Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
isms will eventually become resistant (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Affairs
1997, see also Sangster 1999, Hugoson and Wallén 2000) and there is the risk of food residues.
Thus, the American national organic standards prohibit any use of antibiotics if products are
to be labelled as organic (AMS-USDA 2000), while the EU allows a maximum of 'three courses
of treatments with chemically-synthesised allopathic veterinary medicinal products or antibi-
otics' within one year (Council Regulation 1999). This conf lict between the wellbeing of the
system and that of the individual is a dilemma for organic farming and may be a contributory
cause of the criticism about animal welfare in organic systems.
Clearly ecocentric ethics do not offer an obvious focus from which to develop an animal
ethics framework for organic farming. However, there are other less radical versions of ecocen-
tric ethics where individuals are also considered to have moral significance. This 'ecocentric
pluralism' assigns value both to ecological entities, such as ecosystems and species, and to
individual organisms (Stenmark 2002). It can also be argued that ecocentric ethics is based on
a fundamental respect for nature and recognises the interconnectedness among all living
beings and between them and their environment; hence, animals (as well as humans) are
inseparable and important parts of nature and must therefore be treated with care and respect.
Consequently, animals can be seen to have moral standing and are more than just a means of
production, deserving respect and consideration as important members of the ecological com-
munity. For example, some ecocentric philosophers, such as the Norwegian Arne Næss, argue
that all living beings are united on a metaphysical level and accordingly, humans will also be
harmed if animals are harmed (Næss 1985). Others have argued that domesticated farm and
companion animals are an integrated part of the human society, and for this reason they
deserve good welfare just as human children do (Callicott 1989). Lund
et
al
. (2004a) have sug-
gested that farm animals should be respected as co-workers in the agroecosystem and for this
reason they are entitled to good welfare.
Established moral theories such as utilitarian animal ethics and animal rights are inade-
quate for anchoring animal welfare concerns in organic production systems (Lund
et al
.
2004b). Utilitarianism, so far the dominating paradigm among Anglo-Saxon animal ethicists,
considers the suffering, needs and interests of individual animals (Singer 1990), but its one-
dimensional focus on consideration of utilities, interests or pleasure is less suitable for farming.
Slaughter is not completely prohibited in Singer's utilitarian view, but whether it is permissible
depends on how one values the interests of the actors involved. For example, the interest of the
gourmet meat eater to consume meat must be weighed against the interests of the animal that
is going to be slaughtered. This could be acceptable if, for example, the animal has a fractured
leg and faces a long and complicated convalescence that may affect its interest in continuing
life, or it could be argued that an animal has no concept of its death and thus does not get its
interests violated if it is painlessly and unknowingly slaughtered. Still, it is very difficult to
justify commercial farming from a sentientistic utilitarian position.
In addition, organic farming has a different understanding of the individual animal in the
moral and ecological order as well as of pleasure, pain and suffering. An ethical position setting
the bounds for moral concern at sentient beings does not work well for organic agriculture,
which also includes other objects as morally relevant.
Animal rights theories (e.g. Regan 1983) fail as a complementary philosophy for organic
animal husbandry since they see the inherent value of sentient animals equal to that of
humans. This makes animal agriculture impossible (Fraser 1999) and according to the pro-
ponents, all forms of animal agriculture should be abolished (Regan 1983). Thus, these two
models of well known and frequently used animal ethics theories do not help organic
farming to find an animal ethics that can give guidance on how organic animals should be
handled.
