

The Physiology of Foie: Why Foie Gras Is Not Unethical (2010) - _pius
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/12/the-physiology-of-foie-why-foie-gras-is-not-u.html

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stolio
So, here are the logical leaps I see here to make this "not unethical":

* we must ignore the ethical implications of killing animals for food in general

* we must ignore the ethical implications of keeping animals confined for their entire lives (clearly the ducks are being held against their will, otherwise the farm wouldn't need doors)

* we must ignore the ethical question of whether a duck who has never swam in its life can be said to have lived a good life

* we must ignore the ethical implications of force-feeding animals, whether it's painful for them or not

* we must accept that electrocution is a painless experience for ducks

* we must accept that being electrocuted prior to slaughter saves the duck from the experience of being killed

* we must ignore the ethical differences between functional meat consumption and meat consumption for pleasure and social status

In essence, as long as we sweep aside all of the difficult ethical questions
there are no ethical problems here.

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8_hours_ago
I think that the question that this article is trying to answer is not whether
it is ethical to produce foie gras, but whether it is _less_ ethical than
producing other farm animals. Only the 4th point you made is specific to the
production of foie gras, and I believe that the article argued fairly well
that force feeding is not painful for the ducks.

Whether eating farm-raised meat is ethical or not is another topic all
together, which this article doesn't touch on.

~~~
stolio
I don't believe there's a comparison to be made between foie farms and
traditional farms because they exist for different reasons, one for luxury and
the other for utility. The _reasons_ things are done matter: if you shoot
somebody for pleasure the punishments are very different than if you shoot
them out of some type of fear or necessity.

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Ntrails
You simply cannot make such a distinction in any meaningful fashion. As a
civilisation we've attempted to make food a pleasure at every opportunity,
even when constrained by scarcity or ethics.

Foie gras is inefficient on every possible food production for energy/resource
metric. So is Beef. Foie Gras is seen as a luxury product. So is steak.
Comparing them is completely logical imo.

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pandamcbonesaw
"Foie gras production should be judged not by the worst farms, but by the
best, because those are the ones that I'm going to choose to buy my foie from
if at all."

This is an interesting assumption which is not novel to foie gras advocates.
For instance, if I buy my wife a diamond ring from a responsible diamond
trader, I'm still supporting demand for an industry that is seeped in violence
and slavery, and for an item that is unabashedly luxurious and unnecessary (my
apologies, diamond lovers of HN).

I can see how this line of thinking becomes a slipper slope, e.g., are we all
implicit supporting sweat shops when we buy clothes made in America? I think
the answer to that is no, and the answer of culpability in general depends on
a number of factors ranging from the necessity of the item to the severity of
the atrocities occurring in an industry.

In that respect, I don't think an industry should be judged by its outliers,
but by its median. The median foie gras industry is not La Belle Farms.

~~~
sukilot
Everyone says they buy from the best farms. Then who is buying from the other
farms?

