"Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?

But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.

Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style."

Pigs are amazing animals: intelligent, sociable and empathetic. The way we treat them – confining pregnant sows and nursing mothers to weeks or months in gestation/farrowing crates, and gassing them underground in slaughterhouses – is truly appalling.