The X-Schema X1) Emm is (or has) X
7. Morally Relevant Differences
There are plenty of differences between the case of Fred and his puppies and the case of you and the farm animals whose flesh you are buying and eating. Labrador puppies are cute and cuddly, for instance, whereas chickens and pigs are ugly and smelly. That’s a difference. But it isn’t a morally relevant difference. How cute or ugly something or someone is doesn’t make any difference to what we are morally permitted to do to them.
So, what might be a morally relevant difference between the cases, that is, a difference that could potentially make for a moral difference? I’ll consider five possibilities: that puppies aren’t bred to be consumed, that Fred’s cruelty is unnecessary, that meat
(unlike chocolate) has actual health benefits, that Fred (unlike you) is directly harming the animals, and that Fred giving up cocoamone would have an actual impact on the amount of animal suffering whereas you giving up meat would have no impact.
First, one might point to a difference in what puppies and livestock are bred for. Puppies, the idea goes, are bred to serve as human companions, whereas chickens and pigs are bred for human consumption. But there is reason to doubt that this is a morally relevant difference. If someone were breeding human children specifically so they could be put to work as slaves, enslaving those children would be just as immoral as enslaving any other child.
Furthermore, we can simply revise the COCOAMONE FARM case so that this difference disappears.
BRED FOR COCOAMONE
Fred goes to a breeder and buys some dogs, some male and some female. Recognizing that these dogs were bred to be human companions, he treats them well. But he breeds the dogs, intending to use their puppies for cocoamone. Once they have their puppies—which weren’t bred for human companionship—he takes the puppies, locks them in cages, mutilates them, slaughters them, and distills their cocoamone.
By revising the case in this way, we eliminate the difference that was supposed to be morally relevant. Yet what Fred does to these puppies still seems wrong, even though they were bred for the sole purpose of being slaughtered for their cocoamone. So FP2 remains true—despite changing the details of what Fred does—
and the proposed objection to FP3 fails.
Second, one might contend that, whereas the farm animals’
suffering is unavoidable, Fred’s cruel treatment of the puppies is entirely unnecessary. If all he needs is the cocoamone, why extract their teeth and cut off their tails and keep them in small cages?
Well, here’s the thing. Fred lives in a small two-bedroom apartment, and it would be complete chaos if he gave those twenty dogs the run of the house. There’s no reasonable alternative to keeping them in cages. Of course, being all cooped up like this makes them crazy and aggressive, and castrating them
curbs their aggression, while removing their teeth and tails diminishes their ability to harm one another. Why not get a bigger apartment? And why no anesthesia? He can’t afford it! Why not extract the cocoamone from their brains without slaughtering them? One does not simply “extract the cocoamone.” It’s not as if there’s a little pouch in there filling up with the stuff. There’s no way to get at it without grinding up the brain and straining it out.
So, we have failed to identify a difference between the cases, let alone a morally relevant difference. In both cases, the suffering is an unavoidable consequence of the only feasible and financially sound way of obtaining the relevant resource (be it meat or cocoamone).
Third, one might contend that the morally relevant difference is that meat, but not cocoamone, makes a positive contribution to one’s health. Not so fast. Cocoamone does make a positive contribution to Fred’s psychological health. He loves the taste of chocolate, and the thought of never tasting it again is very depressing for him. Perhaps you’ll object that meat doesn’t merely make a positive contribution to one’s health; meat (unlike cocoamone) is necessary for a healthy diet. But as we saw in section 4, that’s just false. There is nothing, protein included, that’s needed for survival or health and that can only be gotten from meat.
Fourth, one might say that Fred directly harms the puppies in COCOAMONE FARM, whereas you do not directly harm any farm animals. The farm animals have already been confined, mutilated, and slaughtered by the time you buy and eat the meat. (Notice, by the way, that this is the opposite of the common refrain that it’s okay to eat meat as long as you’d be willing to kill it yourself.
Here, the idea is that it’s okay precisely because you’re not killing it yourself.)
In response: the absence of direct harm doesn’t typically absolve someone of moral responsibility. If I hire a hitman to kill someone, intuitively what I have done is no less wrong than if I had committed the murder myself. In any case, we can revise the Fred story once more to eliminate the putative difference.
HIRED HELP
Too squeamish to mutilate and slaughter the dogs himself, Fred hires Nysha to do it for him. She buys twenty dogs, mutilates them, keeps them confined in small cages, slaughters them, and provides Fred with one vial of cocoamone each month. He pays her for her services.
Now, Fred is not directly harming the puppies. But his hands are not clean; it is immoral for him to hire Nysha to set up a cocoamone farm. So FP2 remains true even when we revise the story to incorporate something more analogous to the indirect harm of buying meat. The putative morally relevant difference between the cases disappears and can no longer serve as an objection to FP3.