Animal Cruelty - Full Report
What is the problem?
The philosopher Alastair Norcross asks us to imagine a horrible story. You learn that your neighbor, Fred, has been keeping dozens of puppies in tiny wire cages in his basement, cages too small for the puppies to even turn around. They stew in their own excrement in these cages, unable to freely move, never seeing the sun, removed only to endure various mutilations without anesthesia and, finally, to be slaughtered—a process which Fred occasionally botches with horrible results. Upon the discovery of this, Fred would be charged with animal cruelty and come to universally be regarded as a monster. Some people would think that his actions could in principle be justified if there was some extremely weighty reason for them, just as the same people might think torturing someone is permissible if it’s the only way to locate a nuclear bomb that will otherwise destroy a city. But we would not regard Fred’s actions as acceptable for anything less than an extremely weighty reason. For instance, we would not for a moment consider it adequate justification if we learned that Fred had discovered that puppy meat was uniquely delicious and that raising the puppies under these horrible conditions was the only way to cost-effectively produce enough to satisfy his palate. 1
Yet almost all animal products in modern industrial societies are produced on farms that employ essentially the same techniques as Fred. Animals are kept in extremely crowded, unsanitary conditions: for instance, hens are often crammed in battery cages where each one has less room than that taken up by a single sheet of paper, so that they are unable to spread their wings, and pigs are kept in gestation crates where they are unable to even turn around. Animals are subjected to painful medical procedures without anesthetics, such as being castrated or having their beaks chopped off. They can suffer from serious health problems due to stress, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions. In many cases, they have also been selectively bred in ways incompatible with their health—for instance, broiler chickens are bred to grow quickly and produce as much meat as possible, leading to painful conditions where they are sometimes unable to even walk properly. And slaughter methods can cause excruciating pain, especially when they are botched: e.g., chickens are shackled upside down and electrocuted into unconsciousness before being dipped in scalding water, but sometimes the electrocution doesn’t work and they are instead scalded alive. 2
How Important, Neglected and Solvable is Animal Cruelty?
Scale
Enormous. The number of farmed animals is many times greater than the number of humans, and the number of wild animals is many times greater than the number of farmed animals.
Neglectedness
High. Animal welfare receives far fewer resources than issues affecting humans.
Solvability
Work on farmed animals is highly cost-effective. E.g., the Humane League’s corporate campaigns may do the equivalent of reducing the amount of time hens spend in battery cages by something like ten life-years per dollar spent. It is unclear how solvable wild animal welfare is, though the impact would be enormous if it is.
The Christian case for farmed animals as a cause area
In Genesis, God gives humanity dominion over animals, but humans are given only plants to eat.
In Genesis 1, animals are part of God’s good creation. Humans are given dominion over animals, but at the same time they are commanded to be vegans, and it seems plausible that this dominion is meant to be a kind of stewardship in which humans care for animals, rather than tyrannically lording over them (see the section on dominion below). In Genesis 9, humans are given permission to eat meat, but the timing of this—after the Fall and Flood, and alongside the institution of capital punishment—suggests that it is somehow an accommodation to our fallen world. Immediately afterward, God’s covenant with Noah is made, not only with Noah, but with “all flesh,” again indicating God’s concern for animals. And later authors imagine a return to universal vegetarianism when God’s kingdom is fully brought about on Earth. The overall picture seems to be one where meat-eating is reluctantly allowed for the time, but is not part of God’s ultimate design for creation, and is perhaps something it is better to forego when feasible.
Later verses explicitly promote humane care for domestic animals, and some commands in the Mosaic law may be motivated by animal welfare concerns. Later Jewish interpreters extrapolated these commands into a general principle, tza'ar ba'alei chayim or “suffering of living beings,” which forbade causing animals unnecessary suffering.
Jesus himself exhibits concern for animals in a number of ways. He recognizes the legitimacy of aiding an animal on the Sabbath, and expects that his listeners will take this to be obviously correct. (The example—pulling an animal from a pit or ditch—would have been motivated by concern for the animal, rather than, say, protection of one’s property. An animal is very unlikely to die from being left in a ditch until after sundown.) At the same time, this opinion was not universally held in Judaism at the time: the community rule of Qumran explicitly forbids helping an animal on the Sabbath. Jesus does not break from Jewish thought about animals, but does side with the more animal-friendly strand present in his day.
Jesus further shows concern for animals in his statements that God cares even for individual sparrows. He subsequently says that humans are more deserving of concern than sparrows, but even secular philosophers, who hold very stringent views about the value of animals, will agree that this is true in some sense—that you should, say, generally save a human from drowning over a mouse. So the comparison need not be taken as saying that sparrows are unimportant, or that humans can do whatever they want to them. Further, some rabbis in the Talmud employ similar forms of argumentation which do seem to presuppose that animals lack value of their own. That Jesus doesn’t employ this argument again shows that he sides with the more animal-friendly position.
A high view of animals is also found in Jesus’ repeated metaphors where he is described as a shepherd, and we as his sheep. Since these are used to make a spiritual point, we may think they tell us nothing about animals. But the metaphorical language must also be true on a literal level if the metaphors are to work. For instance, if it is not really true that “a good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep,” it does not make any sense for Jesus to compare himself to a shepherd on the grounds that he lays down his life for us. More broadly, the sheep/shepherd imagery would not be comforting if one didn’t think shepherds were supposed to show genuine concern for their sheep. (It would not be comforting for a modern preacher to, say, compare us to broiler chickens, and God to a factory farm supervisor.)
Later Christians have sometimes denied that we should be concerned for animals, sometimes for reasons like those discussed below. But others, like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Isaac of Nineveh, have shown great love for animals. St. Isaac writes that a merciful heart “is not able to bear hearing or examining injury or any insignificant suffering of anything in the creation. And therefore even on behalf of the irrational beings... at all times offers prayers with tears that they may be guarded and strengthened; even on behalf of the kinds of reptiles, on account of his great compassion which is poured out in his heart without measure, after the example of God.” Clearly, a person with such a heart would not okay with factory farming. More recently, C.S. Lewis wrote passionately against vivisection.
Our recommendation
Every dollar donated to The Humane League reduces the amount of time a hen spends in a battery cage by several years.
We think most of our readers should consider:
Eating vegan, vegetarian, or at least an effective reducetarian diet
While becoming a vegan would usually do the most good, because some animal products cause much more suffering than others, selectively eliminating these products can eliminate most of the suffering caused by an ordinary diet. Effective reducetarians should consider first eliminating factory-farmed chicken, eggs, fish, and shrimp, and (after those in priority) pork. Chicken, eggs, fish, and shrimp are prioritized because producing them harms many more individuals, and chickens are treated especially cruelly in the system.
Reducetarians should take care to be effective reducetarians. Some common dietary patterns—such as trying to eat less beef, becoming a vegetarian who still eats eggs, or becoming a pescetarian—may increase animal suffering by increasing consumption of the most harmful animal products.
Vegans should take care to get adequate nutrition: doing otherwise could seriously harm oneself and could reduce long-run compliance.
Effective reducetarians might consider offsetting the harms they cause with donations to ACE recommended charities.
Donating to ACE recommended charities
Plausibly, even modest donations can do much more good than even becoming a vegan. For instance, the Humane League’s cage-free corporate campaigns may reduce the amount of time hens spend in battery cages by something like ten life-years per dollar spent.
Inviting others to donate to ACE recommended charities
We think readers who feel called to use their careers to serve farmed animals should consider pursuing:
Any ethical high-paying career and donating to ACE-recommended charities (more on that here).
Work at an ACE-recommended charity
Note that jobs in these organisation will be very competitive and the best way to get a job at one will probably involve building up career capital and experience elsewhere, including for-profit companies
Careers that build skills such as leadership and fundraising, which are two especially high-need areas among animal welfare nonprofits, according to a recent Animal Advocacy Careers survey.
Journalism or pursuing another communications expert or influencer path (Ryuji Chua is an example of a social media animal advocate).
Scientific or other work on alternative proteins, such as plant-based or cultured meat. This might involve working for a company, such as Impossible Foods, or a non-profit, such as the Good Food Institute.
Efforts to build the venture capital base for alt proteins (for those in finance or impact investing).
For efforts to make alt proteins a larger part of ESG investing, see BERA partners by Zak Weston.
Policy work aimed at ensuring better conditions for farmed animals or reducing the amount of factory farming. This might involve working for a non-profit, as a civil servant, or as a politician.
Campaign work for animal-friendly candidates and politicians.
Work for government agencies like USDA and pushing for tougher welfare regulations and friendliness to alternative proteins.
Strategic litigation which finds creative ways to enforce existing cruelty laws against factory farms (while we do not endorse any particular efforts, see for example Alene Anello's work in this vein).
Newsletters on impactful opportunities in animal advocacy, including:
Five judgment calls
Some value considerations relevant to Christians thinking about animals.
Here I present my (Dustin’s) views.
For a different weighing of these considerations, consider Vesa Hautala’s articles on “Should Christians care about animal welfare?”
(1) Shouldn’t we put humans first?
Sometimes people say it is objectionable to put resources into helping animals while there are humans in need. Christians saying this might invoke some of the reasons given below, each of which is discussed in more detail on its own. But to start out, we can note that few people really believe this consistently. For instance, enforcing animal cruelty laws against someone like Fred costs resources that could instead be used to help humans, but it seems very implausible to say we should therefore abolish animal cruelty laws. It seems that we should instead take things on a case-by-case basis, deciding how to allocate effort and resources based on where we can do the most good.
Can we do enough good for farmed animals for helping them to make sense? Suppose you find a bird that has somehow become trapped in a tiny cage. The bird has access to food and water but is barely able to move and is clearly extremely stressed. You can free the bird, but it requires a tool that costs one cent. If you don’t free the bird, it will be trapped in the cage for a month.
Here, it seems that you should free the bird, even though it costs a penny that could instead go to a charity helping humans. But if the Humane League’s cage-free campaigns free chickens from battery cages for ten life years per dollar spent, then, since there are 120 months in ten years and 100 cents in a dollar, they actually slightly more cost-effective than freeing the bird.
Of course, this is not to say that we should only help animals and not help humans. EACH also recommends many cause areas impacting humans. People making career decisions must consider their own interests and skills. And, because investment in an area experiences diminishing marginal returns, an optimal allocation of resources will likely require investment in a number of different areas. The point is just that an optimal allocation will involve some focus on farmed animals, and perhaps much more than they currently receive.
(2) Don’t humans have dominion over other animals?
The Bible gives humans dominion over nonhuman animals. But in the next verse, God commands humans to be vegans, so clearly dominion isn’t an unlimited license to do whatever we want to animals. But more broadly, there is also some sense in which, say, parents have dominion over children, or national leaders have dominion over common citizens, but they do not have unlimited licenses to treat common citizens however they want. The Bible treats authority as something to be used in service to others, not exploited for personal gain, and in light of the indications that animals possess value mentioned above, it is more plausible to interpret dominion as involving this sort of stewardship.
Exploiting one’s power and authority to abuse an individual one has been entrusted with caring for is, if anything, even worse than merely ordinarily causing harm. So, if anything, this might make farmed animal welfare more important than it would otherwise be.
(3) Doesn’t the Bible allow meat eating?
Various passages in the Bible allow meat eating. Though some early Christians did practice vegetarianism, and some even claim that Jesus, John the Baptist, and number of apostles were vegetarians, the canonical Gospels describe Jesus as eating fish and helping others catch fish, and Jesus’ not being a vegetarian seems more likely historically. This might seem to be in tension with our above recommendation of veganism and effective reducetarianism. But there are two possible responses. 5
First, the Bible is not talking about factory farming, which is a modern phenomenon. One could hold, as some ethicists do, that killing animals for food is okay in principle, but that causing them unnecessary suffering is not. This might suggest that it is okay to eat humanely-raised and slaughtered meat, but not factory-farmed animal products (but then, there may still be other reasons to avoid humanely-raised meat).
Second, perhaps killing animals for food is a kind of necessary evil for people in some contexts (e.g., poor people living in first-century Palestine who might have a lot of trouble meeting their nutritional needs without animal protein). This might help explain why, as mentioned above, meat-eating is allowed in the post-Fall and Flood world, even though it is not part of the original or final plans for creation. This view might suggest that meateating was permissible for people in the Bible (and perhaps still for some people in the world today), but is not for most people in modern industrial societies who can meet their needs in other ways.
(4) What about animal sacrifice?
Jesus is traditionally understood as the “Lamb of God" and we certainly don’t want to say that God didn’t value him.
The Hebrew scriptures command animal sacrifice. We might think this shows that God sets a low value on animals. But recall that Jesus is traditionally understood as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” with his sacrifice somehow analogous to that of the sacrificial lamb. We certainly don’t want to say that God didn’t value Jesus. Clearly, there are philosophical and theological puzzles raised by the idea of atonement by violent death—whether that of an animal or that of Jesus. In the case of animal sacrifice, we might attempt to explore ways of reconciling it with placing a high value on animals. More liberal Christians might instead suggest that the sacrificial system never reflected God’s true will at all. Perhaps, in support, they might cite evidence of conflicting views about animal sacrifice in the Bible and among early Christians. But however, we think about this, if we need not say this reflects God placing a low value on Jesus’ life, we need not say it about animal life, either. 6
(5) What about the Gadarene swine?
In the Gospels, Jesus drives a legion of demons from a possessed man and then either allows or commands them to go into a herd of pigs. The pigs then rush into the sea and die. St. Augustine, influenced by Stoic philosophy, took Jesus’ role in the death of the pigs to show that “there is no community of rights between us and brutes,” that is, that humans have no obligations to animals. In the modern era, atheists like Bertrand Russell and Peter Singer have pointed to this episode in criticizing Jesus, with Russell claiming that Jesus’ actions were “not very kind to the pigs.” 7
We might take two approaches here, one more literal, one less so. On the more literal side, the prominent Biblical scholar Richard Bauckham has argued that, without a new host, the demons would be expected to haunt the area until they possessed someone else. On this view, sending them to the pigs is a sort of lesser of two evils. Jesus does prioritize saving a human life over the pigs, but this does not entail that the pigs lack value altogether, and, as noted, even very strongly pro-animal philosophers agree that you should usually a human’s life over a non-human animals. (Because the Gospel accounts record that there were 2000 pigs in the herd, we might be tempted to think this suggests that a human’s life is worth that of at least 2000 pigs, and incorporate this into cost-benefit analyses. But 2000 pigs is an unrealistically large herd for that context, and the number may instead be symbolic, as explained below.) 8
We might wonder how Jesus could be forced to choose a lesser evil: Russell suggests that we “must remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away, but He chooses to send them into the pigs.” But traditional Christology holds that the Son, while omnipotent in his divine nature, was limited in his human nature, and other passages in the Gospels seem to suggest that Jesus was sometimes limited in his ability to perform miracles. And as Bauckham notes, the New Testament anticipates that God will not fully crush the demonic powers until the eschaton. We might wonder why that is and it raises issues related to the problem of evil, but these issues don’t seem different than those raised by God’s allowing the demons to torment the human, to begin with.
An alternative approach views the story as a kind of coded anti-imperialist allegory. The demons identify themselves as “Legion,” a military term specifically associated with the Roman legions. Pigs, being unclean, are naturally associated with gentiles. A boar was a symbol of the Legio X Fratensis, which was stationed in the area where the story takes place when the Gospel of Mark was written, and though two thousand is unrealistically large for a herd of pigs, it matches the size of a detachment from that legion which was sent to fight in the first battle of the Jewish War, shortly before Mark was composed. The demoniac, who cuts himself and cannot be restrained by others, seems to be afflicted by some sort of spirit of violence. If the pigs stand in for the Romans and the demoniac for their oppressed subjects, the exorcism might represent Jesus freeing the downtrodden from the effects of imperial violence and allowing the consequences to rebound on the occupiers, destroying them. On this view, trying to draw conclusions about animal ethics from a literal reading of the story would be like, say, trying to draw similar conclusions from some of the strange symbolic imagery involving animals found in the book of Revelation. 9
In any event, while there are questions about how to interpret the story, it seems far from obvious that Jesus’ actions are motivated by a lack of concern for the pigs. Accordingly, it seems better to interpret the story as compatible with the repeated affirmations of the value of animals found in the Bible.
Wild Animals
If we can greatly improve the well-being of wild animals, should we?
The New World screw-worm is a parasitic fly that lays its eggs on living beings, its larvae feasting on their healthy flesh and causing excruciating pain. Using the sterile insect technique, humans have successfully eliminated the screwworm from the United States—with no apparent ill effects on the ecosystem. This was done to protect livestock from the screwworms, but a side effect has been that countless millions of wild animals have been spared its torment. Using new technologies like CRISPR, we may be able to eliminate the screwworm from other areas, too. And there are other examples of things we currently do for our own benefit—such as vaccinating wild animals against diseases through oral vaccines—which might also help wild animals themselves. 10
If there are things we can do to greatly improve the well-being of wild animals, should we do them? If the well-being of domestic animals matters, so too, it seems, does the well-being of wild animals. One and the same cat could be a wild animal or a domestic animal, depending on whether someone takes it in as a kitten. But it is hard to imagine that the same cat’s suffering wouldn’t matter at all had someone not taken it in. We might suppose that the suffering of wild animals is somehow not “any of our business,” whereas the suffering of domestic animals is. But recall the dominion command in Genesis, which gives humans dominion over all the creatures of the Earth. If, as we suggested is most plausible, this should be interpreted as a command to steward the animals, it seems that wild animals are “our business” after all.
Further, the scale of wild animal suffering is enormous. There are trillions of wild vertebrates and quintillions of wild invertebrates, and while we don’t know how many invertebrates are conscious, there is decent evidence that some are. Further, they are vulnerable to many sources of suffering, including disease, starvation, predation, and death by the elements. The situation is particularly worrisome given that most wild animals r-select rather than K-selecting—which means they have vast numbers of offspring, only a small proportion of which survive to maturity. Though it is hard to know whether wild animals have good or bad lives on balance, the sheer amount of suffering seems incredibly morally urgent. 11
Of course, the natural world is incredibly complex, and our knowledge of it is very limited. Accordingly, we need to be very very careful about intervening in it. For this reason, organizations like the Wild Animal Initiative and Animal Ethics, which attempt to address wild animal suffering, are at this stage focused mostly on research, academic field-building, and awareness raising. These sorts of activities—aimed at ensuring that we ultimately develop the means to effectively intervene in the natural world, and have the motivation to do so—may be the best things we can do right now.
Accordingly, those interested in addressing wild animal suffering might consider:
Working in academia on relevant scientific topics, such as welfare biology, population ecology, or biotechnology.
Working for an organization like the Wild Animal Initiative or Animal Ethics, whether as a researcher or in some other capacity.
Donating to organizations like the Wild Animal Initiative or Animal Ethics.
Working on other issues affecting animals, like factory farming, as a means of moral circle expansion.
Plausibly, the field is in most need of researchers right now. For those with the right aptitude, this is likely the highest-impact way to affect wild animal suffering, and we highly recommend this career path.
Interested in talking to someone about tackling animal cruelty with your career?
Sign up for 1-on-1 mentorship. We’ll pair you with a Christian who can talk to you about how to make an impact in this problem area.
Notes
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Norcross, Alastair. (2004) “Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases.” Philosophical Perspectives, 18: 229-245. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2004.00027.x
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Myers, Kelly. (2020) New Study Reveals How the Meat Industry Breeds Chickens to Suffer. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/study-reveals-how-the-meat-industry-breeds-chickens-to-suffer The Humane League. Accessed 2023-11-14.
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Torrella, Kenny. (2021). The next frontier for animal welfare: Fish. Vox. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22301931/fish-animal-welfare-plant-based. Accessed 2023-11-14. ↩
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Sigal, Samuel. (2020). The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too. Vox. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat. Accessed 2023-11-14.
Wenner Moyer, Melinda. (2016). “How Drug-Resistant Bacteria Travel from the Farm to Your Table”. Scientific American: December 2016. [Web]. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-drug-resistant-bacteria-travel-from-the-farm-to-your-table/.
The Humane League. (2020). Factory Farming and the Environment: Impacts on the Planet. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/factory-farming-and-the-environment. Accessed 2023-11-14.
Chalmers, Matthew. (2022). The impact of factory farming on workers. The Humane League. https://thehumaneleague.org.uk/article/the-impact-of-factory-farming-on-workers Accessed 2023-11-14.
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Tabor, James. (2022). Why I Think Jesus Was a Vegetarian. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ5hT_Gv5-U. Accessed 2023-11-14.
Joseph, Simon J. (2019). “Other Voices: Remembering the Marginalized Vegetarian in the Study of Christian Origins”. Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting: From the First to the Seventh Century No. 6 (2019), 46–67. http://www.jjmjs.org/uploads/1/1/9/0/11908749/joseph.pdf
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Hare, John. (2010). “Animal Sacrifices”. In Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea (eds), Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham. Online edn. Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2011). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576739.003.0012 Accessed 2023-11-14.
Tabor, James. (2022). Why I Think Jesus Was a Vegetarian. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ5hT_Gv5-U. Accessed 2023-11-14.
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Russell, Bernad. (1927). Why I Am Not A Christian. Watts & Co., for the Rationalist Press Association Limited. Full text available online at http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html. ↩
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Bauckham, Richard. (2011). Living with other creatures: Green exegesis and theology. Baylor University Press. ↩
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Leander, Hans. (2013). Discourses of Empire: The Gospel of Mark from a Postcolonial Perspective. Semeia Studies. Society of Biblical Literature. ↩
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Gutierrez, A.P., Ponti, L. and Arias, P.A. (2019), “Deconstructing the eradication of new world screwworm in North America: retrospective analysis and climate warming effects”. Medical and Veterinary Entomology, 33: 282–295. https://doi.org/10.1111/mve.12362
Esvelt, Kevin. (2019). When Are We Obligated To Edit Wild Creatures? https://leaps.org/when-are-we-obligated-to-edit-wild-creatures/. Accessed 2023-11-14.
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Tomasik, Brian. (2019). How Many Wild Animals Are There? https://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/. Accessed 2023-11-14. ↩
