So I'm going to start with a slide that may disturb some of you. These are dogs who have been captured and rounded up and are going to be killed for their meat. It's part of the dog trade which exists in some countries in the world. Now, you probably think that this is a horrible image, that this is something that should not happen. What I want to persuade you of is that while of course, I agree with that, it's part of something that is far, far larger. And that is impossible to justify as a whole. And that while I doubt that anyone in this audience will be participating in the dog meat trade, I'm sure that most of the audience are likely to be participating in what I'm going to talk about.
我将从一张可能会打扰 你们中的一些人的幻灯片开始。 这些是被捕获并围捕的狗 并会因为肉而被宰杀。 这是狗贸易的一部分 存在于世界上一些国家。 现在,你可能认为 这是一个可怕的图像, 这是不应该发生的事情。 我想说服你什么 当然,我同意这一点, 它是更大得多的事物的一部分。 从整体上来说, 这是不可能证明其合理性的。 虽然我怀疑 观众中的任何人都会参与 在狗肉贸易中, 相信大部分观众都会参与其中 在我将要谈论的内容中。
In 1970, I was a graduate student at the University of Oxford, studying philosophy, specializing in ethics, interested in the big ethical questions of the day, things like the war in Vietnam, abortion, civil rights. But if you'd said to me, “And what about the ethics of how we treat animals?” I would have been taken aback. I would have said, "Well, what's the problem here? Of course I'm against cruelty, like any decent person would be, but there are laws against cruelty, so I just don't really see this as an issue."
1970年,我是 牛津大学的研究生, 学习哲学,专攻伦理学, 对当今重大的道德问题感兴趣, 比如越南战争、 堕胎、公民权利。 但如果你对我说, “那么我们对待动物 的道德规范又如何呢?” 我一定会大吃一惊。 我会说:“那么,这里有什么问题吗? 当然我反对残忍, 就像任何正派的人都会做的那样, 但有禁止残忍行为的法律, 所以我真的不认为这是一个问题。”
And then one day, after a class on a completely different topic, I happened to strike up a conversation with a Canadian graduate student called Richard Keshen. He invited me back to his college for lunch to continue the conversation. And when we were offered the hot meal of the day, which was spaghetti with a sauce on top, he asked if the sauce had meat in it. And when he was told that it did, he took the salad plate instead. I took the spaghetti, we sat down and ate. But at some point then after we'd finished our previous conversation, I said to him, "So what's your problem with meat?" You have to understand that it actually was very rare for anyone to meet a vegetarian in 1970.
然后有一天,在上完一个 完全不同主题的课后, 我碰巧开始交谈 和一位名叫 理查德·克申(Richard Keshen) 的加拿大研究生。 他邀请我回到他的大学 吃午餐并继续谈话。 当我们享用当天的热餐时, 这是意大利面条,上面有酱汁, 他问酱汁里是否有肉。 当他被告知确实如此时, 他拿走了沙拉盘。 我拿了意大利面,我们坐下来吃饭。 但在我们完成之前 的谈话之后的某个时刻 我对他说:“那你对肉有什么问题吗?” 你必须明白,这对任何人来说 实际上都是非常罕见的 1970年遇见一位素食主义者。
So Richard said something very simple, an explanation of why he wasn't eating meat. He said, "I don't think we're justified in treating animals the way in which they're treated in order to be turned into a food for us." And I said, "What exactly do you mean by that? Aren't they sort of just grazing in the fields and basically having a good life until, of course, you know, they get trucked the slaughterhouse and then they get killed? That's bad, but their life doesn't seem so bad to me." But he said, "No, that's not the case. Increasingly, many animals are being reared inside, in factory farms, and their lives are miserable because the only thing that matters is producing their meat, milk or eggs at the cheapest possible price."
所以理查德说了一些很简单的话, 解释他为什么不吃肉。 他说:“我认为我们 对待动物是不合理的 他们受到的待遇 以便变成我们的食物。” 我说:“你这到底是什么意思? 他们不就是在田野里吃草吗 基本上过着美好的生活, 直到,当然,你知道, 他们被卡车运到屠宰场然后被杀? 这很糟糕,但他们的生活对 我来说似乎并没有那么糟糕。” 但他说:“不,事实并非如此。 越来越多的动物被饲养在室内, 在工厂化农场, 他们的生活很悲惨 因为唯一重要的是生产肉、奶或蛋 以尽可能便宜的价格。”
So I decided I need to know more about this. And I did, and I found that what he was saying was correct. And then that started me thinking about, well, but surely there must be something that justifies us in using animals in this way. Because, you know, it was hard to imagine that I had, for all of my life up to that point, been doing something that was wrong. So as a philosophy student, I went back to the philosophers of the past.
所以我决定我需要更多地了解这一点。 我也这么做了,我发现他说的是对的。 然后我开始思考,嗯, 但肯定有一些东西 可以证明我们是正当的 以这种方式利用动物。 因为,你知道, 很难想象我有, 到那时为止我的一生 一直在做错事。 所以作为一名哲学学生,我回去了 对于过去的哲学家来说。
I started with ancient Greeks, but what I found wasn't convincing. So with Aristotle, for example, he said that the less rational are made for the more rational they serve that purpose. And so plants serve animals and animals serve humans. And the less rational humans, the so-called barbarians, serve the Greeks as slaves because Greeks, Aristotle thought, were more rational. Well, apart from the obvious objection to slavery, I was skeptical that the universe had this kind of grand purpose, grand scheme of creation that Aristotle was describing. It certainly wasn't the way Darwin had taught us to look at the world.
我从古希腊人开始, 但我的发现并不令人信服。 以亚里士多德为例, 他说,不那么理性 的人是为了更理性的人而生的 他们服务于这个目的。 因此,植物为动物服务, 动物为人类服务。 而越不理性的人类, 所谓的野蛮人, 作为奴隶服务希腊人 亚里士多德认为, 因为希腊人更加理性。 好吧,除了明显反对奴隶制之外, 我怀疑宇宙是否有如此宏伟的目的, 亚里士多德描述的宏伟的创造计划。 这当然不是达尔文 教我们看待世界的方式。
So I then went on to look at some later philosophers. I looked at Thomas Aquinas, who was hugely influential in the 13th century on the Catholic Church, and he drew from Aristotle, but he also drew from the verse of Genesis, where God says that he's giving us dominion over the animals. And essentially, he ended up saying that, because of this grant of dominion, we have no duties to animals. The only reason why we should not be cruel to animals, according to Aquinas, is that if we are, we may develop a disposition that makes us cruel to humans, and that would be bad. But the animals in themselves counted for zero, in accordance with Aquinas.
于是我又继续研究一些后来的哲学家。 我看着托马斯·阿奎那, 谁在13世纪具有巨大影响力 关于天主教堂, 他借鉴了亚里士多德的思想, 但他也引用了《创世记》的诗句: 上帝说他要给我们对动物的统治权。 本质上,他最后说 由于这种统治权的授予, 我们对动物没有义务。 阿奎那认为,我们不应该残忍 对待动物的唯一原因是: 如果我们是的话 我们可能会形成一种倾向 这让我们对人类变得残忍, 那会很糟糕。 但动物本身的价值为零, 按照阿奎那的说法。
You would think you couldn't get much worse than that. But Descartes, in a way, in the 17th century, was worse because he said that animals are not capable of feeling anything. They're just automata. They're just like very complicated clocks which have a mechanism that makes a noise. Except that God created the animals and the mechanism is more complex.
你会认为没有比这更糟糕的了。 但笛卡尔,在某种程度上, 在 17 世纪, 更糟糕的是, 他说动物没有感觉。 他们只是自动机。 它们就像非常复杂的时钟 具有发出噪音的机制。 除了上帝创造了动物 而且机理也比较复杂。
If we skip on to the 18th century, we find that Kant also said we have no duties to animals and that the only reason to be kind to them is to practice kindness towards humans. For him, though, the reason was that animals are not rational beings and therefore cannot be self-aware or make autonomous choices about what to do.
如果我们跳到 18 世纪 我们发现康德也说过 我们对动物没有责任 善待他们的唯一理由 就是要实践对人的仁慈。 但对他来说, 原因是动物不是理性的存在 因此无法自我意识 或者自主选择要做什么。
But I think the answer to this was given by Bentham towards the end of the 18th century when Bentham asked the question, "Can they reason? Or can they talk? That's not the question. The question is, can they suffer?" And I think Bentham was right. If a being can suffer, then that suffering matters, whether they're capable of reasoning or talking or not.
但我认为边沁给出了 这个问题的答案 18世纪末 当边沁提出这个问题时, “他们能推理吗? 或者他们可以说话吗? 这不是问题。 问题是,他们能受苦吗?” 我认为边沁是对的。 如果一个生命能够受苦, 那么受苦就很重要, 他们是否能够推理或说话。
And Bentham, in fact, really showed a lot of foresight when he looked at what the French revolutionaries had done in freeing slaves in the French colonies and said, "One day we'll discover that just as the color of a man's skin is no reason for abandoning him to the caprice of a tormentor, so whether a being has fur or a tail is similarly no reason for denying them rights." And that seems to me to have been a very prescient remark. And indeed, I think we have to agree with this view that pain is pain no matter what the species of the being who is suffering that pain.
事实上,边沁确实表现出了 很大的先见之明 当他看到法国革命者所做的事情时 解放法国殖民地的奴隶 并说道:“有一天我们会发现 就像一个人的肤色并不能 成为抛弃他的理由 面对施虐者的反复无常, 所以一个生物是否有毛皮 或尾巴同样没有理由 因为剥夺了他们的权利。” 在我看来,这是一个非常 有先见之明的言论。 确实, 我想我们必须同意这个观点 那痛苦就是痛苦 无论遭受这种痛苦的人是什么物种。
But when I thought about these philosophers, other than Bentham in particular, and the attitudes that were present in the society in which I was living, it reminded me of some other ways of thinking that we now reject. For example, the racism of the Europeans who thought that they were entitled to enslave Africans, transport them across to the new world and use them as tools for their purposes. And of course, they did that on the basis of an ideology that either insisted on differences between humans and Africans, which didn't exist, but also on a religious belief and interpretation of some aspects of the Bible that they thought justified them in slavery. And then we can also look at the ideology developed by men in order to justify their oppression of women and their denial of women of basic rights, including the right to vote, and in many cases to own property or essentially to be equals in a moral community.
但当我想到这些哲学家时, 特别是除了边沁之外, 以及社会上存在的态度 我所居住的地方, 它让我想起了其他一些思考方式 我们现在拒绝。 例如,欧洲人的种族主义 他们认为他们有权奴役非洲人, 将他们运送到新世界 并将它们用作实现其目的的工具。 当然,他们这样做是基于意识形态 要么坚持人类和非洲人之间的差异, 不存在的, 而且还基于宗教信仰和解释 圣经的某些方面 他们认为奴役是正当的。 然后我们还可以看看 男性发展起来的意识形态 为了证明他们压迫妇女的合理性 以及他们剥夺妇女 的基本权利,包括投票权, 在许多情况下拥有财产 或者在道德共同体中本质上是平等的。
And we can reject these ideas as racism and sexism and see them as ideologies. But I think that we need to think that as a species, we have a similar kind of ideological stance to non-human animals. And adopting a phrase that I saw from another Oxford person called Richard Ryder, we can refer to this as speciesism.
我们可以将这些想法视为 种族主义和性别歧视 并将它们视为意识形态。 但我认为我们需要考虑作为一个物种 我们与非人类动物有类似 的意识形态立场。 并采用我看到的一句话 来自另一位名叫 理查德·赖德的牛津人, 我们可以将其称为物种歧视。
So speciesism, the major form of it, says that humans are the ones who are morally important. We have a moral status, we have human rights, we have intrinsic dignity, we are all equal. But animals are not our equals, do not have dignity or rights that we do. And the main form of this kind of speciesism, of course, is that it puts us at the center of the moral universe, us humans. And if you're not a member of our species, you don't really count. So the boundary of moral concern runs identical to the boundary of our species. We can call that anthropocentric speciesism.
所以物种歧视,它的主要形式, 说人类在道德上是重要的。 我们有道德地位, 我们有人权, 我们有与生俱来的尊严, 我们都是平等的。 但动物与我们不等, 没有我们所拥有的尊严或权利。 当然,这种物种歧视的主要形式是 是它把我们人类 置于道德宇宙的中心。 如果你不是我们这个物种 的一员,那么你就不算数。 所以道德关怀的界限 与我们物种的边界相同。 我们可以称之为以人类 为中心的物种主义。
There's another kind of speciesism. And I want to come back to that slide that I showed you right at the start, of the dogs. If you think that this is wrong, but if you don’t think that something very similar is wrong -- These are pigs who are being transported to slaughter. And if you think that it's terrible to eat dogs, you would never eat dog meat, but you do eat meat from pigs, then I think you're a speciesist in the sense of you have a favorite species, probably because you have lived with a dog and perhaps you don't appreciate the intelligence of pigs. It wasn't for no reason at all that George Orwell made the pigs the leaders of the farm in his novel "Animal Farm." They are highly intelligent animals, and I really don't think that there are any reasons why we should regard it as OK to eat pigs, but not OK to eat dogs.
还有另一种物种歧视。 我想回到那张幻灯片 我一开始就向你展示过, 狗的。 如果你认为这是错误的, 但如果你不认为非常相似 的东西是错误的—— 这些是被运往屠宰场的生猪。 如果你觉得吃狗肉很糟糕 你绝对不会吃狗肉 但你确实吃猪肉, 那么我认为你是一个物种歧视者 从某种意义上说, 你有一个最喜欢的物种, 可能是因为你和狗住在一起 也许你不欣赏猪的智慧。 这并非无缘无故 乔治·奥威尔让猪成为农场的领袖 在他的小说《动物农场》中。 它们是高智商的动物, 我真的不认为有任何理由 为什么我们应该认为 吃猪肉是可以的, 但不能吃狗肉。
So what position should we adopt with regard to animals? The principle that I advocate is one of equal consideration of interests, or to be more specific, equal consideration of similar interests. So when beings are capable of feeling pain, then that pain should be given equal weight to how bad it is that a being is in pain, whether that being is a human or a non-human animal capable of feeling pain. The only thing that matters is how serious is the pain that the animal is feeling. But the crucial thing is that suffering is suffering. Pain is pain. And that's irrespective of the being whose pain it is. We're not justified in distinguishing, discriminating against those who may differ from us in some respects, but are capable of feeling pain as we do.
那么对于动物我们 应该采取什么立场呢? 我所倡导的原则 是利益平等考虑之一, 或者更具体地说, 平等考虑相似的利益。 所以当众生能够感受痛苦时, 那么疼痛应该得到同等的重视 一个人处于痛苦之中是多么糟糕, 该生物是否是人类 或能够感觉疼痛的非人类动物。 唯一重要的是疼痛有多严重 动物有感觉。 但最重要的是,痛苦就是痛苦。 痛苦就是痛苦。 这与遭受痛苦的人无关。 我们没有道理 在区分、歧视那些 他们在某些方面可能与我们不同, 但能够像我们一样感受到疼痛。
Now let's look at how important this is as an issue. I said at the start, this is a huge issue. And it's a huge issue because of the fact that we raise animals for food on a vast scale. And that, as I learned more than 50 years ago, but as is even more the case today, those animals are increasingly kept indoors in conditions that are not at all suitable to their interests and needs, that do not give them a good life, but give them what is essentially a miserable life.
现在让我们看看这个问题有多重要。 我一开始就说过, 这是一个大问题。 这是一个大问题,因为事实上 我们大规模饲养动物作为食物。 正如我 50 多年前了解到的那样, 但今天的情况更是如此 这些动物越来越多地被关在室内 在根本不适合他们的 兴趣和需要的条件下, 那些不能给他们带来美好生活的人, 但给他们的生活本质上是悲惨的。
So let's start with chickens. The largest number of the land-based animals, at least that we raise for food, are chickens, something like 70 billion chickens are raised for food each year. And this is a standard way in which virtually all of them are raised: indoors, extremely crowded as you see here, in a big shed.
那么我们就从鸡开始吧。 数量最多的陆生动物, 至少我们为食物而饲养, 是鸡,大约有 700 亿只鸡 每年都会被饲养来作为食物。 这是标准方法 其中几乎所有这些都是提出的: 室内,正如你所见,非常拥挤, 在一个大棚子里。
And as Professor John Webster, who's an eminent veterinarian who studied farmed animals, says, this is the single most severe and systematic cruelty that we inflict on non-human animals because there are so many of them. I think, in my view, the only rival for that would be raising fish in aquaculture or fish farms, because there, the numbers are even larger. Something like 120 billion fish are raised for food each year.
正如约翰·韦伯斯特教授所说, 他是一位研究养殖动物 的杰出兽医,他说, 这是最严重和系统性的残酷行为 我们对非人类动物造成的伤害 是因为它们的数量太多了。 我认为,在我看来, 唯一的竞争对手 将在水产养殖或养鱼场养鱼, 因为那里的数字更大。 每年大约有 1200 亿条鱼 被饲养作为食物。
So this is a chicken. This is actually a further explanation of what I said about why chickens are suffering, not just from crowding, but because they're bred to grow so fast that they put on weight very quickly before their immature leg bones are really able to support the way in which they have to stand. So that’s why Professor Webster said that it’s so painful, we’re inflicting so much cruelty on them, because they are in pain. He compared this to someone with arthritis having to stand all day despite the arthritis in their legs.
所以这是一只鸡。 这实际上是对我所说 内容的进一步解释 关于为什么鸡会受苦, 而不仅仅是因为拥挤, 但因为它们的生长速度如此之快 他们体重增加得很快 在他们不成熟的腿骨 真正能够支撑之前 他们必须采取的立场。 所以这就是为什么 韦伯斯特教授说这很痛苦, 我们对他们施加如此多的残忍, 因为他们正处于痛苦之中。 他将此与必须整天站立 的关节炎患者进行比较 尽管他们的腿患有关节炎。
So in the slide you just saw, you saw a chicken who was not standing but was lying on the litter on the floor of the shed. That chicken was there because the chicken's legs had collapsed under them and the chicken would have been unable to walk around and would have been unable to reach food or water. So the fate of that chicken was a slow and miserable death of dehydration or starvation in these huge chicken factories.
所以在你刚刚看到的幻灯片中, 你看到一只没有站着的鸡 但躺在棚屋地板上的垃圾上。 那只鸡在那里 因为鸡腿已经塌陷在它们下面了 鸡将无法走动 并且无法获得食物或水。 所以那只鸡的命运是缓慢而悲惨的死亡 脱水或饥饿 在这些巨大的养鸡工厂里
These are the chickens, hens, who lay eggs. They are kept in small wire cages, unlike the chickens raised for meat. There is no room in that standard battery cage for the hens to even stretch their wings fully, to walk around. And there's no possibility of the weaker, less aggressive birds getting away from the more aggressive ones which may peck them. And to prevent that, the birds routinely have the pointy end of their beak cut off without anesthetic, with a hot blade.
这些是下蛋的鸡、母鸡。 它们被关在小铁丝笼子里, 不像为了吃肉而饲养的鸡。 标准电池笼中没有空间 让母鸡能够完全伸展翅膀,四处走动。 也不存在弱者的可能性, 攻击性较弱的鸟会远离攻击性较强的鸟 这可能会啄它们。 为了防止这种情况发生, 这些鸟的喙尖通常会被砍掉 无需麻醉,用热刀片。
So these conditions have been outlawed in the entire European Union, in the United Kingdom and in some other countries. But sadly, in the majority of the United States, they are still entirely legal and they are practiced.
所以这些条件在整个欧盟都是非法的 在英国和其他一些国家。 但可悲的是,在美国大部分地区, 它们仍然完全合法并且得到实践。
So finally, let's talk about pigs. You already saw the pigs being trucked to slaughter. But the worst aspect of pig production is the treatment of their mothers. That is, the breeding sows whose role is simply to keep churning out piglets, more and more piglets throughout their lives until the rate at which they produce litters of piglets drops off and then they'll be sent to slaughter.
最后,我们来谈谈猪。 你已经看到猪被卡车运去屠宰了。 但生猪生产中最糟糕 的方面是其母亲的待遇。 也就是说,种母猪的作用 只是不断地生产仔猪, 一生中越来越多的仔猪 直到产仔数下降 然后他们就会被送去屠宰。
These are animals who naturally would live in a forest, would be spending their day roaming around, rooting for food, socializing with others in a small social group, or in the case of sows, looking after their piglets after they're born. The sows would want to build a nest of leaves and twigs before they give birth.
这些动物本来就生活在森林里, 他们会整天四处游荡,寻找食物, 在一个小的社交群体中 与其他人交往, 或者对于母猪来说, 照顾出生后的小猪。 母猪想要用树叶 和树枝建造一个巢 在他们分娩之前。
None of that is, of course, possible in a factory farm. They spend all their lives standing in this narrow stall, unable to turn around. They get fed. They can stand up and lie down. And when they do give birth, they're still on concrete, still tightly confined, and then their piglets are taken away from them at an early age so they can be made pregnant again. That's just another aspect of this gigantic factory-farm system which is inflicting a vast amount of suffering on, as I say, a total of about 200 billion vertebrate animals each year.
当然,这一切在工厂化农场里 都是不可能的。 他们一生都站在这个狭窄的马厩里, 无法转身。 他们吃饱了。 他们可以站起来,也可以躺下来。 而当她们生孩子的时候, 他们仍然在混凝土上, 仍然被严格限制, 然后他们的小猪在 很小的时候就被带走了 这样她们就可以再次怀孕。 这只是这个巨大的 工厂化农场系统的另一个方面 正如我所说, 这给人们带来了巨大的痛苦 每年脊椎动物总数约为2000亿只。
So it's important to realize that none of this is necessary to feed the world. In fact, it's a reverse of that. It's taking a lot of grain or soy, which we have to grow. We are clearing forests in order to grow more of that food. Clearing the Amazon, for example, to grow soy. And over three quarters of the world's soy crop is fed to animals, and in the process, the majority of the nutritional value of that soy is wasted. We could cause less damage to the environment, preserve more forests, more biodiversity, and avoid the local environmental pollution factory farms cause to water and air, while feeding the planet much better and reducing our impact on climate change.
所以重要的是要意识到 这些都不是养活世界所必需的。 事实上,情况恰恰相反。 它需要大量的谷物或大豆, 我们必须种植它们。 我们正在砍伐森林, 以便种植更多的食物。 例如,清理亚马逊河以种植大豆。 世界上四分之三以上 的大豆作物被用来喂养动物, 并且在这个过程中, 该大豆的大部分营养价值 都被浪费了。 我们可以减少对环境的破坏, 保护更多的森林, 更多的生物多样性, 并避免当地环境污染 工厂化农场对水和空气造成影响, 同时更好地养活地球 并减少我们对气候变化的影响。
So my first ask of you all is to not support factory farming, to not commit your dollars to buying the products of factory farms.
所以我首先问你们所有人 就是不支持工厂化农业, 不要把钱花在购买 工厂化农场的产品上。
Now, you might say, "What about going further? Should we stop eating animals at all?" This was taken at an organic farm not far from Princeton University, where I teach. And these calves are with their mothers. They are having an ideal life for their species at this point, though, of course, the calves are then going to be taken from their mothers, transported to slaughter and killed. Is that acceptable?
现在,你可能会说, “那再进一步呢? 我们应该完全停止吃动物吗?” 这是在距离普林斯顿大学不远 的一个有机农场拍摄的, 我教书的地方。 这些小牛犊和它们的母亲在一起。 他们现在正在过着他们 的物种的理想生活, 当然,虽然 然后小牛将被从它们 的母亲身边带走, 运至屠宰处宰杀。 这是可以接受的吗?
Well, it's not the way I want to live. I want to make a cleaner break with animal suffering and with the exploitation of animals. And to be honest, I don't want to have to look around very carefully to find sources of animal products like that that really I could be confident are treating their animals well, because a lot of products that appear to be humane are not all that good.
嗯,这不是我想要的生活方式。 我想彻底摆脱动物的痛苦 以及对动物的剥削。 说实话,我不想仔细环顾四周 寻找这样的动物产品来源 我真的可以有信心善待他们的动物, 因为很多看似人性化 的产品其实并不那么好。
But if you feel you really need animal products, OK, that's the way to go. And I want to welcome conscientious omnivores as allies in the fight against factory farming, which, as I say, is, for me, the prime thing to stop. The vast evil and unnecessary evil and polluting evil of factory farming.
但如果你觉得你真 的需要动物产品 好吧,这就是要走的路。 我想欢迎有责任心的杂食者 作为反对工厂化农业的盟友, 正如我所说,对我来说, 这是最应该停止的事情。 浩瀚的邪恶 以及不必要的邪恶 以及工厂化养殖的污染罪恶。
So that’s what I’d like you to join me in doing. But I think it's also important to be active citizens, not only to change your own diet and your habit, but to contact your political representatives, to join organizations that are working against factory farming and to support that cause in whatever way you can.
这就是我希望你和我一起做的事情。 但我认为成为积极的公民也很重要, 不仅要改变自己的饮食和习惯, 但要联系你的政治代表, 加入反对工厂化农业的组织 并尽你所能支持这一事业。
Thank you very much for listening and I look forward to your questions and discussion.
非常感谢您的聆听 我期待您的提问和讨论。
Chris Anderson: Peter, thank you so much. So provocative. Just looking at the shocking images that you show, I wonder whether a big part of the problem is just a form of almost sort of, collective denialism. How is it possible that a society as knowledgeable as ours can somehow engage in this collective denialism on the scale of what is actually happening?
克里斯·安德森: 彼得,非常感谢你。 太挑衅了。 光是看看你所展示 的令人震惊的图像, 我想知道问题的很大一部分是不是 这只是集体否认主义的一种形式。 像我们这样知识渊博 的社会怎么可能 可以以某种方式参与 这种集体否认主义 实际发生的情况的规模?
Peter Singer: It is a kind of denialism. You're right about that, and people have said to me, you know, when I talk about the arguments that I began with, they say, "Well, I do find that persuasive. But, you know, I don't want to look at those images. They're going to spoil my dinner." And obviously, they're saying, "Even if the arguments are persuasive, I'm not really going to change what I'm going to have for dinner." And I think that's evidence of the deep conservatism that people have about what they eat. That it's something they're very reluctant to change. It's part of our culture, it's part of some of our traditions. And if you do change and if your family and friends are still eating meat, you're going to be in the awkward position of at least implicitly suggesting that what they're doing is wrong when you order something differently. So I think it makes people a little bit uncomfortable.
彼得·辛格:这是一种否认主义。 你说得对, 人们对我说,你知道, 当我谈论我一开始的论点时,他们说, “嗯,我确实觉得这很有说服力。 但是,你知道,我不想看那些图像。 他们会破坏我的晚餐。” 显然,他们是在说, “即使这些论点很有说服力, 我真的不会改变晚餐吃什么。” 我认为这是根深蒂固 的保守主义的证据 人们对他们吃的东西有什么了解。 这是他们非常不愿意改变的事情。 这是我们文化的一部分 这是我们一些传统的一部分。 如果你确实改变了, 如果你的家人和朋友仍然吃肉, 你将会处于尴尬的境地 至少含蓄地暗示他们所做 的事情是错误的 当您订购不同的东西时。 所以我认为这会让人们有点不舒服。
I'm hopeful, though, that the recent rise in plant-based foods is going to make it easier to make that change, you know? If we can just increase the critical mass of normality a little bit further, I think it will be easier for people to stop the denialism and make the change.
不过我还是满怀希望 最近植物性食品的兴起 会让改变变得更容易,你知道吗? 如果我们能进一步增加 正态性的临界质量, 我认为人们会更容易停止否认主义 并做出改变。
CA: Suppose someone agrees with you that suffering wherever it is, is bad, kind of, equally bad, but is skeptical that actually animals do suffer as much. But can a chicken really suffer as much? There's this sort of feeling of, oh, that's a bird brain ... What is the evidence that a chicken actually can suffer deeply?
CA:假设有人同意你的观点, 无论痛苦在哪里, 很糟糕,有点,同样糟糕, 但怀疑动物是否真 的遭受同样的痛苦。 但鸡真的能承受这么大的痛苦吗? 有一种这样的感觉, 哦,那是鸟脑…… 有什么证据表明鸡实际上 可以承受很大的痛苦?
PS: This is one of the aspects in which there's actually been a lot more work over the 50 years since I'd started thinking about animals. And there have been studies that show that -- you mentioned this term bird brain -- that actually bird brains can be highly intelligent. There's the famous marshmallow experiments that have been done with human children where they learn that there's a marshmallow put in front of them on a plate, but if they don't eat this marshmallow for a certain number of minutes, they'll get a second marshmallow as well. And in fact, it turns out the chickens can also learn to wait and some chickens will wait for the additional food treat and not eat the one that's in front of them.
PS:这是一方面 实际上还有很多工作要做 自从我开始思考动物 已有 50 多年了。 有研究表明—— 你提到了这个词“鸟脑”—— 事实上,鸟类的大脑可以非常聪明。 这就是著名的棉花糖实验 对人类儿童做过的事 他们在那里得知有棉花糖 放在盘子里放在他们面前, 但如果他们在一定时间内 不吃棉花糖, 他们还会得到第二块棉花糖。 事实上,事实证明鸡也能学会等待 有些鸡会等待额外的食物 并且不吃他们面前的那个。
CA: And that's good evidence for sort of the intelligence of chickens. But I mean, just a level of suffering. We know kind of what the pain process is in a human brain. Is that same essential neural process there in chickens and does that give plausibility to the idea that therefore they’re probably suffering in the same way, or capable of it?
CA:这是鸡的智力的良好证据。 但我的意思是, 只是一定程度的痛苦。 我们知道人脑中的 疼痛过程是怎样的。 鸡身上也有同样的基本神经过程吗 这是否让这个想法变得合理 因此他们可能正以同样的方式受苦, 或有能力吗?
PS: Yes, it does. It's a central nervous system going to a brain with nerves that function in roughly the same way. Obviously, a common evolutionary origin that all vertebrates have. And I personally have no doubt that chickens suffer from physical pain and there's lots of reactions and behavior showing that they do.
PS:是的,确实如此。 这是一个通往大脑的中枢神经系统 神经的功能大致相同。 显然,所有脊椎动物 都有共同的进化起源。 我个人毫不怀疑鸡会遭受身体疼痛 有很多反应和 行为表明他们确实如此。
Maybe I'll mention, as you've asked that question, there's been some debate in the past about fish because their brains are somewhat differently organized. But again, in more recent years, there's been a lot of research done on fish. There's a book by Victoria Braithwaite, a major fish researcher of pain, and this work by Lynne Sneddon that shows, I think, very clearly, that fish feel pain. Their behavior shows, when they have painful stimuli, the changes and interestingly, when we give them pain relief of the kind that we would take, you know, painkillers, their behavior moves back to normal as it does with us.
也许我会提到, 正如你所问的问题, 过去关于鱼有一些争论 因为他们的大脑组织有些不同。 但话又说回来,近年来, 人们对鱼类进行了大量研究。 维多利亚·布雷斯韦特 写了一本书, 她是一位主要的鱼类疼痛研究人员, 我认为林恩·斯内登 的这部作品非常清楚地表明, 那条鱼感到疼痛。 他们的行为表明, 当他们受到痛苦的刺激时, 会发生变化 有趣的是,当我们给他们缓解疼痛时 就是我们会服用的那种, 你知道,止痛药, 他们的行为会像我们一样恢复正常。
CA: But isn't it true to say that, at least with some aqua farming, aquaculture, that fish aren't raised in quite as sort of, antithetical conditions to how, you know, they can swim freely as opposed to being crammed in a cage, for example. Does that count to some extent as sort of, you know, the same sort of ethic as the sort of conscious omnivore that you were talking about or not really?
CA:但是,至少对于一些 水产养殖来说,这不是真的吗? 水产养殖,鱼的养殖方式不一样, 你知道,他们如何 自由游泳的对立条件 例如,而不是被塞在笼子里。 这在某种程度上算不算,你知道, 与有意识的杂食动物相同的道德 你说的是不是真的?
PS: No, I don't ... No, I really don't think any form of aquaculture is comparable with being a conscientious omnivore. They're very crowded. They swim in circles, I think, because they have instincts to swim further distances, certainly, obviously salmon swim across the oceans. And, you know, we know less about fish stress, but it seems pretty clear that they're stressed. Often they develop, because of the crowding, they have sea lice infestation. For fish who are raised in nets in the sea, it’s a major problem and clearly causes them suffering.
PS:不,我不... 不,我真的不认为 任何形式的水产养殖 相当于一个有责任心的杂食动物。 他们非常拥挤。 我想他们会绕圈游, 因为它们有游更远距离 的本能,当然, 显然鲑鱼会游过海洋。 而且,你知道, 我们对鱼类压力知之甚少, 但很明显他们压力很大。 通常,由于拥挤,它们会发展, 他们有海虱感染。 对于海里网养的鱼来说, 这是一个大问题 并明显给他们带来痛苦。
And of course, there's no humane slaughter at all. I mean, at least for animals in factory farms, they get trucked to slaughter, and the slaughter houses are terrible places. But the actual moment where they're killed, they're supposed to be stunned. The stunning doesn't always work, particularly for chickens. But they're supposed to be stunned. But with fish, there are no regulations requiring them to be stunned before they're being killed. So the methods of slaughter are very painful.
当然,根本没有人道的屠杀。 我的意思是,至少对于 工厂化农场的动物来说, 他们被卡车运去屠宰, 屠宰场是可怕的地方。 但在他们被杀的那一刻, 他们应该感到震惊。 击晕并不总是有效, 尤其是对鸡来说。 但他们应该感到震惊。 但对于鱼来说, 没有规定要求将它们击晕 在他们被杀之前。 所以宰杀的方式是非常痛苦的。
CA: Wow. Well, I can feel a lot of people, members, saying, "Oh, no, that was the one source of protein I was hopeful I could keep."
CA:哇。 嗯,我能感觉到很多人、 成员们都在说, “哦,不,这是我希望能够保留 的蛋白质来源之一。”
PS: There's plenty of others.
PS:还有很多其他的。
CA: Frank would like to know, "If we were successful in resisting factory farming, how could employees of factory farms sustain their livelihoods?"
CA:弗兰克想知道, “如果我们成功抵制工厂化农业, 工厂化农场的员工如何维持生计?”
PS: Well, for one thing, factory farms have cheap products, partly because they have extremely poorly-paid labor and not a huge quantity of it. They often employ undocumented immigrants who they can exploit more ruthlessly and pay less to. It's very unpleasant work because being inside these factory farms is very unpleasant. I've been into a chicken farm, for example, and the first thing you notice is your eyes start to sting and your throat hurts because there's so much ammonia in the air from the droppings of the birds. Birds have to live with that all the time. But the workers just go in there as briefly as they can. So, yes, obviously, those jobs would disappear, but ... As I say, they're pretty undesirable jobs. There's a huge churn. Basically, they're employing new people all the time because the old ones leave. So the workers who can't stand it for very long typically are getting other jobs anyway. And hopefully they're getting better jobs. And hopefully we would have an expanding plant-based food industry and there would be more jobs in those industries.
PS:嗯,一方面, 工厂化农场的产品很便宜, 部分原因是他们的劳动力报酬极低 而且数量不是很大。 他们经常雇用无证移民 他们可以更无情地剥削谁, 并支付更少的钱。 这是非常不愉快的工作 因为在这些工厂化农场里 是非常不愉快的。 举例来说,我去过一个养鸡场, 你注意到的第一件事 是你的眼睛开始刺痛 你的喉咙痛 因为空气中含有大量来自 鸟类粪便的氨。 鸟类必须一直忍受这一点。 但工人们只是尽可能 简单地进入那里。 所以,是的,显然, 这些工作将会消失, 但 ... 正如我所说, 它们是非常不受欢迎的工作。 有一个巨大的流失。 基本上,他们一直在雇用新员工, 因为老员工离开了。 所以那些不能长时间忍受的工人通常 无论如何,都会找到其他工作。 希望他们能找到更好的工作。 希望我们的植物性食品 行业能够不断扩大 这些行业将会有更多的就业机会。
CA: So, Peter, I want to shift topic for a minute. You've entered controversial waters many times in your life as a utilitarian philosopher, and especially over the issue of disability and how to think about that in our culture. We have a member, Christian Bayerlein, who actually was a speaker at the last conference where he flew a drone around the audience using muscles. He has this question to you, "Peter, as a German native with a physical disability, I've had the privilege to inspire many through my works as a disability rights advocate. From a society that couldn't see my potential at birth, I'm driven by the principle enshrined in our basic law. Human dignity is inviolable. I firmly believe in universal kindness that should extend to all beings, including humans, irrespective of our abilities. So reflecting on our shared history, especially the dark times of involuntary euthanasia in my home country, I'm interested in your evolving thoughts on disability rights." Peter, perhaps you could just give a background to this controversy and what your evolving thoughts are on this issue.
CA:彼得,我想转移一下话题。 你一生中多次进入有争议的水域 作为一个功利主义哲学家, 尤其是在残疾问题上 以及如何在我们的 文化中思考这一点。 我们有一位成员, 克里斯蒂安·拜尔莱因 谁实际上是上次会议的发言人 他用肌肉驾驶无人机围绕观众飞行。 他有这个问题问你, “彼得,作为一名身体残疾的德国人, 我有幸激励了很多人 通过我作为残疾人权利倡导者的工作。 来自一个一出生 就看不到我潜力的社会, 我们的基本法所载 的原则是我的动力。 人的尊严不受侵犯。 我坚信普世慈悲应该惠及一切众生, 包括人类,无论我们的能力如何。 因此反思我们共同的历史, 尤其是在我的祖国 非自愿安乐死的黑暗时期, 我对你对残疾人权利不断变化 的想法很感兴趣。” 彼得,也许你可以简单介绍一下 这场争论的背景 以及您对这个问题不断变化的想法。
PS: Yes, thank you. I have long been an advocate, as somebody studying and then a professor of bioethics, I've been an advocate of choice in dying. I welcome the fact that in many countries now and in some states of the United States, people are able to ask a physician for assistance in dying, when they, let's say, are terminally ill or incurably ill and don't want to live further. And their quality of life has fallen to a level that they consider unacceptable. A physician can either give them a lethal injection in some countries or in others can prescribe a drug that they can take to end their life. And I welcome that. I think that, again, eliminates completely pointless suffering and gives people more autonomy and choice about how they die.
PS:是的,谢谢。 我长期以来一直是一名倡导者, 作为一个研究的人 然后是生物伦理学教授 我一直是选择死亡的倡导者。 我欢迎这样一个事实: 现在在许多国家 在美国的一些州, 人们可以向医生寻求死亡帮助, 比如说,当他们身患绝症或不治之症时 并且不想再活下去了。 他们的生活质量下降了一个水平 他们认为不可接受的。 在一些国家, 医生可以给他们注射死刑 或者其他人可以开一种药物 来结束自己的生命。 我对此表示欢迎。 我认为这又完全消除了 毫无意义的痛苦 并给予人们更多的自主权 以及他们如何死亡的选择。
But there are also circumstances where an infant may be born with a very severe disability, which means that their lives are going to be ones with a lot of suffering and perhaps without redeeming features because they're not going to live very long anyway. They may only be going to live months or a year or two, but with a disability that perhaps causes them pain or suffering or at least doesn't allow them to have enjoyable lives.
但也有一些情况 婴儿出生时可能患有 非常严重的残疾, 这意味着他们的生活将是不同的 带着很多痛苦 也许没有可兑换的功能 因为无论如何他们都活不了多久。 他们可能只能活几个月、一两年 但患有可能导致他们 痛苦或痛苦的残疾 或者至少不允许 他们过上愉快的生活。
And in those circumstances, doctors will often ask parents if they wish to have the child resuscitated if the child needs assistance in breathing. Like, if the child is on a respirator. And the parents then have a choice of saying no, you know, "Now that we understand the future for our child, we think it's better that the child should die now rather than live to the end of their life, whenever that might be." And that seems to be widely accepted. It's certainly practiced in neonatal intensive care units all over the world. That is, of course, a decision to say it's better that a human being should die than live because of the nature of that being's severe disability.
在那种情况下, 医生经常会询问父母 如果他们想让孩子复苏 如果孩子需要呼吸帮助。 就像,如果孩子戴着呼吸器。 然后父母可以选择拒绝,你知道, “既然我们了解了孩子的未来, 我们认为孩子现在就死掉比较好 而不是活到生命的尽头, 无论什么时候。” 这似乎被广泛接受。 世界各地的新生儿重症监护病房 肯定都在实行这种做法。 当然,这是一个决定 人死总比活好 因为该生物的严重残疾的性质。
And if that's the decision, which I think is a defensible decision, then I think if the baby doesn't need any life support, like, doesn't need a respirator to breathe, but otherwise has just the same very unfortunate prognosis, the parents should also be able to make that choice. They should say to the doctor, "We think that it's better that our child should not live. Can you make sure that our child dies without suffering?" They might want to hold the child while that happens. That certainly happens when respirators are withdrawn.
如果这就是决定的话 我认为这是一个合理的决定 那么我想如果宝宝 不需要任何生命支持的话 就像,不需要呼吸器来呼吸, 但除此之外还有同样非常不幸的预测, 父母也应该能够做出这样的选择。 他们应该对医生说: “我们认为我们 的孩子最好不要活下去。 你能确保我们的孩子死得不痛苦吗?” 发生这种情况时, 他们可能想抱住孩子。 当呼吸器被撤走时, 这种情况肯定会发生。
So I think that can be a good ending. It does suggest that some lives, people with disabilities, are so bad that it's better that they die. Some people have accused me of ableism for believing that, but I think it's just very hard to deny that when we look at some of the worst of these situations.
所以我认为这可能是一个好的结局。 它确实表明有些人的生活, 残疾人, 太糟糕了,他们最好死掉。 有些人指责我体能歧视,因为我相信, 但我认为很难否认这一点 当我们看到其中一些最糟糕的情况时。
CA: But isn't part of the issue here that it's so hard as an outsider to know? Like, isn't there a risk that we're influenced by our sort of, physical, just instincts of, you know, you see someone who looks not like we expect them to look and you sort of gasp and think, "Oh, that's going to be awful. And I can't imagine raising that child." And yet, roll the clock forward 20 years and you discover that actually that child has an amazing life. It was interesting talking to Christian at TED, I mean, he spoke about the deep life satisfaction he has had. And there are many, many, you know, "disabled people" who feel the same way.
CA:但是问题的一部分 不就是外人很难知道吗? 比如说,没有风险吗 我们受到我们的身体本能的影响, 你知道,你看到的人看起来 不像我们期望的那样 你会喘口气并想: “哦,那太糟糕了。 我无法想象抚养那个孩子。” 但是, 将时钟拨快20年 你发现实际上那个孩子 的生活很精彩。 在 TED 与 Christian 交谈很有趣, 我的意思是,他谈到了 他对生活的深深满足。 还有很多很多,你知道, “残疾人”也有同样的感觉。
It's a sort of such a fine line between the sort of, the reasonableness of your opinion, which I think a lot of people would respond to, and just feeling like you're being somehow callous about the incredible potential of these babies.
这是一种微妙的界限, 你的意见的合理性, 我想很多人都会回应 只是感觉你有点冷酷无情 关于这些婴儿令人难以置信的潜力。
PS: I don't agree that I'm being callous. I think, in fact, it's callous to refuse to make a decision in a case where the evidence suggests and the medical advice is and you can certainly go beyond the medical advice and talk to parents of children who've had this condition that your child now has. I welcome, I think it's wise to get the broadest range of opinion and information that you can, including from the disability community. But I think to just say, "Well, we can't make a decision" or even just to say as is part of that basic law in the German constitution, you know, human dignity is inviolable and to end a human life -- this is not in that clause, but people might extrapolate -- to end a human life is a violation of human dignity, I think that's callous. I think it's saying, you know, to say you've got to go on living no matter what the prospects are, is to turn yourself away from the great likelihood that there'll be far more suffering.
PS:我不同意我冷酷无情。 我认为,事实上, 拒绝做出决定是无情的 在有证据表明的情况下 医疗建议是 你当然可以超越医疗建议 并与患有这种疾病的孩子的父母交谈 您的孩子现在拥有的。 我欢迎, 我认为获得最广泛的意见是明智的 以及您可以提供的信息, 包括来自残疾人社区的人。 但我想只想说, “好吧,我们无法做出决定” 甚至只是说这是基本法的一部分 在德国宪法中,你知道, 人的尊严不可侵犯, 结束人的生命—— 这不在该条款中, 但人们可能会推断—— 结束人的生命是对人的尊严的侵犯, 我认为这很冷酷无情。 我想它是在说,你知道, 说无论前景如何你都必须继续生活 就是让自己远离巨大的可能性 将会有更多的痛苦。
CA: OK, so we're going to move on from this for now. But if someone wants to dig in deeper, there's an amazing piece in "The New York Times" from 2003 that was a conversation or multiple conversations between Peter and a disability rights activist and just, the level of nuance with which that was conducted, to me, it's an extraordinary example of how, I don't know, how we could do a better job of bridging between difficult, controversial views, as opposed to the instinct of just slamming to judgment.
CA:好的,我们现在 就从这个话题开始吧。 但如果有人想深入挖掘的话 2003 年《纽约时报》 上有一篇精彩的文章 这是一次对话或多次对话 彼得和残疾人权利活动家之间 只是,进行的细致程度, 对我来说,这是一个非凡的例子, 我不知道我们怎样才能做得更好 在困难的、有争议的 观点之间架起桥梁, 而不是直接做出判断的本能。
Peter, I think I'd like just to almost give you a chance just to wrap things up there. Like, is this a battle that we can win in the sort of, next 30 or 40 years? Do you think that humanity's capable of doing this?
彼得,我想我想给你一个机会 只是为了把事情包起来。 就像,这是一场我们能赢的战斗吗? 在接下来的 30 年或 40 年里? 你认为人类有能力做到这一点吗?
PS: I think we can. Would be wonderful if I was still around to see it, I probably won't be, but I think we're making progress. But I think we can, I think we have been, over the centuries, if you look back, evolving morally in terms of pushing out the boundaries of the moral circle from the tribe to the nation to the race and now to all humans and starting to cross that boundary to all sentient beings. So, yes, I end up being an optimist on this, that we can build a critical mass and eventually eating meat, or certainly at least eating factory-farmed meat, will become something that is as socially unacceptable as, let's say, smoking indoors at a dinner party. Or, you know, there have been many other important moral changes that we've made, obviously we've changed attitudes to gays, for example. That's a big moral revolution, not complete, but getting there. And I think we can complete those past ones and develop the moral revolution in extending our concern to all creatures capable of suffering.
PS:我想我们可以。 如果我还在身边的话那就太好了 我可能不会,但我认为 我们正在取得进展。 但我想我们可以, 我想我们几个世纪以来一直 如果你回顾过去, 就会发现道德 在突破界限方面不断发展 道德圈的 从部落到民族再到种族 现在对全人类来说 并开始跨越一切众生的界限。 所以,是的, 我最终对此持乐观态度, 我们可以建立一个 临界质量并最终吃肉, 或者至少吃工厂化养殖的肉, 将会成为社会不可接受的事情 比如说,在晚宴上在室内吸烟。 或者,你知道,我们还做出了 许多其他重要的道德改变, 例如,显然我们已经改变了 对同性恋的态度。 这是一场重大的道德革命, 尚未完成,但已经实现。 我想我们可以完成那些过去的事情 并开展道德革命, 将我们的关注扩展到所有生物 有能力受苦。
CA: Perfectly said. I love this notion of us persuading each other to kind of raise our game. Peter Singer, thank you for your life's work. It's been an extraordinary journey. You've really done an amazing job of using the power of reason to change people's minds. And I think you'll go down in history for it.
CA:说得很好。 我喜欢我们互相说服对方提高 我们的水平的想法。 彼得·辛格,谢谢你毕生的努力。 这是一次非凡的旅程。 你真的做到了 利用理性的力量改变人们 的想法是一项了不起的工作。 我想你会因此载入史册。
Thank you all, take care.
谢谢大家,保重。
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