Creating Moral Sentiments and Attitudes towards Farm Animals

Saara Kupsala
Dissertation submitted in part completion 
of the MA in Environment, Culture and Society
Lancaster University
September 2002
	Abstract

This dissertation analyses how moral sentiments and attitudes towards farm animals are created in late modern societies. It is analysed how farm animals are constructed as fellow beings, towards which people feel moral responsibilities, and as distant others, which are outside of a moral community. It is argued that several policy and consumption changes indicate that moral concern towards farm animals has increased from the 1970s onwards. Moral relations to farm animals are analysed in three contexts: in the contexts of consumption, production and science. It is argued that moral concern of urban consumers has increased in late modernity because media have increasingly provided spaces to contest animal welfare issues. The second reason is that the association between meat and health has weakened and thus instrumental uses of animals are seen less justified than previously. When moral attitudes towards farm animals are analysed in the second context, in the context of production, it is claimed that the rationalisation of food industry and farming tend to create moral indifference towards animals among employees and farmers. In particular, several differences in moral relations between extensive and intensive farmers are found. Finally, it is argued that farm animal sciences tend to create both moral concern by constructing animals as beings with complex welfare requirements and moral indifference by constructing animals as objects without mental experiences. However, from the 1970s onwards, farm animal welfare issues have begun to get more central place in farm animal sciences. 

	List of Contents

Introduction	1
1.	The sociology of human-animal relations	3
2.	Moral character of human-animal relations	5
3.	Animal farming and increase in animal welfare concerns	8
4.	Moral attitudes among urban consumers	13
4.1	Modernisation and the development of the modern dilemma	13
4.2	Making moral visibility	16
4.3	Contesting modern justification	20
5.	Moral relations and the rationalisation of livestock production	22
5.1	Employees in food industry	23
5.2	Moral sentiments among farmers	25
Farm animal sciences	28
Conclusion	31
References	33

Introduction

Ambivalence seems to characterise human-animal relations in contemporary societies. For instance, different ways to treat companion animals and farm animals are found acceptable. There has been also a lot of public controversy about farm animal issues. People have debated about farm animal welfare issues, and the consumption of free range and organic products, as well as vegetarianism, has increased. 
In this dissertation I examine how moral sentiments and attitudes towards farm animals are socially created in late modern societies. How are farm animals constructed as fellow beings, towards which one feels a moral responsibility, and how they are constructed as distant others, outside of a moral community? How the moral status, welfare and harm of farm animals are contested? 
In the first section I will discuss about the recent academic interest in human-animal relations. I explain what my perspective – the sociology of human animal relations – means. In the second section I will discuss about theories of morality and what the social creation of moral sentiments and attitudes means. In the third section I describe the intensification of farming and show that from the 1970s onwards there has been a growing interest in farm animal welfare issues. 
I will analyse the social creation of moral relations to farm animals in three contexts: in the contexts of consumption, production and science. In the fourth section I will discuss about the experiences of urban consumers. I will argue that moral concern towards farm animals among urban people has increased because the resolutions to a modern dilemma are weakening. The modern dilemma means a conflict between modern sensibilities and the material use of animals. I will shortly explain how this dilemma was established during modernisation. I will argue that the first resolution – constructing animals as invisible – is weakening because media have increasingly provided spaces to contest farm animal welfare issues. In addition, I will claim that the second resolution – the justification to use farm animals for modern progress – is weakening because meat is increasingly associated with health risks. 
In the fifth section I will discuss about the rationalisation of farming and food industry. I will argue that the rationalisation tends to create moral indifference towards farm animals. I show this by comparing how extensive and intensive farmers relate with animals. Finally, I will discuss about farm animal sciences. These sciences tend to create both moral concern by constructing animals as beings with complex welfare requirements and moral indifference by constructing animals as objects without mental experiences. However, from the 1970s onwards farm animal welfare issues have begun to get more central place in farm animal sciences. 

1. The sociology of human-animal relations
In recent years there has been a growing sociological interest to analyse human-animal relations. Sociologists have used various theoretical and methodological approaches to analyse animal issues. For example, sociologists have analysed modernisation and postmodernisation and changes in human-animal relations (Franklin 1999), ambivalent attitudes and feelings towards animals in animal experimentation laboratories and other contexts (Arluke 1988 and 1994; Arluke and Sanders 1996; Phillips 1994), social construction of animals in sciences (Crist 1999; Scarce 1997 and 2000), and symbolic interaction with animals (Alger and Alger 1997 and 1999; Flynn 2000; Sanders 1999). 
This new sociological interest in animal issues is a part of wider trend in social sciences and humanities to study human-animal relations. There have been approaches from a variety of disciplines, such as anthropology, criminology, cultural studies, feminist studies, geography, history, law and philosophy. The interdisciplinary field of the studies of human-animal relations is institutionalising, with new research centres, organisations, teaching programmes, and journals of Anthrozoös and Society and Animals. 
I call this recent sociological interest in the study of animal issues as the sociology of human-animal relations, borrowing the term from Franklin (1999). I consider it as a subfield of sociology, which applies theories and methodologies developed in sociology at large. From this sociological perspective, it is asked what is a social base of human-animal relations, how can we analyse social forces that produce and reproduce these relations, and how can we use ‘sociological imagination’ (Mills 1959) to locate individual cases and experiences to larger social, cultural and historical contexts (Arluke and Sanders 1996: 5, 167; Franklin 1999: 1).
Sociologists have historically been silent about animal questions and ignored how animals figure in human life (Arluke and Sanders 1996: 2; Flynn 2001). The reason may be found in the formation of sociology at the end of the nineteenth century. In that time sociologists wanted to create a distinct area of focus for the discipline, namely a human society. They adopted the division of labour between social and natural sciences, constructing society and nature as separate (Irwin 2001).
The silence of animal issues in sociology may imply that besides applying concepts created in sociology, there may be need to create new concepts and to reassess some traditional concepts in sociology. In particular, there is need to rethink how humans, animals and human/animal distinctions, as well as society/nature distinctions, are constructed in sociology (comp. Irwin 2001: 11-12). For example, Crist (1999: 202-222) has discussed how sociologists conventionally have accepted an action/behaviour distinction. In this distinction the realm of humans is meaningful action and the realm of animals is non-intentional behaviour. Similarly, in symbolic interactionist theories, animals have been seen as unable to symbolise and, thus, lacking a self-concept and a sense of time and other capacities associated with linguistic facility (Alger and Alger 1997 and 1999; Arluke and Sanders 1996: 42). 
There are at least two reasons why it is important to study human-animal relations sociologically. Firstly, animals figure so centrally in human social life that the lack of analysis reduces understandings of human experiences and behaviours. For example, many people create strong bonds with companion animals, animals are represented various ways in media and other cultural products, such as fairy tales and comics, and animal welfare issues are continuously debated in public policy and political arenas. As Arluke and Sanders (1996: 4) write,
Studying animals and human interactions with them enables us to learn about ourselves as social creatures. It will show us, among other things, how meaning is socially created in interaction, even with nonhumans; how we organise our social world; and how we see our connection (or lack of it) to other living things. It may even reveal our most essential conceptions of social order and our most authentic attitudes towards people.
Secondly, in addition to this scholarly reason, there are also practical reasons. Academic interest in human-animal relations has often started from a critical position of current human-animal relations. For example, researchers in cultural studies (Baker 1993), feminist studies (e.g. Adams 1990; Adams and Donovan 1995; Bryld and Lykke 1999) and geography (Wolch and Emel 1998) have been relatively committed to animal advocacy movements. This approach is similar to environmental studies, feminist studies, and race critical studies that have been developed in environmental, feminist and ethnicity movements. 
In sociology there have been various positions to animal advocacy. Often relatively intermediate positions have been searched. For example, Arluke and Sanders (1996) see a task of sociology to contribute to highly polarised debates and policy questions on animal issues by providing new concepts and knowledge on human-animal relations. For example, sociologists can create more understanding about what actually happens in animal research laboratories and how people relate with animals there, and thus demystify some elements of animal experimentation controversy. 
How farm animal issues are studied in sociology? Sociologists have tended to analyse laboratory animals (Arluke 1988, 1994 and 1996a; Phillips 1993 and 1994), companion animals (Flynn 2001; Sanders 1999), hunting and angling (Franklin 1999 and 2001) and scientific constructions of animals (Crist 1999; Scarce 1997 and 2000). There has been also food sociological analysis of vegetarianism and symbolism of meat (e.g. Twigg 1983; Beardsworth and Keil 1992), but these do not directly address how humans perceive and relate to farm animals. Only Franklin (1999) has discussed farm animals in relatively length. Thus, sociological insight is needed to understand the social dynamics of farm animal issues better.
2. Moral character of human-animal relations
In this section I discuss key concepts used in this dissertation: What are moral sentiments and attitudes? What is moral responsibility and indifference? What does social creation of responsibility and indifference mean? How are ideas of animals, their welfare, good life and harm constructed?
Moral sentiments and attitudes are feelings and ideas about right and wrong. I will work much with two concepts – moral responsibility and moral indifference. By moral responsibility I mean a responsibility for the wellbeing of the other, an obligation not to harm the other and to act to help the other and further another’s good. Moral indifference is a lack of the feeling of moral responsibility, so that one does not consider oneself morally responsible for the wellbeing of the other.
Deciding that one is morally responsible and making an ethical judgement that some one is harmed and one has a duty to respond, can be based both on moral sentiments and logical reasoning. This means that I do not choose either a rationalist framework or an ethics of care framework to analyse moral decision making. A justice/care-debate has been going on in moral philosophical debates on animal ethics. The ethics of care framework has criticised rationalist positions in that they ignore personal feelings in moral decision making. They claim that instead of building an emotion/reason dichotomy and seeing that moral decisions should be based on pure logical reasoning, it should be acknowledged that mixtures of feelings and thoughts – sentiments – are central in moral decision making (Donovan and Adams 1996; Warren 2000). For example, Donovan (1994) draws on sympathy tradition, such as Hume and Smith, and on phenomenologists Husserl and Scheler, to claim that sympathy is a basis of moral responsibilities towards animals. 
Rationalist positions – rights approach and utilitarianism – highlight reasoning. The animal rights approach has a basis in Kantian justice ethics that have rejected emotions in ethical judgements. The approach bases ethical decision making on certain universal moral principles, especially on respect principle, which requires that the inherent value of animals should be respected (Regan 1983). The utilitarian approach requires the interests of animals to be taken into equal account in decision making (Singer 1975). Debates have been going on, for example, on how sympathy and feelings can be politicised, how they can overcome intimate relationships, and how they can be impartial. 
I assume that people can conclude to have moral responsibilities for animals both with logical reasoning, thinking, for example, that one must behave according to a principle of respecting welfare of an animal, and with moral sentiments. There are various moral sentiments, such as compassion, pity, empathy and sympathy. For example, empathy is a feeling of identification with the other’s situation. Sympathy takes more distance. Sympathy is an imaginative exercise to try to understand what the other is going through, what is the other’s reality, and how that other experiences the world. It is both a cognitive and emotional exercise, involving often close study and observation of the other (Donovan 1994).
What does it mean that moral responsibility and indifference are socially created? According to Bauman (1989: 169-175), traditionally in sociology morality has been seen as a product of society, so that a human being was not a moral being outside society. The basic assumption of human nature was that humans are essentially selfish and society is a civilising force. Morality and norms are explained functionally, so that they are produced to serve the need of the society for social integration. Bauman (1989: 173) criticises this view,
All morality comes from society; there is no moral life outside society; society is best understood as a morality-producing plant; society promotes morally regulated behaviour and marginalizes, suppresses or prevents immorality. The alternative to the moral grip of society is not human autonomy, but animal passions. It is because the pre-social drives of the human animal are selfish, cruel and threatening that they have to be tamed and subdued if the social life is to be sustained.
Instead, Bauman (1989: 178, 185) claims that humans have a pre-social moral capacity, “an elementary human condition which makes explicit the universality of human revulsion to murder, inhibition against inflicting suffering on another human being” and “every given society faces such an ability ready formed, much as it faces human biological constitution, physiological needs and psychological drives.” Thus, morality is not produced by the society, the society can only manipulate it – channel and jam it. Moral responsibility can be only suppressed, not created. Instead, moral invisibility and indifference are created. Similar claims have been made also about human-animal relations. For example, Luke (1992: 86) claims that a care for animals is ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ and that a human-animal bond is deep and strong.
Claiming something as natural, claims it to be as given, ahistorical and separated from society, so that it can be only hidden and suppressed, not changed, and it puts away the possibility to analyse its cultural and social characters (e.g. Levy 1999: 206-207). There is no need to make such essentialist claims about human moral capacity and to take part in long philosophical debates if humans, and also animals, are essentially selfish or caring. Instead of adopting this kind of ontological discussion, sociologists can concentrate on how social forces can create both care and indifference (comp. e.g. Hannigan 1995: 178-191; Darier 1999: 3-4). As Rorty (1989) claims, instead of seeking a basis of solidarity, one can analyse how solidarity is made. My approach here is that a lot of cultural work is required to construct both indifference and responsibility for animals and that these attitudes and sentiments are also related to wider social transformations.
When a feeling of moral responsibility is constructed, the other must be defined as a part of moral community of obligations. Only in this community moral questions are meaningful (Bauman 1988: 26-27). When the other is constructed as a member of this community, the other is seen similar in all ethically relevant respects, being one of we, instead of one of them (Tester 1994: 91-92). For example, in the case of animals, species differences are seen unimportant compared to similarities, such as pain or life. By a fellow being I mean a member of this community, and by a distant other I mean an outsider of this community. 
When moral responsibility and indifference towards animals are constructed, it is important how animals, their welfare and harm and justifications are understood and contested. In moral philosophy there has been a lot of discussion of what a good life, a quality of life, welfare, wellbeing or happiness can mean. For example, Regan (1983: 93) defines welfare of animals and humans so that they get what they prefer, they get satisfaction from what they prefer, and what they obtain is in their interests. Also, in animal welfare sciences welfare or wellbeing has been defined in many ways, such as an absence of pathology or illness or as a presence of positive states, or as an ability to satisfy one’s physical, psychological and social needs without restrictions (Myllys 1999: 7; Rowan et. al. 1999: 10-11). Here I do not have any substantial, technical definition of these concepts. Instead, I will analyse how a good life of animals is understood in different contexts. 
By a harm I mean a serious diminishing of welfare. Thus, a harm depends on how welfare and a good life is understood and contested. It is important to remember that a harm may not be understood only as suffering, but for example as deprivations, which are losses of possibilities to enlarge the sources of satisfaction. In addition, suffering also can be understood in various ways, for example as an acute physical pain or as different psychological and emotional states. Also death may be defined as a harm in certain contexts. It may be also seen as good, for example, in euthanasia when it is seen as a relief from suffering (e.g. Regan 1983: 94-109).
Ideas of animals can also be constructed in different ways. Here I follow Macnaghten’s and Urry’s (1998) approach of the production of nature. I analyse how animals are produced and reproduced, not only in discursive, but also in embodied, spaced and timed social practises. My view is that there is no socially unmediated relationship between humans and animals, but instead animals are interpreted in certain social contexts. This is not denying any reality of animals and that they have their own experiential worlds, but only claiming that their reality is interpreted in different ways. As sociological researchers of the construction of animals have shown, animals are understood in different ways in different social contexts, such as utilitarian animals and as morally elevated animals (Arluke 1996a), and as pristine and deteriorated animals (Scarce 1997). I will analyse, for example, spatial practises and physical interaction in the food industry and on farms, and discursive construction in sciences and the media.
3. Animal farming and increase in animal welfare concerns
In this section I describe the intensification of animal farming and give some policy economic explanations for it. I will show that from the 1970s onwards there have been several new consumption and policy trends that indicate that moral concern for farm animals has increased. I will finish the section by describing broiler chicken and dairy farming mainly in Finland.
Intensification of animal farming started at the end of the nineteenth century. Farming had changed prior to that, but changes had been slower and more gradual. Before intensification, there were two principal animal farming systems: small-scale mixed farming in Europe from the thirteenth until the nineteenth century; and extensive cattle ranching and sheep grazing in European colonies in the Southern USA, South America, Africa and Australia from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Franklin 1999: 128-130). 
Intensification of farming is linked to industrialisation and urbanisation of societies. Mechanisation and growth in productivity of farms have lessened the need for agricultural workers, creating labour power for industrial sectors, the out-migration of people from rural areas, and new urban markets for agricultural products. Intensification of animal farming means the commercialisation of livestock production, so that farms begun to produce to markets, instead of to household consumption. It also means the adoption of different methods to increase the productivity of animal farms. The first way to increase the productivity of animals was grain feeding. Mechanisation, increased use of fertilisers and plant protection chemicals, and new plant breeding techniques, increased the productivity of grain farming. As a consequence, the prices of grains started declining, and farmers could afford to feed animals with grains (Goodman and Redclift 1991: 87-132).
 In addition, developments in animal breeding, nutrition and veterinary sciences created more productive animal breeds, feeding systems and disease control (Goodman and Redclift 1991: 87-132). The shedding of animals also increased productivity. Restricting animal movement prevented them from wasting energy. It was also less costly to keep animals in one place, bringing food and water with the aid of machinery, instead of using costly human labour to move animals between different pastures. Also temperature and light could be controlled to create optimal conditions for production (Franklin 1999: 131). The use of machinery requires much capital and it is more profitable when production units are bigger. Thus, animal farms have grown bigger. They have also specialised in one animal species, so that the number of multi-species farms, typical of early-modernity, has declined (Goodman and Redclift 1991). 
The consumption of meat increased during modernisation. Historically only the wealthy could afford a meat-rich diet. However, the prices of animal products declined because of growth in animal productivity. With growing living standards and declining food prices, meat became a daily food for most people (Franklin 1999: 148). In Britain meat consumption grew from an average of 39, 4 kg (87 lb.) per person per year in the period of 1831-40 to 59,3 kg (131 lb.) in 1979 (Franklin 1999: 148-150). In Finland, meat consumption has risen from approximately 33 kg (90 g per day) per person per year in 1860 to 69 kg in the period 1986-88 (Heikkinen 1996: 8; Maula 1995: 25). In both countries the nineteenth century statistics are not as reliable than the twentieth century ones, but a clear growth trend is identifiable.
The intensification of livestock production is not only a result of market forces, finding most profitable ways of production. Government policies have supported intensification. With farm support policies, governments have regulated commodity markets to reduce production risks and thus give incentives for farm-level accumulation. Governments have also supported investments in farms and certain methods of production. They have also created public agricultural research systems, which have encouraged the dissemination of technical innovations (Goodman and Redclift 1991: 102). In the European Union, the first aim of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the increase in productivity. Governments have also supported the consumption of animal products, for example with raising meat consumption norms and school food policies (Franklin 1999: 131). There are several reasons why governments have supported the intensification of farming. After the second world war, for example, governments wanted to increase their food self-sufficiency and, thus, supported more efficient methods of farming. Food companies have also become larger and more powerful, developing to highly organised global corporations and lobbies, and securing their interests in agricultural policies (Franklin 1999: 133-135).
However, we can see several trends starting from the 1970s, which may signify increase in moral concern towards farm animals. Firstly, in recent years there have been changes in government policies. CAP is now under reformation because of the enlargement of the EU, pressures to liberate world food markets in the new WTO round, and environmental, food quality and animal welfare concerns. The reformation still highlights competitiveness, but other issues, including animal welfare issues, have been given higher status (European Commission 1999). Governments have also started promoting organic farming. For example, in Finland the government started giving economic support to organic farms in 1990 and investing to research in organic farming methods (Agricultural Economics research Institute 1999: 71-73), and in Britain, the recently launched Organic Action Plan has a target that 30 percent of UK land would be under organic management by 2010 (Food Ethics Council 2001: 34). These changes signify also environmental, food quality and health concerns, but also farm animal welfare concerns.
Secondly, the consumption of meat products has changed. Meat consumption has begun to decline or its increase stopped in many countries. For example, after 1979 meat consumption in Britain decreased to 48,9 kg (108 lb.) per person per year in 1995. In Finland after 1988 meat consumption has declined slightly (Raijas 1997: 8-9). However, this decline is uneven. From the 1980s and 1990s poultry meat consumption has grown, while the consumption of other meats have declined or grown much less slowly in Finland and in Britain (Franklin 1999: 152; Raijas 1997: 8-9). In Britain, the consumption of poultry meat increased 24 percent between 1980 and 1990, while the consumption of beef declined 40 percent (Franklin 1999: 152). 
In addition, vegetarianism has increased in many countries. In Britain vegetarianism has increased from 2.1 percent of the population in 1984 to 4.5 percent in 1995. In a Finnish survey 1,3-2,6 percent of urban men and 2,9-6,8 percent of urban women said to be vegetarian. Vegetarianism is spread unevenly between different social groups. It is popular especially among young women (Franklin 1999: 158; Räsänen 1999). Also the consumption of organic products has increased. For example, over 65 percent of UK households made an organic purchase in 2000, whereas the number was 37.2 percent in 1998 (Macnaghten 2001: 46). These changes in consumer behaviour and eating habits can be result of complex social concerns. In particular, environmental and health issues seem to explain many of these changes. However, these trends signify also increase in concern about farm animal welfare. For example, researchers have shown that an ethical concern is a central motivation to become a vegetarian (e.g. Beardsworth and Keil 1992). 
Thirdly, animal welfare regulation has increased. The history of farm animal protection laws starts already from the nineteenth century when in Britain the Cattle Act was prescribed in 1822 (Streng 1999: 15). However, more regulation has emerged from the 1970 onwards. European Council Convention for the Animals Kept in Farming Purposes was given in 1976, and it has established a common farm animal welfare policy throughout Europe. From the 1980s governments have launched several bans. Veal crates and tethering pigs have been banned in all European countries, and battery cages of hens and beak trimming in some European countries. In 1997, the status of animals was raised as sentient beings from goods in the Treaty of Amsterdam (formerly the Treaty of Rome) (Rowan et al 1999: 61-66). 
Fourthly, farm animal welfare movements have grown. Several influential books have been published from the 1960s onwards, such as Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines (1964) and Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1974). New farm animal welfare organisations have been founded, such as Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) in 1967 in UK. The membership of animal advocacy organisations has grown in general, including organisations with farm animal policies (Jasper and Nelkin 1992).
Finally, some surveys indicate that people are concerned on farm animal welfare issues (Rowan et al 1999: 25-28). For example, in a British survey for the RSPCA in 2000, 80 percent of respondents said that they would like to see better welfare conditions for Britain’s farm animals (Macnaghten 2001: 46). In 1995/96, a survey of 2000 people in Britain found that 43 percent of the respondents were “very concerned” that “farm animals may experience mistreatment or suffering” and another 47 percent were “somewhat concerned” (Rowan et al 1999: 26). Often answers in surveys are related to how questions are framed and, thus, it is important to pay attention to what organisation with what political interests has done the survey. However, despite this reservation, it is quite reasonable to conclude that surveys indicate that people are interested in farm animal welfare issues.
To illustrate changes in farming and some current practises in livestock production, I describe now broiler chicken farming and dairy farming, focusing mainly on Finland.  In Finland dairy farming started increasing in 1870s. The reason was mainly that new butter markets opened in Russia and that world grain prices declined. The economic function of cows changed. Before they were kept mainly for manure to fertilise fields, and bulls were used for manual labour. Animal products were considered side products (Soininen 1974: 200-252; Vihola 1991: 9-21). Dairy farming has continued to be economically relatively significant in Finnish farming.
Most of the Finnish dairy cow farms have less than 19 cows nowadays, although the size of farms is growing (Lehtonen et al 1999). In Finland most of dairy cows are raised in beam sheds, where they are tethered from their necks to a beam. In England and Scotland more than half of the cows are raised in sheds or pastures where they can move freely. Finnish animal protection law requires that during summer all cows should be put out to pasture or they should have other places for moving around (Vihtonen 1997: 16). In order to produce milk, the cows must give birth each year. Usually female calves are kept in a farm for milk production when old enough and male calves are raised for meat. Cows are kept normally in a farm from four to six years. Typically farmers feed animals with their own grain and hay. Welfare problems include the restriction of movement and social interaction when kept in tethers, the separation of calves and cows soon after the birth, and leg diseases due to strong grain feeding (Vihtonen 1997: 16; Rist et al 1996; Myllys 1997).
Broiler chicken farming is more intensive than dairy farming and it is relatively new method of farming. Broiler farming started in the 1960s in Finland. Farmers are agreement producers. This means that they grow poultry for certain meat companies, which supply birds to the farmers and later slaughter the birds. The size of farms has grown in Finland, so that in the 1970s their size varied between 5,000-20,000 birds and in 2000 the average size was 35,000 birds. Also the raising time of birds has declined due to their faster growth. Nowadays each flock is kept in a farm for about four weeks (Finnish Broiler Society 2002). On arrival chickens have approximately 900 sq cm of floor space, reduced to less than 700 sq cm before slaughtering. Food and water are supplied automatically, and the work of farmers is system maintenance and flock checking (Franklin 1999: 137-138). Welfare problems include bone fractures due to fast growth rates, burns on body surface due to the contact with ammonia imbregnated litter, little room to move, and relatively high death rate in farms (e.g. Food Ethics Council 2001: 20-22).
4. Moral attitudes among urban consumers
In this section I will discuss about how the moral sentiments and attitudes of urban consumers are created socially. I will work in very general level, so that I do not identify differences between genders, ethnic groups, classes and other social groups. In the first section I will discuss about the establishment of the modern dilemma. In the other two sections I will give some reasons why moral concern among urban consumers have grown.
4.1	Modernisation and the development of the modern dilemma 
Many scholars (e.g. Eder 1996; Arluke and Sanders 1996; Thomas 1983) have written about contradictory attitudes to animals in modern societies, so that people relate with animals both instrumentally and morally. On the one hand, during modernisation, pet ownership has increased, many animal sports, such as cock fighting, has been banned, and animal protection movements have grown. On the other hand, for example, meat eating has increased, animal farming has intensified, animal experimentation has increased, and wildlife habitats have declined. As Thomas (1983: 302-303) writes,
The early modern period had thus generated feelings which would make it increasingly hard for men [sic] to come to terms with the uncompromising methods by which the dominance of their species had been secured. On the one hand they saw an incalculable increase in the comfort and physical well-being or welfare of human beings; on the other they perceived a ruthless exploitation of other forms of animate life. There was thus a growing conflict between the new sensibilities and the material foundations of human society. A mixture of compromise and concealment has so far prevented this conflict from having to be fully resolved.
Scholars have theorised these transformations in several ways. For example, they have referred to ambivalence character of Christianity, involving both Judaist and Ancient Greece ideas (Eder 1996), scientific and philosophical developments (Thomas 1983), urbanisation and industrialisation (Thomas 1983), discontinuities in knowledge structures (Tester 1991), and power-relations between classes (Ritvo 1987; Thomas 1983; Tester 1991). 
Analysis of these complex historical developments of the creation of moral sentiments to animals cannot be grasped in a dissertation of this size. I just take this dilemma as a context in late modern human-animal relations. In the case of farm animals this is seen so that meat eating has increased and animal farming methods has intensified while in the same time people have created strong bonds with other animals, such as companion animals. 
As Thomas writes, there have been two resolutions to the dilemma: concealment and compromise. Here I call concealment as the creation of invisibility. The concealment has been solution in moral relations with farm animals in that way that it has made people more easy to not to think farm animal practises, while they continue to relate with animals in different ways in other contexts. How are animals constructed as absent? When urbanisation increased, animals disappeared from the daily life of urban people. In agricultural societies, people lived in close proximity with animal, sometimes in the same buildings (Thomas 1983: 94-95). In early modernity, animals also lived in cities. It may be the case that the disappearance of animals from cities was not only due to economic factors. Instead, there were contests to exclude farm animals from cities, to make stronger boundaries between city and countryside, pet and farm animal, and moral and utilitarian relationship (Philo 1995).
Slaughtering was also made invisible. Before the industrialising of farming, animals were often slaughtered in farms. When the meat and food manufacturing industry began to develop, animals were transported in large numbers to special places for slaughtering. Meat industry, live meat markets and abattoirs were concentrated in certain cities, such as London and Chicago. Meat markets and abattoirs were a contested issue in the nineteenth century, and there were strong campaigning to exclude them from city life. In sanitary discourses, abattoirs were seen as sources of disease and death. In moral discourses, slaughtering was considered uncomfortable for people and seen to degrade human morality (Philo 1995). Philo (1995: 679) refers to a witness in 1873 committee in Britain,
[F]or most people on the vicinity of a slaughterhouse the presence of large numbers of cows, sheep, and pigs confined in small spaces was in itself ‘offensive to the senses’, even before the dreadful smells and sounds intrinsic to the killing process were taken into account. The sensory impact certainly was crucial to Kittle and to the antianimal exclamations of other witnesses, many of whom mentioned the ‘screaming’ and ‘groaning’ of fearful animals ---.
Concealment was a solution in these campaigns. Instead of acting to end abattoirs or changing their eating habits and growing meat consumption, people wanted to make abattoirs invisible (Thomas 1983: 299).
The other resolution has been a compromise, as Thomas puts it. I call this resolution as the modern justification. According to this justification, it is right to harm animals if it is necessary and done for modern progress. This justification is based on anti-cruelty attitudes, which were created during modernisation. According to these attitudes, humans had a right to use animals, but not to cause unnecessary suffering to them (Thomas 1983: 153, 191). Anti-cruelty attitudes were widely established in the beginning of the twentieth century. Franklin claims that a modern consensus was created. According to this consensus, animals were justified to be used for modern progress. In modern consensus, modernisation was seen as a series of good tasks – improving human welfare, living standards and life quality. Animal sentiments were widely established, but human progress was privileged and instrumental uses of animals were the price to pay for the greater human good. Thus, modern attitudes have been sympathetic, but instrumental and anthropocentric (Franklin 1999: 34-35). 
Before going forward, I will explain what I mean by modernity and late modernity. Modernity is a historical epoch that emerged in Europe from the seventeenth century onwards and widened to other parts of the world later on (e.g. Bauman 1991: 4; Giddens 1990). Modernity is a distinct mode of social organisation and differs from social life in other times and places. There are several institutional tendencies in modernisation, for example industrialisation, differentiation of economy and politics, market oriented economy, state formation, bureaucratic state administration, the structural change in communication, liberal democracy and secularisation (Heiskala 1995: 10-15). By late modernity I mean a period after the 1960s. Many scholars have identified several political, economic and cultural changes after this decade and tried to characterise new modes of social life with different concepts, such as postmodernity, high or radicalised modernity, information society, risk society, post-industrial society and post-fordism. 

4.2 Making moral visibility
In this section I will argue that the first resolution to the gulf between modern moral sensibilities and the instrumental use of farm animals – creating invisibility – is weakening in late modernity, so that moral concern towards farm animals grows among urban consumers. Thus, I try to explain the recent trends, such as consumption changes, that indicate increase in moral concern towards farm animals, to which I referred in the section three.
Why, in the first place, would the construction of animals as invisible create moral indifference towards farm animals? That is, why would the creation of spatial distance to farm animals encourage the tendency to construct animals as distant others, outside of the community of moral responsibilities? Bauman (1989: 24-25) discusses about the social production of moral invisibility. When moral invisibility is created, an individual sees his or her acts as harmless, does not face difficult moral choices and moral aspects of acts are not immediately obvious. Physical distance tends to create moral invisibility. This is because one does not experience directly the outcomes of one’s action. Often one has only detached and abstract knowledge of them. In modern societies actions are often mediated by a long chain of complex functional and causal dependencies, so that some one else performs them. When actions are mediated, one does not often see the acts as his or her own and thus does not feel to be morally responsible for them. Sympathy is weakened because one never lived through the outcomes. As urban consumers are nowadays separated from livestock production, they do not have direct access to the living animal from which the products come from and to the production process. In addition, globalisation of economies has made causal and functional chains even longer in late modernity.
In addition to physical separation from living animals and their slaughtering, also animal origin has begun to be made invisible in meat from 1970s onwards. Here living animals are transformed to inanimate objects, so that the transformation process is made invisible. The traditional butcher’s window showing whole animals or recognisable parts of animals has almost disappeared. Nowadays smaller, leaner cuts are displayed. In ready to cook meals, meat is cut, marinated and processed, so that it does not remind the animal origin. Similarly, in restaurants animal origin of food is not displayed (Franklin 1999: 154-155). In addition, the relationship of killing and raising an animal is still more abstract in egg and dairy products. 
However, making animal invisible behind animal products from the 1970s onwards, may signify increased tension in the modern dilemma, so that people feel increasingly uneasy about instrumental use of farm animals. In fact, in Macnaghten’s (2001: 18-19) study, interviewed showed reflectivity on their behaviour and they acknowledged that they are “hypocrites” by sympathising animals in certain contexts and avoiding see animal origin in meat. Interviewed spoke about how they do not “wanna see”, and how “it’s a bit sort of bury your head in the sand”, and how “you must be able to switch off” when buying meat in supermarkets. 
I claim that media has weakened the modern resolution of creating the invisibility of animals. This may explain partly the increased uneasy about modern animal farming. Alongside with growing spatial distance from animals, media has grown, so that some scholars have spoken about the mediatisation of societies from the 1960s onwards. Because animals are not interacted in daily basis and because people do not know what actually happens in farms and abattoirs, media and other cultural products has a big importance to frame animal farming and animals. 
The relationship between media and morality is relatively little researched area. In fact, media seems to have several contradictory characters. Media gives opportunities to create solidarity between strangers, so that the other can be seen as similar to oneself, to be part of a moral community. For example, media can bring news about famine catastrophes and encourage people to respond. However, this potential does not necessary mean that media actually create moral responses. For example, different media genres have several restrictions. News often show short films of large amounts of issues, giving fragmented picture of the world. In addition, people may become desensitised by encountering continuously vast amounts of moral problems, which media bring to their everyday life. Power-relations also influence that some issues never even get in media (Tester 1994).
Despite these reservations, it seems that media has fulfilled its potential to create moral response to farm animals in some cases. For example, when pictures about live transport in European Union were circulated in television, this created a lot of public concern and campaigning. In Finland an animal welfare group Animalia collected more than 100 000 names, which is a big amount in Finnish scale, to their petition to give to the Commission of European Union. 
In addition to direct moral response, it may be more important to analyse how media can influence in the views of publics on animal farming, farm animals and what counts their harm and welfare. What farm animal issues get space in media? Are animals represented as happy or unhappy? How certain animal husbandry practises are represented? Are animals shown more as inanimate objects without experiences or more in personalised terms? Different actors, such as animal advocacy groups, farmers, government and food industry, try to influence in what issues get media space and how they are framed. Audience is active also, so that people do not often read media messages as intended but make their own interpretations (e.g. Hannigan 1995; Smith 2000). I will discuss about representations of food industry and animal advocates.
It seems that in advertisements food industry companies tend to frame animal farming so that animals are happy. They do not show pictures of animal slaughtering or animals as confined in sheds. For example, in milk cartoons of a Finnish dairy company Valio there is a drawing of a happy cow smiling in a field. Also other Valio’s advertisements offered in the company’s Internet site do not show that cows are kept in beams, but instead they show animals in fields. In addition, Finnish Broiler Society gives a harmless picture of broiler life in their Internet-site, writing how broilers “step and bath freely in the floor, having straws” (Finnish Broiler Society 2002). However, many researchers of advertisements have highlighted that people often read advertisements critically and ironically and that they recognise that advertisements, in contrast to many other media genres, are controlled by a company (e.g. Myers 1999; Richards, MacRury and Botterill 2000). 
Animal advocates tend to construct animals as unhappy victims, often individualising animals showing close pictures and faces of animals. Diverse welfare needs of animals are highlighted and shown that these needs are violated in farms or food industry. Also a positive picture of animal nature is attempted to create to encourage public sympathy, so that animals are shown, for instance, as gentle, caring and intelligent. To illustrate, in a leaflet of Viva about slaughtering, there is a picture of a face of a pig as well as animals covered in blood (Viva 2002). Similarly, a leaflet of CIWF about the live export there is a picture of a face of two sheep and writing, “Each spring young lambs are born onto hillsides and green fields throughout Britain. And each years, just a few months later, hundreds of thousands of these lambs are sent to lengthy journeys to continental abattoirs. Packed in overcrowded trucks, lambs and sheep are not given neither food nor water ---.” (Compassion in World Farming 2002). Again, public may also read these critically, knowing that they are controlled media.
In Finland in 1990s a lot of farm animal related films have been circulated in television, related to growing animal rights movement, which created much public debate. Many of these films, such as Meat, have been critical of farm animal industry. In addition, BSE, foot and mouth disease and feed scandals have created discussion also about animal welfare issues. 
I give further support to the role of media to create moral concern towards farm animals, by showing that this seems to be different in the case of broiler chickens. As I referred in the section three, the consumption of broiler chicken has arisen, instead of declining. As I will discuss in the next section, this is related to health issues, but also animal concerns may be important. There seems to be two reasons why broiler chickens have not got so much public sympathies as, for instance, egg laying hens. Firstly, this is because no scandals about broiler chickens have been circulated in media. BSE- and foot and mouth news concentrated on beef and sheep farming. In Finland, the biggest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported widely about malnutrition of battery hens in 2000. Secondly, it seems that animal advocacy strategies to frame broiler farming has not been influential. According to Franklin (1999: 139), the reason for less sympathy for broiler chickens may be that animal advocates has not framed them with positive human characters, as battery hens, but they have used language of human deviance, referring to greedy, deformed, and unnatural characters. Building an image of manipulated and manufactured ‘products’, not create so much sympathy than creating a picture of living animals with positive characters, such as compassion and intelligence. 
Thus, it seems that late modernisation has created new opportunities to construct animals as fellow beings, despite spatial separation. Media has created space to contest farm animal issues and frame animals as happy or unhappy, as fellow beings and as distant others. Power-relations influence in these representations. Despite the opportunities for industry to construct farming practises as unproblematic, it seems that other forces work also to construct practises morally problematic, and thus weakening the second resolution of the modern dilemma to make farm animals as invisible.
4.3	Contesting modern justification 
Feelings of moral responsibility are lessened if the harm is seen justified and legitimate. I have discussed that the other resolution to the modern dilemma – modern justification was created. According to this justification, animals were right to be used for modern progress, and harming them was a price to pay for all the good tasks and improvements of modernity. In this sympathetic but anthropocentric modernity, it was acknowledged that farm animals are sentient beings but that humans had right to use them. In this section I will argue that the modern justification for the use of animals has begun to break down and thus gives possibilities to create feelings of moral responsibility for farm animals. This justification is weakening because the rationalisation of farming and increase in meat eating is not seen anymore as a progress. 
In earlier periods of modernity there was a strong association between meat and health. Meat was associated with vitality, strength and power because it was seen that vitality and powers of animals could be assimilated into human body (Franklin 1999: 154; Twigg 1983). Scientists also created the view that animal proteins are essential for human wellbeing. Animal products offered all amino acids, whereas it was seen to be difficult to get all amino acids from plants. In addition to better protein quality, also a large quantity of protein was seen to be good for health and thus protein-rich animal products were seen as ideal sources of protein. Governments took this view to their policies. Meat consumption norms rose and there were attempts to increase animal protein production to decrease global malnutrition (Franklin 1999: 131-132).
In addition, meat was associated with wealth, plenty and status. Historically only the rich could afford to meat-rich diets. Thus, increase in meat eating was seen as progress and improvement in living standards. Because seeing meat as a marker of improvement of economic living conditions, governments took policies to increase animal product consumption (Franklin 1999: 131, 154). There has been also the link between meat and power. In addition to wealthy and powerful social groups, meat was associated with masculinity and virility. It was thought that especially men require meat rich diet, whereas vegetables were associated more in femininity, passivity and powerlessness (Franklin 1999: 154; Twigg 1983). 
However, the association between meat eating and modern progress has begun to decline. Firstly, instead of associating meat and health, its large consumption has started seeing as a health threat. There is nothing new with this: in vegetarian movements in the 19th century meat was considered as bad to health (Thomas 1983: 287-300). However, now the belief that meat has health risks is more widely spread and officially more acknowledged. Cardiovascular disease, cancers and other diseases have increased and these diseases have been medically associated with animal proteins and fats. Vegetables, such as pulses, has been recognised as a good source of protein, and their health effects, such as vitamin richness and antioxidants, have been highlighted. Governments have adopted policies and health education programmes to increase vegetable consumption and to decrease the consumption of saturated fats. However, the association of meat and ill health involve only red meats. Chicken meat is considered lightier and less fatty (e.g. Franklin 1999: 150-152). 
Secondly, animal products have been increasingly seen to be a source of risks. From the 1980s food scares begun to emerge. In 1980s salmonella cases increased in England and Wales from 7,500 cases in 1980 to 25,000 cases in 1988. Also listeria has increased. Despite relatively low risk from meat consumption, the public reaction has been substantial. For example, in 1989 a British survey found that 23 percent of respondents had altered their diet because of concerns about listeria (Franklin 1999: 162-166). BSE case, in particular, has been especially central in this increased association of animal products to risk. BSE in cattle was first identified in 1986, and after that there were a lot of research in if the disease can be transformed to humans. In 1996 the British government announced that BSE and the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (nvCJD) may be linked. This created a widespread reaction. For example, many shops, companies and schools stopped offering British meat, European Commission and other countries banned the export of meat. In media there were circulated pictures of large scale slaughter of animals. The consumption of beef declined. For example, in a survey in 1996 17 percent of respondents said that they eat less beef, and 10 percent had stopped eating beef altogether (Franklin 1999: 168-172).
These transformations signify transformations in late modernity, about increased dependency in abstract systems and need of trust when one does not have the full knowledge about the systems one is dependent (e.g. Giddens 1990). In food production systems, people are dependent on a large amount of strangers. Thus, trust becomes a crucial question. Food scares indicate that the trust of consumers to food industry, governments and farmers has decreased. It seems that the rationalisation of farming is not seen any more as a progress that increase human wellbeing, instead it is perceived to create new risks. For instance, keeping genetically homogeneous animals in small space gives opportunities to certain micro-organisms to spread rapidly. In addition, the emergence of BSE may be because of the attempts to increase efficiency and profitability of food industries when animals were fed with remainders of other animals. Thus, there has been breaking down of the belief that increase in meat eating and the rationalisation of farming signifies modern progress. These signify contradictory character of modernisation: how the modernisation of food industry creates new risks and becomes more dependent on trust. 
This weakening of meat as a marker of modern progress thus lessens the modern justification, according to which it is legitimate to harm animals for modern progress. Weakening of justification can strengthen moral concern: if the rationalisation of farming does not create human wellbeing, but instead creates new risks, what is then the basis to legitimate harming of farm animals? Moral concern increases because people start questioning if raising animals with intensive methods is good for any one – to people and to animals. Moreover, food scares have made animals more visible, about which I discussed in the previous section. New risks have highlighted the connections between animals and meat. As Franklin (1999: 164) puts it, food scares “underlined the processes of animal-into-meat.” As well, big media circulation has created widespread discussion also about animal welfare issues. 
I give further support to this conclusion by referring to broiler chickens. Broiler meat is still associated with health and safety. I have referred to that it seems that there is less moral concern towards broilers than, for instance towards laying hens. Because broiler consumption is seen as progressing human good, its consumption seems to be more justified and thus less morally problematic.
5. Moral relations and the rationalisation of livestock production 
In the previous section I discussed about how the moral attitudes and sentiments of urban consumers have been socially created. In this section I will discuss about the production side of farming. I will analyse how moral responsibility and indifference is created among farmers and employees in food industry. I will argue that the rationalisation of farming and food industry tend to create moral indifference towards animals, so that individuals do not consider their practises as harmful and morally problematic and do not construct animals as fellow beings, towards which they have much moral responsibilities. 
By rationalisation of farming and food industry I mean attempts to make practises of industry more efficient and productive. This means tendencies to bring the logic of instrumental rationality, or means-ends rationality, as a leading rationality in organisations. Instrumental rationality means an attempt to find most efficient means to achieve certain goals. Bauman (1989) has highlighted how the rationalisation of organisations creates possibilities of the production of moral indifference. This is because, for instance, their hierarchical and impersonal character, high division of labour, and technical language make it easier not to see consequences of one’s actions and carry individual responsibility.
5.1	Employees in food industry
In this section I discuss about moral sentiments and attitudes of employees of food industry. I have not found any research that have analysed food industry employees relations with farm animals. Thus, I work mainly in hypothetical level. I will argue that the rationalisation of food industry tends to create moral indifference towards farm animals in at least three ways: the division of labour, modern technology, and objectification. 
Firstly, I discuss about the division of labour. Division of labour creates a distance between most of the actors to the final result of collective activity. Most actors have an abstract and detached awareness of the effects of their actions and they lack direct and personal experience of the outcome. Often outcomes are expressed in statistics, graphs and numbers. In addition, the task may be a small technical part of a whole organisation, such as improving computer programming, and could be a part of any kind of organisation having different objectives (Bauman 1989: 98-102).
Division of labour may create also the situation that people do not feel responsible for their actions. According to Bauman (1989: 162-163), there tend to become the situation of free floating responsibility in modern organisations. In this situation one member of the organisation put the responsibility to the other, who transforms responsibility again. In hierarchical organisations one may see only obeying and executing of commands from some one higher in hierarchy. 
Arluke (1988) and Phillips (1994) have claimed in their studies of animal experimentation laboratories that the division of labour distances researchers and technicians from animals. For example, researchers do not often see a whole conscious animal and interact with them because technicians look after animals and prepare them for an experiment. Instead, the tasks of researches are often to analyse certain tissues or parts of animals. 
How is the division of labour in animal farming related to moral sentiments and attitudes towards farm animals? It is also the case that most of the people who work in agricultural industry do not physically interact with animals and perform slaughtering, transporting and different farming practises. Tasks, such as designing internet pages, doing accounting, or keeping records, do not continuously remind about farm animals and possible welfare problems of animals. 
Also, in abattoirs there is a high division of labour, so that each worker handles a certain part of an animal body. Each actions are often spatially separated with walls, doors and screens (Franklin 1999: 156-157). Also killing itself is separated in two tasks; one person stuns animal and the other cut the arteries of the animal. As Vialles (1994: 45) writes,
The first man does not really kill, he anaesthetises. The second does not really kill either; he bleeds an animal that is already inert, and, in the terms that are in constant use, ‘as if dead’. --- by separating the jobs, you completely dilute the responsibility and any feeling of guilt, however vague are held in check. 
Thus, the division of labour in agricultural companies tend to distance employees from farm animals and decrease to feel responsibility for one’s actions. 
Second character of the rationalisation of food industry is mechanisation and automation. Modern technology also creates distance to animals. Slaughtering of big animals, such as cattle and pigs is relatively mechanised, so that animal bodies are transformed with machinery to different stages of handling. Slaughtering of poultry is more automated, so that no human person physically kills animals. Chickens pass into an electric stunning bath and then they are automatically killed by a throat cutter (Franklin 1999: 139).
Third way of creating distance is objectification. Objectification means that animals are constructed as inanimate objects, so that inanimate qualities are attributed to animals as if they were not living things (Arluke 1988: 100). When animals are talked and seen as inanimate objects, the subjective experiences of animals are away from sight. A way of objectification is to speak individuals in abstract and mathematical terms and reduce them to quantitative measures, such as masses and money, so that they loose their distinct qualities (Bauman 1989: 102-103). So, for example, animal transport discusses animals as tonnes. In food companies animals are often spoken as money: how much companies have invested money when buying milk, cows or chicken and how much they have got money when selling processed dairy and meat products. Animals may be objectified also physically, so that they are similar to other equipment in factories. Animals as objects are constructed this way by creating them as a part of assembly lines and other processing techniques of factories (comp. Scarce 1997).
To conclude, the rationalisation of organisations tends to create moral indifference with distancing animals physically and constructing them as inanimate objects. However, little is known how employees in food industry relate to animals and how do they think about their moral responsibilities for them.
5.2	Moral sentiments among farmers
In this section I will argue that the intensification of farming tends to create more instrumental attitudes to animals among farmers. I will show that extensive farmers, such as dairy and sheep farmers, tend to see animals in more personalised ways than intensive farmers, such as poultry and pig farmers. I will argue that these differences are based on the rationalisation of farming: division of labour, mechanisation, and growth in the production unit. In this section I use mainly Macnaghten’s (2001) and Kumpulainen’s (1999) studies. Macnaghten has done focus group interviews with British extensive and intensive farmers. Kumpulainen (1999) has done interviews and text analysis in five Finnish farms. Both studies are indicative and thus generalisations should be made carefully.
Extensive farmers tend to gain knowledge about welfare of animals by trying to know them personally and identify what each individuals needs and states are. For example, a farmer said in Macnaghten’s (2001: 18) study, “I mean, you love your stock, don’t you, every day. Well, put it this way, you know your animals that well that you can tell if they are ill. The calf that looks at you with sad eyes and I knew it wasn’t so well and I was right.” In contrast, the studies indicate, intensive farmers do not create personal relations with animals and they understand welfare of animals as related to their productivity, so that if animals are not happy, they will not produce in an optimum level.For example, in Macnaghten’s (2001: 17) study, an intensive farmer said, “methods are being evolved over time by farmers who’ve found the most economic way to keep the animals is generally the kindest way to keep them because an animal does not thrive unless it’s in good conditions where it is fed well, kept at the right temperature…”
Individualisation tends to create moral sympathy. Individualisation is constructing the other as an unique individual, with distinct life history and their personal needs are under interest. When certain distinguishable characters are not identified, it is more difficult to construct other as a fellow being (comp. Arluke 1988; Phillips 1994). The studies indicate that extensive farmers relate to animals in more personalised terms than intensive farmers. For example, an intensive farmer said in Macnaghten’s (2001: 17) study, “Well, we keep animals to make money. It’s our business to produce animals to feed the nation. --- It’s like a factory producing nuts and bolts.” In contrast, in interviews, the extensive farmers discussed about the diverse personalities of cows. A farmer said, “My sucklers, I know every single one, it’s not just a bunch of animals in a field.” 
One indicator of treating animals as distinct personalities is naming (comp. Phillips 1994). In Finland cows are named in all dairy farms. Typical names have been Ystävä (Friend) and Hyvä (Good), women’s names, such as Ilona and Emma, and flower names, such as Apila (Clover) (Viitanen 1997). In interviews, extensive farmers have also shown feelings of attachment. For example, a farmer stated in Macnaghten’s study (2001: 18) that calves are “my children because I’m a big softie and because they give me less aggro than the kids”. They have also said feeling of sadness and also that they have cried when animals have been taken to the abattoir (Kumpulainen 1999: 154, 200)
What organisational factors can explain these differences? First reason for less attachment for individual animals is that raising broilers involve more division of labour than raising dairy cows. In Finland the first generation of broiler chickens are brought from Scotland and raised in certain farms. They lay eggs for hybrid generation and eggs are brooded in brooders. Recently hatched chicks are brought to poultry farms. Farmers raise chickens for four to six weeks, and after that chickens are taken to an abattoir (Finnis Broiler Society 2002). Raising dairy cows involve less division of labour. Typically, cows are artificially inseminated in farms, cows give birth there, male calves are raised in farms for meat and female ones to use later in milk production. Only killing is done in abattoirs. Feed is supplied by a company in broiler farms, but dairy farmers often grow hay and grain for their animals.
Secondly, modern technology mediates action more in poultry than dairy farms. Machinery feed and water chicken, remove manure and regulates lightning and temperature. Main work of farmers is to make sure that machinery works normally. Dairy farms are not so automated. Farmers usually feed animals manually and use more time giving medical treatment to animals and cleaning them. 
Thirdly, in chicken farms animals are raised in much larger quantities than in dairy farms. As I have mentioned previously, one broiler farm can have 10 – 70,000 chicken at one time. In contrast, in dairy farms there are typically less than 20 cows in Finland. In chicken farms chicken are kept only from four to six weeks, whereas the average age of cows in Finnish farms is from four to six years. Some cows are kept more than ten years. 
Fourthly, chickens are genetically homogeneous because they are bred in inbreeding-hybridisation techniques. Thus, the physical appearance of chicken is similar. Also dairy cows are relatively homogeneous genetically. Certain productive breeds have become dominant, decreasing local variation of breeds. Artificial insemination has given better control to spread certain genes. However, there is still individual variation in the appearance of cows (comp. Phillips 1994). 
Finally, there is tendency to physically construct animals as inanimate objects in broiler chicken farms. As I wrote previously, objectification tends to make the subjective experience of animals away from sight. Instead, they are seen in mechanical, inanimate terms, lacking experiences. Physically animals are objectified first with machinery and automation. Animals seem to be a part of factory, as any inanimate object. In broiler chicken farms, birds seem to react mechanical ways to certain inputs. The speed of growth of broilers is regulated with feeding, lights and temperature. In contrast, cows do not look as passive and mechanically reactive inanimate objects as chicken. For example, in Finnish dairy farms cows often have their own beam they have learned to recognise. When they are brought in shed for milking, cows go to their own places (Kumpulainen 1999).
How do extensive farmers deal with their attachments when they must send animals to an abattoir, so that they can continue their work? Arluke (1996b) has analysed emotion management strategies in animal shelters where the animal species usually kept as pets are euthanised. According to him, one way of the emotion management is to take a good care of the animals before their death. This kind of attitude can be found in Kumpulainen’s (1999: 154) study when a dairy farmer states, “They have been looked after with good care, and they have had a good life.” Another way is to avoid seeing an animal taken away and do killing by oneself (Arluke 1996b). Farmers do not kill animals by themselves. In Kumpulainen's (1999: 200) study a farmer did not go to a shed when a certain animal was taken away to the abattoir. Third way is to adopt certain, often especially attached animals and treat them as pets and not killing them (Arluke 1988 and 1996b). In Macnaghten’s (2001: 18) study there were cases that farmers kept animals some times more like a pet, giving certain privileges, such a moving freely in the farm and never sent to an abattoir. Finally, farmers have also stated that they intentionally avoid to become too attached to animals because they know that animals are killed at the end (Macnaghten 2001: 18).
To conclude, intensive and extensive farmers tend to relate morally to animals in different ways. Intensive farmers do not create animals so much as fellow beings as extensive farmers, but have more detached attitudes to them. Extensive farmers tend to construct a good life of an animal by trying to learn to know their personal needs. Reasons for these differences can be found in the rationalisation of farming: division of labour, mechanisation, and increase in production units.
6. Farm animal sciences
In this section I will discuss about how animals are constructed in farm animal sciences. In the creation of moral concern, it is central how an animal is understood. Can animals experience, what their wellbeing can be and what are valid ways to gain knowledge about their wellbeing? I will argue that farm animal sciences have tended to construct animals as inanimate objects before, but from the 1970s onwards a farm animal welfare science has emerged and have been influential in government policies. 
When modern science arose in the 17th century, nature was constructed in mechanistic terms. In this mechanistic view, nature was seen as dead matter, causally determined, and without any purposes. This view of nature legitimated increasing material use of nature because, for example, there were no more divine restrictions to material intervention to nature (e.g. Leiss 1972; Macnaghten and Urry 1998: 10-11; Plumwood 1993). 
Mechanistic and physicalistic view of animals has continued in sciences. Comparative psychologists and animal behaviour scientists have not typically denied the existence of animal mind, as in Cartesian metaphysic, but they have considered it impossible to study mental life of animals and their subjective experiences in scientific ways because mental states are difficult to operationalise and test (Crist 1999: Rollin 1990; Allen and Bekoff 1997). Thus, animal behaviour has been explained without referring to the mental states of animals, constructing them as stimulus-response model in behaviourism, directed by innate-releasing mechanisms in classical ethology, and maximising fitness in sociobiology and behavioural ecology (Crist 1999). In this mechanistic view animals are constructed as natural objects, instead of active subjects, whose life is meaningful to them and thus their lived experiential perspective is away from sight (Crist 1999). This kind of view tend to create moral indifference because it is not interested how animals experience their world and wellbeing, but instead animals are pictured as inanimate objects who do not experience and thus cannot be harmed.
Farm animal sciences, such as nutrition, breeding and veterinary sciences, have tended to construct animals in this way. They have been applied sciences often supported by government and companies to increase productivity of animal farming. They have been criticised of that when they have planned breeding, feeding and health care of animals, they have concentrated narrowly on production, causing welfare problems to animals (e.g. Rist et al 1996). 
However, modern sciences have also created different ideas of nature and animals, with moral implications. In natural history, mechanistic methods were considered as inadequate to analyse complex phenomena of life, and there has been interest to analyse secondary and tertiary qualities, such as smell, colours and beauty, that had been seen by mechanists as unimportant (Macnaghten and Urry 1998: 12). Also, new findings in science weakened anthropocentric views and ways of classify in sciences by showing the wideness of world and finding new species of organisms that existed without having any utility to humans (Thomas 1983: 166-168). 
Also in animal sciences there have been other fields that have explained animal behaviour by referring to their inner life. To support his evolutionary theory, Darwin analysed continuity of mental states between humans and animals. In the beginning of the twentieth century, naturalists applied Verstehen or interpretative understanding approach to understand the subjective experiences of animals (Crist 1999). From the 1970s cognitive ethology (e.g. Allen and Becoff 1997) and primatology has developed and they have studied cognitive and communicative capacities of animals. Especially, primatology has been widely popularised and created public interest on animal issues.
Farm animal welfare science has also developed from the mid 1970s. Number of animal-welfare related studies has increased fast, and government has put much money to studies. Animal welfare scientists have been influential in public policy. They have sat in advisory committees, and they have been consulted when new legislation on farm animal issues has been under formulation (Rowan et al 1999: 5-9). In addition, animal advocacy organisations have used animal welfare research in their campaigns and lobbying. Welfare discourse seems to have spread also to breeding, nutrition and welfare sciences. For example, animal nutrition science and animal breeding science in the University of Helsinki state how one of their aim is to improve animal welfare (Animal breeding science 2002; Animal nutrition science 2002).
Farm animal welfare sciences have influenced in moral concern by constructing what is harmful to animals. If harm is identified, then there is a moral problem. Welfare sciences approach the good life of animals in scientific ways, and sometimes it has contradicted, for instance, farmers’ and the food industry views. They have backed their claims with relying on scientific methods, which differ from other methods to try to gain knowledge on animal welfare, such as extensive farmer’s way to try to learn animals personally. For instance, researchers have done preference testing to gain knowledge on animal preferences and analysed this statistically, sometimes using video observation. They have also analysed biological functioning of animals, such as health and stress (Rowan et al 1999: 12-15). 
In conclusion, science has been contradictory as far as moral relations to farm animals are considered. They have constructed animals both as inanimate objects and as beings with complex welfare requirements. From the 1970s onwards, animal welfare questions have gained more central status in farm animal sciences. Sciences are influential in the creation of moral attitudes to animals by claiming what is the welfare of animals, what practises harm them and what is valid way to gain knowledge about the animal welfare. These views have influenced in government policies on farm animal welfare.

	Conclusion

In this dissertation I have analysed how moral attitudes and sentiments towards farm animals are socially produced in late modern societies. I have analysed how feelings of moral responsibility and moral indifference are created to farm animals. Moral responsibility for the welfare of animals is created when animals are constructed as fellow beings, as a part of a moral community. Moral indifference, a lack of feeling of moral responsibility, is created when animals are constructed as distant others, outside of the community of moral responsibilities. Making animals as fellow beings or distant others depends on how animals are constructed and how their welfare and harm is understood.
I have shown that there is a change in moral relations to farm animals from the 1970s onwards. After this decade, meat consumption has declined, vegetarianism and the consumption of organic products have increased, farm animal movements have grown and farm animal welfare policies increased. I have argued that these trends do not reflect only environmental and health concerns, but also ethical concerns. However, I have claimed that this interest has been uneven and not reached broiler chickens.
I have analysed moral relations to animals in three contexts: in the contexts of consumption, production and science. I have claimed that moral concern towards farm animals among urban consumers has increased because two resolutions to the modern dilemma are breaking down. The modern dilemma means that there is a growing conflict between modern sensibilities and material use of animals. Several modernisation transformations created this kind of ambivalent situation. I have argued that the first resolution – constructing animals as invisible – has begun to weaken in late modernity. This is because media have provided new opportunities to bring animals closer and construct them as fellow beings. 
Furthermore, I have argued that the second resolution – the modern justification – has begun to weaken. According to the modern justification, people are allowed to use farm animals for modern progress, and harming them is a price to pay for this progress. I have claimed that the increase in meat eating and the rationalisation of farming are not seen any more as modern progress by many urban consumers. This is because the link between meat and health is weakening and because meat is increasingly seen as a source of risk. 
In the context of production, I have argued that the rationalisation of food industry and farms tend to create moral indifference towards farm animals among employees and farmers. I have shown that intensive and extensive farmers relate animals in different ways, so that intensive farmers tend to see animals more as fellow beings with complex welfare requirements, while intensive farmers tend to relate animals with less personalised ways. Several characters of the rational organisation – the division of labour, modern technology, growth in production units, and objectification of animals – create physical and mental distance to animals. 
Finally, I have discussed about moral relations with animals in the context of farm animal sciences. I have claimed that sciences tend to construct contradictory views of animals: on the one hand they have constructed animals in mechanistic terms and on the other hand as beings with complex welfare requirements. I have claimed that from the 1970s onwards, animal welfare issues have begun to be more central in farm animal sciences. Animal welfare sciences have been influential in the production of moral attitudes and sentiments to animals by constructing views on what is animal welfare, what practises harm animals and what is the valid way to gain knowledge on the good life of animals. 
Thus, several different social forces are working in the creation of moral relations to animals. Late modernity seems to intensify the double-edged or ambivalent character of modernity, giving opportunities to construct farm animals both as fellow beings and as distant others. Urbanisation has created physical distance to farm animals, but mediatisation has given new spaces to bring animals closer to urban people. Rationalisation of farming has given opportunities to relate with animals in instrumental ways, but it has created also new risks, so that people start questioning the practises of farming and food industry. Finally, science gives opportunities to perceive animals as objects without inner experiences, but it also provides new methods to try to understand the welfare of animals. 

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