Eating animals is, without doubt, the human activity that impacts negatively upon the largest numbers of animals. It is estimated that about 90-95% of the animals that suffer and die due to human intervention do so because of the demand for animals as “food”. From our childhood onward, we are brought up in an environment where eating animals is something “normal”. For that reason, most of us never ask ourselves if there could be something wrong with it. As a result, we tend not to see that a meal that for us means a moment of pleasure, for the animals we eat means, quite simply, their lives. It is only possible to do this if we consider the interests of animals to be totally irrelevant. However, if we really think about it, we can see how difficult such an attitude is to maintain.
Are the lives of animals really worth so little?
It is sometimes claimed that only capacities such as intelligence or the ability to reason confer upon a being the right to justice, suggesting that only human beings matter. However, the fact that a being manifests a different degree or type of intelligence does not mean that it lacks it altogether. The important point is that such characteristics cannot be considered as morally relevant. One sentient being doesn’t feel any more than another, just because she or he is more intelligent, or has a different kind of intelligence. Nowadays, who would defend the killing, exploitation or abuse of human babies, or people with severe mental disabilities? In many cases, however, these human beings lack the capacity for having certain abstract thoughts, making certain mathematical calculations or having moral responsibilities towards others… If we defended the view that the possession of certain intellectual capacities is relevant in determining whether someone has any moral worth, we would also justify the exploitation and killing of such people. This comparison can help us to understand why features such as intelligence are unimportant when we evaluate the interests of another being. Only the capacity to feel suffering and joy matters for that. And non-human animals have, like us, the capacity to experience pain and pleasure. They are individuals with needs and interests that we must respect.
Sometimes, certain uses of animals are defended, provided these don’t cause them suffering – such as vivisection with full anaesthesia. But this means we are denying one of the interests all animals have – that of staying alive. Whether painful or not, death always means the deprivation of all our possibilities to have positive experiences. Apart from having an interest in not suffering, we animals (remember that we humans are animals too) also have an interest in feeling satisfaction and experiencing pleasure, which implies an interest in maintaining our physical integrity and our freedom; and, more importantly, in staying alive. This is present to such an extent that only in extreme cases, such as when an unavoidable and painful death is near, can we understand that our interest in not suffering outweighs our interest in living. In fact, most of us will fight to stay alive, even if this means enormous suffering. This shows that it is meaningless to put animals’ interests in not being subjected to suffering above their interest in living itself – both are obviously of great importance.
An immense amount of preventable suffering
To use animals as food means that we are viewing them as resources and thus frustrating their most basic interests. Depriving them of their lives and liberty and causing them suffering is all inherent in the raising of them for food. The following details give an idea of how this affects the lives of animals:
How animals “live”…
Any type of rearing of animals for human consumption inevitably involves some kind of limitation on their freedom. It is normal for such animals to be kept in places where they never see sunlight, or to be confined in extremely small spaces. On many farms, each hen’s accommodation is equivalent to the size of an A4 sheet of paper. In these cages, birds are locked up together in groups of four or five, which does not allow them to escape attacks from other stressed birds. This is particularly common due to the stress of confinement and normally they cannot move at all (turn around, stretch their wings or even lie down). The bars of the cage floor hurt and mutilate their legs, causing wounds and deformations. Sometimes, their feet become completely trapped in the metal (this means that when brought to the slaughterhouse they have to be literally ripped out of the cages).
Cows are similarly imprisoned in narrow indoor stalls in which they do not have enough space even to turn around. Pigs suffer the same fate, or are reared in huge sheds, together with thousands of others of their kind. Other animals (such as lambs, ducks, ostriches and deer) are kept in similar conditions. Excrement accumulates under them and dead animals are sometimes not removed for days. They would die of multiple infections were it not for the enormous amount of antibiotics and chemicals administered to them in their food (which is full of hormones and waste materials, in order to fatten them as fast and economically as possible). Life is no picnic on free-range farms either. These animals may not be in cages, but are mostly confined to sheds or barns and are never really free.
In fish farms, fish are also crammed into small tanks and suffer all types of diseases, which are then treated by antibiotics.