In one of the readings this week we read the piece “Better not to have children,” by Gerald Harrison and Julia Tanner. They introduce the piece by describing how people take the moral permissibility of having children for granted. Having children is considered to be a good thing, and some people even view it is as obligatory (Harrison & Tanner, 2011). 

It is a good question about whether or not having children is obligatory. Yes, we are animals with biological urges to reproduce. However, we are also intelligent creatures who came up with condoms and birth control. We can go forth and act on certain biological urges without these actions resulting in more people. As I said people are intelligent but people are also very destructive. We are responsible for the deaths of numerous animals and entire species. Habitats are destroyed as the result of human activity. We are also causing global warming, which harms humans and animals alike. On top of that we could end the world with the push of a button due to the powerful nuclear weapons we hold in our possession (Harrison et al., 2011). 

The above paragraph which describes the horrible things we can do as people are all good reasons why we should avoid procreating. Harrison and Tanner say, “To procreate is to take and unjustifiable gamble that future generations will behave more responsibly than us.” It seems unlikely that this is something which is going to happen. 

They then go onto argue that they are only advocating for people to stop procreating. They do not advocate for people to start killing other people or killing themselves to help the environment. Any view which advocated for suicide would undoubtedly be extremely problematic. 

Still the question remains: is it ethical to deny people the moral permission to have children? What if having children would really make people happy. From a utilitarian standpoint, I am sure Singer would argue against the views of Harrison and Tanner. If more people could be brought into the world, this could in theory maximize happiness. However, there are no guarantees that if we have children, our children will be happy. 

Children may be resentful of the fact they were brought into the world because they did not ask to exist (Harrison et al., 2011). The philosopher David Benatar (2006) makes the argument that the gains and losses in an average life could well yield a negative result overall. 

After reading this article, it is my opinion as a woman with no children, that I do not wish to have children. I do not think it would add happiness to my life, and there is no guarantee my child would be happy. I do not want to bring a child into the world for him or her to suffer. I wholly agree with the arguments Tanner and Harrison make. It would be best for the environment if we do not have children, and if people really want children, there are still plenty of children who remain in the world they could adopt. 

While I was reading this article, there was one song that came to mind. It shows the destruction which humans are capable of with some powerful and stunning images. The instrumental composition is quite stunning. It is called, “Forever Lost- God is an astronaut,” 

Reading this article has certainly made me think, and I hope my blog post will do the same for you. I leave you with one question, “Do you think it is ethical to have children?”

 

Harrison, G., & Tanner, J. (2011). BETTER NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN. Think, 10(27), 113-121. doi:10.1017/S1477175610000436

https://eclass.srv.ualberta.ca/pluginfile.php/6160284/mod_resource/content/2/All%20Animals%20Are%20Equal.pdf

 

This blog post will explore the issues put forth by Whyte in his piece Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous People; an Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance” 

To begin Whyte describes how indigenous people often claim that colonial powers violate their people’s collective self-determination over their food systems or their food sovereignty. One of the proposed solutions to protect their food sovereignty is to conserve particular foods such as salmon and wild rice. Whyte makes the argument that when indigenous people make these claims, this offers us an important contribution to understand how settler colonial domination is a form of injustice that undermines key relationships that support the Indigenous self collective and self determination (Whyte, 2018). 

 

 Two key topics in Whyte’s paper are food injustice and food sovereignty. He introduces a concept called food injustice. Whyte says, “Food injustice occurs when at least one human group systematically dominates one or more other human groups through their connections to and interactions with one another in local and global food systems.” He then goes on to define food sovereignty as “the right of peoples and governments to choose the way food is produced and consumed in order to respect livelihoods (La Via Campesina, 2009). Food sovereignty helps to defend the self-determination of some collective over their food systems (Whyte, 2018). 

 

Foods can be connected to treaty rights. For example, salmon is an important resource. Billy Frank Jr. described his view on violations against  against the treaty tribes of western Washington in the Pacific Northwest:

Through the treaties, we reserved that which is most important to us as a people: The right to harvest salmon in our traditional fishing areas. But today the salmon is disappearing because the [US] federal government is failing to protect salmon habitat. Without the salmon there is no treaty right. We kept our word when we ceded all of western Washington to the United States, and we expect the United States to keep its word.

(Treaty Indian Tribes in Western Washington 2011, 6, as cited by Whyte, 2018)

For the indigenous people something such as salmon is not just a food source. Food systems connect greatly to resiliency of people whose ancestors survived very difficult times. Salmon are important parts of the ecosystem and removing them from the ecosystem would have harmful and negative consequences. This is why indigenous people had people known as title holders who would make informed decisions about salmon conservation for their house. Title holders could even be removed if their knowledge was insufficient (Trosper 2009,50-80). 

Having people such as title holders demonstrates that the indigenous people have knowledge and a great care to maintain ecosystems that they hunt and fish from. I also think that it is easier for the general public to accept salmon fishing traditions as being an important part of the Indigenous culture. However, there are indigenous groups who have more controversial hunting practices that can be harder to accept as an integral part of their identity. The example that I have in mind is seal hunting. I think a lot of people would be more willing to commit food injustice over the inuit people because the seal hunts upset them. 

The Inuit community in Resolute Bay has faced a lot of hardship from animal activist groups protesting the seal hunts. In 1983- 1985 when the seal hunt ban went into effect the average income of an Inuit seal hunter declined severely. It from $54,000- 1,000. The region has one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada and the highest suicide rate in the world (Randawha, 2017). 

A larger part of the controversy is the opening of a Toronto  restaurant called  Kū-kŭm Kitchen which sells seal meat. 

Is this restaurant ethical? I think whether or not it is ethical can depend on which philosophical view you examine the issue from. If you look at it from an animal rights view such as Regan’s, he would say this is completely unacceptable and you can’t kill seals. He would be fundamentally opposed to the entire system (Regan, 1987). On the other hand if you looked at it from a utilitarian perspective, they would consider the happiness of the aggregate. Limiting the seal hunt is causing people to kill themselves, and people are facing terrible hardships. 

I’m sure that Whyte would argue that banning the seal hunt and seal meat is another form of unacceptable food injustice. People have to do what they have to do to survive. Inuit people live in a harsh climate where it is difficult to survive. Another example of people who have to survive in a very harsh climate are the people who live in Omyakon Russia. This little hamlet can drop down to -60 in the winter. It is impossible to farm the frozen land so people survive off of a carnivorous diet. They eat reindeer meat, frozen fish, and horse blood. The 500 or so people here do not have much of a choice. These are the food sources which are available to them, and they can’t go vegan or vegetarian If a group tried to commit food injustice over the people in Omyakon, they would surely die. 

As I conclude this blog post, I have some questions,

What do you think about food injustice and food sovereignty? Is food injustice something that needs to be avoided?

Is there a middle ground between food injustice and killing animals? Would there be a middle ground for indigenous people and vegans?

Works used

1/) https://www-oxfordhandbooks-com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199372263.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199372263-e-34?print

2.) (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/life-in-oymyakon-the-coldest-inhabited-place-on-earth/as61356488.cms#:~:text=It’s%20actually%20great%20to%20see,degrees%20Celsius%20in%20the%20winters.

3.) Regan, T. (1987). The case for animal rights. In Advances in animal welfare science 1986/87 (pp. 179-189). Springer, Dordrecht.

Dale Jamieson explores the issues with geoengineering climate change. This was a popular discussion during the 1970’s and the 1980’s but since then that discussion has not nearly been as active. He describes the reawakening of this discussion based on the possibility of earth undergoing a greenhouse induced global warming and there needs to be some measures taken against this. In the paper Jamieson assesses the ethical acceptability of intentional climate change (ICC) He proposes a set of conditions that should be met for ICC to be morally permissible. However, he also says that those conditions are not met yet. Research on ICC should be continued based on certain conditions being met. He hopes to not be the last word on the ethics of ICC but the first word. He wants others to be stimulated to think through the ethics of ICC (Jamieson, 1996).

Jamieson outlines three ethical considerations that influence the permissibility of ICC. I will primarily deal with the first one for this piece. The first is the importance of democratic decision making. There is not a person on this planet who is not affected by climate. No matter where you are in the world it will have some impact on your life. Jamieson describes how poor people often aren’t included in major democratic decision-making processes. If ICC were to be used it would affect the poor just as much as the rich. “If the world belongs to anyone, it belongs to the poor just as much as it does the rich, and no decision to go forward with the ICC could be morally acceptable that did not in some way represent all the people from the world,” Jamieson says. It could be possible in principle to design a deliberative process that would prove to be just and include everyone. However, as Sachs 1993, says it would be difficult to do because it would have to be representative of all the people on earth and not just global middle class. People such as Rolston (1998) even think that other nonhuman things should be represented in the decision process. 

On the topic of poor people and people who live in poverty I think that they could end up being affected even more by climate change than the rich or the middle class. 

“We see climate as a magnifier, and in many cases a multiplier, of existing underlying causes of risk,” says Sarah Henly-Shepard, Mercy Corps Senior Advisor for Climate Change and Resilience.

Climate change is a root cause of conflict around the world because it leads to things such as food shortages, it threatens people’s livelihoods, and can displace entire populations. Some people who call the worlds poorest countries home are the most vulnerable. Examples of these countries include Haiti and Timor Leste. Three out of four people who live in poverty are reliant upon agricultural and natural resources to survive. As climate changes, it can become a matter of life and death for these people. More information can be found here https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/climate-change-poverty#who-affected-climate-change

Designing a process that could represent everyone’s interests fairly when it comes to the issue of ICC seems very difficult. I agree with Jamieson that the world belongs to everyone and climate change affects everyone. However, I think there are people who are at greater risk because their entire livelihood depends on the land. If they cannot grow their food, they will starve. It is not just a matter of being too hot or too cold, but once again I will say that it is a matter of life and death. 

 

There would need to be a way to represent poor people in a truly democratic decision about ICC

Resources used

https://link-springer-com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/article/10.1007/BF00142580

https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/climate-change-poverty#who-affected-climate-change

 

Can we have the best of both worlds with a delicious juicy hamburger and no animal harm involved? Patrick Hopkins and Austin Dacey do an excellent job exploring that issue in their paper Vegetarian meat: could technology save animals and satisfy meat eaters? 

They describe how many people are opposed to animal suffering but they still eat meat. I think this can be best explained by cognitive dissonance. This is a psychological phenomena where people hold views or cognitions which are in conflict with their behaviours. More on the topic here (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012). People enjoy the taste of meat but there is an obvious disconnect between the living animal who had its own life and then suffered and died to become wrapped in plastic at the supermarket (Hopkins and Dacey (page 1). However, there seems to be a potential way to cure ourselves of this cognitive dissonance and not have to sacrifice taste. With advances in food science and biotechnology of tissue culture, meat could be grown without killing animals. 

Before exploring this further I wanted to examine the problem of how eating meat and caring animals poses a problem. Dacy and Hopkins describe an example of how people enjoy cooking shows, but if a chef dragged out a lamb and slaughtered it on screen, most people would lose interest in the lamb recipes to follow (Dacy and Hopkins page 1). An Israeli commercial has gone ahead and done the same thing. The commercial shows a couple looking for extra fresh lamb, but when the butcher shows them what extra fresh lamb looks like, they look less than pleased. You can watch the add at this link  https://youtu.be/psdtyJ2aizI and read more about it by following this link https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/09/15/live-lamb-used-in-provocative-new-vegan-commercial-in-israel

After establishing why there is an ethical problem with eating meat Hopkins and Dacy go onto describe the techniques of growing meat in a lab. These techniques include scaffolding techniques, self organizing tissue culture, organ printing, bio-photonics, and nanotechnology. It would take some time for me to sum up all the technology which is used, but they are all described in detail within the paper linked above pages 3-6 of the pdf. 

What I would like to consider is whether or not this lab meat is going to be a good solution and what could be wrong with this. Some people are obsessed with the reality of meat. People claim they are carnivores, and think that lab meat will never be real. However lab meat would be identical to the meat that comes from an animal in terms of its texture, protein and real flesh (Hopkins and Dacey, page 9). People also have the concern that it’s not natural and its not good for you. However, not everything which is natural can be good for us (Hopkins and Darcey page 9). Arsenic is natural, but we certainly wouldn’t want to eat that. Radium is natural and look what that did for Marie Curie.

These are just some of the potential objections raised. Another one which I had not mentioned is that people think this lab meat might start turning us into Hannibal Lecter. If we could replicate and grow animal tissue then we could replicate human tissue. Oh no, we might become cannibals. People can come up with a lot of objections to lab meat. In the paper there are certainly more objections than support.

What follows is a personal opinion which I will validate with a psychological theory. I think its easier to accept lab meat than it is to reject it. I think we all want to be compassionate, caring people who do not cause animals to suffer. Then we take some time and then try to come up with all of these objections. 

The psychological theory I’m going to describe is a cognitive theory by Daniel Kahneman. He describes two systems. System one is fast and makes judgments quickly. System two is slower and more deliberative https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kahneman-excerpt-thinking-fast-and-slow/. I think System one supports lab meat and System two comes up with all these reasons why lab meat is objectionable. Some people might argue that System two is more rational but I think we should trust our base instincts when they tell us we don’t want to harm animals. I think the majority of people do not want to harm animals. In this day and age, we don’t have to. We can have meat with no animal harm, and to me that is a glorious thing.

~Shantel Mills

One of the readings for this week was “The land Ethic,” by Aldo Leopold from a Sand County Almanac written in 1948. Leopold outlines the ethical sequence. He defines philosophical ethics as a differentiation between social conduct and non social conduct. He describes how people view the land as property and people have a view of the land as something which is economical (Leopold, page 1). He describes how in order for an ethical relation to land to exist people first need to love respect and admire the land for its value. Value has to go beyond economical value. 

Throughout history, people have looked to the land to find some sort of resource. Although the movie is rife with historical inaccuracies, I remember the song “Mine,” from Pocahontas (https://youtu.be/DSfYrPdTKVA). Governor Ratcliffe is obsessed with digging up the land to find gold and make himself rich. When we look to our modern day, especially in the province of Alberta, people value the resource of black gold, or oil. People are willing to destroy entire ecosystems in order to make a profit. I think the fact that so many people in Alberta rely on the oil field to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table, it can be hard to look past the economic benefits and look towards valuing the land. Leopold also describes colonial migration and the battles over the cane lands. These battles took place because the lands eventually grew bluegrass which was quite valuable. 

In historical times people had a direct connection to the land but this reading describes how we are becoming further separated from the land. He demonstrates that when we are out of the city and away from our technology; we experience boredom. So many things around us are synthetic. These include substitutes for wood, leather, and wool. The substitutes have become preferable to the original. He says that people have outgrown the land (Leopold page 6). 

He goes into what I think is a very important point, and that is an ecological comprehension of the land. In order to have ecological comprehension, one needs to be educated about important matters of ecology. Formal education may not be enough in this case. I am in my final year of university and for my degree it was not necessary to receive much training concerning ecology. Leopold also makes the point that this training can come from other courses such as geography, botany, agronomy, history or economics (Leopold, page 6).I agree with him the ecological training is scarce. 

I think in order for people to care more about ecology, they have to have training in some form. I think it is difficult for people to care about matters which they cannot comprehend. When people read books by philosophers such as Leopold they begin to think about matters which they might never had thought of before. On environmental health news they have an article called  Building a library of American environmental classics: Part One. One of the books mentioned is Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s book The Everglades: River of Grass. This book made Americans reconsider their views on the everglades. Her writing made the everglades be viewed in a positive light as an ecological treasure, and not just a swamp full of bugs and gators.  (https://www.ehn.org/top-environmental-books-part-1-2647584261.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1)

In conclusion, I think the more we learn about ecosystems the more we will have cause to care for them, and have the desire to extend ethical views to further protect them.. Leopold says (page 6) the evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual and an emotional process.

We have a responsibility to learn as much as we possibly can and do everything we can to protect the land and natural resources around us. 

 

This week in Philosophy 355 we began to study theories which reject traditional anthropocentric theories. Historically  anthropocentric theories were those theories which valued the morals and experiences of only human beings, and these theories did not include the moral values of non-human animals (Welchman, 2020, UofA eclass).

One reading which we covered was Tom Regan’s “The Case for Animal Rights”. Regan is of course opposed to anthropocentric theories and puts forth his own views and philosophical ideas. His view is based on Kantian deontological ethics.  Regan revised Kant’s view and he thought Kant was correct that rationally autonomous beings have a right to respect for their autonomy, but as experiencing subjects of lives we also have a right to respect (Welchman, 2020, 16).  

Regan critiques anthropocentric theories; he also provides critiques of non-anthropocentric theories and points out their flaws. This blog post will explore these critiques to non-anthropocentric theories including contractarianism, virtue ethics, and utilitarianism. 

The first theory which Regan is opposed to is Contractarianism. This philosophical view is one which is described by Hobbes or Rawls. Whether it is described by one philosopher or the other its fundamental ideas systematically denies that we have direct duties to those human beings who do not have a sense of justice (Welchman, 2020,11). People who can understand a moral contract have their rights covered directly, and they are protected by the contract. The individuals who cannot understand and not sign the contract lack the direct rights. This would include and leave groups such as young children vulnerable. However, here comes the caveat. Children in most circumstances have parents who love and protect them. The children will then be protected by the contract because their parents wish for them to be protected.(Regan, 1983,2-3).

Animals can also not understand, nor can they sign contracts. However, there are animals such as companion animals, and people care about them dearly. The animals that people care about still lack rights but will be protected because people have sentimental interests toward them. For example, if a woman is walking by you with her dog, you should not kick the dog because you would upset the woman. Contractarianism doesn’t care about the dog (Welchman, 2020, Unpublished UofA lectures).

On this matter there are plenty of other animals that people don’t care about. There are farm animals and animals in laboratories who people don’t concern themselves with. These animals still suffer and just because people are not immediately concerned with the suffering, this does not mean the suffering does not matter and therefore Regan is opposed to the view.(Regan, 1983, 2-3). 

Another view Regan is opposed to is Virtue ethics because there is no guarantee that a kind act is a right act. This brings up the idea of humane slaughter. There has been a lot of work done by people such as Temple Grandin to make the slaughter of cows easier on the cows. However, just because it is less painful and frightening, does not mean that it is morally right. Regan describes how a little more straw, a little more spaces, and some companionship will not eliminate the basic wrong that is attached to our views of treating animals as resources. Making farm conditions more humane or kind is not enough, according to Regan. Virtue ethicists would be fully in support of making farming conditions more humane, but Regan thinks this is not good enough. The only way to make things better for the animals is the total dissolution of animal agriculture (Regan, 1983,1).

The final theory which will be discussed is utilitarianism.Regan describes how people often think the theory that we seem to be searching for in terms of helping the animals is Utilitarianism.Utilitarians accept two main principles. The first is equality and that everyone’s interests count. The second principle is accepting the act of utility and doing what will bring about the best balance of satisfaction and frustration for everyone who is affected by the outcome (Regan, 1983, 4).

This sounds like it would be a good theory, but the reason Regan opposes it is because individuals have no value with utilitarianism. The following analogy makes this point more comprehensible. A cup contains different liquids. Sometimes the liquids are sweet, bitter, or a combination of both. The sweeter the liquids are the better, and the more bitter the liquids the worse. The cup or container does not have value. In utilitarianism, individuals are the cps. What goes into us matters. Our feelings of satisfaction matter, and our feelings of frustration have a negative value (Regan, 1983, 5)

Another analogy shows further issues with utilitarianism. Regan describes the case of Aunt Bea. She is a cranky rich old lady, and no one loves her. If I was to kill her, I could donate her money to a children’s hospital. This would benefit more people than her staying alive. It should be perfectly acceptable as a utilitarian. Utilitarianism prioritizes what makes the most people feel happy, and it can completely devalue the life of the individuals (Regan, 1983, 5).

Regan provides sound critiques of these theories, and his own view seems to be the best to protect the animals. If I was choose to a philosopher to advocate on behalf of the animals I would choose Regan. I think the above theories especially contractarianism and utilitarianism have deeply rooted flaws and they would need to undergo significant revisal to adequately advocate for the rights of animals. Regan’s views seem to  be the most in line with ethical vegan views. His views advocate for the complete abolition of forms of animal cruelty, and this is why I favour it in comparison to the other non-antropocentric theories. . Which philosophical theory do you think is best for the animals?

~Shantel