Home / B. Harm, death and welfare / Part DIR
"The law guarantees animal welfare."
welfare rules exist, but they allow much of what consumers imagine is banned. In the European Union, sows may be kept in individual stalls for the first four weeks of pregnancy and piglets may be surgically castrated without anesthesia in their first week of life. In the United States, federal law sets almost no rules for how farm animals are housed, and many state cruelty laws exempt "customary" farming practices. Brazil's 2020 pig rule gives deadlines up to 2045. The law follows what the industry can comply with, not what the animals need.
Short answer
The rules exist, but they allow much of what you may imagine is banned. In the EU, sows can be kept in stalls for the first four weeks of pregnancy and piglets can be castrated without anesthesia in their first week. In the US, federal law barely regulates how farm animals are kept, and many state cruelty laws exempt standard farming practices. Slaughter rules allow a gas that pigs avoid and birds shackled while conscious. Being legal isn't the same as not being cruel.
For children
There are rules for looking after animals on farms, and some of them help. But many rules still allow things that hurt, like keeping a mother pig in a space where she can barely move. A rule saying something is allowed doesn't mean it's good for the animal. It only means it hasn't been banned yet.
"Do you know what the law allows to be done to a pregnant sow?"
Como pode aparecer
"There are inspections."
"We have welfare standards."
"If it were cruel, it would be banned."
"We have some of the strictest welfare laws in the world."
"Do you really think the government would allow that?"
"Good husbandry practices follow scientific standards."
"Just regulate the industry and there's no cruelty."
"Those videos are exceptions or staged." (which is B9)
The strongest version
"There are inspections. If it were cruel, it would be banned."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1There are specific animal welfare rules for production and slaughter.
- P2These rules are drawn up by experts and enforced by the state.
- P3What these rules allow has been judged acceptable.
- CSo animals in legal production are treated acceptably.
P1 and P2 are true: there are rules, and some have brought real progress. The problem lies in P3, which confuses what is allowed with what is acceptable, and in the gap between what the rules allow and what consumers imagine.
The argument is valid. Its soundness fails at P3, a version of the appeal to the law (D7).
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument assumes the rules reflect what the animal needs. In practice, they reflect a balance between welfare and economic viability:
Rule What it improves What it still allows EU Directive 2008/120/EC, pigs Group housing for sows during most of pregnancy; anesthesia for castration after the seventh day Individual stalls in the first four weeks after insemination; farrowing crates; surgical castration without anesthesia up to seven days of age United States, federal and state law Some states ban gestation crates (for example, California and Massachusetts) No federal standard for housing on farms; many state cruelty laws exempt customary farming practices Brazil, Normative Instruction 113/2020, pigs Group gestation, analgesia and anesthesia for surgical castration Stalls in the first 35 days of gestation; anesthesia mandatory only from 2030; some deadlines up to 2045 Slaughter rules (EU, US, Brazil) Require stunning for most mammals High-concentration CO2 for pigs; water baths with shackled birds; religious slaughter without stunning; in the US, no federal rule for poultry (B1) - b
Where the argument breaks
1. Allowed isn't acceptable.
Rules are agreements between what is desired and what the industry can comply with. Rules that ban something often do so with long transition periods precisely because the previous standard was much worse.
2. The rules themselves recognize the problem.
If individual gestation stalls were acceptable, there would be no reason to require group housing for most of pregnancy. The rules admit the stalls were harmful and, even so, allow them for part of the pregnancy.
3. Painful mutilations remain legal.
Castration, tail docking and beak trimming are routine, and in many places they are allowed without anesthesia when done to very young animals. Brazil's requirement of analgesia and anesthesia for surgical castration only becomes mandatory for everyone in 2030.
4. Permitted slaughter also hurts.
Slaughter rules don't ban high-concentration carbon dioxide for pigs, which the European scientific authority describes as aversive and impossible to fix within the method (B1).
5. The rules don't ask whether the animal should die.
All welfare legislation starts from the assumption that the animal will be used and killed. It regulates the how, not the whether.
6. Cruelty laws rarely reach standard practices.
Many anti-cruelty laws punish unnecessary or gratuitous cruelty and leave out what the industry considers normal practice, such as castration, beak trimming and confinement. Regulation can reduce some suffering, but it doesn't touch the harm of killing.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Council Directive 2008/120/EC laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs Sows group-housed from four weeks after service until one week before farrowing; castration without tearing tissue, and with anesthesia and analgesia only after the seventh day Official EU text Brazil, Normative Instruction MAPA No. 113/2020 (in Portuguese) Group gestation except for the first days; analgesia and anesthesia for surgical castration with a final deadline in 2030; some adjustments until 2045 Deadlines checked in industry articles and news; corrected version in 2021 Brazil, Ordinance SDA/MAPA No. 365/2021 (in Portuguese) Allows controlled atmosphere and water baths for poultry; permits religious slaughter Text checked in the official publication EFSA, *Welfare of pigs at slaughter* (2020) High-concentration CO2 is aversive, with no corrective measure EU scientific opinion Questão de Ética, vol. IV, ch. 17 Shows the limits of legal protection for exploited animals Basis of the last point Questão de Ética, vol. VIII, ch. 11 Discusses the debate on regulating exploitation Complements the point - d
The strongest counter-reply: the rules are improving
The most serious version admits that current rules allow bad practices, but says they are advancing, that many countries went from almost nothing to specific rules in a few decades, and that demanding everything at once would make production unviable.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
Progressing isn't arriving.
The rules improving confirms that they don't yet guarantee welfare.
The pace is the industry's.
Transition periods of 10 to 25 years mean millions of animals living, in the meantime, at a standard the rules themselves recognize as inadequate.
The improvement doesn't reach the central question.
No welfare rule answers whether it is just to breed and kill animals for a pleasure that can be had another way.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Appeal to the law
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Not knowing the rules
Trust in inspection
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
System justification
Biases
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "what the rules allow is acceptable".
If it applied to…Old labor lawsTap to see
Exhausting hours allowed at the time would have been acceptable
They were corrected precisely because they were unacceptable
If it applied to…Weak environmental rulesTap to see
The pollution allowed would be harmless
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Gestation stallsTap to see
They would be acceptable until a deadline, and unacceptable the next day
Shows the rule marks an agreement, not a moral fact
Contradictions
Even if a rule allowed it.
No one thinks a weak environmental law proves pollution is acceptable.
And is surprised to learn where it is still legal.
What the argument gets right
What is true
Welfare rules are important and bring real progress. Rules that ban the worst forms of confinement reduce the suffering of millions of animals, and the people who worked for them made a difference. It's also true that inspections exist, and that the regulated sector is usually better than the unregulated one.
But
But a rule marks the minimum society agreed to demand at a given moment, not what is good for the animal. It regulates how animals are used and killed, and leaves unanswered the question of whether that should happen.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- Aren't Animals Already Protected by the Law? Vol. IV, ch. 17
- The Debate on Regulating Animal Exploitation Vol. VIII, ch. 11
References
Rules and laws
- Council Directive 2008/120/EC laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs.
- Brazil. Normative Instruction MAPA No. 113 of 16 December 2020, good practices for pig welfare on commercial farms (in Portuguese).
- Brazil. Ordinance SDA/MAPA No. 365 of 16 July 2021 (in Portuguese).