With the passage of time, there has been a rising awareness about the animal rights; there are numerous animal rights groups that are working to bring a positive change in the conditions of animals. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) coined the idea of a straightforward quantification of morality that can also be applied in the case of animal sufferings due to the actions of humans. This paper analyzes the dynamics of factory farming through the application of Bentham’s approach (using scope, intensity, duration, and probability).
Jeremy Bentham was of the view that the human beings aim to increase their pleasures and decrease their pains, in this background the scope of actions of human beings is very wide. If one analyze the farming industry in detail, he or she will come to the conclusion that there is no end to the suffering of the animals as the humans want to increase their pleasures and sometimes they don’t care how much the other parties involve bearing the cost of their pleasure. The scope of the suffering of farm animals is very wide, in farms animals are packed in a very tight space, they don’t have enough space to move and even breathe easily. The humans put them in worse conditions to get benefits at all cost and consequences for the poor birds; there is only half square foot of space for the each chicken in the farm. Same is the case with other animals and birds like a turkey which have only three square feet of space for each bird. The farm animals have to bear with the harsh and sometimes cruel treatment of farm employees. In poultry farms, the male bird is left to die as no eggs can be obtained by them.
The intensity of the suffering of the animals varies from farm to farm and location to location. With the passage of time, there has been a rise in the awareness about the animal rights, some other factors like regulations and technology have played its role in somewhat positive ways. These positive developments are limited to farms in only a few countries. Bentham argued that animals are like humans in a number of ways, they have the capacity to feel pain and therefore deserve better living conditions and moral protections. He articulated that even though there are important differences between humans and animals, there are also important and relevant similarities, the chief being the capacity to feel—that is, the capacity to experience pleasure, pain, and suffering. It is one of the reasons that these farm animals feel pain and sometimes so intensely that they lose their lives even before they are supposed to be curled by the farm staff. Due to tight and insufficient space and uneasy conditions, they fight, so beaks their claws.
The duration of the sufferings of the farm animals is very long, in some cases, it covers their entire lives (which is approximately six weeks for the chicken and a little longer for turkeys) on farms, it is interesting to note that the sufferings begin even bore the farms animals and bird are born. The biotechnology has enabled the scientists to genetically modify the farm animals, and this has been done to maximize the human pleasures as described in the theory of Bentham. Due to genetic modifications the animals sometimes are unable to perform natural functions like sustaining their weight on their feet and mate in a natural way. The saga of suffering continues for the rest of their lives in one way or the other.
There is a very low probability that the sufferings of the farm animals will recede over the life span of the animals. There has been a rising hue and cry from the animal rights groups for the improvement in the living conditions of the farm animals. The economics has a role to play here, the price of meat of farm animal is considerably less as compared to the price of meat of free animals, according to Bentham the humans want to maximize their pleasures, so the chances that they will opt for the free animal meat are very thin. The free animal meat also termed as organic meat in some cases is not widely available and only well off people can afford it. If the humans want to increase the probability of betterment in the living conditions of the farm animals, there is a need to make concerted efforts.
The above analysis boils down to point that the core philosophy of Bentham has strong ground, the humans are there to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pains and most of the times they do not care about the consequences and cost to the other parties. The farm animals are in a weak position as don’t have the power to raise their voice against the harsh and cruel treatment they face in the farm. There are various factors that play their role in increasing the sufferings of the farm animals. The government, regulators, civil society and the animal rights group should join hands to make a positive change.
