Humane
Ethics
and Animals
Lectures
Discussion
Questions
Paper
Assignmen
© 2008 Na
These
lectures are intended to provide background to the readings, highlight
important issues in the readings, introduce readings, and raise questions for
each week.
Week 1: Intro to Ethics, Intro to Logic
and Intro to Ethics & Animals
Week 3:
In Defense of Animals: Some Moral Arguments
Week 4:
Objections to Defenses of Animals and Defending Animal Use
Week
5: Wearing and Eating Animals
Week
6: Pets; Zoos, Hunting, Racing, and other Uses of Animals
Week 7:
Experimenting on Animals, Animals in Education
Week
8: Activism for Animals
Note: this first lecture is longer than the rest.
Overview:
Week
2: Wha
Overview:
If any animals have minds,
and thus are conscious, then they can be harmed, and thus how they are treated
raises moral issues. And, arguably, there are moral obligations towards animals
only if they have minds, so questions
about animal ethics very much depend on what animals are like. This week we
will get an overview of the scientific and philosophical literature on whether
any animals are conscious, whether any are sentient (i.e., capable of sensation
or feeling, especially of pleasures and pains), and so whether various species
of animals have minds and, if so, what their mental, psychological and/or
emotional lives might be like. We will discuss how anyone could know or
reasonably believe some claim about animals’ minds.
Being Specific About Species
In the first lecture on
logic, I made these two suggestions about identifying arguments:
These suggestions are
relevant to thinking about animals’ minds since the category of “animal” is
extremely broad: “animals” range from unicellular organisms, insects,
invertebrates, vertebrates, birds, and to mammals of different kinds, including
primates (like human beings). Since there are millions of species of animals,
so when investigate whether animals’ have minds, the natural questions are, “Which animals?” or, “What do you mean by ‘animals’? Which animals are you
referring to?”
Sometimes
we forget to notice that these same questions should often be asked about human
beings’ mental lives. The mental lives of, e.g., newborn babies, five year
olds, “normal” adults, cognitively disabled individuals, and Alzheimer’s
patients surely differ greatly. So if someone says that (all) animals don’t
have minds like human beings’ minds, we should ask which human beings, since many some, if not, many animals have
mental lives comparable to, if not richer than, many human beings’ minds.
That’s a possibility: whether we should think its true, of course, depends on
what the research shows about the varieties of animals’ and humans’ minds and
mental capacities.
Our
readings primarily focus on mammals and birds, although there is some
discussion of fish, invertebrates (such as octopi) and even some research on
insects. But, again, it seems likely the minds of different mammals (if any
have minds) are also different: e.g., a mouse’s mental life is likely quite
different from a chimpanzee’s (especially if that chimp has been taught sign
language). Additional research on different kinds of animals’ minds will be
discussed in later sections of the course: e.g., research on the minds of
chickens, cows and pigs will be discussed in the sections on animal
agriculture; rats and mice, cats, dogs and primates in the sections of animal
experimentation, and so on.
How Do We Know? Arguments from Analogy &
Inference to the Best Scientific Explanation
Epistemology is an area of philosophy that asks how we know things and what it is for a belief to be reasonable and supported by good evidence. How might we know
that any animals have minds, or reasonably believe any such claims? We can call
this question “The Epistemological Problem of Animal Minds.”
Before
we think about this (hard) problem, it’s worthwhile to mention that
philosophers (and some psychologists and neuroscientists) worry about a more
general (hard) problem called “The Epistemological Problem of Other Minds”
regarding humans’ minds. The problem
is that each of us only has “direct access” to our own perceptions, thoughts
and feelings: we cannot directly “see” that anyone else is conscious and has a
mind. All we see is external, overt behavior (including speech) and,
presumably, somehow infer from this
behavior that another individual has thoughts, feelings and perceptions
somewhat like our own. Perhaps this inference is not consciously made, but how
else could we know that other people
have minds?!
Believe
it or not, this question has troubled philosophers for millennia and there is
no widely accepted answer. Many philosophers argue, however, that we know that
other people have minds either by reasoning by analogy or by reasoning
from the best explanation of some phenomena, in this case the overt
behavior.
To
reason by analogy is, most simply, to reason like this:
·
Thing 1 has
these characteristics a, b, and c;
·
Thing 2 has
characteristics a & b;
·
Thing 2 is relevantly similar to Thing 1;
·
Therefore,
probably Thing 2 has characteristic c too.
Or, even more simply:
“These two things are similar in the relevant ways, so therefore what is true
of one is probably true of the other.” The strength of an argument from analogy
depends on how similar to two things are: the more similar, the stronger the
analogy, obviously, and more likely the conclusion is to be true.
To
respond to the “Problem of other Minds,” someone might reason, “I behave these
ways, have this kind of biology, and I
have a mind. Other people behave in similar ways and have similar biology. Therefore, they probably have minds
too.” It’s important to observe that we apparently often use the same kind of
kind of reasoning about animals’ minds, as our authors demonstrate.
The
second common pattern of reasoning about minds is an argument from the best
explanation:
·
There is some
event that requires explanation.
·
Explanation or
hypothesis E best explains that event
(i.e., is a better explanation than other candidate explanations in that it
makes sense of more of the data/observations, allows predication, is simpler,
fits with pre-existing knowledge, etc. )
·
Therefore,
probably E, and what’s entailed by E,
are true.
This pattern of reasoning
is often applied to animal behavior: an animal does something (e.g., reacts in
some interesting way to new surroundings); we try to figure out if this
reaction would be better explained on the hypothesis that (a) this animal is a
mindless automaton or (b) this animal has a conscious mind (or some other
explanation, perhaps with greater details than [b]). How this reasoning will
work out very much depends on the
details of the case, but it’s important to note that we use this pattern of
reasoning to investigate both humans’ and animals’ minds.
A Source of Doubts: Necessary Conditions for Having
a Mind
Many who argue (or have
argued, in the case of historical figures) that animals don’t have minds often
claim that there is (or are) necessary
condition(s) for having a mind, animals lack that necessary condition, and
therefore they are mindless. So, some have claimed that a being has a mind only if, e.g., that being has language,
and argued that animals are mindless since they can’t speak. Critics tend to
challenge these claims by either arguing that that (some) animals meet this
necessary condition, or by arguing that it’s false that this condition is a
necessary one: a being can have a mind even if it lacks this condition. They
also tend to point out that that many such principles imply that human infants
are mindless, which seems to be false (and perhaps must be false, since such
infants do learn language, and that can happen only if they have minds already,
before having language).
These are a few central
concepts to keep in mind while reading the interesting and informative readings
this week.
Overview:
This week we will survey
the most influential “theories of animal ethics,” i.e., general theories that
attempt to explain the nature and extent of our moral obligations toward
animals, which have been used to argue in defense of animals. As we will see,
these theories are often extensions or developments of the moral theories that
have been developed to explain how humans ought to treat other human beings.
These thinkers often argue that the moral theory (or theories) that best explain the nature and extent of
our moral obligations to human beings (especially vulnerable ones, such as
babies, children, the mentally challenged, the elderly, and so on) have
positive implications for many animals as well. Thus, they often argue that
there are no relevant differences
between the kinds of cases to justify protecting human beings but allowing
serious harms to animals and, therefore, animals are due moral protections
comparable to at least those given to comparably-conscious, aware, sentient
human beings.
General Theories and Particular Cases
This week will get an
initial presentation of three of the most influential methods of moral thinking
for human to human interactions that
have been extended to apply to human to
animal interactions, i.e., how humans ought to treat non-human animals.
These
perspectives are, first, a demand for equality or equal moral consideration of
interests (developed by Peter Singer; however he sometimes describes his
ethical theory as a form of utilitarianism,
although his book Animal Liberation
does not presuppose it); second, a demand for respect of the moral right to respectful
treatment (developed by Tom Regan); and, third, a demand that moral decisions
be made fairly and impartially and
the use of a novel thought experiment designed to ensure this (developed by
Mark Rowlands, following John Rawls, the most influential political philosopher
of the twentieth century).
We
want to try to focus on these
theories in themselves and their implications for animals “in general,” without
so much focus on what they imply for particular uses of animals, e.g., for
food, fashion experimentation, entertainment, and other purposes. This attempt to make things a bit more
abstract and general might seem forced, and we will surely understand the
theories more deeply more when we see them applied to particular cases.
Nevertheless, we want to try to evaluate these theories as true or false,
well-supported or not, on their own terms.
Arguments from Paradigm Cases: Inference to the
Best Moral Explanation
Earlier we saw that
scientists (and philosophers) sometimes use a pattern of reasoning known as inference to the best explanation to
explain non-moral phenomena, e.g., the existence of minds. Ethicists use this
form of reasoning also, although what is usually being explained is some clear
moral intuition, or a moral judgment that nearly everyone agrees on (and
seemingly for good reason). Again, the pattern is something like this:
Singer seems
Regan
argues similarly, s
In
both cases, the pattern is to start with what we are confident with, think
about the best reasons to support that confident judgment, and see that that these
reasons have implications for areas that we perhaps have not thought about as
carefully. We then see that that we have to revise our previous judgments about
that new kind of case or, if we are to be
consistent, revise our initial judgments (e.g., about the human cases), or
argue that nothing follows from one kind of case to another because they are
relevantly dissimilar. Singer, Regan and Rowlands, as well as the others, are
clear on the logical options.
Sufficient Conditions for Taking Someone’s
Interests Seriously
The cases for animals can
be seen as an attempt to identify this ‘this’
here:
If a being is like this ____, then we must take its
interests seriously, it’s wrong to harm it (except for very good reasons), we
must respect it, etc.
Animal advocates typically
argue that if we look at what we think about human beings, it appears that we
think (or should think) that all
human beings, especially those who are vulnerable – the very young and old –
deserve such protections: e.g., none should be eaten, worn and experimented on.
These philosophers argue that, for human beings, we seem to think the ‘this’
above is just consciousness or sentience or, as Regan puts it, being a “subject
of a life,” and that this is a sufficient
condition for it being the case that a being is wrong to harm. They argue that
this principle applies to (some) animals as well, those animals that possess
the relevant characteristics that humans have.
Most
critics of this reasoning attempt to find other characteristics that would
account for the wrongness of harming human beings, but seek characteristics
that only human beings have and no animals have. The challenge is, first,
finding these characteristics and, second, explaining why they are morally
relevant.
Overview:
This week we will survey
the most influential general moral theories that have been appealed to argue in
defense of animal use and/or to object to the theories developed in defense of
animals. As we will see, these theories are often extensions or developments of
the moral theories that have been developed to explain how humans ought to
treat other human beings. These writers often argue that the moral theory (or
theories) that best explain the
nature and extent of our moral obligations to human beings (especially
vulnerable ones, such as babies, children, the mentally challenged, the
elderly, and so on) do not have
positive implications for animals. Thus, they argue that there are relevant differences between the kinds
of cases that justify protecting all human beings but allowing serious harms to
animals.
General Theories and Particular Cases
Like last week, we want to
try to focus on these theories in
themselves and their implications for animals “in general,” without so much
focus on what they imply for particular uses of animals, e.g., for food,
fashion experimentation, entertainment, and other purposes. This will likely be harder than last week
because many objections to pro-animal theories come from particular cases, e.g.
arguments like these:
·
Animal
experimentation is morally permissible, if not obligatory.
·
But if Regan’s
theory is true, then animal experimentation is wrong.
·
Therefore,
Regan’s theory of animal rights is mistaken.
·
There’s
nothing wrong with raising animals to eat them.
·
But if there’s
nothing wrong with raising animals to eat them, then animals’ interests don’t
deserve equal consideration.
·
If animals’
interests don’t deserve equal consideration, then Singer’s theory is false.
·
Therefore,
Singer’s theory is false.
Of course, we want to know
for what reasons we should accept
these first premises, especially if we are familiar with ethics!
But
perhaps a way to avoid some of these particular cases about animals at this
time is to focus on what the theories of the critics of pro-animal thinking
imply for human beings, especially the young, old, weak and powerless. Various
kinds of contractarianisms support poor treatment of animals, but they seem to
support poor treatment of humans as well, and so contractarians often feel a
need to defend themselves from these objections. Maybe these theories can sometimes
be better evaluated from the more neutral concern of human-to-human ethics.
In
evaluating moral theories and thinking about ethics in general, you want to try
to have your principles or theories have the right implications for particular
cases and have those implications for the right reasons. Unfortunately there is
no exact formula for doing this! Ethics can be hard.
Necessary Conditions for Taking Someone’s Interests
Seriously: Cases Against Animals
While animal advocates
focus on sufficient conditions for
someone being in “The Moral Club” (as Rowlands puts it), anti-animal theorists
tend to focus on necessary conditions,
claiming that:
We
must take a being’s interests seriously, it’s wrong to harm it (except for very
good reasons), we must respect it, etc., only if it is like this: ___.
They then typically fill
in that blank with rather cognitively advanced abilities: sophisticated
reasoning, thinking about one’s thinking, intellectual achievement, religious
worship, and so on.
Their
challenge, of course, comes from the fact that many human beings lack such
sophisticated minds, yet we think we must take their interests seriously. This
problem for anti-animal theorists is known as the “argument from marginal
cases.” To get around it, these theorists often attempt to do some intellectual
acrobatics, trying to relate non-mentally sophisticated human beings (who seem
to lack the stated necessary condition for, e.g., having any moral rights) to
sophisticated human beings in peculiar ways. We will attempt to pin down their
reasoning and see if it seems to be generally valid or is developed as an ad
hoc response to this problem or worse.
Finding Relevant Differences from Arguments from
Paradigm Cases: Inference to Better
Moral Explanations?
Regarding above,
anti-animal thinkers need to offer explanations of the clear cut cases of
wrongs to human beings and not have
those explanations have positive implications for animals.
Common Invalid Arguments
An argument is invalid
when the premises do not logically lead to the conclusion. Many objections to
cases against animals are of a common invalid argument form called “denying the
antedent,” where the premises do not lead to the conclusion or the conclusion
logically follow from the premises. This argument is invalid:
·
If
conscious, sentient animals have moral rights then seriously harming them is typically wrong.
·
But animals do
not have any moral rights.
·
Therefore, animal experimentation is morally permissible.
This argument is of the
same invalid pattern as this
argument:
·
If you (the
reader) were a professional basketball player, then you would be over a foot
tall. [TRUE!]
·
But you are not
a professional basketball player. [TRUE!?]
·
Therefore
you are not over a foot tall. [FALSE]
Non-professional basketball
players should see that these premises are true but the conclusion false: this
means that the premises do not lead to the conclusion. The same is true about
the first argument above, since the pattern is the same. The point applies to
this invalid argument too:
·
If animals are
“equal” to humans, as “important” has humans, have the same “moral status” as
humans, then seriously harming them is typically wrong.
·
But animals
are not “equal” to humans, not as “important” has humans, and do have the same
“moral status” as humans.
·
Therefore
seriously harming them is not
typically wrong.
Furthermore, what it means to say these things about
“equality,” “importance,” and “moral status” are not at all clear: much explanation would be needed for the kind of
understanding needed to decide whether this claim is true or false.
Making the Discussion Concrete
Week 5: Wearing and Eating Animals
Overview:
Animal advocacy
organization Vegan Outreach observes that, “The number of animals killed for
fur in the
Fur and Food
Philosophers often don’t
discuss the fur industry. However, the fur industry is huge. And many people
who do not consider themselves strong animal advocates claim to oppose it. If
we ask them why they oppose it, however, they often give reasons that seem to imply that killing animals for
food is also wrong. Yet these same people often resist that conclusion. Their
choice, if they wish to remain consistent then, is to revise their view about
the fur industry, revise their view about the meat, dairy and egg industries,
or find a relevant different between the fur and agriculture industries such
that one is wrong and the other is not. Can they do it?
Personal Challenges and Logic
In my 10 or so years
experience of teaching ethics courses, I have found that no topic brings out
the rational and emotional best and worst in people than ethical questions
about wearing and eating animals. This is not surprising since, unlike
questions what other people should
do, moral questions about animals are personal.
As philosopher Peter Singer has observed, “For most human beings, especially in
modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form of contact with
non-human animals is at mealtimes: we eat them”[9]
(and wear them). For most of us, then, our own behavior is challenged when we
reflect on the reasons given to think that change is needed in our treatment
of, and attitudes toward, animals. That the issue is personal presents unique
challenges, and great opportunities, for intellectual and moral progress.
This week
we will examine the common assumption that there is nothing wrong with harming
animals -- causing them pain, suffering, and an early death – so they might be
eaten and worn. Our method, useful for better understanding all ethical
debates, is to identify unambiguous and precise moral conclusions and make all the reasons in favor of the
conclusion explicit, leaving no assumption unstated. Especially important will be the third of the
three rules (introduced in week 1) for identifying and evaluating arguments:
People often try to argue that
killing animals to eat them is morally permissible by offering a quick premise
like, “Meat tastes good,” or “I’ve always eaten meat.” They don’t seem to
realize that they seem to be assuming
the premises if something tastes good
then its permissible to kill it to eat it (what if babies tasted good?!)
and if you’ve always done some action
then doing that action morally permissible, another arguably false premise.
Harms to Animals (and Humans): The Facts
Why is the treatment of
animals a moral issue? The simple answer is that animals are harmed by the practices required to
bring them to our plates and put them on our backs, and harms need moral
defense. This unit reviews the case for these industries being extremely
harmful to animals and looks at the industries’ response to these charges. Harms to humans from eating animals (or
eating animals to excess) are also detailed. Consider the position statement on
vegetarianism from the leading authority on nutrition in
It is the position of the American Dietetic
Association and Dietitians of
Ethical behavior can require self-sacrifice; however,
this scientific research suggests that ethical behavior – i.e., if killing animals to eat them is wrong
– can lead to personal health benefits.
Factory Farming vs.
Vegetarianism vs. Veganism vs. “Humane” Animal Agriculture vs??
Option
(C) is intended to be analogous to so-called “humane” animal farming and
slaughter. While everyone agree that this is better for animals than factory
farming, the question still remains: is this treatment of animals is morally
permissible or not? If something like option (D) is the most ethically
defensible option, then (C) is not.
“Painless” and “Humane” Killing
Option
(C) includes the often heard claim that, “if animals are killed painlessly,
then that’s morally OK.” This assumption might be true, but it’s worthwhile to
notice that we reject it about ourselves. In most cases, if we were killed,
even “painlessly,” we would be deprived of our (hopefully valuable) futures:
everything we would have experienced is taken from us. Insofar as animals have
futures, and killing them prevents them from experiencing those futures (and
any of the good experiences they would have had), it seems that the same basic
reasons why it is wrong to kill us might apply to many animals. So the
assumption that “painless killing is automatically morally permissible” should
be, at least, strongly doubted: good reasons would need to be given its favor.
Week
6: Pe
Overview:
This week we will discuss
the moral responsibilities involved in keeping pets or companion animals and
related moral issues concerning shelters, adoption, and killing unwanted
companion animals. We will also discuss the arguments for and against hunting,
dog and horse racing, rodeos, zoos and related uses of animals: is using
animals for any or all of these purposes morally permissible or not? Why or why
not?
“Pe
Keeping animals as
companions raises unique responsibili
These
financial demands can be a burden and give rise
Many cri
Many animal advoca
These are some common views abou
Ends and Means
Like many uses of animals,
using animals in rodeos, circuses, zoos, racing, in hun
These sor
Week 7: Experimenting on Animals; Animals in
Education
Overview:
This week we will consider
perhaps the most controversial ethical issues concerning animals, namely
questions about the morality of animal experimentation and research for medical,
scientific, psychological, educational and veterinary
purposes. These issues are often considered most controversial because, unlike
using animals for clothing, entertainment or even food, it is claimed that
animal research provides significant
medical benefits for humans that, some claim, could not be attained any other way than by using animals. Thus,
this is an area where animals’ and humans’ interests are said to unavoidably
conflict. This week we will attempt to evaluate claims about the scientific and
medical merit of animal experimentation, as these might be relevant to its morality (or the might not), and directly
attempt to determine the morality of various kinds of animal use in science,
medicine, education and research.
Science Does Not Answer
Moral Questions
An
important thing to remember in discussing the morality of animal
experimentation is that science does not
answer moral questions. What benefits (if any) that result from any kind of
experiment (human or animal) do not in
themselves show that some experiment is morally justified. That occurs only
in conjunction with moral principles and moral reasons, and those aren’t
determined by the science. Making arguments logically valid can make this
clear, because then it will be obvious that there’s a “leap” from some claim
about benefits or scientific results to a therefore,
doing this is morally permissible. As stated, the conclusion does not yet
follow.
Theoretical Foundations and Unprincipled Responses
One way of addressing
moral questions it to appeal to moral principles and general theories of
morality and moral reasoning: philosophers often approach issues that way, and
so it is often clear what their moral arguments are and what reasons are given
for their premises. Many defenders of animal experimentation do not follow this
pattern however and so we must make
premises and conclusions clear and precise and, if needed, add the missing
premise(s) needed to reveal the full pattern of reasoning. Here are a number of
common arguments given in defense of animal experimentation that should be
addressed before we get to the readings:
“Benefits” Arguments:
Many people argue that
there are medical benefits for humans that result from animal experimentation, e.g.,
treatments and cures for diseases,
improvements in health, and so forth – and that, therefore, animal
experimentation is morally permissible. The suggested argument is this:
(P1) Animal experimentation
benefits humans.
(C)
Therefore, animal experimentation is
morally permissible.
(P3) Some animal experimentation benefits all humans.
(P3) is false. About
30,000 people, many of whom are children, die each day from starvation,
malnutrition, and lack of very basic medical care.[11]
These people, and at least millions of other humans, do not benefit from it.
About (P2), as it is stated, few
scientific, humanistic and/or ethical critics of animal experimentation deny
it. There have been many, many experiments on animals. To claim that not one
of them has led to any benefits for any humans – even just by
good luck – would be to claim something false. So (P2) is true: some humans benefit medically from some animal
experimentation.
Some
people seem to think this automatically shows that animal
experimentation is morally permissible. Oddly, they often seem to think this
supports a more precise conclusion that all animal experiments are permissible, even those that do not lead
to any benefits for humans and are expected not to. But no such conclusions
follow, for many reasons. First, just because some humans benefit from something
does not entail that it is morally permissible for them to get it: e.g., some
people might benefit from an extremely
expensive medical procedure, or from
receiving vital organs
taken from living, healthy people. But those benefits do not automatically justify directing so much
money toward them (at the expense of others) or killing innocent people to take
those organs.
To
assume something different about animal cases – i.e., that it is morally
permissible to seriously harm animals to benefit humans – just assumes that
animal experimentation is permissible: it does not give any reasons in favor of
that. As we saw above, common claims about rights, importance and moral status
do not justify this assumption, but perhaps arguments discussed below will help
justify it.
“Necessity”
Arguments:
Related to the argument
from benefits is the argument from “necessity” or the claim that animal
experiments are “essential”: “animal experiments are ‘necessary’; therefore,
they are morally permissible.” To evaluate this argument we must first ask what
is meant by “necessary”? There is a sense of the term on which animal
experimentation clearly is necessary:
to do experiments on animals, it is necessary to do experiments on
animals. This is true because to do any exact, particular action, it is necessary
to do that action. Whatever is
truly meant by “necessity,” an advocate of these arguments assumes a moral
premise like the following:
“Painless” and “Humane” Killing,
Again
In
the context of experimentation we also hear the “if the animals are killed
painlessly, then that’s morally OK” assumption. Again, we should notice that we
reject it about ourselves. In most cases, if we were killed, even “painlessly,”
we would be deprived of our (hopefully valuable) futures: everything we would
have experienced is taken from us. Insofar as animals have futures, and killing
them prevents them from experiencing those futures (and any of the good
experiences they would have had), it seems that the same basic reasons why it
is wrong to kill us applies to many animals. So the assumption that “painless
killing is automatically morally permissible” should be, at least, strongly
doubted: good reasons would need to be given its favor.
Logic and Keeping Cool:
While animal ethics,
especially about animal experimentation and related issues, can be a heated
topic, logic can help keep you cool. Find conclusions, ask for reasons, and
demand a fair and impartial evaluation of those reasons. Keep the ethics and
the science straight, and remember that scientific results have moral
implications only in light of moral principles. By taking this course, you have
more “ethics training” than nearly all scientists who defend animal use, so
make use of your skills!
Overview:
What, if any, kinds of
actions done to try to improve the treatment of animals (including, perhaps,
trying to eliminate various uses of animals) are morally permissible? Which, if
any, are morally obligatory? Changing our diets? Educating others? Working for
larger cages and more humane treatment, or for the abolishment of (some) animal
use industries, or both? Trying to
change the laws to better protect animals? Illegal actions (done covertly or
openly)? Undercover investigations to reveal animal abuse? Rescuing or
releasing animals from animal use industries? Exposing people and businesses
who support harmful animal use? Violence of any kind, ever? Threats of violence?
Terrorism? We will explore a range of
tactics and attempt to evaluate them morally.
“Welfarism” & “Welfarists” versus “Animal Rights”
& “Abolitionists”: Ends and Means
A current heated
controversy among animal advocates is whether they should be – as some describe
it – either advocates of “animal
welfare” and “welfare reforms,” or advocates
for “animal rights” and the “abolition” of harmful animal use, or both. These terms are often ill-defined
and not carefully thought through. This can lead to needless conflict among
animal advocates and an inability to understand what kind of information might
help resolve these debates. Thinking about “ends” or “goals” and “means” or
“strategies” can help us understand these distinctions and better assess (and
perhaps overcome) this debate amongst
activists.
First,
ends: what would be a morally acceptable end
goal for the treatment of animals? What kind of world would we have if all animals
were treated in morally permissible ways, where we could say, “We have achieved
the moral goal for how animals ought to be treated, since none are treated
wrongly anymore?”
Regan’s
cat case presents two broad options – among many – for such a goal:
Anyone who claims (C) is
an acceptable goal or end we can call a “welfarist”: they believe that once certain kinds of harms to animals are
minimized or eliminated, it is still usually morally permissible to seriously
harm animals, e.g., by killing them.
Their
view might vary depending on the purposes behind these harms, of course. And there
are important details, e.g., about which harms are permissible to cause and
which aren’t, that they would need to explain so we fully understand the view.
And, most importantly, whether any arguments in favor of welfarism are sound
and withstand objections is something we would want to think about very
carefully.[12]
Anyone who believes that (C) is deficient for an ideal
goal and that (D) is that ideal we might call a “genuine” animal rights
advocate. Or, so that we say what we really mean, we could just say they
believe that seriously harming animals is
typically morally wrong, even if they are housed in comfortable cages, treated
gently and killed painlessly. We would want to understand their reasons for
why they think that, and whether any arguments in favor of this kind of view
are sound and withstand critical scrutiny is something we would also want to
think about very carefully.
Beyond the question of acceptable or ideal final goals or
ends for animals is the question of “means”: what sort of actions, policies,
strategies, campaigns, and other activist activities will be the most effective
means toward the desired end goal for
animals? In particular, if the goal is (D), the “animal rights” end, what
should be done now to best achieve
this, or get us closest to it, as soon as possible?
Here is where the debate begins. Should we now campaign
for larger cages, and, once successful with that, then campaign for “no cages”
– i.e., argue that animals shouldn’t be used in the first place? (Or should
some activists do the former and other activists the latter?) The former might lead to some small improvements
now (or it might not), but it also might forestall or prevent greater
improvements that might have occurred
had the focus been on “empty cages.” On the other hand, campaigns for “empty
cages” might fall on too many deaf
ears and yield no short term improvements. But perhaps enough ears eventually
will hear the message and this will result in widespread abolition of animal use, perhaps incrementally, one industry or
sub-industry after another. Or maybe not.
These debates are often divisive, but it’s not clear that
they should be. For one, they often involve matters that are largely speculative,
such as the long-term effects of some campaign strategy (as compared to
another). Here we are dealing with little knowledge and hard data; we are often
left with guesswork, hopes and under-informed estimations. This ignorance
should result in greater humility and less dogmatism on this topic, and a call
for formal training in areas that
might bring in some useful information to help us answer these questions about
means, such as economics, marketing, consumer psychology, statistics and so
forth. We should agree that we don’t know what we need to know to bring about
our desired end, and turn our focus towards gaining that knowledge.
A second reason why these debates shouldn’t be divisive
is that it is not clear that they are philosophical ones. As suggested above,
they are largely empirical and scientific. Our ends do not obviously dictate
our means. Suppose we lived a few hundred years ago, came to believe that
slavery was wrong and should be abolished, not merely made more “humane.” We
have set our ends, but what means should we use to achieve that end
ASAP? Back then, there was no obvious answer, for reasons comparable to those
mentioned about. These issues were debated then (and are still debated now,
since human slavery still exists) and animal advocates can surely learn from
studying that debate.
Animal Advocates Promoting Animal Use?
As a concrete example of
the issue above, some animal advocacy organizations have recently begun giving
a “platform” for animal-use industries, especially those who practice so-called
“humane” farming. Whether this is an effective (or dismal) strategic means to
help bring about an “animal rights” end, or whether this should be seen as a
statement that the morally acceptable end really is “welfarism” is something
that many activists have begun debating.
Illegal Actions
Let us now turn to some
more controversial forms of activism. Consider “open rescues” of animals from
farms: these typically involve trespass,
breaking and entering, and theft of animals that are somebody’s property. All these actions are illegal. Some people argue that such rescues are morally wrong because they
are illegal. They might argue similarly against any form of activism that
involves illegal activity.
These
are unsound arguments and nearly everyone agrees with that because nearly
everyone believes that this unstated premise, which is essential to the
argument, is false:
Necessarily,
if an action is illegal, then it is morally impermissible.
Hiding Jews from Nazi’s
was illegal, yet morally permissible; helping slaves escape to freedom was
illegal, yet morally permissible. Many more examples make the same point. Contrary
to a common reaction, these examples do
not make any “comparisons” whatsoever between animal issues and
slavery or human holocausts[13];
they are simply used to show that any (or just about any) argument against some
kind of activism based on the premise that it is illegal is unsound (or, at
least, just about everyone’s beliefs entail that it is unsound, since they
think the above premise is false: just because something is illegal does not
necessarily entail that it is morally wrong).
Animal
advocates are advised to read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “Letter from a
Birmingham Jail.”[14]
They will find much to resonate with Dr. King’s discussion.
Violent Actions
More controversial forms
of activism involve violence or threats of violence of different kinds.
Violence comes in many different forms, as our authors observe.
Some
animal advocates, e.g., some members of the ALF (Animal Liberation Front),
engage in property destruction (e.g., of animal cages, computers with
experimental data, etc.) and even sometimes even arson. Although they claim
that their actions are “non-violent,” this strains the concept of violence.
They argue that since they are not violent to
anyone, i.e., they do not inflict bodily harm on anyone, they thereby act
non-violently.
This
inference does not follow: one can act violently
yet do no violence to anyone. For
example, it seems to make perfect sense to say that someone could violently smash carton of fruits and
vegetables with a sledgehammer, especially if the person was in a heated
frenzy. One might not want young children to see such a spectacle because,
well, it’s too violent! So the ALF’s insistence that they are always
non-violent strains the meaning of the term.
Perhaps
they (and animal use industries) want to insist that they are non-violent
because they think this principle is true:
All
acts of violence are morally impermissible.
If this were true, and
they acted violently (in performing arson, or in how they treat animals, for
example), that would imply that they were acting wrongly.
But
the above principle is false, according to most people: violence can be, and
often is, morally justified. If violence (or threats of violence) are needed
for self-defense, then it’s permissible. If it’s needed to defend an innocent
third party, then it’s justified. Perhaps some wars can be justified. So the
above principle is false, according to most people.
Most
people might even think that it’s false regarding some animals too: if someone
tried to attack your dog or cat, might you be morally justified in responding
with violence, or threats of violence, to defend your companion animal, if
needed? What if the animal was a stray? What if the animal was in a farm,
slaughterhouse or lab? If they knew the details of the case, perhaps many
people might think that violence, if needed for defending animals, would be
morally permissible in at least some of these cases.
So
perhaps violence could be justified
in cases of rescue. Whether violence can ever be justified for any other
purposes, e.g., in an attempt to change society’s general views about our
obligations to animals, seems extremely doubtful. In fact, given all the
relevant considerations, it is likely that any such violence, including
possible genuine “terrorism,” would
be deeply morally wrong, for reasons that Regan, Singer and Rowlands
articulate.
Syllabus: http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/ethics-animals-syl.htm
Schedule of readings and
assignments: http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/readings.htm
Schedule of lectures: http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/lectures.htm
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