Reasoning rejection of factory farming: the importance of aesthetic and eudaimonistic arguments

Abstract

While confinement methods constitute the predominant form of chicken and pig husbandry in industrialized countries since several decades, in the last few years several countries have encountered a considerable increase in scale of production units. The proposed contribution analyzes arguments against such large-scale production units. First, we demonstrate that animal welfare concerns and environmental concerns are less able to specifically criticize units of large scale than appears at first view. On the one hand, some environmental issues such as nutrient leakage and non-GHG-emissions are more pertinent in large-scale units. On the other hand, other issues such as GHG-emissions, issues related to arable-based animal feed and need-based arguments for animal welfare do not allow for specific criticism of large-scale units. Second, we therefore analyze alternative arguments, namely care based and aesthetic arguments. In regard to the former we show that a broader interpretation of the notion of care that includes issues such as emergency evacuation or even a personal relationship to individual animals results in specific criticism of large-scale units in so far as these do not allow for such care. In regard to the latter, we argue that drawing on the notion of monument allows for intersubjectively reasoning aesthetic objections against certain large-scale units. In conclusion, our contribution employs the example of reasoning rejection of factory farming for arguing that an encompassing approach towards agricultural and food ethics necessarily encompasses both genuinely normative as well as eudaimonistic and aesthetic issues. As such, we understand our contribution as an argument for exploring and strengthening the role of eudaimonistc and aesthetic arguments in food and agricultural ethics.