Why Does Pain in Livestock Matter? A Philosophical View of Pain Management

Most people agree that unnecessarily causing severe pain in livestock can be morally problematic. But how much moral weight should we put on different intensity levels of pain? And how do we decide which pains are truly unnecessary? In this presentation, I describe how philosophers approach the problem of assessing the moral significance of pain in livestock. I will consider different views on how to weigh the moral significance of pain, and how these views lead to different policy recommendations. I will examine the concept of “necessary” used in arguments suggesting that causing unnecessary pain is morally problematic, including a discussion of how pain has been evolutionarily adaptive and how it can be behaviorally beneficial. Finally, I will discuss the ethical dimensions of various proposals for how pain in livestock can be minimized.