Animals, Men and Morals 0800802721

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ANIMALS, MORALS

MEN AND

An enquiry into the maltreatment of non-humans edited by

Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris

TAPLINGER PUBLISHING COMPANY New York

First published in the United States in 1972 by Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc. New York, New York Copyright © Stanley Godlovitch 1971 Copyright© Roslind Godlovitch 1971 Copyright© John Harris 1971 Copyright© Ruth Harrison 1971 Copyright© Muriel the Lady Dowding 1971 Copyright© Richard Ryder 1971 Copyright© Terence Hegarty 1971 Copyright© Maureen Duffy 1971 Copyright© Brigid Brophy 1971 Copyright © David Wood 1971 Copyright © Michael Peters 1971 Copyright © Patrick Corbett 1971 All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain

ISBN 0-8008-0272-1

Introduction

7

I

SOME

FACTS

On Factory Farming Ruth Harrison 2. Furs and Cosmetics: Too High a Price? Muriel the Lady Dowding 3. Experiments on Animals Richard Ryder 4. Alternatives Terence Hegarty I.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:

Contents

78-179951

II 1.

2.

3.

1.

3.

2.

THE

FACTS

THE

MORAL

THE

SOCIOLOGICAL

97 III

125

FRAMEWORK

Duties to Animals Leonard Nelson Animals and Morals Roslind Godlovitch Utilities Stanley Godlovitch

IV r.

AT

Killing for Food John Harris Beasts for Pleasure Maureen Duffy In Pursuit of a Fantasy Brigid Brophy

III 2.

LOOKING

l l

1 49

156 1 73

PERSPECTIVE

Strategies David Wood Nature and Culture Michael Peters

1 93 213

Postscript by Patrick Corbett

232

Notes on contributors

2 39

Introduction Some time ago, the three of us decided that a symposium comprehensively dealing with the maltreaJtment of animals would be worth organising. One element of our strategy was to keep strictly factual papers to a minimum in order to allow for more general and far-reaching studies. There were two reasons which motivated this approach. First, there already exist many carefully documented works which go into great detail about the range of barbarities we humans inflict upon the other animals. Secondly, we realised that the broader moral, sociological, and psychological implications of our treatment of animals provide the strongest and most compelling reasons in arguments calling for the cessation of such treatment. Once the full force of moral assessment has been made explicit there can be no rational excuse left for killing animals, be they killed for food, science, or sheer personal indulgence. We have not assembled this book to provide the reader with yet another manual on how to make brutalities less brutal. Compromise, in the traditional sense of the term, is simple unthinking weakness when one considers the actual reasons for our crude relationships with the other animals. To argue that a lack of compromise is wrong-headed on our part is merely to perpetuate various fantasies people have about the regard that should be had towards other species. Our general approach demands only that the reader consider the issues rationally, and by that we do not mean that he think in terms of daily practices, inbred habits; expediency, or anthropocentricity. The book falls into four major sections and is concluded by Professor Corbett's Postscript. The first section is devoted to a factual survey of the use of animals in agriculture, science, and fashion. Section II consists of papers offering specific critiques of the practices discussed previously. Here one must directly confront the fantastic moral and psychological incongruities that lie embedded in the fabric of certain of our social habits. The third section is rather more technical than Section II and contains papers by three philosophers on the moral and logical muddles

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that arise as a result of certain naive but universal beliefs people have about their so-called concern for other species. The last major section contains two papers which have been written from a sociological point of view. There, the contributors analyse the most general cultural and social categories as they relate vo the mechanisms whereby whole societies subjugate animals for their own benefit. The authors have been very careful in seeing that the argumentation contained in this book is correct. Needless to say, should the reader himself find no fault in the positions he will find in these pages he is, as a rational being, committed to act in accordance with them. Should he fail to do this, he can only have been terribly misled since childhood about the nature of morality. We would like to thank Brigid Brophy for the enthusiastic encouragement she afforded us in the conception and realisation of this book. S.G. R.G. OXFORD, 197 I

J.H.

I SOME

FACTS

On Factory Farming

Ruth Harrison It is a sobering thought that animals could do without man yet man would find it almost impossible to do without animals. The sad chronicle of his use and abuse of them demonstrates this dependence very clearly. He not only makes them work for him, carry him, amuse him and make money for him, but he needs them to work and fertilise the soil. He uses them in numerous experimental ways to make his life longer, safer and more satisfying. He uses them also for food, clothing and in so many different ways that it would be almost impossible to step into a household and be satisfied that no animal products or by-products were in use. His pillow would be filled with down, his blankets made of wool, his shaving brush of badger hair, his soap of animal fat, his carpets of wool, his candles of tallow, his more precious books would be bound in leather, his string instruments strung with gut, his paintings painted with brushes of sable and so on. Many of these uses have been and can be replaced by synthetic or vegetable substitutes, but the substitutes are not always as good and will probably never entirely replace the originals. Where exploitation involves suffering a distinction must be made between positive cruelty-that which man inflicts knowingly, and passive cruelty-that which he inflicts, or aHows to be inflicted for him, in ignorance of the facts. This book may serve to make man more aware of the suffering ,which is being caused on his behalf so ,that he can make a re-appraisal of his position in relation to the creatures with whioh he shares the environment. Most people, especially in towns, tend to be ignorant of the processes by which food reaches their table, or if not ignorant

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they find it more comfortable to forget. Farm produce is still associated with mental pictures of animals browsing in the fields and hedgerows, of cows waiting patiently in picturesque farmyards for milking, of hens having a last forage before going to roost or sheep being rounded up by zealous dogs, and all the family atmosphere embracing the traditional farmyard. Although these scenes have by no means disappeared, mounting pressures militate against them. The individual farmer has been under increasing economic pressure; on his limited acreage he has had to increase the scale of his operations in order to meet rising costs. The trend towards increased stocking rates and permanently housed animals has been due to this individual need rather than to any overall national shortage of land. We lose each year some 50,000 acres out of more than 30 million acres of cultivated farmland and many million more acres of rough grazing. Grassland is being used at only a fraction of its potential because there has been a tendency for agricultural support to favour the man who confines his animals in buildings. 1 Two recent measures in this direction have been the Agriculture Bill 1969 which abolished the "benefit to land" stipulation for claiming capital grants, and the Rating Bill I 97 I, government sponsored and bound to go through, which will derate all buildings in which livestock are kept or reared whether or not the building has any connection with the land. Thus a purely factory process will now get the benefit of derating. A third and important pressure on traditional farming has been the development, and promotion by high powered salesmanship, of buildings and equipment, of electrical and mechanical appliances covering such things as lighting, ventilation and automatic feeding, watering and slurry removal. There has been an enormous investment in research into new feed compounds and into genetic breeding towards increased productivity. There has also been competition from the pharmaceutical firms with insecticides, growth promoters, antibiotics and therapeutic drugs. There may have been a direct saving of labour on the farm but proliferation of jobs for the boys behind the scenes has been almost endless. The research has undoubtedly helped agriculture, but it is relevant to ask whether it is not the results of the research which have been of benefit rather than the close confinement of the animals in buildings as is so often assumed?

RUTH

HARRISON

When one considers these factors, along with high powered advertising, official advice, and social pressure on farmers not to be "old-fashioned", it comes as something of a surprise to find that only a minority of farmers use extreme methods. Very often these are not farmers at all but business men who have entered the farming industry. For example, although 86.8 per cent of laying hens are kept in battery cages they are in the hands of only 2 1 per cent of commercial egg producers. In other words nearly 80 per cent of producers still prefer to see their hens in the freedom of deep litter and free range systems. That the fam1ers feel almost as strongly as the public on this issue was brought home by the result of opinion polls carried out in 1968 over a cross section of 2,000 farms.2 Amongst the questions asked were: Agreed Freedom of movement to tum round in pens

Farmers% 85

Public% 87

All poultry to have room to spread wings

91

Cattle and sheep to have access to open for some part of day in fair weather

80

All other stock, including poultry, to have access to open

79

It is the factory farmers, out for short-term maximum exploitation of both the soil and their stock, who are giving farming a bad image. A minority with very large holdings can cause suffering on a large scale. Intensification of output has been a natural evolvement, factory farming has not. Dr David Cooper, a psychiatrist, has described these systems, in their extreme and stringent forms, as "characterised by extreme restriction of freedom, enforced uniformity of experience, the submission of life processes to automatic controlling devices and inflexible time-scheduling ... and running through all this the rigid and violent suppression of the natural". The intensive farmer, on the other hand, uses technology with discrimination; he takes advantage of increasing

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knowledge and research to achieve greater productivity from his land by better management, manuring, feeding and breeding, but without significantly changing the pattern of life his animals lead. Intensive methods can be outside as well as in. Henry Fell's paper to the Farmer's Club (April 1967) expressed this feeling for the long term good, a sense of stewardship : "Husbandry conveys the concept of careful management so as to obtain the greatest good : conservation of resources; a sense of cherishing; thrift; above all awareness of responsibility and continuity. These virtues defy economic evaluation. That does not make them unworthy of consideration." What are the advantages and disadvantages to the animal of domestication? Prominence tends to be given to the disadvantages but there are some very fundamental advantages to the animal on a well-managed farm, which will spend a major part of its time, in the wild, in trying to secure for itself : (i) the provision of adequate food which is nutritionally complete within the ambit of our present knowledge, and a regular or ad lib supply of fresh water; (ii) shelter from extremes of climate, although this may not always apply to outwintered cattle and sheep on hill farms on the one hand, or to animals housed in high temperature/ high humidity units on the other; (iii) protection from external predators; (iv) protection from infestation; (v) rapid attention in the event of injury or disease, rather than being left to waste away, sometimes in agony. The disadvantages obviously vary in type and intensity from system to system and according to management. Some are almost inevitable. Artificial insemination is taking over increasingly from natural mating. It is possible for a bull to have 100,000 calves without serving a single real cow; possible to transplant the fertile eggs from the ovary of one cow into that of a rabbit, fly the rabbit to Australia and then transfer the eggs into the ovary of another cow which will bear the calf.

RUTH

HARRISON

Family organisation is broken and young animals are increasingly being denied a mother to tum to for comfort and for grooming. One of the saddest and most pathetic of farm practices-inevitable at the present time for the supply of dairy produce-is the separation of the calf from the cow at birth or soon after. "Separating the calf from its mother shortly after birth undoubtedly inflicts anguish on both. Maternal care for the young is highly developed in cattle, and it is only necessary to observe the behaviour of the cow and the calf when they are separated to appreciate this." 3 New systems in advanced experimental stages involve separation of lambs and piglets from their mothers soon after birth. All too often these young and even newborn animals are jostled through markets and on and off lorries with anything but gentle handling. It has been admitted that unwanted new born calves, taken to the abattoir on a Friday without a feed inside them, have been left until the Monday before being slaughtered. Equally pathetic is the sight of the "sexing" line in the hatchery, unwanted chicks being discarded into plastic dustbins where in effect they are suffocated. Eggs which have not hatched on a scheduled date are sometimes thrown on rubbish dumps where it is not unusual for them to hatch. Alternatively the unhatched eggs are crushed. It is not only the animal's family organisation that is broken, but also its social organisation as part of a flock or herd. It can undergo considerable stress adjusting to unduly large numbers of its species until its place has been determined in the social order. There is much experin1ental evidence that aggression increases in relation to crowding-in all species, including man. Conversely, it can be kept in isolation, sometimes even out of earshot from others of its species. Experience has shown that bulls kept within the ambit of farmyard activity are less aggressive and easier to handle. The animal can be tagged, ear punched or branded for identification purposes, disbudded or dehomed, debeaked, docked or castrated. There is not space to describe all these practices, but castration of calves is described in the following terms 4 : (i) by surgical means. "The operation can be performed quite simply with the calf in a standing position. Two slits are

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made in the bottom of the scrotum, the testicles are drawn out in tum and the cord of each broken or severed in such a way as to minimise bleeding. Bleeding may be considerable if the oord is cut with a sharp knife but can be prevented by subsequently cauterising the end of the cord with a hot iron. Alternatively the cord can be cut with a special instrument . . . resembling a large pair of scissors, which in the act of cutting also crushes the end of the cord ... "

(ii) with the burdizzo or bloodless castrator. " ... an instrument, resembling a large pair of pincers, which is designed to crush the cord leading from the testicles up into the body cavity .... The technique of using this instrument consists of manoeuvring each cord to the side of the scrotum, applying the jaws of the castrator to this point and crushing the cord by closing the handles of the castrator. Each cord should be crushed in two places .... " (iii) (only during first week of life). "A tight rubber ring is put round the scrotum above the testicles by means of a special instrument. . . . The pressure of the ring stops the circulation of blood to the lower part of the scrotum, including the testicles, and in due course these tissues wither away completely .... " The recommended methods are (i) or (ii) as the third is said to be far more painful. It should be noted that until three months of age these operations may be conducted without the use of an anaesthetic. Lambs and piglets may also be castrated without anaesthetics before the age of three months. Surgical caponisation of cocks has given way to chemical. A pellet is inserted into the neck of the bird. Pellets are also used in beef steers but in this case for the purpose of growth promotion. The Brambell Report condemned debeaking of chickens and described it thus : "The upper mandible of the bird consists of a thin layer of horn covering a bony structure of the same profile which extends to within a millin1etre or so of the tip of the beak. Between the horn and the bone is a thin layer of highly sensitive soft tissue, resembling the quick of the human nail.

RUTH

HARRISON

The hot knife blade used in de-beaking cuts through this complex of horn, bone and sensitive tissue causing severe pain." The Ministry leaflet, describing the method,5 warns, "An insufficiently cauterised cut can bleed profusely and has been known to cause the bird's death." This leaflet claims that there is "no apparent suffering" to the birds if the operation is properly carried out. The automated, controlled, labour-saving systems are a great boon to the stockman and should, ideally, give him more time with his stock. In practice this is often far from the case, so the animal loses out even on this contact. There are other dangers. It is all too easy when dealing with large numbers of stock (even human stock) for a sense of anonymity to creep into the stock/ stockman relationship, especially in systems involving a high degree of automation and dim lighting. Once this has crept in an inevitable next step is a hardening of feeling, a sense of cheapness of life. In large-scale units the animal is made to conform as one of a mass, for twenty-four hours a day, every day of its life. Its individuality is ignored and it is regarded purely for its product potential. It is convenient to ignore also the fact that these animals have minds as well as bodies, intelligence and curiosity, and that the young are active and playful. By the very nature of buildings holding large flocks or herds, the animals run the risk (realised all too often) of being burnt in fires or drowned in floods, of being suffocated or frozen or starved when mechanical equipment breaks down (especially in power cuts), or of being killed by attacks from its closely confined companions from whom it is powerless to escape. In some extreme systems the animal spends the major part of its life unable even to tum round in its pen, for example in most veal units, some barley beef units, sow stalls, and sow cubicles. These animals can only stretch their limbs when they are standing, and the bird in the battery cage is unable to stretch its neck fully within the cage or to spread its wings. Lack of movement can lead to boredom, boredom to so-called "vices" such as tail-biting in pigs and featherpecking in birds. Rather than overhaul the system the producer then further deprives the animal, either of light to see its fellows clearly, or by mutilation-the hen of part of her beak or the pig of its tail.

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Antibiotics as a routine additive to feedingstuffs are a further substitute for good management. We can only make a subjective assessment of their effect on the animals from the discomfort of humans on prolonged courses of antibiotics. A committee of enquiry was set up under the chairmanship of Professor Rogers Brambell and reported in 1965. Basic to their recommendations, which they urged should be made mandatory to prevent actual suffering, was their fundamental principle containing five freedoms : "That an animal should at least have sufficient freedom of movement to be able without difficulty to tum round, groom itself, get up, lie down and stretch its limbs." It also recommended a new Act redefining animal suffering, inspection of farms by the State Veterinary Service, the setting up of a standing Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Com• mittee and urgent experimentation into perfecting loose housing systems. But the immense value of the Brambell Report was that for the first time a government committee faced the issue of where the line should be drawn in our use of animals : "In principle, we disapprove of a degree of confinement of an animal which necessarily frustrates most of the major activities which make up its natural behaviour." Professor William Thorpe, a member of the committee and at that time Reader in Animal Behaviour at Cambridge, has pointed out that although genetic change has taken place through breeding, this is far smaller than some people imagine . . . "in fact an extremely small proportion of the total genetic make-up of the animal. Indeed I doubt whether there is a single domesticated fom1 or race or type which would not resume life in the wild if given the opportunity;" (note that he is not speaking in terms of the survival of one or even a few animals, but of the species). His concept of cruelty, given for poultry, would apply equally to other species, if (iii) below were changed to "grooming" : " ... I consider the mechanisms the suppression of which is most stressful are those which are most frequently called into operation in nature. These I would say are (i) feeding, (ii) locomotion, (iii) preening, (iv) social responses, and of course (v) sleeping and rest. I think these are the basic urges which to suppress completely can be regarded as cruel."

RUTH

HARRISON

If the statutory regulations urged by the Brambell Committee had been implemented quickly they would have proved acceptable to farmers in general. But no further action was taken until I 967, by which time stocking rates had increased considerably. Then the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill was introduced embracing the more general recommendations. It became law in 1968. It redefined suffering as "unnecessary pain or unnecessary distress", enabled the Minister to make regulations (which he promised to do but has not yet tabled any, April 1971) covering every aspect of the environment of farm animals, and authorised Ministry veterinary surgeons to inspect farms. The Act also enabled the Minister to issue Codes of Practice covering the welfare of farm animals. In the same year the Minister set up the Advisory Committee whose first job was to draw up these voluntary Codes. Theoretically all this should have been a great step forward. The Brambell Report set the scene for action, the new Act provided the framework, and the codes could have provided the "teeth". A new definition of suffering combined with clearly defined and forceful codes could have proved a powerful deterrent even though the codes are voluntary. But just as noncompliance will tend to establish guilt when a case is brought for causing suffering, so compliance will tend to establish innocence, though compliance with some clauses would, in my opinion, inevitably cause behavioural or mental distress. Far from providing teeth therefore, the codes, by their permissiveness, may well remove what teeth the Act has. The main departures the Codes make from the Brambell recommendations are far-reaching : 1. That calves may be fed solely on a milk substitute as long as it is complete in all known nutrients. (This means a continuation of the white veal trade.)

2. That cattle may be stalled or tethered for prolonged periods.

3. That entirely slatted floors may be used for cattle and pigs. (Brambell recommended a bedded sleeping area.) 4. Acceptance of sow stalls and cubicles with tethering and without straw.

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5. Tighter space allowances for poultry. 6. Acceptance in poultry of beak trimming, spectacles and dubbing. Debates took place in both Houses during October 1969. They were far-reaching and showed strong feeling that standards have dropped so low. It was felt that voluntary Codes could afford to be on a much higher level than mandatory ones. Sir Douglas Glover (MP for Ormskirk) pin-pointed the real issue of the debates : "The debate is not about animals," he said, "it is about human beings and about the way in which they are in a civilised society treating animals in that society . . . the question remains : do we, as human beings go on having a higher standard of living because we are doing something to the domestic animal that in our hearts we know we should not do? This House has shown clearly in tonight's debate that the answer is a firm 'No'." The Bishop of Norwich, in a magnificent address, pointed to the vicious circle that could arise from low standards : "If the Codes themselves are not adequate to pmvide reasonable humane living conditions for livestock, young people of the right calibre with a vocational attitude will not be attracted into this sort of job, and this in tum will prejudice the standard of farming. "As so often happens, if you look at the economic factors without reference to ethical ones, especially when you are dealing with natural life, there is a backlash which is damaging not only to nature and to man but also, ultimately to the economic advantage which is sought." Mr David Lane (Cambridge) pointed out the six most urgent amendments, "First, any animal should at least have room to tum round freely. Second, a dry bedded area should be provided for all stock. Third, palatable roughage must be readily available to all calves after one week of age. Fourth, sows may only be kept in stalls for feeding, and straw must be provided. Fifth, the Brambell recommendations for space for all poultry must be substituted for the recommendations in the Codes of Practice. Sixth, skip-a-day feeding systems, beak trimming of fowl, spectacles, and the dubbing of combs after the age of five days must be made illegal." Some classic remarks were made on the other side. Mr William

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21

Ross (Secretary of State for Scotland) commented on the space allowance for calves : "Turning round may not be advisable from the point of view of the animal." David Ensor ' declarin(J' an b interest in the poultry industry : "I doubt whether there are many children in this oountry who live in such comfortable circumstances as some of these birds do .... " He then mentioned a three-bird battery cage brought into the House to demonstrate the inability of birds confined in it to stretch their wings, and commented, "these birds, with a life span of about eighteen months, live in extremely hygienic and comfortable circumstances." The Brambell Minima, that every animal should be able to tum round and every bird be able to stretch one wing, was then declaimed as an impractical ideal. "If pure Brambell was out of reach," commented Mr Anthony Stodart, "it is clear that a marriage had to be attempted between the practical and the ideal." "The standards asked for by Brambell are just about double those laid down in the Codes," argued Lord Nugent, " .. it could not be right to start with something which is a unique development in the field of livestock management by setting up standards as high as that .... " To get the Codes accepted in principle the Minister promised that they would be reviewed in the the light of a survey carried out by the Veterinary Service. Four thousand one hundred and fifty-four units were surveyed and in 9 per cent of them physical pain of distress were discovered. This was the only type of distress the profession felt capable of assessing so that the following conditions were not condemned. In sixty-three out of seventy veal units visited, pens were not wide enough to allow calves to lie down and extend their legs at right angles to their bodies. "In the majority of the units," the Report stated, "the calves were unable to tum round after the sixth or seventh week of life, and in their last two or three weeks of life many of them also had difficulty in grooming." In some units in which sows are kept for the major part of their lives in stalls, "where the pen partitions extended to floor level we found that sows could not lie down and extend their legs in the normal position because of the limited width of the stall." "Veterinary officers were generally of the opinion that in the poultry units inspected all turkeys, and all domestic fowl other than those in cages, were able without difficulty to stand

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normally, tum round, and stretch their wings .... " The repeated assurances that the conditions did not cause distress to the animals are as much a reflection on the veterinary surgeons as on the units. The statement made under the heading "Scientific approach" in the report of the Advisory Committee : "The argument that all animals have a fundamental right to be able to tum round is essentially anthmpomorphic ... there is no justification for revising the Codes to permit animals to tum round" also reflects badly on those who drew it up. I have not mentioned experiments towards new techniques and systems which in some cases would seem to take the situation from bad to worse, but my own feeling is that some farmers have been brain-washed into going into systems inherently repugnant to them and that these systems have not in the long term proved as successful and trouble free as they were led to believe. I suspect that they will need a lot more convincing next time. The time is psychologically right for the Brambell Committee's urgent recommendation for more research into loose housing systems to be put into effect. A serious difficulty arises when we try to formalise methods of keeping large numbers of stock-that there is no such thing as a standard commodity in biological science. Each and every animal is an individual with a slightly different capacity for adaptation from its fellows. These differences are clearly marked as between different breeds, but exist also, within the breeds, amongst individuals. Dr Wood-Gush has described how birds in battery cages make a nest of air before laying their eggs, some also try to dustbath. Of the two types of hybrid layer observed, more than go per cent of the White Leghorns and less than 10 per cent of the heavier hybrids spent at least forty-five minutes in a "very restless" state before laying. It would seem when formulating such systems that from the welfare point of view it would be better to modify the system to suit the least adaptable animal rather than the most adaptable, as is now so often the case. I would seriously question any system which placed severe restraint on all animals for the benefit of the few weaklings, as in the Biehl cage system for piglets. Stress is a word that is used loosely these days, it can mean all things to all people. In general, however, the layman thinks of it in terms of prolonged discomfort or pressure on his life. The

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scientist's conception is a more acute one; he looks on it as an upset of homeostasis which, if unchecked, leads inevitably to death. The tendency is towards increased stocking rates but decreased life spans. Have the effects of less than acute discomfort or distress time to show? And is there time for disease, other than infant disease, to manifest itself? Do we really, as civilised people, draw the line at the point where the animal ceases to be productive; in other words at the measure of stress the animal can endure during its short life? There is a major field of research to be covered on the behaviour and ethology of farm animals. Thi