(This
article is an original work of mine, written as part of my degree.
Feel free to link to this page, but please do not re-post without my
consent.)
The
Birth of Animal Liberation
Before
the 19th C animals were rarely included in the moral
community (Francione, 2000:1). The traditional view of human dominion
over the natural world, coupled with doubts about the cognitive
abilities of animals, lead to their objectification by humans. The
conventional belief in human dominion over animals – broadly
speaking the notion that humans have a right to use the natural world
and the animals within it as resources – originates from the
teleological theories of the ancient world. Aristotle argued that
animals are part of a natural order in which every element – both
living and inanimate – has a purpose and that the highest earthly
purpose is to provide for humanity. Within this teleological account,
animals were a resource for humans, to be used for food, clothing and
sport as necessary for humans to flourish (Aristotle, translated by
Sinclair, 1962:40). This teleology was reflected in the biblical
writings, particularly Genesis where it is claimed humanity is
granted dominion over all other beings and thus the right to use fear
and dread to subdue them for human ends (Genesis 1:28, 9:2). Divine
providence cements the position of humans at the head of the natural
world.
More
contemporary beliefs have provided myriad justifications for human
use of animals. Descartes famously held that animals were ‘living
machines’ or automata, incapable of experiences. It was not like
something to be an animal. If animals gave the impression of
intelligence or awareness, perhaps signified by whimpers to demand
attention from their owners or yelps when harmed, Descartes held that
these responses were no more than the squeaking of a badly oiled gear
or the ticking of a clock. He argued that animals lacked the
behaviours necessary to indicate consciousness or reason. They did
not behave as people do, responding to problems and challenges in the
refined manners that would, Descartes believed, be necessary to
indicate a mental life. Descartes believed that humans were the only
animals to posses mental lives and subjective experiences because
they were granted souls by God and his dualist theory of minds denied
that animals had also been gifted with this incorporeal substance.
Animals, in this view, were neither capable of having minds nor
demonstrated the behaviours, such as language use, required to
indicate the presence of a mind. For Descartes, animal behaviour
could be adequately described and understood without affording
animals minds, and so the simpler explanation should prevail. (See
Descartes in Regan and Singer Eds., 1976:60-66).
Other
philosophers have denied this mechanistic view of animals and have
granted animals both minds and a range of experiences. However, there
has been a consistent theme within moral philosophy to continue to
deny animals a place in the moral community. Kant claimed that
animals are not rational beings and although he did accept animal
sentience (Francione, 2000:3), he denied that animals were
self-concious (Kant in Regan and Singer Eds., 1976:122). The Kantian
position shared Aristotle’s belief that animals are a means to
human ends and that humans have no obligations owed directly to
animals (Ibid.). Insofar as animals should be treated in a certain
way, this was simply to safeguard humans either in terms of
protecting their interests (such as property) or preventing humans
being hardened toward each other as a result of being cruel to
animals (Ibid.). Aside from the biblical dimension to Kant’s
position, the reason for denying moral status to animals rests with
the belief that animals are not rational and not able to take a role
in the moral community as a result of that.
At
the end of the 18th C, Jeremy Bentham advanced a view of
the moral status of animals that dramatically deviated from the
traditional thinking of his time. He drew away from view that animals
should be denied moral status for teleological or biblical reasons,
and rejected the thinking of Kant and Descartes that animals needed
some higher cognitive characteristic (such as rationality or language
use) to be included in the moral community. In a now famous passage,
he wrote that:
The
question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they
suffer? (Bentham in Regan and
Singer Eds., 1976:130)
For
Bentham, possessing sentience – the capacity for suffering/pleasure
– is enough for inclusion in the moral community. Animals have
moral value, of some form, simply on the basis of the fact that what
happens to them matters to
them. Animals became 'someones' who
had preferences and experiences and not 'somethings'.
Crucially, Bentham denied that it was necessary to stop using animals
or to afford them a right not to be treated as property, due to the
belief that animals had no on-going sense of themselves in time.
Bentham believed they lived in an eternal present, so death was not a
harm for them. Thus, it was not necessary to stop killing them for
human purposes, as long as they were not made to suffer (Ibid. 129).
What Bentham was advanced was a humane treatment principle, based on
a principle of equal consideration.
Equal
consideration
In
order for any moral view to be consistent, it must have a system or
mechanism to prevent arbitrary judgements and to promote relevant
forms of equality within the system. A principle of equal
consideration does this. According to the principle, all similar
cases must be judged in a similar manner, and if cases are
sufficiently similar in relevant ways, they get equal consideration
(Francione, 2000:82-85). Combining the principle of equal
consideration with a theory about which characteristics are relevant
and which are not is the foundation for a moral theory.
Bentham
put forward the idea that the relevant characteristic a being must
posses in order to be afforded moral consideration was the ability to
suffer (Bentham
in Regan and Singer Eds., 1976:130).
It doesn't matter what other characteristics the beings has - if a
being can suffer then that is reason for taking that being into
account when we make decisions that could affect that being. If are
considering whether to train a dog or teach a parrot to swear, then
other factors like the ability to learn and the ability to make
vocalisations are relevant.
In
order to suffer, a being must have some kind of experiences.
Experiences, especially those that indicate whether things are going
well or badly for a being, are a necessary pre-condition for having
interests (Singer, 1995:7). If a being doesn't have experiences, it
is not aware of what happens to it and does not have the information
with which to form preferences about the kind of experiences it has.
If a being doesn't have preferences or interests – if nothing that
happens to the being makes a jot of difference to its welfare –
then we don't need to take into account the impact of our actions on
that being (Ibid. 7-8). By taking into account the suffering or
enjoyment experienced by a being, we are not making an arbitrary
judgement about which interests are relevant or not, we are ensuring
that all
interests
are taken into account because the capacity
for
having interests is taken into account. The principle of equal
consideration means that animal suffering must be taken into account
alongside human suffering, and animal interests must be taken into
account alongside human interests (Ibid. 8).
Attempts
may be made to draw other lines to distinguish those beings who are
included in the moral community from those who are not, but all face
one major question; why is this
characteristic
or that
relevant,
and why should we draw the line here (or there). Attempts to draw the
line at language, rationality, emotions, relationship forming and
even species membership seems arbitrary (Singer, 1995:9). Why would
these characteristics, or any other, make it acceptable to leave a
being to the “caprice
of a tormentor” (Bentham
in Regan and Singer Eds., 1976:130)?
Any
other line we might draw would likely be an expression of
anthropocentrism, which puts non-humans at a distinct disadvantage
(Francione, 2008:137-140). Why is my ability to (for example) think
further into the future than my cats more important than the fact
that my cats can see, hear and smell far better than I can? Human
self-interest taints the process, drawing lines further away and
higher up so that we may continue to view at least some animals as
outside of the moral community and thus objects we may view as
resources (Ibid. 137-141). The inherent problem with self-interest –
the notion that we only protect and afford rights to beings like us
and include beings like us in the moral community – is the question
of where it stops. Species membership seems like convenient lines
that distinguishes us
from
them,
but why not draw the line further up? Why not include only citizens
of a certain race or nation, or gender or sexuality? It seems rather
implausible to suppose that humans should or do care about other
humans simply
because
they share sufficiently similar DNA. The entire history of warfare
and human rights abuses would seem to support this implausibility.
It
is sentience, the capacity for suffering and enjoyment and thus
interests, that is the baseline for moral consideration (Singer,
1995:8).
Animal
Sentience
Animal
sentience is both widely accepted and conforms to our common sense
view of the world. As Tom Regan says, “what
could be more obvious than that cats like stroking, dogs feel hungry,
elks sense danger and eagles spy their prey?”
(Regan,
2004:2). Our everyday interactions with animals reflect this common
sense idea that animals share at least some of the experiences that
we do. When we play 'fetch' with a dog, whisper to calm a startled
pony or reprimand a nippy kitten, we act as though the animal is
aware of itself and us, and able to be amused, soothed or trained by
our actions. Our language also reflects this common sense view –
when we comment on the desires or wants of an animal, this isn't met
with the surprise that we would expect if we had made a statement
such as “the
Washington Monument is thirsty” (Regan,
2004:2). Nonetheless, there is a great deal of skepticism about
animal sentience, in part due to the difficulties with getting
animals to report the presence and content of their private
experiences (if they have any). In order to establish whether animals
are members of the moral community, it is essential to establish
whether there is sufficient evidence for animal sentience. Accounts
of animal sentience tend to consider three approaches; behaviour,
physiology and evolution. All three come from an understanding of
human experiences and attempt to tease out the relevant similarities
between humans and other animals.
Peter
Harrison (1991) takes these three approaches to animal sentience and
attempts to show how each presents a weak case. In response to the
claim that animals behave in a manner consistent with suffering and
sentience, he highlights the conceptual possibility of a machine that
totally lacks sentience but that nonetheless exhibits convincing
'pain behaviours'. He also mentions instances where animals exhibit
'pain behaviours' when they have not received 'pain stimuli', using
these as further examples of the gulf between actual pain and the
kind of behaviours we might associate with it. He claims that 'pain
behaviours' are a sign of environmental adaptation in animals and not
“primarily
and expression of some internal state”
(27).
However,
surely if machines could in
theory mimic
animal behaviours, they could also conceivably mimic humans if
adequately programmed? Do we doubt the mentation of other humans on
the basis that human behaviour, even language use, could be
convincingly copied? A second reply to to Harrison is that humans are
capable of faking reactions to pain and even intentionally lying
about whether they are in pain. To doubt all animal pain on the basis
of faked pain is to doubt all human pain on the basis that we can lie
about pain. Thirdly, that 'pain behaviours' are often adaptive does
not entail that pain is not felt. Alan Carter (2005) takes the case
for adaptive 'pain behaviour' and argues that instances where 'pain
behaviour' is counter-productive to survival (i.e. is maladaptive)
actually demonstrate that it is not the behaviour which is adaptive
but the cause – pain. The ability to feel pain is, according to
Carter, a positive adaptation that occasionally and unfortunately
produces maladaptive responses.
Harrison
turns his attention to the physiological argument. He makes two
important claims; that instances of non-concious experiences in
humans open up the possibility that animal experiences are
non-concious and that many animals do not
in
fact have sufficiently similar physiology to humans for us to
reliably afford them similar mental lives. To defend his view he
discusses cases in which brain damaged humans nonetheless show
relatively normal mental functioning, including one individual who
lacked a visual cortex and yet reported good visual perception. Such
cases do indeed show that the mind-body link is complex and still
confounds us, but he then goes on to say that it is unlikely that
birds have similar visual experiences to us due to their lack of a
visual cortex. Surely what this demonstrates is that no one brain
structure has a monopoly on certain mental functions. Like brain
structures may yet indicate like mental states and it does not follow
from that that certain mental states require
specific
brain structures that do not vary significantly between species.
In
response to the view that non-concious mental states in humans
indicate the possibility of non-conscious mental states in animals,
we must agree. This is indeed a possibility. However, humans acting
in response to non-concious states (such as 'blindsight') are rather
hap-hazard and less precise in their actions (Griffin, 2001:161).
Given accuracy and sureness of animal interactions with their world,
it seems unlikely that they are like the 'blindsight' patient.
Griffin also reports that monkeys have been trained to perform
'blindsight' trials by teaching them to reach to stimuli and then
surgically impairing part of their field of vision. They learned to
report the stimuli in the impaired field, albeit as long as the
stimuli was more powerful than when they had full vision. Most
importantly, they were then taught to make a 'no stimuli' sign and
would consistently do so when presented with stimuli in their
impaired field, making an effective contrast between their different
experiences and giving us at least some cause to think they must have
concious experiences if they reported 'no stimuli' when previously
they had reacted to the 'hidden' stimuli (Ibid.). If anything, this
case shows that animals can also have 'blindsight' and not that
normal animal functioning is similar to 'blindsight'.
Finally,
Harrison suggests we might appeal to parsimony on the basis that we
may be able to account for animal reactions to harmful stimuli
without proposing the ontological burden of sentience onto the
theory. However, the same appeal to parsimony can surely be used to
deny mentation in other humans, much like the behaviour mimicking
machine example could also be applied to humans. It is rather simpler
to assume that other humans are either figments of the imagination or
at best biological machines that run according to an elaborate
program. Any appeal to ontological simplicity must surely extend to
our own species, for it is conceivable that even the most refined and
elaborate human behaviours such as language use can be replicated by
carefully programmed computers (Regan, 2004:9-10). The appeal to
parsimony also suffers when it is used to require two different
theories for how the behavioural, physiological and evolutionary
facts apply to humans and animals. It is far simpler to produce one
theory to cover both situations, assuming they are genuinely
relevantly similar.
While
Harrison has shown that cases for animal sentience are not
water-tight, these cases still seem to provide us with reasons to
recognise mentation in animals, especially in light of our constantly
developing understanding of animal science (see Rollin, 1989 and
Griffin, 2001). It would seem rather odd if humans and animals
exhibited relevantly similar behaviour (aversive reactions to harmful
stimuli), shared relevantly similar physiological traits (central
nervous systems comprised of brains, nerves and sensory organs), had
relevantly similar chemical reactions to physiological events
(release of hormones and chemicals in the brain that calm or reduce
the effects of pain) and came to be through the same process of
mutation and adaptation (evolution), and yet humans were the only
species to have developed sentience.
In
fact, the consequences of failing to attribute animals sentience if
they do indeed have it are rather dire. If mistakenly excluded from
the moral community on this basis, animals may be wilfully harmed and
abused with no consideration for their welfare. Given the remaining
problems with proving animal sentience one way or the other, we are
left to make a choice based on what is most reasonable to believe and
what the consequences of each view would be. Even skeptics about
animal sentience such as Harrison recognise that the most prudent
course of action may be to give animals the benefit of the doubt and
to be cautious in our dealings with them.
Intrinsic
Value and Basic Rights
We
seem to have good reasons to think that animals are not mere things
but instead 'someones',
with their own minds, preferences and needs. When we directly and
indirectly interact with animals, we have a duty to actively extend
the principle of equal consideration to them and not simply treat in
a manner that suits us, as a means to our ends.
How
then, do we go about taking their interests into account? The first
step is to recognise their intrinsic value as sentient beings. The
reason they have value is because of who and what they are, because
of qualities intrinsic to them. If we afford animals only
instrumental value, that is to say value by virtue of their
usefulness and value to others, we make a categorical error. We would
be saying that animals only have the value that we give them, which
would be to reject that the principle of equal consideration applies
to them. Once we realise that animals have more than instrumental
value, we are compelled to consider the interests of animals when we
act. Our concerns are not simply for the consequences of our actions
for ourselves and other humans, but also for the impact of our
actions on animals, a concern that is owed directly to them. The
practical upshot of correctly categorising animals as 'someones' and
not 'somethings' is that we must cease to view them as resources for
our exploitation.
One
way of protecting animal interests is to give them rights. By stating
a right to something, be that a right to vote or a right to not be
treated as a thing, we are saying that the interest in question is
ring-fenced and that we must have a very good reason indeed for
overriding it. Rights compel us not to ignore the interests they
protect and are only overridden in situations where there is a very
genuine conflict of rights, such as Regan's 'Dog in the Lifeboat'
(1985) or Francione's 'Burning House' (2000:151-160). When we say
that sentient beings should not be viewed exclusively as a means to
an end and that their interests require us to apply the principle of
equal consideration to them, we are saying that they have a basic
right to have their interests taken into account and not to be valued
exclusively as a thing (Francione, 2000:92-98).
Animal
Ownership
Gary
Francione argues that if we are to properly afford animals intrinsic
value and a basic right not to be treated as things, we must cease to
see them as legitimate subjects of ownership. Francione argues that
as property, animals are afforded no value other than that which
their owner gives them (Francione, 2000:54). Their value largely is
commercial or sentimental – instrumental – and not intrinsic.
Owners are generally permitted to use the animal in a variety of ways
– for personal or economic gain, as part of a contract, as
collateral for a loan, etc. (Ibid.). For some animals, their use and
death for profit or pleasure is part and parcel of being owned and
their interests are very minimally defended in law, to the extent
that the legitimacy of inflicting of great pain and suffering onto
the animals is both socially and legally considered necessary and
expedient (Francione, 2000:58-63). Francione argues ownership of
animals enables their exploitation and that if we are going to stop
exploiting them, we must cease to view them as property. Animal
ownership is not compatible with affording them the right to not be
treated as a thing.
A
possible counter to this view is to claim that abuse and exploitation
are contingent but not necessary aspects of ownership. It is
possible, one might argue, to own something and yet be required by
morality or law to give it equal consideration of interests, to be
the 'perfect owner' that recognises the intrinsic value of animals
and rejects the idea that their value is instrumental. Such a
'perfect owner' would not only treat the property animal well, but
would reject all rights over the animal, instead acting for the
benefit of the animal. Where the animal is restrained, has pain
inflicted or otherwise treated in a manner that it is uncomfortable
with, this is perhaps because tying it up or caging it prevents it
from coming to harm or perhaps because an uncomfortable or painful
medical treatment is necessary to ensure its health or recovery from
sickness. Treating an animal in a way that violates some of its
interests is only acceptable where other, more fundamental interests
of the animal are safeguarded by that action, and not acceptable
where the animals interests are being forfeited for the pleasure or
profit of the owner. For a discussion of emergency situations, see
Chapter 7 of Francione's Introduction
to Animal Rights (2000:151-166).
If
the concept of the 'perfect owner' is coherent, it validates the
claim that exploitation is a contingent rather than necessary aspect
of ownership. However, such a claim leaves a number of concerns. If
the owner is 'perfect' (i.e. totally fulfilling their a moral duties
to the animal including the duty not to view them as a means to an
end), then it is by virtue of waiving certain rights over the animal
that categorise ownership. If someone is an owner, they have the
right to use the animal in certain ways, such as for economic gain.
Their rights may be tempered by law (e.g. they may be legally
required not to be cruel to the animal) but they nonetheless have
some kind of rights over the animal. If they didn't, they would not
be an owner. Duties owed to animals, to give them equal consideration
and to not view them exclusively as a means to an end, are not tied
up in the nature of ownership, coming instead from additional moral
imperatives. If we say that the 'perfect owner' is on moral ground
only if they reject rights over the animal, then we have a position
where rights over animals are defended by defending the ownership
relation, but the owner is compelled to reject them. In effect, the
owner has 'immoral rights' that they must not 'cash in'.
In
order to maintain that it is morally acceptable to own animals, we
must describe an owner who is an owner only in name, but not in
nature. The nature of the relationship between the 'perfect owner'
and the animal is in fact the nature of a guardian-ward relationship,
where the duties owed to the animal are part and parcel of the
relation, and not additional to it. In fact, ownership of animals is
the only kind of ownership where duties are owed to the property,
because they are the only property objects that have interests. The
only way to properly deal with the residual 'ownership rights' to
exploit animal property is to not require that individual owners
consistently waive their rights over animals, but to reject the
rights themselves and with them the ownership relation. In accepting
guardian-ward relationships as the proper way for humans to relate to
animals they are responsible for, we are simply giving the proper
name to the so-called 'perfect owner'. An owner that is compelled to
consistently recognise the rights of their property and in doing so
compelled not to treat the property as property is not a coherent
concept.
It
may be objected that ownership of animals is a way of entrenching
responsibilities towards them into the law and ensuring that
societies recognise which humans are responsible for which animals.
However, this is adequately fulfilled by legalised guardianship of
animals. The only complication left is when the owner/guardian can
best serve the interests of both themselves and the animal by passing
on responsibility, but this is no more of a problem for animals than
it is for children or other human dependants. There are ways and
means of ensuring that guardians or parents of children do not come
to grief and do not cause suffering to their wards without requiring
that we legitimise the sale or trade of humans. There are also ways
of obtaining human wards without buying or trading for them, for
example via foster schemes or adoption. This kind of relationship is
best suited to fulfilling our duties to the animals we are
responsible for because it is not only adequate, it avoids the
incoherence of requiring owners to waive rights of ownership.
Food
for Thought
What
does this view about the inclusion of animals in the moral community
mean for the real-world relationship between humans and animals?
According
to the UN statistics for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 2007), nearly 56
billion
animals
are slaughtered around the world in order to produce meat and other
animal products for food, every
year.
These are just the recorded numbers and do not take into account the
aquatic animals killed annually for food or as by-catch from the
fishing industry. The numbers of fish and other aquatic animals that
are wild-caught and bred in fisheries annually is over 140 million
tons a year, around the world, according to the FAO (2008). The
number of individual aquatic animals killed is unrecorded. These
animals are farmed, harvested and used for human benefit. It would be
absurd to claim that by treating animals in this manner we were not
using them instrumentally. These animals not only die to fulfil human
interests, but tens of billions of them are intentionally created by
humans so that they may be used as resources.
It
is increasingly accepted by the medical community that humans are
capable of thriving on a diet that totally omits animal products (see
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and American Dietetic
Association). In light of the fact that we don't need to eat animals
or farm them for their products, we cannot claim a legitimate
conflict of interest between animals and humans when we consider
whether or not to use them for food. Any situation in which animal
products and flesh are required to live healthfully is covered by
emergency considerations but we must be careful to avoid applying
'emergency' situations too liberally, and especially to situations
where we inconvenienced by the task of planning an appropriate diet
or sourcing appropriate non-animal alternatives. In refusing to take
into account the right of animals not to be treated as things, we not
only value them instrumentally in the way that we might value
dentists and fire-fighters but we also deny them their intrinsic
value.
The
imperative to avoid harm to animals and to treat them as members of
the moral community also applies to our use of animals for clothing,
research, product testing and entertainment. It also calls upon us to
cautious when we consider environmental interventions such as culls
and other forms of population control. By affording animals a basic
right not to be treated as a thing or a resource, we are developing
an abolitionist view of animal liberation – a view that says we
must work to abolish the instrumental use of animals by humans.
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