Factory Farming Animals is Immoral

Your point taken over the plight of young persons like Emily who are abused by their parents, yet I suspect weak analogy to farm animals here. Emily has a special relationship with her father where she expects emotional nurturance, yet her father beats her every day, or at least frequently, a thing that didn’t happen to my porkers, who endure only a few procedures capable of inducing pain during the whole of their much shorter life. And despite the effort to isolate her, Emily is probably aware of the outside world—a knowledge very difficult to keep from a human child. One real case of a girl kept totally locked away has become famous: that of Genie. When Genie was rescued in 1970 at age 13, the psychological damage, and the interest of caretakers, centered almost entirely on language development issues. The published study was by linguists who found her speech acquisition permanently impaired, so that she was reduced to learning rudimentary signing.Susan Curtiss et. al., 1975. An Update on the Linguistic Development of Genie. In Developmental Psycholinguistics: Theory and Applications, Daniel Dato, ed.Needless to say, the Bradley Farm doesn’t have this problem with its pigs. As for your speculation about whether they showed distress when introduced into quarters, Singer doesn’t say—and we shouldn’t infer. Space limited my round 2 arguments, but I’ll touch on chickens below.The welfare of people, aside that they can’t quickly be persuaded to switch en masse to vegan diets, depends on the efficiency of food production and delivery. As farming has improved, food costs have dropped. In 1970, an American household purchased 194 lbs. of meat and poultry annually at a cost of 4.2% of gross income. By 2005, consumption of 221 lbs. cost only 2.1% of income.Carlton Gyles, 2010. Industrial farm animal production. Can. Vet J. 51(2), 125–128. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...And these levels of human comfort probably influence the degree to which the general public thinks about animal welfare. Contented people show magnanimity to other beings. Let’s note that in the good old days when the term factory farm was not in the vocabulary, ethics did not even consider the viewpoint of the animal, beyond its physical integrity: “Before the emergence of industrial farm animal production systems, the ethic of animal husbandry held that good care of animals was wholly consistent with the interests of the farmer.” (ref. below, p. 31). Now it does.Public concern has led to promulgation of ideals for care. None of these are legally binding on U.S. farms; however the public has become informed of them, which has resulted in reputational pressures on industry. Such standards include, for instance from the British government’s Farm Animal Welfare Council, a “Five Freedoms” listing undesirable conditions animals should not be subjected to: hunger or thirst, discomfort, pain or disease, fear, and restriction of normal behavior (p. 35). In response, the industry has begun to make changes: “Smithfield…announced recently that it would eliminate the use of gestation crates in its hog-rearing operations, and the United Egg Producers have published standards for the treatment of laying hens” (p. 31).Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, 2008. Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, pp.31, 35. http://www.ncifap.org...The compromises aren’t always trouble-free, though: “In the case of laying hens, noncage systems have been advocated, so that the birds might live more according to their nature and thus avoid the frustration of close confinement in barren cages. However, cannibalism is common in noncage systems, perhaps because hens are not adapted to living in the large groups involved in noncage systems. These systems can also carry a greater risk of disease…”C.J. Hewson, 2003. What is animal welfare? Common definitions and their practical consequences. Can Vet J. 44(6), 496-499. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...Ethics does evolve with time, and what we allow as humane today may come under proscription tomorrow. Still, I believe steady progress is made and that treatment of animals is in main as decent as available resources and needs permits. My burden of proof is only to show that factory farming is moral in this sense, not that it is ideal. Now I will suggest that misguided labeling of factory farming as “immoral” may backfire, especially if it runs ahead of generally accepted thinking on what humane treatment of animals should entail. The farming practices themselves are unlikely to halt anytime soon, as they are driven by market demand. Improving the comfort and respect offered creatures of whom we ask life sacrifice is indeed a project we should incline toward—it was important to Native Americans who hunted game. This goal is best advanced by constructive dialog between the industries and the animal advocacy, not by what must amount to name calling.