Animal Disenhancement

Animal Disenhancement 1. Animal Disenhancement: Just as advancements in nanotechnology and genetic engineering are giving rise to the possibility of ENHANCING human beings, they are also giving rise to the possibility of DISENHANCING animals. That is, in the near future (and in some cases, NOW) it will be possible to breed or engineer animals in such a way that they suffer less while being grown for consumption. For instance, we might engineer them to lack pain receptors, and so on. Whereas, enhancement would give humans NEW abilities that they currently lack, DISenhancement would TAKE AWAY abilities that animals currently have. But, the motive would be a good one: Namely, we want to reduce the amount of animal suffering. [Note that Thomspon calls this the Dumb Down approach. What he calls the Build Up approach would involve building up meat or some meat-producing organism in a lab. We will discuss that approach next time.] Consider a specific case: Blind Hens: A couple of decades ago, we discovered that blind chickens fare better than sighted chickens in factory-farms. Blind chickens seem to not mind being tightly crowded in pens so much. They show less signs of stress, territorial aggression, and so on. This is costly to the producer, because it damages their product (chickens and eggs). Currently, the primary way of dealing with hens harming one another is to cut off their beaks. So, we already practice a form of chicken disenhancement. But, this is both costly and painful to the chickens. If breeding blind chickens is both more cost-effective AND less painful to the chickens, should we do this? 2. Two Approaches: Among the many proposed moral systems, the two main competitors among ethicists are these: (a) Utilitarianism: The view that happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable (hedonism) and that we are morally obligated to bring about the best possible consequences (consequentialism) by maximizing the overall balance of pain/pleasure, or suffering/happiness. (b) Deontology: The view that we have certain moral obligations to perform, or not perform, certain kinds of actions, independent of how much happiness or suffering this would bring about. For instance, imagine the following case: 1

Organ Harvest: A doctor is caring for three dying patients, all of them in need of organ transplants (they need a kidney, a heart, and a liver, respectively). A healthy patient comes in for a routine check-up. The doctor sedates him, cuts him open, removes his organs, and performs the transplants, saving her three patients. No one ever discovers how she obtained the organs. The utilitarian must conclude that the doctor has done the morally RIGHT thing in this case indeed, the doctor was morally OBLIGATED to do this, since it brought about the best consequences (three happy people produce more happiness than one happy person). However, many have a strong ethical intuition that what the doctor does in this case is morally wrong. Quite simply, there are some kinds of actions (namely murder) that are just plain wrong, EVEN IF performing them brings about, on-the-balance, the best consequence. Often, deontologists ground many of their moral principles in rights. The innocent patient had a right to life, which the doctor violated. It is not permissible to violate someone s rights, even if doing so produces good consequences. For instance, it would be morally wrong to steal $1,000 from you, even if I then used it to help a starving child. With the above in mind, Shriver argues that BOTH views would side in favor of animal disenhancement. Let s take a look: (a) Utilitarianism: The utilitarian argument in favor of disenhancement is simple. For, all they care about are consequences that reduce suffering, and quite simply disenhancement would result in less animal suffering. A utilitarian argument in favor of disenhancement might look like this: 1. If we can reduce animal suffering, then we ought to do so. 2. We can reduce animal suffering; namely, via disenhancement. 3. Therefore, we ought to disenhance animals. (b) Rights-Based Accounts: The deontologist s stance is a bit more complicated. Take a specific example: Philosopher Tom Regan argued that all sentient creatures (or, what he calls experiencing subjects of a life ) have some basic rights. These, at minimum, include the right to be treated with respect. Respecting a sentient creature requires taking not just OUR interests into account, but ITS interests as well. In short, we should never treat a sentient creature as a mere thing to be used for our own purposes, with total disregard for the interests of the creature. 2

For instance, replace animal with human in the argument above, and consider premise 2. I could reduce the amount of human suffering by euthanizing starving people, or by turning everyone into brains-in-vats living in simulations that contained less suffering than the real world. But, is this permissible? Seemingly, not. Clearly, an extra claim is needed. Try this: 1. If we can reduce the amount of animal suffering, then we ought to do so, provided that no animal s rights are violated. 2. We can reduce the amount of animal suffering; namely, via disenhancement. 3. Animal disenhancement would not be a rights-violation. 4. Therefore, we ought to disenhance animals. Deontologists (including Regan) would reject premise 3, claiming that disenhancement IS a rights violation. In short, blinding hens is morally wrong. Problem: But, wait. The rights-based account would ALSO render using animals for food or egg production IN GENERAL as morally impermissible. So, shouldn t we advocate for vegetarianism rather than the eating of disenhanced animals? Reply: Both Shriver and Thompson admit that it would be BETTER to not kill animals at all. However, they insist that we face the reality: The meat, egg, and dairy industry are going to continue whether we like it or not. In light of this, the deontologist is faced with two options: (i) Continue violating animal s rights AND making them suffer unnecessarily. (ii) Continue violating animal s rights but END unnecessary animal suffering. Surely, (ii) is better than (i). In short, while rights-based accounts would condemn the farming of disenhanced animals, they would nevertheless entail that this is at least LESS bad/wrong than the farming of (normal) suffering animals. [Side Note on Decerebration: We are focusing on cases like the blind hen case, but what if we were to instead genetically engineer decerebrated animals that is, animals that lack the part of their brains that give rise to consciousness? Such animals would not be experiencing subjects of a life, and so there would be no moral duty to respect them. If it s morally permissible to kick a rock down the street because it s not sentient, is it also morally permissible to kick a decerebrated chicken down the street? What do you think? Is the best solution to simply disenhance animals SO MUCH that they are reduced to nothing more than meaty vegetables? Or would this too be morally impermissible?] 3

3. Objections to Disenhancement: Given that the leading views of morality ENDORSE animal disenhancement (utilitarians happily endorses it, while deontologists might begrudgingly endorse it as the lesser of two evils), why do most people have such a strong lingering gut-feeling that it would be a horrible thing to do? (a) The Yuck Factor: Most simply feel a sense of repugnance in response to such a proposal. Therefore, we should not disenhance animals. Reply: While a knee-jerk moral intuition that something is wrong MAY be some indication that a practice IS morally wrong, we need to support our intuition with REASONS. [What do you think? Is a yuck factor ever grounds, by itself, to reject some practice as wrong?] (b) Telos: Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, coined the term telos. This refers to the idea that each animal (even each thing in the universe) has a specific design or PURPOSE. Some philosophers believe it is morally wrong to alter the telos of an animal, as it somehow compromises the integrity or dignity of the species, or the animal. Reply: First, to appeal to the fact that genetic engineering alters the telos of an animal, or a species, is to overlook something morally significant: Namely, there are REAL animals that are currently SUFFERING greatly in factory farms. Second, if correct, this may prove too much. For, then, simply breeding wolves to become teacup poodles would be morally wrong. But, is it? (c) Virtue: There are other moral views besides utilitarianism and deontology. One other major competitor is called Virtue Ethics. This is the view that we have a moral duty to strive for a virtuous moral character. Simply put, there are some things that a virtuous person just wouldn t DO, and disenhancing animals is one of them. Consider an example: Sweatshop Aspirin: Imagine that you run a factory with terrible working conditions (it is unsafe, unhealthy, and your employees work long, grueling hours for little pay). To reduce suffering, you hand out aspirin to your employees. In this scenario, you haven t HARMED anyone. Rather, you ve made your employees BETTER OFF. And yet, it seems that you are a terrible person for overlooking the thing that has real, moral significance. 4

So, what is wrong about disenhancement may not have anything to do with the consequences, or the animals themselves. Rather, it may be wrong because of what it reveals about US, the moral agents. Thompson writes, The entire project exhibits the vices of pride, of arrogance, of coldness and of calculating venality. To put the point another way, it is not the disrespect that animals suffer that is the focus of what is wrong with blind chicken strategies. It is disrespectfulness as a pattern of behavior or a character trait on the part of the agent that is at the heart of the issue. Reply: Like Shriver, Thompson appeals to the hard truth that factory farms aren t going away any time soon. In light of the fact that they re going to continue to exist whether we like it or not, isn t the virtuous response to relieve the animal s suffering? As Clare Palmer notes, Presumably disenhancement projects could be pursued with humility, respect and compassion. (48) Take a human example: Imagine that, in the sweatshop example, sweatshops were just a brutal fact of life, and that, for economic reasons, ridding the world of sweatshops is an impossible task. Isn t the next best thing giving them aspirin (assuming that this is the only economically viable means of relieving suffering)? In short, granting the assumption that humans aren t likely to end factoryfarming any time soon, which of the following responses is more virtuous? Well, let s at least make them as comfortable as possible. Don t you modify those animals! I prefer that they SUFFER! 5

Disenhancement and The Non-Identity Problem Clare Palmer argues that opposition to animal disenhancement is weakened further still in light of issues raised by The Non-Identity Problem. 1. The Non-Identity Problem: Consider the following case: Unhealthy Child: A woman is deciding whether or not to conceive a child. The doctor tells her that, due to some medication she is currently on, if she conceives now, she will conceive a child that will experience health problems that will cause their premature death at the age of 40. However, if she stops taking the medication and waits a month for it to clear her system before conceiving, she will conceive a normal, healthy child. Though, either way, we can assume that the child s life will (as a whole) be a good life a life worth living. She considers the doctor s advice. However, since it would be inconvenient, she keeps taking the birth-defect-causing medication and decides to conceive now anyway. Her child experiences health problems and dies at 40. Do you think that this woman has done something wrong in this case? The intuition that most of us have is that she has acted wrongly: She has seriously wronged her child. If she had simply waited one more month before conceiving, her child would not have suffered from the health complications. But, consider points (1) and (2), above. If the woman had waited a month before conceiving, she would have conceived a different child. In other words, the unhealthy child would not have existed AT ALL if the woman had waited another month to conceive. So, the two alternatives for the unhealthy child are either (a) a good life that is cut short, or (b) NO LIFE AT ALL. Surely a good life that is cut short is better than no life at all. So, it seems that the woman has not harmed that particular child by deciding not to wait a month before conceiving. So, why do we think that what she does is wrong? Answering this question is the difficulty posed by The Non-Identity Problem. 2. Animal Disenhancement: Why might this problem affect our decisions about animal disenhancement? Consider: Blind vs. Sighted Hens: Farmers are deciding whether to breed (a) normal chickens, or (b) a new genetically engineered strain of blind chickens. They decide to breed the blind chickens. 6

Note that choices (a) and (b) result in totally DIFFERENT chicken populations. That is, no individual chicken who would have existed, had choice (a) been made, will exist if choice (b) is made and vice versa. Is the farmer s decision WRONG? A common objection to disenhancement is that disenhancement is harmful to the animal in some way; e.g., it is worse to exist blind than sighted. But, consider a particular blind hen, Henrietta. Henrietta s two options are: (i) Exist, blind (ii) Not exist at all; rather some OTHER (sighted) hen would exist instead. Which option is better? Assuming that their lives will still be of SOME good to them, it seems that (i) is better. An argument can be stated as follows: 1. Animal disenhancement does not make any animal worse off than it otherwise would have been (assuming that disenhanced animals have lives worth living). 2. An act harms an individual if and only if it causes them to be worse off than they otherwise would have been. 3. Therefore, disenhancement does not harm animals. 4. Disenhancement would benefit presently existing people (economically), and harm no one. 5. Any action that harms no one, and benefits some, is not wrong. 6. Therefore, disenhancement is not wrong. But, then, if disenhancement is not wrong because it HARMS the disenhanced animal, then why do so many think it is wrong? Answering this question is rather difficult. [Note that the Non-Identity Problem does not arise in cases of regular, NON-genetic disenhancement; e.g., de-beaking an already existing chicken] 3. Utilitarianism to the Rescue?: Some (e.g., Derek Parfit) have suggested the following principle as a solution to this problem (which is a denial of premise 5): Individual Utility Principle: If there are two possible outcomes, where different individuals are created in each scenario, morally, you should bring about the outcome where the individual created has a higher quality of life. The idea is that, if you can create someone with a mediocre life or someone else with a good life, it is better to create the one with the good life because that is the better of the two options. If true, then the mother in Unhealthy Child has acted wrongly. Worry: But, if we accept the narrow principle above, must we then also accept this much more general one? 7

Total Utility Principle: If there are two possible outcomes, morally, you should bring about the outcome with the higher total amount of happiness. Note that this is now full-blown Utilitarianism, which many reject. Furthermore as we have seen, Utilitarianism is clearly in FAVOR of disenhancement. So, while it might explain what the mother does wrong in the Unhealthy Child case, it gets us no closer to an explanation of what is wrong about animal disenhancement. 4. Happy Farms: Note that some have also appealed to the non-identity problem to justify the use of animals more generally. Perhaps raising animals in the brutal conditions of factory farms is wrong because they endure terrible pain and suffering while alive in such farms. But, what about happy farms where the animal has a life worth living? Surely, we have BENEFITTED it by bringing it into existence, right? For instance, consider some particular free-range cow, Velvet. Velvet s two options are: (i) Exist, happy (and then be quickly and painlessly killed and eaten) (ii) Never exist at all Surely (i) is better than (ii), right? So, we must ask: Is it morally permissible to raise a happy animal, and then quickly and painlessly kill it? In other words, is it morally permissible to eat so-called free range meat? It is worth considering a human case: Human Organ Farms Farmers used to breed human beings for their organs in terrible conditions. The human s cages were cramped and filthy, and they were treated cruelly, and then they would be painfully slaughtered at the age of 18 for their organs, which were then given to other people in need of organ transplants. After many public protests of this inhumane practice, happy farms became common. Humans were raised from birth on happy farms, filled with pleasures. The humans were fed the best foods, given massages and fanned with palm fronds as they lay on comfy couches. They were given everything they desired until the age of 18 when they were quickly and painlessly killed in their sleep (and then their organs were harvested). Still outraged, public protests continue. It s okay, the farmers say. If there weren t a human organ-farming industry, we would have never bred these humans at all. So their two options are (i) exist, happy, before being painlessly killed for their organs, or (ii) never exist at all. Clearly, (i) is better than (ii), so no humans are harmed by this process, and what we re doing is permissible. 8

Conclusion: Is it morally wrong to run a happy human farm such as this (or purchase organs from them)? Surely the answer is YES. Such a farm would clearly be a moral atrocity. The fact that 18 good years is better than no years at all does not justify the slaughter. So, at best, perhaps creating a blind chicken is morally permissible. But, this does NOT entail that killing and eating that blind chicken is also permissible. If happy human farms are morally wrong, then happy animal farms (in addition to factory farms) are also morally wrong that is, unless we can identify a morally relevant difference between humans and animals which makes the former wrong but the latter permissible. But, then, we re back to the task of defending some form of speciesism. 9