A Challenging Article on Catholic Moral Theology

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catholicmoraltheology.com/are-we-all-michael-vick-our-addiction-to-animal-cruelty-a-call-to-conversion/

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"I want to be clear about my argument. The point is not to oppose meat-eating. My beef is not with Inuit eating seals. Nor with aboriginals hunting wild boars. Nor with those seriously engaged in what was once known as “animal husbandry.”

My objection IS to the factory farming in America that institutionalizes cruelty at an almost incomprehensible level. Factory farmed meat is, if we are honest, ‘cruelty meat.’
Let me be concrete and keep my argument narrow. If we object to cruelty to dogs, we should certainly object to it to pigs, who are friendly, loyal, and more intelligent than dogs. Yet, 95% of pigs are factory-farmed in America. Thus, unless you have very good reason to believe otherwise, it is almost certain that when you buy pork, bacon, or ham, you are supporting an industry that institutionalizes cruelty.

How should Catholics think about this? Well, we might begin with the Catechism of the Catholic Church

2416 Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.197 Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals. …
2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.

However, God have mercy on us if we only know that cruelty to animals is wrong after consulting the Catechism.

How does the Catholic tradition speak about the wrongness of eating animals that have been factory farmed? One way it thinks about it is to name it as a form of cooperation with wrongdoing. More specifically, it is what the tradition calls formal cooperation with wrongdoing, which is always considered wrong. Some may argue that eating factory-farmed or cruelty meat is a form of material cooperation with wrongdoing, which, if one does not condone the cruelty in eating the cruelty meat, and does it for other reasons e.g. part of one’s typical breakfast or part of a convivial barbeque, then it could be morally acceptable. But it is not.

In American factory-farming, cruelty is not a mere evil side-effect or by-product. Cruelty is an essential and necessary part of the logic of factory farming. For in factory farming, the welfare of the animals is of NO accord. It is entirely a matter of raising the animals in a way that maximizes profits. Any care or consideration given to the animals in the logic of factory farming is ordered to future maximization of profit. That is why we should call it not merely meat, but ‘cruelty meat.’"
 
2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.

Well, a couple of questions come to mind:
  1. Assuming the assumption of suffering being imposed on these animals is true: does the feeding of a large world population have any bearing on the word needlessly in the above quote from the CCC
  2. As to cruelty and suffering: The article does not say exacly what is cruel about the so-called “factory farming”. 95% of hogs are raised in factory farms. Well, they are kept indoors. Certainly in a cleaner environment than many of the old pig pens that were common years agos on farms. Overcroweded? Maybe, but to the extent of cruelty? Well fed? certainlyl, they do not ever go hungry. Good bedding? yes, again probably better and more healthy than in the old-days. Disease treatments are prompt, their healt is monitored quite closely.
Just some questions.
 
CCC 2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
 
tafan said:
2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.

Well, a couple of questions come to mind:
  1. Assuming the assumption of suffering being imposed on these animals is true: does the feeding of a large world population have any bearing on the word needlessly in the above quote from the CCC
  2. As to cruelty and suffering: The article does not say exacly what is cruel about the so-called “factory farming”. 95% of hogs are raised in factory farms. Well, they are kept indoors. Certainly in a cleaner environment than many of the old pig pens that were common years agos on farms. Overcroweded? Maybe, but to the extent of cruelty? Well fed? certainlyl, they do not ever go hungry. Good bedding? yes, again probably better and more healthy than in the old-days. Disease treatments are prompt, their healt is monitored quite closely.
Just some questions.
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Good questions. I don’t think we can take for granted that factory farming is evil and cruel solely because some article says so. Further, even if some factory farming is evil and cruel, does that mean all factory farming is evil and cruel? Maybe it’s just one particular place that exercises bad practices.

From a moral standpoint, I would say that, even if it could be established that all factory farming is morally evil, the majority of Catholics have absolutely no idea of what is involved in factory farming (myself included). So any cooperation would not be intentional.
 
tafan said:
2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.

Well, a couple of questions come to mind:
  1. Assuming the assumption of suffering being imposed on these animals is true: does the feeding of a large world population have any bearing on the word needlessly in the above quote from the CCC
  2. As to cruelty and suffering: The article does not say exacly what is cruel about the so-called “factory farming”. 95% of hogs are raised in factory farms. Well, they are kept indoors. Certainly in a cleaner environment than many of the old pig pens that were common years agos on farms. Overcroweded? Maybe, but to the extent of cruelty? Well fed? certainlyl, they do not ever go hungry. Good bedding? yes, again probably better and more healthy than in the old-days. Disease treatments are prompt, their healt is monitored quite closely.
Just some questions.
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You should really watch “Food Incorporated” when you get a chance. The factory farming does not provided healthy or friendly environments for the animals and this does affect you. The animals are being treated poorly and we our paying the price for it with our health.

I believe it is our moral obligation to fight against this injustice that is not only harming animals but also human beings. This is why I only buy from local farmers and never form the big factory farms: which in reality there are only 4 of them that supply the majority of the meat. I also have been trying to stay away from fast food since fast food is not only bad for you but also the main driving force behind this factory farming.

Here is a link that will let you watch a preview of the movie. Please watch the full movie. If you have netflix you can find it there.

veoh.com/watch/v20368182MnDqr98W
 
Few people are as close to the land and nature and “the cycle of life” as farmers are. They are very concerned about the crops they grow and the animals they raise. They do not want them to be stressed and they care about their health - that’s just good business.
 
I do find it very hard to justify the treatment of animals in the large factory farms, especially since having cheap meat with every meal is not what I would call a need.
 
We do understand that these animals are a food supply, right? I mean, we are going to kill them in order to feed millions of people. I think using the limited definition applied by the OP, killing them would certainly be cruelty but how else do you intend to eat them?

I am not saying you can’t go too far, but we need to make sure we understand what cruelty is. If we are purposefully killing them in such a way as to inflict maximum pain instead of trying to kill them quickly, that would be cruelty. Obviously the industry is not doing this because of the tremendous inefficiency of using slower, more painful, methods of killing. Too many pigs in a cage? That is not cruelty. Fatty foods or any modified foods meant to improve meat yield? That is not cruelty. Killing them? That is not cruelty.

I cannot watch this video because I am at work, but maybe you could mention a specific practice that is conducted by all of these “factory farming” companies that is cruelty.
 
Yes, pigs in factory farms are overcrowded. No they are not given bedding. Yes, they are living in unhealthy conditions. Yes, they cut off their tails so they don’t bite them as a stress response. No they are not able to engage in their normal, instinctual behaviors. Yes, many barns are so nasty the workers have to wear respirators. Yes, they feed them foods that are not natural for pigs to eat. Yes, they give them low level antibiotics in their feed to keep them healthy which is a serious risk to human health; yes, they store the waste from thousands of pigs in ‘tailings’ ponds that are an environmental hazard and sometimes spray it on the land; yes, the mother pigs are immobilized so they do not crush the babies in the small pens without nest building materials.

We could say very similar things about factory chicken farms and beef feed-lots. They are cruel, and they are a health hazard for humans and the environment. Factory farms for vegetables are not very healthy either, for that matter.
 
CredoInDeum, I suppose the documentary is very unobjective. I have quite a bit of first hand experience with feed lots for cattle. I honestly don’t see that much that is cruel or causes undue suffering. Note: I was raised on a farm and ranch, so things such as castration and branding do seem quite normal to me.

I have never visited any large scale poultry farm, so I cannot say about those. I have seen large scale hog farms, again I don’t see anything that cruel and in many ways the hogs are treated better than they were when raised on a small scale on our family farm when I was a kid.

As to dairies, again I have been to those, and perhaps this is one of the worse, as cows have to put up with a lot of milking these days. But they are fed well and kept in a clean, dry environment.

The issue of the health effect on us is a completely seperate issue that cruelty to animals. In some ways, there are legitimate concerns here. But it seems to be not on subject with the thread, so I will leave it at that.
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LPS:
Few people are as close to the land and nature and “the cycle of life” as farmers are. They are very concerned about the crops they grow and the animals they raise. They do not want them to be stressed and they care about their health - that’s just good business.
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This is good point. When I read criticisms of modern day agriculture, and how it is so abusive of the land, and not sustainable; I almost laugh out loud. It normally comes from people who have little first hand experience with farming, and must have little respect for the intelligence of farmers and ranchers.

OTH, lets not kid ourselves about livestock production in this day and age being a quaint family business. Poultry is done almost exclusively by large corporations. Pork is done by large private corporations, often "large family businesses. Ironically, it is beef, which catches the most criticism at times, which seems to deserve the lease. A lot of beef, until it is ready to go into the feelot for finishing, is raised on small family operations. And feedlots are often owned by large family businesses, and rarely by large corporations. But the nice distributionism of American agriculture of the 19th and 20th century is largely gone. Chesterton would not be happy with the result. Again thread drift. Sorry.
 
OchsFam said:
We do understand that these animals are a food supply, right? I mean, we are going to kill them in order to feed millions of people. I think using the limited definition applied by the OP, killing them would certainly be cruelty but how else do you intend to eat them?

I am not saying you can’t go too far, but we need to make sure we understand what cruelty is. If we are purposefully killing them in such a way as to inflict maximum pain instead of trying to kill them quickly, that would be cruelty. Obviously the industry is not doing this because of the tremendous inefficiency of using slower, more painful, methods of killing. Too many pigs in a cage? That is not cruelty. Fatty foods or any modified foods meant to improve meat yield? That is not cruelty. Killing them? That is not cruelty.

I cannot watch this video because I am at work, but maybe you could mention a specific practice that is conducted by all of these “factory farming” companies that is cruelty.
Click to expand...
Transport Terror: When allowed to live out their natural lives, pigs live for an average of 10-15 years, but factory farmed pigs are sent to slaughter after just six months of life. In order to get the terrified pigs onto the trucks bound for the slaughterhouse, workers may beat them on their sensitive noses and backs or stick electric prods into their rectums.
Crammed into 18-wheelers, pigs struggle to get air and are usually given no food or water for the entire journey (often hundreds of miles). They suffer from temperature extremes and are forced to inhale ammonia fumes and diesel exhaust. A former pig transporter told PETA that pigs are “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out.”
According to a 2006 industry report, more than 1 million pigs die each year from the horrors of transport alone. Another industry report notes that, in some transport loads, as many as 10 percent of pigs are “downers,” animals who are so ill or injured that they are unable to stand and walk on their own. These sick and injured pigs will be kicked, struck with electric prods, and finally dragged off the trucks to their deaths.
In winter, some pigs die frozen to the sides of the trucks. In summer, some die from heat exhaustion. Some fall and suffocate when additional animals are forced to pile in on top of them. All are in a panic—screaming and desperately trying to get away—and some die of heart attacks.
One worker reports, “In the wintertime there are always hogs stuck to the sides and floors of the trucks. [Slaughterhouse workers] go in there with wires or knives and just cut or pry the hogs loose. The skin pulls right off. These hogs were alive when we did this.”
In 2004, a transport truck owned by Smithfield Foods and loaded with 180 pigs flipped over in Virginia. Many pigs died in the accident, while others lay along the roadside, injured and dying. PETA officials arrived on the scene and offered to humanely euthanize the injured animals, but Smithfield refused to allow the suffering animals a humane death because the company could not legally sell the flesh of animals who had been euthanized. After an accident in April 2005, Smithfield spokesperson Jerry Hostetter told one reporter, “I hate to admit it, but it happens all the time.”
Slaughter: The unloading at the slaughterhouses is as ugly as the loading. After being kept in an immobile state all their lives, their legs and lungs are so weak that the pigs can barely walk. But when they see space ahead of them, some of them begin running for the first time in their lives.
Like fillies, they jump and buck, overjoyed with their first feel of freedom. Then, suddenly, they collapse and cannot get up. They can only lie there, trying to breathe, their bodies racked with pain from abuse and neglect on the factory farms. Then drivers hook their legs up to winches to pull them, often pulling their legs right off.
A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1,100 pigs every hour. The sheer number of animals killed makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. Because of improper stunning, many pigs are alive when they reach the scalding tank, which is intended to soften their skin and remove their hair.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) documented 14 humane-slaughter violations at one processing plant, where inspectors found hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.”
According to one slaughterhouse worker, “There’s no way these animals can bleed out in the few minutes it takes to get up the ramp. By the time they hit the scalding tank, they’re still fully conscious and squealing. Happens all the time.”
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(See peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/pig-transport-slaughter.aspx )
 
tafan said:
OTH, lets not kid ourselves about livestock production in this day and age being a quaint family business. Poultry is done almost exclusively by large corporations. Pork is done by large private corporations, often "large family businesses. Ironically, it is beef, which catches the most criticism at times, which seems to deserve the lease. A lot of beef, until it is ready to go into the feelot for finishing, is raised on small family operations. And feedlots are often owned by large family businesses, and rarely by large corporations. But the nice distributionism of American agriculture of the 19th and 20th century is largely gone. Chesterton would not be happy with the result. Again thread drift. Sorry.
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Actually, I don’t think it is really thread drift. I think that the lack of human scale operations which is a real blow to us economically is also why there are serious problems with morality in the way farms treat animals.

Distribustism is about having a kind of economy that recognizes human nature and an authentic human society. What we have now doesn’t do those things. It also doesn’t recognize the real needs of animals. Both humans and animals become only economic units, and the size and scale make it hard for people to think about it in a clear way.
 
Bluegoat said:
Yes, pigs in factory farms are overcrowded. No they are not given bedding. Yes, they are living in unhealthy conditions. Yes, they cut off their tails so they don’t bite them as a stress response. No they are not able to engage in their normal, instinctual behaviors. Yes, many barns are so nasty the workers have to wear respirators. Yes, they feed them foods that are not natural for pigs to eat. Yes, they give them low level antibiotics in their feed to keep them healthy which is a serious risk to human health; yes, they store the waste from thousands of pigs in ‘tailings’ ponds that are an environmental hazard and sometimes spray it on the land; yes, the mother pigs are immobilized so they do not crush the babies in the small pens without nest building materials.

We could say very similar things about factory chicken farms and beef feed-lots. They are cruel, and they are a health hazard for humans and the environment. Factory farms for vegetables are not very healthy either, for that matter.
Click to expand...
👍
Hence the ecolie outbreaks which have become so common place in meat market and produce.
 
tafan said:
CredoInDeum, I suppose the documentary is very unobjective. I have quite a bit of first hand experience with feed lots for cattle. I honestly don’t see that much that is cruel or causes undue suffering. Note: I was raised on a farm and ranch, so things such as castration and branding do seem quite normal to me.
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The documentary actually has farmers coming forward to talk about the horrible conditions the food industry is in. Please note I’m not against farming and neither is the documentary. What I’m against the method in which factory farms are operating and how they are destroying the health of a lot of people while treating the animals poorly.
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
The documentary actually has farmers coming forward to talk about the horrible conditions the food industry is in. Please note I’m not against farming and neither is the documentary. What I’m against the method in which factory farms are operating and how they are destroying the health of a lot of people while treating the animals poorly.
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Smaller font, please. No need to shout. 😃
 
The author of the post cited in the OP cast suspicion on the truthiness of his article by claiming that factory farming contributes to global warming more than anything else.

Such has nothing to do with issues of cruelty…nothing. So I wonder why the reference to global warming.

Anyway, as a veterinarian I’d like to comment more about the moral issues of factory farming, but have to get to work…
 
Bluegoat, but if you look at KostyaJMJ’s post, most of it I believe to be pure hyperbole; but the parts that have a little truth to them, they were all practice in the days of the small family farm. I can attest to the fact that cattle prods have been in use and applied to the rear end of animals for a long-time, and on very small farms (I was never told to confess that one by the priests/nuns who worked in my hometown). The point of the thread is cruelty to animals in our livestock industry. I do not think the destruction of distributionalism in agriculture has had much impact on the treatment of animals overall.
I can attest that hogs have been slaughtered at a young age for a long time (as a boy raising my own hogs, I never felt the least pang of guilt in sending a 6 month old hog to the slaughter house).
The typical death of a hog/cattle at the hands of a small butcher in the year 1950 would have been much more slow and painful than how it is done today. The pneumatic guns work very well, much better than the old sledge hammer to the forehead.
Living conditions of animals: overall are certainly better than it used to often be (well maybe not for poultry, but for dairy cows, beed cattle, and hogs, yes). I remember what the hog pens and cattle pens were like in the old days after a really heavy rain and a cold night. If it was a sudden change of weather, the scrambling to inject medicines that were not very effective. Modern feeding facilities have learned a lot along these lines.

Credo in Deum, I have met these farmers who advocate against many modern farming/livestock techniques. 99% of the time, they are coming from a point of view of the organic industry, and health concerns to consumers. Very much unrelated to the issue of cruelty to animals.

And now we talk about e coli outbreaks? Ok, go back and read Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and tell me the modern meat packing industry does not produce safer foods by orders of magnitude. No other country in the world has safer meat supplies as the US.

But again, it is largely tangential to the original purpose of the thread: ie cruelty to animals. Yes, agriculture is cruel to animals at times. Always has been. I suppose there is no other way to see castration of 99% of males of a species. But it has been this way for a long time. The organic farming crowd has many of the same practices. The farmers I have known who raises organic, grass fed beef have no problem with using a cattle prod to the read end.

I think there is a lot of mis information out there, and most people are so far removed from the agriculture industry they have no way of knowing what is accurate and what is not accurate.

If you want a thread on the health effects of modern livestock techniques, start a new one that does not deal with CCC paragraphs 2416 and 2418.
 
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