The fur industry massacres animals

The argument

The case against wearing fur begins with scale. The fur industry kills over one billion animals each year, and an objection that might be treated as marginal at small volumes becomes, at that size, a claim about one of the larger systematic uses of animals anywhere in the economy. A business that widespread and permeating, on this view, must be stopped rather than adjusted at the edges. Two distinct objections are being made, and they are worth separating. The first concerns how the animals live. The horrible conditions in which they are kept are morally repugnant to many animal rights activists — not incidental cruelty arising from one badly run farm, but the ordinary operating conditions of the trade. The second concerns how they die. The methods by which they are killed for their fur are incredibly cruel and inhumane, and the objection here is not only to the fact of killing but to its manner. According to PETA, "Small animals may be crammed into boxes and poisoned with hot, unfiltered engine exhaust from a truck. Engine exhaust is not always lethal, and some animals wake up while they are being skinned." That detail carries much of the weight of the argument. A killing method that is not reliably lethal is not a regrettable necessity but a choice about cost, adopted because it is cheap rather than because it is the least painful option available. This is where greed enters the case. An industry that makes billions of dollars per year has the means to do otherwise and does not, which is what converts cruelty into culpability. And because the trade is sustained by purchases, the consumer is not a bystander. Refusing to participate is the point at which an individual can act: the fur-farming companies must not be rewarded for their ruthlessness, and they are rewarded every time a fur product is bought.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Should there be a distinction between factory-raised meat for human consumption and mink in the fashion industry? Many activists who claim that fur farming is inhumane and cruel for the animals will regularly consume chicken and pork products in similarly torturous conditions. Refraining from the fur farm process and failing to refrain from the meat farm one seriously contradicts the philosophical and moral implications behind the movement. If fur farms are inherently cruel, then should activists not be always discussing meat farms in the same exact light?

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The meat industry is similarly cruel and inhumane to animals, yet the argument only mentions consumers' obligations against fur farms. The industries should be treated the same within the argument itself. [Rejecting P3] Consumers are morally obligated to fight against more than just the fur industry.