Category: Animal Rights and Issues

Very nice post from *Christopher at Bending the Rule.

I was at an Epiphany party last night and was trying to make a qualified case for vegetarianism to a couple of the attendees, without much traction I’m afraid. And it’s hard to do it without coming across as shrill or fanatical. (Though in my defense, a few of them came across as somewhat fanatical in their liturgical preferences.)

But I think *Christopher’s right that there are always ways in which we can live less violently with our animal friends. It needn’t be all or nothing. In fact, it can’t be all. Andrew Linzey has repeatedly pointed out that there’s no “pure land” on which to live. Even a strict vegan would be complicit in and benefit from a host of practices that harm animals. I think Karl Barth was wrong when he called vegetarianism a “wanton anticipation of the eschaton,” but to think that we can live in this world without adversely impacting the lives of animals would seem to fit that description.

The flipside though is the danger of complacency. The thing is, there are a lot of ways we could greatly increase the well-being of animals (especially those we raise for food, who account for the vast majority of animals we interact with) without any great sacrifice on our part. The fact that the use of animals is so widely bound up with our current civilization does make it hard of course, if only psychologically, to make certain sacrifices, but in terms of our objective needs, the sacrifice of, say, regular access to cheap meat would have to count as relatively minor.

At the end of the day this is just the challenge of the moral life in general: we have to do what we can, hoping to avoid complacency, and gently encouraging others ideally while remaining humble about our own shortcomings and without falling into fanatacism or self-righteousness.

Keith Burgess-Jackson is on a tear! (and I mean that in a good way!)

 

One of the interesting things about adopting a moral stance that is out of the mainstream is that it potentially puts you in a state of radical opposition to nearly everyone around you. For someone who takes the strong animal rights position, there are grave and systematic injustices being perpetrated on animals throughout our society. And the vast majority of people you know probably couldn’t care less! This is troubling in itself and inevitably raises the question of what actions, if any, one should take to rectify those injustices.

Compare the case of anti-abortionists/pro-lifers. Many of them believe that there are literally millions of innocent human beings being murdered, routinely and legally. How does that color their views of those who approve of abortion? How do they view the society that permits such a horror? What is the appropriate response?

The vast majority of animal rightists and right-to-lifers have (rightly) eschewed violence as a means of change and have renounced those fringe elements who do resort to violence. But can we say that it’s always wrong to use violence against a grave injustice, even if it is legally sanctioned? Most of us would say that violent resistance would have been an appropriate response to, say, the policies of Nazi Germany. So, from the point of view of the animal rightist/pro-lifer, why wouldn’t violence be justified as a response to the slaughter of millions of animals/unborn children? Isn’t the protection of the innocent one of the few noble uses of violence?

 

Well, hard cases make bad law, as they say. I think a big part of the answer has to be that this ain’t Nazi Germany, bud! For anyone who perceives a serious injustice, there are legal and non-violent channels for expressing that protest. Violence, even in the service of a good cause, should always be a last resort. Private violence strikes as the very heart of the rule of law that makes civilized life possible, so it should be undertaken, if ever, only under the gravest of circumstances when all other options have been exhausted.

 

Secondly, even if violence could prevent an immediate act of injustice, it won’t result in any lasting justice unless the underlying conditions exist to support it. In the case of our hypothetical vigilantes, the protection of animals/fetuses will not be secured in the long run without a broad consensus that they should be protected. Otherwise, once the vigilante is caught or killed, society will continue to go on its merry way (if anything, the vigilante’s cause will only have been discredited).

 

So, I think animal rightists and pro-lifers are right to insist that persuasion must be the primary means they use to change the world. A commitment to peaceful methods of social change is, in all but the most exteme cases, both morally and pragmatically superior.

In this essay, Tom Regan, the philosopher best known for his writings on animal rights, argues against “contractarianism” in a fashion similar to that of my argument below. Here’s Regan:

Here, very crudely, is the root idea [of contractarianism]: morality consists of a set of rules that individuals voluntarily agree to abide by, as we do when we sign a contract (hence the name contractarianism). Those who understand and accept the terms of the contract are covered directly; they have rights created and recognized by, and protected in, the contract. And these contractors can also have protection spelled out for others who, though they lack the ability to understand morality and so cannot sign the contract themselves, are loved or cherished by those who can. Thus young children, for example, are unable to sign contracts and lack rights. But they are protected by the contract nonetheless because of the sentimental interests of others, most notably their parents. So we have, then, duties involving these children, duties regarding them, but no duties to them. Our duties in their case are indirect duties to other human beings, usually their parents.

Regan points out that the status of animals under contractarian theories is analogous to that of children since they, obviously cannot be parties to a contract – implied or otherwise. But he doesn’t think this is a problem for his theory of animal rights since, according to him, contractarianism is far from being an adequate theory of moral duties with respect to humans, and so doesn’t even make it out of the gate. He says:

When it comes to the moral status of animals, contractarianism could be a hard view to refute if it were an adequate theoretical approach to the moral status of human beings. It is not adequate in this latter respect, however, which makes the question of its adequacy in the former case, regarding animals, utterly moot. For consider: morality, according to the (crude) contractarian position before us, consists of rules that people agree to abide by. What people? Well, enough to make a difference – enough, that is, collectively to have the power to enforce the rules that are drawn up in the contract. That is very well and good for the signatories but not so good for anyone who is not asked to sign. And there is nothing in the contractarianism of the sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone will have a chance to participate equally in framing rules of morality. The result is that this approach to ethics could sanction the most blatant forms of social, economic, moral, and political injustice, ranging from a repressive caste system to systematic racial or sexual discrimination. Might, according to this theory, does make right. Let those who are the victims of injustice suffer as they will. It matters not so long as no one else – no contractor, or too few of them – cares about it. Such a theory takes one’s moral breath away…. A theory with so little to recommend it at the level of the ethics of our treatment of our fellow humans cannot have anything more to recommend it when it comes to the ethics of how we treat our fellow animals.

Regan goes on to consider more sophisticated versions of contractarianism, such as the version propounded by John Rawls. Nevertheless, it suffers, according to Regan, from the same fundamental defect – by excluding certain individuals from the original bargaining position, it denies that we have direct duties to those individuals who lack a sense of justice.

I think Regan here puts his finger on a central defect of contractarianism. Its circle of moral concern – who it considers agents worthy of moral consideration and obligation – will have to be determined in advance of determining the rules of morality (which is what the contract is supposed to do). But specifying to whom we have moral duties is itself a crucial and central aspect of morality. By excluding entire classes of beings in advance, contractarianism appears to beg a central question of morality, despite the fact that the contract is supposed to determine morality’s content.

Keith Burgess-Jackson directs our attention to this article in the Washington Post on the conditions in modern slaughterhouses. Despite the passage of the (somewhat Orwellian-sounding) Humane Slaughter Act, the level of enforcement appears to vary greatly:

For example, the government took no action against a Texas beef company that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that included chopping hooves off live cattle. In another case, agency supervisorsfailed to take action on multiple complaints of animal cruelty at a Florida beef plant and fired an animal health technician for reporting the problems to the Humane Society. The dismissal letter sent to the technician, Tim Walker, said his dislosure had “irreparably damaged” the agency’s relations with the packing plant.

“I complained to everyone — I said, ‘Lookit, they’re skinning live cows in there,’ ” Walker said. “Always it was the same answer: ‘We know it’s true. But there’s nothing we can do about it.’”

Some blame the lack of enforcement on the “privatization” of inspection processes:

In the past three years, a new meat inspection system that shifted responsibility to industry has made it harder to catch and report cruelty problems, some federal inspectors say. Under the new system, implemented in 1998, the agency no longer tracks the number of humane-slaughter violations its inspectors find each year.

We are also offered this interesting paradox:

Industry officials say they also recognize an ethical imperative to treat animals with compassion. Science is blurring the distinction between the mental processes of humans and lower animals — discovering, for example, that even the lowly rat may dream. Americans thus are becoming more sensitive to the suffering of food animals, even as they consume increasing numbers of them.

The article goes on to detail some of the mishaps that have resulted in gruesome suffering in animals such as cattle being skinned alive and botched stunning techniques that allow conscious pigs to be dunked in tanks of hot water where they are scalded and drowned.

If these were cats and dogs instead of cows and pigs, would we be more outraged by this kind of thing? But pigs and cows are just as intelligent and sociable as cats and dogs and are just as sensitive to pain. What is the morally significant difference?

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.