GGR107H1 Chap.5 Animals in Agriculture: Ghosts and Things
Animals in Agriculture: Ghosts and Things
Two trends in one argument
Tony Weis's article sets wild animals becoming ghosts, through the extinction spasm and defaunation, against farmed animals in industrial livestock systems, whose numbers soar while they are treated as interchangeable things.
He argues that these changing conditions are underappreciated and central to a more sustainable world.
Reading Weis critically
The Week 4 lecture uses the article to teach reasoning types: a 58% fall in a world wildlife index over 40 years as empirical evidence, defaunation as a concept, the argument against land sparing as logic, and a call to reduce animal production as ethics.
Why the article is assessed as reasoning
Week 4 teaches critical reading and the animals reading together, so questions often ask what kind of argument Weis makes as well as what he says.
The lecture slides take a logical example (the argument against land sparing), an empirical one (a 58% fall in a world wildlife index over 40 years), a conceptual one (defaunation) and an ethical one (cutting animal production and consumption) from the article, and leave the aesthetic example blank.
Using Weis in a long answer
Weis connects wild and farmed animals, which makes the article useful for questions that cross weeks.
Pair it with LaDuke on treating living things as commodities, with the commodity chain chapter for meat products, or with the technology chapter on whether higher yields help the environment.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Ghosts: defaunation and the extinction spasm
- 02
Things: animals in industrial livestock
- 03
Commodi-faunation
- 04
Biological simplification and standardization
- 05
The argument against land sparing
- 06
Reasoning types in Weis's article
Worked example · free
Match the evidence to the reasoning in Weis
- 1Empirical: the 2016 Living Planet Index figure of a 58% drop in world wildlife over 40 years.
- 1Conceptual: defaunation, the shrinking of species, populations and abundance.
- 1Ethical: cutting animal production and consumption should be a central goal.
- 1Connection: the concept explains the measured decline, and the ethical aim responds to it.
Key terms
- Defaunation
- The decline in animal species, populations and abundance.
- Commodi-faunation
- Weis's term for industrial livestock systems that organise animal life as a commodity.
- Land Sparing
- The argument that higher yields per hectare free land for wild nature, which Weis disputes.
- Extinction Spasm
- Weis's phrase for the present rapid wave of species loss, the source of the ghosts in his title.
Animals in Agriculture: Ghosts and Things FAQ
What does Weis mean by ghosts and things?
Ghosts are wild animals disappearing through defaunation and the extinction spasm, whose absence impoverishes landscapes. Things are animals in industrial livestock production, whose numbers soar while they are treated as fungible units. Weis argues that the two trends are connected and central to sustainability.
Which kind of reasoning did the lecture not find clearly in Weis's article?
Aesthetic reasoning. The lecture slide gives examples of logical, empirical, ethical and conceptual reasoning drawn from the article, and leaves the aesthetic example as two question marks, which the Week 4 quiz turned into a question.
Why does Weis doubt that high-yield monocultures reduce environmental harm?
The Week 4 quiz states that, for Weis, it is doubtful that higher-yielding monocultures are the key to shrinking farming's environmental footprint. The lecture cites his argument against land sparing as the article's example of logical reasoning.
How does Weis connect wild animals and farm animals?
He argues that the two trends belong to one system. The ecological effects of industrial livestock reach far beyond the farm, so the expansion of farmed animal populations and the decline of wild animals are linked, which is why he centres animal life in debates about environmental and dietary change.
Why does Weis use the word ghosts?
The image asks readers to picture landscapes haunted by the animals that used to live there. It turns defaunation, an abstract decline in species and populations, into something you can imagine, which helps the article make a quiet loss feel concrete.
Exam move
Summarize Weis in four sentences that use ghosts, things, defaunation and commodi-faunation correctly, then label each sentence with the kind of reasoning it reports. Then write one sentence linking Weis to another week's reading, naming the shared concern and one difference in evidence.
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