Last week I received my copy of Andrew Linzey’s new book, Why Animal Suffering Matters. I’ve only just started it, but it looks like Linzey develops in more detail an argument that he’s deployed in some of his other works: the differences between animals and humans, instead of justifying a lower moral status for animals, actually justifiy a radical revision in the way we treat them. This is because those characteristic differences (e.g., moral innocence, relativie helplessness) are such that they call for a response of mercy and compassion on our part. I expect to do some more in-depth blogging on this as time allows.
"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
2 responses to “Coming attractions”
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This is another one of those areas where we tend to think too linear. Moral status, intelligence, etc., are plotted on a single line, with us somewhere between angels and earthworms.
I was intrigued when my seminary professor Meredith Kline offered observations on the use of the term “image of God” in Scripture that showed that it was not our humanness as such that bore it. God, angels, and humans had it. But if this were the case, while we were set apart from much of creation, we were like creation in other ways, and perhaps not superior in all.
Reading Temple Grandin has given me appreciation for how different kinds of animal intelligence may outstrip human intelligence on certain scales. Add to that some unusual sensory abilities, and who knows what kinds of mental experiences they are capable of. Much of our intelligence results from metaphorical thinking based upon sensory experience. This could be highly developed in unpredictable ways in other creatures.
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I agree with your point on the lack of a single dimension for measuring “intelligence,” etc.
On the image of God issue, Linzey makes an interesting suggestion–based on recent OT scholarship–that it should be understood in “functionalist” terms. I plan to explore that in a post shortly…
A Thinking Reed 
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