Ethics @ Rhodes

Yesterday evening, I happened to be reading a short story by George Saunders called, "Brad Carrigan American,"which could be considered, in small part, an allegory for America's relationship to consumption and food production. Although we haven't really discussed the environment in class, Environmental Ethics is in fact an entire field within Philosophy. In fact, J. Baird Callicott, a Rhodes alumnus, introduced the first Environmental Ethics seminar about forty years ago. (Side note: he is coming to Rhodes this coming week to give what I hope will be an excellent lecture.) Anyway, after reading this story more or less in conjunction with our discussions about utilitarianism, I thought it might be a good time to pose some questions regarding the animals that we so readily view as food and fodder.
First, let's address the precariousness of our food distribution system. As far as ground beef is concerned, just about every reel that makes it to market comes from one of twelve different processing plants in the country. These slaughter-houses, which often employ undocumented workers at very low wages, are some of the most dangerous places to work on Earth. At the social level, they hardly take into consideration the risk involved for staff members, much less the general well being of the animals being killed. Pathogenically, having only twelve major slaughtering houses also puts large swathes of the country at high risk for bacterial infection. If, for example, there happened to be a case of Mad Cow Disease, or a harmful outbreak of the e-coli virus (there are many friendly e-coli), then we could be in serious trouble--we're talking food shortages, massive recalls, etc. Not to mention the dubious ethics surrounding the artificial demand for meat. Due to corn subsidies and cheap land prices, CAFOs can produce meat rapidly and efficiently; even when you take into consideration the environmental and economic costs of shipping the meat across the country, it is still much cheaper to buy meat than many vegetables. Of course, the market is saturated with meat, so human beings are consuming more meat than is necessary for a balanced diet--its cheap, easy to get, so why not? Well, the short answer is heart disease and obesity. Of course, the higher rates of obesity inflate health care costs and send more people to hospitals and doctors than ever before. This country used to have the, let me repeat, THE fittest population in the world--HA. So, already, these farms are creating a lot of harm for a lot of people in many different ways.

So, let's switch gears to the animals. These cattle are fed until they nearly topple over; I'm sure most of you have seen pictures of the chickens who can hardly walk. They are also kept in extremely tight enclosures, which undoubtedly induce a fight or flight response in the animal. And, considering that we don't know too much about the human brain much less the cow brain, maybe anxiety as well. Oh, and then they are killed, some would say needlessly. The pain of these animals is undoubtedly very high, but, of course, it is difficult to measure exactly how much pain we are talking about.
So, there are serious environmental, social and long-term economic costs for this kind of arrangement. Of course, there are alternatives; for one, eat less meat, or none at all. Create better living conditions for the cattle and working conditions for the workers. Allocate the true cost--that is, a cost that weighs the environmental, social and economic costs of production--into the price of meat, which would make eating other things a much more attractive option. If you were to do with the same with a head of broccoli, it would undoubtedly be much less expensive than a pound of ground beef. Considering these notes, is utilitarianism a good ethical theory to apply to the environment?