{"id":2005,"date":"2012-02-27T09:43:42","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2012-12-06T15:13:53","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T20:13:53","slug":"moral-intuitions-quiz-lobotomized-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/moral-intuitions-quiz-lobotomized-meat.html","title":{"rendered":"Moral Intuitions Quiz: Lobotomized Meat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog<\/a>. \u00a0More details here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
It\u2019s only a conceptual chicken. For now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Via the Daily Dish<\/a>, Andr\u00e9 Ford, a student in the architecture department at the Royal College of Art came up with a kind of grotesque final project for a class focusing on \u201chow a dense and vertical architecture can bring back food production and consumption in the city.\u201d Ford designed an apparatus that would give a whole new definition to the phrase \u201cfactory-farmed meat.\u201d \u00a0He proposed that chickens bound for the pot on industrial farms be lobotomized early in life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken, its sensory perceptions are removed. It can be produced in a denser condition while remaining alive, and oblivious. \u00a0The feet will also be removed so the body of the chicken can be packed together in a dense volume.<\/p>\n

Food, water and air are delivered via an arterial network and excreta is removed in the same manner. Around 1000 chickens will be packed into each \u2018leaf\u2019, which forms part of a moving, productive system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most of my friends reacted with disgust when I shared the story, and I\u2019m still trying to decide if that\u2019s the right reaction. \u00a0Here\u2019s where I stand: if it\u2019s a given that we\u2019re going to raise animals in unpleasant conditions, better to kill them early and just keep their bodies going artificially until we make use of them. \u00a0Though it seems preferable to not raise animals in conditions where they\u2019d be better off brain-dead in the first place.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This is how the non-lobotomized chickens live<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don\u2019t think the grotesqueness of Ford\u2019s idea is sufficient to disqualify it. \u00a0My suspicion is that we\u2019re reluctant to switch to a new, unpleasant system \u2014 even if it\u2019s better than the status quo \u2014 because to choose<\/em> to switch would imply a kind of assent. \u00a0We imagine that not\u00a0overthrowing\u00a0the old way is equivalent to remaining neutral, but a choice to maintain the current norms is still a choice. \u00a0Animals shouldn\u2019t be tormented so that we can imagine our hands are clean.<\/p>\n

If you want to reject Ford\u2019s idea, I think you need to believe that it is meaningfully worse<\/em> than the current system on industrial farms. \u00a0I can imagine a couple ways of making that argument. \u00a0The first point for the status quo is that, because we know<\/em> the animals are capable of pain, we might be spurred to minimize that suffering. \u00a0Lobotomizing the animal frees us from that cognitive dissonance and probably locks us into the new system indefinitely.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m really skeptical about the strategy of heightening the contradictions by making everything even worse. \u00a0The brutality of factory farming isn\u2019t exactly a secret, but most people make their peace with their meals. \u00a0(I\u2019ve been\u00a0vegetarian\u00a0since I was five, but this is because I\u2019m a picky eater; I never had to take a moral stand on the issue).<\/p>\n

I can also imagine arguing that, especially in my virtue ethics framework, it\u2019s bad to be in the habit of turning off the sensory capacities of other living beings. \u00a0I certainly think this is an important point, but I\u2019m not sure how much better it is to be in the habit of tormenting those beings in the first place. \u00a0Changing them from sensing animals to unperceiving\u00a0ones seems less troubling when I remember our ultimate goal is to change them from live animals into dead ones.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019d be quite interested in your instincts and explanations in the comment thread. \u00a0It\u2019d be helpful if you\u2019d give a sentence or two about your general approach to ethics (or metaphysical allegiances) so we know what framework you\u2019re working in. \u00a0I\u2019m still trying to thrash this one out.<\/p>\n

Oh, and bonus question: if you disapprove of Ford\u2019s idea, do you also disapprove of lab-grown meat \u2014 no animal involved? \u00a0I\u2019m trying to pin down whether people are objecting to the ethics of lobotomizing chickens or the aesthetics of mechanized meat production.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. Via the Daily Dish, Andr\u00e9 Ford, a student in the architecture department at the Royal College of Art came up with a kind of grotesque final project for a class focusing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[93,43],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morality-in-practice","tag-open-questions","tag-sin-eatersdirty-hands"],"yoast_head":"\nMoral Intuitions Quiz: Lobotomized Meat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I'm one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. 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