Surely layer hens are much worse off than the worst-off humans? If we want to help the worst off then we should help factory farmed animals, especially layer hens and veal calves.
Certainly there are plausible arguments for supporting global poverty rather than animal advocacy, but we have to remember that chickens matter too, and it’s just not true that the global poor are the worst-off individuals. Maybe this seems like a minor point, but factory farming is the greatest atrocity in the world and I don’t think you can fairly claim to be helping the worst off individuals if you’re ignoring everyone who’s not a human.
That makes perfect sense if you’re a welfarist of some kind- then you’ll be interested in the “worst off” simply defined in terms of which individuals have the lowest welfare.
If you’re interested in “fairness and equity” (which perhaps you shouldn’t be), then considering the “worst off” will likely pull you in different directions. For example, the worst off within a (political) community being worse off than others, may be a great inequity, but people being worse off outside the community may not be an inequity or unfair, merely a moral tragedy. For example, some aliens I’ve never encountered being very badly off is not unfair or unjust, on most views, and helping them is a matter of benevolence, not justice. This is part of why some political animal rights theorists try to establish that animals are in (relations to) our communities. But of course, that line of argument rules in factory farmed animals, but rules out most wild animals- plausibly a much greater atrocity.
Worth noting that I agree wild animal suffering exceeds suffering on factory farms, but I wouldn’t call it an atrocity because it’s not humans’ fault. Although I just looked up the definition of atrocity and apparently it just means a bad thing, not a bad act. So apparently wild animal suffering is a greater atrocity.
Surely layer hens are much worse off than the worst-off humans? If we want to help the worst off then we should help factory farmed animals, especially layer hens and veal calves.
Certainly there are plausible arguments for supporting global poverty rather than animal advocacy, but we have to remember that chickens matter too, and it’s just not true that the global poor are the worst-off individuals. Maybe this seems like a minor point, but factory farming is the greatest atrocity in the world and I don’t think you can fairly claim to be helping the worst off individuals if you’re ignoring everyone who’s not a human.
That makes perfect sense if you’re a welfarist of some kind- then you’ll be interested in the “worst off” simply defined in terms of which individuals have the lowest welfare.
If you’re interested in “fairness and equity” (which perhaps you shouldn’t be), then considering the “worst off” will likely pull you in different directions. For example, the worst off within a (political) community being worse off than others, may be a great inequity, but people being worse off outside the community may not be an inequity or unfair, merely a moral tragedy. For example, some aliens I’ve never encountered being very badly off is not unfair or unjust, on most views, and helping them is a matter of benevolence, not justice. This is part of why some political animal rights theorists try to establish that animals are in (relations to) our communities. But of course, that line of argument rules in factory farmed animals, but rules out most wild animals- plausibly a much greater atrocity.
Worth noting that I agree wild animal suffering exceeds suffering on factory farms, but I wouldn’t call it an atrocity because it’s not humans’ fault. Although I just looked up the definition of atrocity and apparently it just means a bad thing, not a bad act. So apparently wild animal suffering is a greater atrocity.