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Money quote: Now, I've hardly done much to refute charges of anthropomorphism - but am I bovvered? I'm not projecting human characteristics on to dumb animals

by madair 17y ago

Money quote: Now, I've hardly done much to refute charges of anthropomorphism - but am I bovvered? I'm not projecting human characteristics on to dumb animals - I'm saying I really don't see that much difference in their hopes and fears, behaviour and petty foibles. If one actually lives with chickens, it's a lot harder to treat them as mere objects. Their preferences are astoundingly obvious, so what possible excuse could there be for giving them any less? If they like greens, why give them pellets? If they like sunbathing, why pack them into a tiny, noisy, smelly place with no natural light? If, as I suspect, the answer is something to do with the "efficiency" of food production, then the notion of efficiency is horrible, incompetent, brutalised and brutalising, and it's certainly not in the interests of chickens at all. And I'm not sure that our ethical notions are all that more advanced than chickens'.

dkimball 17y ago
I think I know the answer that a market-economist or an American conservative would give to this; so I'd answer that answer by observing that, as a serious Catholic, I find this article's author to be closer to the truth than those who think that chickens only exist to benefit humans. Aristotle discovered or taught (I'm favoring "discovered") that all creatures have an end for which they exist; the end of a chicken is to live the life of a happy, fulfilled chicken. Human beings have a right to distort that under certain circumstances (domestication, for example, is acceptable), but we must not sacrifice all other considerations for profit. Eating meat is acceptable, at least grudgingly; raising stock animals in cruel conditions to wring more money out of them is not. The American way of life _is_ negotiable, in contrast to what a certain US President said, and was not handed down on Mount Sinai. (Actually, everything handed down on Mount Sinai _also_ wasn't handed down on Mount Sinai, in the sense of being eternal and immutable -- or else Jesus Christ would hardly have run roughshod over the Third Commandment.) There's something else I want to mention about chickens, but I'll put that in another post for ease of up/downvoting; in the meantime, I just wanted to emphasize that touchy-feely liberals aren't the only ones who believe that a chicken's happiness is worth something.

by madair 17y ago

dkimball 17y ago

I think I know the answer that a market-economist or an American conservative would give to this; so I'd answer that answer by observing that, as a serious Catholic, I find this article's author to be closer to the truth than those who think that chickens only exist to benefit humans. Aristotle discovered or taught (I'm favoring "discovered") that all creatures have an end for which they exist; the end of a chicken is to live the life of a happy, fulfilled chicken. Human beings have a right to distort that under certain circumstances (domestication, for example, is acceptable), but we must not sacrifice all other considerations for profit. Eating meat is acceptable, at least grudgingly; raising stock animals in cruel conditions to wring more money out of them is not. The American way of life _is_ negotiable, in contrast to what a certain US President said, and was not handed down on Mount Sinai. (Actually, everything handed down on Mount Sinai _also_ wasn't handed down on Mount Sinai, in the sense of being eternal and immutable -- or else Jesus Christ would hardly have run roughshod over the Third Commandment.) There's something else I want to mention about chickens, but I'll put that in another post for ease of up/downvoting; in the meantime, I just wanted to emphasize that touchy-feely liberals aren't the only ones who believe that a chicken's happiness is worth something.