Business

Recently I made a personal choice to only purchase and consume cage free eggs. I watched a documentary that showed how hen laying chickens are housed, what they were given to eat, and how they were treated in order to increase egg production. Quite honestly, I was sickened by what I saw. I enjoy eating eggs on a fairly regular basis so I knew I couldnt give them up but I decided to see what I could do to avoid giving any money to the commercial egg production industry. Cage free chickens are treated more humanely and are allowed access to the outdoors and are not kept in constrictive cages. In adopting this ethical standard for myself I was adopting a deontological ethical standard because I based much of my decision on what God has instructed his followers to do. God provides explicit instruction in the Bible that guides humans in proper treatment of his creation (Oakley  Cocking, 19). I realized that inhumanely holding chickens in cages that did not allow them to move or stand up was not taking proper care of Gods creation. Additionally, I felt that giving chickens synthetic substances to increase egg production went against Gods desires for proper treatment of animals.

This example falls in Kohlbergs Conventional (Level 2) stage because it aligns with interpersonal accord and conformity that appears because of social norms (Berger, 363). This stage emphasizes social rules and inhumane treatment of animals (as well as the environment in general) have become a hot topic on a global level so human beings are constantly searching for ways to adhere to new social rules regarding treatment of living things. However, I dont think the laws should be changed simply because I feel compassionate about animal rights. It would be very difficult to enforce a law that restricting the consumption of anything but cage free eggs. There are multitudes of families around the world who raise chickens for eggs and they cannot be monitored to ensure that the chickens are cage free. I think the most compelling way to encourage consumption of responsible products is to continue to make these issues known to humans so they can make an informed decision that hopefully considers the rights of all living creatures.