Puppies, Pigs, and People

Puppies, Pigs, and People

Asking the Right Question

First Question:How can eating anything be immoral?


Simply eating an animal can’t be ethically problematic:

• Death by natural causes• Accidental deaths


We find the prospect of eating human meat repulsive, but is it (intrinsically) immoral?

• Donner Party• Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571• Ritualistic Cannibalism


What seems to matter is how you get the meat you are eating.


Second Question:Is raising and killing animals for food immoral?


This is a harder question to answer.• Animals could be raised in a humane fashion and killed in a

painless manner.• Do animals have a right to life?• Even if they don’t, they may have other rights.

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Norcross’ Question:Is it permissible for us to eat meat given how it is actually produced?


Norcross argues that our practice of eating meat (given how it is produced) is ethically problematic.

To be morally good people, we should discontinue the practice.

Fred: Torturer of Puppies

To pump our intuitions, Norcross presents the case of Fred.


In Fred’s basement the police find:“Twenty-six small wire cages, each containing a puppy, some whining, some whimpering, some howling. The puppies range in age from newborn to about six months. Many of them show signs of mutilation. Urine and feces cover the bottoms of the cages and the basement floor. Fred explains that he keeps the puppies for twenty-six weeks, performs a series of mutilations on them, such as slicing off their noses and their paws with a hot knife all without any form of anesthesia. Except for the mutilations, the puppies are never allowed out of the cages, which are barely big enough to hold them at twenty-six weeks.” (139)


Fred claims not to be a sadist.

Tortured puppies are the only source of cocoamone which allows Fred to greatly enjoy the taste of chocolate.


Norcross claims that Fred is clearly immoral and that most would agree to this.


The treatment of Fred’s puppies is precisely analogous to how animals are treated in factory farms all over the country.


The vast majority of the meat, eggs, and milk produced in the US comes from such farms.

• 99.9% of chickens (for meat)• 97% egg laying hens• 99% of turkeys• 95% of pigs• 78% of cattle

The Big Question

Is anyone who eats meat just as immoral as Fred and Michael Vick?

Are there morally relevant differences between us and Fred?

Norcross’ Argument

Norcross reasons as follows:1. If it is wrong to torture puppies for gustatory pleasure, then

it is wrong to support factory farming.2. It is wrong to torture puppies for gustatory pleasure.3. Therefore, it is wrong to support factory farming.

Norcross’ Argument

Buying and eating meat from companies that engage in such practices is supporting those practices:• If no one bought such meat, the companies would not exist.• If sufficient numbers of people refrained form eating meat, the

companies would not continue to engage in such practices

Moral Relevance

There are clearly differences between our case and Fred’s. The question is whether the differences are morally relevant.

Morally Relevant Difference: A difference between two cases such that one case has a different moral status than the other.

Difference #1

Fred tortures the puppies himself, we don’t torture farm animals ourselves.

Just change the case to one in which Fred hires someone else to do it for him.

Is Fred’s behavior now morally permissible? (Vick)

Difference #2

Ignorance: Fred knew what was going on, but many meat eaters do not know how bad things are in factory farms.

Fair enough.

But this doesn’t apply to you. You have been told what it is like in such farms!

Difference #3

Effectiveness

If Fred stopped collecting cocoamone, all relevant puppy torturing would stop.

If I stop eating meat, there will still be factory farms.

Difference #3

It is simply false that your stopping eating meat does not make a difference.

Difference #3

• One person ceasing to eat meat won’t make a dent, but 10,000 would.

• If you give up eating meat you are contributing to a general trend.

• Giving up eating meat can influence others to stop eating meat as well, contributing even more.

Difference #3

Any large, community based undertaking has this feature.

Each individual person contributes a very little to the whole.

Difference #4

Fred is torturing puppies, not pigs, cows, chickens, or turkeys.

It is hard to see what the morally relevant difference between puppies and farm animals is supposed to be.

Is Torturing Puppies Wrong?

So far, we have found no morally relevant difference between our practice of eating meat and Fred’s behavior.

Maybe it is the second premise of Norcross’ argument that is false.


Norcross’ Argument1. If it is wrong to torture

puppies for gustatory pleasure, then it is wrong to support factory farming.

2. It is wrong to torture puppies for gustatory pleasure.

3. Therefore, it is wrong to support factory farming.

Texan’s ChallengeA. If it is wrong to torture


B. It is not wrong to support factory farming.

C. Therefore, it is not wrong to torture puppies.


Norcross’ Argument1. If it is wrong to torture


2. It is wrong to torture puppies for gustatory pleasure.

3. Therefore, it is wrong to support factory farming.

Texan’s ChallengeA. If it is wrong to torture


B. It is not wrong to support factory farming.

C. Therefore, it is not wrong to torture puppies.

The Rationality Gambit

Claim: Humans have a superior ethical status to animals because humans are rational and animals are not.


What does it mean to be rational?Usually involves some kind of cognitive capabilities (e.g.):• The ability to reason.• Introspective capabilities• The ability to reflect on one’s moral status• The ability to appreciate the moral status of others


It is clear that (at least for some of these) humans have these capacities but animals do not.

The strategy is to deny that animals have a lower moral standing than humans because of this difference.


Why should these differences matter?

One reason for thinking that they do is that these kinds of capacities are what is required to be morally evaluable.


If a lion kills an antelope, another lion, or even its own cubs we don’t call it immoral. Why?• Lions don’t have the capacity to understand moral rules (so

they can’t follow them)• Lions can’t appreciate themselves or others as conscious

entities (so they don’t understand the suffering of others)• Lions can’t recognize the moral status of themselves or others

(so they can’t understand the rights of themselves or of others)

The Problem of Marginal Cases

The main objection to the claim that any capacity is necessary for full moral standing is that if any subject lacks these capacities, then they will lack full moral standing.


The Problem of Marginal CasesWhatever kind and level of rationality that is required for full moral status that excludes animals, there will be some humans who fail to have that status.


Marginal Cases• Infants and small children• Temporarily cognitively impaired adults.• Permanently cognitively impaired adults (congenital, injury-

induced, illness-induced)


Consider the ability to understand moral rules and apply them to others.

It is clear that animals cannot do this.

But neither can small children, the severely senile, or other cognitively impaired adults!


If we claim that this difference means that animals do not have full moral standing, we have to say that the same is true of infants, and the cognitively impaired!


Is it permissible to treat children and cognitively impaired humans as animals are treated in factory farms?


What these marginal cases show is that if a subject fails to be morally evaluable it does not mean that we can treat her any way we choose.

The reason why seems clear: even if such subjects cannot reason they can still suffer.

Preventing Suffering

The Suffering Argument(1) Bringing it about unnecessary suffering is morally

impermissible.(2) Supporting factory farms brings about unnecessary suffering.(3) Buying and eating meat supports factory farms.(4) Therefore, it is morally impermissible to buy and eat meat.

Limits of the Argument

Factory farms exist because it is the cheapest and quickest way to produce large quantities of meat.


Meat produced in other ways cause less suffering among such animals.

Norcross’ argument may not apply to such methods.


Another limitation is that it is unclear what “supporting factory farms” amounts to.

If less people ate meat there would be less suffering among animals.

But it is also true that if people ate less meat there would be less suffering among animals.


Do considerations such as those raised by Norcross demand that we don’t eat meat at all, or that we drastically lower the amount of meat we consume?

A Last Consideration

Is there any way of supporting a large meat-eating culture that does not cause large amounts of suffering to animals?

Free-range and cage-less farming cause less suffering than factory farms, but they do not eliminate it completely.

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Puppies, Pigs, and People

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