfy any of our needs but rather is necessary to satisfy one of our stronger wants: Taste.

Most people know that Big Macs and Whoppers aren't good for them. People eat such hamburgers because they like the taste. The question we honestly have to ask ourselves is this: Does our experiencing pleasant, but fleeting taste sensations justify causing an animal an entire lifetime of painful sensations and horrible suffering? NOT if one can derive equally enjoyable (or nearly as enjoyable) taste sensations from plant-based foods. Why not? Because if one can derive similar enjoyment from eating plant-based foods, then all of the suffering inflicted upon the animal is gratuitous. It serves no purpose whatsoever, not even the purpose of taste. As I noted in a previous comment, with minimal effort, people can learn to cook delicious vegetarian meals.

In sum, eating animals is not necessary for survival, it is not necessary for optimal health, it is not necessary for increased longevity, and it is not necessary in order to experience the pleasure of tasty meals. Kevin has not yet explained in what sense eating animals is necessary for human beings. If he can't spell out the sense in which eating animals is necessary, then his own principles concerning the wrongness of causing unnecessary suffering commit him to the wrongness of causing animals to suffer in order to eat them.

Mylan,

As noted elsewhere, I greatly appreciate your continuing this discussion and I’ll try addressing your comments of September 11th.

First, I found your beginning paragraph quite professorial in reflecting a demeanor of detached objectivity on your part while invoking a personal commitment (an emotional investment perhaps?) on my part. (I am quite familiar with the technique – used in negotiations – from my previous life as an executive in manufacturing where, I should add, philosophical discourse was a rarity.) This is not a complaint, Mylan; rather, I found it admirable – exemplary of a disciplined person skillfully setting the stage for presenting a well-thought out case. Nonetheless, I could not have agreed with you, “that it is morally wrong to cause an animal to suffer for no good reason,” had you not proposed it; and I do not for a minute think that it is not personal with you. But you closed the paragraph with what I think was your main thrust: “I am simply trying to point out what consistency requires.” I will try covering that in due course… hopefully being as intellectually honest as you have demonstrated.

Your second paragraph restates these principles but seems to indicate that to be personally moral, the choices are limited to “eating inhumanely raised animals,” which is wrong, or consuming “equally-nutritious, plant-based options.” I am thus faced with a conundrum in that while contemplating the third option – eating humanely raised animals – I must admit that I have a romantic notion of a bucolic life that possibly no longer exists; or where it exists, it may be of no real significance in terms of the national food supply and, therefore, what I eat. Let me explain: I was raised in Ohio farm country with two uncles that had family farms, one a traditional dairy operation (with pastured “contented” cows) and the other a 110 acre subsistence / hobby farm. My father had me kill and clean a chicken when I was five years old so that I would know where food came from and what eating meat entailed – an early lesson in humility – that an animal died so that I could live. I’ve watched the all-day project of butchering a pig, done by a neighbor family for their winter sustenance; and another neighbor owned a small local slaughterhouse / butcher shop that supplied local grocers. I knew people who wept when their cow died giving birth. Horses grazed on green pastures and were kept until they died of old age or were humanely “put down.” Mistreatment was unheard of; good animal husbandry was the norm. These people knew their livestock by name. Growing up in a Calvinistic culture of the ‘40’s and 50’s, any notion of God giving man “dominion” over the beasts was not about rationalizing the killing off the buffalo; it was about stewardship – the responsibility to give proper loving care to those animals in one’s charge. The Humane Society wasn’t necessary in this environment. Accountability for humane treatment – for the welfare of animals – was fully accepted by the community; and their behavior was consistent with those ingrained ideas. I’ll come back to this…

I found your third multifaceted point most agreeable since I lean heavily toward classical liberalism. John Stuart Mill, Edmund Burke, the writings of our Forefathers, plus economists’ Bastiat, Hazlitt, Hayek, and Friedman offer much to stimulate critical thinking. And I concur with The Harm Principle as essential to understanding liberty and its limits..

Regarding slavery, I think you have mischaracterized the radical nature of the idea of abolition around 1850. (I assume you chose 1850 as a representative time rather than a specific time; please correct me if I’m wrong.) Regardless, let me take you back further, to the founding of the nation – From my book review of The Founding Brothers – The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph J. Ellis (2000): Chapter 3 – The Silence: Slavery is the subject of this chapter, starting with Quakers petitioning the new government to put an end to the slave trade (which everyone knew also meant slavery itself). The essence of the title is that, in the end, all arguments – and they were legion – ended with, not a consensus view, but a reality nonetheless: that no one really could find a way to “solve” the problem of slavery for fear that the new nation would fall apart over it. In frustration, the talented leaders of our country left it for a later generation but the debate over what the “Revolution meant for the institution of slavery” raged on. “Hindsight permits us to listen to the debate of 1790 with knowledge that none of the participants possessed… that slavery would become the central and defining problem for the next seventy years of American history; that the inability to take decisive action against slavery in the decades immediately following the revolution permitted the size of the enslaved population to grow exponentially and the legal and political institutions of the developing U.S. government to become entwined in compromises with slavery’s persistence; and that eventually over 600,000 Americans would die in the nation’s bloodiest war to resolve the crisis, a trauma generating social shock waves that would reverberate for at least another century.” The liberal values of the Declaration of Independence, “the secular version of American scripture, was an unambiguous tract for abolition.” But it didn’t happen. The Constitution’s “distinguishing feature… when it came to slavery was its evasiveness.” It was neither a defining document for abolition, nor a sanction of the institution, i.e. it was an “exercise in ambiguity” for any resolution would have “rendered ratification of the Constitution virtually impossible.” Thus, it was silently accepted that the subject “not be talked about at all. Slavery was the unmentionable family secret, or the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room” and left for the future. The point is, and it’s a minor one in the context of this discussion, slavery was a matter of huge debate well before 1850. Yes, there were a few “radical” abolitionists, but there were also large numbers of people who more quietly supported the ethic – for 100 some years. Further, I cannot imagine that the North could have sustained the effort in that terrible war of 1861 – 1865 had there not been a serious commitment to the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves.

But I think your main point with bringing up slavery is with your question of me: “If you had the complete power, what specifically would you have happen, through law, the courts, and policy changes, to make U.S. citizens abide by your foundational premise 'that slavery is wrong?' Would you abolish [sp. correction] slavery, criminalize it, and prosecute anyone who continued to enslave people?” You suspected that I would agree and I certainly like to think that is true! But I also recognize that sometimes the best use of power is the cautious exercise of it. How caution could have worked in 1850, I do not know. Perhaps our Forefathers were too cautious in the late 1700’s! My point here is that power is a seduction, even when used for “good “ ends, and often with unintended negative consequences. Christendom ultimately learned that from their abuse of power in the Middle Ages and I hope that 7th Century Islamic thinkers will learn it in the 21st Century. There are many examples of the abuse of power but to list them digresses from the main discussion. One last thought on slavery: I’m also reasonably certain that had I been born in the Deep South in mid-19th century, raised on a plantation, and taught that black people were less than fully human, I would have considered the “War of Northern Aggression” an affront to my sovereignty and fought like crazy to protect my way of life.

Your last three paragraphs offer a compelling argument for converting an “is” to an “ought.” Also, “what consistency requires” is that I agree that factory farms should be banned and at the personal level – boycott them. I can only give a provisional agreement. My main reason is this: As I’ve aged, I’ve grown skeptical of quick conversions, particularly my own!

My secondary reason is more nuanced (or muddled – take your pick), but its basis is a lack of knowledge and/or confusion. For instance, it is my understanding that legislation was passed some years ago to help the small farmer but ended up benefiting agri-business; and of course, we’ve paid out $1.3 billion in farm subsidies over the last five years (from ONE program) to phony “gentlemen” farmers not to grow stuff – money wasted that theoretically could have been used to “regulate” factory farms to higher welfare standards. A political principle is that you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax. Perhaps factory farms developed through misdirected government policy and cronyism, but I don’t know, and I don’t know how that could be fixed. Farm Aid says, “Every new factory farm forces 10 family farmers out of business... With every small family farmer that has to leave the farm, communities lose access to fresh, healthy food and local economies are weakened.” If accurate, it’s not what I’d like to see but I don’t know the prudent solution. (My personal solution is to buy our produce from the local farmers market every Tuesday but it only works during our short summer.) I also wonder whether “all” factory farms are as despicable as previously described (and as the internet shows with pictures!) Most groups are not homogeneous, in lock-step thinking or behavior. I can only speculate, since I’ve never seen one (which is odd since I’m well-traveled), but I would suspect that there are varied approaches taken in such operations. I’d like a better understanding of the consequences. If factory farms were banned would many more people become family farmers to fill the void – a good thing, in my view? I wonder what economic or policy drivers would cause that to occur? Or would a whole new, perhaps worse, industry unfold in Canada, Mexico and South America to supply the USA? Perhaps a mass conversion to vegetarianism would result, although I have my doubts. I recognize that none of these last meanderings affect the basic principle; I’m just trying to understand it.

Further, you said: “If we simply were to apply the Harm Principle in a consistent and nonspeciestic way…” I wondered why that would be the correct approach? I tried to think of what the hierarchy of animals, including people, looks like. Are worms and chickens on par with dogs and apes, etc? On what scientific basis? I also tried to understand the difference between sentience and consciousness. C. S. Lewis tried, poorly in my opinion, in his book, The Problem of Pain. Frankly, these thoughts made my brain hurt. I therefore concluded that, since I really have no interest in harming anything, except disease carrying insects, the simple answer is to apply the Harm Principle on a broad basis (Occam's razor); i.e. I went full circle!

Which brings me back to the nostalgic look at my origins – Those farmers I knew growing up, thought and behaved ethically based on the Harm Principle, even if they didn’t know it…

In closing, my speculation is that today, meat is as fungible a commodity as oil. When I buy gasoline, I’d prefer that it come from the US rather than from some despotic nation. I’m not interested in supporting Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. But distribution channels don’t work for my convenience; and the truth is that I haven’t a clue where my fuel purchases originate. When I buy clothes or shoes, I may know what country they came from but I have no real knowledge of whether they were manufactured under slave-labor conditions. (One could say, “Buy American,” but that isn’t without ethical consideration – What if a Malaysian peasant loses a decent job because of it?) When I buy meat at Costco, I don’t know whether it came from a factory farm or not; and their website doesn’t say, which may say a lot. I fortunately live in an area with access to organic food giant Whole Foods, which even has species-specific “Animal Compassionate Standards,” although I wonder if it’s just good marketing. I’m sure you are aware of how Middle Eastern oriental rugs are produced. The growing of grains and vegetables is not without issues either – environmental damage, effects on water supplies, and great consumption of diesel fuel, to name three. All of which is to say that when I consume almost anything, I am often an unwilling contributor to the evils of the world. (I exist therefore I consume). At the personal level, the choices then are to (1) become an ascetic, steeped in the moral clarity of self-denial; (2) become an activist, saturated in one’s own anal-expressive certainty; (3) merrily ignore one’s complicity because, after all, it is inadvertent, and non-judgmentalism trumps any criticism; or (4) give serious pause to how one moves through the world due to a heightened consciousness and, at the very least, attempt to make some changes in order to live one’s life in a manner consistent with one’s own moral principles. I choose #4.

Thank you, Mylan, for helping me think this through.