Animals Used as a Source of Food

Abstract

Nowadays, more sentient animals are used for their meat, milk, and eggs than ever before in history. This chapter shows that many—but not all—uses of animals for food are morally problematic. Speciesist prejudices mask that animals are commonly due more consideration than we give them. First, this chapter examines animal products involving suffering, arguing that such products are often—but not always—morally problematic. Second, it discusses whether there is a problem with killing animals which could be deemed “happy.” Third, it argues against “principled veganism,” contending that dependency does not necessarily result in increased vulnerability. Finally, it is concluded that we should recognize many groups of animals we commonly use for food as particularly vulnerable and augment their protection accordingly.

The demand for animal products is massive, and it is growing. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), human beings collectively used over 22 billion chickens, nearly 1.5 billion cattle, and 1.2 billion sheep in 2017 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO 2019). The most consumed meat type is pork. The production of milk and eggs has also increased in recent years: 843 million tons of milk and 77 million tons of eggs were produced in 2018. In both cases, this amounts to almost a 50% increase compared to the 2000 level (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO 2020). As for fish, production increased to 173 million tons in 2017, including both capture fisheries and aquaculture (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO 2019).

In what follows, I discuss whether these uses of sentient nonhuman animals for food are morally justified, or whether these animals should instead be regarded as a particularly vulnerable group in need of greater protection. I inquire into which uses of animals for food are morally justified, and which amount to unjustified harm or moral wrongs. In a first step, I discuss the production of meat, milk, and eggs, where animals’ basic claims are disregarded. To make my argument, I compare different scenarios. The first concerns the conflict between humans’ claim to eat meat and animals’ legitimate claims, notably to not be subjected to unnecessary suffering. Can we justify eating animal products in cases where the production entails considerable suffering, pain, and distress? This issue encompasses meat from factory farming, eggs from over-bred hens, and the milk of mistreated cows, among others. I argue that the consumption of animal products involving harm can only be justified if more important human interests—notably, humans’ basic claim to survival—trump the animals’ basic claims. While this condition is rarely met in Western societies, it may obtain during humanitarian catastrophes, or in situations where no healthy plant-based alternatives are available.

Second, I discuss the case of so-called humane farming—that is, painlessly producing animal products: would we be allowed to painlessly kill animals if they had previously lived an unharmed, happy, fulfilled life? Which claim should be given priority: our claim to eat or the animal’s claim to continued existence? I argue that depriving animals of their life—the prerequisite for good and fulfilling experiences—cannot be justified if there are healthy plant-based alternatives available.

Third, I turn to the question of whether all uses of animals are morally problematic and if animals should therefore be considered particularly vulnerable. I discuss whether we are allowed to use secondary animal products such as eggs and milk if their production does not involve any distress, suffering, and pain; that is, I consider whether we are allowed to use animals whose legitimate claims are respected. In this connection, I argue against principled veganism—the view according to which all uses of animal products are necessarily ethically problematic. According to the account I defend here, we are indeed allowed to consume and use animal products that do not involve any suffering, pain, distress, or death. Not all uses of animals are ethically problematic, and not all animals used for human food should be regarded as particularly vulnerable; rather, these determinations depend on the context of use and the specifics of the situation. Furthermore, I show that dependency per se does not necessarily result in increased vulnerability.

I conclude that many animals used for the consumption of food can in many—but not all—cases be described as belonging to a particularly vulnerable group. These particularly vulnerable animals are more likely to have their legitimate claims unjustly considered (compared to other human and animal groups, as I will describe below). Therefore, they should benefit from more public attention and receive additional protective measures. In the conclusion to this chapter, I argue that we must raise protection standards for animals used in the food industry. Furthermore, I propose developing psychological interventions combatting speciesist prejudices against animals in society.

5.1 Eating Harmfully Produced Animal Products

Parts of this Chapter are based on Martin (2021).

In the previous chapter, I established that sentient animals have legitimate claims: negative claims to the absence of hunger and thirst, to the absence of suffering, to the absence of discomfort, fear, and distress; along with positive claims to the pursuit of species-typical behavior, to a self-determined life, and to continued existence. At the same time, humans have a claim to feed themselves. There is thus an apparent conflict between, on the one hand, animals’ basic claims and, on the other, humans’ claim to eat animals and their products. Can we justify eating animal products in situations where their production involves disregarding animals’ most basic claims?

This question concerns not only meat, but also eggs and milk. Dairy cows are often over-bred and frequently suffer from diseases such as mastitis and lameness. Furthermore, many farming practices restrict animals’ claims to a self-determined life and species-typical behavior, as animals are not given sufficient opportunities to move freely or to choose the food they want to eat (as they would do on pasture land, for example). Furthermore, many closed stables lack entertainment opportunities for animals, such as for play. Chickens frequently live in dense conditions without the kinds of social bonds and hierarchies they would naturally maintain. They are bred to lay as many eggs as possible—up to 300 per year—which takes a heavy toll on their health. And when these animals are no longer economically productive, they are slaughtered—many years before the end of their natural life expectancy.

Furthermore, losses of opportunities can also negatively affect animals. In Chap. 3, I defined harm as: (1) to be made worse off than one was before or could have been (which amounts to “harm by deprivation”); or (2) to be adversely affected, physically or mentally (examples include permanent hunger, distress, coercion, or a permanent state of anxiety). In other words, individuals are hindered in satisfying their welfare and agency interests when they are impeded in achieving some potential welfare state that they previously did not have—but could and should have had. An example is the case of confined animals who have lived since birth without sufficient possibilities to move freely or to pursue other species-typical behaviors, such as choosing the food they wish to eat or the animals they wish to interact with. They suffer harms through deprivation—that is, the loss of opportunities to satisfy their interests.

Finally, animals used for food production also incur indirect, less visible forms of harm. Both calves and dairy cows, for example, experience acute distress due to their separation shortly after the calf is born. They both show increased stress hormone levels after separation and show behavioral signs of stress (see, e.g., Pérez et al. 2017; Orihuela and Galina 2019; Beaver et al. 2019). In addition, industrial egg production relies on “chick sexing.” This practice is used to separate male and female chicks on the first day of their life. Since the males cannot lay eggs, they are useless to the egg industry. Furthermore, they cannot be used for chicken meat since they put on too little weight, too slowly, which is economically unattractive. The male chicks are therefore separated from the female chicks and killed (usually gassed) on the first day of their life. Every year, all over the globe, millions of male chicks are thus summarily killed. Many countries strive to find alternatives to this practice. Research is currently being conducted to predict chicks’ sex while they are still in the egg (see, e.g., Galli et al. 2018), and thus to select only eggs containing female chicks. To date, these practices have rarely been used, however.

The suffering of fish is particularly hidden. In numbers, fish are probably the most consumed group of animals on the planet. Contrary to most mammals, however, they are not seen as individuals, but rather as non-sentient organisms—tellingly, they are counted in “tons” fished, not “individuals” killed. Fish are harvested from the sea in vast yet unknown numbers by the global fishing industry. Different practices are used to capture them, such as trawling or gillnetting. Many animals are physically injured by these methods and eventually asphyxiate. If they are still alive when caught, they suffocate on the boat or are gutted alive (Gregory 2003; Hessler et al. 2017).

Furthermore, every year over 80 million tons of fish are bred in intensive aquaculture, where they commonly live in dense conditions. High rearing density negatively affects the health, behavior, and welfare of the fish concerned (Ellison et al. 2020; Long et al. 2019). Husbandry-related stress, such as tank cleaning and variation of water temperature, increases stress hormones in some fish species and makes them more prone to diseases and earlier death (Varsamos et al. 2006). Aquaculture fish commonly have to be transported on land, by sea or even in the air for various purposes (such as bringing them to the killing station); transporting fish can induce stress responses that negatively affect them over a prolonged period of time (Villa et al. 2009). Lastly, many slaughter methods are suboptimal because they do not render the fish unconscious before killing them, despite the availability of less stressful methods (van de Vis et al. 2003; Lines and Spence 2014).

As outlined earlier, animals have pro tanto claims to bodily integrity and to the absence of pain, distress, and suffering, among other things. At the same time, humans have a claim to eat. There is thus a conflict between humans’ claims and animals’ claims. Can we justify eating animal products if their production involves considerable harm? Is it morally justified to discount animals’ interests in bodily integrity, in leading a self-determined life, in the avoidance of distress and suffering and continued existence? Or does this discounting constitute unjustified harm? Should the animals involved in harmful food production be considered a particularly vulnerable group?

In order to answer these questions, the strength of these claims must be determined, and it must be ensured that all claims at stake are weighed in a fair and unbiased way. All these claims—animals’ claims to the absence of distress, pain and suffering, and so on, and humans’ claim to eat—appear, at first sight, to be fundamental. However, it is necessary to look a bit closer at the claim to eat. To be sure, eating is a vital claim: without an appropriate amount and quality of food, humans are condemned to die. The more relevant question, though, is whether humans have a claim to eat sentient animals and their products (such as milk, eggs, and meat) if their production involves harm.

Two scenarios can be distinguished. First, there is the scenario in which humans have to eat harmfully produced animal products in order to survive and guarantee their basic health. Examples may include geographical regions where plants cannot readily grow (such as the Arctic or some deserts) or where plant-based proteins are not diverse enough to maintain health.¹ Further examples are situations immediately following catastrophes (such as natural disasters or wars), where basic human survival is at stake yet there are no plant-based alternatives to animal products available. People in this first scenario basically have no other choice than to eat animal products in order to survive and maintain their health. In this context, eating animal products is a vital claim of humans. Animals’ claim not to suffer, on the other hand, can be considered fundamental, but not as vital. Thus, if animal suffering is weighed against human survival, it seems reasonable to conclude that the harm animals incur when their products are used is morally legitimate (although this harm should be kept to a minimum).

But what about killing animals, in this scenario? The same type of claim seems to be at stake—namely, the claim of both humans and animals to continued existence. But does this claim have the same strength for both groups? The answer depends on whether death is a greater harm by deprivation to humans than to animals. As I argued in Chap. 4, the badness of death has two components: first, death forecloses future opportunities for well-being and for the fulfillment of one’s plans, aims, and goals; second, the more one is connected with, or invested in, one’s future life and one’s life plans, the worse death is. This implies that some beings have a stronger interest in continued existence, and therefore a stronger claim to it. That is, psychological continuity with one’s future life adds additional weight in the context of the moral consideration process. Furthermore, death has a negative impact on those surviving the deceased individual, which must also be taken into account (for both humans and animals).

These considerations help us to answer the question of whether we may kill animals for their meat, in the first scenario. Presumably, most humans are more psychologically tied to their future than are most animals. Indeed, we have a much wider range of welfare and agency interests that may be frustrated by death. For example, most humans can anticipate their own future many decades ahead, and have related goals they wish to achieve. Furthermore, most humans have more social bonds than do animals, and their death therefore tends to grieve more individuals than does the death of an animal. In sum, more is at stake for most humans, compared with animals, when they die. Therefore, in the first scenario, it may be morally permissible to eat animals and their products. Indeed, it is not an unfair consideration to kill or use animals if human survival and human health is at stake, and if there is no possibility of importing or producing plant-based alternatives. While animals are generally vulnerable in the first scenario, they cannot be considered particularly vulnerable.

The second scenario concerns humans who have a choice about what they eat. They have no difficulty in finding nutritious and healthy plant-based alternatives to harmfully produced animal products. This is probably the case today for most Western societies, where there is an abundant supply of plant proteins and supplements (such as vitamin B12). Eating animals is thus a replaceable claim in this case. While one has a claim to eat something, one does not have a claim to eat sentient animals, even if one has a strong preference for its taste. The human interest in eating meat, milk, or eggs is not a welfare interest, but rather a mere (gustative) preference. On the other hand, animals do have genuine welfare interests: in bodily integrity, in being free from distress and suffering, and in leading a self-determined life allowing them to explore species-typical behaviors. These interests are fundamental and have the status of valid and legitimate claims with corresponding duties—which outweigh humans’ replaceable preference to eat animal products when nutritious plant-based alternatives are readily available. Giving priority to the replaceable preferences of humans over the more fundamental claims of animals would therefore violate the view (outlined previously) that morally protected interests—that is, claims—trump mere preferences. That is, to prioritize humans’ mere gustative pleasure, in this case, would amount to an unjust disregard of animals’ interests.

Hence, in the second scenario, humans do have a claim to eat, but only a preference for or interest in eating animals. Humans can choose what they eat, and they do not necessarily have to eat animals and their products in order to flourish and lead a satisfactory life, even if they may have a preference for animal products over plant-based alternatives. After all, humans are not harmed if they refrain from consuming meat, eggs, and dairy. As explained earlier, not all negative effects on someone represent harm: if one’s favorite football team loses a match or a gourmet is served a boring dish, these undesirable outcomes do not constitute a harm or even a wrong. Although such experiences may annoy, distress, or irritate us, they do affect us in way that is properly harmful (Feinberg 1984: 43).

Many animals suffer during the production of milk, eggs, and meat: they are deprived of living the life they would want to live; they are frequently impeded in their pursuit species-typical behaviors; they lose their social bonds; and they often experience pain, distress, and suffering. Moreover, this suffering is often hidden from consumers: despite their huge numbers, we seldom see the animals used for food production, and rarely observe how they are slaughtered. As shown above, such suffering and distress cannot be justified in many cases—provided one weighs the interests at stake fairly and impartially. That is, while the animals in both scenarios can be considered generally vulnerable, only the animals in the second scenario can be considered particularly vulnerable. Indeed, they are at an increased risk (compared with other human and animal groups, such as companion animals) of having their interests considered unjustly. Consequently, they have a claim to special protection and to additional attention. I will outline what this entails in the last section of this chapter. But before I turn to that, I wish to discuss another point: what if it were possible to raise animals humanely? Would we be allowed to kill animals who have led a happy life, insofar as their basic claims will have all been satisfied?

5.2 Killing “Happy Animals” for Food

In the previous section, I argued that in situations where healthy and nutritious plant-based alternatives are available, we should refrain from eating products derived from animals whose basic claims were illegitimately disregarded. However, nothing has been said so far about painlessly killing animals who have led a happy, satisfactory, species-typical life. Imagine that we managed to satisfy all the animals’ basic claims I previously outlined. An example might be cattle living a peaceful and protected life on pasture land or on an alp. They can freely choose where they want to go (within some limits), with which conspecifics they interact (supposing that their family bonds remain intact and that the calves are not separated from their mother), and what plants they eat at which time of the day. Or imagine free-roaming chickens living in a backyard or on a small farm, who are largely free to choose how they lead their life. This model has been called “humane farming” (Smolkin 2021). The question I want to address in this section is the following: is it morally permissible to painlessly kill animals who lead a happy life in order to produce meat in situations in which nutritious plant-based alternatives are available?²

In order to answer this question, it is helpful to distinguish the different claims at stake, notably animals’ claim to continued existence versus the humans’ claim to eat. We have to determine the strength of each of these claims. Does the painless killing of animals for food production amount to justified harm, wrongful harm, or a mere wrong? Or do these categories not apply to animals at all, assuming death is neither good nor bad for them?

For animals, continued existence is a vital claim—without their life, they are deprived of everything that matters to them: possibilities for pleasure satisfaction, raising a family of their own and maintaining relationships with other animals, fulfilling their interests and needs, and the like. At the same time, I argued before that the moral badness of killing a being depends on how much this being is connected to its future. Indeed, if only the quantity of lost lifetime mattered, then we would have to deem the death of a fetus or new-born worse than the death of a ten-year-old—which is counterintuitive (McMahan 2002: 192). The badness of death is thus determined not only by the lifetime one loses (death being the ultimate deprivation of everything that matters to oneself), but also by how much one is psychologically tied and connected to one’s future. The more one has formed plans and anticipations for the future, the more one loses from a premature death.

In animals, psychological continuity and connectedness to future events varies (as in humans at different stages of their life) (Selter 2020). These are quite strong in the case of great apes and corvids, and less strong in other animals. However, even if some animals are less connected to their future than others, their death is still an unjustified harm by deprivation; after all, it irreversibly deprives them of all future experiences. This implies that unnecessarily killing animals who are leading a good life is morally problematic, as it frustrates their claim to continued existence.

But does this claim to continued existence have less moral weight than human’s interest in eating animals? A negative answer is plausible, for two reasons. First, as previously indicated, our interest in eating meat is not a claim, but merely a gustative preference in situations in which there are plant-based alternatives—which is the case in most Western societies. Animals’ interest in continued existence, by contrast, does have the status of a legitimate claim, which must accordingly be considered in a fair and impartial way during moral decision-making.

Second, if one compares the pleasure derived from eating meat with the consequences of an animal’s death, it is hard to see how the former can outweigh the latter. Death is irreversible. In the case of not eating meat, all that is at stake is the frustration of a short, replaceable pleasure satisfaction. It is unclear how an interest of short duration and medium intensity can trump animals’ claim to continued existence, which deprives them of all future possibilities to satisfy their needs and desires. To be even more precise, we do not have to compare the loss of gustative pleasure with the loss animals incur; rather, we have to compare “the difference in the loss of pleasure people receive from eating the animal minus what they could receive from eating some nonmeat alternative” (Smolkin 2021: 253). If we compare this marginal loss to what animals lose, it becomes even harder to argue in favor of the view that the humans’ preference to eat meat trumps the animals’ claim to continued existence.

One might object that individuals who refrain from eating meat do not change anything: after all, only few animals will be saved. This line of reasoning is not convincing, however. The duty remains, even if one does not, in fact, have a huge impact on the practice of meat-eating on one’s own, and even if the effect of one’s action depends on similar actions by many others.³ Nonetheless, meat-eaters could contend that they are not directly killing the happy animals in question. They could argue that the actions by farmers or slaughterhouse workers are the ones that are morally problematic, not those of meat-eaters. That is, they are not the ones who directly harm the animal—slaughterhouse worker and producers are those who wrong the animals in question. This argument fails to convince, however: paying someone (even indirectly) to commit immoral acts or creating demand for morally problematic products can be deemed just as morally problematic. Even if one is not directly involved in the killing of the animals to be eaten, one is nevertheless complicit in a moral wrong—namely, not giving due consideration to animals’ claim to continued existence. Purchasing meat from humanely farmed animals helps to perpetuate speciesist beliefs in society, notably that humanely raised animals are the kind of beings we are allowed to eat, and that their lives do not matter per se.

One might further argue that eating meat is a fundamental freedom: humans should have a choice about how they lead their lives, including what we eat. Does thus the human interest in free food choice trump animals’ claim in continued existence? Requiring vegetarianism or even veganism, so the argument continues, would infringe upon humans’ claim to lead a self-determined life. However, it is important to remember that we do not have the freedom to do anything we want. Our freedom is sometimes legitimately restricted, as we should not gratuitously and needlessly inflict harm on others. Or our claim to free speech, for example, can be legitimately restricted: we are not allowed to publically libel someone, for example, by falsely accusing them of being a Nazi or a sexist. We regard these restrictions as valid, insofar as we are morally obliged to respect others and to take their interests into account. And the same applies to the case of eating happy animals: we do not simply enjoy an unfettered freedom to eat as we please; if our consumption directly or indirectly harms other sentient beings, then this freedom can be restricted. Hence, giving blanket priority to humans’ interest in eating meat over animals’ claim to continued existence represents an illegitimate discounting of the latter. Indeed, it would be speciesist to prioritize humans’ trivial interests over animals’ legitimate claims.

One might further object that it is problematic to simply oppose animals’ claim to continued existence to humans’ claim to eat meat. Rather, one should see the whole picture. It is not only humans’ comparatively trivial and replaceable interest in eating meat that is at stake; rather, one also has to take humans’ interests in the meat production industry into consideration. There are many people who financially depend on the meat industry and related retailers, such as farmers, slaughterhouse workers, and butchers. They have a claim to work, to have an income to feed and support their families, and they should be free to choose the sector in which they wish to work. If one takes this broader economic perspective into account, so a potential argument goes, animals’ claim to continued existence is no stronger than the accumulated interests and claims of all the people who depend on the meat industry.

To be sure, one could argue that my account faces this problem insofar as I do not explicitly postulate the inviolability of some claims. Rather, I speak of pro tanto claims which have to be justly weighed and evaluated against other claims. The question is now whether the many small and replaceable interests of many humans (such as the interests in eating meat, financial dependency on the meat industry, etc.) outweigh one vital claim of animals, namely the claim to continued existence.

A first step in responding to this objection is to assess whether the described accumulation of claims provides an adequate picture of the situation. To my eyes, it does not: it is not the case that many replaceable claims are confronted with just one vital claim; rather, many replaceable claims are confronted with many vital and fundamental claims, namely the number of animals killed and the suffering caused by farming. It is difficult to imagine that many replaceable interests—for example, owning a farm that raises animals for meat—should outweigh these many vital and fundamental interests.

Furthermore, the interest in eating meat and in raising animals for food is not a claim, but merely a preference without any correlated duties. Nobody has a claim to work in a slaughterhouse, nor do farmers have a claim that people buy their products. Rather, one has merely a claim to work. As a consequence, if my argument is valid, individuals working in the meat industry would have to find jobs in other sectors, and farmers raising cattle or pigs for their meat would have to find an alternative way of earning a living. That is, there are limits to the pursuit of profit or employment, assuming there are other ways to feed a population which do not require the killing of animals.

This does not imply that these individuals should be simply left to fend for themselves. In the field of sustainability, the term “Just Transition” has been coined to denote the need for social interventions to secure workers’ livelihoods as economies become environmentally friendlier and more climate-neutral. Basically, individual workers in previously important industries (such as coal mines) should not be alone in carrying the burden of reorienting their careers; rather, they should be supported by society. Just Transition demands investments in more sustainable jobs, income protection, and adequate funding while economies and societies shift toward more sustainable ways of production (International Labour Organization 2013; International Trade Union Confederation 2015). This idea can also be extended to animal agriculture. Charlotte Blattner (Blattner 2020) has argued that Just Transition should also be deployed in agricultural sectors, insofar as they contribute substantially to climate change. However, if my arguments presented here are sound, we also have ethical reasons—linked to animal welfare—to help farmers and slaughterhouse workers reorient their careers toward options which do not involve harming animals.

To summarize the last two sections, my arguments call for vegetarianism (or even veganism, if products such as milk and eggs cannot be produced in a non-harmful way), except in situations of dire need in which no healthy plant-based alternatives to meat are available. Producing or consuming products that involve killing animals cannot be regarded as instances of justified harm. The claims of the animals used for food production are frequently unjustly considered, and should thus be afforded more attention and protection by society. I will elaborate on what this means in the last section of this chapter. But first, I will discuss whether there would be an ethical problem with consuming animal products, such as milk and eggs, if they could be produced without any suffering and death.

5.3 Consuming Harmlessly Produced Animal Products

What if we respected all of animals’ basic claims—would we then be allowed to consume animal products such as dairy and eggs? Or are all uses of animals for humans’ benefit intrinsically problematic? In this book, I have distinguished between different manifestations of vulnerability: unpreventable or justified harm; unjustified wrongful harm; and harmless wrongs. In the following, I consider whether we can wrong animals without harming them. First, I discuss whether we are we allowed to use harmlessly produced animal products, such as milk and eggs, or whether consuming eggs and dairy is necessarily exploitative and morally problematic insofar as it wrongs the animals concerned. Second, I examine whether there is a link between vulnerability and dependency. That is, does dependency necessarily entail vulnerability, or can they be independent? I argue that dependency does not necessarily result in increased vulnerability. Third, if we are not allowed to kill animals painlessly for eating their meat, does this result in the problematic consequence that we should not bring any animals into existence? What of the view that farm animals should not exist at all, to avoid their incurring potential harm in the future?

The first question I want to address concerns the use of animal products that presumably did not involve any harm, such as suffering and distress, during their production. In the last sections, I argued that we are not morally allowed to harm animals or cause them suffering for trivial purposes (such as for obtaining animal products when we have non-harmfully produced plant-based alternatives), and that we are not allowed to kill animals for food (unless there are no healthy alternatives and human survival and basic welfare are at stake). This argumentation results in the prescription of vegetarianism, except in rare circumstances. But what if we could produce milk and eggs in a non-harmful way that did not require animals’ premature death? After all, it is conceivable to have a farm or sanctuary with animals who are well treated for their entire natural lifetime. Would we be allowed to use milk and eggs thus produced, or are all uses of animals, even harmless ones, exploitative and thus ethically illegitimate?

Before I can answer this question, a few remarks are in order. Note that the production of animal products without any suffering and death is a mostly hypothetical scenario. Such products would come at such high costs that they would be unaffordable for most consumers. For example, as mentioned before, industrial egg production relies on the practice of chick sexing—the killing of male chicks who are useless to the egg industry. Since I argued that killing animals for food is morally problematic in cases where healthy and nutritious plant-based alternatives are available, my argument here makes a number of assumptions: that egg production would be possible without killing the males; that the hens would live under conditions ensuring that they would be free from harm, such as suffering and distress; that the hens would have enough space to move around and to pursue natural behaviors; and that the hens would not be killed once egg production declines, but would be able to continue living (in a sanctuary, for example). In short, I assume that they would be granted the basic claims I outlined in Chap. 4. Obviously, such ideal practices would entail very high costs for people who want to buy eggs.

Similar assumptions could be made for milk production. Dairy cows and other animals (such as dairy goats and sheep) would not be killed once their productivity declined, and all efforts would be taken to reduce suffering related to milk production. For example, only a reasonable quantity of milk would be produced, given that high quantities involve excessive breeding, painful milking techniques, and diseases like mastitis—all of which may negatively affect the animals’ well-being (Oltenacu and Algers 2005; Siivonen et al. 2011; Hovinen and Pyörälä 2011; Fogsgaard et al. 2015; Petersson-Wolfe et al. 2018). Furthermore, since animals’ suffering matters more than humans’ trivial food preferences, lactating mother animals would not be separated from their calves after birth (as this results in considerable distress and suffering), and the male calves, who are a byproduct of the dairy industry, would not be killed. If one respected all these criteria, it would lead to a lower quantity of milk produced, to be sold at a correspondingly higher price.

This suggests that the production of harm-free milk and eggs is rather challenging, but for the sake of the argument, let us assume that it is possible. Or, to take a simpler case, let us imagine that someone saved hens from bad living conditions and let them live a good life, say in a private garden. The hens would continue to lay eggs, and the question arises whether it would then be permissible to eat these eggs. Do we wrong the animals in such scenarios because we use them as a means for our ends, although we do not thereby harm them?

Gary Francione famously defends the view that any animal use is inherently problematic. The main obstacle to achieving the just treatment of animals, according to him, is their legal status as property: it allows their owners to dispose of the animals as they wish, permits the use of animals exclusively as means to human ends, and leads to animals’ inappropriate instrumentalization and exploitation (Francione 1995). According to Francione, the legal-property status of animals entails that animals will always lose out when their interests are balanced against human interests. It implies that animals only have as much value as their owners attribute to them. “But because animal interests are treated in a completely instrumental manner, that is, because all animal interests may be sacrificed if animal owners decide that there is a benefit in doing so, the animal will virtually always be on the short end of the stick” (Francione 1996: 178). Thus, animals’ status as property results in their being at humans’ mercy.

In order to improve animals’ situation and to enable a just consideration of their interests, Francione claims that their inherent value must be recognized. Their legal property status has to be abandoned, since it is at odds with animal rights and permits the use of animals merely as a means to humans’ ends (Francione 1996). Francione therefore distinguishes between being treated as a means to an end and being treated exclusively as a means to an end. While the former is commonly accepted in the case of humans (e.g., we use the services of plumbers, taxi drivers, or lawyers), the latter is forbidden because it does not show appropriate respect for the inherent value of these individuals. Francione argues that our use of non-human animals extends far beyond what we would find acceptable for humans. Taken together, his arguments lead to a categorical and principled veganism—the position that we should categorically, and in principle, abolish all use of animal products because of their exploitative nature, regardless of the harm their use may actually cause.

Katherine Wayne, who presents a detailed critique of Francione’s view in her article “Permissible Use and Interdependence: Against Principled Veganism” (Wayne 2013), recognizes (with a nod to Francione) the distinction between using someone as a means and using someone exclusively as a means. However, Wayne claims that even if one makes this distinction and applies it to the case of animals, an objection remains: removing the property status of animals should still allow for some permissible uses of animals, just as some instrumental relations are permissible among humans (Wayne 2013). But Francione would likely reject this conclusion in the case of animals. He would object to a world in which we removed the property status of animals while potentially using them as means to our—human—ends. Indeed, Francione argues in favor of halting all breeding of domesticated animals: “We should care for those nonhumans whom we have caused to come into existence as our resources, but we should stop bringing domestic animals into existence because that practice simply creates false conflicts between humans and nonhumans and cannot be morally justified” (Francione 2008: 152). The ultimate goal for Francione is the non-existence of domesticated animals,⁴ a position which seems to preclude the possibility of permissible uses, even if the property status of animals were abandoned.

Wayne infers from her critique that the real problem of interaction between humans and domesticated animals, for Francione, is not their property status per se, but rather their dependency on humans: they are continually at our mercy, and we could potentially do with them whatever we want, even if we may have benevolent attitudes. For Francione, relationships between humans and animals that are determined by companionship rather than by ownership are still morally problematic since there is the possibility that humans may abuse the animals’ dependency.⁵

Wayne sees three options for Francione: first, he could accept a dichotomy between human dependency and animal dependency, whereby only the latter case entails the non-use principle. Such a view would be speciesist, however: it would require the complete removal of domesticated animals from human life, as humans are considered incapable of treating them fairly. By contrast, we would not accept such a consequence for human groups who were historically or currently are oppressed, marginalized, or dependent (Wayne 2013: 163–164). Second, Francione could argue that humans simply cannot be as dependent as animals are, and that they consequently cannot be exploited the same way. This view is rather implausible, since dependent humans could be, and sometimes are in fact, exploited. A third understanding of Francione’s position would be to hold that, similarly to animals, dependent human beings should not participate in relationships with non-dependent human beings even if such relationships are beneficial to both sides.

To illustrate why this view is problematic, Wayne frames three thought experiments to illustrate the possibility of respecting dependent humans while simultaneously using them as a means or resource. She argues that regarding dependent human beings “as resources in some sense […] is a precondition for their participation within a mutually beneficial and cooperative relationship” (Wayne 2013: 164). Thus, there is not necessarily a contradiction between respecting a being and using it as a resource: these two stances are not mutually exclusive, from a moral point of view. And if this is true in the case of dependent humans, then the same should apply in the case of dependent animals:

If it can be demonstrated of intra-human relationships and communities within which some party is both significantly dependent on other parties and simultaneously viewed as a resource that they are not clearly morally problematic and indeed may be morally desirable, we should be able to say the same thing for human-animal relationships and communities of a similar nature. (Wayne 2013: 164)

Wayne’s three thought experiments are based on the same scenario: imagine yourself as the caretaker of a home for adults with cognitive disabilities. This position brings you great pleasure, and you put a lot of effort and heart into it. You provide the disabled adults with what they need—shelter, food, social and cognitive stimulation, and so on—and they enjoy living there. Without caretakers, they would lead rather miserable lives. You could leave any time if you wanted, but due to your character, would not do so until you found someone suitable to replace you.

In the first scenario, the mentally disabled adults are assigned tasks in the household. The tasks depend on the cognitive abilities and the preferences of each individual. If they do not wish to perform a task, they are not forced to do so, nor do they suffer any negative consequences for declining. Wayne does not regard these assignments as exploitative or disrespectful. If one regarded it as morally problematic, one would adhere to the view that the disabled adults’ contributions are morally inappropriate. However, it is hard to see why this should be the case, since the scenario just described “depict[s] a mutually beneficial and respectful set of relationships that make up a cooperative household” (Wayne 2013: 165). If using one another like this is permissible in the case of humans, it should be so under the same conditions in the case of animals.

One could argue that these mentally disabled adults should not participate in mutually beneficial activities since they are incapable of rationally judging whether these activities are in their best interest or not. However, such an argument commits one to a problematic view of the role of cognitively disabled adults in our society. Indeed, Wayne argues that excluding disabled people from reciprocal relationships is paternalistic and misguided. Furthermore, one must note that in this scenario, the disabled wish to participate in these mutually beneficial relationships. This is also conceivable in the case of animals, and so should not be regarded as necessarily morally problematic.

The second thought experiment concerns the consumption of animal products. In order to outline the problem of Francione’s theory, Wayne presents the following thought experiment: imagine that the disabled adults draw a small amount of their blood on a daily basis. If they do not do this, their welfare will be negatively affected. Given that this activity entails little or no harm and they wish to pursue it, they are supported in this endeavor by their caretakers. Imagine, furthermore, that this blood is very nutritious and tasty and could be used to improve other humans’ health, and that the disabled adults do not express any worries about the blood being taken away from them. Wayne argues that this scenario does not amount to exploitative behavior:

It seems that we are not justified in condemning situations where something produced by a dependent party, at no cost and indeed significant benefit to themselves, is used by the caring party, unless there is something essentially wrong with expecting or even accepting contributions — from or of their bodies — provided by vulnerable, dependent beings receiving care. Given that the dependent parties in this instance are taken to create the product with no aversion to that product’s consumption, we are again left with no clear moral reason to prohibit these actions, and in fact, might be wrong to prohibit them. (Wayne 2013: 167)

Applied to animals, we can infer that harmlessly produced animal products which do not involve killing the animals are not necessarily problematic from a moral point of view.

Wayne’s last scenario involves selling the products of dependent parties. Imagine that the hair of these disabled humans grows (perhaps due some genetic mutation) much faster than the hair of other humans. The caretakers often cut the hair of their care receivers, and sell it. This helps generate profits for the care home, which can be invested in ways that are beneficial for everyone living there. Wayne argues that such a scenario is not necessarily exploitative, given that the disabled adults do not incur any harm; on the contrary, the practice is in their long-term interest. If one deemed such a situation exploitative, one would deny that the contributions of the mentally disabled in society are desirable and legitimate.⁶

Principled and categorical veganism, as Francione conceives it, demands relationships between humans and animals that are exclusively unilateral: one provides; the other receives. However, as Wayne shows, dependency does not necessarily entail that we must refrain from using others if there is no harm implied—in the case of both humans and animals. The mere possibility that some dependent individuals may be overly used or exploited does not imply that all uses are unjustified.⁷

To sum up, dependency does not necessarily entail vulnerability: dependent beings are not necessarily at an increased risk of having their interests unjustly considered. They are thus not necessarily particularly vulnerable, and consequently not in all cases in need of special protection or additional attention. Dependency may increase vulnerability in some situations (e.g., if the interests of a group of dependent individuals are comparatively more likely to be unjustly considered), but not necessarily so. Wayne’s thought experiments illustrate this point well: in the scenarios described above, the caretakers duly take the interests and needs of their care receivers into account. The cognitively disabled thus do not run an increased risk of being denied what they are due. Therefore, one cannot say that they are particularly vulnerable individuals in need of special protection in this context, despite their dependency.

To be sure, there are many situations and contexts in which cognitively disabled individuals should be seen as particularly vulnerable and correspondingly receive more attention. Consider ableist societies in which, due to prejudices or mere ignorance about the capacities and interests of cognitively disabled individuals, the latter are not taken seriously and see their claims to inclusion, education, and the like unjustly dismissed. In this case, they are indeed particularly vulnerable—not necessarily because they are dependent on others, but because they suffer from the prejudices of their fellow humans and thus are more likely to incur wrongs such abuse and neglect.

To further illustrate this point, consider the following example: children are highly dependent on their parents for their well-being and survival. Yet this does not mean that they should qualify as a particularly vulnerable group in need of special protection and attention in all contexts in Western societies. After all, most parents treat their children as they should, that is, with the necessary care and love. Furthermore, many laws protect children (from violence, for example), and grant them a right to education. However, this was not always the case. The understanding of what children need and are due has evolved: while children likely were particularly vulnerable in the past (and still are in some societies and specific contexts, such as wars), they can no longer be plausibly considered a particularly vulnerable group in most societies nowadays, as their interests are thoroughly considered in decision-making. That being said, children in unfavorable settings (e.g., children of parents with a severe drug problem), may run an increased risk of not having their interests duly taken into account. This means that children dependent on their drug-addicted parents for their well-being may qualify as particularly vulnerable and should receive more protection from child protection services and the like. This example underlines the importance of understanding situational vulnerability as highly dependent on the context, the time, and the specifics of a given group.

But let us come back to animals. Despite all these considerations, one might remain skeptical, and contend that any use of animals remains exploitative, even in cases in which there is no harm or in which the exploitation may even be beneficial to the animals. The question of whether some uses of animals are exploitative even if there is no harm involved is a difficult one. Much depends on the definition of “exploitation” one adopts. While there is controversy about what “exploitation” means and entails, it seems to basically consist in unfairly taking advantage of someone and thereby gaining some benefit.⁸

Beneficial forms of exploitation (in the case of humans) may occur, for example, when someone must pay an unjustifiably high price for pain killers and anti-inflammatory medication from another person because it is her only relief from unbearable pain. Another example is a scenario in which a prisoner’s only option for receiving basic medical care for her disease or condition is to enroll in a high-risk medical research study. These cases are morally unjustified forms of exploitation, even though they are actually beneficial for the individuals involved.

Can harmless or even beneficial uses of animals be exploitative? I do not see why. If there is no suffering, distress, and pain involved, if the animal does not have any interest that is potentially thwarted, and if the animal is not exclusively regarded as the means to a human end which might have a negative impact on the animal’s well-being, then it is unclear why the use of animals in such situations would qualify as exploitative.

Which uses of animals are legitimate, then? A conceivable scenario is the consumption of eggs laid by rescued chickens, who previously endured poor living conditions. Under such circumstances, it seems legitimate to consume or sell the eggs they continue to lay. Other examples are assigning well-treated guide dogs to blind people, or having animals visit schools for educational purposes or elderly homes for companionship.

Importantly, what I have presented here is not an argument in favor of all uses of animals, but only of some, and this, under carefully restricted conditions. As outlined above, current production methods of dairy and eggs frequently inflict suffering and premature death on the animals involved. All too often in these situations, animals are exclusively regarded as means to an end—namely, profit. In order to make the products of industrial farms ethical, they must be produced without harm and premature death, and animals’ basic claims must be respected.

However, there is a further worry with my argument. So far, I argued that many contemporary forms of animal use are morally problematic because they involve different forms of harm, such as suffering, distress, and premature death of the animals, but there seems to be a problem with this: if we abandoned these many forms of harmful animal use, then many animals would not come into existence at all. But this consequence, one might argue, is ultimately harmful to these animals insofar as they could not benefit from all the potential future satisfactions of their interests that come from being alive. In other words, the underlying assumption is that existence is always better than non-existence.

Here I defend the view that we do not have an obligation to bring beings into existence who will lead reasonably good lives (that is, lives that contain more pleasure than suffering overall), and that we are not wronging a being by not bringing them into existence. There are several reasons for this. First, the obligation to bring future beings with a decent quality of life into existence would result in counterintuitive consequences—namely, that we have to bring humans and animals into existence on many occasions in our life only because they are likely to lead worthwhile lives, which seems counterintuitive—at least for non-utilitarians.

Second, we do not wrong anyone by not bringing them into existence even though they might have led a good life. Non-existent beings have no claim to existence precisely because they are non-existent: there is no entity or individual waiting to come to Earth that can be wronged by not being brought into existence (Martin and Baertschi 2012). Non-existent beings do not possess any properties and thus do not possess any well-being at all (Herstein 2013). An existence with positive well-being cannot be compared to non-existence without any well-being at all. Thus, while the prospect of a miserable life is an argument against bringing someone into existence, the prospect of a potentially good life does not create an obligation to bring a being into existence.

Examples of justified cases of bringing animals into existence are sheep who will graze the grass in parks or companion animals who will lead reasonably good lives. As Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka note: “Humans may bring dogs into their lives for pleasure (and company, love, and inspiration), but this is compatible with dogs existing in and for themselves (as it is in the case of humans)” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011: 135). Morally problematic cases, on the other hand, involve bringing animals into existence who will lead lives containing more suffering than pleasure, for example, because it is foreseeable that they will be confined to small cages where they cannot pursue species-typical behavior, or that they will likely suffer and die an early death. These are cases in which the interests of the future animals do not play any role in the consideration of whether they should be brought into existence or not; these are rare cases where animals are wronged without being directly harmed.

5.4 Animals Used for Food as a Particularly Vulnerable Group

Many animals suffer in factory farming and livestock production. As shown, such suffering cannot be justified in many cases, provided one weighs the interests at stake fairly. That is, animals used as resources for food—when healthy plant-based alternatives are available—can be considered particularly vulnerable insofar as they commonly run a higher risk of having their interests unjustly considered. But what exactly is meant by “comparatively higher risk”? Compared to whom?

The relevant baselines of comparison are human groups as well as other animal groups. In many countries, due to speciesist attitudes, we treat animals in a way that would be obviously reprehensible if done to humans. To this end, Siobhan O’Sullivan coined the term “external inconsistencies,” that is, inconsistencies between the ways animals are treated compared to humans (O’Sullivan 2012: 5). Moreover, there are also internal inconsistencies: different groups of animals are treated differently than other animals (O’Sullivan 2012: 5). Indeed, the laws of many countries protect different groups of animals to varying degrees. For O’Sullivan, these inconsistencies are often correlated with the varying degrees of visibility of different animals in the public sphere: the less visible the animal is, the less legal protection it enjoys (with a few exceptions).

This point is particularly striking in the case of animals used for food: we rarely see them in our everyday life—a fact which, according to O’Sullivan, has a marked influence on how much they are protected from a legal point of view. For example, while we usually refrain from, or are even sometimes forbidden to kill companion animals (such as cats and dogs) for trivial purposes, the same restriction often does not apply to animals used for food production (such as pigs and cows).

The legal protection is particularly low for fish: the general public is often unaware of how farmed fish are bred and raised, and many methods used for killing them are morally problematic, since they do not consider the fish’s welfare sufficiently—if at all—during harvesting. For example, traditional farming methods may continue to cause great suffering to the animals concerned, despite less harmful alternatives’ being available (Lines and Spence 2012, 2014). Even the living conditions and killing methods of cattle, for example, receive more public attention than those of farmed fish, with very negative effects for fish. There are numerous moral issues with commercial fishing, as it causes the fish to die not only prematurely, but often painfully as well. Furthermore, incidental captures of other mammals during the fishing process negatively affects their welfare and often costs them their lives. As (Dolman and Brakes 2018: 1) note, “[c]ommercial fishing is the last human activity targeting wildlife (fish) on a grand scale where slaughter includes incidental killing of other large sapient wildlife on such a regular basis.” However, fishing practices leading to many animals’ suffering and premature death often remain overlooked, ignored, and largely unregulated.

Consequently, some groups of animals are comparatively more vulnerable in certain contexts because they lack the legal protection and public interest enjoyed by other animals and humans. This also shows that, similar to the case of humans, we should not classify all animals per se as particularly vulnerable. Rather, we need to specify which groups of animals are particularly vulnerable, and identify in which contexts and situations. Whether some group of animals qualifies as particularly vulnerable, thus, very much depends on the specific situation they find themselves in. The very same animal species can be particularly vulnerable in one country, but not in another, depending on the varying legal protections in each country. For example, cows are exploited for their meat in Western countries, but regarded as sacred and consequently protected in Hindu culture. Another example are dogs: they are rarely used for food and often live a good life as companion animals in many Western societies, but they are used for their meat in some Asian regions. Finally, fish can, in many contexts, be deemed even more vulnerable than other sentient animals used for meat production, as their living conditions in aquaculture and the slaughtering methods are often barely regulated or up to the newest standards. From a moral perspective, fish are frequently at a high risk of not being given what they are due.

In this chapter, I have argued that animals killed for their meat and used for milk and egg production involving suffering qualify as particularly vulnerable in contexts where healthy plant-based alternatives are available. The animals concerned should, as a consequence, be afforded special protections and additional attention. But how can this be done? How can we reduce their vulnerability to an acceptable level? In what follows, I sketch some ways forward and outline why it is beneficial to describe these animals as “particularly vulnerable.”

O’Sullivan (2012: 161) suggests, as a first step, that the protection standard of less visible animals—such as animals used for the production of food—be raised to the same standard of more visible animals (such as companion animals). Put another way, the protection of highly visible animals should be regarded prima facie as the benchmark for the correct treatment of sentient animals, before external inconsistencies can be addressed. I suggest that this may be done by increasing the public visibility of animals used for the harmful production of animal products. By turning the general public’s attention toward animals unjustifiably used for food production, we may alter what people know and think about them. For example, through campaigns about the sentience and capacities of fish, consumers may change their attitudes toward these animals. Furthermore, by learning more about the harmful production processes behind meat, eggs, and milk, along with the often deplorable living situation of these animals, consumers may realize that they are partaking in serious wrongdoing. Hence, individual consumers may realize that they have some basic duty: when deciding what to eat, they ought to assess whether there are healthy plant-based food alternatives available to harmfully produced animal products. The more consumers are informed about the fates of the animals they eat, the more motivation they will have to change their consumption patterns.

To eventually achieve external consistency, it will no doubt be necessary to change the attitudes of the general public regarding animals and their fate in the food industry over the long term. Over the last years, more and more researchers have studied prejudices and biases, such as racism, ageism, weight bias, HIV-related stigma, and so on. This body of research shows that most, if not all, humans harbor implicit and explicit prejudices toward other humans. Yet it also shows that biases and attitudes are malleable and may be changed—within some limits—by certain types of interventions (see, e.g., Loutfy et al. 2015; Alberga et al. 2016; Burnes et al. 2019; FitzGerald et al. 2019).

In recent years, speciesism has become a lively topic of psychological research. For example, the meat paradox—the fact that most people do not want to hurt animals, but at the same time continue to consume harmfully produced meat products—has been investigated in diverse studies (see, e.g., Loughnan et al. 2010; Loughnan et al. 2014; Jaquet 2021). In their article “The Moral Standing of Animals: Towards a Psychology of Speciesism,” Caviola et al. (2019) have shown that speciesist attitudes are stable over time, and that similar mechanisms might underlie speciesism and other forms of prejudice, such as racism and sexism. If this is accurate, we may hope that in the future, interventions will be designed that can successfully reduce speciesist prejudices in society—similar to existing interventions which already successfully reduce other types of prejudices in humans.

The concept of vulnerability is already established in the discourse about human groups. It serves as a powerful marker that draws attention to the fact that some groups are more likely to be overlooked or not considered in the way they should be, and that they are at risk of incurring some serious wrong. Ascribing the concept of vulnerability to certain groups of animals—such as animals unnecessarily suffering in the process of producing food—may have similar effects on public discourse. Extending the concept of a “particularly vulnerable group” from humans to animals would have the beneficial effect of explicitly including animals in the moral sphere via our speech acts. It would show that not only some human groups are at risk of incurring serious wrongs, but that animals, too, can be regarded as particularly vulnerable in many contexts and situations. This designation would thus help us to attend to their fate.

Moreover, describing animals used for the harmful production of meat, eggs, and milk as particularly vulnerable may draw attention to the fact that serious wrongdoing is occurring or is likely to occur, and that something needs to be done about it—that is, that the animals concerned should receive special protective measures to improve their situation. For example, policymakers could be called upon to ensure that all animals’ legitimate claims are duly protected. Minimally, animals with similar properties (such as similar welfare and agency interests) should, regardless of their species, benefit from similar forms of protections. Thus, designating the animals who are harmed in the process of extracting their products for food as particularly vulnerable may have the beneficial effect of changing the way we think about these animals and may, hopefully, improve their situation over the long term.