Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
When it comes to the ethics of using non-human animals for nutrition, entertainment, clothing and many other areas it seems society rarely ever considers that there may be the option to not use them. Why is that?
When faced with any decision we make unconscious assumptions about how to frame the decision that drastically limits possible options to a manageable number. This allows us to focus on the small number of options that – if the process of limitation worked effectively – will include one or more that will result in a desired outcome. However natural and efficiency-driven this process of narrowing down options might normally be, it seems it can also become maladaptive. We can unknowingly exclude options from consideration due to initial inaccurate assumptions regarding their practicality or chance of success, leading us to believe that the option we end up choosing to be the most appropriate when in fact it may not be. We also risk limiting our options to only the ones that are socially acceptable, when the option that best achieves the desired outcome may actually be a socially unacceptable one.
Noam Chomsky wrote about a similar process in his book The Common Good:
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum…”
Extending this to our personal internal debates about the ethics of nonhuman animal use, we might often believe we are taking a sufficiently advanced ethical position on the treatment of non-human animals being used compared to the alternatives being considered. Instead we seem to often have our options constrained and only end up selecting between socially acceptable variations on a theme that reinforce the accepted use of non-human animals. We seem to consider only a strictly limited spectrum of options when it comes to addressing concerns regarding non-human animal use, which we debate with ourselves as if we’re honestly, openly and without restrictions considering all the options. Instead our options have already been limited by the industry, tradition, social norms, gastronomic desires and other influences to the point where use is a given and treatment is the context in which the decision is made.
Take the example of humans seeking to consume the egg of a chicken. To address the growing concern over the treatment of chickens, we are presented by the industry with different ways of using hens that will potentially alter their standard of living for the better. The options however always remain within the context of the use itself being an inevitability given that’s how the industry makes a profit. Taking a stand against taking eggs from hens in small cages thinking that would be improving their lives is an example of a decision potentially made within a narrow spectrum, the option of non-use which would more sufficiently address all concerns about treatment of the beings in questions having likely never been considered in the first place.
This may also be why there is often a backlash against vegans who seek to introduce an option outside of those deemed socially acceptable, as this endangers the safe, limited spectrum of options people are used to operating within. In turn this risks reframing whatever steps people within that spectrum had decided to take, making them seem less effective in addressing the ethical concerns when non-use is introduced as a viable option.
Part 2
Even when we are aware that we do not need to use a non-human animal for nutrition for example – we know people in similar financial, social, cultural and geographical situations to us who manage to survive not eating products containing non-human animal ingredients – we still seem to usually return to the limited spectrum of socially acceptable options focusing on treatment but not considering the option of non-use.
If we recognise that non-human beings are deserving of ethical consideration to the extent that how they are treated during use matters, then this position has already accepted the assumption that they experience living in ways that can be better or worse, with more or less suffering. The question then is, if we do not need to use them, and we have decided to be concerned about their lived experiences as individually aware beings, then surely this concern would extend to whether we need to breed and put them through the experience of being used in the first place?
Now that many people seem to be willing to take the well-being of non-human animals in to consideration, recognising their capacity for experience, can we really ethically justify their use simply to entertain our taste buds, to benefit us at their expense?