Page 89 - The Welfare of Cattle

66 the WeLfare of CattLe

makes this crystal clear: “Consumers have the power to change every aspect of the animal livestock
industry. Their concerns, their acceptance of production methods, should be critical in how our
customers and we ourselves organise our businesses.”
A major question obviously arises here. If the notion of animal welfare is inseparable from
ethical components, and people’s ethical stance on obligations to farm animals differ markedly
across a highly diverse spectrum, whose ethic is to predominate and define, in law or regulation,
what counts as “animal welfare”? It is to this issue we now turn. The answer is tantalizingly obvious,
and is in fact implicit in the previous paragraph: it is the consumer!
There is a not uncommon tendency to affirm that ethics is simply a matter of individual opinion.
But a moment’s reflection will make us realize that that is simply not the case. In a world where
the only ethics was that of individuals, we would live in in a situation of permanent anarchy which
would inevitably devolve into what Thomas Hobbes called “the war of each against all.” Therefore,
in addition to one’s personal ethics, which in our society guides such personal behavior as what
one reads, one’s dietary habits, one’s religious belief or lack thereof, there must also be rules that
are binding on everyone. Such rules are usually, though not always, encoded in law and regulation.
Paradigmatic among these rules are moral/legal principles forbidding robbery, murder, assault, etc.
One can call the body of such rules the social consensus ethic, which is universally binding on all
citizens.
In our society, respect for the individual and the needs and interests of human individuals are
the basis for our democratic society, and the test according to which other consensus ethical rules
are judged. We will return to this point.
Historically, for the majority of human civilization, very little of the social consensus ethic dealt
with the treatment of animals. That is largely because, throughout our history, the predominant
use of animals was agricultural—food, fiber, locomotion, and power. When domestication of
animals began some 13,000 years ago, successful use of animals dependent upon principles of good
husbandry. “Husbandry” is derived from the Old Norse words “hus” and “bond”; the animals were
bonded to one’s household. The essence of husbandry was care. Humans put animals into the most
ideal environment possible for the animals to survive and thrive, the environment for which they
had evolved and been selected. In addition, humans provided them with sustenance, water, shelter,
protection from predation, such medical attention as was available, help in birthing, food during
famine, water during drought, safe surroundings and comfortable appointments.
Eventually, what was born of necessity and common sense became articulated in terms of a
moral obligation inextricably bound up with self-interest. In the Noah story, we learn that even as
God preserves humans, humans preserve animals. The ethic of husbandry is in fact taught through-
out the Bible; the animals must rest on the Sabbath even as we do; one is not to seethe a calf in its
mother’s milk (so we do not grow insensitive to animals’ needs and natures); we can violate the
Sabbath to save an animal. Proverbs tells us that “the wise man cares for his animals.” The Old
Testament is replete with injunctions against inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on animals,
as exemplified in the strange story of Balaam who beats his ass, and is reprimanded by the animal’s
speaking through the grace of God.
The true power of the husbandry ethic is best expressed in the 23rd Psalm. There, in searching
for an apt metaphor for God’s ideal relationship to humans, the Psalmist invokes the good shepherd:

The Lord is My shepherd; I shall not want. He leadeth me to
green pastures, He maketh me to lie down beside still waters,
He restoreth my soul.

We want no more from God than what the good shepherd provides to his animals. Indeed, consider
a lamb in ancient Judaea. Without a shepherd, the animal would not easily find forage or water,
would not survive the multitude of predators the Bible tells us prowled the land—lions, jackals,