The Least Harm Principle Suggests That Humans Should Eat Beef, Lamb, Dairy, Not a Vegan Diet".

Hizzoner

OSU SCIENTIST QUESTIONS THE MORAL Basis OF A VEGAN DIET
03-05-02

By Peg Herring, 541-737-9180
SOURCE: Steven Davis, 541-737-1892

CORVALLIS - Why is it right to kill the mouse and non the cow?

This question is fundamental to a study of bioethics that explores the moral foundation of a strictly vegetarian, so-chosen vegan diet. The enquiry, by Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University, adds a new perspective to a millennia-old argue: Is it right for people to impale animals in gild to feed themselves?

Davis turns that question on its head. How many animals must die, he asks, in order for people to feed themselves?

To address the question, Davis applies a principle used by moral philosophers to measure the least amount of damage an action might cause, called the Least Impairment Principle.

Davis's research focuses on the work of Tom Regan, a philosophy professor from North Carolina State University and founder of the contemporary animal rights movement. Regan argues that the to the lowest degree impairment would be done to animals if people were to adopt a vegan nutrition - that is, a diet based only on plants, with no meat, eggs, or milk products.

What goes unaccounted for in Regan's vegan conclusion, co-ordinate to Davis, is the number of animals who are inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest.

"Vegan diets are not bloodless diets," Davis said. "Millions of animals dice every year to provide products used in vegan diets."

Davis presented his research last fall at a coming together of the European Society for Agronomics and Nutrient Ethics, in Florence, Italian republic. There he questioned the conclusions of animal rights proponents and offered alternatives using the To the lowest degree Harm Principle. Central to his argument is the unseen bloodshed that accompanies the production of row crops and grains, staples of a vegan diet, in agronomical systems large enough to sustain the human being population.

"Over the years that I have been studying animate being rights theories, I have never establish anyone who has considered the deaths of - or, the 'damage' to - animals of the field," Davis said. "This, it seems to me, is a serious omission."

Consequently, Davis asks what is the morally relevant difference betwixt the field mouse and the cow that makes it okay to kill ane merely not the other so that humans may eat.

Few studies certificate the losses of rabbits, mice, pheasants, snakes and other field animals in planting and harvesting crops. Said one researcher: "Because almost of these animals have been seen as expendable, or not seen at all, few scientific studies have been washed measuring agriculture's effects on their populations."

Davis has constitute evidence that suggests that the unseen losses of field animals are very high. Ane study documented that a unmarried operation, mowing alfalfa, caused a 50 percent reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Bloodshed rates increase with every laissez passer of the tractor to plow, plant, and harvest. Additions of herbicides and pesticides cause additional harm to animals of the field.

In contrast, grazing ruminants such as cattle produce food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other equipment. In grazed pastures, according to Davis, less wildlife is lost to the mower blades, and more find stable habitat in untilled fields. And no-till agriculture too helps stabilize soil and reduce run-off into streams.

"Pasture-forage production, with herbivores harvesting the provender, would be the ultimate in 'no-till' agriculture," Davis said.

Davis proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would replace all poultry, pig and lamb production with beefiness and dairy products. According to his calculations, such a model would outcome in the deaths of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and cattle) than would a total vegan model. This divergence, according to Davis, is mainly the effect of fewer field animals killed in pasture and forage production than in the growing and harvest of grain, beans, and corn.

Applying the Least Impairment Principle, Davis argues that people may exist morally obliged to consume a diet based on plants and grazing ruminants in order to cause the least harm to animals.

The Least Impairment Principle Suggests that Humans Should Eat Beef, Lamb, Dairy, not a Vegan Diet.

South.L. Davis, Department of Animal Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331.

Key words: veganism, least harm, farm animals, field animals.

Introduction
Although the debate over the moral status of animals has been going on for thousands of years (Shapiro, 2000), there has been a resurgence of involvement in this issue in the last quarter of the 20th century. Ane of the landmark philosophical works of this menstruum was the volume by Regan (1983) called "A Case for Animal Rights." In that book, Regan concludes that animals do have moral standing, that they are subjects-of-a-life with interests that deserve equal consideration to the same interests in humans, and therefore take the right to live their lives without human interference. As a outcome, he concludes that humans have a moral obligation to consume a vegan (use no animal products) diet and eliminate beast agriculture. Nonetheless, production of an all vegan diet too comes at the cost of the lives of many animals, including mice, moles, gophers, pheasants, etc. Therefore, I asked Regan, "What is the morally relevant difference between killing a field mouse (or other brute of the field) so that humans may consume and killing a sus scrofa (or chicken, calf or lamb) for the same purpose? Animals must die so that humans may eat, regardless whether they eat a vegan diet or not. Then, how are we to choose our food supply in a morally responsible mode?" Regan's response could be summarized past what may be chosen the "Least Harm Principle" or LHP (Regan, Personal Communication). According to LHP, we must cull the nutrient products that, overall, cause the to the lowest degree damage to the least number of animals. The post-obit analysis is an attempt to try to determine what humans should eat if we utilize that principle.

Regan'south Vegan Decision is Problematic

I observe Regan'southward response to my question to be problematic for two reasons. The showtime reason is because it seems to be a philosophical slight of hand for one to plough to a commonsensical defense force (LHP) of a challenge to his vegan determination which is based on animal rights theory. If the question, "What is the morally relevant difference?" can't be supported past the animal rights theory, then it seems to me that the animate being rights theory must be rejected. Instead, Regan turns to utilitarian theory (which examines consequences of one'southward actions) to defend the vegan conclusion.

The 2d problem I meet with his vegan conclusion is that he claims that the least damage would be done to animals if creature agronomics was eliminated. It may certainly be true that fewer animals may exist killed if animal agriculture was eliminated, but could the LHP also lead to other alternative conclusions?

Would pasture-based animal agriculture cause least harm?

Animals of the field are killed by several factors, including:

1. Tractors and farm implements run over them.
2. Plows and cultivators destroy hugger-mugger burrows and kill animals.
three. Removal of the crops (harvest) removes ground comprehend allowing animals on the surface to exist killed by predators.
4. Awarding of pesticides.

So, every fourth dimension the tractor goes through the field to plow, disc, cultivate, utilise fertilizer and/or pesticide, harvest, etc., animals are killed. And, intensive agriculture such as corn and soybeans (products cardinal to a vegan nutrition) kills far more animals of the field than would extensive agronomics like forage production, particularly if the forage was harvested past ruminant animals instead of machines. So perhaps fewer animals would be killed past producing beefiness, lamb, and dairy products for humans to eat instead of the vegan diet envisioned by Regan.

Accurate numbers of mortality aren't bachelor, simply Tew and Macdonald (1993) reported that wood mouse population density in cereal fields dropped from 25/ha preharvest to less than 5/ha postharvest. This decrease was attributed to migration out of the field and to mortality. Therefore, it may be reasonable to estimate mortality of 10 animals/ha in conventional corn and soybean production.

There are 120 one thousand thousand ha of harvested cropland in the US (USDA, 2000). If all of that land was used to produce a plant-based diet, and if x animals of the field are killed per ha per year, and then 10 x 120 million = 1200 million or 1.2 billion would be killed to produce a vegan diet. If half of that land (60 million) was converted to forage product and if provender product systems decreased the number of animals of the field killed per twelvemonth by 50% (5 per year per ha), the number of animals killed would be:

1. 60 million ha of traditional agriculture x x animals per ha = 0.half dozen billion animals killed.
ii. lx million ha of provender production x 5 animals of the field = 0.3 billion.

Therefore, in this hypothetical example, the change to include some fodder-based animal agriculture would result in the loss of merely 0.9 billion animals of the field instead of 1.ii billion to support a vegan diet. As a issue, the LHP would suggest that nosotros are morally obligated to consume a diet of ruminant products, not a vegan diet, because it would result in the death of fewer animals of the field.

Just what of the ruminant animals that would need to die to feed people? Co-ordinate to the USDA numbers quoted by Francione (2000), of the 8.4 billion animals killed each year for food in the United states, eight billion of those are poultry and simply 41 meg are ruminants (cows, calves, sheep, lambs). Even if the numbers of ruminants killed for food each year doubled to supplant the 8 billion poultry, the total number of animals that would need to be killed under this culling would withal be fewer (0.9 billion + 82 million = 0.982 billion) than in the vegan alternative (1.2 billion).

In conclusion, applying the Least Damage Principle as proposed by Regan would actually contend that nosotros are morally obligated to move to a ruminant-based nutrition rather than a vegan diet.

References

Davis, South.L. 2000. What is the Morally Relevant Difference betwixt the Mouse and the Pig? Pp. 107-109 in the Proceedings of EurSafe 2000; 2nd Congress of the European Society for Agronomical and Food Ethics.

Francione, Gary L. 2000. Introduction to Animal Rights: Your kid or the canis familiaris? Temple University Press. Philadelphia.

Regan, Tom. 1983. A Case for Animal Rights. University of California Printing, Berkeley.

Shapiro, L.Southward. 2000. Applied Brute Ethics, pp. 34-37. Delmar Press.

Tew, T.E. and D.W. Macdonald. 1993. The furnishings of harvest on arable wood mice. Biological Conservation 65:279-283.

'tween_fly_ways

I saw this about a year ago. It is a good study that does a great job of countering ane of the vegan/fauna rights more consistent arguments.

The problem I have with it is that by its very nature information technology lends credence to the idea that we should be concerned with the number of animals killed for food. Other than reasons associated with population control or sustainment (word?), nosotros shouldn't exist. I don't want to fall into the steep sloped pit which is surrounded by the "it is more than ethical to kill fewer animals" tenet.

Becker Froughts

The Least Harm Principle Suggests That Humans Should Eat Beef, Lamb, Dairy, Not a Vegan Diet".

Vegans Impale More Animals Than Nosotros Exercise

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