The production of milk is unethical

The argument

Cows, or other animals used for milk production, have basic rights that are violated when they are forced to produce milk for human consumption. Dairy cows experience a life much different on a dairy farm than they would in the wild, and the differences are not incidental to dairying but required by it. The reproductive cycle is where that begins. Calves are taken away from their mothers days after birth, so the mother's milk can be used for humans, and female cows are artificially inseminated to continue their milk production, often never going through the real mating process with a male cow like they would in nature. A dairy herd produces milk only because it is repeatedly made pregnant and then separated from its offspring, so the separation is not a failure of the system but the mechanism the system runs on. The conditions of the rest of the animal's life compound it. Many dairy farms have inhumane conditions for the cows: such as indoor pens with no sunlight, hormone injections to stimulate production, feeding of animals with diets not natural to them, and cows having to live in their own feces due to pens not being cleaned. All of these conditions can lead to serious health problems, injuries, and diseases among cows, this nets in a lower quality of life. The cumulative effect is measurable in how long the animals live. Cows in captivity for dairy farming generally have life spans four times shorter than those living in nature — a figure that captures the whole arrangement at once, since an animal whose life is shortened that far is not merely being used but used up. On this argument the question of whether animal milk is healthy for humans is beside the point: we shouldn't drink it regardless.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Cows are not deserving of basic rights. Kantian ethics, a form of ethics often used to justify so called basic rights is often based on, suggests that the ability to be a moral actor, and as such have moral worth, comes from our rationality. As such we only have a moral duty to respect the ends of other rational consciousnesses. Cows are not rational actors and as such are not deserving of rights. On the other hand utilitarian ethics, an ethical system based on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, posits that all consciousnesses that feel pleasure and pain possess moral worth. Under this framework cows still don't deserve rights, however as inhumane factory conditions likely produce more pain then the pleasure gained by humans drinking milk, they could be said to be unethical

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The practices are accurately described but treated as uniform. Timing of calf separation, housing and insemination practice vary widely between systems and jurisdictions, and pasture-based, organic and calf-at-foot dairying all exist — so the argument establishes that some production is objectionable, not that milk production is. "Basic rights" is also asserted rather than argued: on one influential account moral standing follows rationality, which cattle are not held to possess. [Rejecting P2] The conditions listed are those of intensive confinement operations, and the premise generalises from the worst of the sector to all of it. Several specifics also vary by jurisdiction — growth hormone for milk yield is prohibited across the European Union, Canada and elsewhere — so the objection is to a method of production rather than to the product. [Rejecting P3] The lifespan comparison is the weakest claim. Dairy cows are culled on productivity rather than dying of the conditions described, and the comparison is with a wild lifespan for an animal that does not exist in the wild, modern dairy breeds being the product of centuries of selection. Even granting the premise entire, the conclusion overreaches: harm in current practice argues for changing the practice — which is where the counter-argument's own utilitarian branch arrives, without reaching the conclusion that milk should not be drunk.

Framing

Cows and animals in general have rights that should not be violated.