Production and Operations Management is composed of many aspects, both positive and negative that comes along with it. Throughout this course of learning about production and operations management, there are also ethical dilemmas that plays a major role as well. Over the years, an issue that seems to be reoccurring is how to find lower costs and efficient animal meat production. The main issues that seem to come to mind is deciding what is the best option, focusing on the care of the animals or just worrying about lower costs. This paper will be composed of the ethical dilemmas of animal production, Christian worldview on the ethical dilemma and potential solutions for the ethical dilemma.
Ethical Issues
There are many different process strategies that can be used in different production operation management companies. The dilemma that is relevant is companies wanting to have high efficiency but not giving the animals the proper treatment that is needed do to lowering as many costs as possible. This type of system is known as product-focus process. In production of operation management, a product-focused process is a company or facility that solely focused on products, uses a high volume but a low variety process (Heizer &
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The issue that has come into play now is doing this while animals are still alive. The Premium Standards Farms of Princeton, has turned pig production into a standardized product-focused process. They begin doing this by impregnating females sow for forty days in an extremely small stall not allowing them to move whatsoever. The next step of this process is they wait sixty-seven days once the ultrasound test is done. Then once they give birth to ten or eleven piglets, this cycle is repeated again for three years. After those three years, the pigs are then slaughtered. The Premium Standards explains that this system helps reduce the cost of pork
When people are eating meat, have they ever stopped and asked themselves what they 're eating, or what type of life the animal they 're eating went through. The articles “An Animal’s Place” by Michael Pollan, explains the moral issue if it 's correct to consume meat. “The Omnivore 's Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals”, by Blake Hurst, defends himself against critics who says negativity about industrial farming and the ways animals are treated. After close examination of both articles, the reader would be able to determine what type of farming is more logical.
Throughout the last century the concern of animals being treated as just a product has become a growing argument. Some believe that animals are equal to the human and should be treated with the same respect. There are many though that laugh at that thought, and continue to put the perfectly roasted turkey on the table each year. Gary Steiner is the author of the article “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable”, that was published in the New York Times right before Thanksgiving in 2009. He believes the use of animals as a benefit to human beings is inhumane and murderous. Gary Steiner’s argument for these animal’s rights is very compelling and convincing to a great extent.
Michael Pollan’s purpose of writing Omnivore’s Dilemma came about when he realizes that society is unbelievably unhealthy due to the abundance of food. The two conflicting logics that Pollan introduces are the logic of nature and the logic of industry; these two logics are reflected through various ways of raising livestock animals. The logic of nature consists of raising livestock animals in a pastoral environment where animals interact with one another and avoid the use of artificial chemicals; whereas, the logic of industry settles on raising livestock animals unnaturally. Growing cattle through the use of corn has allowed meat to be produced in large quantities and in a short time as described in the chapter “Feedlot: Making Meat”
Jonathan Safran Foer wrote “Eating Animals” for his son; although, when he started writing it was not meant to be a book (Foer). More specifically to decide whether he would raise his son as a vegetarian or meat eater and to decide what stories to tell his son (Foer). The book was meant to answer his question of what meat is and how we get it s well as many other questions. Since the book is a quest for knowledge about the meat we eat, the audience for this book is anyone that consumes food. This is book is filled with research that allows the audience to question if we wish to continue to eat meat or not and provide answers as to why. Throughout the book Foer uses healthy doses of logos and pathos to effectively cause his readers to question if they will eat meat at their next meal and meals that follow. Foer ends his book with a call to action that states “Consistency is not required, but engagement with the problem is.” when dealing with the problem of factory farming (Foer).
Factory farming is where animals are packed as closely together as attainable, most never see or feel the sunlight, able to get fresh air or even able to turn around. These terrible conditions have serious effects on the animals physically and mentally. Illness spreads and fights break out between animals. This worldwide epidemic known as factory farming began when greedy people began to modify farms to maximise profit for themselves, but because of this, it not only has a terrible impact on animals but
Humans have a major impact on the environment. The choice between vegetarianism and a meat-inclusive diet also makes a difference on the environment. Vegetarianism is the practice of excluding meat from your diet. There are six main types of vegetarianism: lacto-ovo, vegan, macrobiotic, fruitarian, raw-foods diet, and natural-hygiene diet. The two most common types of vegetarianism are lacto-ovo (consuming animal products like dairy but no meat), and vegan (consuming no animal products at all). Meat-inclusive diets are made possible with animal agriculture, the farming system of raising animals for slaughter. Both diet types, vegetarian and meat-inclusive, include the farming of edible plants, but meat-inclusive diets also include the additional steps of feeding the crops to the livestock and then slaughtering them for meat products before shipping the food items for human consumption. These additional steps require that more plants be grown for the livestock to consume (called feed crops), before a final product is produced. Through animal agriculture, copious amounts of water and land resources are used and air pollutants are produced. While all agriculture is destructive, animal agriculture is far more harmful to the environment than vegetarianism.
This assignment is my own work, presented in my own words, ALL sources of information have been cited and any direct quotations are contained within quotation marks.
Historical/Cultural Context of Animal Farm The Russian Revolution: In 1917, two revolutions were involved in Russia, which terminated centuries of imperial ruling. The Russian revolution was made up of two revolutions, which the first one was in February, and the second one was in October. These revolutions started political, and social changes that lead to the creation of the Soviet Union. By March of 1917, Russia who became civil turned into turmoil, which caused constant food shortages.
There are many debates around the world about the topic of animal abuse. Animal abuse in the food industry has become a major problem due to the cruel treatment of animals. Most of the world's population might think that animal cruelty is only found in homes and on the street, but they forget about the other forms of animal abuse that affect the food industry. Large contributors to animal abuse are due to fishing methods, animal testing, and slaughterhouses. "Animals have always been a major part of our society in history and they have played huge roles in agriculture" (ASPCA). Factory farming is a system of confining chickens, pigs, and cattle under strictly controlled conditions. Slaughterhouses are places where animals are killed
In this paper I will look at the argument made by James Rachels in his paper, The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism supporting the view that humans should be vegetarians on moral grounds. I will first outline the basis of Rachels’ argument supporting vegetarianism and his moral objection to using animals as a food source and critique whether it is a good argument. Secondly, I will look at some critiques of this kind of moral argument presented by R. G. Frey in his article, Moral Vegetarianism and the Argument from Pain and Suffering. Finally, I will show why I support the argument made by Frey and why I feel it is the stronger of the two arguments and why I support it.
Morally, one may feel obligated to exercise Vegetarianism due to the inhumane treatment of animals throughout the farming process. The issue is that roughly ten billion animals are raised for United States food consumption alone. Animals such as cows, fish, chickens, pigs, and turkeys are subjected to entrapment and confinement, less than sanitary living conditions and mutilation for the purposes of efficiency. Cows and pigs, from birth, are placed in narrow stalls where there is no room to turn around or even lay down. These animals’ daily lives consist eating and overeating until it is time to be slaughtered. Thousands and thousands of egg-laying hens are packed in cages, chicken crates, and coops. These animals are so densely packed that it is hard to distinguish between those that are living and dead. This often times leads to the spread of diseases among these animals and is one of the more prominent factors that contribute to unsanitary living conditions. The discomfort experienced by these animals leads to them being mutilated. The chickens that try to peck have their beaks cut; the chickens that try to fly have their wings clipped; the livestock that lose mobility, as a result of limb atrophy due to the stationary lifestyle experienced in stall confinement, are beaten. Animal mutilation, ...
For several years the issue of eating meat has been a great concern to all types of people all over the world. In many different societies controversy has began to arise over the morality of eating meat from animals. A lot of the reasons for not eating meat have to deal with religious affiliations, personal health, animal rights, and concern about the environment. Vegetarians have a greater way of expressing meats negative effects on the human body whereas meat eaters have close to no evidence of meat eating being a positive effect on the human body. Being a vegetarian is more beneficial for human beings because of health reasons, environmental issues, and animal rights.
When these agricultural resources are given to the animals involved in meat production, these resources are lost. Besides the loss of land, the process of animal production is contributing to pollution and other greenhouse gases that are doing irreplaceable damage to the environment and contribute to untold negative health
As we can now observe, vegetarianism has become something fashionable, and the number of people who reject eating meat is constantly increasing. In Britain, for instance, over 5 million people have done it so far. It is obviously connected with the recent animal diseases, but this tendency is likely to spread on the other regions of the world. However, it is not only a fashion or fear of illnesses. I myself became a vegetarian about 2 years ago, and I can see a number of reasons why people should stop eating meat. They are mainly of ethic, economic and health type. Those who think in an ecological way should also be aware of how this meat consumption ruins our environment. I don’t have an intention to force anybody to become a vegetarian, but I hope that my argumentation would be strong enough to make some people think about it, at least. In this essay I will try to present this point of view, expressing my personal feelings and showing scientific facts about the problem.
In his article titled “Emotions, Truths And Meanings Regarding Cattle: Should We Eat Meat?” he states that eating meat is responsible for more greenhouse gases than transportation, land is destroyed through erosion by overuse, water and grain is wasted feeding animals instead of starving people, and fertilizers and pesticides used by farmers are ruining the environment (Korthals 625). Despite all this, Korthals stills believes there are many positive aspects of livestock farming that should not be abandoned. He says, “Do we not lose an important aspect of human–animal relationship, and livestock, when we reduce the use of meat to zero? Are pigs not just the animals par excellence to devour waste in a sustainable way? And when a cows eat grass, which no man can eat, will that not change the conversion?” (Korthals 627). Moreover, by taking advantage of the many useful things the bodies of livestock can offer us, the environment benefits and meat eaters benefit by gaining higher nutritional value than can be found in vegetables (Korthals 627). In