A Thinking Reed

Category: Animal Rights and Issues

  • A debate on animal rights

    Just catching up on some of my post-Christmas reading: in Sunday’s Washington Post there was a mini-debate between Andrew Linzey and neuroscientist Adrian Morrison over the rights of animals.

    Linzey is certainly right that Morrison misses the thrust of his central argument. The question isn’t whether humans are different from non-human animals, but whether that difference justifies disregarding animal suffering. On the other hand, I’m not sure Linzey adequately grapples with the genuine dilemma of foregoing potentially life-saving medical research by ending experiments on animals.

    In some ways, I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to focus the debate on medical research (though given the participants, I suppose that was inevitable). The fact is that, by any reckoning, the vast majority of human-inflicted animal suffering comes from animal agriculture. And it’s pretty clear that the benefits of the factory farming system (i.e., the pleasures of the palate that come from eating meat instead of vegetarian alternatives) are far outweighed by the vast quantity of animal suffering they demand. Morrison’s argument that we can’t make judgments about the relative weight of pleasures that people get from, say, going to the rodeo or eating meat is frankly ludicrous.

    Compared to our present world, a vegetarian one would be immeasurably better in terms of animal suffering. I’m not saying that animal rights activists shouldn’t criticize the practices of animal experimentation, particularly since a lot of that experimentation serves no vital human interests. But the case for changing our treatment of animals in fairly substantial ways doesn’t hinge on resolving all the hard cases like choosing whether to forego the benefits of a life-saving drug for your child.

  • Noah, climate change, and “assisted migration”

    In Celia Deane-Drummond and David Clough’s Creaturely Theology, Christopher Southgate expands on an idea he discussed briefly in his recent book The Groaning of Creation (see my posts here). Southgate points out that, due to human-caused climate change, we’re looking at a massive die off of animal life in the near future (what has been called the sixth great extinction). Naturally, when we debate climate change and what, if anything, we should do about it, we focus primarily on the costs and benefits to us. Occasionally, if we’re feeling expansive, we might briefly consider the effects that rising temperatures and sea levels may have on millions desperately poor people around the world, but it would be a huge stretch to say that those people’s interests are given anything like the appropriate weight in our debates. How much less, then, are we taking into consideration the interests of the billions of non-human animals that will be affected?

    Extinction, Southgate says, is a sui generis event. It’s not just a harm inflicted on numerous individual creatures, but the final disappearance of an entire way of being in the world. The seriousness of such an event, much less many such events, and the near-certainty of at least some degree of significant climate change should lead us, he argues, to consider whether we have responsibilities, Noah-like, to ensure the continued existence of threatened species.

    Southgate argues that traditional environmentalist and animal-rights philosophies are ill-equipped to deal with this scenario. Environmentalists have tended to urge human beings to leave wild nature be–our responsibilities toward non-human creatures are couched in terms of restricting our impact on them. Meanwhile, animal rights proponents have been concerned primarily with the plight of animals already within the sphere of domestication and, hence, human society to some extent. But what Southgate urges us to recognize is that we’re rapidly approaching–if we haven’t already reached it–the point where human action is inescapably changing the conditions for all life on earth. (What Bill McKibben called “the end of nature.”) We can’t simply abdicate our responsibility for that influence by taking refuge in the comforting illusion that we can shrink our impact to nothing. The damage is done, or is inevitably being done, so we have some responsibility for mitigating it.

    Given the limitations of existing environmentalist and animal rights frameworks, Southgate proposes turning to the Bible for some ethical principles. The OT teaches us that God cares for everything she has created, and the NT, while short on pro-ecology passages, upholds a normative ideal of concern for the other and servant-hood. Southgate here echoes Andrew Linzey’s idea that human beings are the “servant species,” the one kind of creature capable of taking an interest in the needs of others, even at great cost to itself. Moreover, Christian theology inculcates a moral preference for the most vulnerable, the voiceless, those who are unable to stand up for their own interests. Finally, Southgate appeals to a Pauline notion of community as mutual giving and receiving, suitably expanded to include non-human creatures. The interdependence of the entire ecosystem drives home the point that not only can non-humans be the beneficiaries of our gifts, but we also constantly receive from them.

    With these principles in hand, Southgate proposes that we need to seriously consider costly programs of assisted migration for species threatened by habitat loss due to climate change. This could take two forms: the first would be the creation of “corridors” allowing animals safe passage from their old, increasingly unsuitable habitats to more hospitable ones; the second would be actually physically transplanting a viable population from one habitat to another. (Southgate offers a thought experiment of relocating polar bears to Antarctica.) Such measures would not be easy or cheap, but there may be cases where a daring and sacrificial use of resources would be called for. At a more practical level, merely making people aware of such seemingly far-fetched possibilities might drive home the need to make preventative changes now.

    Southgate warns that we’re not in a position to save all the creatures as Noah was, but

    the profoundly difficult and risky exercise of moving animals from one locus to another should reinforce the point that the earth is our only ark, and the great preponderance of our current current creativity and ingenuity must be towards prayerfully and humbly ensuring the continued health of the “vessel,” such that it is no longer necessary to keep displacing its inhabitants. (pp. 264-5).

    This is a radically different notion of “dominion” or even “stewardship” than the one we’re used to: it calls upon humans to take active steps to foster the continued flourishing of the rest of creation, even if it requires significant sacrifice on our part. Southgate distinguishes between an anthropocentric and an anthropomonist ethic: we must recognize the central place that humans, inescapably, play in caring for creation, but without elevating our own interests to the sole, or even most important, criterion for how we exercise that care.

  • Building a better farm animal?

    Thanks to mizm of the fine blog Left at the Altar for alerting me to this paper by Adam Shriver that makes a case for replacing factory farmed animals with animals genetically engineered to feel less pain. The author cites recent research that seems to show that it’s possible to eliminate, or at least reduce, animals’ capacity for suffering and goes on to argue that, on consequentialist grounds, this could provide a certain technological fix to the moral problem of factory farming.

    I have two problems with this piece, a somewhat superficial one and a deeper one. First, even if it is possible to reduce or eliminate the unpleasant sensations associated with pain, there’s still the issue of how factory farming frustrates animals’ natural tendencies toward certain behaviors. A pig wants to get up and move around, and a hen wants to stretch her wings. This is true even if they aren’t in pain per se. Not to mention the various social and other behaviors that are proper to these creatures but which the confined conditions of factory farming prevent them from engaging in. Even if we could genetically engineer away pain, is it possible to engineer away the frustration, boredom, and fear that these animals undoubtedly also experience?

    Suppose it is possible, though–is it desirable? This brings me to my more fundamental objection. Even if such a thing was technically feasible, would it be right to engineer animals with such radically different natures that they no longer even wanted to express the patterns of behavior proper to their kind? Granted, we can’t necessarily see natural kinds in quite the same ways that our pre-Darwinian ancestors might have, but isn’t there something monstrous about the prospect of fashioning such unnatural beings? Is our gluttony for flesh so insatiable that there’s no length we won’t go to in order to satisfy it?

    In fairness to Shriver, he seems to be an animal advocate, and his argument is motivated in part by a deep pessimism that moral argument will persuade large numbers of people to boycott the products of factory farms. Replacing existing farm animals with ones incapable of suffering is, for him, a second-best option. I’m not sure I share his pessimism, but even if I did, there are some things that we shouldn’t do even if they seem to promise the best available utilitarian outcome. The kind of engineering he envisions would, it seems to me, be the ultimate reduction of animals to commodity status–it would be an explicit affirmation that they are entirely material to be manipulated for our use, rather than creatures with an independent dignity and worth. The result might well turn out to be a case of winning the battle only to lose the war: a society with such a wholly instrumentalist view of non-human life is not likely to learn to restrain itself from running roughshod over creation whenever it feels like it. Is that the kind of society we want? And is it one that can last?

  • Factory farming power grab in Ohio?

    Ohioans will vote Tuesday on a measure to amend the state constitution and create a board of political appointees that will set standards for the treatment of farm animals. The problem, as this Mother Jones article spells out, is that any such board would be outside the normal rule-making process, immune from public comment, and is bound to be dominated by big agriculture interests, who have been the prime movers in getting this measure on the ballot.

    The opposition–a loose coalition of small farmers, animal welfare groups, and even some small-government conservatives–argues that the measure would create a permanent place for special interests in the state constitution. Moreover, any measures to improve the conditions of farmed animals (like last year’s Proposition 2 in California) would have to amend the state constitution. Here’s a summary of their arguments. It’s very difficult to see this measure as anything but an attempt by a powerful and influential industry to insulate itself from pressure for reform.

  • Vegetarianism without foundations

    Freddie at the group blog the League of Ordinary Gentleman probes the philosophical underpinnings of vegetarians/vegans and contends that they are insufficiently developed.

    I think he’s wrong in suggesting that vegetarians haven’t devled deeply into these issues: there’s quite a vast philosophical literature on the subject that has sprung up in the last 30 years, and there are accounts of why animals matter morally that are as good as any other philosophical theory in ethics. (Which doesn’t mean they’re problem free, of course.) But more to the point, I don’t think you need a fully developed philosophical view to find vegetarianism compelling.

    Almost everyone admits, in practice if not theory, that animals can suffer. And nearly everyone admits that it’s a moral truism that you shouldn’t cause unnecessary suffering. From those two simple, commonsense premises, it follows pretty quickly that you shouldn’t cause animals unnecessary suffering.

    Throw in a few basic factual premises about the conditions under which animals are raised for food, and I think you arrive in short order at the minimal conclusion that our current system for raising animals for food (and probably most other feasible systems) is morally objectionable to say the least.

    None of this requires you to make any major conceptual shifts in your worldview, such as accepting a particular theory of value or animal “rights” or whatnot, merely to draw a conclusion from premises that you (probably) already accept. It’s true that there are some people who claim to believe that animals don’t suffer, or that their suffering doesn’t matter. But the widespread revulsion at, say, the antics of Michael Vick indicate that this is a minority position.

    In this sense, vegetarianism is like a lot of other reform movements: it doesn’t offer new values so much as try to make explicit the implications of values that people already accept. Why would you treat a pig in ways you would never dream of treating your dog or cat? The obstacles to reform are probably more institutional, psychological, social, and practical impediments than logical ones.

    I’m, of course, all for investigating the question of whether animals have a right to life (as opposed to a right not to be made to suffer), but as far as the practical question goes, this makes almost no difference. Assuming there are idyllic farms where animals are allowed to roam freely and express their particular natures, do not have their tails docked or beaks clipped, are not castrated without anesthesia, and are killed suddenly and painlessly, these farms represent a tiny (if not nonexistent) percentage of meat production in industrial nations. For all practical purposes, avoiding the products of factory farms means being a near or total vegetarian.

  • Smith: animal rights=idolatry

    Wesley Smith is shocked and appalled (surprise!) by Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle’s recent column on Michael Vick’s efforts to rehabilitate himself.

    First, Pacelle:

    In a civil society, there must be accountability for grievous actions. But there also must be an embrace of people who are willing and ready to change – even in tough cases, like Michael Vick. We are all sinners when it comes to animals, and we can all do better.

    Smith, weirdly, asserts that this reveals the “religious” nature of the animal rights movement:

    We have all sinned against animals? Substitute God for animals in this piece, and you have a classic Christian message. Yup. animal rights is religion and Wayne Pacelle a high priest of the faith.

    Um, does Smith realize that in Christian terms it makes perfect sense to talk about sinning against beings other than God? As in, “If your brother sins against you…” (Matt. 18:15)?

    So how much of a stretch is it to talk about sinning against animals, especially when we’re talking about the kind of sadistic abuse Vick was guilty of? Sure, Kant and some other philosophers said that we have no direct duties to animals, but they were wrong! Pacelle is simply using religious language to point out that we all, to some degree or another, seriously wrong the animals who share our world.

    It’s a staple of conservative anti-environmental and anti-animal rights rhetoric that those movements are ersatz religions. But actual religion already teaches us not to sin against our fellow creatures, including the most vulnerable ones.

  • “A severely conservative moral stance”

    James Rachels on vegetarianism:

    Vegetarianism is often regarded as an eccentric moral view, and it is assumed that a vegetarian must subscribe to principles at odds with common sense. But if this reasoning is sound, the opposite is true: the rule against causing unnecessary pain is the least eccentric of all moral principles, and that rule leads straight to the conclusion that we should abandon the business of meat production and adopt alternative diets. Considered in this light, vegetarianism might be thought of as a severely conservative moral stance. (Created from Animals, p. 212)

    Stephen R. L. Clark makes a similar point in his book The Moral Status of Animals: one needn’t adopt a radically revisionist moral stance to see that current methods of meat production impose vast amounts of unnecessary suffering. And “do not be the cause of avoidable suffering” is about the most platitudinous moral platitude around.

  • Toward a non-anthropocentric theology

    Jeremy asked if I’d recommend any books on moving away from an anthropocentric theology. This is a question at the intersection of some perennial ATR themes, so I thought I’d post the answer here. The following list makes no pretense to be either authoritative or exhaustive, but these are some books (in no particular order) that I’ve found helpful:

    Bill McKibben, The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation

    H. Paul Santmire, Nature Reborn

    Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology

    Denis Edwards, Ecology at the Heart of Faith

    Jay McDaniel, Of God and Pelicans

    James M. Gustafson, An Examined Faith

    Ian Bradley, God Is Green

    Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation

    Of course, a lot depends here on what we mean by “moving away from anthropocentrism.” But, at a minimum, I think it’s any theology which recognizes that the rest of creation does not exist solely for the sake of human beings and that God’s purposes encompass more than human salvation. The books above range from fairly orthodox to fairly heterodox, and I wouldn’t endorse everything in all of them, but all provide stimulating food for thought. The list doesn’t include any classic sources, which isn’t to deny that there are resources in the tradition for a less anthropocentric theology (Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Wesley and others contain material that might be richly mined, it seems to me); neither does the list include much in the way of biblical studies, but that also seems like an important area for thought on this topic.

    p.s. Other recommendations are welcome!

  • Creaturely theology

    Following on the heels of his Why Animal Suffering Matters, Andrew Linzey’s Creatures of the Same God addresses many of the same issues, but from a more explicitly theological point of view. In fact, Creatures is a collection of mostly previously published essays, expanding on and refining ideas first developed in Linzey’s other books, especially Animal Theology and Animal Gospel.

    The persistent theme of the book is religion’s–particularly Christianity’s–potential for being at the forefront of the movement for animal protection. Linzey is a cold-eyed realist when it comes to Christianity’s track record on the treatment of animals, but he’s just as firm in his insistence that the triune God loves each and every creature she has made and that human beings are called to be the “servant species,” caring for the well-being of all creation, particularly our fellow sentients.

    In the first three chapters, Linzey summarizes the theological case for animal rights. In “Religion and Sensitivity to Animal Suffering” he contends that religion provides spiritual vision and hope necessary for long-haul causes that often seem hopeless. “Theology as if Animals Mattered” highlights some of the challenges traditional theology faces if we take animals seriously as fellow creatures. And “Animal Rights and Animal Theology” traces some of the history of Christian concern for animals, which is surprisingly robust given the disregard the mainstream theological tradition has shown for the interests of animals.

    The next two chapters take a somewhat more polemical turn. In “The Conflict Between Ecotheology and Animal Theology” Linzey shows that the two movements aren’t necessarily in sync, particularly when it comes to their view of “nature.” Ecotheologians err, Linzey says, when they treat the natural world as “sacred” or as an unambiguous source of moral norms. Ecotheologians see little need for the redemption of nature. Animal theologians, with their concern for the suffering of particular individual creatures, are more willing to say that nature doesn’t reflect God’s ultimate will for creation. Thus nature, along with humanity, stands in need of redemption.

    In “Responding to the Debate about Animal Theology” Linzey engages with several critical readings of his work. Some of the points that stand out here are his frank confession that the Bible is not uniformly “pro-animal” (just as it isn’t uniformly “pro-woman”) and therefore a critical reading is necessary in order to draw out principles for expanding the circle of moral concern. This concern is rooted in the paradigm of Jesus’ self-giving love for others. He also defends his radicalization of Karl Barth’s doctrine of the Incarnation, arguing, in a lovely turn of phrase, that “the incarnation is God’s love affair with all flesh” (p. 51). In fact, he contends, this is a recovery of the patristic doctrine of the Incarnation and an affirmation of the “Cosmic Christ” in whom all things have their being and life.

    Two interesting essays in the second half of the book mine ancient Christian history for a pro-animal perspective. “Jesus and Animals” draws on certain non-canonical works to show that, at the very least, certain early Christians believed that the coming of Jesus had implications for relations with non-human animals. Some of these writings show Jesus healing animals, creating living sparrows out of clay, and restoring the edenic, non-violent, non-competitive relationship between humans and animals. Linzey suggests that some of these stories may have elements that can be traced back to the historical Jesus, and certainly depict a valuable strain of early Christian belief and spirituality that has gotten lost over the ages.

    “Vegetarianism in Early Chinese Christianity” draws on the “Jesus Sutras,” ancient manuscripts that indicate the existence of an early Chinese form of Christianity, dating back well before the arrival of Catholic missionaries. Possibly influenced by Taoism or Buddhism, these writings seem to depict a non-violent, vegetarian Christianity that flourished for some time before being wiped out. To Linzey, this suggests a path not taken, though one we might find our way back to.

    Finally, “On Being an Animal Liturgist” is a slightly more biographical piece, detailing the responses to the publication of Linzey’s Animal Rites, a book of prayers and liturgies for animals. Animals have been largely excluded from the worship of the Christian church; even ecologically sensitive worship tends to focus on the Earth or the environment in general. But animals–particularly companion animals–are very significant parts of many people’s lives. Though roundly mocked in official church quarters, Linzey stoutly defends this endeavor as both meeting a real pastoral need and striking a blow against the starkly anthropocentric focus of so much Christian worship.

    The book concludes with an agenda for a pro-animal Christianity. This includes animal-friendly biblical scholarship, theology, ministry, and rites. Linzey makes the somewhat surprising claim that animals are not just one issue among others that theology might engage with, but a test of any adequate theology. This is because theology ought to be truly theocentric:

    Ludwig Feuerbach famously argued that Christianity is nothing other than the self-aggrandizement, even the deification of the human species. To avoid this charge, theology needs to show how it can provide what it promises–namely a truly Godward (rather than a simply anthropocentric) view of the world. Its obsession with human beings to the exclusion of all else betokens a deeply unbalanced doctrine of God the Creator. Animal theology can help save Christians from the idolarty of self-worship. (p. 15)

    I don’t have much critical to say here, since I agree with most of what Linzey writes. I do think the relationship between animal theology and eco-theology merits more exploration. I agree that Linzey has put his finger on a weakness of at least some eco-theology, which takes too rosy a view of the natural world. And yet, I’m not entirely on board with Linzey’s apparent endorsement of a “cosmic fall” to explain the disorders or predation and suffering, signs of creation’s “groaning.”

    I think a middle way is possible that affirms both the inherent goodness of the created order and its need for redemption. Denis Edwards, whom Linzey mentions favorably, is one such theologian who has tried to give an account of natural evil in an evolutionary context, but also strongly emphasizes our kinship with other animals. He avoids an excessive “holism” and the attendant moral egalitariansim that would give equal moral rights to all life-forms. Like Linzey, Edwards ascribes to human beings a special role, but one of experiencing kinship with other creatures and of caring for the earth. This is very close to Linzey’s notion of human beings as the servant species, and provides a way of thinking about our role in the world that would support both animal protection and sound ecological awareness and practices.

  • Ah, the ivory tower…

    One of the many puzzling things about this post from Brian Leiter on veganism is that it seems to take place in a world unrecognizable as our own. To wit:

    Let’s suppose, plausibly enough, that sentience (the ability to experience pleasure and pain) is a morally relevant characteristic. Since animals are sentient, it seems there ought to be a moral obligation not to inflict gratuitous pain and suffering on them. […] That by itself simply wouldn’t demand veganism as a response, since there are lots of ways to utilize animals and animal products that do not involve infliction of pain and suffering on them. […] To be sure, many kinds of uses of animals and animal products require them to be dead, but as long as they are killed painlessly, we have discharged our duties in virtue of their sentience.

    Just out of curiosity, does Leiter actually think that the way we typically raise and slaughter animals for food is carried out painlessly? ‘Cause that’s actually a pretty high bar to meet, and if you think that our minimal duty to animals is not to inflict unnecessary suffering on them, you’ve all but given up the game, practically speaking.

    I realize that many, perhaps most, vegans would make the stronger claim that it’s wrong to kill animals for our use even if done painlessly. But, even on utilitarian grounds, Leiter doesn’t seem to recognize how strong the case is. (Though I certainly disagree with Leiter’s reasoning to show that animals are not harmed in being killed, incidentally.)

    Link via Theoria.