Animal exploitation refers to the human utilization ofnon-human animals, typically for the former's personal and economic benefit or resource extraction from the latter, including meat, hide, bodily secretions, organs, labor, and so forth, which often results in suffering and harm^[1]: 3 on the animal's part and/or confinement and deprivation of the animal's natural living conditions. It occurs across various animal industries and involves different practices, treating non-human animals as commodities rather thansentient beings and violating theirrights. According tothe Humane League, animal exploitation lies at the opposite end of the spectrum fromanimal rights, "which are situations in which animals have no choice to live freely, no autonomy over their own lives. Instead, humans dictate every aspect of an exploited animal's life."^[2]

Along with meat consumption, animal exploitation is considered part of the dominant ideological system calledcarnism, which prescribes norms and beliefs about animal treatment.^[3] Both exploitation of animals and consumption of meat represent underlying competitive-power motives of domination over animals and support for inequality between humans and nonhuman animals.^[3]

Animal exploitation occurs across industries ranging fromagriculture, where animals aretreated as commodities to be turned into food, to science, where they are treated asunwilling test subjects.^[2] The exploitation manifests itself in all forms,^{[4]: xvi–xvii} including use of animals forfood,medicine,fashion and cosmetics,medical research,labor and transport,entertainment,wildlife trade,companionship, and so forth.^[5][6] Animal rights are also violated when their habitats are destroyed often to make room for more farm lands and human habitat expansion.^[2] According to Brian Luke, the primary way we relate to nonhuman animals is in terms of their purpose for us, that is, how useful they are to us, based on which we construct institutions to carry out those uses, resulting in institutionalized animal exploitation.^[1]: 2

While industrialization of animal exploitation does not represent the entirety of human use of animals, theanimal–industrial complex remains the place where most of the animal exploitation takes place today.^[7]: 395 The animal–industrial complex is the systematic and institutionalized exploitation of animals,^{[8]: 299 [9]: 197} which scholars claim differ from individual acts ofanimal cruelty. The animal–industrial complex involves commodification of animals under contemporarycapitalism and includes every economic activity involving animals, such as food, animal research, entertainment, fashion, companionship, and so forth,^[10] all of which are seen as consequences of animal exploitations.^[11]: 421 The animal–industrial complex is accused of involvement in a range of perceived wrongs, including animalagribusiness and its networks, or the agro-industrial complex (which includesanimal agriculture, the meat and dairy industries,factory farms, poultry, apiculture,aquaculture, and the like),^{[11]: 422 [12][13]} intersecting with various otherindustrial complexes, such as thepharmaceutical–industrial complex,^{[9]: 207 [11]: 422}medical–industrial complex,^{[9]: 207 [14]: xvi–xvii} vivisection–industrial complex,^[15] cosmetic–industrial complex, entertainment–industrial complex,^[11]: 422 academic–industrial complex,^{[11]: 422 [14]: xvi–xvii} security–industrial complex,^{[14]: xvi–xvii}prison–industrial complex,^{[11]: 422 [14]: xvi–xvii} and so forth, all of which involve exploitation of animals. PhilosopherSteven Best believes that all these industrial complexes interrelate with and reinforce the animal–industrial complex by "exploiting the nonhuman animal slaves" of the latter.^{[14]: xvi–xvii}

Luke categorizes the standard defenses of animal use into three broad categories, namely, those that refer to human rationality, those that claim divine sanction, and those that describe exploitation as natural. Rationalistic arguments are based on human superiority (e.g., "Human lives are intrinsically more valuable than animal lives"), reciprocation (e.g., "We only have moral duties to those who can reciprocate"), and replacement (e.g., "Some animal would not exist if we did not exploit them"). Factors behind theistic arguments include human sanctity (e.g., "We were created in God's image"), sacrifice (e.g., "God requires us to make blood offerings"), and creation (e.g., "God created animals for our use"). Naturalistic arguments include human chauvinism (e.g., "Our contempt for other species is natural"), predatory instinct (e.g., "Men are hunters by nature"), and competition (e.g., "It is natural for species to exploit each other").^[1]: 4

Theories such associal dominance theory (SDT) are used by researchers as frameworks for understanding human attitudes towards the use of animals.^[16] Researchers identify viewing animals as commodities by humans as a manifestation ofspeciesism.^[17] Studies demonstrate that ethnic prejudices such as racism are positively associated with speciesism. According to scholars, the most willingness to exploit non-human animals is found in people who express greater ethnic prejudice. This effect is underpinned by the role of social dominance orientation linking these distinct forms of bias.^[18]

Animal exploitation, particularly in food production and research, has two important consequences: (a) the animals may suffer pain, discomfort, malady, and isolation and may live short lives; and (b) these activities cause large numbers of animals to be brought into existence.^[19]

Animal exploitation has several negative consequences, including those for humans, which is exemplified byfactory farming.^[20]: 9 According to theHumane Society of the United States, animal exploitation also has negative societal moral consequences.^[20]: 17 Scholars identify the denial of the moral status of non-human animals as a model for humanslavery,genocide, andexploitation of women.^[20]: 17 According to Brian Luke, animal exploitation and certain gendered norms in our consciouness are deeply intertwined.^[1]: 1

Research supports the idea that attitudes toward animals, including their rights and treatment, relate to other wider social and ideological views, including perceiving vegetarianism as a threat to traditional values.^[21]: 17 According to Branković, attitudes toward animals correlated with endorsement of social hierarchies and valuing ethnic ingroup superiority.^[21] Scholars say animal exploitation serves as a model for human exploitation.David Nibert argues that throughout history the oppression of exploited animals supported the oppression and exploitation of humans, and vice versa.^[9]: 198 The resulting change from one form of the control of state power to another, such as the olderaristocracy being replaced by rising capitalism, was "every bit as violent and oppressive" as the former.^[9]: 198 The state-supported profit-driven capitalist expansion, for instance, was responsible for the killing and displacement ofNorth America'sindigenous peoples and animals.^[9]: 199 The creation of ranching operations led to intrusions onto Native American lands and violent displacement of the people in them in order to accommodate the growing numbers of oppressed animals, which in turn resulted in the creation ofslaughterhouse operations.^[9]: 199

Studies show that the prevalence of meat consumption and animal exploitation is more amongright-wing adherents. Researchers cite two main reasons for this: (a) pushing back against the supposed threat fromvegetarianism andveganism to traditions and cultural practice, and (b) feeling more entitled to consume animals given human "superiority".^[3][18] Studies also reveal that, compared to men, women tend to be more concerned about animal welfare and less likely to support animal exploitation. Research suggest that shared psychological mechanisms can be the underlying reason for the propensities toward exploitation of natural environment and human/nonhuman animals.^[22]

Philosophers have questioned the ethical validity of animal exploitation since the ancient times, which gave rise to vegetarianism and, at least since the second millennium CE, to veganism. Throughout history, there have been ferocious debates surrounding the utility of using animals.^[23] According to Robert Garner, the debate against animal exploitation is not simply structured around the viability of according to animals sufficiently high moral status that makes certain, or all, human uses ethically illegitimate irrespective of its consequences to humans. Rather, it questions the very necessity of exploiting animals, either on the grounds that their use does not produce the benefits claimed for it and that the use is unnecessary and trivial.^[23] Thevegan andanimal rights movements, chiefly theabolitionist approach, of the twentieth century call for the abolition of animal exploitation by eliminating the commodity or property status of nonhuman animals.

• Commodity status of animals
• Commodification

• Stache, Christian (2020). "Conceptualising animal exploitation in capitalism: Getting terminology straight".Capital & Class.44 (3). SAGE:401–421.doi:10.1177/0309816819884697.
• Francione, Gary L. (2008).Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press.JSTOR 10.7312/fran13950.
• Nibert, David A. (2013).Animal Oppression and Human Violence. New York: Columbia University Press.ISBN 978-0-231-15188-7.
• Villanueva, Gonzalo (2018)."The Creation of the Animal Movement, 1976–87".A Transnational History of the Australian Animal Movement, 1970-2015. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements.Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 51–78.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-62587-4.ISBN 978-3-319-62586-7.
• Stuart, Diana; Gunderson, Ryan (17 June 2020)."Nonhuman Animals as Fictitious Commodities: Exploitation and Consequences in Industrial Agriculture".Society & Animals.28 (3). Brill:291–310.doi:10.1163/15685306-12341507.
• Berry, Bonnie (2018),"A critical interpretation of animal exploitation",Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology (2 ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 169–179,doi:10.4324/9781315622040-16,ISBN 9781315622040
• Ferrari, Arianna (April 2012)."Animal Disenhancement for Animal Welfare: The Apparent Philosophical Conundrums and the Real Exploitation of Animals. A Response to Thompson and Palmer".Nanoethics.6:65–76.doi:10.1007/s11569-012-0139-1.

• Animal exploitation: Introduction

• Animal rights
• Animal ethics
• Normative ethics
• Human–animal interaction

• CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list