The Effects of Exposure to Information about Animal Welfare Reforms on Animal Farming Opposition: A Randomized Experiment

There is limited research on the effects of animal welfare reforms, such as transitions from caged to cage-free eggs, on attitudes toward animal farming. This preregistered, randomized experiment (N = 1520) found that participants provided with information about current animal farming practices had somewhat higher animal farming opposition (AFO) than participants provided with information about an unrelated topic (d = 0.17). However, participants provided with information about animal welfare reforms did not report significantly different AFO from either the current-farming (d = -0.07) or control groups (d = 0.10). Although these latter effects on AFO were small and nonsignificant, they appeared to be mediated by changes in perceived social attitudes towards farmed animals and optimism about further reforms to factory farming. Exploratory analysis found no evidence that hierarchical meat eating justification or beliefs about how well-treated farmed animals currently are mediated the effect. Further research is needed to better understand why providing information about animal welfare reforms did not substantially increase AFO overall, whereas providing information about current practice did somewhat increase AFO.

Science and Agribusiness in the History of Pig Factory Farming in Ontario

The article explores some of the connections between science and agribusiness in the history of pig factory farming in Ontario, Canada, between the 1950s and the present. The factory farm model of pig production submits animals to a very artificial way of life, which would not be possible without the inputs of scientific and technological innovations of the 20th century. Topics discussed include the use of antibiotics, swine nutrition, feed conversion (in)efficiency, and pork promotion and consumption. The primary sources utilized are a trade magazine, a census of agriculture, and other government and industry publications. The article sheds light on how notions such as “progress”, “improvement”, “modern” or “efficiency”, frequently used by scientists when referring to results of pig production, are restricted to narrow or internal considerations of the industry that, in turn, can be challenged by broader analysis of aspects (social, economic, environmental) of the food system. Scientists have not just produced scientific knowledge but in some cases have also promoted ideologies about animals and the food system. These ideologies of “progress”, “improvement”, “modern” or “efficiency”, as in the context of pig production in Ontario, only make sense if we understand the particular historical moment in the analysis, which since the 1950s has markedly been one of strong agribusiness interventionism.

Genome Editing in Livestock, Complicity, and the Technological Fix Objection

Genome editing in livestock could potentially be used in ways that help resolve some of the most urgent and serious global problems pertaining to livestock, including animal suffering, pollution, antimicrobial resistance, and the spread of infectious disease. But despite this potential, some may object to pursuing it, not because genome editing is wrong in and of itself, but because it is the wrong kind of solution to the problems it addresses: it is merely a ‘technological fix’ to a complex societal problem. Yet though this objection might have wide intuitive appeal, it is often not clear what, exactly, the moral problem is supposed to be. The aim of this paper is to formulate and shed some light on the ‘technological fix objection’ to genome editing in livestock. I suggest that three concerns may underlie it, make implicit assumptions underlying the concerns explicit, and cast some doubt on several of these assumptions, at least as they apply to the use of genome editing to produce pigs resistant to the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome and hornless dairy cattle. I then suggest that the third, and most important, concern could be framed as a concern about complicity in factory farming. I suggest ways to evaluate this concern, and to reduce or offset any complicity in factory farming. Thinking of genome editing’s contribution to factory farming in terms of complicity, may, I suggest, tie it more explicitly and strongly to the wider obligations that come with pursuing it, including the cessation of factory farming, thereby addressing the concern that technological fixes focus only on a narrow problem.

Posthuman Affirmative Business Ethics: Reimagining Human–Animal Relations Through Speculative Fiction

Posthuman affirmative ethics relies upon a fluid, nomadic conception of the ethical subject who develops affective, material and immaterial connections to multiple others. Our purpose in this paper is to consider what posthuman affirmative business ethics would look like, and to reflect on the shift in thinking and practice this would involve. The need for a revised understanding of human–animal relations in business ethics is amplified by crises such as climate change and pandemics that are related to ecologically destructive business practices such as factory farming. In this analysis, we use feminist speculative fiction as a resource for reimagination and posthuman ethical thinking. By focusing on three ethical movements experienced by a central character named Toby in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, we show how she is continually becoming through affective, embodied encounters with human and nonhuman others. In the discussion, we consider the vulnerability that arises from openness to affect which engenders heightened response-ability to and with, rather than for, multiple others. This expanded concept of subjectivity enables a more relational understanding of equality that is urgently needed in order to respond affirmatively to posthuman futures.

The Puzzle of Inefficacy

We appear to have reasons to act in light of the relationship between our choices and the horrors of factory farming or the escalating bad effects of climate change, even if we are unable to mitigate those bad effects through our individual choices. This idea can seem puzzling in two ways. First, it can seem puzzling how to explain these reasons, given our inefficacy. Second, it can seem that these reasons, even if they existed, would have to be vanishingly weak. This chapter develops a solution to this puzzle that appeals to a novel explanation of why a feature counts as a focal point in the explanation of ethical properties. This solution is applied to show how our relationship to certain social patterns can explain our reasons to respond to facts about factory farming and climate change, mentioned above.

El Otro No-Humano y el Coronavirus

The global Coronavirus pandemic originated out of a wet market in Wuhan, China. Thus, this virus is the product of the market conditions that lacked any sort of ethical considerations.Among the most ingrained dogmas in most human beings throughout history is the idea that mankind has non-human beings at their disposal to do with them whatever humanity’s will might dictate. The ethical relation is suspended during the interaction with animals and thus humans are allowed to torture, harm, imprison, and kill animals for scientific experiments, entertainment, or to satisfy hunger or a craving. Through the levinasian concept of transcendence, this article will propose Otherness as a category of Peter Singer’s utilitarian critique of factory farming. The current virus is proposed to be the result of a system that subsumes the non-human Other as matter to be manipulated and ignores any sort of ethical responsibility.

El Otro No-Humano y el Coronavirus

The global Coronavirus pandemic originated out of a wet market in Wuhan, China. Thus, this virus is the product of the market conditions that lacked any sort of ethical considerations. Among the most ingrained dogmas in most human beings throughout history is the idea that mankind has non-human beings at their disposal to do with them whatever humanity’s will might dictate. The ethical relation is suspended during the interaction with animals and thus humans are allowed to torture, harm, imprison, and kill animals for scientific experiments, entertainment, or to satisfy hunger or a craving. Through the levinasian concept of transcendence, this article will propose Otherness as a category of Peter Singer’s utilitarian critique of factory farming. The current virus is proposed to be the result of a system that subsumes the non-human Other as matter to be manipulated and ignores any sort of ethical responsibility.

Animal Welfare and Pig Factory Farming in Ontario, Canada (1950s – Present)

This article explores the inception and development of pig factory farming in Ontario, Canada, since the 1950s to date, focusing on animal welfare dimensions. The study showed that although the term “animal welfare” was not well-known until the 1980s, discussions on cruelty and abnormal animal behaviour begun in the early days of factory farms. The article also delves into tensions between the humane movement and the agribusiness sector in Ontario. The article further sheds light on the social context that eventually led to an alliance in support of a conservative, incomplete notion of animal welfare between these former opponents. The article posits that as opposed to supporting the abolition of factory farming, the concept of animal welfare became central to implementing limited reforms in factory farming to convince the public and to marginalize discordant voices while concurrently expanding pig and other animal production worldwide.