Peter Singer-Animal Liberation

(BlackTrush) #1

characteristic of actions appropriateto the high degree of
socialorganizationasfoundintheancestralwildspeciesand
which havebeenlittle,if atall,bredout in theprocess of
domestication.Inparticularitisclearlycruelsotorestrainan
animalforalargepartofitslifethatitcannotuseanyofits
normal locomotary behavior patterns.^120


Accordingly,thecommittee’s recommendations werebased
on the following modest but fundamental principle:


Inprinciplewedisapproveofadegreeofconfinementofan
animal which necessarily frustrates most of the major
activitieswhich makeupitsnaturalbehavior....Ananimal
shouldatleast havesufficient freedomof movementtobe
ablewithoutdifficultytoturnaround,groomitself,getup,lie
down and stretch its limbs.^121


These “five basic freedoms” as they have since been
called—toturnaround,togroom,togetup,toliedown,and
tostretchthelimbsfreely—arestilldeniedtoallcagedhens,
allsowsinstallsandtethers,andallvealcalvesincrates.Yet
sincetheBrambellcommitteeissuedits reportawealth of
scientificmaterialhasconfirmedtheverdictoftheBrambell
committeeinallitsmajoraspects.Wehavealreadyseen,for
example, how Thorpe’s comments about the retention of
naturalbehaviorpatternsindomesticanimalshavebeenfully
borne out by the EdinburghUniversity studyof pigs in a
seminatural setting.^122 The fallacy of the argument that
animals must be content if they produce is now also
universally accepted among scientists. A 1986 study
publishedinAmericanScientistrepresentsaninformedview
of the argument:

Free download pdf