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Chapter 2.2 Animal Ethics
When you are active in animal rights you should know why you are being active and be able to defend your actions rationally. Simply being emotional about animals is not enough because the opposition may be equally emotional back at you, resulting in a stalemate. However, by stating your case rationally you can convince people of your cause and win converts. This is an important part of doing animal rights. Even the most emotional opponents, if they can be made to see sense, are susceptible to rational arguments. This entry sets out the underpinning of animal rights so that you know where you are philosophically and have an idea of where you are going. Ethics & Animal Ethics If you question methodically the meaning and purpose of life you are a philosopher, whether amateur or professional. Ethics is the part of philosophy that asks how people should live their lives and how they should do good and right to each other. Animal ethics is the same but includes animals. Robert Garner in his book Animal Ethics says "Animal ethics seeks to examine beliefs that are held about the moral status of non-human animals." (2) You can define animal ethics more broadly: acting for the moral good of animals (including humans) by understanding animal-human moral issues through knowledge and reasoning; thus animal ethics is a practical pursuit as well as a cognitive study. Importance of Animal Ethics Our relationship with animals is based on beliefs we absorb from our upbringing and social customs. We accept these beliefs, often on trust from our elders, without challenging or analysing them. But unexamined beliefs when acted out can do enormous harm. Voltaire pointedly said, "If we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities." Everyone has some contact with animals directly or indirectly, whether eating them, feeding their pets factory farmed animals, or washing with animal-based soap. Yet most people do not realise the suffering and destruction humanity imposes on animals because it goes on largely out of sight. Where it peaks above the surface it is tolerated as normal. To make civilized progress we must comprehend what we are doing to animals and think about how we should treat them. All of us must justify and defend our relations with animals in light of animal ethics. An ethical issue is when you think a harm or wrong is happening and something should be done about it. If we harm people then we must justify why we harm them and if we cannot justify our actions then we must not harm them. In the same way, with animal ethics, we must critically question our conduct with animals. We must ask what we are doing to animals, why we are doing it, how should we and how can we do better - and take action. Key Concepts When thinking about animal ethics these key concepts are helpful.
That animals are made for human use is a traditional attitude, at any rate in western society, and held at least from Old Testament times up to Darwin (1809 - 1882). Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) thought animals exist to provide humans with food and other provisions; Aquinas (1225 - 1274) claimed killing animals is acceptable and we can treat them in any way useful to us; and Descartes (1596 - 1650) is regarded as saying animals are automata which cannot suffer, the corollary being that we can do almost anything to them without thought of morality.
People have always had to emphasise differences between man and beast to maintain and defend their belief in human superiority. The rationally inclined assert that animals lack reason, intelligence and creativity. The spiritually inclined believe animals are not made in the image of God and, although some of them appreciate and admire animals as God's creatures, many are largely unresponsive to animal misfortune and distress. Generally, people protect some animals, but only as property belonging to people. Darwin, however, significantly helped begin the demolition of human centredness by convincingly arguing that animals and humans evolved from the same ancestors (although he did not dare write this overtly). Common evolutionary descent explains why humans share the same appearance as animals, especially with the apes. This shocked the Victorian public of Darwin's day, but the outline of his evolutionary theory is now widely accepted. Thus an ethical dilemma arose. Animals and humans are similar, so if humans have moral status, then animals should have moral status too. For most of the history of western philosophy just about everyone passed off the moral status of animals as a trivial and insignificant question. However, an energetic debate is waging since the 1970's about animal moral status, ignited by revolutionary philosophers, such as Peter Singer. The animal moral status debate is founded on basic moral principles: it is wrong to cause suffering and it is wrong to discriminate against others by giving greater importance to your own group. Apply these principles consistently, says Singer, and they lead to the logical conclusion that we should treat animals morally. Some animal-oriented philosophers say the important morally relevant similarity of animals with humans is both can feel pain and suffer. That is, they are sentient; whether animals are intelligent or can reason does not matter. The writing of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) is often quoted (even though he wrote it only as a footnote!): "The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire the rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. ...the question is not, Can they reason? not, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" (3)
However, many people today still cannot accept animals on the same moral level as humanity, even while acknowledging the contributions of Darwin. But thanks to Singer and some fellow philosophers it is said that there is more controversy and discussion about animals today than during all past times combined. How to Proceed? When we make a judgement about the rights or wrongs of a situation our views and actions must be based on knowledge and reason. We must examine our thoughts and feelings carefully. We cannot rely completely on our intuition or feelings because people may be manipulating us through them for their own purpose without our realising it. We cannot rely on faith, religion, authority, the law, social standards, tradition, fashion, fantasy, emotional illogic, magic and many other reasons that are not necessarily rational. Reasons for acting ethically can be simple or complex, tempered by intuition or emotion. But our reasons for acting ethically must be consistent, comprehensive and based on fact, that is on the truth of the matter as far as we know it. And our reasons for acting ethically must work the 6C Way:
A primary difference between animal rights and animal ethics is that the latter is a theoretical academic pursuit that seeks to understand how humans should relate to animals. It analyses animal rights as one of many viewpoints but does not advocate any doctrine. Animal rights, on the other hand, although it can be studied academically, is also a practical doctrine about relating in a certain way to animals. In this sense, a musical analogy is that animal ethics explores musical theory whereas animal rights (as a doctrine) plays a musical instrument. The table summarises important points.
References (1) Singer, Peter. Applied Ethics. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 1986:226. (2) Garner, Robert. Animal Ethics. Polity Press. 2005:12. (3) Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. 1789, chapter xvii. Further Reading An excellent, very readable book, that includes animal rights and environmental ethics, is Noel Stewart, Ethics: an introduction to moral philosophy. Polity Press. 2009. For more ideas and thoughts: writings by Peter Singer. ›› To Entries & Home |
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