Abstract
It is difficult to critically question a way of life that seems normal. Despite considerable prodding, I was largely ignorant and apathetic about the lives of animals until only a few years ago. What changed my perspective was not a visceral experience of violence, nor was it a philosophic argument. Instead, I started to think critically only when I witnessed those close to me modeling the barest of moral intuitions: that animals warrant our attention and ethical consideration. As I adopted this posture, a set of economic questions arose that are almost entirely outside the standard fare for scholars of economics and public policy. The two most fundamental questions are the following. Why do so many animals live such short lives in terrible conditions? What could realistically be done to change their lives? It was my attempt, as an economist, to grapple with these questions that gave rise to this book.
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Notes
- 1.
Robert Garner, “Political Ideologies and the Moral Status of Animals,” Journal of Political Ideologies 8, no. 2 (2003): 233–46.
- 2.
There are a few recent notable exceptions. For example: David Robinson Simon, Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much—and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter (Newburyport, MA: Conari Press, 2013); F. Bailey Norwood and Jayson L. Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Charles Blackorby and David Donaldson, “Pigs and Guinea Pigs: A Note on the Ethics of Animal Exploitation,” Economic Journal 102, no. 415 (1992): 1345–69.
- 3.
Steven McMullen, “Is Capitalism to Blame? Animal Lives in the Marketplace,” Journal of Animal Ethics, Forthcoming; Norwood and Lusk, Compassion, by the Pound, Chap. 2.
- 4.
David Nibert, Animal Rights/Human Rights, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002); Bob Torres, Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2007).
- 5.
Tom Regan, Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
- 6.
Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology (University of Illinois Press, 1995).
- 7.
Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, repr. ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003).
- 8.
Martha C. Nussbaum, “Beyond ‘Compassion and Humanity’: Justice for Nonhuman Animals,” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, eds. Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 299–320.
- 9.
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009).
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McMullen, S. (2016). Introduction. In: Animals and the Economy. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43474-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43474-6_1
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