The Ethical Dilemma of Domestication in Modern Times

Everyone enjoys the comforts of domesticated animals. Whether it be the family dog, the fish

bowl in the corner, or the hamburger you have on Friday night, there is something for everyone

that sparks a little joy. Have you ever considered at what cost these glimmers of happiness come?

To some, it is the cost of adoption, feeding, and housing, to others, namely vegans and

vegetarians, it is the cost of their conscience. The goal of this paper is to have the reader

reconsider what charge these amenities come at. I would have the reader never look at a dog

exactly the same way, feel for the coy in the local pond, and see a hot dog as the result of

centuries of our topic; Domestication.

Have you ever wondered how a small, tame pug originated from a massive and ferocious wolf?

Humans have been domesticating animals since as far back as 11,000 years ago (Zeder), and in

that time animals have had countless generations to better adapt to life with humans.

Domestication is defined as “a process in which humans deliberately and with forethought

assume control over the domesticate's movement, protection, distribution, and, above all, its

breeding” (Zeder). In simpler terms, domestication as it relates to animals, is the care and

ownership of an animal. Over many centuries, the ancestors of the modern Grey Wolf were put

through domestication, and its result is the thousands of dog breeds we know and love today. At

its core, domestication is the harnessing of genetics by humans, the only question being at what

cost. Our many technologies and revelations do not come without a price. Oil spilling into the

ocean, vehicles spewing waste into the atmosphere, farms poisoning rivers, and corrupting the

atmosphere. Domestication is no exception. Today, animals are slaughtered by the billions, and

billions more are born to die (placeholder). These animals have no conception of a world that
does not consist of either a cage or a fence, cramped housing, and the same bland food mixture in

a troth every day (placeholder). Imagine for a moment that humans lived in a widely accepted

cannibalistic society, which breeds humans for the sole purpose of food. These people have no

knowledge of communication, technologies, the sky, or so much as a blade of grass. Many would

be quick to call this an atrocity. Remember, however, that for centuries humans kept other

humans as slaves, given no freedoms outside a roof over their heads and meager food and water

bowls. Slaves were kept alive for the sole purpose of completing a task for their master, and

nothing more. The slavers largely saw their slaves as less than themselves, perhaps only

three-fifths human. Is it such a stretch that, if society was led to believe that they were somehow

above these humans for slaughter, somehow born greater than them, then many would accept the

human flesh served to them on a plate? Factoring in how humans view animals as below

humans, this becomes a scarily possible reality. Of course, some would fight back, as many

anti-slavery persons did before, and as many vegans and vegetarians do today, but it can be

inferred that many would not. Happy to see themselves as greater than the rest. It is easy to label

this as an extreme, passing it off as an out-of-context example, wrong as this might be. However

what is an irrefutable fact, is that billions of beings are being held under these conditions, and

farmed for their flesh in incomprehensibly large numbers (placeholder). This would not be the

case, without domestication, which has allowed humans to encapture these animals, taming them

into a food and shelter stupor.

This paper would be remiss if it did not acknowledge that humans are indeed omnivores,

and have survived as a species because of the human ability to hunt and gather. This is not an

excuse, however, for the nature of which modern humans procure their meat. There is every

difference between the hunting of an animal which has lived freely its whole life, and who has
every opportunity of escape, and the butchering of an animal raised to be chow. In all but the

lowest of society, there is a pity in which one regards a defenseless man, perhaps disabled

mentally or physically. All but the lowest of the low do not attempt to attack or harm this person

for simply being. Domestication is in its own way a form of disability. Domesticated animals

have shown a profound difference in brain size when compared to their wild counterparts. For

example, pigs have shown as much as a 36.6% reduction in brain size in contrast to that of the

wild boar (Nicholas). This loss of brain function likely comes from the lack of necessity for the

brain (Zeder). When all of the body's needs are met, food, water, shelter, sex, etc, there is little

need for the brain to continue operating at a level at which it would need to in the wild.

Domestication has adapted farm animals to become as sedentary and stupid as can be, largely

through no fault of their own. Purposefully creating a lame animal so it cannot escape, having it

create even more lame animals, and then killing that lame animal at the creator’s leisure cannot

be seen as anything less than atrociously unethical. The process of survival of the fittest is

completely thrown to the curb and this has dire consequences for the animal. Comparing this

again to the meticulous planning and hunting of a wild animal for sustenance, there is no aspect

of this in domesticated farming, no aspect of being an omnivore.

The effects of domestication are not limited to livestock, as exemplified by the breeding

of dogs. Similarly to pigs, dogs have an estimated 30% less brain matter than their wolven

counterparts (Zeder). Their legs are shorter, their heads longer, their eyes larger. Dogs are no

exception to the drastic consequences of domestication. Importantly, having been bred for so

long, dogs have developed many genetic mutations resulting in hereditary diseases. The Great

Dane for example, the largest dog in the world, has been subject to hip dysplasia for as long as it

has existed, resulting in pain, arthritis, joint failure, and the resulting lameness (Pratt). As grand
and incredible as the creature is, domestication has often damned its life to misery from the time

it is born. Domesticated animals as a whole have proven to have more hereditary diseases and be

more susceptible to pathogens than their wild counterparts (Nicholas). Here again, domestication

ignores the law of survival of the fittest, and again the animals suffer as a result.

Many of these breeds, such as the previously discussed Pug, would have little to no chance of

survival in the wild, as a consequence of domestication. These animals are completely and totally

reliant on humans for their every need.

While it may not be wrong to own a pet or eat the occasional steak, what would be wrong

is to ignore the ramifications of how these commodities got to the enjoyer. Domestication has

dire repercussions on the animals it targets, both in their quality of life and in their purpose of

life. It would be dishonest to go about life without considering the history of suffering that has

gone into those moments of relish. Domestication will not go away overnight, nor should we

expect it to. What we should expect is to call attention to the sinful nature of the domestication

process. Our animals should be enjoyed without being destroyed, and our food should not come

from an animal grown for slaughter. Domestication and its results are categorically unethical,

and we as a society need to recalibrate how we view the process.

Works Cited

Pratt, Jennifer. “Great Dane Mobility Problems.” Walkin’ Pets Blog, 20 Dec. 2021,

www.handicappedpets.com/blog/great-dane-mobility-problems/#:~:text=Great%20Danes

%20and%20other%20large.
Zeder, Melinda A. “The Domestication of Animals.” Reviews in Anthropology, vol. 9, no. 4,

Sept. 1982, pp. 321–27, https://doi.org/10.1080/00988157.1982.9977605.

Lenczewska, Olga. “The Moral Difference between the Treatment of Domesticated Animals and

Wildlife.” pp. 1–3.

Kowalsky, Nathan. “Towards an Ethic of Animal Difference.” Environmental Philosophy, vol.

13, no. 2, 2016, pp. 239–68. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26169865.

Gamborg, Christian, “De-Domestication: Ethics at the Intersection of Landscape Restoration and

Animal Welfare.” Environmental Values, vol. 19, no. 1, 2010, pp. 57–78. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30302341.

Nicholas, Frank W. “Animal Breeding and Disease.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological

Sciences, vol. 360, no. 1459, 2005, pp. 1529–36. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30041365.