Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Making Sense of Animal Disenhancement

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
NanoEthics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper I look at moral debates about animal disenhancement. In particular, I propose that given the particular social institutions in which such disenhancement will operate, we ought to reject animal disenhancement. I do this by introducing the issue of animal disenhancement and presenting arguments in support of it, and showing that while these arguments are strong, they are unconvincing when we look at the full picture. Viewing animal disenhancement in a context such as high intensity food production, we see that the arguments in support of it fall short of other ethical considerations, leading me to conclude that the moral and pragmatic reasons weigh against animal disenhancement.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Throughout this paper, I will refer to meat and animal food products, meaning the foods like typical meats – cow, pig, poultry, goat, lamb etc. and common food products like dairy and eggs.

  2. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Interim Report on world agriculture states that overall meat consumption rose from 26.1 kg/per person worldwide in 1969/1971 to 37.4 kg/per person worldwide in 1999/2001, and predicted a rise to 52 kg/per person worldwide in 2050. Milk and dairy is predicted to rise from 75.3 kg/per person worldwide in 1969/1971 to 100 kg/per person worldwide in 2050 [9:25].

  3. Peter Singer’s work on animal welfare being a paradigm example of the view that it is suffering which forms the moral foundation as to why we should care about animals [32].

  4. Gary Francione [7] and Tom Regan [27], for example, present animal rights accounts derived from the inherent value of animals.

  5. While a reference to the ‘common recognition’ of a right is not an argument for the right in itself, I refer here to Norman Daniel’s arguments that a general moral consensus exists about the special moral importance of health [5:29–78], and that basic nutrition is essential for health. Further, as an indication of such commonality, I note that a right to food is included in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [40].

  6. Referring to ‘a basic human right to food’ is unlikely to appeal to libertarians unconvinced of positive rights. While I can’t rehearse the arguments here, Thomas Pogge and Jeremy Waldron have both presented different arguments against such a libertarian position when considering basic needs like adequate nutrition [23, 41].

  7. Access to food does not mean access to meat or animal products. I discuss this point later in the paper when discussing non-meat based diets.

  8. I refer here to something like the distinction between moral status and moral value discussed by Bonnie Steinbock. On this distinction, animals have moral value, though not moral status that equals humans [36].

  9. From this point in the paper I refer to animal’s ‘capacity to suffer/for self awareness’. This is intended to track to the two main moral concerns about animals, whilst not favoring/selecting between either. These two moral foundations being their capacity to suffer (utilitarian) and their capacity to self-awareness (rights derived from the subject-of-a-life).

  10. By ‘likelihood to experience suffering’, I mean to refer to changes to the animal that indirectly reduces suffering—i.e. Thompson’s description that blind chickens are less bothered by crowding than chickens with normal vision [38].

  11. By convergent technologies, I mean to refer to the “the synergistic combination of four major “NBIC” (nano-bio-info-cogno) provinces of science and technology” [17].

  12. I think that the argument developed in this paper can be applied to social institutional contexts like medical research; however, it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss them here.

  13. Dumbed Down is a term used by Thompson, in which “researchers identify the genetic or neurological basis for certain characteristics or abilities (such as sight), and produce animals that lack them by removing or otherwise disabling them either genetically or through a nano-mechanical intervention in cellular or neurological processes” rather than a build up approach, where “researchers work with cells in vitro, designing scaffolding and other mechanisms that might be produced according to instructions encoded in DNA, to wind up with an organism that yields the animal products (meat, milk and eggs) currently produced using pigs, cows and chickens” [38].

  14. As I mention later, when I say ‘joint actions’ here, I mean that “[j]oint actions are actions involving a number of agents performing interdependent actions to realize some common goal” [16:37].

  15. This is perhaps a controversial claim about whether reasons necessarily entail the justification or prohibition of an action, and is beyond this paper to discuss further. However, asking for reasons is common in political philosophy [26, 29].

  16. I also note here that there is a separate epistemic argument against animal disenhancement. In order to allow disenhanced animals to be used in high intensity animal production, we need to be extremely certain that the given disenhancements do actually reduce suffering, and not merely our capacity to recognise or measure animal suffering. Neil Levy argues strong caution against confusing correlates with causation. Similar to Alexander Guerrero’s argument ‘don’t know, don’t kill’, unless we are sure that the given technology reliably results in reduced capacity to suffer/for self-awareness in high intensity animal production, we cannot allow disenhancement. [10, 14:133–156].

  17. What I mean here are programs in which a country only or preferentially subsidises its own agricultural producers.

  18. I recognize that the relations between agricultural subsidies and negative impacts on the poor in the developing world are complex and that solutions to this problem are complex, as is shown by Malgorzata Kurjanska and Mathias Risse [13].

References

  1. Balzer P, Rippe KP, Schaber P (2000) Two concepts of dignity for humans and non-human organisms in the context of genetic engineering. J Agr Environ Ethics 13(1):7–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bovenkerk B, Brom FWA, Bergh BJvd (2002) Brave new birds: the use of ‘animal integrity’ in animal ethics. The Hastings Center Report 32(1):16–22

    Google Scholar 

  3. Burkholder J et al (2007) Impacts of waste from concentrated animal feeding operations on water quality. Environ Health Perspect 115(2)

  4. Cantrell K et al (2007) Role of thermochemical conversion in livestock waste-to-energy treatments: obstacles and opportunities. Ind Eng Chem Res 46(26):8918–8927

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Daniels N (2008) Just health: meeting health needs fairly, 1st edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  6. Dillard J (2008) A slaughterhouse nightmare: psychological harm suffered by slaughterhouse employees and the possibility of redress through legal reform. Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy 15(2):391–408

    Google Scholar 

  7. Francione G (1995–1996) Animal rights and animal welfare. Rutgers Law Review 48(2):397–470

    Google Scholar 

  8. Gilchrist MJ et al (2006) The potential role of concentrated animal feeding operations in infectious disease epidemics and antibiotic resistance. Environ Health Perspect 115(2)

  9. Global Perspectives Study Unit (2006) World agricultre: towards 2030/2050 interim report. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome

    Google Scholar 

  10. Guerrero AA (2007) Don’t know, don’t kill: moral ignorance, culpability, and caution. Phil Stud 136:59–97

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Kass L (1997) The wisdom of repugnance. The New Republic 17–26

  12. Korsgaard CM (2009) Self-constitution: agency, identity, and integrity. Oxford University Press, USA, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  13. Kurjanska M, Risse M (2008) Fairness in trade II: export subsidies and the fair trade movement. Polit Philos Econ 7(1):29–56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Levy N (2007) Neuroethics: challenges for the 21st century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  15. Manale A (2006–2007) Agriculture and the developing world: intensive animal production, a growing environmental concern. Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 19(4):809–816

    Google Scholar 

  16. Miller S (2010) The moral foundations of social institutions: a philosophical study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  17. National Science Foundation and Department Of Commerce (2003) Converging technologies for improving human performance: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences, M.C. Roco and W.S. Bainbridge, Editors. National Science Foundation and Department of Commerce. p. 482

  18. O’Sullivan S (2009) Australasian animal protection laws and the challenge of equal consideration. In: Sankoff P, White SW (eds) Animal law in Australasia: a new dialogue. Federation Press, Annandale, N.S.W, pp 108–127

    Google Scholar 

  19. OECD (2010) Agricultural policies in OECD countries: at a glance 2010. Organisation for economic co-operation and development

  20. Oxfam (2002) Rigged rules and double standards: trade, globalisation, and the fight against poverty. Oxfam International, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  21. Palmer C (2011) Animal disenhancement and the non-identity problem: a response to Thompson. NanoEthics 5(1):43–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Parfit D (1987) Reasons and Persons. Reprinted with corrections, 1987. ed. Clarendon Press, Oxford, xv, 543 p

  23. Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  24. Pogge T (2009) The health impact fund and its justification by appeal to human rights. J Soc Philos 40(4):542–569

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Pollan M (2006) The omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals: Penguin

  26. Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples: with, the idea of public reason revisited. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, viii, 199 p

  27. Regan T (2004) The case for animal rights. 3rd ed. University of California Press

  28. Roberts P (2008) The end of food: the coming crisis in the world food industry. Bloomsbury, London

    Google Scholar 

  29. Scanlon TM (2000) What we owe each other. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  30. Shriver A (2009) Knocking out pain in livestock: can technology succeed where morality has stalled? Neuroethics 2(3):115–124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Silbergeld EK, Graham J, Price LB (2008) Industrial food animal production, antimicrobial resistance and human health. Annu Rev Publ Health 21:151–169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Singer P (1996) Animal liberation. New York University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  33. Singer P, Mason J (2006) The ethics of what we eat. Text Publishing, Melbourne

    Google Scholar 

  34. Smith M (1987) The humean theory of motivation. Mind 96(381):36–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Smith M (1994) The moral problem. Blackwell Publishing, Malden

    Google Scholar 

  36. Steinbock B (2007) Moral status, moral value, and human embryos: implications for stem cell research. In: Steinbock B (ed) The Oxford handbook of bioethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  37. Stuart T (2009) Waste: uncovering the global food scandal. W. W. Norton & Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  38. Thompson P (2008) The opposite of human enhancement: nanotechnology and the blind chicken problem. NanoEthics 2(3):305–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Thompson PB (2011) The fundamental problem in food ethics, in society for philosophy and technology 2011. Denton, Texas

  40. United Nations. Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. 1948; Available from: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

  41. Waldron J (1988) The right to private property. Clarendon Paperbacks, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  42. Weary DM et al (2006) Identifying and preventing pain in animals. Appl Anim Behav Sci 100(1–2):64–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Wilson SM, Serre ML (2007) Examination of atmospheric ammonia levels near Hog CAFOs, homes, and schools in Eastern North Carolina. Atmos Environ 41(23):4977–4987

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. World Bank. Health, Nutrition And Population Statistics. 2011; Available from: http://go.worldbank.org/H4UN4D5KI0

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the feedback from two anonymous reviewers. They offered very useful criticisms and suggestions which I have used throughout the paper. Any remaining problems are my own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Charles Sturt University, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Wagga Wagga, Australia

    Adam Henschke

Authors
  1. Adam Henschke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adam Henschke.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Henschke, A. Making Sense of Animal Disenhancement. Nanoethics 6, 55–64 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-012-0140-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-012-0140-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation