Thinking: November 2008 Archives

...a good response to some of my issues with many individuals within the abolitionist movement. 

"Means and Ends"

The prevailing new welfarist paradigm rejects the notion of the interrelation of means and ends as "ivory tower consistency" which doesn't help actual animals; instead, it stresses that we should just do "whatever works". However, our insistence on the adaptation or suitability of means to ends is not the expression of a high-minded dismissal of animal suffering; on the contrary, it is partly based on the pragmatic realization that unless our ends are operative in our means then the latter will not be suited to achieve the former.

Abolitionist Animal Rights

As a theoretical response, this reasoning follows. However, as a practical matter, I dispute the premise if it is manifested as an outright dismissal of all animal welfare measures on the grounds of "rights."  

About value:

"The value of a sentient life is not measured in its utility to others, but in its immense, irreplaceable value to the being whose life it is" (emphasis added).

-- Joanna Lucas (Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary)

About human cruelty:

There is clearly a disconnect between our value-laden advertisements, which assume certain things about the lives and value of nonhuman animals, as companion for example, and our actual treatment of them. The advertisements assume that nonhuman animals have lives of their own - emotion, family, desire (see the "happy cheese come's from happy cows" campaign) - while our treatment can only be justified on the negation of this value, relegating nonhuman animals to the status of mere thing.

The question is, then, is your family dog more like you or a cell phone? Actually, there are two connected questions. The second is: Is there an empirical or moral difference between your beloved cat and the cow that had to suffer and die because you enjoy how his flesh tastes?   

The philosophy of animal rights premises that if a being is perceptually aware (i.e., sentient) then that being has interests that are important to him/her. One fundamental interest is in not suffering. The "harm principle," indispensable in moral reasoning I think, asserts the impartial badness of suffering: regardless of the individual suffering, to be in pain, for example, is a bad thing; therefore, in our actions we ought to be considerate of harm and act accordingly. On this line of reasoning, then, sentience ought to be sufficient for membership in the moral community, regardless of species, because pain is pain, frustration is frustration, and suffering is suffering. Therefore reducing the amount of these bad things is intrinsically good.

In criticizing this argument, some imbue species membership with moral content and conclude that the pain experienced by a cow doesn't count because she is not human. Human interests, then, always trump the cows. This logic, however, is debatable given that most would reject this reasoning out-of-hand in different contexts. The racist who argues that the interests of a black American does not count because he is not white would rightfully be criticized. So should the speciesist. Some, however, (still implying the reasonableness of speciesism) want to reject sentience as sufficient for moral personhood; instead relying on "moral agency," the ability to link two concepts abstractly, or an understanding of hypothetical contracts, for example, moral personhood is more exclusive.

The latter argument follows from an insistence on human superiority. We claim that being capable of experiencing pain isn't enough because it is too species-inclusive. Many species of animals (including humans) can suffer. Therefore, in regards to basic moral importance human animals are not unique or special. Paraphrasing Ingrid Newkirk, in regards to suffering, a mouse is a pig is a human. Our collective hubris, then, engenders this sophomoric claim to our special-ness: "We are better than chickens; we have to be!" We "other" all nonhuman animals because it is psychologically prudent to do so.

Unfortunately, however, our equally zealous refusal to acknowledge the inconsistency in grounding moral personhood on the ability to reciprocate moral obligations, while forgiving the inability to do so in all human babies and some mentally challenged human beings, a forgiveness that doesn't extend to adult hogs who are certainly more rational and self-aware than these groups of humans, belies our claim to "superiority." Demonstrable arbitrariness of this kind suggests not moral uniqueness making us worthy of consideration, but simply another base, egoistical animal.

The truth is we are evolutionarily unique. It is in (some of, not all) our capacity to recognize suffering qua suffering, as a subjective and evolutionary function, realize the badness of it, and use our reason to morally deliberate accordingly. We are special (on this arbitrary standard). It is in this distinctiveness that engenders our belief that we ought to consider the interests of the severely senile because these interests are important to them, regardless of their other mental deficiencies.

As an aside, a significant amount of research has suggested that concepts of justice are found in some nonhuman animal groups; empathy, kindness, and "community" certainly are. In 1871, Charles Darwin wrote,

"The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of degree and not of kind...there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in mental faculties." He added, "...they practice deceit and are revengeful," and have "moral qualities," the more important elements of which are "love and the distinct emotion of sympathy" (from, "Merle's Door").

Attributing these characteristics to nonhuman animals isn't anthropomorphic. It is labeling an action X if it qualifies according to X's definition as we conceive it.

Excluding the suffering, then, of a turkey because he is a turkey and not a human is contrary to what is (may be?) our rareness: the ability to act morally. It follows that ethical vegans don't reject our status as "superior" (again, on some arbitrary standard), we illuminate it. It is a further attempt to realize our special faculties.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

(The following is an op-ed I submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune, which was not published for reasons unknown.)

Merriam-Webster defines Euthanasia as the act of killing the hopelessly sick or injured in a way that doesn't cause suffering for reasons of mercy. In common usage, this is exactly what euthanasia means: a painless means to relieve persistent suffering when other options are not available. The interests of the individual whose life is taken provide the reason for the action. Killing an incurably ill person, then, out of concern for her suffering is euthanasia. Putting a healthy individual to sleep because it would take resources to feed her, or as a means to free-up space, is simply "killing." To label this action as anything other than killing is a purposeful, self-interested, confusion of the language.

The new West Valley City (Utah) Animal Shelter, currently under construction, will have a gas chamber for euthanasia. Given the definition of the word, it is a patent misnomer to label killing over 2,400 companion animals annually primarily for reasons of "space" and "financial resources," euthanasia. However, I do not mean to imply any moral judgments. Given the context of limited resources and our society's inability to control our selfish desire to "create" a dog that better satisfies that which we get a passing pleasure from today, the decision of shelters and rescue organizations alike to kill some animals in their care is rational. (However, a "no-kill" revolution is beginning to challenge some of the assumptions that are used to justify all this killing.) My intent is merely to illuminate the erroneous use of the word euthanasia and force some recognition of what we are actually doing: killing. The interests being considered are our own. The animals' interests are but a passing thought along the way to the execution chamber.

In the case of animals, then, our understanding of the word "euthanasia" doesn't seem to fit the actual definition. However, "painlessness" does seem to be fundamental, which means that we are left with a decision: Since we are killing, for the most part, perfectly healthy animals simply because the habits of our species result in millions of unwanted "pets," should we take their lives painlessly, even if we are inconvenienced, or does their suffering just not matter at all?

The answer ought to be clear - a comfortable death is the least we can do for all these helpless animals. Would you expect anything less for your beloved dog? My family rescued a dog from "death row" several years ago. He was our companion, a unique individual, and a devoted friend. And without our intervention, he would have had to struggle against death by suffocation.

The use of the gas chamber should raise serious questions. Those who have witnessed the killing of animals by what is essentially suffocation generally describe a "desperate struggle," "mournful wailings," and what can only be understood as fear and desperation. We have an obligation to these animals. Forcing a fully conscious animal into a small chamber in which she will struggle for her last breath shouldn't be an option. There is a reason why the "gas chamber" provokes so much horror in us.

The American Veterinary Medical Association and the National Animal Control Association, among others, have all determined injection of sodium pentobarbital is the most humane, safest, least stressful and most professional means of killing these animals.

Some may argue that since we do, as a matter of fact, kill these animals for our own purposes, their suffering is really a non-issue in the end. I emphatically disagree. If we must kill, then we must do so with compassion.

On our way home the other night, Jen and I witnessed a small protest. Three individuals were loudly voicing their outrage, posters of tortured nonhuman animals in hand, in front of a house occupied by an employee of a company that is tangentially, according to one observer, connected to Huntington Life Sciences. Under the mantra, "Their Money, Their Fault," the protesters claimed that the individual in the home works for a bank that funds H.L.S.' animal experimentation program. Therefore, coupled with direct protests of H.L.S., as the argument goes, those who finance this "science" ought to be held accountable.     

The "Standards for Confining Farm Animals" initiative statute, or Proposition 2, California, passed 63% for to 37% against. Prop. 2,

"prohibits the confinement of certain farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs."

Specifically, three confinement methods - veal crates, battery cages, and sow gestation crates - will come under review, and in the case of battery cages, will be eliminated. I view this result with both a sense of profound internal relief and trepidation.

On my relief. "Building momentum" towards abolishing certain practices, to borrow from Wayne Pacelle, seems a plausible result given California's media market and the prop.'s overwhelming support:

The historic victory for farm animals builds on momentum established in other US states. Colorado and Arizona are phasing out the use of gestation crates and veal crates, and the states of Florida and Oregon have similar measures phasing out gestation crates. Throughout North America, producers are changing the way they house and care for animals in response to this momentum. Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pig producer, and Maple Leaf, the largest pig producer in Canada, are phasing-out gestation crates. The American Veal Association voted to urge the entire US veal industry to phase out veal crates.

By adopting these measures, the United States is moving in the same direction as Europe. The entire European Union is phasing out barren battery cages by 2012 and gestation crates by 2013, and has already banned veal crates. Several European countries already have enacted protections for farm animals that exceed the European Union's measures.

And more importantly, I think, as a matter of fact, phasing-out veal crates, for example, does go a significant way towards reducing actual suffering. Those who would challenge this with, "It's still a violation of rights," are highly suspect, and I believe allow the abstract to consume the real. Many of us who believe in the philosophy of animal rights often accept our position as moral persons and argue accordingly. "We all have the right to..." becomes our mantra; however, it is from this position that allows us to forget about the 10 individual chickens who are forced to live in a single, barren, wire cage. While we discuss abolition, incremental moves to take those chickens out of the cage and put them on an open floor are derided. I believe this kind of reasoning is derived from our position as non-nonhuman animals. If considered impartially, it seems unreasonable to argue that I, if in the position of a veal cow, wouldn't want to be removed from the crate and allowed to turn around because this would imply the assumption that it is okay to kill me unnecessarily if I'm only treated properly. I think PETA's argument that "Animals are not ours to..." sufficiently addresses the ethical need to abolish the animals-as-property paradigm. Welfare legislation, then, framed as such, deals with the here and now of suffering and some of it should be lauded.   

On my trepidation (perhaps getting at the reasoning that confuses me). On the premise that every creature's interest's ought to be considered morally relevant because of their sentience, the only ethical end is abolition. Incrementalism, then, is instrumentally valuable for the reasons cited above. However, as the argument proffered by abolitionists go, incremental measures to reduce suffering in the present (or near present) may actual prevent this end from being realized.

One such reason, the most plausible I believe, is that when these singular examples - the one's we generally find the most horrendous - are illuminated, challenged and abolished, the ethical nature of the matter, primarily, nonhuman animals are not things and ought to be considered full members of the moral community, which practically results in veganism, begins to get confused. Our moral responsibility may seem to be absolved once the torture of baby cows in veal crates is gotten rid of and PETA proclaims a "victory." The end, then, is transformed from veganism to a "happy meat" revolution.

And so it goes, billions of nonhuman animals are still forced to suffer wholly unnecessarily, while the most prevalent reason to go vegan (e.g., the scene of male cows thrashing about as they are castrated without anesthesia) becomes very well hidden. It's a fiction, of course; the suffering persists; it's still systematic. However, the industry is now given a label, "Humane Certified," and the system, and the monster paradigm that justifies it, becomes even more calcified than before.   

I don't know how to resolve this conflict. Welfarism turns on an empirical matter: Do these measures actually reduce suffering? I believe the answer is yes, generally speaking. However, to qualify this "yes," I must say from reading accounts of "free range" methods, and my knowledge about what happens to the "excess" - baby boy chickens, for example -, these "improvements," as measured by real suffering, come in degrees not kind. And then there is the problem articulated above.    

As such, measuring Proposition 2 becomes a sort of qualified happiness. To the end of abolition, I'm concerned. Saving 20 million creatures from experiencing the most horrendous suffering, I'm forced by conscience to celebrate.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

Many people of faith regard themselves as progressive. Their faith in Christ, for example, is resolute. However, they are not doctrinaire in their belief system - scripture is open to interpretation, and organized religion takes on the "broken mirror" analogy: each faith represents but one piece of the whole, therefore, none of the individual pieces represent the "whole truth" but a single part. Issues, then, such as homosexual marriage, capital punishment, environmentalism, and abortion are viewed with a far less dogmatic eye by Liberal Christians (derisively labeled "al la cart Christians" by some, I say approaching rationality) than by their more strident counterparts. Another issue, evolution, is also accepted by most of the progressive faithful, thus rejecting the fiction, pseudo-science "creationism."

And here is my point: If you accept evolution then you must agree with the statement that "we" all evolved from a single source; from the primordial ooze we arose. However, as a person of faith, or a Christian more specifically given the context of Western society, you must also believe in an afterlife of some kind, or else your faith doesn't really follow from anything. Therefore, given biblical teaching, the issue of ensoulment must be broached - it is, after all, from this notion of the "soul" that the idea of eternal life is derived. This raises a fundamental question: If you accept both evolution and some conception of an afterlife, at what point does ensoulment take place?

It seems to me that there are only two possible answers to this question. One, god selected the stage of the evolutionary chain in which Homo sapiens erupted to introduce to the world "souls," which, in keeping with Judeo-Christian dogma, excludes all nonhuman animals from grace or eternal life. If only considered for a moment, however, the issue of arbitrariness enters the equation. In effect, so the reasoning goes, god saw three beings standing in front of him: a worm, a cow, and a human animal. Leaving aside the fact that each of these three beings originated from a single source through complicated processes of evolution where some genes mixed and others branched out in different directions, and that what separates one from the other is merely an alteration in the genetic code, god decided to select but one being from but one evolutionary stage to grant eternity too. Considering Darwin's theory holistically, selecting as god selected is almost ludicrously absurd given that he/she could have just as easily closed his/her eyes and pointed to some canid species, for example. Natural selection is essentially random mutation. There is no design, therefore, Z mutation getting a "soul," while A-Y do not, is uncomfortably arbitrary. Framing this arbitrariness as "divine plan" does not change its nature.

The second answer is more interesting. One might reason that creation as we know it will, in some perfected state, make-up heaven as we know it. Earth cleansed; god's grand design abstracted existentially. Avoiding the arbitrariness problem raised in the initial answer, the validity of the theory of evolution means that at our genesis, inchoate life was ensouled, and generation after evolutionary generation new life came into being, each sharing two traits: A) origins, and B) a soul. As a theological (and philosophical) issue, investigating further this brief sketch would be an interesting pursuit in and of itself. However, another, perhaps more, interesting question arises. If all beings along the evolutionary chain have been granted eternal life, then killing some of that life - with all the suffering therein - as a means to satisfy a taste bud (and only a taste bud) ought to be a cause for concern. Consider the outcome: What words will assuage the perfectly reasonable sentiment of hostility of the female cow whom had to experience rape, pregnancy, the removal of her baby, and milking-by-machine, over and over and over again, so that we can enjoy dairy ice cream as opposed to the non-dairy varieties? If confronted in the afterlife with a family of pigs who had to suffer the unimaginable in this life because "I just love bacon," will an apology sway? What of the chickens, or any of the other billions upon billions of animals that we kill for their flesh, sport, or convenience? The heavenly horizon darkens. Perhaps all nonhuman life go to a different heaven? One can only hope.

"But," goes the inevitable rebuttal, "god gave them to us to use as our means." Indeed, but remember:

Genesis 1 29:30:

"Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and for every beast of the earth and every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so."

We were "created" as vegans; in our perfected state non-interference with sentient life was a maxim. It was Original Sin that ended this harmony.

Romans 5:12:

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."

Man sinned and god rescinded its decree that human animals (and nonhuman animals many believe) ought to be vegans. Where then do the progressive faithful find a defense of killing animals to please their palates?

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox