r/philosophy • u/RareEarthPetal • 3h ago
Peter Singer, philosopher: ‘People still think the animals we eat live out in the fields, outdoors’
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-07-26/peter-singer-philosopher-people-still-think-the-animals-we-eat-live-out-in-the-fields-outdoors.html•
u/deanerdaweiner 1h ago
the cognitive dissonance when it comes to this topic is insane
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u/TacitusKillgorre 1h ago
It's easily the easiest way to get someone to engage in cognitive dissonance, it's even easier than talking politics.
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u/Unique-Tone-6394 1h ago
It's like waking up from a fever dream when it finally hits you and you decide to go vegan.
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u/Grr_in_girl 21m ago
This is so true. I have a completely different view of human behavior after I went vegan. I feel like we're not as different from other animals as we like to pretend we are. Most of us act on instict and base our beliefs on what the people around us do, without much reflection or reason behind our choices.
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u/mamaBiskothu 10m ago
Isn't this true in philosophy circles as well? Ive asked this question a couple of times in philosophy forums, like how can a philosopher of most kinds justify not being a vegetarian?
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u/PortableDoor5 2h ago
they do? I thought it was just the privilege of not being able to care?
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u/MildlyAgitatedBovine 1h ago
It's happening from lots of directions. Many people are happier to not know and intentionally look away, many people have enough price pressure on their eating habits that they can't afford to shop ethically. The industry itself is engaging in regulatory capture and explicitly criminalizing efforts to make the conditions more widely known...
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u/waitingundergravity 1h ago
many people have enough price pressure on their eating habits that they can't afford to shop ethically
This isn't rhetorical because I'd actually be interested in data on this, but in which area is this true for meat? That is, where in the world could someone eating a basic non-meat diet actually save money by switching to a meat-based diet?
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u/fairie_poison 1h ago
practically no one in the US is switching from non-meat to meat-based. theyd be switching from factory-farmed meat-based to ethically-sourced meat-based. which absolutely has a financial floor to overcome.
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u/Unique-Tone-6394 1h ago
In Canada they have agricultural gag laws where it's illegal to photograph or video record and then share the conditions animals are forced to exist within before they're murdered.
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u/Joice_Craglarg 48m ago
I'm not justifying factory farming, but animals cannot be 'murdered.'
Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
Three conditions that cannot be met definitionally by factory farming.
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u/ConstantaByTheSea 21m ago
Nice legalese, it's still killing an innocent that had no choice in their conditions. It's almost genocide levels, consider something like 4 billion cows alone are killed each year so people can get fat on hamburgers and cancer from red meats.
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u/Joice_Craglarg 18m ago edited 7m ago
Legalese, sure, or what I like to call the literal definition, but okay 👍
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u/VenomOnKiller 16m ago
Using legal definitions for human courts is a crazy thing to do when debating morality on killing animals.
Are you going to point out humans can't breathe underwater when we talk about pollution in the ocean or lakes?
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u/YirDaSellsAvon 5m ago
If you want to deliberately use emotive language like "murder" when referring to to livestock then yeah it deserves to be nitpicked 100%.
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u/TacitusKillgorre 1h ago
It's both and neither. They want to think all the animals they eat lived fulfilled lives frolicking in fields of daisies, so they think so. They also know that's not true, so they choose not to think about it.
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u/bitey87 1h ago
My shoes and smart phones come from a nice meadow too.
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u/GalaXion24 35m ago
I think this is hits on relevant issue such is that there's so many issues that we do not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with to process them all.
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u/europahasicenotmice 27m ago
And functionally changing individual consumer habits on ALL of the important issues requires massive, sustained life changes. Most people don't have the energy and mental space for that kind of shift. They've got their own troubles.
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u/brucebuffett 34m ago
Want to make sensitive, thoughtful, progressive philosophers sound like the dumbest Fox News watching manosphere dorks? Bring up animal rights or veganism.
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u/Lust80 2h ago
Peter Singer highlights the gap between what we believe about animal welfare and the reality of factory farming. He argues that awareness leads to ethical change. Factory farming is one of the largest sources of animal meats , and the disconnect between perception and reality persists. Singer's work calls on us to align our habits with our values, and to make choices that reflect what we know. That's the foundation of his philosophy. Not just knowing, but letting that knowledge guide action.
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u/AddanDeith 1h ago
Nice chat GPT summary.
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u/Ion_bound 1h ago
I agree with Singer that we should reduce factory farming, especially when it comes to poultry, which tends to be particularly inhumane. I disagree with Singer that this will inevitably result in global veganism, as well as with the premise that veganism is morally required. Ultimately, a chicken or hog will eat me as happily as I will eat it, which seems only fair. We're all opportunistic omnivores.
I try to buy free-range and local as much as I can for meat, milk, and eggs, due to aforementioned disagreement with factory farming and being fortunate enough to live in an agricultural area where that is possible. Somehow, I don't think Mr. Singer would agree with that as much as someone eating vegan as much as they can, despite having the same general impact on demand for factory-farmed food.
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u/Zayl 57m ago
A few things to consider:
feeding the whole world on free-range animals is not possible. Just not efficient enough
there is no humane way to kill an animal for sustenance
I would argue that doing something just because a chicken or a hog would do it is questionable logic. A chicken will also shit itself anywhere it is at any time. Should you do the same? Or should you recognize your intelligence and capability for empathy are vastly different than that of a hog or a chicken?
Reducing your meat intake is great, but let's not pretend you're not also grappling with cognitive dissonance here. All you're doing is justifying the unnecessary murder of animals for your own sustenance because you support the "nicer way" to slaughter them for food.
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u/Mark_is_on_his_droid 23m ago
The second claim needs to be articulated further. It seems self evident to you I’m sure, but why can’t the imaginary life people believe in, “they lived a long life in a meadow and then died peacefully so I can eat it!” be true? I know that’s not happening, but want to strengthen your bullet point.
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u/viper5delta 23m ago
feeding the whole world on free-range animals is not possible. Just not efficient enough
I mean, not at the current levels of consumption in a typical western diet certainly, but that level of consumption is a relatively recent historical oddity
there is no humane way to kill an animal for sustenance
Sure there is, as quickly and/or painlessly as possibly, nitrogen asphyxiation for instance.
Unless you're making an argument that killing animals for food is axiomatically immoral, in which case it seems we have fundemental and likely irreconcilable differences of opinion
Or should you recognize your intelligence and capability for empathy are vastly different than that of a hog or a chicken?
The funny thing about this one is it can be used to argue either side. If pigs and chickens are so fundementaly lacking in intelligence and empathy, why is it so terrible to (humanly) kill them for food?
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u/AK-Ayer 4m ago
Intelligence and empathy aren’t the determiners of a being’s moral value - if they were, I’d have bad news about newborn babies! The capability to suffer is far more plausible as a criterion for moral worth, and the empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to chickens and pigs having this capability.
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u/LeoTheSquid 50m ago
Ypu're arguing from first principles you've been socialized into from a christian/post-christian society as if these are universally logically self-evident
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u/Vezuvian 36m ago
I've been trying, but I can't decipher what you mean beyond your description of what perspective their comment is coming from. Is that supposed to detract from it, add to it? Disprove it entirely?
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u/DueAnalysis2 38m ago
a chicken or hog will eat me as happily as I will eat it
I doubt they would happily eat you if they had alternative food sources. Luckily for us, we do have alternative food sources. Veganism is an ethical imperative in the presence of equivalent food sources that don't require killing. If you're on a desert island, of course it's eat or be eaten. If you're one of those people (who we vegans could definitely do a better job acknowledging) who NEED dairy or meat for whatever physiological reasons, of course you need to survive. But if you can get all your required nutrients from a plant based diet, and you have access to a plant based diet (by virtue of having supermarkets and stuff around), non-veganism starts becoming less and less ethically defensible.
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u/Explicit_Tech 2h ago edited 2h ago
I know they are in densely populated rooms with scary machines. But how else do you do things quickly and efficiently for millions, if not billions, of people across the globe?
We should be thinking what is the true purpose for increasing the human population? What exactly are we thriving towards to if it's not consumerism and infinite growth?
The system we live in is an unsustainable one with no meaningful goal to push humans to the next level.
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u/AutisticGayBlackJew 2h ago
You don’t, because the desire for it shouldn’t be accepted in the first place
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u/GorumGamer 2h ago edited 2h ago
Many of them do, man. You ever drive through the mountain west? Cows everywhere. Blocking the highways n shit!
Edit: Take a chance to read my replies. At least with Cattle, Singer is implying something that is simply not true.
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2h ago edited 2h ago
[deleted]
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u/GorumGamer 2h ago
Yes, but a factory farm does not necessarily mean indoors. It’s not like you don’t also drive past factory farms. The US Cattle Cycle is substantially influenced by grazing conditions, alongside grain and feed prices. Much of the US beef industry is comprised by “cow-calf” operations in which cows raise calves entirely or almost entirely on forage and pasture, before the calf is weaned.
I can’t make any argument about the chickens.
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u/RareEarthPetal 1h ago edited 1h ago
It depends on the type of cow, dairy cows are almost exclusively raised indoors in the US whereas beef cows often spend at least some time roaming outside in fields, but are often moved to enclosed/indoor feedlots at some point. In any case I think the point Singer is trying to make is that people often think all animals are exclusively raised outside in fields, which is not the case in reality.
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u/Local-Dimension-1653 2h ago
Do you see 30 million cattle outside? Bc that’s how many are killed in the US every year. What you see is a fraction of the population.
The vast majority of land animals killed for food are chickens, which are not protected by even by existing meager welfare laws and the majority which do not have outdoor access.
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u/AhabFlanders 1h ago
The vast majority of cattle feedlots are outdoors. They're horrific for a number of other reasons, but they are outdoors. Unlike with chickens it really wouldn't make any sense from an efficiency or cost perspective--which are the only things the industrial meat producers really care about--to build structures large enough to warehouse millions of cows when a series of fences will do.
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u/GorumGamer 2h ago
The US cattle herd is closer to 89M, the majority of which do have at least temporary access to outdoor runs.
Almost all of them are born to mothers who subsist mostly on pasture and forage, and spend their first several months on open range.•
u/nameless_pattern 2h ago
The perception that cows live in fields is largely due to it being illegal to film inside of slaughterhouses and big industrial animal prisons. I don't know what they're called
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago
Why would a cow live in a slaughterhouse? Must not be a very good slaughterhouse.
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u/nameless_pattern 1h ago edited 1h ago
Why would they bring dead cows to a slaughterhouse?
I can't tell if you're joking or being intentionally obstinate.
Oh well, doesn't matter one more shitty opinion to ignore on the internet. Blocked
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago
Cattle rarely spend more than 1 day in pens awaiting processing at a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouses are designed to be very humane, because stressing the animal prior to slaughter negatively affects the quality of the meat.
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u/nameless_pattern 1h ago
Man you just talking around anything I say with a bunch of cattle company propaganda robot bullsh.. stfu. Fucking bots, idiotic cowards hiding behind your hidden profile.
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u/Less_than_something 2h ago
I'm looking at dozens of them in the paddock right now. Peter Singer hasn't been out of the city in 50 years. What the hell would he know?
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u/Local-Dimension-1653 2h ago edited 1h ago
He knows the data and is a philosopher so he understands empirical versus anecdotal evidence.
Do you see 30 million cattle outside? Bc that’s how many are killed in the US every year. What you see is a fraction of the population.
The vast majority of land animals killed for food are chickens, which are not protected by even existing meager welfare laws and the majority of which do not have outdoor access.
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u/Less_than_something 2h ago
Look out, here come the vegans! Instead of placards they come armed with downvotes!
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u/Rilse 1h ago
You don’t have to be vegan to be concerned with animal welfare
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u/Less_than_something 1h ago
You do have to lack critical thinking skills to listen to Peter Singer though.
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u/CursinSquirrel 1h ago
Not everyone who disagrees with your gut assertions is some other group. Many of your downvoters, like me, eat meat.
We also understand that shallow anecdotes about "dozens" of cows living outside don't justify hundreds of the same cuts of steak in every supermarket and grocery store throughout the country. Somehow farmers are mass producing thousands of cows per day, and we have a clear documented answer that doesn't rely on anecdotes. Most cows are raised and slaughtered in factories.
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago
Most beef cattle are born outdoors and spend the majority of their lives outdoors.
Your inappropriate use of “cows” shows how educated you are on the subject.•
u/CursinSquirrel 1h ago
Yes, it's my use of cows as a colloquialism from my time growing up beside cow pins owned by rural farmers that invalidates my argument.
It's a very good sign for your stance when instead of making your own points you have to target the ability of the other person to make a credible argument by going after meaningless details like colloquialisms.
Please God understand that this was sarcasm.
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u/Less_than_something 1h ago
We're these "cow pins" fully indoors were they? Cattle are not raised "inside". Chickens are, cattle are not. You can disagree and downvote away but you will still be wrong.
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago
What else am I supposed to do when you spew factual inaccuracies that border on being outright lies?
Beef cattle are predominantly born in pasture. They lead the majority of their life outdoors.
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u/Rollingzeppelin0 2h ago
Maybe it's time for less cattle watching and more education
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u/GorumGamer 2h ago
Maybe you should put away your nightmare-rectangle and try going outside the city for once.
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u/Rollingzeppelin0 2h ago
- Said them from the nightmare rectangle
I go many places don't worry, fortunately I have good examples of non city people. But you're surely not selling the country well, being all ignorant.
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago edited 1h ago
My points are supported by the USDA, and this paper: https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.18.0428 “Current situation and future trends for beef production in the United States of America — A review”
From James S Drouillard published 2018•
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u/Important_Fruit 1h ago
Declaring "what the hell would he know" in respect to the world's preeminent ethics philosopher is pretty ambitious.
Do you actually have an argument to offer? Or is that the extent of it?
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago
See my other replies. He misleadingly implies that all the animals we eat are raised indoors. That food animals do not live outside.
What he says is true of chickens.
Not true of beef. In the USA the vast majority of calves are born to cows who subsist entirely on pasture and forage. Mostly using land that is fit for no other purpose than grazing livestock. Beef cattle will spend most of their lives with their mothers on the open range before being weaned, backgrounded, and then moved to a feedlot for finishing. Vast majority of this is an outdoor process.•
u/Socrathustra 2h ago
This isn't about how many cows are outdoors; nobody said there aren't any. This is about how almost all cows raised for meat are indoors.
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u/GorumGamer 2h ago edited 1h ago
Not true. Almost all beef cattle in the USA are born in open pasture where they live the majority of their lives before being moved to a feedlot (the vast majority of which are also outdoors)
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u/TacitusKillgorre 1h ago
Outdoors, but, unless I am mistaken, a feedlot still implies being confined to a pen.
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u/Socrathustra 1h ago
Sources elsewhere in this thread contradict you, so you'll want to provide data to back up your assertion.
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u/GorumGamer 1h ago
What I am talking about is so predominant as an industry standard that nobody even collects data on it. But here are a couple of things worth a read that can shed some light on the subject:
Current situation and future trends for beef production in the United States of America — A review
James Drouillard 2018 https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.18.0428https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance
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u/Socrathustra 48m ago
This is way too much information for me to glean a very specific piece of information. The sources elsewhere in this thread are focused on the issue at hand and present credible evidence of the widespread existence of factory farming.
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u/Less_than_something 2h ago
Did I misread that? Peter Singer thinks all animals live indoors.
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u/Socrathustra 2h ago
Where did he say that?
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u/Less_than_something 2h ago
It's in the headline. And you just said that" almost all cows raised for meat are indoors"
That's an insane thing to believe.
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u/CursinSquirrel 1h ago
Where is the word "all" in the headline?
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u/Less_than_something 1h ago
I was quoting the halfwit that I was replying to.
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u/CursinSquirrel 1h ago
You deliberately misquoted that guy then. He clearly said "almost all" and you managed to lose the majority of those letters in your first reply. To be fair, maybe I should have replied to that comment rather than the one where you directly quoted the guy..
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u/Less_than_something 1h ago
"Almost all" is the same thing as "all" when the actual statistic is none. No cattle live indoors. Have you ever even seen a cow before?
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u/Socrathustra 1h ago
That's not insane if that's what the data shows. The headline does not say he believes all cows are indoors.
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u/Less_than_something 1h ago
But you clearly do. Almost no cattle live indoors and you would have to be seriously detached from reality to believe otherwise.
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u/Socrathustra 52m ago
It's almost as though you're completely unfamiliar with the subject matter and refused to read the article. The point is that Singer thinks people believe animals are raised in free range conditions, when in fact they are usually confined to unethical factory conditions, some or sometimes all of which consists of a life in tight indoor spaces. Factory farming is the issue, not the small time family farm with a few dozen cattle.
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u/Less_than_something 42m ago
I understand the subject matter. You're the one who thinks that cattle are raised inside which demonstrates that you're clueless on the subject.
I agree with Singer on many of his views but he is a zealot and believes what he wants to believe on this topic, regardless of the facts. Just like all the vegans that flock to these threads to jerk each other off.
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u/KameTheMachine 1h ago
Happy animals taste better and are more healthy. Eatting an animal that's filled to the brim with cortisol isn't good for you.
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u/Qcumber69 2h ago
Im looking at a field now and its full of sheep. Could be robots of course. So you never know
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u/kifflington 2h ago
They do if you're from a country that's not a shithole.
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u/thederevolutions 2h ago
What would be an example ?
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u/revereddesecration 2h ago
Australia is better, but I’m pretty sure most chicken and pig is fairly high density and under a roof
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u/Diminuendo1 10m ago
Here's an Australian documentary filmed in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko
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u/Avenheit 1h ago
Agreed. Australia prides itself in farming.
If there's a factory farm, it's most likely land bought up by a Chinese business.
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u/RareEarthPetal 2h ago
Around 74% of farmed land animals worldwide are living in factory farms at present according to one estimate, this is not an issue that's confined to one country.
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u/Ankoar 2h ago
lol, Nicely proving Singers Argument. There is not a single country on earth, that meat and animal products industry doens't largely depend on factory farming.
It's crazy how good the "peaceful countryside Farm"-propaganda of the meat industry still works. I recommend watching free documentaries like "Dominion" to get an actual picture of the methods of meat "production"
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u/Due-Outside-9724 2h ago
Can we not give attention to this madman. Doesn’t even qualify as a philosopher in my book.
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u/white-tealeaf 2h ago
What's the issue with him?
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u/Stokkolm 30m ago
Maybe I'm not qualified to judge him since I haven't read his books, but based on what I've heard of his philosophy my impression is the he (and some other philosophers) don't pay attention to the real world, they build an abstract model of the world, and argue around that.
And his model is seemingly inaccurate, his arguments might be consistent in theory, but when you bring them to the real world they don't fit.
Some of the arbitrary rules that this abstract model has that I do not understand how are relevant for the real world:
- If something is sapient, it is wrong to kill / harm them. Why?
- Pain is bad. Why? I'm not saying pain is good, but couldn't it be that pain is amoral, it doesn't have a moral value, but the context of the pain gives it moral value?
- Death is bad. I don't want to die, but that is not the same as "death is bad in general".
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u/Anopanda 1h ago
He challenges your worldviews, and if you have that as your whole personality, you feel attacked personally, and you respond in anger.
His essay on people are evil did change my perspective.
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u/LeoTheSquid 40m ago
Personally Im not a fan as he presents his philosophy as inevitable necessary rational conclusions, when it's in fact fully dependant on unjustified first assumptions that he's probably been socialized into in his probably post-christian upbringing. He can be powerful against people who already share those though, and maybe that's just his goal idk
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u/Anopanda 14m ago
then challenge his assumptions, and not him as a person.
"inevitable conclusions" is what happens when you agree with the assumptions and premise, It's how logic works.
if you assume 1 is 1, and 2 is 2. and you add things together with + then you must conclude that 1+1=2
You can argue about 1 not being 1 and 2 not being 2 and + not doing +.
But if the individual parts you argree with, then its only logical you agree with the result.
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u/MouseBean 1h ago
My big issues with him are that he never legitimately defends any of his positions. His papers are filled with phrases like 'this should stand for itself', 'if you disagree you need read no further', and 'I think everyone accepts this', with no attempt to base his ideas on anything substantial whatsoever.
Also, his stances on this like the existence of some cosmic scoreboard and sentience as a basis for moral significance are just abyssimal.
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u/mmmfritz 1h ago
His drowning child essay is incredible as a collection of well thought out arguments.
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u/LeoTheSquid 44m ago
It The essay is interesting, but fully relies on the unjustified assumptions of moral universalism, objectivism, and that distance is irrelevant.
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u/Eastern-Project9017 45m ago
I never read him, only heard about him. Isn't this the guy who's okay with euthanizing your child if they are so much of a hassle to care about?
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u/CursinSquirrel 1h ago
Commenting hoping for an explanation as well. I haven't heard of him, but I'm aware enough of this topic to know the basic assertion of the article is right. Would be interested in knowing why the dude is so crappy.
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u/AmbitiousAgent 2h ago edited 1h ago
I hate this man's despicable reductionist philosohy and what its done to so many minds, with passion.
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u/davidptm56 35m ago
But, really, do they? I believe most people realize we are eating Industrial meat products, right? BTW I see no problem with it. We should embrace we are a malign presence on this planet and go with it.
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