A Thinking Reed

Category: Theology & Faith

  • WASM 5: sed contra

    (See previous posts: 1|2|3|4)

    In addition to the critique of Peter Singer, Linzey’s final chapter in Why Animal Suffering Matters contains replies to six objections:

    1. The practices of hunting, fur farming, and sealing are relatively trivial and non-controversial compared to issues like animal testing. Linzey acknowledges that practices like animal testing and factory farming deserve as much critical scrutiny as those he has discussed. He points out, however, that hunting, fur farming, and sealing are institutionalized practices that routinize the infliction of animal suffering and therefore deserve sharp critique. Institutions tend to be self-perpetuating, and these ones reinforce the notion that animal suffering is no big deal. Even if the infliction of suffering could be justified occasionally by a utilitarian calculus, Linzey says, it would still be better to proscribe it institutionally, acknowledging that some hard cases may fall afoul of the general rule.

    2. The morality of killing as distinct from causing suffering should be considered. Linzey agrees, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, that killing animals is a serious moral issue. He notes that if suffering were all that mattered, we could put an end to animal suffering by simply exterminating all animals! Obviously something is wrong with any position that leads to such a conclusion. Killing animals should never be “normal” or accepted; nevertheless, there are times when killing is acceptable (e.g., self-defense), as well as cases where the choice is between prolonged, unrelieved suffering and death. In such cases–where suffering has made life not worth living–death might be preferable. These circumstances are rare, however, and Linzey points out that “killing animals, like killing infants, should arouse a special kind of hesitation and reserve”:

    Who are we, after all, to end their lives and make judgments about their ‘best interests’? If it weren’t for the fact that our very power over these beings necessitates a fundamental responsibility for their welfare, it is surely an area in which we would hardly wish to engage at all. (p. 159)

    3. The arguments have not been based on the rights of animals. Linzey believes that animals have rights, as he’s argued in previous works. However, he’s less certain that any one language of morality (whether it be that of humanitarianism, welfare, justice, or compassion) can encompass all our moral experience. “Rights talk” is valuable in setting definite limits, connected to specific duties, that we may not trespass (at least not without very strong reasons). He notes that some Christians don’t like to speak of rights, but suggests that his concept of “theos-rights” (i.e., the right of God to have his creatures treated with respect) can be acceptable from a theological point of view. In any event, he insists, the “considerations at the heart of this book are complementary to a rights perspective” (p. 162). The duty not to inflict unnecessary suffering can be framed in a rights perspective.

    4. The suffering of animals hasn’t been quantified or subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. Linzey denies that such a quantification or analysis is possible or useful. Utilitarians, he says, devise calculations to trade off suffering against benefits to others. But his position denies that it’s permissible to inflict suffering on one subject for the benefit of another. Practically speaking, there is no limit to the justifications that can be cooked up for inflicting suffering on animals (and other humans, as in the various justifications offered for water-boarding and other forms of torture). “Unfashionable as it may be in a culture that rejects any kind of impermeable moral line, the thesis of this book is that the line should be drawn at the intentional infliction of suffering on innocent and vulnerable subjects” (p. 163).

    5. The argument is implicitly–sometimes explicitly–theological. Linzey pleads guilty to deploying theological arguments. What he calls “the “Christological heart” of the book is that “the crucified Christ is the most accurate picture of God the world has ever seen”:

    The cross does not validate suffering, but the reverse; it is God’s identification with innocent suffering. … Moreover, it is not only an identification with innocent suffering, but also a vindication. For if the cross does provide us with a true picture of what God is like, it follows that God is a redeeming presence in all creaturely experiences of suffering. All innocent suffering will be transformed. (p. 164)

    Even though the churches have often failed to grasp this implication of the gospel, those outside them often have: “the considerations set out in this book ought to commend themselves to those of no faith as well as those of faith, and even those who (often for good reason) are anti-faith. One doesn’t have to be religious to grasp the moral relevance of the considerations–such as consent, innocence, and vulnerability–which are at the core of this book” (p. 164).

    6. Science increasingly shows that the differences between humans and animals aren’t as significant as once thought. Much of Linzey’s argument has been based on the idea that differences between humans and animals (specifically the latter’s inability to provide consent, their innocence, and their vulnerability) should motivate more–not less–moral concern. He agrees that the usual differences between humans and animals (intelligence, susceptibility to suffering, e.g.) are overstated and that new findings may reveal fewer differences in kind than we think. However, he points out that his goal in writing the book was to meet people where they are by showing that merely accepting the case for animal sentience (surely established beyond a reasonable doubt) commits one to moral concern for their suffering and “should result in major changes to the way we treat animals” (p. 165).

    I have some concluding thoughts on the book, but in the interests of keeping posts short, I’ll save those for a separate one.

  • WASM 4: Linzey vs. Singer

    (Previous posts are here, here, and here.)

    In his concluding chapter to Why Animal Suffering Matters, Linzey does address one of the concerns I raised in my previous post in the course of taking some pains to distinguish his program from that of utilitarians like Peter Singer. While appreciating Singer’s contribution to the cause of animal liberation, Linzey thinks that Singer’s utilitarian outlook has unfortunate consequences—both moral and practical—in its assessment of the status of children. As is well known, Singer has argued that infants could be justly killed up to perhaps the age of one month. His reasoning is that, lacking self-awareness, the painless death of a very young infant would not count as harming him or her. Similarly, Singer thinks—consistent with his utilitarianism—that painlessly killing animals isn’t wrong, other things being equal, if they are replaced with another animal living a satisfactory life.

    Singer’s reason for thinking this is rooted in his particular version of utilitarianism, namely preference utilitarianism. Unlike classic utilitarianism, such as that of Jeremy Bentham, which seeks to minimize suffering and maximize pleasure, Singer’s version seeks to maximize the satisfaction of preferences. Thus, the right action is the one that, on balance, satisfies the most preferences, irrespective of whose they are. This accounts for Singer’s egalitarianism with respect to human and animal suffering.

    However, Singer has argued that having a preference to go on living requires a level of self-awareness not possessed by (at least) most non-human animals or by human infants. Consequently, assuming that the killing didn’t involve suffering, there is nothing inherently wrong with killing a very young human or an animal if doing so will lead to a greater balance of preference satisfaction over preference frustration.

    The most common case where this comes up is in Singer’s (in)famous defense of euthanasia for disabled infants. Singer says that killing such an infant is permissible if it would result in a net balance of good (defined in terms of preference satisfaction) for all parties concerned (parents, etc.). Since—lacking the necessary self-awareness—the infant can have no preference as such to go on living, painlessly killing him or her would not frustrate any of the child’s preferences.

    There are many objections to Singer’s position, even from a strictly utilitarian viewpoint. For example, it’s been pointed out that Singer doesn’t seem to have a particularly good grasp on the quality of life that is actually available to people with disabilities and tends to assume that such lives aren’t worth living. But experience shows that people with even quite serious disabilities can have very fulfilling lives, both in terms of the satisfactions available to them and the contributions they make to the lives of others.

    Moreover, as Linzey argues, there are good grounds for rejecting a purely preference-based account of what’s wrong with killing (either a human or an animal). As Linzey says, taking the life of a sentient being is robbing it of its future, whether or not that being has a conscious preference to go on living as such. There may be cases, he admits, where the balance of suffering over pleasure is so lopsided that ending life may be the most merciful choice, but this is surely the exception, not the rule.

    Linzey is concerned to distinguish his position from Singer’s because he believes that movements for better treatment for animals have historically gone hand-in-hand with campaigns for human rights and should continue to do so. He rejects any misanthropic inferences that animal liberationists might draw from their stance and fears that Singer’s defense of infanticide reinforces the image of animal rightists as anti-human. In Linzey’s terms, very young children share the same qualities that ought to prompt greater moral solicitude for animals: the inability to give or withhold consent, the inability to represent their interests to others linguistically, and moral innocence or blamelessness. Linzey rejects Singer’s privileging of self-awareness as a necessary condition for full moral protection, emphasizing the duties that the innocence and relative vulnerability of both childern and animals place on us.

    In the next–and last–post in this series, I’ll look at some objections Linzey considers and try to tie some thoughts together on the book as a whole.

  • The introversion of the church

    I’m reading Lutheran biblical scholar/theologian Ernst Kasemann’s short book Jesus Means Freedom, and I thought this passage was particularly relevant to a lot of contemporary trends in Christianity, even though the book was published in the late ‘60s:

    The church as the real content of the gospel, its glory the boundless manifestation of the heavenly Lord, sharing in it being identical with sharing in Christ and his dominion, his qualities being communicable to it—we know that message. It has lasted for two thousand years, has fascinated Protestantism, too, and is today the main driving force of the ecumenical movement. If only the theology of the cross were brought in to counterbalance it! But the church triumphant, even if it starts from the cross and guards it as its most precious mystery, has still always stood in a tense relationship to the crucified Lord himself. As long as the tension remained alive in it under violent friction, one could in some degree come to terms with the situation. The greatest danger always arose when the church pushed itself into the foreground so that Christ’s image above it faded into an image of the founder, or the cultic hero, or became an ecclesiastical icon to be put side by side with other icons that were set up from time to time. It was against that danger that the Reformation in fact rose up, not against the secularization of the church, although the two things necessarily went together. Where the world is dominated by the church, and even Christ is integrated in its metaphysical system, the church becomes conversely a religiously transfigured world. Its real Babylonian captivity, however, consists in its making itself the focal point of salvation and the theme of the gospel. The church’s introversion puts it into the sharpest contrast with the crucified Lord who did not seek his own glory and gave himself to the ungodly. (pp. 89-90)

  • Bloggingheads theodicy

    Here’s an interesting “diavlog” on Leibniz and the problem of evil featuring philosophers Michael Murray and Jan Cover (who is a former professor of mine and a very cool guy).

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    I’m not sure you’d say this makes for “fun” viewing: I have undying respect for Jan, but he’s not exactly going out of his way to make this stuff accessible to the non-specialist here.

    p.s. On the first day of my first graduate seminar (on Leibniz, as it happens) Cover asked me if I was a theist. My response, as I recall, was “sometimes.”

  • WASM 3: The fox and the hound (and the mink and the seal)

    (See previous posts here and here.)

    In the central chapters (3-5) of Why Animal Suffering Matters, Linzey critically examines three practices: sport hunting (focusing on hunting with dogs in the UK); fur farming; and seal hunting, particularly the Candian seal hunt. I was surprised that there was no chapter on raising animals for food, since that accounts for far and away the largest number of animals used by humans. Maybe Linzey figured that factory farming and other such issues had been adequately covered elsewhere. In any event, deploying the concepts established in earlier chapters, he subjects these practices to sharp critique.

    There’s not much point in me summarizing these chapters in detail. Suffice it to say, once you accept that animal suffering matters morally, it quickly becomes very tough to justify practices like fur farming and seal hunting. Linzey offers a close, critical reading of official government reports purporting to show that these practices are or can be carried out “humanely,” but he easily shows that animal suffering is given insufficient weight and that these reports tend to over-weight human interests, no matter how seemingly trivial or insignificant. For example, a British government report purporting to look dispassionately at hunting doesn’t seriously consider alternatives to controlling “pest” populations, or even really attempt to establish that these populations need controlling. It’s apparent that the presumed human interest in hunting is acting as a virtual trump card.

    Linzey is thorough in showing how specious the arguments deployed on the pro-hunting, -farming, and -sealing side are, rebutting claims that these pracitces are, or can be made, humane. Curiously, though, he focuses throughout on the issue of suffering, without pushing the analysis to a deeper level. For instance, even if these practices could be carried out in ways that minimize animal suffering, is it right to kill animals (however humanely) for the sake of relatively trivial human interests? It may be, as some have argued, that animals’ assigned status–as beings whose lives can be disposed of by humans–inherently dooms them to lives of suffering because it ensures that their interests will always be given short shrift. This argument strikes me as one that deserves to be answered. (It could be that Linzey will take it up in his concluding chapter.)

  • WASM 2: Engaging the powers

    Having established the moral significance of animal suffering, Linzey goes on in chapter 2 to ask why, if the importance of animal suffering is so clear, has it been so often ignored? After all, as Stephen R. L. Clark has pointed out, it’s hard to identify a more obvious moral truism than “Avoid being the cause of unnecessary suffering.”

    What is needed, Linzey says, is to confront “the powers that be,” the patterns of thought and language and the institutionalized practices that make animal suffering virtually invisible. Animals in our society are routinely mis-described (as “dumb brutes,” “beasts,” etc.) and mis-represented (as unthinking organisms that operate entirely by instinct, or that lack any sentience or inner awareness). Our attention is mis-directed, away from animal suffering (often with lofty-sounding pretensions to scientific skepticism), and, perhaps most fundamentally, animals are mis-perceived by us. That is, we see them as parts of a landscape, or as things–commodities that exist solely for human benefit. Actually seeing animals as “subjects of a life” (to use Tom Regan’s term), beings with their own lives and interests, can require a paradigm shift in the way we look at the world (or as Linzey says, a “Eureka!” or “Aha!” experience).

    Linzey points out that these obstacles to seeing the moral significance of animal suffering are institutionally reinforced: “where animal abuse differs from most others is that it is socially legitimised and institutionalised” (p. 57). Drawing on the social criticism of Noam Chomsky, particularly his analysis of the “propaganda system” in democratic societies, Linzey highlights some of the ways in which animal abuse is reinforced and what is required to expose it. This falls under the general heading of “cultivating and institutionalizing critical awareness.” Injustices persist in large part because critical voices are excluded from the debate. In liberal democracies this doesn’t happen through the outright suppression of speech, but from the assumptions and implicit premises embedded in the official and quasi-official organs of information.

    Linzey suggests that discovering and disseminating the truth about animal abuse requires cultivating the just the kind of critical awareness Chomsky recommends. This entails:

    (1) discovering the facts: most, if not all, the information we’re exposed to comes already value-laden or embedded in a particular narrative; disentangling the underlying facts allows us to take a critical stance toward the “official” narrative or interpretation of events.

    (2) retaining the focus on the ethical: moral issues are often smuggled off the public stage by focusing on such supposedly value-free terms as “cost,” “need,” “science,” etc. When moral considerations are allowed to intrude, Linzey says, it’s usually in the form of a particularly vulgar or popularized utilitarianism. Advocates of social change should not let the central moral issues recede from view.

    (3) recognizing the limitations of the media:     the way that controversial issues are presented in the media already presupposes a great deal of background agreement. Anyone who wants to present a genuinely radical alternative to the status quo is required to challenge a great many assumptions taken for granted. The media, particularly the broadcast media, aren’t well-suited to this kind of critical examination. Anyone promoting an unconventional point of view needs to understand this.

    (4) establishing alternative sources of information:     this speaks for itself. The Internet, of course, has made alternative sources of information available on a previously undreamed of scale. Though, there’s no substitute for patient study of more in-depth sources like actual books (you can’t get all your information from blogs and Twitter).

    (5) institutionalizing critical awareness:     just as the moral status quo is supported by its institutionalization, any revision to the status quo requires institutional support. Linzey mentions law-making, consumer choice, and education as institutional channels through which a more enlightened understanding of animal suffering can be expressed and reinforced.

    I think the discussion here is important. It’s often assumed that if people just “see” intellectually the case for better treatment of animals, changes in behavior will follow automatically. But there are powerful forces that militate against such change, from the assumption–shared by nearly everyone around us–that objectively cruel treatment of animals is normal and even “necessary” to the powerful economic interests that stand to lose from any large-scale shift in attitudes. People’s attitudes and behavior are shaped as much, if not more, by the sort of institutional factors Linzey (and Chomsky) identify as by rational argument. Cultivating and institutionalizing a critical awareness of those factors is a necessary condition for any significant change.

    One other thing I wish Linzey had touched on is the importance of alternative communities. This is implicit in some of the other points, but could probably benefit from separate treatment. Reality–or at least our understanding of it–is socially constructed and reinforced. We take our cues on how to behave from our social groups. It’s a rare fish who can swim against the stream her whole life. Thus, any sustainable social change is going to require ways of living together that reinforce values that differ from the mainstream values that are the object of critique.

    While I’m wary of some of the more extreme claims made on behalf of the church as a “counterculture” or a “polis” unto itself, I do think churches (along with other intentional communities, religious or not) can be places where people learn a different way of living, one based on values of gentleness, peace, and compassion, which should surely include changes in the way we treat our animal cousins.

  • WASM 1: The difference that difference makes

    In chapter 1 of Why Animal Suffering Matters, Linzey identifies several differences between humans and non-human animals that are typically offered as justifications for disregarding the interests of animals. In a neat twist, though, he aims to show that, properly understood, they call for a greater consideration of animal interests.

    Animals as natural slaves: Aristotle and St. Thomas contend that “brute” creatures are naturally made for the use of human beings. Linzey counters that Aristotle confuses a natural hierarchy with a moral one and St. Thomas’s account of power is insufficiently Christian. Christianity portrays a God who sacrificies himself for his creation – the “higher” for the “lower.” Being “higher” on the scale doesn’t give you unlimited rights over the “lower.”

    Animals as non-rational: The suffering of rational creatures is held to be more morally significant than that of non-rational ones. Humans experience existential dread, foreboding, and a sense of their own mortality, for example. But this can cut both ways: a human prisoner may be able to understand his plight and devise some comforts, but an imprisoned animal will be unable to understand what’s going on, heightening its terror and suffering.

    Animals as non-linguistic: Animals lack language–at least a language we can understand. But this implies that they lack the ability to represent their interests to us or to consent to things being done to them. This increases rather than decreases the burden of proceeding cautiously in our treatment of them.

    Animals as non-moral: Animals are not moral agents, at least not in the full-fledged sense that (most) humans are. But this means that they are morally innocent and cannot deserve to have suffering inflicted on them, much less benefit morally from any such pain, as humans might sometimes be thought to.

    Animals as soulless: Animals are frequently taken to lack an immortal soul that can survive death. But, if anything, this implies that it’s worse to treat them badly since they can’t receive recompense in the afterlife for their suffering. Linzey quotes C.S. Lewis’s essay on vivisection: “animals cannot deserve pain, nor profit morally by the discipline of pain, nor be recompensed by happiness in another life for suffering in this. Thus all the factors that render pain more tolerable or make it less than totally evil in the case of human beings will be lacking in the beasts. ‘Soullessness’ in so far as it is relevant to the question at all, is an argument against vivisection” (p. 27).

    Animals as devoid of the divine image: Human beings are said to be the only animals created in the image of God. But Linzey contends that recent OT scholarship shows that this shoud be understood in a “functionalist” sense: human beings are God’s representatives on earth, and their task is to treat creation with loving kindness. Even more, a “Christ-shaped” notion of lordship suggests service to creation, not mastery over it. Thus “dominion” means caring for the rest of creation, including animals.

    Linzey’s analysis yields a reconfigured list of differences that support, rather than undermine, solicitude for animals’ well-being:

    –Animals cannot give or withhold consent

    –Animals cannot represent or vocalize their own interests

    –Animals are morally innocent

    –Animals are vulnerable and relatively defenseless

    Linzey points out that these characterisitics are also shared by very young children, and our general sense is that these characteristics impose greater obligations to look out for children’s interests, not a license to exploit them. He notes that both animals and children are “exceptional cases” that don’t fit comfortably into traditional moral theories. Those theories tend to take rational, adult humans as the paradigm of moral concern and, consequently, are driven to more or less ad hoc measures to make room for children and animals. But the differences between “normal” adult humans on the one hand and children and animals on the other calls for a de-centering of our moral thinking:

    The practical upshot is that we cannot continue to privilege human suffering as if it stands alone as a unique source of moral concern. Some animal-friendly philosophers advance solicitude for animals on the basis that they are, inter alia, like us. But my thesis is that their very alterity in many respects should underpin their moral claim. The usefulness of animals, paradoxically, is that they help us to grapple with the moral relevance (as well as irrelevance) of difference. (p. 37)

    Linzey concludes the chapter with a reflection on a Good Friday sermon by John Henry Newman in which Newman compares the suffering of Christ on the cross to that of an innocent lamb. That suffering–the suffering of one who is completely innocent and vulnerable–ought to call forth our greatest reserves of sympathy and moral concern.

  • Coming attractions

    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.

  • What’s going on with TEC?

    The headlines say that the Episcopal Church has overturned its “moratorium” on gay bishops. N.T. Wright, predictably, scolds the Americans for fomenting “schism.” But more nuanced interpretations of what’s going on are available. See Christopher here and Father Jones at the Anglican Centrist here.

  • Christians need not apply?

    Following up on the news that Francis Collins has been nominated to head the NIH, Slate has a curious article asking whether Collins is too religious for such a position. The article makes it clear that Collins has impeccable credentials (MD, PhD in physical chemistry, coordinator of the national genome project); not only believes in evolution and its compatibility with Christian faith, but is an outspoken critic of creationism and Intelligent Design; and rejects the idea that human personhood begins at conception and supports stem-cell research. From a liberal point of view, there wouldn’t seem any grounds for worry that Collins would replicate the Bush-era politicization of scientific decisions.

    And yet, the article still manages to spend the majority of its space wringing its hands about Collins’ possible “religious agenda”:

    His passionate defense of religion has earned some harsh criticism. When rumors of the appointment began to circulate in May, University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne blogged, “I’d be much more comfortable with someone whose only agenda was science,” saying he was worried “about how this will affect things like stem-cell research and its funding.” (In fact, Collins is clear on his support of stem-cell research.) Sam Harris was predictably unimpressed with Collins’ ideas. “Most reviewers of The Language of God seem quite overawed by its author’s scientific credentials,” Harris wrote shortly after it was published. “His book, however, reveals that a stellar career in science offers no guarantee of a scientific frame of mind.”

    Harris does not make a genuine attempt to consider the book’s ideas, but he is correct that the philosophy espoused by Collins, which he calls “theistic evolution,” has so far managed to evade sustained and careful scrutiny. Now that he has been chosen as the most important scientific administrator in the country, overseeing $40 billion of grants and programs, the scientific community can be forgiven for a few jitters over exactly where Collins comes down on the inevitable, often glaring contradictions between science and Scripture.

    First off, I find the idea that theistic evolution (TE) has evaded scrutiny pretty bizarre. Theologians and philosophers have been wrestling with the relationship between science and scripture for over a hundred years; just because the American political debate has been myopically focused on evolution vs. creationism doesn’t mean that TE hasn’t received careful scrutiny (which isn’t to suggest it’s free from problems). But more to the point, the central claim of theistic evolution, at least in most forms, is that evolution can be understood on its own terms with reference to natural causes and without explicit reference to God. So, pretty much by definition, it’s hard to see what insidious influence Collins’ faith is supposed to have here.

    The article goes on to say that Collins distinguishes between “unsolved” and “unsolvable” problems: the former are those problems likely to be explicated by future scientific advances, the latter those that remain permanent mysteries of the human condition. (The philosopher Gabriel Marcel made a similar distinction between problems and mysteries.) The piece says that Collins sees the human moral sense as well as the apparent “fine-tuning” of the universe for the emergence of life as mysteries that point to the existence of God, and warns that

    [t]his is the area where Collins’ religion is most in danger of intruding on his science. He believes that it’s possible to see evidence of the divine in things like physics equations or patterns of human behavior. While Collins would never suggest that science could furnish any final proof for the existence of God, he’s fond of mentioning that the Bible occasionally uses the word evidence. That is to say, he thinks the presence of the divine can be directly observed, even if it cannot be measured and tested.

    I think the standard that’s being set here is startling. Nearly all religious people see “evidence” of the divine in humanity and in the order of the universe. And nearly all religious people believe that something like direct experience of God is possible. The implication is that virtually any religious person is potentially disqualified from important scientific positions, or at least highly suspect. To be acceptable, is Collins required to be agnostic on all philosophical and religious questions of any significance? (Not to mention, in practical terms, it’s very difficult to see how accepting a modified version of the design argument [i.e., the fine-tuning argument] or suggesting that the human moral sense gives us clues to God’s will would affect the work of a NIH administrator.)

    The problem is the same as the problem with the “new atheists”: a kind of scientific imperialism (or scientism) that thinks all interesting philosophical or religious questions can be settled by empirical demonstration in the narrowest sense (or else are meaningless). It’s the return of the old, discredited logical postivist method where “evidence” is construed in a way that rules out, by definition, reasonable grounds for religious belief.