Journal of Animal Ethics

In their 2011 article for this journal, “Animal Ethics Based on Friendship,” Barbro Fröding and Martin Peterson argue based on Aristotle’s discussion of friendship for the differential treatment of farmed and free-living animals. While I fully agree with their central claim that friendship of mutual advantage, conceived in Aristotelian terms, is certainly possible between humans and certain animals (namely companion animals), I will argue that their conclusion that therefore eating meat from free-living animals is morally acceptable simply does not follow. In the first place, I will argue that in terms of farmed animals, cattle are their example, no such friendship is possible. I will then argue that just because we do not stand in a friendship relation to free-living animals does not mean we have no moral relation to them and that to cause them unnecessary harm by killing them for food, where such activity is not absolutely necessary for our survival, is vicious rather than virtuous.

Fröding and Peterson’s (2011) argument is essentially “that if we accept Aristotle’s basic premise that our moral obligations toward friends differ from those toward strangers, it can be claimed that it is less morally wrong, or even morally acceptable [emphasis added], to eat meat from free-living animals” (p. 59). No, it cannot be so claimed. I accept that our moral obligations toward our friends differ from those toward strangers, making a wrong done to a friend more reprehensible than wrong done to a stranger, but surely [End Page 1] that does not make the wrong done to the stranger suddenly “acceptable.” It may be less morally wrong, but it is still wrong. It would be less morally wrong to murder someone quickly rather than to torture him for a long time and then to murder him, but surely that does not make the quick murder suddenly “morally acceptable.”

To avoid possible misunderstanding, Fröding and Peterson (2011) make the following disclaimer:

Note that we do not claim that it is always permissible to kill animals who do not belong to your circle of friends. One might, of course, have other good reasons for not killing an animal. Virtue ethics does not permit us to totally neglect the interests of others.

(p. 67)

Unfortunately, no examples are provided of the “other good reasons for not killing an animal.” It would be more consistent had Fröding and Peterson stuck to the more modest claim that it is “less morally wrong [but wrong it still is, I would want them to add] to eat meat from free-living animals”—full stop. But to add to this claim that “it is perhaps even morally acceptable” does not follow from the distinction between obligations to friends and obligations to strangers. All of this depends also upon the success of the claim about friendship with farmed animals like cows. Even granting that friendships of mutual advantage are possible between humans and their companion animals, which is why we generally would not even consider eating them, I find the notion of friendship in any meaningful sense of the term between a farmer and her cattle problematic.

Fröding and Peterson (2011) assert, with no argumentation by which to derive the ought, that “farmers are, or ought to be, friends with their cattle” (p. 59). Mark Rowlands (2011) points out this highly problematic shift from is to ought in his reply to Fröding and Peterson in the same journal issue. I will not repeat his arguments (with which I agree) here. But unlike Rowlands, who grants it for the sake of the argument and then proceeds to show how their argument still fails despite his generosity, I am unwilling to even grant the is. As a factual statement, “farmers are friends with their cattle” would simply be false. The cow to the farmer is a tool. Fröding and Peterson quote Aristotle (1941):

Take for example the relation of craftsman and tool, and soul to body. The latter in each pair is benefitted by its user, but there is neither friendship nor justice towards soulless things. Nor is there any towards an ox, or even a slave, in so far as he is a slave; for master and slave have nothing in common, since a slave is a tool with a soul, while a tool is a slave without one.

(1161b1–b4)

It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between a farmer and her ox (or cow) to think that any sort of friendship, even Aristotle’s friendship of utility, is possible. Farmed animals exist, as human slaves once did, under the law as chattel property. These farmed animals are slaves with souls. It is hard to imagine what else a farmer qua farmer would want with a cow. If Aristotle will not allow there to be “anything in common” between a human master and a human slave—members of the same species and certainly capable of communication—such that there can be no relation of friendship nor justice, it is hard to imagine bridging that gap between the human master (the farmer) and her oxen or cattle, where there is less in common and much more limited capacity [End Page 2] for communication. Fröding and Peterson’s (2011) argument relies on the ways in which the good farmer acts for the benefit of her animals, looking after their well-being, but unlike Aristotle who was perfectly willing to defend human slavery, most of us today would reject the slave owner’s argument that they too acted for the benefit of the slave.

One is reminded of Thrasymachus’s retort to Socrates concerning sheep and shepherds (Plato, 1997, 343a). Of course, Socrates’s hair-splitting response is to distinguish between the art of shepherding as such, which is concerned with the good of the sheep, and the banquet guest or money-maker function that views the sheep as a means to another end (345c–d). Aristotle (1941) himself refers to this analogy:

The friendship between a king and his subjects depends on an excess of benefits conferred; for he confers benefits on his subjects if being a good man he cares for them with a view to their well-being, as a shepherd does for his sheep (whence Homer called Agamemnon “shepherd of the peoples”).

(1161a10–15)

There are of course good animal keeping practices that are concerned with the health and well-being of the animal. But in farming, which is ultimately a money-making venture else it would be an animal sanctuary instead, that function will soon enough change over into a self-serving enterprise on the part of the farmer. Again, slave owners could, and did historically, make similar arguments about their benefiting the slave by providing them with housing, food, “civilization,” and so forth. The analogy between kingship and shepherding ultimately breaks down as the sheep, unlike the king’s human subject, is eventually served up at the banquet. It is difficult to argue that killing the sheep (or cow), except in cases of euthanasia to prevent severe and irremediable suffering like we do with our companion animals, is ever in the sheep’s or cow’s best interest. Fröding and Peterson (2011) consider this:

It could be argued that farmers do indeed have a moral duty not to kill their friends prematurely [emphasis added]. Because friends have a duty to look after each other and virtuous farmers are friends with their cattle, farmers are under an obligation to promote the happiness of their cattle.

(p. 66)

Unfortunately, as soon as they lay down this obligation, they immediately negate it by saying, “Although our argument does not rule out the farmer killing the animal at some point, this is definitely an argument against, for example, the current practice of killing male dairy calves” (Fröding & Peterson, 2011, p. 66). Other than ruling out veal production, how are “prematurely” and “at some point” determined? Cows, “dairy” cows, and “beef” cattle, are in fact routinely killed at a fraction of their normal life expectancy. While I would certainly prefer my friends not to kill me prematurely, if it’s all the same with them, I would also prefer it if they wouldn’t kill me at all (excepting only in the case of true euthanasia). The farmer’s decision, and it is entirely the farmer’s decision, of when that “some point” is reached is inevitably going to be a financial decision. Without having to go too deeply into the mind of the cow, everything the cow is communicating to the farmer indicates a desire to live rather than to die. Cows typically show a great deal of resistance to being herded into the killing chutes at the slaughterhouse. [End Page 3]

Even assuming we are talking about a female “dairy” cow, it is hard to see how many of the practices of even the most “humane” farmer are truly in the cow’s own interests. “Dairy” cows must be impregnated (often artificially) and have their calf taken from them shortly after birth so that they don’t drink too much of the milk (which is intended for them, after all). This is hardly in the interest of the cow or her calf as is evidenced by the extreme emotional stress this causes both mother and calf and her communication of this distress by loud bellowing that is promptly ignored by her “friend” the farmer, who, let us not forget, is the cause of this distress in the first place. This theft of calf and milk opens the farmer to charges of greed (Aristotle, 1941, 1129a, for example), which is a particular form of injustice. Of course, Aristotle would deny any injustice in this case since the cow is the “property” of the farmer. She is a “milk machine” for the farmer. “Dairy” cows also end up as meat at the end of their productive milking life [prematurely after about 5 or 6 years], so we are back where we started. To be clear, I agree that it is morally wrong, but from a justice rather than friendship basis, to eat a farmed cow, and I would add it is also morally wrong to take her milk. My disagreement with Fröding and Peterson (2011) is that the cow and the farmer can possibly stand in a friendship relation rather than a master-to-slave relation.

In terms of the free-living animals, like the moose and fish that are their chosen examples, it is clear to me that we do not stand in a friendship relation to them. They dismiss Jordan’s (2001) argument from the potentiality of friendship. I will grant them that argument since potentiality and actuality are very different things. What is not clear to me is how even granting Fröding and Peterson’s (2011) central thesis about different obligations to friends and to strangers can conclude the moral permissibility of shooting the moose or catching and eating fish on no other basis than we do not know them or befriend them. There are many people, billions of them worldwide, with whom I do not share friendship or stand in a relation of mutual dependence with but I hardly feel that justifies my harming them without sufficient justification. This is where their dismissal of Regan’s (1983) arguments for the rights of animals matters (Fröding & Peterson, 2011, p. 59). One need not accept a deontological ethic to find unnecessarily harming innocent animals morally objectionable though. One could argue as Rosalind Hursthouse (2011) does that eating meat is “self-indulgent” and hence intemperate. One could argue as Rowlands (2009) does that it displays callousness and a lack of (the virtue of) mercy. Along the lines above, I would suggest it displays the vice of “grasping” and greed—taking more than a fair share. These are perhaps some of the “other good reasons for not killing an animal” referred to but never elaborated upon. Be that as it may, the lack of a single relationship like friendship is not license to violate the harm principle. Some other justification is needed for that.

Having rejected the friendship argument, I think what makes our treatment of farmed animals, especially by “humane” farmers, so morally egregious is that it is a violation of the trust the animal develops toward the human who the animal has reason to believe, however falsely as it turns out, has the animal’s best interest at heart. As Bohanec (2013) has argued, this is the “ultimate betrayal.” It is not a violation of friendship but of trust that [End Page 4] makes the relevant moral distinction between our treatment of “domesticated” animals who do have a relationship of dependence on us and free-living animals who do not. But in no case do we have free license to harm without sufficient justification.