Yesterday I went to hear a vegan speaker, Erik Marcus, explain his reasons for being vegan, and why he felt everyone should do the same. I was hoping to hear something new, but was sadly disappointed. I’ve heard many arguments for veganism, including the health benefits of not consuming animal products, how animal agriculture is not ecologically sound, and how badly animals are treated in meat market farms. Erik was going for the latter defense.
Erik explained how chickens are treated in egg farms, and how they suffer much more than animals destined for immediate slaughter. These animals are basically tortured for a few short years and then, if they don’t die from disease or injury, they are slaughtered because they aren’t worth keeping alive. I agree that this is horrible. There is no justification for that kind of behavior and it isn’t responsible for people to buy eggs from these producers, as they are basically funding an operation to torture animals. There is really no excuse except to save money, and most people would probably agree that the torture of animals is not worth the dollars saved doing so.
Erik went on to talk about how dairy farms often have the same evils going on. Animals are used until they are no longer productive enough to be profitable and then are slaughtered. (I’m not sure if he was going to say that these animals are treated as badly as laying hens, which I would be a bit less apt to believe. Dairy cows produce more milk if they are in better condition, so most reasonable farmers are in the habit of keeping their cows in tip-top shape). It would be difficult for anyone who isn’t completely ignorant to refute these claims. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of documented cases of the conditions laying hens are kept in, and any dairy or egg producer will admit that animals are put down after they are no longer profitable.
Where Marcus’s argument breaks down is hobby farms. A person with a dozen or so laying hens and a couple of dairy goats or cows is running at a loss in any case. It does not make sense for them to slaughter an animal when it is no longer ‘profitable’ for several reasons. For one thing, animals over a few months old are not good for eating. They rapidly become tough and (more) unpleasant to eat. Also, the cost of feeding one goat or chicken is relatively little.
Animals kept in very small groups that are well fed and allowed to roam at their leisure, or are kept in spacious, clean pens are arguably not being tortured. They are not suffering, nor will they be slaughtered as soon as they can\’t keep up with their younger counterparts. There are of course arguments that this kind of treatment of animals is still wrong. Usually a Kantian style argument is given: that animals should never be used exclusively as a means to an end. Others argue that not everyone will be able to raise their own laying hens or dairy animals. I think that it wouldn’t be terribly difficult for people concerned about animal welfare who choose to consume egg and dairy products to find such a farm and purchase their foods directly. It would likely be less convenient and certainly more expensive, but consumers would be able to take pride that they are not funding animal abuse.
The point I’m really trying to make is this: Marcus’s argument is certainly a good reason not to buy dairy and eggs from mass producers who, without exception, are causing suffering to the animals they use. It is not an argument not to consume dairy and eggs though. More thought needs to be put into these arguments for anyone to take them seriously. As a vegetarian, I would love to see a sound argument for veganism, much like a religious person would enjoy a sound argument for the existence of God. As far as I’ve seen so far, there has not been an example of either.