Month: July 2004

Continuing the animal rights theme, this weekend I read C.S. Lewis’s essay “Vivisection” (found in his book God in the Dock). Lewis criticizes philosophical naturalists and Darwinists who support experimentation on animals, on the grounds that as materialists who deny the moral uniqueness of human beings, they would also have no rational grounds for objecting to experimentation on “inferior” human beings. Lewis writes:

Once the old Christian idea of a total difference in kind between man and beast has been abandoned, then no argument for experiments on animals can be found which is not also an argument for experiments on inferior men. If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing up our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies or capitalists for the same reason. Indeed, experiments on men have already begun. We hear all that Nazi scientists have done them. We all suspect that our own scientists may begin to do so, in secret, at any moment.

Lewis’s point is that if we accept the naturalist position that human beings are just a different kind of animal, and if we accept that the struggle for existence determines the content of morality, then it’s hard to see why we shouldn’t favor “our kind” (be it our class, our race or our nation) at the expense of other human beings. In other words, if “speciesism” is just another preference – if there is no morally significant difference between humans and animals – then whatever justifies using our power to exploit animals will also justify using our power to dominate other humans if we are able.

Only the Christian doctrine of the distinction between humans and the rest of creation provides a stopping point on this particular slippery slope, according to Lewis.

But does that mean that if we are Christians we have carte blanche to do whatever we like to animals? Nope.

Lewis says:

And though cruelty even to beasts is an important matter, [the vivisectors’] victory is symptomatic of matters more important still. The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims, and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more recent achievements. In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.

When we accept something like cruelty to animals for the sake of our own benefit, whether it’s something trivial like better cosmetics or a tasty meal, or something more serious like a potential cure for a disease, we have adopted the view that the ends justify the means. This is inimical to Christianity, which teaches that we cannot do evil that good may come.

An alternative to the law of the jungle that Lewis deplores might be what we could call an ethic of generosity. Christianity teaches that “There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.” An ethic of generosity would be willing to seek the good of the other, even at the expense of the self. It involves giving up what might be our due in terms of strict justice, because love “does not count the cost.”

Indeed, the very life of Jesus reflects this idea of surrendering power for the sake of the other. The author of Philippians quotes what many scholars believe to be an early Christian hymn in describing the person and work of Christ:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death–

even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:5-11)

The Son of God – of one being with the Father – empties himself (the Greek term for this “emptying” is kenosis) of his divine power and takes the form of a servant, entering into the human condition with all its attendant suffering. And he does this for the sake of a lost and sinful humanity. He is the Good Shepherd who goes in search of the lost sheep, not counting the cost.

The life of the Christian should imitate this pattern – that of serving, or seeking the good of others, rather than dominating them, even if it requires self-sacrifice. Christians are commanded to love their neighbors as themselves, and even to love their enemies. This would seem to imply a widening of the circle of moral concern, rather than constricting it to “our kind of people.” Care for the poor, the outcast, and the widow – those who were the most powerless and vulnerable – is commended throughout the Bible. Also, more recently, the elderly infirm, the sick, and the unborn have been special objects of concern for Christians. I would suggest that the same moral trajectory invites us to extend such concern to animals, even when withholding it could benefit us. After all, who is more powerless and voiceless than the animal?

Do animals have rights?

I used to resist this conclusion because I thought it implied that animals were on a moral par with human beings, and that was something I just couldn’t accept. I’m an unrepentant speciesist, I guess.

But it now occurs to me that one can sensibly talk about “animal rights” without implying some kind of fundamental moral equality between animals and humans.

One way of understanding the notion of “rights” is to see a right as a moral claim. For instance, if it’s wrong to kill an innocent person, then any innocent person has a claim upon the rest of us not to be killed unjustly. Or, you could say that person has a right not to be killed unjustly.

Now, some people seem to think that rights must be rooted in some ethereal metaphysical property inherent in the rights-possessor (which is why philosophers have been tempted to locate the source of rights in some property possessed only by people, such as rationality or free will, and why they have generally denied that animals have any rights). I think this is what Jeremy Bentham had in mind when he said that rights were “nonsense on stilts.” But on the understanding sketched above, a “right” is just a correlate of a moral principle or duty. It isn’t wrong to kill an innocent person because they possess some quality “the-right-not-to-be-killed-unjustly.” Rather, the right not to be killed is constituted by the moral principle.

So, by analogous reasoning, if there are moral principles that govern our relations with animals, then it seems reasonable to suppose that those principles could imply that animals have certain rights.

For instance, nearly everyone with a modicum of decency would agree, I think, that it’s wrong to torture an animal simply for pleasure. But if this is right, then it seems to follow – if one accepts the (admittedly sketchy) account of rights given above – that animals have a right not to be tortured for pleasure. And this in no way implies that animals have the same rights as human beings, since the moral principles that govern our relations with animals may well differ from those that govern our relations to other humans.