Repartee

I received the following letter from a reader:

Professor Burgess-Jackson:

Forthwith, I am no expert in the field of animal ethics. . . .

However, as a constant reader of your site, many of your posts prompt internal questions. The following came to mind upon reading your plant/animal dichotomy [see the previous post], and since I've heard many make a similar point in regard to animal rights, I'll ask you (perhaps you could deal with it on your blog someday).

Where does one draw the line, and is the line arbitrary? I'm thinking here about insects. Surely, building one's home not only displaces but destroys many thousands of insects. Are we to take this issue weightily or lightly? Mosquitoes stinging us? Stepping on ants as we walk through the grass? Etc. I guess I'm asking whether insects have rights, and how far one may go before an ordinary swatting of a gnat away from one's ear deigns moral responsibility?

I think you get the point. Now, I'm honestly not offering this as an "argument" against your views—I would just like to hear something said about it. Surely, it seems to me, such considerations are stronger than the "plant" examples to which your interlocutors alluded?

One final request: could your answer entertain a non-utilitarian mode of argument? As a non-utilitarian, I am less likely to be convinced by such an argument (though I can readily see how the argument would be formed on utilitarian grounds).

Just food for thought.

Take care, Allan

Here is my reply:

19 April 2004, 2:15 P.M. Allan: The line is not arbitrary. If a being is sentient, it has moral status. There are two kinds of case: (1) those in which it is clear that the being is sentient and (2) those in which it is not clear that the being is sentient. Let's call these cases, respectively, "easy" and "hard." Cows, pigs, and chickens are easy cases. Insects and mollusks are hard cases. Let's not commit the fallacy of inferring the absence of easy cases from the presence of hard cases. In other words, from the fact that it's unclear whether insects are sentient, it doesn't follow that it's unclear whether cows, pigs, and chickens are sentient. As to your final question, I'm a deontologist. It's wrong to harm others. Suffering is a harm. So it's wrong to inflict suffering on others. You don't have to be a consequentialist (or, more particularly, a utilitarian) to think that suffering matters, morally. kbj

Keep those cards and letters coming!

Confusions and Fallacies About Animals, Part 2

It is astonishing how often plants come up in connection with animal liberation. Even intelligent people think that bringing animals into the moral community requires bringing plants in. Since it is absurd to think that plants have moral status, they say, it is absurd to think that animals have moral status. The assumption is that there are no morally relevant differences between animals and plants. Either both of them have moral status or neither of them has moral status. Since plants clearly do not have moral status, neither do animals.

The flaw in the reasoning is that there are morally relevant differences between animals and plants, differences that ground a difference in treatment. Animals (most of them, anyway; certainly those that are most often eaten) are sentient; plants are not. Both are living, to be sure, but nobody thinks that being alive is a sufficient condition for having moral status. Peter Singer doesn’t. Tom Regan doesn’t. I don’t. You don’t.

It might be said that plants are sentient, in the sense of having the capacity to suffer. There is no evidence for this. (Take my word for it. I wrote an essay entitled “Do Plants Have Rights?” for a graduate seminar many years ago, which required that I review the scientific literature.) The people who say it don’t believe it, either. I often hear it said that plants have amazing abilities. They respond to all manner of environmental stimuli, from light to heat to magnetism to noise. But machines can be made to respond to environmental stimuli. Your thermostat isn’t sentient. Your car isn’t sentient. Your computer isn’t sentient.

There is no reason whatsoever to think that plants can feel pleasure or pain. They lack brains and nervous systems. What good would a pain response do for an organism that can’t move to avoid painful stimuli? Animals can avoid pain by moving; plants cannot. Evolutionarily speaking, it would be pointless for a plant to be sentient. It is not pointless for an animal to be sentient.

There is a great deal of intellectual dishonesty among those who deny animals moral status. They seem committed to thinking of and using animals as resources and will let nothing—not even logic and common sense—stand in the way. They ridicule those who take animals seriously. When they make the point about plants, they do so with an air of triumph. But the joke’s on them. Those who think animals have moral status have thought things through to a much greater degree than those who don’t. Take my word for it. I’ve been reading, writing, and talking about the issue for a quarter of a century.

If you sincerely believe that plants are sentient, act on your belief. You may think it shows that any living organism may be killed and eaten. What it actually shows, when you combine it with your belief that pain is intrinsically bad, is that you’re acting wrongly. You should be foraging for plants and animals that died natural deaths, not raising and killing them for food. But suppose this were an inadequate diet. Then one would have to make comparative judgments about the degree to which various organisms suffer. Presumably, if plants were sentient, they would be less sentient than animals, so one would have an obligation to consume them rather than animals. Either way, it’s wrong to eat animals.

From the Mailbag

I don't see how Smallholder can love on his cattle every day [see Smallholder's post of 14 April 2004, infra] and then lead them to their death. That's like me taking my cats or dogs to the slaughterhouse after they sleep in the bed with me!

Maybe he could find another career that allows cow-petting and makes him a profit so he can cow-pet on a regular basis.

Mindy Hutchison

New Font

As you will undoubtedly have noticed, I changed fonts. One of my students used an interesting font in her term paper. I snooped around in a Word document until I found it. It's Comic Sans MS. It looks like hand lettering. There's something rustic and endearing about it, so I decided to use it in one of my blogs (the other being AnalPhilosopher). I still like Bookman Old Style, but there's no reason both of my blogs have to have the same font, is there? Feedback is welcome.

By the way, there appears to be a controversy about Comic Sans MS. See here and here.

From Today's New York Times

The Bush administration generally frowns on federal regulation and touts the virtues of voluntary efforts to deal with all manner of national problems. So it was quite a shock when heavy-handed regulators at the Agriculture Department refused to let a private company test all the cattle it slaughters for mad cow disease.

The request to conduct tests was submitted by Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a small producer in Kansas, which wanted to resume selling its high-priced Black Angus beef in Japan, a major market. The Japanese have detected some 10 or so cases of mad cow disease in their own country, so they now test every animal slaughtered for food purposes there. They want American exporters to do the same.

Creekstone was willing to oblige even though it believes the American beef supply is already safe. (One cow in the state of Washington tested positive for the disease last December, but it was found to have originated in Canada.) The Japanese ban is costing the company some $200,000 a day and has forced it to lay off 45 workers. Creekstone planned to test all 300,000 animals slaughtered at its Kansas plant each year, using the same rapid diagnostic tests used in Japan.

In a country like the United States, where not a single indigenous case of mad cow disease has yet been detected in cattle of any age, such blanket testing is probably overkill. It would seem adequate for consumer safety purposes simply to test most of the nation's disabled cattle and a suitable sample of healthy cattle, as Agriculture officials plan to do. But it is hard to see how Creekstone's desire to do more would hurt anyone else.

The Agriculture Department gave a curt no when Creekstone, which was required under a 1913 law to get permission to conduct the tests, sent in its request. The stated reason for the rejection was that the rapid tests are licensed only for surveillance, not to guarantee consumer safety. But critics contend the department is primarily trying to protect the beef industry from pressure to test all 35 million or so cattle slaughtered in this country annually. Such blanket testing would raise production costs, and discovery of a single case of mad cow disease, or even a false positive, might cause American beef sales to plummet.

What is most worrying about this entire incident is not that Creekstone will not be able to do the tests, or even that the federal government appears to be discouraging a minor concession that would lead to both exports and jobs. If the cattle industry has the clout to sway a government department on this kind of issue, it probably has the clout to influence federal officials when it comes to questions much closer to the interests of American consumers.

American negotiators are pressing the Japanese to relax their requirements, and if they succeed Creekstone, at least, will have a happy ending. If they do not, the government should change its mind and let the market rule. That would be at least a small sign that the people who help protect the safety of American meat have their priorities in the right place.

Biocentrism

Do plants have rights? See here.

From the Mailbag

dear mr. burgess-jackson, i have discovered your web log (both, actually), parts of which i rather enjoy. especially issues on animal rights and their linking (though i could not disagree more) with vegetarianism [to which i had to link in my nectar&ambrosia blog]—and the variety of responses you publish.

best regards,
jens f. laurson
Editor-in-Chief
Center for International Relations
International Affairs Forum

A PETA Apologist

Dennis Mangan replies to my PETA post here.

From the Mailbag

Yet another reason for animal-rights folks to distance themselves from PETA. This is disgusting.

I'm all for the humanest possible treatment of animals, but this isn't how I'd go about convincing people!

jan

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re "U.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad Cow" (news article, April 10):

Is this government bureaucracy gone amok or simply another example of the failure of public servants to protect the interests of the American public?

How can testing of all cattle for mad cow disease, a potentially fatal illness, be bad for consumers?

Contrary to what the National Cattlemen's Beef Association says, the most important thing is not the potential false impression that untested beef is not safe but rather the truthful understanding that tested beef is not infected.

What a perversion of the free-market system and what an example of a government agency's pandering to an industry group at the expense of the health of all Americans.

NORMAN OKSMAN
Katonah, N.Y., April 12, 2004

From the Mailbag

Keith,

I am not sure what your policy is on reader-to-reader discussions, but I would like to respond to Joanna's criticism if I may. I was unclear in my post and do not want to leave the impression that I deny the individuality of the steers I raise.

What follows is a bit lengthy, so feel free to cut and paste as you see fit—I also posted it on Mike's blog. I hope Big Hominid and Naked Villainy are ginning up some more site traffic for you.

Dear Joanna,

I'm always happy to bring happiness, humor, and joy to others. You should see me dance. Unfortunately, your amusement at my failure to recognize that meat comes from "individuals" arises only because I did not specify my background in my brief post. I am a small-scale organic farmer who sells a few (seven this year) custom-raised, humanely treated, grass-fed baby beef in the Shenandoah Mountains and certainly do not deny the individuality of the animals I raise. In fact, my blogosphere handle, "Smallholder," is taken from the English term that not only denotes someone who traditionally farms a small patch of land, but also lives in close harmony with his animals. I know each animal intimately, spending one or two hours in direct, hands-on contact with my boys every day.

If you were to drive up the hill at Sweet Seasons Farm at 5:00 AM on any day of the week, you would find the barn light on and yours truly inside, feeding the boys with hand-mixed milk replacer. As they drink, I rub their sides, talk to them, scratch their ears, and lift their tails to make sure they don't have runny manure. They particularly like chin rubs. As I clean out the night's manure, the only real difficulty I have is the lads throwing me off balance as they seek even more attention. The same process gets repeated each evening as well. In fact, one of the little scamps was too affectionate last night—I had forgotten the egg basket and carefully placed several eggs in my front pants pocket. One of my twins didn't think he had gotten enough love and butted my hip—breaking four of the eggs.

In fact, the close association with the individuals can get even more intense. Last year, a snowstorm coupled with freakish wind swirling through the hills pushed snow through the barn's second story, around the hayloft, and into the pen. I went out at eleven in the evening to check to see if my boys were snuggly warm in the midst of the blizzard and found them standing forlornly with a quarter inch of snow on their backs. Intellectually, I understand that cattle are built to survive this sort of thing—I have seen my neighbor's cattle with an inch of encrusted ice all over their hides—but I didn't want my lads to be cold. I jerry-rigged (look at me ethnically slandering myself) a tarp over the calf pen, rubbed them all over with a blanket, changed the straw bedding, and then proceeded to sleep in the barn to add my body heat to their pen. It was cold, nasty work. But I kind of enjoyed waking up at three in the morning with calves snuggled up to me on each side, their heads tucked between my shoulders and face.

This year I had an outbreak of pneumonia. I had one calf that I tube-fed three times a day for a week, cradling it in my arms and massaging its ribs to aid digestion.

I could provide many, many more examples.

I'm sure Joanna will object that it can't be humane because the guys must be terrified at the end of their lives. I'm sure the slaughtering process is hard on 99.9% of the steers destined for hamburger, but the kindness I have shown the boys and the mutual affection we have also help their ends come cleanly. They follow me right up to the truck and I drive over to a Mennonite Farmer who slaughters on the side. He takes the animals in the order that they arrive, so I shoot to get to his place at 4:00 AM so I am first in line. They calmly walk down the ramp and into the facility. He was shocked that they would just follow me like little lambs—normally unloading and moving is accompanied by a fair amount of yelling and shoving. He hits them with a .22-caliber bullet to the brain and they are down—no muss, no fuss.

Ah, many animal-rights advocates might contend, there is still cruelty because they die in the end. While I am in agreement with animal-rights activists in their critiques of unnecessary (mental and physical) cruelty, they typically lose me when they make that judgment. If the goal of animal-rights activists is to eliminate as much animal suffering as possible, attacking humane farming is not conducive to their end. My animals lead TREMENDOUSLY better lives on my farm then they would in nature.

The PETA crowd seems to misunderstand that "Mother Nature" is, as Gene Logsdon puts it, often "Old Bitch Nature." Animals aren't living out in a state of Disney Technicolor utopia. Animals in the wild are perpetually fearful, subject to predation, parasite-ridden, frequently sick, and constantly hungry. Most die young and their deaths are ugly, traumatic affairs.

Professor Burgess-Jackson has stated that the art of persuasion is based on making people realize that their basic beliefs are in conflict. I have a challenge for his readers.

If my beliefs are:

A) Suffering should be minimized.

B) Animals in my care, provided with meals, shelter, health care, and protection from predation, suffer much less than they would in the state of nature.

Show me where these beliefs are in conflict. Please do so without using the "don't use others as an end" arguments. I'd buy that in person-to-person relationships, but don't accord full moral (human) weight to animals.

Smallholder

From the Mailbag

Donovan and Smallholder's posts read so much like Psychology 101 illustrations of Denial (animals don't suffer, Donovan), Justification (it's acceptable to eat meat because other animals do it, Donovan, or because the "meat" was raised "humanely," Smallholder) and Dissociation (meat comes from "humanely raised meat" not from individual animals, Smallholder), that they are almost comedic. Thank you, I enjoyed reading them.

Joanna

From the Mailbag

Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

Yesterday you posted a letter from "Donovan." May I reply?

Dear Donovan,

As a fellow omnivore, I also believe in eating meat. However, I am dismayed that you so blithely dismiss animal suffering. While the position that animals are not morally equivalent to humans is defensible, we still ought not to cause unnecessary pain and suffering when it is avoidable. If you are unwilling to minimize suffering for the sake of animals, do so for your own sake. The way we treat "lessers"—however one might define that term, reflects on us and changes us.

The best parallel that I can think of is the historical opposition that many virulent racists offered to the institution of slavery. They opposed chattel bondage not because they felt any sympathy for Africans but because the racists were alarmed by the way that the institution coarsened slaveholders.

I believe (the good professor will have to confirm this for me; it has been awhile since freshman philosophy) that Aquinas extended this rationale to animals. If I may paraphrase badly: even though they do not have moral weight (souls) we ought to treat them well so as not to develop the habit of cruelty that might then be extended to our fellow man.

You don't have to become a vegetarian to eschew being a cog in the horror machine. Buy humanely raised meat and enjoy it with a clean conscience.

Smallholder

Your political posts still tend to irk me, but the animal rights stuff is always thought-provoking.

All the best.

From the Mailbag

Why cant i deny that pain and suffering is bad for animals? For me its as simple as the food chain and im at the top of it. I love meat and have no quibbles about doing whatever is required to put it on my families dinner table. The super market just makes it easy. Got to love the division of labor!

Sorry i just dont put animals on the same playing field as humans.

Donovan

From the Mailbag

Keith,

I am looking forward to your "series of blog entries that address the most common confusions and fallacies" about the moral status of animals. I will definitely stay tuned.

Meanwhile, see the link below for an activist effort that we hope will achieve similar results in terms of clarifying people's moral thinking (ha!). Should confusion still persist even after the screening, then, at least the event will have benefited local farm sanctuaries. The fundraiser will be held at my studio. Discussion to follow the film. Wish us luck.

Joanna

Confusions and Fallacies About Animals, Part 1

Some people defend their omnivorous diet by citing their religion. This is puzzling. No religion, to my knowledge, requires meat-eating. Some forbid it. For those that neither require nor forbid it, meat-eating is permissible, optional, or discretionary. Whether you should eat meat depends, therefore, on other considerations besides your religion, such as whether it contributes to the amount of pain and suffering in the world.

Do you care about pain and suffering? I assume you care about your own pain and suffering. You probably also care about the pain and suffering of your loved ones. But why are pain and suffering bad? Don’t say you’re not sure whether they’re bad. If you didn’t believe they were bad, you wouldn’t care whether you or your loved ones experience them. And once you admit that pain and suffering are bad, you can’t very well deny that it’s bad for anyone, even animals, to experience them. Pain is pain. Suffering is suffering. Why should it matter whether the being who suffers or experiences pain is white or black, male or female, American or Ethiopian, human or animal?

The meat you eat involved a great deal of pain, suffering, and deprivation. This is a fact, not an evaluation. (See here.) Most meat-eaters shield themselves (conveniently) from the suffering their actions cause. Find out how the meat that ends up in your grocery store got there. Ask yourself whether it’s right for you to support an industry that inflicts such suffering. Don’t say I’m imposing my values on you. I’m imposing your values on you. I’m trying to get you to examine your beliefs and behavior. I believe that if you do, you’ll see that you’re not living up to your moral principles. You would never think to inflict pain, suffering, and deprivation on a human being because of something as trivial as taste. Why is it permissible to inflict them on an animal?

Don’t say that your religion draws a moral line between humans and animals. We’ve already been over that. Your religion doesn’t require that you eat meat. At most, it allows you to eat meat. Whether you should do so, all things considered, is independent of your religious beliefs. It requires that you examine your beliefs about pain and suffering and draw a connection between your actions and various states of the world. It’s within your power to reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world. Do think it through—for the sake of the animals.

Dispelling Confusion About Animal Rights

I am constantly amazed and disappointed by the poor quality of thought about the moral status of animals. Sometimes I think meat-eating makes people’s minds shut off. I’ve decided to begin a series of blog entries that address the most common confusions and fallacies. Stay tuned!

Don't Kill the Whales

Here is Greenpeace's page on whaling. Here are the lyrics of the Yes song "Don't Kill the Whale," from Tormato (1978):

You're first—I'm last
You're thirst—I'm asked to justify
Killing our last heaven beast
Don't hunt the whale

In beauty—Vision
Do we—Offer much
If we reason with destiny, gonna lose our touch
Don't kill the whale

Rejoice—They sing
They worship their own space
In a moment of love, they will die for their grace
Don't kill the whale

If time will allow
We will judge all who came
In the wake of our new age to stand for the frail
Don't kill the whale

CETACEI

John Tuohey and Terence P. Ma on the Animal-Liberation Movement

Animal Liberation [1975; 2d ed., 1990] has played an important role in shaping the animal rights movement in the United States. [Peter] Singer’s work is recognized as central to the movement’s effort to claim legitimation on the contemporary scene. This legitimation remains, fifteen years after the publication of Animal Liberation, largely absent from the movement. The principal success of the movement seems to have more to do with the rise of sentimental attachment to animals due to their movement from the farm to the urban household than it does with a clear and compelling philosophical logic. The flaw in Singer’s approach is that he seeks to establish the equality of animals with humans on the level of characteristics where he finds similarities, rather, and more appropriately, than on the level of nature where there are real distinctions.

(John Tuohey and Terence P. Ma, “Fifteen Years After ‘Animal Liberation’: Has the Animal Rights Movement Achieved Philosophical Legitimacy?” The Journal of Medical Humanities 13 [summer 1992]: 79-89, at 88 [footnote omitted])

Modern Meat

Have you seen this PBS documentary?

Meat-Eating and Health

Vegetarianism is good for the animals and good for you. See here.

Feminism and Vegetarianism

Carol J. Adams is a feminist and a vegetarian. She has written many books at their intersection, including The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (New York: Continuum, 1990). See here for details.

Meat-Eating and Rape

As many of you know, I stopped eating red meat (beef, pork, venison, &c) in early 1981. I gave up turkey, as planned, on the last day of 1981. Since then, the only animal products I've ingested are chicken, fish, and eggs. (I've been allergic to dairy products since 1972.) A couple of years ago I stopped eating chicken. More recently still, I ruled out eggs from confined hens. As of today, the only animal products I ingest are (1) fish and (2) eggs from free-roaming hens.

Do I live up to my moral standards? No. But I'm close, and that should count for something. A few years ago, in correspondence with several philosopher friends, I was taken to task by one of them for continuing to eat chicken and fish. He couldn't believe I hadn't gone all the way (cold turkey, whole hog). He said it was preposterous for me to think I was doing well. "Imagine someone saying that he commits only an occasional rape," he said. The implication, of course, is that rape is unacceptable. It's not good enough to reduce the number of rapes one commits (unless the reduction is to zero).

One virtue of my friend's analogy is that it brings individual animals into the picture. The flesh one eats comes from individual animals, not from a species, a population, or a collection. Each rape is an affront to the dignity of a distinct person. Each act of consuming steak, hamburger, or a chicken leg is an affront to the dignity of a distinct animal. We tend to think of chicken as a mass term, like peanut butter, but it refers to body parts of individual chickens.

My friend's criticism stung me, and it has bothered me ever since. Am I no better than the rapist who "cuts back" on the number of victims? Does my sense that I'm doing better than most people and better than I once did rest on sand? Am I deluding myself?

I don't think I'm deluding myself, and I hope I'm not deluding myself by thinking that I'm not deluding myself. Suppose I were a rapist, and suppose I had been raping five women a month for many years. If I cut back to two women a month, I'd be doing better than I was. There are fewer victims. Clearly, I should not be raping at all, but raping twenty-four women a year is morally better than raping sixty a year. Would my friend disagree?

He would probably say, "You shouldn't be raping any women!" But I can agree with that without giving up my belief that I'm doing better now than before. The two judgments—one comparative and one noncomparative—are compatible. My friend seemed unwilling to address the comparative claim. He's a purist. To him, there are just two choices: (1) rape at will and (2) don't rape at all. By analogy, (1) eat as much meat as you want, of whatever types you want, and (2) don't eat meat at all.

There's a lot of purism (my term) in the animal-liberation movement. Anyone who hasn't purged animal products from his or her diet is viewed with skepticism (at best) or animosity (at worst). I wonder why this is. Why not celebrate each incremental movement toward veganism? After all, most of us grew up eating meat. Is it reasonable to expect people to eliminate animal products from their diets overnight, or even over the course of a year? There's a learning curve, for one thing. Vegetarian diets require new cooking skills and a better understanding of nutrition. There's also this brute fact: People enjoy the taste of meat. Perhaps they shouldn't (if that makes sense), but they do; and we're talking about changing lifelong habits. Dietary habits are especially difficult to change, since food plays such an important role in our rituals and identities. (I'll write about that in another post.)

If you're a vegan, like my friend, be reasonable. Rape is abominable. But it's better for one woman to be raped than for two to be raped. This doesn't justify or excuse the rape; it simply compares two states of the world in terms of the individuals that compose those states. Eating only fish is better than eating all meats. Eating only eggs from free-roaming hens is better than eating just any eggs. It seems like common sense, but then, philosophers are not long on common sense.

Conservatism and Animals

I'm a longtime defender of animals. I'm also a conservative. If these attributes were incompatible, I'd be in trouble. But they're not. Qua conservative, I value tradition. But the presumption in favor of tradition is rebuttable. If a tradition harms others, the presumption is overridden. All of the following traditions harm others: human chattel slavery, bullfighting, bear-baiting, rodeos, zoos, and hunting. Any good conservative can and should oppose these oppressive institutions. Here is an essay on conservatism and animals. Thanks to Khursh for the link.

Festival of the Oxen

One of my readers, Khursh, sent a link to this. I had never heard of it. I'm sorry I now know of it.

My New Stinker

Shelbie, my stinkin' monkey, is a year old today. See here for details.

Bear-Baiting

As a conservative, I accord a presumption to tradition (the way liberals accord a presumption to individual liberty). But presumptions, by their nature, are rebuttable. Here is a tradition the presumption in favor of which is rebutted.

Stephen Budiansky on Animal-Rights Groups

The extreme abolitionist agenda of the animal-rights groups has made little headway in the past decade, and if anything there has been something of a societal backlash against their more outrageous and criminal acts. The generally favorable press coverage of animal-rights groups that prevailed in the 1970s and early 1980s began to shift in the late 1980s, and that trend has continued in the 1990s, with journalists exercising far more critical scrutiny of the groups' claims, tactics, and motives. The animal-rights groups have made almost no progress in their abolitionist campaigns against animal agriculture and pet ownership—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the popularity of dogs, cats, and steak.

(Stephen Budiansky, The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication, with a new preface [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999 (1992)], vii-viii)

Christianity and Vegetarianism

I just posted an entry on this topic over at AnalPhilosopher. See here.

Carruthers Online

Peter Carruthers, a prominent philosopher now teaching at The University of Maryland, is the author of the controversial book The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), in which he argues that animals do not have rights. I just discovered that this book is available online, free of charge. See here.

Persuading Libertarians

What, if anything, does libertarianism (the political morality, not the doctrine of freedom of the will) say about animal rights? For an essay by a libertarian trying to persuade his fellow libertarians that nonhuman animals matter, morally, see here.

Vicki Hearne on Animal Rights

People who claim to speak for animal rights are increasingly devoted to the idea that the very keeping of a dog or a horse or a gerbil or a lion is in and of itself an offense. The more loudly they speak, the less likely they are to be in a rights relation to any given animal, because they are spending so much time in airplanes or transmitting fax announcements of the latest Sylvester Stallone anti-fur rally. In a 1988 Harper's forum, for example, Ingrid Newkirk, the national director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, urged that domestic pets be spayed and neutered and ultimately phased out. She prefers, it appears, wolves—and wolves someplace else—to Airedales and, by a logic whose interior structure is both emotionally and intellectually forever closed to Drummer, claims thereby to be speaking for "animal rights."

She is wrong. I am the only one who can own up to my Airedale's inalienable rights. Whether or not I do it perfectly at any given moment is no more refutation of this point than whether I am perfectly my husband's mate at any given moment refutes the fact of marriage. Only people who know Drummer, and whom he can know, are capable of this relationship. PETA and the Humane Society and the ASPCA and the Congress and NOW—as institutions—do have the power to affect my ability to grant rights to Drummer but are otherwise incapable of creating conditions or laws or rights that would increase his happiness. Only Drummer's owner has the power to obey him—to obey who he is and what he is capable of—deeply enough to grant him his rights and open up the possibility of happiness.

(Vicki Hearne, "What's Wrong with Animal Rights: Of Hounds, Horses, and Jeffersonian Happiness," Harper's Magazine [September 1991]: 59-64, at 64)

Joel Feinberg on the Rights of Animals

Now, if a person agrees with the conclusion of the argument thus far, that animals are the sorts of beings that can have rights, and further, if he accepts the moral judgment that we ought to be kind to animals, only one further premise is needed to yield the conclusion that some animals do in fact have rights. We must now ask ourselves for whose sake ought we to treat (some) animals with consideration and humaneness? If we conceive our duty to be one of obedience to authority, or to one's own conscience merely, or one of consideration for tender human sensibilities only, then we might still deny that animals have rights, even though we admit that they are the kinds of beings that can have rights. But if we hold not only that we ought to treat animals humanely but also that we should do so for the animals' own sake, that such treatment is something we owe animals as their due, something that can be claimed for them, something the withholding of which would be an injustice and a wrong, and not merely a harm, then it follows that we do ascribe rights to animals. I suspect that the moral judgments most of us make about animals do pass these phenomenological tests, so that most of us do believe that animals have rights, but are reluctant to say so because of the conceptual confusions about the notion of a right that I have attempted to dispel above.

(Joel Feinberg, "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations," chap. 8 in his Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980], 159-84, at 166-7 [italics in original] [essay first published in 1974])

Ursus Arctos Horribilis

Here is a site devoted to the grizzly bear, a magnificent (but threatened) creature.

From the Mailbag

Keith,

I quickly scanned the essay on fishing [see the post of 24 March, infra]. He raises some interesting points, but I am not sure a scientific, neurological approach is correct. It would imply that any torture or mutilation is OK as long as there is no pain. Like most other issues, there are some very clear extremes and a huge unclear grey area where everyone argues where to draw a line. Issues of animal rights are more properly addressed in the abstract than with science. Science is easily co-opted, as witness the Nazi atrocities.

I read the essay on bullfighting [see the post of 23 March, infra]. My father traveled in Mexico and was an "affectionado." I have never had an interest in bullfighting and do consider it cruel. Psychologically it can be classed as operant conditioning. Despite the author's romanticizing, the bull is tortured, conditioned, and confused until it stands still and allows itself to be slaughtered. In the cases where the torero does the kill recibiendo the bull is essentially under conditioned control to follow the cape so that he lowers his head as he passes to provide the opening for the sword. It has the same morality as the old Roman gladiator contests and serves much the same function, with great amounts of rationalizing. I have heard it presented as a morality play. Bullshit (pun originally unintended but kept).

I think it is possible to be cruel to animals even if they don't feel pain. There are two forms of cruelty, intentional and unintentional. The first is easy to condemn, the second takes more work and frequently involves considerable re-education and discussion. As I said earlier this week, I have a lot of confused areas. I work on them as opportunity presents itself.

Bill

An Exchange

I received this letter from a reader:

Keith: Since I started reading your blog I have been thinking about what you write and tried to place it in context to my own ideas about the world etc. One of the most important things you have said is that human and non-human animals are essentially the same and therefore we ought to treat animals with the same reverence that we treat humans in a just society. One of the most important thinkers of the 20th century I believe is Ludwig Von Mises, a giant in economic thought who should have received a Nobel prize. He said this: "Reason's biological function is to preserve and promote life and to postpone its extinction as long as possible. Thinking and acting are not contrary to nature; they are, rather, the foremost features of man's nature. The most appropriate description of man as differentiated from nonhuman beings is: a being purposively struggling against the forces adverse to his life." This quote got me thinking about what you have said. We may have essentially the same features that other mammals have but the one distinguishing feature of humanity is the ability to reason and think about ways that use nature to better our lives. How does this make us the same as animals? Thanks. Joe

Here is my reply:

24 March 2004, 9:01 A.M. Joe: I never said that humans and animals are alike in all respects. Obviously, they're not. But then humans aren't alike in all respects. The principle of equality is not a factual claim; it's a normative claim. It says that in all morally relevant respects, humans are equal. What I'm saying is that humans and animals are alike in certain morally relevant respects, the main one being that they are sentient (understood as having the capacity to suffer). Suffering is suffering, whether it's in a human body or an animal body. If it's bad, as I'm sure you believe it is, then it's bad wherever it occurs, not just when it occurs in a human body. Just as it would be racist to discount or disregard the suffering of other races, it's speciesist to discount or disregard the suffering of other species. kbj

Enjoy!

Do Fish Feel Pain?

Here is an interesting essay about fish and fishing. Warning! It's not for the faint-hearted.

Bullfighting

Here is a short essay on bullfighting in Mexico. I know bullfighting is traditional in certain cultures, and as a conservative I respect and value tradition, but this tradition is no different, morally, from slavery, which degrades human personality. The presumption in favor of tradition is rebutted in this case, just as it is in the case of human chattel slavery.

Josephine Donovan on a Feminist Ethic for the Treatment of Animals

[Carol] Gilligan, [Sara] Ruddick, [Estella] Lauter, [Paula Gunn] Allen, [Rosemary Radford] Ruether, and [Marilyn] French all propose an ethic that requires a fundamental respect for nonhuman life-forms, an ethic that listens to and accepts the diversity of environmental voices and the validity of their realities. It is an ethic that resists wrenching and manipulating the context so as to subdue it to one's categories; it is nonimperialistic and life affirming.

It may be objected that this ethic is too vague to be practicable in decisions concerning animals. My purpose here, however, is not to lay out a specific practical ethic but, rather, to indicate ways in which our thinking about animal/human relationships may be reoriented. Some may persist: suppose one had to choose between a gnat and a human being. It is, in fact, precisely this kind of either/or thinking that is rejected in the epistemology identified by cultural feminism. In most cases, either/or dilemmas in real life can be turned into both/ands. In most cases, dead-end situations such as those posed in lifeboat hypotheticals can be prevented. More specifically, however, it is clear that the ethic sketched here would mean feminists must reject carnivorism; the killing of live [sic] animals for clothing; hunting; the trapping of wildlife for fur (largely for women's luxury consumption); rodeos; circuses; and factory farming; and that they must support the drastic redesigning of zoos (if zoos are to exist at all) to allow animals full exercise space in natural habitats; that they should reject the use of lab animals for testing of beauty and cleaning products (such as the infamous "LD-50" and Draize tests) and military equipment, as well as psychological experimentation such as that carried out in the Harlow primate lab at the University of Wisconsin; that they should support efforts to replace medical experiments by computer models and tissue culture; that they should condemn and work to prevent further destruction of wetlands, forests, and other natural habitats. All of these changes must be part of a feminist reconstruction of the world.

Natural rights and utilitarianism present impressive and useful philosophical arguments for the ethical treatment of animals. Yet, it is also possible—indeed, necessary—to ground that ethic in an emotional and spiritual conversation with nonhuman life-forms. Out of a women's relational culture of caring and attentive love, therefore, emerges the basis for a feminist ethic for the treatment of animals. We should not kill, eat, torture, and exploit animals because they do not want to be so treated, and we know that. If we listen, we can hear them.

(Josephine Donovan, "Animal Rights and Feminist Theory," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15 [winter 1990]: 350-75, at 374-5)

From the Mailbag

Dear Keith,

I came across your website a few weeks ago, I can't remember from where or how naturally, but ever since I've been reading your posts daily. It is so nice to come across someone who has fair arguments, inspiring posts and not to the point of extremism.

The post you made on Dec. 27th, Becoming a Vegetarian (or Demi-Vegetarian), really got me thinking. I gave up all red meat a year ago this month, and sometimes, sadly, I still get those intense cravings for a cheeseburger. Deep down I know I would never eat one. When someone around me is eating one, I will look at it and wish for a bite, but then will realize that it is the last thing I want. Before reading your post I always felt like a hypocrite for calling myself a vegetarian and still longing for a bite of meat, but maybe this is normal. Like you, I still eat chicken and turkey, though with time and self-discipline, it will stop. Weird thing is, it's not that I even want to eat poultry, half the time I'm picking at it and putting it to the side for someone else who will usually ask me what's wrong with the chicken and then snicker when I say "nothing."

Another post that you made that got me thinking was about zoos and the horror they cause animals. On my own weblog, psycheoflove.com, I posted a small story of what I witnessed at the Phoenix Zoo in Arizona that completely changed the way I view zoo and animal welfare. Leaving the zoo that day two years ago I was so disturbed by what I had seen and the way people reacted to these animals, these animals who are there simply for their amusement and entertainment, who look so bored and alone behind their cages, I wept on the way to the car thinking and knowing that this just was not right at all. What is there that we can do though? It feels no matter how much I try to tell people or inform people, no one seems to really care for the treatment of animals, or believe that it doesn't matter . . . they're "just animals." The article about the beautiful 13 year old gorilla was terrible. Watching the video they put up, showing the police officer so determined to shoot it was painful to watch.

Bear with me.

Many years ago, when I was around eight or nine, I believe that is when I had my first moment of realization that animals deserve fair treatment, and what animal cruelty was. I practically ran away from home when I witnessed my step-father beat my dog and I could not believe the pain it caused the dog, as well as me. Ever since that moment I cannot stand to view an animal being mistreated in any form.

Ok, hopefully this e-mail has not bored you too much. All of this is to say that I, as well as many others, appreciate your website and the articles you share. It's really wonderful to know there are people like you who do care about the animals of the world.

Many blessings to you,
Jennifer

A Good Old Boy

It's been almost five years since Huckleberry died. I think about him every day. Here, for those of you who missed it, is his story.

Animal Rights

My Australian friend Dr John J. Ray over at Dissecting Leftism mentioned me in a post about animal rights. See here. He says he can't see any basis for rights other than contract; and since nonhuman animals can't contract, they can't (and hence don't) have rights. But this can't be the correct account of rights, for many humans can't contract. Some (e.g., infants and the severely retarded) have never had the capacity to contract. Others (e.g., the comatose and the senile) have had the capacity but lost it. I don't want to push this line of thought, though, because John might bite the bullet and say that these humans lack rights.

I see no conceptual barrier to ascribing rights to nonhuman animals. In other words, it's no contradiction to say (for example) that Sophie and Shelbie, my canine companions, have rights. So the question is whether they have rights (and, if so, which). That, of course, depends on what one takes rights to be. If rights are valid claims, as Joel Feinberg says, then animals have rights, for they have valid claims. We should also ask whether we're talking about moral rights or legal rights. Animals clearly have many legal rights. John must know that. (Actually, he does seem to concede this in his post.) In my opinion, animals should have more legal rights than they do, and one day, I am confident, they will—especially if we keep working at it in their behalf. Animals have more legal rights in Sweden than they do in the United States, which is why you see so many animals swimming toward Sweden. Just kidding about the swimming part.

Whether animals have moral rights depends on one's moral theory. According to my moral theory, deontological egoism, they do. According to Tom Regan's moral theory, they do. According to utilitarianism, they don't. But then, not even humans have rights according to utilitarianism, except in a manner of speaking, and in that manner of speaking, so do animals. (Read your Bentham.) Whether contractarianism (social-contract theory) leaves animals out in the cold remains a matter of dispute. Some say yes; some say no. In my view, any moral theory that precludes animal rights is to that extent unacceptable.

NOAZ Ark

I just discovered a wonderful organization devoted to the abolition of zoos, which are morally abominable. See here. Animals are not resources for our use, consumption, disposal, or entertainment. They are fellow travelers, entitled to the same respect we accord human beings. Only someone who thinks animals are objects, with no moral status whatsoever, could eat them, experiment on them, hunt them, or confine them for purposes of display or entertainment. By the way, if you're a Christian and think animals exist for your use, you either haven't read your Bible or don't understand it. See here.

Dale Jamieson on the Immorality of Zoos

Zoos teach us a false sense of our place in the natural order. The means of confinement mark a difference between humans and animals. They are there at our pleasure, to be used for our purposes. Morality and perhaps our very survival require that we learn to live as one species among many rather than as one species over many. To do this, we must forget what we learn at zoos. Because what zoos teach us is false and dangerous, both humans and animals will be better off when they are abolished.

(Dale Jamieson, "Against Zoos," in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer [New York: Harper & Row, 1986 (1985)], 108-17, at 117)

Abolish Zoos

Here is a sad story from today's Dallas Morning News about a 300-pound gorilla that escaped from its cage in the Dallas Zoo, injured several people, and had to be shot to death by police. Zoos are wrong. They should be abolished. See Dale Jamieson, "Against Zoos," in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (New York: Harper & Row, 1986 [1985]), 108-17.

Marian Stamp Dawkins on Animal Suffering

Let us not mince words: Animal welfare involves the subjective feelings of animals. The growing concern for animals in laboratories, farms, and zoos is not just concern about their physical health, important though that is. Nor is it just to ensure that animals function properly, like well-maintained machines, desirable though that may be. Rather, it is a concern that some of the ways in which humans treat other animals cause mental suffering and that these animals may experience "pain," "boredom," "frustration," "hunger," and other unpleasant states perhaps not totally unlike those we experience.

This would appear to put scientists in a dilemma. If we insist that such subjective language has no place in science and that the mental states of nonhuman animals cannot be studied empirically, then we opt out of all debates about animal welfare, leaving the formulation of laws and regulations concerning the treatment of animals to those (often nonscientists) who may have no such scruples. On the other hand, if we feel that laws and regulations should be based on scientific knowledge about the animals . . . , we may feel we have a duty to step into these muddy waters and say what we can, even if we then risk being called unscientific. The purpose of this . . . article is to argue that we do not, in fact, have to choose between scientific respectability and practical considerations. A middle way is possible. We can acknowledge the genuine difficulty of ascertaining what a nonhuman animal feels and yet attempt to attain a scientific understanding of its feelings. Indeed, we should do so not only because we will thus promote the welfare of animals but because the study of subjective feelings is properly part of biology.

(Marian Stamp Dawkins, "From an Animal's Point of View: Motivation, Fitness, and Animal Welfare," Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 [March 1990]: 1-9, at 1 [citation omitted])

Do Animals Have Rights?

Carl Cohen is a professor of philosophy at The University of Michigan and an outspoken opponent of the idea that nonhuman animals have rights. Here is one of his essays.

Of Wolves and Men

Here is a New York Times editorial about the hunting of wolves in Alaska. This topic has especial meaning to me, because I wrote a lengthy essay on the legal status of wolves in Michigan when I was in law school. (I wrote it for a graduate history course.) By the way, if you haven't read Barry Holstun Lopez's magnificent book Of Wolves and Men (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978), please do. It changed my life. It'll change yours, too. I guarantee it.

From the Mailbag

Hope you don't mind that I referred readers to your blog.

I represent the local Salem Humane Society and another local group, Angels for Animals. Your site is a great source for many of the issues we address.

Regards,
Robert L. Guehl, JD, LLM
Salem OH

Raping Animals

If rape is sexual intercourse without an individual's consent, and if nonhuman animals (like underage humans) are incapable of consenting, then sexual intercourse with a nonhuman animal is rape (or the moral equivalent thereof). Here is an interesting news story in which a Dutch politician reaches that conclusion. (Thanks to Norm Weatherby for the link.)

Ownership Versus Guardianship

Dr Mylan Engel Jr sent a link to this essay, which may be of interest to readers of this blog. Thanks, Mylan! By the way, I hope you've read Mylan's essay "The Immorality of Eating Meat," a link to which appears on the left side of this blog. It's the best thing I've read on the moral status of nonhuman animals, better even than Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (1975).

Euthanasia

Euthanasia is a good, easy, or gentle death. (The word derives from the Greek words "eu," good, and "thanos," death.) The central case of euthanasia involves a person who is terminally ill, in great pain, and desirous of dying. Hastening the person's death is a release from misery. The motive of the person doing the euthanizing is benevolence. We say that we're doing it for your own good—because we love you. A synonym for "euthanasia" is "mercy killing."

Suppose we find a healthy, happy orphan. If we put him or her to death because (1) no individual is willing to provide the necessary care and (2) society is unwilling to allocate the resources for such care, is it euthanasia? Clearly not—even if the death itself is quick and painless. The orphan, by hypothesis, is healthy and happy and will, with adequate care, live a long life.

So why do we call it euthanasia when healthy, happy dogs and cats are put to death? We're not doing it for their benefit. We're not doing it because the only alternative to death is a life of unmitigated misery. We're doing it because we—individually and collectively—are unwilling to pay for the care they need.

Why do we call it euthanasia when it's not? I think it's because we're hiding the ugly reality from ourselves. We don't like to think that we're killing healthy, happy animals simply because we'd rather use the resources for other purposes, such as entertainment and fashionable clothing. The word "euthanasia" assures us that we're doing it for the sake of the animals.

I'm not arguing, here, for increased funding, although I believe it's scandalous that an affluent nation such as ours doesn't provide for its feline and canine companions. I'm arguing for honesty. If we're unwilling to provide for dogs and cats, let's say so. Let's stop implying, by our terminology, that we have no choice. We do. We're making a bad choice.

"Peaceable Kingdom," by Adrian Belew, from Mr. Music Head (1989)

When I wake up in my tree
wake up in my bedroom tree
a little girl and a parakeet
are singing to me

My, oh my, what a peaceable kingdom
why would I ever wanna leave
leave a peaceable kingdom

And when I wake up on the floor
on the carpeted forest floor
all of the squirrels in their conifers
are saying to me

My, oh my, even if you had a set of wings
why would you ever wanna fly
from a peaceable kingdom

oh my, oh my, what a peaceable kingdom
why would I ever wanna leave
leave a peaceable kingdom

It's quiet at night
when the monkeys retire
so we lay down our faces
by the fireplace
and sing softly
what a peaceable kingdom

Factory Farms

Here are some images from inside factory farms.

James Serpell on Interspecific Friendship

Human friendships share many features in common with certain social relationships in other species, particularly among non-human primates. The requirement, however, that friends should value the relationship itself above and beyond the gratification of personal ambitions, seems to be unique, and is uncharacteristic of analogous relationships among animals living under natural conditions. Human friendships, and the particular rules of conduct associated with them, probably evolved in the face of increasing social pressures which necessitated the formation of durable, reciprocal alliances with individuals other than kin or sexual partners. Since such alliances are expected to last a long time, perhaps for the lifetime of the individual, the process of friendship-formation places the emphasis on mutual liking, trust and compatibility, rather than on the prospect of immediate or even deferred material gains.

Despite the apparent absence of true friendships among animals, humans are able to derive many of the social and emotional benefits of friendship from relationships with animals, especially dogs, cats and other household pets. Perhaps because they involve other species, and therefore appear superficially counterfeit, such relationships between humans and animals have been largely ignored by ethologists and social psychologists. This is, perhaps, regrettable, since their particular differences and similarities may reveal a great deal about both the meaning and the limits of friendship.

(James Serpell, "Humans, Animals, and the Limits of Friendship," chap. 7 in The Dialectics of Friendship, ed. Roy Porter and Sylvana Tomaselli [London and New York: Routledge, 1989], 111-29, at 127-8)

Ambrose Bierce

Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Our Feathered Friends

United Poultry Concerns is devoted to changing our beliefs about and behavior toward chickens, turkeys, and other fowl. See here.

Beef

If you eat beef, you're supporting this industry.

Dogs, Cats, and Other Deities

If you live with (or for) a dog or a cat, you will enjoy this. Thanks to Jean Robart for the link.

Upright Eating

Looking for vegetarian recipes? See here. Do it for your health. Do it for the animals.

All Animals Are Equal

If you haven't read this essay by Peter Singer, please do. It was originally published in 1974 and became the main argumentative chapter of Animal Liberation a year later. Singer argues that speciesism is analogous to racism, which is, of course, wrong. Is he right?

"Birds," by Adrian Belew, from Inner Revolution (1992)

Birds, birds everywhere I see
I wanna live like they do
I wanna be in their trees,
so heavenly

Bird, birds everywhere I go
I wanna know what they know
I wanna live in harmony,
so simply

Dear God, I know sometime I'm gonna die
and when I do I hope you'll give me one more try
up in the sky with those

Birds, birds everywhere I turn
looking down there's no boundaries
looking down there's no countries,
no misery

Dear God, I know sometime I'm gonna die
and when I do I hope you'll give me one more try
up in the sky with those

Birds, birds everywhere I see
I wanna live like they do
I wanna be in their trees,
so free
so free
so free

Vegan Vixens

Joanna Lucas brought this site to my attention. I had never heard of the Vegan Vixens. I'm wondering what scantily clad women have to do with sparing animals pain, suffering, deprivation, confinement, and death. I'm not saying the women in question were coerced into participating, but aren't they being objectified—aren't their bodies being used—to make a point, and isn't that objectionable? Does the end of liberating animals justify sexist means? Would it justify racist or anti-Semitic means? Shouldn't one argue for liberation rather than appeal to people's emotions?

A Steven M. Wise Bibliography

Wise, Steven M. "Of Farm Animals and Justice." Pace Environmental Law Review 3 (1986): 191-227.

Wise, Steven M. "How Nonhuman Animals Were Trapped in a Nonexistent Universe." Animal Law 1 (1995): 15-45.

Wise, Steven M. "The Legal Thinghood of Nonhuman Animals." Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 23 (spring 1996): 471-546.

Wise, Steven M. "Legal Rights for Nonhuman Animals: The Case for Chimpanzees and Bonobos." Animal Law 2 (spring 1996): 179-86.

Wise, Steven M. "Thunder Without Rain: A Review/Commentary of Gary L. Francione's Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement." Animal Law 3 (1997): 45-59.

Goodall, Jane, and Steven M. Wise. "Are Chimpanzees Entitled to Fundamental Legal Rights?" Animal Law 3 (1997): 61-73.

Wise, Steven M. "Hardly a Revolution—The Eligibility of Nonhuman Animals for Dignity-Rights in a Liberal Democracy." Vermont Law Review 22 (summer 1998): 793-915.

Wise, Steven M. "Recovery of Common Law Damages for Emotional Distress, Loss of Society, and Loss of Companionship for the Wrongful Death of a Companion Animal." Animal Law 4 (1998): 33-93.

Wise, Steven M. "Animal Thing to Animal Person—Thoughts on Time, Place, and Theories." Animal Law 5 (1999): 61-8.

Wise, Steven M. Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals. Foreword by Jane Goodall. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000.

Wise, Steven M. Review of Animal Law, by Pamela D. Frasch, Sonia S. Waisman, Bruce A. Wagman, and Scott Beckstead. Animal Law 6 (2000): 251-7.

Wise, Steven M. "Dismantling the Barriers to Legal Rights for Nonhuman Animals." Animal Law 7 (2001): 9-17.

Wise, Steven M. Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2003.

From the Mailbag

Keith,

I read the article about PETA's efforts to change the town's name from Slaughterville to Veggieville. I thought it was just plain funny. Nothing more. I do work directly on behalf of animals. So do many of my friends who make good use of PETA's free activist materials and support. Some of us also donate money to PETA and encourage others to become members if for no other reason, at least to receive their complimentary copy of Singer's Animal Liberation.

I guess a lot of us women don't think PETA's campaigns are degrading and oppressive to us. Some of PETA's publicity stunts are juvenile indeed, but then a lot of their outreach efforts do target a juvenile audience . . . and with great success.

I disagree that PETA's campaigns to improve the welfare of battery chickens are detrimental to the cause of animal rights, even though you and Francione (among other thinkers I respect) make a compelling case for it. Yes, we do want empty cages not larger cages but, for the next 200 years, while we work towards our ultimate goal, shouldn't we also try to make the lives of farmed animals a touch more tolerable?

PETA's campaigns are not limited to their high profile boycotts. Their Vegan Outreach program, their Humane Education classes, their grassroots outreach efforts, to name a few, get a lot less publicity than the naked run events but they do reach a lot of people and change a lot of minds. How is that the worst thing that ever happened to the animals?

With all due respect, I think the worst thing that is happening to animals is divisiveness within the animal rights movement.

Joanna

Your Government at Work

Enjoy your steak!

PETA

Read this and then ask yourself whether People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a serious organization. If you support PETA, you're a fool. Work directly in behalf of animals; don't give your money or time to an organization that degrades and oppresses women, wastes contributors' money, worships celebrity, and campaigns to get chickens an extra inch or two in their cages—thereby entrenching the idea that they are resources for human use. PETA is the worst thing that ever happened to animals. I mean that quite literally.

Mary Midgley on Wolves and Men

I once read a chatty journalistic book on wolves, which described in detail how wolves trapped in medieval France used to be flayed alive, with various appalling refinements. "Perhaps this was rather cruel," the author remarked, "but then the wolf is itself a cruel beast." The words sound so natural; it is quite difficult to ask oneself: do wolves in fact flay people alive? Or to take in the fact that the only animal that does this sort of thing is Homo sapiens. Another complaint that the author made against wolves was their treachery. They would creep up on people secretly, he said, and then attack so suddently [sic] that their victims did not have time to defend themselves. The idea that wolves would starve if they always gave fair warning never struck him. Wolves in fact, have traditionally been blamed for being carnivores, which is doubly surprising since the people who blamed them normally ate meat themselves, and were not, as the wolf is, compelled by their stomachs to do so.

(Mary Midgley, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature [New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New American Library, 1980 (1978)], 27 [italics in original])

The Vegetarian Taliban

Here is an interesting link from Vegan Blog.

Rattus Rattus, Rattus Norvegicus

Here is a story about New York City's rat problem.

S. F. Sapontzis on Animal Liberation

Apparently, many people are offended when animal liberationists draw analogies between animal liberation and the various human liberation movements. For example, Leslie Francis and Richard Norman assert that "the equation of animal welfare with genuine liberation movements such as black liberation, women's liberation, or gay liberation has the effect of trivializing those real liberation movements," and Richard A. Watson adds that "Singer's claim that the struggle against the tyranny of human over nonhuman animals is a struggle as important as any of the moral and social issues that have been fought over in recent years is insulting to past and recent victims of moral and social oppression."

Unfortunately, it is not immediately obvious what makes a liberation movement "genuine," "real," or "as important as" other, certified liberation movements. If we were to judge by the number of suffering individuals involved, then the animal liberation movement is clearly more serious than any human liberation movement. We kill approximately five billion mammals and birds annually in the United States alone. That is many times the number of women and people of color in the United States. If we are to judge by how fundamental the interests being violated are, then once again, liberating animals is very serious business, since they are routinely tormented and mutilated in laboratories, are denied any sort of normal, fulfilling life in factory farms, and have their very lives taken from them in a vast variety of situations. Women and minorities do not suffer such routine, fundamental deprivations. If we are to judge by the moral, legal, cultural, and individual life-style changes that would be occasioned by the success of the movement, then once again, animal liberation is at least as serious an issue as the extension of equal rights to minorities and women. Liberating animals would directly affect our eating habits, clothing preferences, biomedical research industry, sporting business, and land use, thereby changing our current way of life at least as pervasively as have the civil rights and women's liberation movements.

(S. F. Sapontzis, Morals, Reason, and Animals [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987], 84-5 [endnotes omitted])

An Answer to My Question About Peter Singer

Good afternoon, Professor.

Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. I'd return the favor, but I see that you do not have commenting software on yours.

Re the Bestiality post . . . I would assume that Singer doesn't object as long as the animal is not hurt or "protesting" in some way. But, as you know, he's really weird. :-)

I think also he's trying to make the point that you can't object to sex with animals on cruelty grounds if you think it's okay to stuff them in cages, kill them and eat them. You can't object via a cultural relativity argument, as some cultures (apparently) have engaged in it. You can't object via a "people have souls" appeal to religion because we also have bodies, bodies that are very similar to animal bodies. A Kantian "people have dignity" argument fails because we do other things that counter our alleged dignity.

So, why does this sexual taboo stand when so many others have fallen? I don't think Singer actually answers the question. He simply wants to show that there isn't a good argument against it.

Paula

A Useful Site

Yesterday I quoted law professor David Favre, who is one of the foremost practitioners and theorists of animal law. When I quote someone who is alive, I send a link to him or her. This morning I received a nice e-mail message from Professor Favre, who teaches in my home state of Michigan. He brought his website on animals to my attention. Here it is. It looks like a terrific resource for anyone who's interested in the legal status of animals—past, present, or future. By the way, Professor Favre has written several books and articles about animals and the law. Keep up the good work in behalf of animals, professor!

David Favre on Widening Our Concern

To focus on animal issues is not to suggest that human issues have been solved or are not important. But it is time to widen the scope of our societal vision and concern. Perhaps by reaching out beyond humankind, we will be more aware of the need for universal human rights at the same time. To argue for the recognition of the interests of animals can only be done in a context that presumes and promotes the recognition of the interests of the human animal.

(David Favre, "Time for a Sharper Legal Focus," Animal Law 1 [1995]: 1-4, at 2)

Bestiality

If I have sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent, I rape her. (See here and here.) Can nonhuman animals consent to sexual intercourse? If not, then why is sex with them not rape (or the moral equivalent thereof)? Somebody explain this essay by Peter Singer to me. Is he implying that sex with animals is morally permissible? How could it be, when they can't consent to it?

Is Peter Singer Good for Animals?

I admire and respect Peter Singer, but sometimes I wonder whether he has been good for animals. I have no doubt that many people, having read his books and essays, became vegetarians. But how many people who might otherwise have entertained vegetarianism chose not to as a result of not liking Singer personally? I've received several e-mails from readers expressing indignation toward Singer. They don't like him for lots of reasons. (See here and here for some of them.) For many people, Singer is the face of the animal-liberation movement. To reject him, in their minds, is to reject the movement.

I plead with those who dislike Singer to separate him from the animals and from the movement to protect animals. Singer is not the animal-liberation movement. The movement is much larger than one person, even if that person has played a prominent role in it. Would you cease working for civil rights for African-Americans because you find fault with Martin Luther King Jr? Would you not fight for your country because you dislike its president? Our politics has become so personalized that we find it hard to separate the idea, theory, or argument from the person propounding it. But we must. If you care about animals, act in their behalf. Don't worry about who else is acting in their behalf.

Mad-Cow Disease

There's a story in today's New York Times about the risk of getting brain disease from eating beef. See here. Note the odds given. If you eat beef, you have anywhere from one chance in a million to one chance in thirty-five million of getting brain disease. It sounds like a long shot, but people buy lottery tickets with worse odds of winning than that. Are you feeling lucky today? Eat a hamburger!

From Yesterday's Dallas Morning News

Re: "Low-carb diet guru Atkins died obese," yesterday's news story.

Even though I'm not a dieter (I prefer the old-fashioned approaches of a balanced diet, portion control and exercise), I believe any story about Dr. Atkins and his condition (supposedly obese) at the time of his death needs an explanation of its source. I'm not talking about the medical examiner; I'm talking about the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which released the medical examiner's report.

Readers need to know that the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is basically a vegetarian, animal-rights group, closely allied with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. No wonder it delighted in playing investigative reporter and then tattler with information that does not give a complete picture of the doctor's death.

Bob Cockrum, Grand Prairie

Explaining My Diet

I received the following letter from a reader:

Keith, I am curious. What made you give up chicken so many years after giving up red meat? Or rather, what made you continue to eat chicken after rejecting red meat? Joanna

Thanks for writing, Joanna. My plan, back in 1981, was to eliminate animal products from my diet gradually. If you will pardon the puns, I didn't want to quit cold turkey (or go whole hog). But seriously, becoming a vegan is a momentous event. I was worried that my health would suffer. I knew little about nutrition; I was poor (in law school); and I couldn't cook worth a lick (despite having a mother who's excellent at it). I decided that if I gave up red meat all at once, but continued eating turkey, chicken, fish, and eggs for a while, I could learn about nutrition and cooking in the meantime. The plan was to eliminate turkey from my diet at the end of 1981 (which I did), then chicken the following year, then fish the year after that, and then eggs. By the time I reached veganhood in three or four years, I'd be ready for it.

As I said in my blog yesterday, I failed to eliminate chicken from my diet when the time came. It was moral weakness. I admit it. I ate chicken in many forms and enjoyed it. I've never backslid. Since 31 December 1981, the only animal products I've consumed (other than the insects that creep into our canned goods) are chicken, fish, and eggs. As time went on, I found myself eating less and less chicken. Then, a couple of years ago, I had an invigorating e-mail exchange with several friends and colleagues. These conversations didn't persuade me of anything (sorry, Mylan); they simply inspired me to continue the program I began more than two decades ago. I decided to eliminate chicken from my diet at long last. I sometimes buy chicken-flavored ramen, but that's it. I also became picky about the eggs I eat. The grocery stores I frequent began carrying eggs from "free-roaming" hens. They cost more, but it's worth it to me.

So here I am. No dairy products for thirty-two years. No red meat for twenty-three years. No turkey for twenty-two years. No chicken for a couple of years. The only eggs I eat are from free-roaming hens. I still eat fish, however. I'm no saint. But I'm close to my ideal, and there's always room for improvement. The next thing to go, if I move forward, will be the fish.

Twenty-three Years and Counting

Here is my journal entry for 18 February 1981:

2-18-81 I put in a 10-hour day: noon until 10 p.m. We are studying "state action" in Constitutional Law II, and I am interested very much in the subject. You see, the Constitution places limits on what the government ("state") can do in the way of restricting private activity. But state action can take many forms; sometimes, indeed, it looks like private action, as where a court of law upholds a private agreement which has the effect of depriving someone of his or her rights. In my view, nearly all human activity is "state action." Property does not exist independently of the state, because the state creates it; contracts become meaningless once the coercive enforcement power of the state is removed; and the fact that the state grants licenses (like driver's licenses) signifies acceptance of certain types of behavior. In fact, anything that is legal is state action, since it is sanctioned by the governmental authorities. Once this is recognized, the constitutional problem is simply where to draw the line. In other words, how far can individuals go in depriving others of their constitutional rights?

I purchased a book on behavioral modification in children. [Henry C. Rickard and Michael Dinoff, eds., Behavior Modification in Children: Case Studies and Illustrations from a Summer Camp (University, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 1974); I finished reading this book on 16 May 1981] An authoritarian person might use such a book to learn how to indoctrinate his or her children; I bought it in order to study the manner in which children can be taught to think. Each generation must question all of the assumptions upon which preceding generations were based. My children will accept nothing—not food, not clothing, not language—at face value.

Just a note: the last pork or beef that I ate was on 11 February 1981, about a week ago. I will not eat any more pork or beef for as long as I shall live. More on this later.

I was raised in a meat-eating family. In 1972, when I was fifteen, I had an asthma attack and learned that I was allergic to dairy products. I have had no milk, cheese, ice cream, or butter for more than three decades. Nor have I had any red meat for twenty-three years. I'm forty-six, so I've been red meat-free for half my life. As for why I gave up only red meat, it was part of a plan to eliminate all animal products from my diet (for moral reasons, but knowing that it was healthier). I gave up turkey on 31 December 1981. The plan was to give up chicken, fish, and eggs, in that order; but I never did. A couple of years ago I gave up chicken, and for the past year or so the only eggs I've eaten are from "free-roaming" hens. I'm not a vegetarian, much less a vegan. But I'm close (a demi-vegetarian), and that's good enough. You can criticize me only if you eat fewer animal products than I do. Bring it on.

Peter Singer Links

Peter Singer has done more than anyone—certainly more than any philosopher—to make the status of animals a moral issue. His 1975 book Animal Liberation has been called the Bible of the animal-liberation movement. Many of us cut our philosophical teeth on Singer's books and essays. This is not to say that I agree with him on every particular, or even on his general approach to ethics, only that he inspired me. If you'd like to read some of Singer's essays, click here. You will not be sorry. By the way, if you like the page, please drop a note to Pablo Stafforini, who created and maintains it. He's probably the coolest-looking philosopher I've seen.

BSE

If you eat beef, this story in today's New York Times should alarm you. First, it shows that the beef industry doesn't really want to test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). It's afraid more cases will be found, which will scare consumers away. Second, it shows that the United States Department of Agriculture is not an independent agency. It exists to protect and subsidize the beef industry (as well as the pork industry, the poultry industry, the dairy industry, and so forth). As any student of government will tell you, agencies designed to regulate industries end up promoting them. Why not protest this ungodly alliance by giving up beef? Better yet, become a vegetarian. You should do it for the animals; but doing it for yourself and for your loved ones will suffice.

Plants and Animals

I received a letter today in which the writer said we can't be sure that plants don't feel pain. Let me repeat something I've said many times: There is no reason whatsoever to think that plants feel pain (or anything else). They lack brains and nerves. They're rooted in the earth, so a pain response would do them no good (as it does animals). Even more puzzling is what is supposed to follow from this. Suppose it's not clear whether plants feel pain. Does it follow that it's not clear whether animals feel pain? Peter Singer makes the same point about oysters and insects. Doubt in one area shouldn't give us doubt everywhere. That there are hard cases doesn't mean there are no easy cases. There is as much reason to think that cows, pigs, and chickens feel pain as that a two-year old child feels pain.

The writer also expressed animosity toward Peter Singer. Please. Peter Singer is not the animal-liberation movement (although he inspired it). Peter Singer is not the only person who thinks nonhuman animals have moral status. But even if he were the only person who thinks this, nothing would follow about the moral status of animals. Don't confuse the question whether animals matter morally with the question whether Peter Singer is a good or likeable person. That's like saying that the war in Iraq was unjustified because George W. Bush smirks or swaggers. Distinguish the person from the argument. Good people can make bad arguments and bad people good arguments. Good people can act wrongly and bad people rightly. I'm not saying that Peter Singer is bad. In my opinion, he's good. But even if he were bad, it would have no bearing on whether animals have moral status.

Steven M. Wise on Farm Animals

American consumers know little of the needs of farm animals, little of the health risks of eating them, and almost nothing of modern factory-farming and biotechnological techniques. The federal government neither adequately protects nor informs consumers about the animal products they eat or of the health hazards of eating them. Instead it aids industry boards that exist solely to sell animal products. It also provides tax incentives to factory-farmers. Because Congress has pre-empted the field, states have been unable to enact additional laws that require meat producers to provide consumers with accurate and relevant product information. Consumers should have the right to know in order to make informed decisions.

(Steven M. Wise, "Of Farm Animals and Justice," Pace Environmental Law Review 3 [1986]: 191-227, at 226-7 [footnote omitted])

Something from the Inaptly Titled "Reason"

Brock Sides brought this to my attention. Thanks, Brock.

Yum!

Enjoy your beef (and milk). The beef and dairy industries say these products are safe (see here), so they must be safe.

Nimrod or Nitwit?

Here are some quotations on hunting.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Bernd Heinrich ("Hibernation, Insulation and Caffeination," Op-Ed, Jan. 31), observing scarcity, puzzles how pre-humans found enough game to survive winter. The answer: things have changed.

During back-to-back summer trips to East Africa and to Colorado, I saw an abundance of game at Masai Mara and almost none in the lush valleys of the Rockies. The problem for game in the mountains: winter range, now farmland. I was reminded of the La Brea Tar Pits, where we can glimpse an Africa-like bounty of life from pre-human Southern California.

Humans' large brains demand a lot of food energy, but overcompensate with resourcefulness. The long-term effects are scary. In prehistoric times we had ample game; in historic times ample forests. In modern times we have ample oil. In competition for "growth" and for excessive wealth, we humans are like adolescents joy-riding a stolen car: powerful, reckless, purposeless, dangerous.

I'd rather walk.

BEN ALTMAN
Chicago, Jan. 31, 2004

Bon Appetit

How anyone can eat beef, given how it is produced, is beyond me. See here. We put speed bumps on residential streets to give people a self-interested reason to do what they should be doing for moral reasons. Perhaps BSE will give people a self-interested reason to stop eating beef, which they should be doing for moral reasons.

From the Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed.

vegan

[f. veg(etable n. + -an.]

1. A person who on principle abstains from all food of animal origin; a strict vegetarian.

1944 D. Watson in Vegan News Nov. 2 'Vegetarian' and 'Fruitarian' are already associated with societies that allow the 'fruits' of cows and fowls, therefore..we must make a new and appropriate word... I have used the title 'The Vegan News'. Should we adopt this, our diet will soon become known as the vegan diet, and we should aspire to the rank of vegans. 1945 Ibid. Feb. 3 Two members have asked how 'Vegan' is pronounced. Veegan, not Veejan. 1955 Irish Press 29 Nov. 618 A true-blue Vegan, I'm assured,..will even exclude from his or her diet, milk and..honey. 1965 New Scientist 20 May 526/3 Vitamin B12.. is found almost exclusively in animal foods, so that strict vegetarians (like vegans) may go short unless they take special precautions to ensure a supply. 1977 J. F. Fixx Compl. Bk. Running xiv. 170 There are..three kinds of vegetarians: the 100 percent vegetarian, sometimes called a vegan; the lacto-vegetarian..; and the lacto-ovo-vegetarian. 1979 J. I. M. Stewart Our England 177 Robin had discovered the duty of being a vegetarian. Indeed, he had become a vegan, and that seemed to mean that he could eat virtually nothing at all. 1985 Times 1 Feb. 12/2 'Beanmilk: milk that's never even seen a cow' is to vegans, who deplore exploitation of animals and eat nothing derived from them, a highly desirable commodity.

2. attrib. or as adj.

1944 [see sense 1 above]. 1945 Vegetarian Messenger XLII. 163 Following the articles and correspondence regarding the use of dairy products..in The Vegetarian Messenger last year, a number of our members who do not use animal products of any kind formed themselves into a group which has since adopted the title of 'The Vegan Society'. 1951 News Chron. 13 Dec. 3 A true vegetarian or vegan diet may not be nutritionally adequate, said Dr. Hill. 1973 Listener 8 Feb. 178/1 The good ecological life; no car, vegan cooking, and a mangle technology in a tumbledown cottage. 1978 Peace News 25 Aug. 18/3 A group of people from a 1750 acre vegan farming community in Tennessee..are coming to visit Britain in late September or early October. 1984 Listener 9 Aug. 17/2 The facts that CIWF is able to marshal must drive many who read its literature to a vegan diet.

Hence veganism, the beliefs or practice of vegans; abstention from all food of animal origin.

1944 Vegan News May 1 Veganism is the practice of living on fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains, and other wholesome non-animal products. 1972 New Scientist 4 May 297/2 Universal vegetarianism would..tend to disrupt organic farming and the organic cycle—soil, plant, animal, man. It would also, if logically carried on as in Veganism, abolish milk and eggs. 1977 S. R. L. Clark Moral Status of Animals ix. 185 Veganism is a better project than lacto-vegetarianism, though we may in the end be able to take some milk from our kin without injustice.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re "Mad Cow Disease Raises Safety Issues Beyond the Kitchen" (news article, Jan. 29):

The decision by the Food and Drug Administration to ban "the use of dead or disabled cows in the products it regulates" is in welcome contrast to the waffling on this issue previously shown by the Department of Agriculture. But existing loopholes, like allowing the use of potentially high-risk parts from animals younger than 30 months, must be closed as well.

The public is becoming educated on the surprisingly broad array of uses for beef parts. Just one case of mad cow disease in an animal that slipped through the regulatory safety net will undo any positive gains in consumer confidence achieved through recent controls and multiply losses already suffered by the beef industry.

FAIRFID M. CAUDLE
Staten Island, Jan. 29, 2004

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re "Maker Warns of Scarcity of Hormone for Dairy Cows" (Business Day, Jan. 27):

Monsanto will now produce half the usual amount of growth hormone for dairy cows after the Food and Drug Administration found "quality control" problems at the factory, yet the company is raising the hormone price by 9 percent.

Dairymen say that will mean somewhat less milk, but fatter milk checks for them.

Good! Maybe now dairy farmers will finally see the futility of injecting cows with genetically engineered hormones that consumers neither want nor trust.

GEORGE DEVAULT
Emmaus, Pa., Jan. 27, 2004
The writer, a farmer, grows certified organic vegetables and is a contributor to newspapers and magazines on agricultural matters.

Dale Jamieson on Beef Addiction

The addiction to beef that is characteristic of people in the industrialised countries is not only a moral atrocity for animals but also causes health problems for consumers, reduces grain supplies for the poor, precipitates social divisions in developing countries, contributes to climate change, leads to the conversion of forests to pasture lands, is a causal factor in overgrazing, and is implicated in the destruction of native plants and animals. If there is one issue on which animal liberationists and environmentalists should speak with a single voice it is on this issue.

(Dale Jamieson, "Animal Liberation Is an Environmental Ethic," Environmental Values 7 [February 1998]: 41-57, at 46)