Given the vast range of issues and lines of argument he has to summarize, Jamieson does a remarkable job in Chapter 5 of surveying the central problems and positions on non-human animals. It is beyond the scope of this course to resolve all the serious and interesting questions raised by human-animal relations. These are questions that will not go away, and each of us will be dealing with them for a long time.
For present purposes, however, we might be able to take an intellectual short-cut. Suppose we set aside the discussion of the moral standing of various kinds of animals for a moment, and limit ourselves to questions of the larger environment. Aside from what meat-eating does to animals as experiencing beings, we can ask the restricted question of its impact on the ecosphere. Credible empirical data suggest that current practices of animal agriculture (including CAFOs and the fossil-fuel intensive monoculture of grain and legume crops for animal feed) are locally and globally catastrophic, and thus perhaps by themselves dispositive of almost all meat-eating in the developed world (which is where most meat is consumed).
If this is the case, then for now perhaps we need not settle critical disputes about moral standing (as between whether only rational beings count morally, or also subjects of lives, or all sentients, and so on). Environmentally, how we answer any of these questions may turn out to be moot.
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If we were to do this, we would no longer be questioning the relationship of humans and animals, but would be questioning the relationship of humans and the environment. Discussing the consequences of intensive animal agriculture without questioning the treatment of the animals involved would lead us to the same conclusions as if we were discussing the environmental consequences of any other ecologically detrimental human activity.
Fair enough on both counts.
With regard to modern animal agriculture, I'm afraid Jamieson's description is about as gentle and polite as it is possible to be without completely whitewashing it. To go into detail about the full reality of the matter is to descend into an almost unimaginable hell. No one intends to spoil anyone's dinner here, but we can't do an adequate analysis of the principles without having a basic grasp of the relevant facts.
If it is true, as we have both suggested, that we might draw very similar conclusions about our behavior without settling the question of the various forms of animal consciousness, this eliminates neither our curiosity nor the moral issues at stake; it only makes the strictly environmental question a bit clearer.
This was a hard chapter to digest as meat eater. However, all moral issues aside, there are many other serious problems due to factory farming. Runoff from livestock waste, for example, is a serious threat. However, how will we even solve a problem stemming from livestock waste if there are still livestock being used as a means? It is feasible to consider that unless we stop the problem at its cause,we will not be able to stop the other cascading problems.
I thought that Jamieson did a wonderful job at describing what really happens to animals used for meat. Just like Shelby said at our outdoor meeting "meet your meat". This is such a great saying because so many people have absolutely no idea where their meat comes from. If we are going to eat meat, we need to understand our relationship to animals and the impacts that eating meat creates on a global scale. The statistics that Jamieson included in this chapter were serious accounts of what humans do without even realizing.
Meat eating has been frowned upon and also used as a way of life for thousands of years. Jamieson delivers a clear concept of today's meat-eating standards. As most of us know he could potentially write another book on this topic alone. In the grand scheme of this planet's potential we won't ever know if mass production of corps and livestock are harming the physical world. We are just one page in a very long flip book of this earth. Many people don't think about the road ahead or the possible outcome of a once great idea, resulting in horrible end products such as oil spills or a unstoppable genetically altered feed crop taking over other crops.
We do in fact know that animal agriculture, among other human activities, harms the world, and that this harm alone (never mind the suffering of the animals) is a matter of moral concern.
There are alternative ways to raise livestock that are less damaging than CAFOs, perhaps even sustainable and ecologically healthy, but these would entail eating orders of magnitude less meat, or far fewer people. Probably both.
Taking the stats that Jamieson gave us in chapter 5, it is quite obvious that I feel awful for being a meat eater, not only because of the suffering the animals' short lives entail, but because of the detrimental effect on the environment my diet actually has. I liked the idea of the conscientious omnivore that Jamieson goes into detail of. However, there are a few setbacks that this type of diet has. My obvious setback, is that I am not a hunter, I do not see myself going out into the woods to kill a feral pig, as useful and ecologically friendly as it may be. I would like the be a conscientious omnivore, but I know that it takes more than just knowing that the life of the food I am now eating was in fact a living animal that could feel pain and pleasure, as well as knowing its life was lived and taken away painfully.
Yes, taken seriously conscientious omnivority (omnivorocity? omnivoriferousness?) would be rather demanding.
It's not clear to me, however, that any useful purpose at all is served by your feeling awful about what you eat. Perhaps the thought we had in class today would be helpful: if it occurs to you that your behavior is harmful, think of a way to make it a bit less so.
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