Page 94 - The Welfare of Cattle

anIMaL WeLfare and Its aPPLICatIon 71

protection of animal natures is not at all radical; it is very conservative, asking for the same sort of
husbandry that characterized the overwhelming majority of animal use during all of human his-
tory, save the last fifty or so years. It is not opposed to animal use; it is opposed to animal use that
goes against the animals’ natures and tries to force square pegs into round holes, leading to friction
and suffering. If animals are to be used for food and labor, they should, as they traditionally did, live
lives that respect their natures. If animals are to be used to probe nature and cure disease for human
benefit, they should not suffer in the process. Thus this new ethic is conservative, not radical, hark-
ing back to the animal use that necessitated and thus entailed respect for the animals’ natures. It
is based on the insight that what we do to animals matters to them, just as what we do to humans
matters to them, and that consequently we should respect that mattering in our treatment and use
of animals as we do in our treatment and use of humans. And since respect for animal nature is no
longer automatic as it was in traditional husbandry agriculture, society is demanding that it be
encoded in law.
Granted, there are activists who do not wish to see animals used in any way by humans, and in
the eyes of many animal users, the activists are the “animal rights people.” Yet to focus on them is
to eclipse the main point of the animal rights thrust in society in general—it is an effort to constrain
how we use animals, not an attempt to stop all animal use. Indeed, it is only in the context of animal
use that constraints on use make any sense at all! Thus, the new mainstream ethic is not an ethic of
abolition; it is an effort to reaffirm that the interests of the animals count for themselves, not only
in terms of how they benefit us. Like all rights ethics, it accepts that some benefits to be gained
by unbridled exploitation will be lost and that there is a cost to protecting the animals’ natures. In
agriculture, for example, the cost may be higher food prices. But as the Federation of European
Veterinarians asserted more than 20 years ago, that is a small price for a society to pay to ensure
proper treatment of objects of moral concern.
In my view, the most important result emerging from our discussion is the realization that an
animal’s welfare lies in its ability to satisfy the needs and interests emerging from its telos. By
starting with telos, we can address such insults to animals as high confinement where they cannot
move, or removing a baby calf from its mother. Obviously, since animals evolved to function under
extensive circumstances, replication of those circumstances as much as possible remains the ideal.
It is unquestionable that appeal to an animal’s nature captures the essence of what society wor-
ries about in animal use. When Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, polled its customers at
my suggestion, they found that 78% of the public despised sow stalls because in them animals could
not express their natures. As I have said elsewhere, common sense tells us that an animal born with
bones and muscles and legs needs the opportunity to move. The same societal idea led to the elimi-
nation of sow stalls across the industry, with over 100 food stores and restaurants demanding meat
from pigs raised in more natural systems. In the past year, virtually the same story has occurred
in the egg industry, with consumers demanding the abolition of battery cages. In the 12 states that
HSUS sponsored referenda aimed at eliminating battery cages, veal crates, and sow stalls, all the
referenda passed by a significant margin. The veal industry has moved to open systems for veal
calves in the face of massive consumer rejection of crates for veal. Zoos are moving away from
being prisons for animals, and public concern has led to Sea World eliminating killer whale shows,
and California forbidding captivity for these animals. Social concern has led to circuses eliminating
elephant shows, despite the public’s love of seeing such animals. The list goes on and on.
It is not hyperbole to affirm that just as human rights are derived from human nature, and are
protected strongly by the Bill of Rights, society is demanding protection for animal nature, and the
legal encoding of those protections in the equivalent of rights. That is a consequence of drawing
animal ethics from our consensus social ethic for humans. In support of our claim, let us recall the
thousands of bills promulgated across the US in 2004, and the fact that the Gallup poll conducted in
2001 indicated that 70% of US public wishes to see legislated guarantees of farm animal well-being.
By 2012, the number was an astonishing 94%!