批判後現代人類消費行為中工廠動物遭受不必要之苦難

Critiquing Farmhouse Animals' ''Unnecessary Suffering'' through Postmodern Human Consumption Behaviors

即便工廠動物的生存權及生活環境已在全球受到矚目，仍然未明的議題是工廠動物如何因為後現代人類的消費飲食習慣而承受不必要之苦難，且因何在人類生活中被置於底層?自從一九七五年彼得•辛格提出動物解放概念以來，人類道德考量中的動物權一直不停辯論，主要原因有以下幾點。首先，動物有感知能力，他們也有能力受苦；第二，工廠動物是人類的附屬品；第三、討論動物倫理無疑挑戰人類作為物種金字塔頂端之論述。本文重新思考並重新定義動物與人類恆久以來之關係並試圖挑戰希伯來文明傳統中的論述，一貫將動物視為他者，在後現代消費模式中更是造就工廠裡的動物不必要的苦難。文章理論框架係採用堤摩西•佩琪瑞(Timothy Pachirat)的動物倫理觀念:《每十二秒》中的「距離」與「隱藏」來闡述動物因後現代人類飲食消費習慣而產生連動之關係。本文作者透過紀錄片食品帝國、彼得•沃爾勒本的《動物的內在生命:愛、悲愴、同情心—隱藏世界中的驚奇觀察》，以及諾貝爾文學獎得主南非作家柯慈的《動物的生命》來佐證並挑戰傳統人類至上的思維並帶出動物也會如人類一般受難，因此雖為非人物種也理應受到道德及同理心對待。最後，動物工廠裡的動物最終是否最終能得到解放而免於人類因飲食習慣加諸的痛苦而受害，我們不得而知，但可以肯定的是，動物的確具有如人一樣的情感感知能力，如恐懼、不安及創傷經驗。

Despite the fact that farm animals' survival rights and living conditions have gradually attracted the public's attention worldwide, it remains unclear to most consumers and citizens exactly how and why those animals suffer unnecessarily through postmodern human consumption behaviors, methods, and practices. Within most modern industrialized societies, animals continue to be perceived as existing at the bottom of the chain of living beings. Since Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation, the issue of animal rights as a legitimate human moral consideration has been analyzed, probed, and debated. Some key topics in the ongoing discussions include such matters as animal sentience, cognition, and emotions; the ownership and stewardship of animals; and the moral and ethical consequences that acknowledgment of animal rights may have for human rights, freedom, and dignity. Aiming to rethink and redefine human and animal relations, this paper focuses on religious and cultural traditions that frame animals as the Other, and scrutinizes how the animals’unnecessary suffering has been caused by human consumption systems, practices, and behaviors. The concepts of distance, concealment, and“politics of sight”developed by Timothy Pachirat in his 2011 ethnographic study of industrialized slaughterhouses Every Twelve Seconds serve as useful tools to decode and deconstruct cultural representations of the processed animal. Further insights and strategies emerge in an examination of such works as director Robert Kenner’s 2008 documentary film Food, Inc.; Peter Wohlleben's 2017 book The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion―Surprising Observations of a Hidden World; and J. M. Coetzee's 1999 novella The Lives of Animals. Ultimately, it remains unresolved whether animals could be fully and thoroughly liberated from pain and afforded more dignity when they are slaughtered for human consumption. However, increasing neuroscientific evidence confirms that farm animals share capacities for emotional experiences similar to those of humans. Those animals undergo fear and anxiety, and suffer trauma. Therefore, they deserve human moral sympathy and consideration.