On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:29:41 -0000, "Jim Webster" wrote:
dh@. wrote in message ...
I've sure noticed that veg*ns flop around about what they believe,
and try to pretend they aren't supporting things that they obviously
are (like terrorism), etc. And that they won't even acknowledge,
much less appreciate, the fact that some animal products involve
fewer deaths than some veggies. They usually if not always deny
such a significant aspect. That alone proves they are very selective
in what they allow themselves to consider, and also that they care
more about promoting veg*nism than they do about human influence
on animals.
I confess I don't really care.
You don't really need to but they are claiming to care more than
others, yet will usually deny that some types of animal products
contribute to fewer deaths than some types of vegetable products.
How many servings of beef could people get from the life and
death of a grass raised steer and whatever he happened to kill
during his life? Fewer servings of tofu are likely to involve far more
deaths imo. And the same is true regarding grass raised dairy
prodocts vs. soy milk or even more so rice milk.
I correct them when they tell lies about my industry,
What industry is that?
We don't get many people who are involved directly, which is
too bad imo. I would hope that most farmers provide their animals
with decent lives, though I certainly don't believe all do. I'm
opposed to battery cages for laying hens, but feel that the
open house method provides decent lives in general for the birds.
I don't know what to think about pigs never havingn been around
large pig farms, but just the fact that they are omnivorous
rooting animals pretty much guarantees that by nature they
would be frustrated and board when they can't root. I'm sure
that's been bred out of them as much as possible, but still
they want to do it. Grazing animals could be more easily satisfied
since they don't seem to have much of a hunting or digging
instinct. Though I eat chicken and turkey I do agree with Davis'
argument regarding least harm for wildlife and the natural
environment:
__________________________________________________ _______
The Least Harm Principle Suggests that Humans Should
Eat Beef, Lamb, Dairy, not a Vegan Diet.
S.L. Davis, Department of Animal Sciences, Oregon State
University, Corvallis, OR 97331.
Published in the Proceedings of the Third Congress of the
European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics, 2001,
pp 440-450.
Key words: veganism, least harm, farm animals, field animals.
Introduction
Although the debate over the moral status of animals has been
going on for thousands of years (Shapiro, 2000), there has
been a resurgence of interest in this issue in the last quarter of
the 20th century. One of the landmark philosophical works of
this period was the book by Regan (1983) called "A Case for
Animal Rights." In that book, Regan concludes that animals
do have moral standing, that they are subjects-of-a-life with
interests that deserve equal consideration to the same interests
in humans, and therefore have the right to live their lives
without human interference. As a consequence, he concludes
that humans have a moral obligation to consume a vegan (use
no animal products) diet and eliminate animal agriculture.
However, production of an all vegan diet also comes at the
cost of the lives of many animals, including mice, moles,
gophers, pheasants, etc. Therefore, I asked Regan, "What
is the morally relevant difference between killing a field mouse
(or other animal of the field) so that humans may eat and killing
a pig (or chicken, calf or lamb) for the same purpose? Animals
must die so that humans may eat, regardless whether they eat
a vegan diet or not. So, how are we to choose our food supply
in a morally responsible manner?" Regan's response could be
summarized by what may be called the "Least Harm Principle"
or LHP (Regan, Personal Communication). According to LHP,
we must choose the food products that, overall, cause the
least harm to the least number of animals. The following
analysis is an attempt to try to determine what humans should
eat if we apply that principle.
Regan's Vegan Conclusion is Problematic
I find Regan's response to my question to be problematic for
two reasons. The first reason is because it seems to be a
philosophical slight of hand for one to turn to a utilitarian
defense (LHP) of a challenge to his vegan conclusion which
is based on animal rights theory. If the question, "What is
the morally relevant difference?" can't be supported by the
animal rights theory, then it seems to me that the animal rights
theory must be rejected. Instead, Regan turns to utilitarian
theory (which examines consequences of one's actions) to
defend the vegan conclusion.
The second problem I see with his vegan conclusion is that
he claims that the least harm would be done to animals if
animal agriculture was eliminated. It may certainly be true
that fewer animals may be killed if animal agriculture was
eliminated, but could the LHP also lead to other alternative
conclusions?
Would pasture-based animal agriculture cause least harm?
Animals of the field are killed by several factors, including:
1. Tractors and farm implements run over them.
2. Plows and cultivators destroy underground burrows
and kill animals.
3. Removal of the crops (harvest) removes ground
cover allowing animals on the surface to be killed
by predators.
4. Application of pesticides.
So, every time the tractor goes through the field to plow,
disc, cultivate, apply fertilizer and/or pesticide, harvest,
etc., animals are killed. And, intensive agriculture such
as corn and soybeans (products central to a vegan diet)
kills far more animals of the field than would extensive
agriculture like forage production, particularly if the forage
was harvested by ruminant animals instead of machines.
So perhaps fewer animals would be killed by producing
beef, lamb, and dairy products for humans to eat instead
of the vegan diet envisioned by Regan.
Accurate numbers of mortality aren't available, but Tew
and Macdonald (1993) reported that wood mouse
population density in cereal fields dropped from 25/ha
preharvest to less than 5/ha postharvest. This decrease
was attributed to migration out of the field and to mortality.
Therefore, it may be reasonable to estimate mortality of
10 animals/ha in conventional corn and soybean
production.
There are 120 million ha of harvested cropland in the US
(USDA, 2000). If all of that land was used to produce a
plant-based diet, and if 10 animals of the field are killed
per ha per year, then 10 x 120 million = 1200 million or
1.2 billion would be killed to produce a vegan diet. If half
of that land (60 million) was converted to forage
production and if forage production systems decreased
the number of animals of the field killed per year by 50%
(5 per year per ha), the number of animals killed would be:
1. 60 million ha of traditional agriculture x 10 animals
per ha = 0.6 billion animals killed.
2. 60 million ha of forage production x 5 animals of
the field = 0.3 billion.
Therefore, in this hypothetical example, the change to
include some forage-based animal agriculture would
result in the loss of only 0.9 billion animals of the field
instead of 1.2 billion to support a vegan diet. As a
result, the LHP would suggest that we are morally
obligated to consume a diet of ruminant products, not
a vegan diet, because it would result in the death of
fewer animals of the field.
But what of the ruminant animals that would need to
die to feed people? According to the USDA numbers
quoted by Francione (2000), of the 8.4 billion animals
killed each year for food in the US, 8 billion of those
are poultry and only 41 million are ruminants (cows,
calves, sheep, lambs). Even if the numbers of
ruminants killed for food each year doubled to replace
the 8 billion poultry, the total number of animals that
would need to be killed under this alternative would
still be fewer (0.9 billion + 82 million = 0.982 billion)
than in the vegan alternative (1.2 billion).
In conclusion, applying the Least Harm Principle as
proposed by Regan would actually argue that we
are morally obligated to move to a ruminant-based
diet rather than a vegan diet.
References
Davis, S.L. 2000. What is the Morally Relevant
Difference between the Mouse and the Pig?
Pp. 107-109 in the Proceedings of EurSafe 2000;
2nd Congress of the European Society for
Agricultural and Food Ethics.
Francione, Gary L. 2000. Introduction to Animal
Rights: Your child or the dog? Temple University
Press. Philadelphia.
Regan, Tom. 1983. A Case for Animal Rights.
University of California Press, Berkeley.
Shapiro, L.S. 2000. Applied Animal Ethics,
pp. 34-37. Delmar Press.
Tew, T.E. and D.W. Macdonald. 1993. The
effects of harvest on arable wood mice.
Biological Conservation 65:279-283.
USDA. 2000.
www.nass.usda.gov/Census/Census97/highlights.