Agriculture, Ethics, and Law

Abstract

The development of human civilization was directly dependent on the creation of a secure and predictable food supply by way of plant and animal agriculture. Both forms of agriculture required sustainability. In animal agriculture, this was assured by good husbandry, i.e. respect for animals ‘needs and natures’. The development of civilization and technology paradoxically led to the undoing of this ancient contract with animals, and of sustainability in plant agriculture. Industry and the search for profit and productivity supplanted husbandry and stability. Industrial agriculture for animals supplanted agriculture as a way of life. The loss of husbandry was pervasive throughout animal agriculture, and turned good husbandry and animal welfare into major moral issues, rather than a presupposition of raising animals. This in turn led to a societal demand for a new ethic for treatment of animals in agriculture. As Plato pointed out, new ethics evolve out of established ethics, so society turned to its ethic for humans, mutatis mutandis, as a basis for a new animal ethic and as a way of assuring respect for animal nature or telos. The chartering of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production created a vehicle for exposing the general public to the numerous problems growing out of industrial animal agriculture. These problems fell into five interconnected categories: antimicrobial resistance; environmental despoliation; rural sociology; human and animal health; and animal welfare. Though the Commission offered numerous recommendations for remedying these problems, none have as yet been legislatively mandated.