DP 1: The Chicken or its Egg

What came first…the chicken or the egg?

According to Mahatma Gandhi, “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

So if we consider Gandhi’s view on development, it seems that the chicken itself should come first and what it produces is secondary to the way that the chicken is treated.

This is in stark contrast to the reality of modern industrial factory farming practices where how much and how fast an animal produces is the priority and how the animal is treated has seemingly fallen off the moral radar.

A trend I have noticed from the discussion in our Development Perspective course, is that over recent history, there has been a gradual broadening of society’s moral scope. Historically, at the centre of morality, was those who believed that they conceived (i.e. controlled) notions around morality. In other words, white imperialistic men controlled who or what would be considered moral enough to be given rights. However, we have seen this moral scope slowly broaden to include ‘the others’ who have also been issued some form of rights to varying extents. For example, decolonization and the right to independence, abolishment of slavery, women’s rights, ethnic and indigenous rights and gay rights.

So, it seems that as societies develop they tend to be more morally inclusive of ‘the others’ who were traditionally marginalized and exploited. What is it about the nature of development that enables those with power to often loosen their domination over ‘the others’ and to subsequently issue them with the provision of rights? What is it that makes a society question its moral? Is it because of high quality education systems, strong economic and democratic development or an active civil society?

More specific to my area of interest and passion, how do animals and the environment fit into our moral development trajectory?

If moral development is commonly associate with the traditional key developmental indicators (such as GDP growth, democracy and education) then how do we explain the existence of practices such as factory farming in the so called ‘developed countries’?

Factory farming is an expression of one species exploitation, and complete domination over another living species.

There is of course major and important differences between humans and animals which distinguish the concept of human rights and animal rights. At the same time, should the notion of rights that a living being is entitled to be based on their relative intelligence to us, or their ability to suffer? If it is their ability to suffer, to feel distress, to feel fear, to feel pain and misery, then in my opinion, factory farming represents a complete disregard of life’s essential rights. Practices such as factory farming therefore represents a huge regression in human moral development. The question then stands, has something gone terribly wrong with our progression of moral development or are there some other factors about the way industrial societies now operate that is facilitating the existence of industry practices around the world that disregard animals and our environment?

This video from Animals Australia, an animal welfare organization, provides some insights into the the issue of factory farming:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While I won’t be able to explain how pigs fly in that video, in my next blogs, I will look to unpack the issues of human development and agriculture, environmental destruction, animal welfare, food distribution, consumerism and the relationship between them all.

But for now, here are some compelling quotes from the above video…as they say, just some food for thought:

“cheaper (animal products) means crueler”

“according to the UN, raising animals for food, contributes more to climate change than all of the world’s trains, planes and automobiles combined…not to mention water pollution, species extinction, and almost every other major environmental threat”

“the reality is, factory farms use more food than they produce, which means less food for everyone else. At a time when globally, more than one billion people are suffering from malnutrition, one third of the worlds edible cereal harvest is being fed to farm animals…that cereal would be enough to feed around three billion people”

“around the world, consumer choice is driving change”

Thanks for reading…and stay tuned for more blog posts coming soon…

2 comentarios / 27 Nov 2012 por Daniel Salter
IMSD /

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