Huh. I'm asking because I don't actually have enough background in agriculture to know, but is feeding the current livestock population 50% of our grown grain actually a less efficient use of arable land and water? I'd think (perhaps erroneously. I haven't exactly seen the numbers crunched) we'd be being even less efficient in that manner if we tried to keep the current livestock population while leaving them free range. I'm not even talking keeping the current consumable meat stocks going, just the same population.
'Cause if we were actually trying to maximize use of arable land and water, we'd genocide most other large animals post haste and turn their habitat into farmland, insofar as I'm aware.
While freerange would certainly reduce the supply of meat and would take up large amounts of the space, feeding the animals grain is known to cause certain diseases (which can spread to humans). Then there's also the fact that you need to use ridiculous amounts of fertilizers and water to sustain the grain production. Both are finite. The Mid American Aquifer is drying up, and mineral fertilizer reserves are expected to last less than 30 years.
I define personhood* as a being having preferences as to what happens to it. As far as I can tell, a plant doesn't care what happens to it and thus fails that test. Microorganisms may move around and superficially appear to take actions to maintain their survival but I don't see them as actually caring what happens because they don't think or feel anything. I'm not sure what I feel about small, basic life such as insects; but larger animals are clearly people to me. They obviously feel emotions and have preferences as to how they are treated, so morally they are on the same level as humans. I'm still on the side of humans for obvious** pragmatic reasons, but I don't think that humans are any greater in terms of abstract moral worth.
Plants are known to react to dangers and other stuff that happens around them, and they will communicate this information to other plants around them. You just can't see it that well, because most of this communication is purely chemical. Also, plants also have preferences to how they are treated (try putting one in the wrong soil) and will grow differently based on circumstances. It's not because they have trouble making things clear that there's nothing to be seen. In general, plants are though not to be selfaware/persons because they don't have a nervous system.
However, what is pain more than a flag that says that the current action is damaging. In effect, all emotions are simple chemical reactions, which are determined to repeat themselves. Wherether's it's a small bacteria creating proteins, or human thought. Point is: Everything that is decided about this topic is an entirely arbitrary discussion.
I don't get mad at people that cause unnecessary or useless harm to animals. Everyone does things for a reason, and in this case its because they believe/have been taught that animals aren't people. All that being said, a lot of the arguments against personhood for animals seems ridiculous to me.
All arguments for personhood can be falsified too. Any line drawn will be a completely arbitrary descision. (Do note that this is not a bad thing, as otherwise we'd have to take everyselfrepeating
chemical reaction as a living thing, or stop considering humans to be living things)
I'd like to point out that American meat-raising techniques are not necessarily ubiquitous worldwide. Most beef in Australia is grass-fed, such that grain-fed is a delicacy here in the same way that grass-fed is over there.
Actually, America is pretty much the only country where grain feeding happens on such a large scale. Other places just import soya beans from Brazil and such. (We didn't need those rainforests anyway.)
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Topic: The Ethics of Eating Animals (Read 23022 times)