Reading: April 2008 Archives

Sorry if this is a bit too conceptual, but it's necessary I think.

Bob Torres writes, "The recognition that animals have interests that deserve to be respected," is what is meant by the notion of (moral) "rights." I agree with his argument. However, the conceptual basis for why an interest "deserves to be respected" should be noted.  

I previously wrote a post about the importance of sentience, which is, I think, fundamental to this discourse of moral "rights": 

If an individual is the kind of being capable of having any interests at all (i.e., sentient) then that being has intinsic or inherent worth, which is the "minimal criterion necessary to be regarded as a member of the moral communiy" (Gary Francione). Inherent worth differs in kind from external worth, or instrumental worth given to an object by a person: a piece of gold, for example, has no worth independent of our valuation of it; our valuation gives this object worth because it serves as a resource to us. Property is an example of an object with worth only as a resource to others. 

Now, in order for some individuals to be protected against being treated as mere things, all members of the moral community must be regarded as being equal possessors of inherent moral worth. Moral worth works this way because inequalities in the inherent worth of the individual is irrational: If I can validly claim to have intrinsic value because I am a particular type of individual, then all other individuals like me (with that particular characteristic) have this intrinsic value as well, or else I can't have a valid claim either - which doesn't make any sense.       

Speciesism, then, would put all non-human animals into the category of property (i.e., as possessors of external worth only). The "rights view" rejects this, arguing instead that if an animal is sentient than she is reasonably viewed as having interests, and interests ought to be respected in cases where morally relevant differences are absent as a matter of strict justice. For the rights view, then, as the only morally relevant characteristic is sentience, as a matter of strict justice human animals and non-human animals alike ought to have their interests respected.

Gary Francione offers an argument in favor of legal rights (as derived from the above stated moral argument). Francione believes that rights are a "special way of protecting an interest." He invokes rights to challenge the property status of non-human animals because until all sentient beings' interests are given equal consideration, as equal possessors of inherent value (as opposed to chattel slaves, for example), ending the exploitation of non-human animals is an impossible goal to achieve: no matter how much a piece of property is enjoyed or appreciated by its owner, even the most basic interests of that piece of property (e.g., to avoid pain, in the case of our animal property) will always be trumped by its owners' most trivial desires or preferences (e.g., "I like the taste of flesh").

One final note, rights protect those interests natural to the individual whose interests are being protected. If a being is sentient, not experiencing pain or being free to continue life for example, can reasonably be called natural to all species of animals, which ought to be protected by basic rights. Basic rights are those substantive rights that all other formal rights are derived from, or on which they find their foundation: without a basic right to be treated as an end in and of myself in a community of ends, for example, my "right to free speech" is not substantive because I am already unequal to all those people I am speaking too; this means I might as well shut the hell up because I don't count anyway!  

So, it would be absurd to speak of a dog's or a human infant's "right to vote." However, it would be equally as absurd to speak of a dog's or a human infant's inability to subjectively experience pain; thus a basic right to be free from pain, for example, should be extended to both the dog and the human infant. As another example, no reasonable person could argue that both of these individuals do not have an interest in continuing to live their own lives as sentient beings; living, of course, allows for the fulfillment of those actions and things that naturally bring the individual happiness or enjoyment. A basic right ought to protect this interest as well.     

Rights, then, have a fundamental moral foundation as well as a necessary legal application.

I found the following quotes quite interesting as they were spoken by Matthew Scully, a Conservative Republican, former senior speechwriter for George W. Bush, author of Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, and contributor to the American Conservative:

"When a man's love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets his demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice."

"The standard vegetarian argument that the average person eats meat, and yet could not bear to see how it was produced, actually speaks well for the average person. Imagine a world in which most people enjoyed hearing and seeing the details."

"The factory farm is an economic necessity, cuts costs for the consumer, unavoidable in the global economy, a fact of life, a way of life, a livelihood, blah, blah, blah, all this to justify an obvious moral evil so sick and horrendous it would leave us ashen, producing goods now replaceable, and employing people who could be making those alternative products instead. All this so we can have our accustomed veal or lamb or fried chicken or pork chop or hot dog at the ball park."

Giving equal consideration of interests to all beings capable of having interests is how one takes equality seriously. This isn't Leftist, Rightist, Conservative, Liberal, or radical; it's the absence of prejudice, it's mere logic, it's moral courage - these values are Universal.  

I believe that Al Gore is a rather enlightened fellow. Mr. Gore's positions on global climate change, gay marriage, and foreign policy are forward thinking with a critical eye on the past. However, as an example of what I believe to be a rather telling example of how far the struggle to live in a vegan world has to go, the following is an exert from Mr. Gore's "The Assault On Reason":

When I was a boy growing up on our family farm in the summers, I learned how to hypnotize chickens. You hold the chicken down and then circle your finger around its head, making sure that its eyes trace your hand movement. After a sufficient number of circles, the chicken will become entranced and completely immobile. There's a lot you can do with a hypnotized chicken. You can use it as a paperweight, or you can use it as a doorstop, and either way, the chicken will sit there motionless, staring blankly. (What you can't do is use it as a football. Something about being thrown through the air seemed to wake that chicken right up.)  

Al Gore was using this "humorous" anecdote as an example of the fear stimulus and immobility in animals. However, the details are not important, the fact that Mr. Gore believes it's acceptable to introduce this anecdote in such a morally detached manner is striking. 

If Mr. Gore had raped a woman in his childhood and if it would have sufficed to further the point he was attempting to make, would he have so nonchalantly used that experience as an example? I believe Mr. Gore's shame for his action would be so great that he would in fact not use this as an example.

People inappropriately use humor in many situations, but as I hold Mr. Gore to a slightly higher standard (perhaps unfoundedly), this passage truly made me feel as though the movement to end the exploitation of animals has an exceedingly long road ahead of it.      

Notice also Mr. Gore's use of the word "it" when discussing the chicken he used as a football during his youth. In this sentence, "What you can't do is use it as a football," it is difficult to distinguish between the two things in question: the chicken and the football. Mr. Gore, chickens are not footballs: When you flung Tipper the chicken through the air, she subjectively experienced the fear of awaking while flipping uncontrollably round-and-round and the trauma of striking the ground - Tipper the chicken is a person, not a thing.   

Jen discussed the negative environmental impacts of meat production previously, which further illuminates Mr. Gore's inability to move beyond his prejudice against non-human animals, and the actions, thought processes and beliefs that are derived from this prejudice. Throughout "The Assault on Reason," Mr. Gore does not mention a single time the many contributing factors of meat production to global climate change. Researchers have found evidence that suggests that the consumption of cheeseburgers in the U.S. alone, creates more metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions than all the S.U.V.'s combined. 

James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, "...As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves."

Mr. Gore praises reason and logic, however, it is clear that if reason was indeed so highly valued he would have made the connection between global warming and factory farming. Even more, perhaps Mr. Gore's reason would have allowed him to recognize the absolute lack of humor in using another sentient being (a person) as a bookend. 

"I've eaten meat my whole life" is self-love and mere passion Mr. Gore; such an argument is similar in kind to "I don't buy into the whole global warming thing." Both arguments are derived from the absence of reason and logic, not the expression of them. 

Mr. Madison's word's hold true for even the pseudo-enlightened like Al Gore, but so it goes.            

Each year American doctors inject more than 3 million doses of Botox to temporarily smooth-out their patients' wrinkles and frown lines. But before each batch is shipped, the manufacturer puts it through one of the oldest and most controversial animal tests available. 

To check the potency of its product, Allergen Inc. injects mice with Botox until it finds a dose at which half of the animals die - a rough gage of potential harm to humans. 

Animal protection organizations consider "lethal dosage 50," as the test is known, to be the "poster child of everything that's wrong with animal testing...It's as bad as it gets, poisoning animals to death." 

Allergen officials say that they have no choice. Without a federally approved safety test that does not use animals..."lethal dosage 50" is by default the required test. 

This controversy highlights the slow pace of government efforts to replace or reduce the large number of animals used in testing. A decade after Congress created a panel to spur the development of non-animal tests, only four tests have been approved out of 185 reviews. Scientists in the U.S. say they have delayed or abandoned their proposals for non-animal tests because panel reviews are protracted and expensive. 

 
...critics point to Europe, where a similar panel has approved 34 alternatives with another 170 in its pipeline. Critics say the U.S. panel is slow and favors older animal tests that have never gone through the same rigorous scientific review...

Others argue that members of the panel have a bias in favor of animal testing. An email exchange between panel members and government scientists suggests that the bias in favor of animal testing has engendered resistance to alternatives. According to the Washington Post, "Copies of an email exchange between scientists discussing two recent papers by a prominent European researcher who has found evidence proving the viability of non-animal test alternatives, were uncovered. In this email exchange one scientist asked, "What could we do to combat these papers." The Chair of the panel responded, "What I see is them trying to build a case not to use animals in testing." 

As a result, critics argue, hundreds of thousands of mice, rabbits, hamsters and dogs continue to suffer and die needlessly in tests for pesticides, household cleaners, sunscreens and other products. Some contend that millions of animals are used for these tests, however, there are no federal reporting requirements covering mice and rats, who make up the majority of the animals used in product testing, so "official" numbers are at best low-ball estimates. 

The details in the article are interesting because they effectively illuminate the argument in favor of continued animal testing: "Without a federally approved safety test that does not use animals..."lethal dosage 50" is by default the required test." Implicit in this statement is the following moral appeal: [As Tom Regan argues,] if a product was introduced into the "market" without first being pre-tested for toxicity on animals, the risks of harm humans would run would be greatly increased, and the harms in question would be prima facie greater than the harm suffered on the animals (because human animals are more important than non-human animals). 

"Against all commands of duty that a man's reason presents to him as deserving of so much respect, he feels in himself a powerful counterweight - namely his needs and preferences, the complete satisfaction of which he lumps together as "happiness." Reason issues inexorable commands without promising the preferences anything - by way of recompense. It ignores and has no respect for the claims - that desire makes - claims that are so impetuous yet so plausible, and which refuse to give way to any command. This gives rise to a natural dialectic - an intellectual conflict or contradiction - in the form of a propensity to argue against stern laws of duty and their validity, or at least to cast doubt on their purity and strictness, and, where possible, to make them more accordant with our wishes and desires. This undermines the very foundation of duty's laws and destroys their worth..."

                                                                                                     - Emanuel Kant

Aren't Kant's words an appropriate rebuke of those who would "respect the claims that desire makes" and ignore their intuitive negative response to our species' maltreatment of non-human animals?