Redesigning Animal Agriculture

case of virtues) there are specific terms for
distinct types of moral valuation. Thus conduct
is honest or dishonest, courageous or
cowardly, loyal or disloyal, etc. Such terms
are more frequent in ordinary language than
the terms ‘virtue’ or ‘vice’. The connection
between this elementary moral vocabulary
and the simple model of human action provides
a starting point for more systematic
ethical enquiry.
From Ordinary Language Ethics to
Philosophical Ethics
Philosophical ethics is the study of moral
judgements, which is to say that it is a
study of how human beings use ideas such
as rights and duties, benefits and harms or
virtue and vice to shape their own decision
making as well as to evaluate the activity
of others. Positivist-inclined scientists may
well be impatient with the simplistic and
unexceptional characterization of ordinary
moral language given above, thinking that
it only shows how chaotic and subjective
ethical talk tends to be. For a long time,
academic philosophers have been inclined
to agree. For about the last 300 years in the
discipline of philosophy, most philosophers
working in ethics have been engaged in a
project of reductionism, not unlike the sciences
themselves. Briefly, the reductionist
approach is to focus on one of these elements
– rights and duties, virtues and vices,
benefits and harms – in an attempt to show
through philosophical argument and logical
demonstration that one particular element is
the most basic in determining ethical action.
Reductionist philosophers have believed
that if we focus on one of these elements, it
will be possible to develop systematic and
consistent ethical theories of the decisionmaking
process.
For 300 years, philosophers have been
refining theories in which one of these
domains (usually rights or consequences) is
seen as the touchstone for all the others. This
historical observation is relevant here because
reductionism has influenced the ways in
which philosophers have approached animal
Ethics of Livestock Science 33
ethics. What follows is a stripped down overview
of some reductionist strategies that have
influenced the way that ethical obligations
to livestock are currently being discussed.
The goal is to suggest that, as powerful and
influential as these approaches have been,
they do not do justice to the range of ethical
problems at the frontiers of livestock science.
I acknowledge that the characterization I give
of these views below is itself over-simplified,
and beg the forbearance of readers who are
familiar with the philosophical details.
For example, the philosophy of utilitarianism
focuses on the idea that it is
impacts on health and well-being – the consequences
of our actions – that are ethically
basic. Here the word ‘consequences’ is used
specifically as defined above, to indicate the
outcome or impact that conduct has on the
welfare of oneself and others. If a utilitarian
talks about rights and duties, or virtues
and vices, ultimately this has to be reducible
to an underlying language relating to
the way that our conduct affects health and
well-being. Utilitarians reduce complexity
in ethics by interpreting all ethical claims
as referring ultimately to impact on welfare.
Other elements typical of utilitarianism
include the assumption that impacts on
welfare can be ranked and summed. This
allows the expected outcome from each possible
course of action to be placed in a rank
order, which (in combination with probability
theory) allows one to assign an expected
value to each option (each possible course
of action). Utilitarians are known for the
decision rule that mandates choosing the
option that has the greatest expected value,
once the welfare of all affected parties has
been considered.
If animals experience the same kinds
of impacts on their health and well-being as
humans, then it would be logically inconsistent
to ignore this when calculating the
costs and benefits of our actions. Therefore,
according to the principles of utilitarianism,
the impact of human behaviour on the
health and well-being of animals (for good
or ill) should be reflected in our understanding
of which actions are ethically justified.
Impacts on the welfare of animals should be
weighed along with impacts on the welfare