Scientific research on pig cognition has revealed a level of intelligence that challenges assumptions underlying their current farming treatment. Understanding what pigs can think and feel is fundamental to welfare advocacy.
Pig intelligence research creates a direct moral challenge: if pigs can think, learn, remember, plan, and feel optimism and pessimism, they can also experience the deprivation, frustration, and chronic stress of intensive confinement in ways that matter morally. This is not a comfortable conclusion for a society that raises approximately 1.4 billion pigs annually in conditions designed for production rather than welfare. The research does not suggest pigs should not be used for food — that is a separate ethical question — but it does suggest that the current conditions of most pig farming represent a moral inconsistency between our treatment of pigs and what we know about their inner lives. Welfare improvements that give pigs opportunities to exercise their intelligence — enrichment, social complexity, choice — are not optional additions to adequate care but necessities for beings this cognitively complex.