MODULE X: ANIMAL ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY

11.20 Genetically Engineered Livestock

Final topic--factory farming

• 10 billion killed in US per year, mostly factory farmed
• Only 1% of animals killed are killed in animal shelters, research labs, by hunters, etc.
• Factory farming spreading to other countries
• Affluence leads to more meat eating

Can technology be used to reduce suffering or save animals?

1. Animals that can't suffer (Adam Shriver, today)
2. Victimless meat (after Thanksgiving)

KNOCKING OUT PAIN

Adam Shriver, "Knocking Out Pain in Livestock:  Can Technology Succeed Where Morality has Stalled?" (2009)

• article
• interview 
• Shriver's New York Times editorial
• letters to editor responding to Shriver

"....Where Morality has Stalled"--why does he think morality has stalled?

• more vegans and vegetarians
• more reforms
• but higher per capita meat consumption (190 lbs/person --> 222 lbs/person)
• population increase

Shriver aims to show (p. 116, second column, toward end)

1. "genetically engineering livestock [that can't suffer pain] will produce a world with better consequences..." (utilitarian approach)
2. "doing so will not introduce any new 'wrongs' into the world that will be offensive to other ethical theories" (besides utilitarianism)

GE BACKGROUND

Genetic Engineering (GE) vs. Animal Breeding

• Breeding: Labrador retriever mates with poodle --> labradoodle  
• GE:  genes deleted from or added to egg/sperm that generates an animal; offspring will have the same genes via regular reproduction
• Already being used in livestock industry: WSJ video
• Plants:  ~90% of food in supermarket contains some GE plant ingredients
• Animals:  GE animals have been created, only one has been approved for food:  GE Salmon

GOAL: PAIN WITHOUT SUFFERING

Pain slides

Evidence for separateness of sensory and affective components

1. researchers found that lesions to ACC left human patients with sensory pain, but less affective pain
2. researchers found that lesions to S1& S2 left them with affective pain, but less sensory pain
3. after morphine, human patients still have pain but have less suffering, and there are more morphine receptors in ACC
4. rats after ACC ablation seem to lose affective pain but retain sensory pain (see below)

Proposal: use GE to create animals with no ACC, but with intact S1& S2

• peptide P311 controls formation of ACC
• knockout mice without P311 behaved like the rats after ACC ablation; "P311 is likely to play a similar role in all mammals" 

Applications

• the knockout mice could survive...in their cages; knockout livestock would survive...in their limited environment
• "This would be a good model for sows or veal calves who spend most of their lives confined in small pens where they can't do much of anything that would injure or otherwise harm themselves." 
• "ablation of the anterior cingulate causes mother mammals to stop responding to the cries of their young" -- so would relieve suffering caused by separation

SHRIVER:  WE SHOULD TO IT!

Now for the argument for doing this (p. 119)--