John Passmore (1914-2004) on Animal Suffering

Neither Aquinas nor Kant nor Newman denied, however, that animals could suffer: Descartes and Malebranche thought differently. It is impossible, they argued, to be cruel to animals, since animals are incapable of feeling. They lack not only—as Aquinas had followed Aristotle in arguing—a rational soul but even that sensitive soul which both Aristotle and Aquinas had allowed them. To suppose that animals could feel would be to suggest that there could be pain and suffering where there has been no sin. For animals did not eat of the Forbidden Tree. "Being innocent," Malebranche writes, "if they were capable of feeling, the effect would be that under the government of an infinitely just and all-powerful God an innocent creature would suffer pain, which is a penalty, and the punishment of some sin." The only possible conclusion, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, is that animals cannot feel. "They eat without pleasure," Malebranche therefore tells us, "they cry without sorrow . . . , they desire nothing, they fear nothing, they know nothing." (The Stoic Chrysippus, it is worth noting, had also suggested that animals do not feel but only "as it were" feel.) What we hear as a cry of pain is of no more significance than the creaking of a machine. An organ, the Cartesian Rouhault argues, makes more noise when I play it than an animal when it cries out, yet we do not ascribe feelings to the organ.

These teachings, it should be observed, were more than metaphysical speculations. They had a direct effect on seventeenth-century behavior as manifested, for example, in the popularity of public vivisections, not as an aid to scientific discovery but simply as a technical display. "They administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference," so La Fontaine, a contemporary observer, tells us, "and made fun of those who pitied the creatures as if they had felt pain. . . . They nailed poor animals up on boards by their four paws to vivisect them and see the circulation of the blood which was a great subject of conversation."

(John Passmore, "The Treatment of Animals," Journal of the History of Ideas 36 [April-June 1975]: 195-218, at 204 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

Terrorism

Here is an interesting blog post about so-called animal-rights terrorism.

Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) on "Humane Slaughter"

The plea that animals might be killed painlessly is a very common one with flesh-eaters, but it must be pointed out that what-might-be can afford no exemption from moral responsibility for what-is. By all means let us reform the system of butchery as far as it can be reformed, that is, by the total abolition of those foul dens of torture known as "private slaughter-houses," and by the substitution of municipal abattoirs, equipped with the best modern appliances, and under efficient supervision; for there is no doubt that the sum of animal suffering may thus be greatly lessened. There will be no opposition from the vegetarian side to such reform as this; indeed, it is in a large measure through the personal efforts of Vegetarians that the subject has attracted attention, whereas the very people who make this prospective improvement an excuse for their present flesh-diet are seldom observed to be doing anything practical to carry it into effect. But when all is said and done, it remains true that the reform of the slaughter-house is at best a palliative, a temporary measure which will mitigate, but cannot possibly amend, the horrors of butchery; for it is but too evident that, under our complex civilisation, when the town is so far aloof from the country, and pastoralism can only be carried on in districts remote from the busy crowded centres, it is impossible to transport and slaughter vast numbers of large and highly sensitive animals in a really humane manner. More barbarous, or less barbarous, such slaughtering may undoubtedly be, according to the methods employed, but the "humane" slaughtering, so much bepraised of the sophist, is an impossibility in fact and a contradiction in terms.

(Henry S. Salt, The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 51-2 [italics in original])

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld writes about the horrors of a kosher slaughterhouse where “news reports and government documents have described abusive practices.” But he says almost nothing about reports of how badly the animals were treated there.

Religious slaughter is still slaughter.

Gretchen Berger
New York, Aug. 6, 2008

M. P. Golding on Animal Rights

One aspect of the question of whether animals have rights may now be treated. If animals have rights, then these are welfare rather than option-rights. My pet turtle does not exercise, at his option, any rights over itself, things, or people. We can now see why some philosophers (who admit duties in respect of animals) have denied that animals have rights: such denials rest upon identifying or connecting, in an essential way, having rights with having option-rights. Some philosophers admit rights only for beings who are capable of choice, and this is reflected in definitions of 'rights' as 'ranges of action' or 'spheres of autonomy'. If this be pressed, one must also deny that the incapacitated and the senile have rights, and must be hesitant before admitting that children have rights. However, we do speak of the rights of such persons—their welfare-rights. They have a claim to some of the goods of life under the social ideal, although others must make claims for them, when necessary. Whether animals have welfare-rights depends upon the very perplexing question, which I shall not discuss, of their inclusion in the community and their relation to the social ideal. It may also be the case that their rights (if they have any) are, because of the nature of their interests, so insignificant in comparison with those of humans that they hardly deserve the appellation.

(M. P. Golding, "Towards a Theory of Human Rights," The Monist 52 [October 1968]: 521-49, at 545-6 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

Note from KBJ: Is an animal (i.e., a nonhuman animal) the sort of being that can have rights? It depends on what a right is! Golding is pointing out that there are two conceptions of a right. One conception links rights to autonomy or self-governance (he calls these "option-rights"); the other links rights to welfare or well-being (he calls these "welfare-rights"). If no animal is autonomous, then no animal can have, and therefore no animal does have, an option-right. But it doesn't follow that no animal can have a welfare-right! Those of us who affirm that animals have rights are conceiving of rights as welfare-rights. Those who deny that animals have rights are conceiving of rights as option-rights. Both of us can be right! Indeed, I would argue that both of us are right.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

The recent terrorist attacks on scientists (“Firebombings at Homes of 2 California Researchers,” news article, Aug. 4) are abhorrent acts condemned by the vast majority of animal advocates and the organizations who represent them, including the National Anti-Vivisection Society.

Violence, threats of violence, destruction of property and harassment are justifiably considered criminal acts no matter how worthy the cause for which they are perpetrated. Compassion for animals cannot be achieved by violence. Respect for animals cannot be coerced by threats. And justice for animals will never be achieved through criminal acts.

It is our job as advocates for animals to promote the ethical and scientific arguments that advance science without harming animals—within the parameters of a democratic process in which the truth, not violence, prevails.

Peggy Cunniff
Executive Director
National Anti-Vivisection Society
Chicago, Aug. 5, 2008

Note from KBJ: Well put! I have said this many times, but I'll say it again: I can't think of anything that harms animals as much as violence in their behalf. Those of us who care about animals and wish to change how they are treated must condemn these violent acts in the strongest possible terms. The creeps in question should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys

Here is a New York Times story about a vegetarian restaurant in (of all places) France.

"Animal Rights Terrorism"

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Debra Saunders. For the record, I am opposed to violence in behalf of animals. I can't think of anything that does more harm to the cause of animal liberation. In the long run, the best thing we can do for animals is engage in rational persuasion. That means patiently showing people—one at a time, if necessary—that their own values commit them to changing the way they treat animals. You might wonder how this could work. If their own values commit them to changing the way they treat animals, why haven't they changed the way they treat animals? The answer is that not everyone has thought through the implications of his or her values. Philosophers are trained to do this. Their only tool is the law of noncontradiction, which says that no proposition can be both true and false. If I can show you that one of your moral principles entails that it's wrong to eat meat, then, to avoid contradiction, you must either abandon the principle or abstain from meat. If you're unwilling to abandon the principle, then you must abstain from meat. Here is a brilliant example of this approach.

Ethical Beauty

Here is a website for your consideration.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “A Farm Boy Reflects” (column, July 31):

Hats off to Nicholas D. Kristof, who takes note of the trend represented by the animal welfare proposition on the ballot in California this fall.

While this legislation would be an important step in transforming inhumane animal production, we must also call for change on the federal level, where the farm bill subsidizes this sector to the tune of billions of dollars.

In the past decade, for instance, we have doled out more than $3 billion in direct subsidies to large-scale livestock producers. And thanks to federal corn and soybean subsidies, factory farms saved an estimated $3.9 billion a year between 1997 and 2005, totaling nearly $35 billion, according to researchers at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University.

It’s time that our tax dollars no longer finance the inhumane conditions—for workers and animals and the climate—of factory farms.

Anna Lappé
Brooklyn, July 31, 2008
The writer is a co-founder of the Small Planet Institute.

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof’s column broke my heart. As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I found that it reinforced my feeling that the eating of living, thinking, emotional creatures is just plain wrong.

The fact that geese mate for life, and that the mate of the poor goose that was slaughtered would step forward, was enough to make me swear off meat forever, if I hadn’t already.

As a country, we place so little value on the creatures that give up their lives to satisfy our hunger. Since our food is delivered to us on a bun or in big bags of frozen parts, it’s easy to eat it and not think about what it was or how it was killed.

If people had to see what these animals are subjected to or take an active role in their deaths, I believe many more people would think before they eat. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

We pay lip service to more humane treatment of the animals that we eat, but how many of us look beyond the label on the package of chicken cutlets?

Bernard Burlew
New York, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

While I am grateful for Nicholas D. Kristof’s thoughtful exploration of animal rights, I was astonished to read that he continues to eat animals, like geese and pigs, for which he obviously has such affection and respect.

Doesn’t he realize that he does not have to engage in this voluntary activity, which causes moral conflict for himself and suffering for the animals?

Mr. Kristof is attuned to issues of human suffering and injustice. I hope he also knows that choosing a meat-based diet contributes to environmental devastation, involves a disproportionate use of the earth’s resources and causes untold health problems.

I encourage him, and everyone who has been moved by his reflective column, to try going vegetarian full or part time, and dig into a plate of something more delicious, more compassionate and more healthy for us all.

Susan Beal
Brooklyn, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof wants animals to be raised for human consumption in the kind and generous manner of his boyhood farm, a way that certainly seems nicer to the animals than mean ol’ modern industrial-style farming.

But one consequence that Mr. Kristof doesn’t note is that meat prices would certainly be substantially higher. And for poor people, higher prices would mean less meat in their diets.

While the comfortably affluent always seem to prefer archaic forms of production and commerce, such as that to be found in a quaint Vermont (or Oregon) village, those of us who live in the real world understand that efficiency and productivity, as well as trade, are what make life better for the vast majority of people in the world.

Mark Nuckols
Moscow, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof’s column has been haunting me since I read it. I imagine my own horror if my husband were to be brutally taken from me and slaughtered after our years of caring for each other and sharing our lives.

We empathize with our fellow humans when they endure mental or physical torture and condemn the cruel barbarians that inflict it.

We know that animals suffer as well. It would be a testament to our humanity if we could at least acknowledge that fact and show some kindness toward the creatures that we imprison to feed our appetites.

Maybe someday our legislators in New York will have the courage to follow in the footsteps of the states Mr. Kristof mentions. I look forward to casting my vote for compassion.

Janet Treadaway
New York, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

I, too, am a farm boy. I grew up on a dairy and hog farm in central Massachusetts. Although we knew that our animals were destined for the tables of America, we were taught by our parents to respect and provide them with creature comfort while they were in our care.

I have visited many of the grotesque factory farms that now corrupt our rural landscapes. Government animal rights regulations may help. But compassion and civil sense from the large farm entrepreneurs might be more helpful.

Jules L Garel
Columbus, Ohio, July 31, 2008

J. Baird Callicott on Misanthropy

Some indication of the genuinely biocentric value orientation of ethical environmentalism is indicated in what otherwise might appear to be gratuitous misanthropy. The biospheric perspective does not exempt Homo sapiens from moral evaluation in relation to the well-being of the community of nature taken as a whole. The preciousness of individual deer, as of any other specimen, is inversely proportional to the population of the species. Environmentalists, however reluctantly and painfully, do not omit to apply the same logic to their own kind. As omnivores, the population of human beings should, perhaps, be roughly twice that of bears, allowing for differences of size. A global population of more than four billion persons and showing no signs of an orderly decline presents an alarming prospect to humanists, but it is at present a global disaster (the more per capita prosperity, indeed, the more disastrous it appears) for the biotic community. If the land ethic were only a means of managing nature for the sake of man, misleadingly phrased in moral terminology, then man would be considered as having an ultimate value essentially different from that of his "resources." The extent of misanthropy in modern environmentalism thus may be taken as a measure of the degree to which it is biocentric. Edward Abbey in his enormously popular Desert Solitaire bluntly states that he would sooner shoot a man than a snake. Abbey may not be simply depraved; this is perhaps only his way of dramatically making the point that the human population has become so disproportionate from the biological point of view that if one had to choose between a specimen of Homo sapiens and a specimem [sic] of a rare even if unattractive species, the choice would be moot.

(J. Baird Callicott, "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair," Environmental Ethics 2 [winter 1980]: 311-38, at 326 [ footnote omitted])

Factory Farming

I agree with Nicholas Kristof that factory farms will eventually be banned by law. I also agree that it will be a good thing.

Addendum: Here are comments on Kristof's column.

Animal Rights

I got a nice surprise in the mail today: a complimentary copy of this, which contains my 1998 essay "Doing Right by Our Animal Companions." Expensive, eh?

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Mustangs Stir a Debate on Thinning the Herd” (front page, July 20):

The Bureau of Land Management is charged with protecting wild horses and burros on the Western rangelands. Faced with budgetary constraints, however, it might put to death some of the 30,000 horses it is holding—a herd as big as the community of free horses still roaming the West. You report that Steven L. Davis, an emeritus professor of animal science at Oregon State University, says the horses “damage” the environment.

A total of 33,000 wild horses are degrading the environment, but around 3 million to 4 million cattle are not? Predator control (yet more killing by our government in the service of ranchers) is to blame for any overpopulation of herbivores.

And no, the mustangs do not need birth control. Animals in nature don’t need to be controlled by a species that has such difficulty in controlling itself.

The mustangs should never have been corralled in the first place. Let them go, and let them be. Allow them the dignity of freedom.

Priscilla Feral
President, Friends of Animals
Darien, Conn., July 23, 2008

Pepé Le Pew

I see skunks (Mephitis mephitis) on a regular basis—usually in the evening—during my walks with Shelbie. I worry not only about her being sprayed (which has happened a couple of times), but about her being bitten. There have been reports recently of rabid skunks in this area. While Shelbie has had a rabies vaccine, it's best not to take a chance. Tonight, as darkness fell, I saw a large black object moving slowly across the meadow about 75 yards in front of me. Shelbie saw it, too, and off she went. I gave her the signal to return to me, but it was to no avail. She reached the moving object. At first I thought it might be a black dog, which would have meant a fight. But no fight ensued. I yelled. Shelbie came running to me. When I got nearer, with Shelbie leashed, I saw that it was a mother skunk with three or four babies. The babies were following her like so many ducks. It was cute. Shelbie and I watched them for a minute or so and moved on.

Addendum: Here is the Wikipedia entry on Pepé Le Pew.

From the Mailbag

Hi Keith,

My name is Evelyn and I'm a big fan of Animal Ethics, reading it regularly, I enjoy your posts and share your love for animals.

I'm writing a blog about animal rights and have linked back to you here.

I would really appreciate if you could link to my blog or exchange blogrolls links with me, so more people would reach our blogs ;-)

I will also be honored if you would let me post a guest post on your blog or vice versa.

Best,
Evelyn

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

“What’s Next in the Law? The Unalienable Rights of Chimps,” by Adam Cohen (Editorial Observer, July 14):

The Spanish Parliament’s decision to grant rights to apes is indeed groundbreaking, and will foster philosophical discussion about animal protection for some time.

But Americans need not await the resolution of the academic debate, which is more about form than substance, before acting to protect animals.

A bill now in Congress—the Great Ape Protection Act—provides many of the protections for chimps the Spanish resolution does, but without engaging (or attempting to resolve) the controversial and polarizing issue of granting legal rights to animals.

Common-sense, rational reforms reflect the emerging consensus of mainstream animal protection groups like the Humane Society of the United States and millions of Americans who care about animals. We need not wait for the resolution of the big-picture theoretical debates to come together to ensure that all animals receive more decent and humane treatment, as they deserve.

Andrew Rowan
Executive Vice President
Humane Society of the United States
Washington, July 14, 2008

To the Editor:

As a physician who treats asylum seekers who are torture survivors, I want to offer another reason for granting basic legal rights to apes: the trauma these animals suffer when subjected to harmful experiments or other abuses may not be so different from what humans experience in similar circumstances.

Several colleagues and I recently conducted a purely observational study to determine the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in chimpanzees previously used in experimental research and now living in a sanctuary in Louisiana.

I was astonished by how many displayed behaviors that overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other trauma-related disorders. Our findings follow many other studies demonstrating mental anguish in traumatized animals.

Suffering is far from a uniquely human experience. It is time for us to widen our circle of compassion and follow Spain’s lead in granting legal rights to apes.

Hope Ferdowsian
Director of Research Policy
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Washington, July 14, 2008

Comments

I continue to receive—and to reject—comments from people who don't use their full names. Unless I see a full name, I delete the comment without reading it. I don't understand the impulse to write anonymously. Imagine Peter Singer sending a note to Tom Regan anonymously. The very idea is absurd. Singer and Regan are adults. Each is able and willing to defend his views. Why would either of them want to hide his identity from the other? If you want to contribute to this blog by posting a comment, be an adult and use your name. Otherwise, go away.

R. G. Frey on Anthropomorphism

Yet, in the case of domesticated animals especially, many people, particularly lonely people, regard (and often want to regard) their pet as a kind of lesser human being, with a less rich but still plentiful mental life which explains why their cat or dog behaves as it does. Their pet loves them, they often say, and tries to be faithful to them, and they in turn try not to hurt its feelings (for example, by leaving it alone or ignoring it) and to return this deep affection. For understandable reasons, such people have nevertheless not been so rigorous as Tinbergen in divesting themselves of all traces of anthropomorphism in their attempts to understand and explain animal behaviour. It is as if the only way they can bring themselves to approach an understanding of their pet's behaviour is by first investing the animal with a human endowment and then finding as the explanation for why it behaves as it does precisely some feature of this endowment with which they have invested it. By describing the cat or dog and its behaviour in anthropomorphic terms and thereby 'putting' into the animal what one is going to cite as the explanation of its behaviour, there is no limit to the complexity and extent of the mental goings-on of cats and dogs, or rather the only limit is the range of mental life one is prepared to endow these creatures with in the first place, on some anthropomorphic paradigm. Indeed, the endowment now allegedly extends even to communication with animals by telepathy. The animal psychologist Beatrice Lydecker claims in her book What the Animals Tell Me that one can, even though cats and dogs lack language, nevertheless communicate with and in this sense 'talk' to one's pet by means of something akin to ESP. One simply commands one's dog to sit and simultaneously forms a mental image of him in that position; and as this image is communicated to and received by him by telepathy, he will soon come to adopt the appropriate position. Doubtless to many the dog will be thought to be like us in being able to send and receive such images and to communicate in this way.

(R. G. Frey, Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980], 84-5 [italics in original; footnote omitted])

Note from KBJ: There are two mistakes one can make in thinking about animals. The first—anthropomorphism—consists in attributing distinctively human qualities to animals. The second—mechanism—consists in denying animal qualities to animals. Frey comes perilously close to making the second mistake, if indeed he does not make it.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

“What’s Next in the Law? The Unalienable Rights of Chimps,” by Adam Cohen (Editorial Observer, July 14), unfairly characterized PETA’s efforts.

Few people know the depth of our work, as it is mostly our stunts that make the news. While cruelty to animals is a serious matter that should elicit widespread public outrage, efforts to reach the public through more serious means often fall on deaf ears in a world in which sex sells and there are both a war and an economic downturn.

By comparing the common mind-set that has produced both the past injustices against humans and the current abuses of animals, we can and do inspire debate and convince many people that it is a human obligation to speak out against injustice to all beings.

Animal suffering and human suffering are undeniably interconnected. In 2004, for example, The New York Times broke the story about a PETA undercover investigation that found routine animal abuse at AgriProcessors kosher slaughterhouse. Since then, the paper has repeatedly reported on the abuse of migrant workers at AgriProcessors. It should come as no surprise that a facility that profits from tormenting and killing animals would also oppress and abuse humans.

Those of us who have worked in the field as social service staff members or humane law enforcement officers know that child abuse and animal abuse as well as battered women and battered companion animals are often found under the same roof.

Forgive us our bikinis and our shock tactics, but our message that all beings—both human and nonhuman—deserve compassion and respect is one that we must work hard to make heard.

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Norfolk, Va., July 15, 2008

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Cholesterol Drugs for 8-Year-Olds” (editorial, July 10):

Eight-year-olds do not need to be put on cholesterol drugs. Cholesterol levels can be controlled by eating healthy food and getting exercise.

Humans, and most animals, produce cholesterol naturally, but the problem is when we “supplement” this biologically occurring substance.

Cholesterol is found only in foods derived from animals, like meat, cheese and eggs. All food that comes from plants is cholesterol-free, so a vegetarian or vegan diet does wonders for lowering cholesterol levels.

I suppose you can say that I started to control my cholesterol level 17 years ago when I was a young woman. That is when I went vegetarian. My cholesterol levels have always made my doctors happy. I’ll take a veggie burger over a handful of pills any day.

Anna West
Richmond, Va., July 10, 2008

Peter Singer on the Moral Significance of Self-Consciousness

Preference utilitarians count the killing of a being with a preference for continued life as worse than the killing of a being without any such preference. Self-conscious beings therefore are not mere receptacles for containing a certain quantity of pleasure, and are not replaceable.

To take the view that non-self-conscious beings are replaceable is not to say that their interests do not count. I have elsewhere argued that their interests do count. As long as a sentient being is conscious, it has an interest in experiencing as much pleasure and as little pain as possible. Sentience suffices to place a being within the sphere of equal consideration of interests; but it does not mean that the being has a personal interest in continuing to live. For a non-self-conscious being, death is the cessation of experiences, in much the same way that birth is the beginning of experiences. Death cannot be contrary to a preference for continued life, any more than birth could be in accordance with a preference for commencing life. To this extent, with non-self-conscious life, birth and death cancel each other out; whereas with self-conscious beings the fact that once self-conscious one may desire to continue living means that death inflicts a loss for which the birth of another is insufficient gain.

(Peter Singer, "Killing Humans and Killing Animals," Inquiry 22 [summer 1979]: 145-56, at 152 [endnote omitted])

Note from KBJ: Singer is making a distinction within the class of sentient beings. Those that are self-conscious are not replaceable, whereas those that are non-self-conscious are replaceable. Suppose pigs are non-self-conscious. Then painlessly killing a pig while replacing it with another, equally happy pig is not wrong. Suppose humans are self-conscious. Then painlessly killing a human (specifically: one who desires to continue living) while replacing it with another, equally happy human is wrong. Note that this distinction does not make Singer a speciesist, since it is not species that makes the difference. It is self-consciousness. While self-consciousness may be correlated with species, it is not identical to it. Self-consciousness is morally significant; species, like race or sex, is not.

Animal Companions

Here is an interesting blog post.

John Rodman on Theriophobia

More common in Western thought than theriophilia has been theriophobia, the fear and hatred of beasts as wholly or predominantly irrational, physical, insatiable, violent, or vicious beings whom man strangely resembles when he is being wicked. Thus in a state of nature "man is a wolf to man" (Hobbes). A society founded on the principle of satisfying appetites is "a city of pigs" (Plato). The basic theriophobic stance is one of disgust at "brutish", "bestial", or "animalistic" traits that are suspiciously more frequently predicted of men than of beasts, just as the types of behavior in which these traits are exhibited (egoism, insatiable greed, insatiable sexuality, cruelty, the gratuitous slaughter of other species, and the mass extermination of one's own species) are more frequently observed on the part of men than of beasts.

Theriophobia appears to be compounded of two major elements: man's disgust with his own body and appetites ("certainly man is of kin to the beasts, by his body; and, if he be not kin to God, by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature"—Bacon); and man's anxiety stemming from the loss of inhibitions (e.g., against the killing of one's own species) normal to other animal species. The well-spring of theriophobia is thus fear of self, and its central mechanism is projection. In the most alienated form of theriophobia, the beasts themselves were seen as animated by devils, and man's extermination of the beasts and of "savages" (bestial men) was carried on as part of God's war against Satan.

(John Rodman, "The Dolphin Papers," The North American Review 259 [spring 1974]: 13-26, at 20 [footnotes omitted])

Note from KBJ: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously wrote that life in the state of nature is (or would be) "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." Brutish = of the brutes. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) defended utilitarianism from the charge that, because it exalts pleasure, it is "a doctrine worthy only of swine." He also said that "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." Can you think of other such examples in the history of philosophy?

Animal Rights

I've been reading the literature of animal rights for nearly three decades, and contributing to it for the past decade or so. This New York Times column has to rank as the worst thing I've read. The author fails to distinguish legal rights from moral rights, fails to distinguish the question whether animals do have legal rights from the question whether they should have legal rights, fails to analyze the concept of a right (i.e., fails to tell his readers what it is to have a right), fails to distinguish between positive rights and negative rights, and in general glosses over all the important questions, philosophical and otherwise. To make things worse, the column is badly written. In parts, it's incomprehensible. Yuck.

Leonard Nelson (1882-1927) on Interspecific Justice

Our analysis must not be misinterpreted as an attempt to champion altruism in relation to animals. It merely reaffirms the principle of justice. That is why there can be no general philosophical injunction that we subordinate our interests to those of animals under any circumstances. Each time we are confronted with a conflict between our own and an animal's interest, we must decide, after making fair allowance for each, which of the two interests deserves to be given preference. Thus it may well be permitted to injure an animal's interest in order to avoid injuring a preponderant interest of our own; but at the same time a limit is set to the extent of the injury, which is permitted only under condition that an actual conflict is involved—this must be proved separately in each case. After such proof has been supplied, we must ask further on which side lies the preponderant interest. In no event is it permissible to regard the animal's interest as inferior without good reason, and to proceed to injure it.

(Leonard Nelson, System of Ethics, trans. Norbert Guterman [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956], 142 [first published in German in 1932])

John Passmore (1914-2004) on the Mediaeval View of Animals

In the popular mediaeval tradition, as contrasted with official theology, there are many legends which associate saintliness and martyrdom with kindness to animals: even Jerome has his lion, to say nothing of Androcles. Vicious animals in that tradition were like the Gadarene swine, inhabited by demons. They might be brought to trial for their misdeeds and punished by the extremest of penalties—a form of distinction which, no doubt, they would willingly have foregone. Domesticated animals, in contrast, were the dwelling places of angels. The merely wild, but not the vicious, were spiritually uninhabited. Saintliness was demonstrated by a capacity to drive the demons out of the vicious—as some of the biographers of Francis of Assissi report that he tamed the wolf of Gobbio—and ordinary human virtue in domesticating wild animals, thus making of them a fit residence for angels.

(John Passmore, "The Treatment of Animals," Journal of the History of Ideas 36 [April-June 1975]: 195-218, at 199)

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Dog Eat Your Taxes?” (Op-Ed, July 9):

It may be amusing for Ray D. Madoff to criticize Leona Helmsley’s charitable giving by saying her fortune “is going to the dogs,” but those of us who give to the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rescue organizations feel otherwise.

After Hurricane Katrina, after the floods in the Midwest, after the fires in the West, the humane societies across the country rescued and cared for lost animals and then sought to reunite them with their owners.

This may seem one of the “whims of the wealthy” to Mr. Madoff, but it’s not to pet owners.

Maybe the work of the humane societies doesn’t equate to the Rockefeller Foundation’s Green Revolution, but it certainly doesn’t deserve mockery.

Joel R. Gardner
Cherry Hill, N.J., July 9, 2008

Note from KBJ: All of my donations go to animal-welfare organizations. Humans can take care of themselves; domesticated animals cannot.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Of Whales and National Security” (editorial, July 2):

Today’s threats to national security are not “exaggerated”; they are increasing. With the price of gasoline topping $4 a gallon, consider what could happen if a rogue state with quiet diesel-electric submarines were to threaten tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States Fifth Fleet will prevent that from happening. Those sailors and marines will succeed because of the intense training they have undergone—training that included use of active sonar to find enemy submarines.

During training with active sonar, we protect marine mammals by employing rigorous protective measures. Such protective measures were developed in concert with, and were approved by, federal environmental regulators.

I am pleased that the Supreme Court has agreed to review the lower courts’ decisions on the Navy’s use of active sonar in waters off the coast of California. The lives of our sailors and marines, and our national security, depend on it.

(Rear Adm.) Larry Rice
Director, Chief of Naval Operations
Environmental Readiness Division
Washington, July 3, 2008

Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) on the Veil of Ignorance

What have humane people to say to the tremendous mass of animal suffering inflicted in the interests of the Table? By the unthinking, of course, these sufferings, being invisible, are almost wholly overlooked, while the deadening power of habit prevents many kindly persons from exercising, where their daily "beef" and "mutton" are concerned, the very sympathies which they so keenly manifest elsewhere; yet it can hardly be doubted that if the veil of custom could be lifted, and if a clear knowledge of what is involved in "Butchery" could be brought home, with a sense of personal responsibility, to everyone who eats flesh, the attitude of society towards the vegetarian movement would be very different from what it is now. If it be true that "hunger is the best sauce," it may also be said that the bon vivant's most indispensable sauce is ignorance—ignorance of the horrible and revolting circumstances under which his juicy steak or dainty cutlet has been prepared.

(Henry S. Salt, The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 42 [italics in original])

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

“Getting Bacon the Hard Way: Hog-Tying 400 Pounds of Fury” (front page, June 21), about Texas hog hunters, illustrated the barbarity of hunting with dogs.

To compensate for their lack of skill, hunters set their dogs upon a wild pig—a descendant of boars brought to America solely to give hunters the pleasure of killing a helpless animal.

As the dogs tear chunks of flesh from the terrified pig, the hunters undoubtedly feel proud of their accomplishment.

Many hunters compound their cruelty by abandoning their dogs when they are no longer of use. Following hunting season, animal shelters across America see an influx of ex-hunting dogs who were cruelly left to fend for themselves.

Hunting with hounds is neither sport nor conservation. It is an exhibition of human nature at its worst.

Joe Miele
President
Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting
Maywood, N.J., June 23, 2008

"A Harder Approach"

You are now free to boycott Wimbledon.

Health

Here is a story about heart disease. Key paragraph:

"It’s important that each person take responsibility for taking care of themselves," says Edmund Herrold, a clinical cardiologist in New York City and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. "Get a regular checkup. Watch your weight and your blood pressure and your cholesterol, and if you have diabetes, keep that under control. Exercise. Take an aspirin every day. Eliminate meat. There’s no guarantee, but you can dramatically lower the risk of a cardiac event if you pay attention to these issues."

Emphasis added.

J. Baird Callicott on Value

Some suspicion may arise at this point that the land ethic is ultimately grounded in human interests, not in those of nonhuman natural entities. Just as we might prefer a sound and attractive house to one in the opposite condition so the "goodness" of a whole, stable, and beautiful environment seems rather to be of the instrumental, not the autochthonous, variety. The question of ultimate value is a very sticky one for environmental as well as for all ethics and cannot be fully addressed here. It is my view that there can be no value apart from an evaluator, that all value is as it were in the eye of the beholder. The value that is attributed to the ecosystem, therefore, is humanly dependent or (allowing that other living things may take a certain delight in the well-being of the whole of things, or that the gods may) at least dependent upon some variety of morally and aesthetically sensitive consciousness. Granting this, however, there is a further, very crucial distinction to be drawn. It is possible that while things may only have value because we (or someone) values them, they may nonetheless be valued for themselves as well as for the contribution they might make to the realization of our (or someone's) interests. Children are valued for themselves by most parents. Money, on the other hand, has only an instrumental or indirect value. Which sort of value has the health of the biotic community and its members severally for Leopold and the land ethic? It is especially difficult to separate these two general sorts of value, the one of moral significance, the other merely selfish, when something that may be valued in both ways at once is the subject of consideration. Are pets, for example, well-treated, like children, for the sake of themselves, or, like mechanical appliances, because of the sort of services they provide their owners? Is a healthy biotic community something we value because we are so utterly and (to the biologically well-informed) so obviously dependent upon it not only for our happiness but for our very survival, or may we also perceive it disinterestedly as having an independent worth? Leopold insists upon a noninstrumental value for the biotic community and mutatis mutandis for its constituents. According to Leopold, collective enlightened self-interest on the part of human beings does not go far enough; the land ethic in his opinion (and no doubt this reflects his own moral intuitions) requires "love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value." The land ethic, in Leopold's view, creates "obligations over and above self-interest." And, "obligations have no meaning without conscience, and the problem we face is the extension of the social conscience from people to land." If, in other words, any genuine ethic is possible, if it is possible to value people for the sake of themselves, then it is equally possible to value land in the same way.

(J. Baird Callicott, "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair," Environmental Ethics 2 [winter 1980]: 311-38, at 325-6 [italics in original; footnote omitted])

Note from KBJ: I quote this long passage because it shows, in the context of environmental ethics, how one can distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic value while being a value subjectivist. There are two distinctions that should not be conflated (but that often are). The first is between two types of value: objective and subjective. Objective value inheres in the world outside of subjects and would exist without them; subjective value is conferred by subjects (such as human beings) and would not exist without them. The second distinction is between two ways of valuing: intrinsically and extrinsically. To value a thing intrinsically is to value it for its own sake, as an end in itself, because of the kind of thing it is (i.e., because of its properties). To value a thing extrinsically is to value it for the sake of something else one values, as either a part of or a means to that other thing (i.e., because of its relations). Callicott is a value subjectivist, but he values land ("the biotic community") intrinsically as well as extrinsically. I'm a value subjectivist, but I value land only extrinsically.

Jan Narveson on Moral Vegetarianism

What the utilitarian who defends human carnivorousness must say, then, is something like this: that the amount of pleasure which humans derive per pound of animal flesh exceeds the amount of discomfort and pain per pound which are inflicted on the animals in the process, all things taken into account. Is this plausible? I am not persuaded that it isn't, as far as it goes. But it should be noted that this is only a leading premise, as it were, of a complete argument on the issue. For we must realize that the question is whether this justifies the eating of animals in comparison with alternatives. And there are two relevant kinds of alternatives here: one is treating the animals better before we eat them, the only disadvantage of which is that it would make meat considerably more expensive. And the other is taking up vegetarianism. Utilitarians persuaded of the leading premise here should, I think, be willing to pay the higher prices, and to plump for protections of animals of the kind in question. But what about the vegetarian alternative? Here what one needs to do is calculate the pleasure, interest, satisfaction, etc., by which animal diets exceed vegetable diets for us. And most of us, of course, just don't know about this. How do we know but what, once we got used to a vegetarian diet, we would find that our pleasure is scarcely diminished at all? Human ingenuity is great, and undoubtedly a skilful vegetarian cook can come up with quite a panoply of delicious dishes. It would remain true, of course, that the vegetarian diet is more limited, since every pleasure available to the vegetarian is also available to the carnivore (not counting the moral satisfactions involved, of course—which would be question-begging), plus more which are not available to the vegetarian so long as he remains one. But unless we attach a high intrinsic value to greater aesthetic variety in our diet (and some of us do; but most of us, perhaps, do not), this won't be a decisive consideration.

Once one bears in mind that it is this comparative assessment that is required, then it seems to me there will be a strong case (1) for Humane Slaughter, and humane treatment prior to slaughter, and (2) insofar as really painless and comfortable animal-raising is not attained or attainable, giving vegetarianism a try, at least. In present circumstances, the following would seem to be indicated. Depending on the time and energy available, utilitarians persuaded of the foregoing should try a period of vegetarianism, at least, in order to see how they get on, and perhaps as a weapon in the form of boycotting such meat and dairy products as are produced in excessive disregard for the comfort of the animals in question: a much milder program than the one Singer and Regan call for, but one giving more to the animals than we usually do, and leaving our consciences rather less comfortable than they perhaps typically are.

(Jan Narveson, "Animal Rights," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 [March 1977]: 161-78, at 173-4 [italics in original])

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “South Koreans Assail U.S. Pact, Shaking Leader” (front page, June 11), about the large demonstrations in Seoul:

In October 1989, six Korean college students broke into the American ambassador’s residence in Seoul and did $35,000 worth of damage before being arrested by the Korean police. I was the ambassador, and the issue was beef.

Modern Korean society still has deep roots in its agricultural traditions, and Koreans can get very defensive about any issue that seems to threaten the livelihood of “grandpa and grandma” back on the farm, even if this causes them to pay twice as much for inefficiently produced Korean beef as they would for foreign imports.

This is a delicate issue that needs to be handled with sensitivity by leaders in Seoul and Washington, so that the question of beef does not derail the important free-trade agreement with South Korea being considered by Congress.

This issue also needs to be placed in a broader context. South Korea is a tremendous ally of the United States. It sent more than 300,000 troops to help us in Vietnam, was a quick and generous supporter of Desert Storm in 1991, and for several years had the third-largest deployment of troops in Iraq, following our invasion of that country five years ago.

Without our strong alliance with South Korea, our influence in Asia would be vastly diminished. Let us keep that fact clearly in mind, as we deal with the fractious beef issue.

Donald Gregg
Chairman, Korea Society
Armonk, N.Y., June 12, 2008

Note from KBJ: If South Koreans were truly concerned with their health, they wouldn't be eating beef in the first place.

Meat-Eating and the Environment

Vegetarianism is overdetermined, in the sense that there is more than one sufficient reason for being a vegetarian. Here is one determination of it.

Mexican Rodeos

Here is a New York Times story about Mexican rodeos.

Ethological Ethics

I found this website the other day and thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Joel Feinberg (1926-2004) on Animal Rights

So far McCloskey is on solid ground, but one can quarrel with his denial that any animals but humans have interests. I should think that the trustee of funds willed to a dog or cat is more than a mere custodian of the animal he protects. Rather his job is to look out for the interests of the animal and make sure no one denies it its due. The animal itself is the beneficiary of his dutiful services. Many of the higher animals at least have appetites, conative urges, and rudimentary purposes, the integrated satisfaction of which constitutes their welfare or good. We can, of course, with consistency treat animals as mere pests and deny that they have any rights; for most animals, especially those of the lower orders, we have no choice but to do so. But it seems to me, nevertheless, that in general, animals are among the sorts of beings of whom rights can meaningfully be predicated and denied.

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])

R. G. Frey on Applied Philosophy

I support wholeheartedly the application of philosophy to practical issues; but it is as well to be aware at the outset of the form which the philosopher's contribution to these issues takes. It is, as R. M. Hare has impressed upon me, simply this: philosophy is concerned with testing arguments for soundness, and the occupation of the philosopher is to carry out this testing. To this end, he deploys the tools and canons of logic on behalf of accuracy in argument, explores questions of meaning, implication, presupposition, derivation, relation, compatibility, etc., pries into and generates examples and counter-examples, both realistic and hypothetical, and so on. One but only one of the tools he deploys in this task is the analysis of those concepts in which the arguments he is testing are set out; analysis is not, however, an alternative view of what the philosopher is about, in some way competing with his assessment of arguments. By contrast, though he can and doubtless should concern himself with and even soak himself in the factual material pertaining to the specific arguments under his gaze, further increases in this factual material and knowledge are not part of the philosopher's task as such.

(R. G. Frey, Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980], 2)

Note from KBJ: Frey is right that the philosopher, as such, has no factual expertise. He should have added that the same is true of evaluative expertise. That X is a philosopher does not give X's values any greater weight. Why should it? Where in my formal study to be a philosopher did I learn correct values? Philosophy is a formal enterprise. It can tell people that they cannot believe both p and q. It cannot tell people which of the propositions, if either, to believe. It can tell people that if they believe r, they must also believe s. It cannot tell people to believe r. The only leverage a philosopher has is the principle of noncontradiction. That may not seem like a lot, but it is.

Note 2 from KBJ: Frey says that "philosophy is concerned with testing arguments for soundness." A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises. A valid argument is an argument in which the truth of the premises is incompatible with the falsity of the conclusion. I hope you can see that Frey meant "validity" rather than "soundness." The philosopher is concerned not with the truth of an argument's premises, but with whether they entail the conclusion. There is one class of truths concerning which the philosopher, as such, has expertise, namely, necessary truths. The philosopher, as such, has no expertise concerning contingent truths.

Note 3 from KBJ: The following propositions are consistent:

1. Keith is a philosopher.
2. Keith makes value judgments.
3. Philosophers, as such, do not make value judgments.

If you understood what I said in my previous notes, you will see why these propositions are consistent.

John Benson on Peter Singer's Argument

Singer's supreme principle is that all sentient beings are entitled to equal consideration of their interests. A being has interests if it is capable of suffering and enjoyment. This capacity is a prerequisite for having interests at all, and the actual interests that a being has are determined by the particular kinds and degrees of suffering and enjoyment of which it is capable. Equal interests must be equally respected, without regard to the species of the creatures whose interests they are. One may treat two creatures differently because one is less sensitive than the other to some kind of suffering, but two equally sensitive creatures may not be treated differently merely because they belong to different species. If my dog and I both have headaches then the dog should have the one available aspirin if it has the worse headache. To treat the dog's pain as less important because it is a dog not a man is speciesism (a nasty word for a nasty thing).

(John Benson, "Duty and the Beast," Philosophy 53 [October 1978]: 529-49, at 530)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) on Deliberation

When in the mind of man, Appetites, and Aversions, Hopes, and Feares, concerning one and the same thing, arise alternately; and divers good and evill consequences of the doing, or omitting the thing propounded, come successively into our thoughts; so that sometimes we have an Appetite to it; sometimes an Aversion from it; sometimes Hope to be able to do it; sometimes Despaire, or Feare to attempt it; the whole summe of Desires, Aversions, Hopes and Fears, continued till the thing be either done, or thought impossible, is that we call DELIBERATION.

Therefore of things past, there is no Deliberation; because manifestly impossible to be changed: nor of things known to be impossible, or thought so; because men know, or think such Deliberation vain. But of things impossible, which we think possible, we may Deliberate; not knowing it is in vain. And it is called Deliberation; because it is a putting an end to the Liberty we had of doing, or omitting, according to our own Appetite, or Aversion.

This alternate Succession of Appetites, Aversions, Hopes and Fears, is no lesse in other living Creatures then [sic] in Man: and therefore Beasts also Deliberate.

Every Deliberation is then sayd to End, when that whereof they Deliberate, is either done, or thought impossible; because till then wee retain the liberty of doing, or omitting, according to our Appetite, or Aversion.

In Deliberation, the last Appetite, or Aversion, immediately adhaering to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that wee call the WILL; the Act, (not the faculty,) of Willing. And Beasts that have Deliberation, must necessarily also have Will. The Definition of the Will, given commonly by the Schooles, that it is a Rationall Appetite, is not good. For if it were, then could there be no Voluntary Act against Reason. For a Voluntary Act is that, which proceedeth from the Will, and no other. But if in stead of a Rationall Appetite, we shall say an Appetite resulting from a precedent Deliberation, then the Definition is the same that I have given here. Will therefore is the last Appetite in Deliberating.

(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, rev. student ed., ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Raymond Geuss and Quentin Skinner [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], chap. 6, pp. 44-5 [italics in original] [first published in 1651])

Vegan Goes Mainstream!

Oprah Winfrey goes vegan for 21 days. See both Oprah's blog and this story for details.

On Day 1 of her 21-day experiment with veganism, Oprah aptly asked: "How can you say you're trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?"

On Day 2, Oprah reported: "Wow, wow, wow! I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying. I had been focused on what I had to give up—sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese. 'What's left?' I thought. Apparently a lot. I can honestly say every meal was a surprise and a delight, beginning with breakfast—strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes."

On Day 4, Oprah wrote: "I just cleaned my dinner plate, down to the last grain of brown rice left under my oh-so-delicious seasoned soy 'chicken.' I can not believe how tasty, spicy and wonderful it all was. I'm ever more surprised at how I don't miss anything and feel so satisfied at every meal."

Oprah is discovering just how delicious a heart-healthful, cruelty-free, environmentally-friendly vegan diet can be. She is experiencing firsthand the synergistic benefits that come from a vegan lifestyle. Why not join Oprah in her experiment? Try a cruelty-free vegan diet for 21 days and see how you feel. If you're like most people, you'll feel better physically, spiritually, and ethically, almost immediately.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Monkeys Think, Moving Artificial Arm as Own” (front page, May 29):

The brain really is a fascinating organ. I was also intrigued to read that “in previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves.”

So why were the monkeys used? It seems to me that the most fruitful route to go in this sort of research that could have very important implications for humans with severe motor deficits would be to study humans and leave the monkeys alone.

Marc Bekoff
Boulder, Colo., May 29, 2008
The writer is in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, University of Colorado.

Actors and Others for Animals

Here is an interesting website. I will add it to the blogroll.

From the Mailbag

Hello,

I am a volunteer for 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com, which is North America's largest non-profit pet adoption website, and I'm trying to get the word out about homeless pet adoption.

I am looking at your site and thought you might like to add a link somewhere to 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com. Save-A-Pet is a totally free service where 5,000 animal shelters have 80,000 pets listed who need homes today, and a link from your website would be a great way to help get the word out!

Please let me know if this is possible and thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Andrea Rasmussen

Peter Singer on the Wrongness of Killing Animals

In setting out to write this paper, my intention was to fill a gap in my book Animal Liberation. There I argued that the interests of animals ought to be considered equally with our own interests and that from this equality it follows that we ought to become vegetarian. The argument for vegetarianism is not based on any claim about the wrongness of killing animals—although some careless reviewers read this claim into my book, no doubt because they assumed that any moral argument for vegetarianism must be based on the wrongness of killing. Instead the argument for vegetarianism is based on the suffering that is, and as far as I can see always will be, associated with the rearing and slaughtering of animals on a large scale to feed urban populations. I explicitly avoided taking a position on the wrongness of killing animals, for I wanted the book to reach non-philosophers, and the issue of killing cannot be dealt with briefly and simply.

(Peter Singer, "Killing Humans and Killing Animals," Inquiry 22 [summer 1979]: 145-56, at 145 [italics in original; endnote omitted])

Betty White

Actress and animal activist Betty White is on the Tavis Smiley Show tonight. See here for details.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

I noticed that the sustainability house at Oberlin College enjoys barbecues with burgers and grilled corn.

Is it possible that for all their water-saving tactics, the students have overlooked a way to save huge amounts of water: cutting out beef?

It can take an estimated 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. Oberlin students can time showers all they want, but one burger will cost them the equivalent of a 45-minute shower every day for a week!

I don’t necessarily advocate vegetarianism, but those looking to improve the sustainability of their lifestyles should take a look at their diet. Reducing meat consumption, particularly of beef, is one of the simplest and most rewarding things we can do.

Nadia Eghbal
Tübingen, Germany, May 26, 2008

John Rodman on the Paradox of Animal Experimentation

Beneath all else, slumbering but soon to awaken, is the paradox—old as the seventeenth century—intensified by recent studies of animal behavior: certain beasts are "human" enough (similar to man) that experimentation on them seems justified (to man) by the possible benefit to man; yet these same beasts are "inhuman" enough (different from man) that experimentation on them (in ways that would not be allowed on man) is morally permissible. Jane Goodall lamely concludes that chimpanzees should be housed and fed better in the labs.

(John Rodman, "The Dolphin Papers," The North American Review 259 [spring 1974]: 13-26, at 18)

Wolves

Here is a New York Times editorial opinion about the removal of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the endangered-species list. The editorial board of the Times is intellectually dishonest, so please don't let this be your only source of information about the delisting. Here, for example, is a news release from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Here are questions and answers. Here is the management plan of Idaho's Fish and Game Commission.

Leonard Nelson (1882-1927) on Animal Rights

If we apply the criterion of duty, the question of whether animals have rights can be readily answered: we have merely to ask whether, in considering an action affecting an animal, we could assent to such an action after abstracting from numerical determination. In other words, we have to ask whether we would consent to be used as mere means by another being far superior to us in strength and intelligence. This question answers itself. The fact that man has other beings in his power, and that he is in a position to use them as means to his own ends, is purely fortuitous.

(Leonard Nelson, System of Ethics, trans. Norbert Guterman [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956], 141 [first published in German in 1932])

Using Animals as Mere Means to Human Ends

How many of you think this experiment is justified? If you think it's justified, would it be justified if the experimental subjects were orphaned children?

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Biotech Company to Auction Chances to Clone a Dog” (news article, May 21):

Cloning animals to “replace” treasured companions is a boondoggle. These beloved animals’ personalities and charming quirks cannot be so easily reproduced. And when one considers that millions of dogs and cats are killed each year in shelters because there are no homes for them, cloning becomes unethical as well.

Kathy Guillermo
Director
Laboratory Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Norfolk, Va., May 21, 2008

Hampton L. Carson (1852-1929) on the Punishment of Animals

In the open square of the old Norman city of Falaise, in the year 1386, a vast and motley crowd had gathered to witness the execution of a criminal convicted of the crime of murder. Noblemen in armour, proud dames in velvet and feathers, priests in cassock and cowl, falconers with hawks upon their wrists, huntsmen with hounds in leash, aged men with their staves, withered hags with their baskets or reticules, children of all ages and even babes in arms were among the spectators. The prisoner was dressed in a new suit of man's clothes, and was attended by armed men on horseback, while the hangman before mounting the scaffold had provided himself with new gloves and a new rope. As the prisoner had caused the death of a child by mutilating the face and arms to such an extent as to cause a fatal hemorrhage, the town tribunal, or local court, had decreed that the head and legs of the prisoner should be mangled with a knife before the hanging. This was a mediæval application of the lex talionis, or "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." To impress a recollection of the scene upon the memories of the bystanders an artist was employed to paint a frescoe on the west wall of the transept of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Falaise, and for more than four hundred years that picture could be seen and studied until destroyed in 1820 by the carelessness of a white washer. The criminal was not a human being, but a sow, which had indulged in the evil propensity of eating infants on the street.

(Hampton L. Carson, "The Trial of Animals and Insects: A Little Known Chapter of Mediæval Jurisprudence," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 56 [1917]: 410-5, at 410)

John Passmore (1914-2004) on the Moral Status of Animals

One restriction on the absolutism of man's rule over Nature is now generally accepted: moral philosophers and public opinion agree that it is morally impermissible to be cruel to animals. And by this they mean not only that it is wrong to enjoy torturing animals—which few moralists would ever have wished explicitly to deny, however little emphasis they might have placed on cruelty to animals in their moral teaching—but that it is wrong to cause them to suffer unnecessarily. "The Puritan," Macaulay once wrote with condemnatory intent, "hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." In other words, what they hated—and by no means perversely—was the enjoyment of animal suffering; to the mere fact that the bears suffered as a consequence of human action they were indifferent. That, on the whole, is the Christian tradition. But now the situation has changed; not only cruelty—the enjoyment of animal suffering—but callousness, indifference to animal suffering, not taking it into account in deciding how one ought to act, is morally condemned.

Controversies no doubt remain. But they now turn around the question what is to count as "making animals suffer unnecessarily," whether, for example, vivisection or fox-hunting are, in these terms, morally justifiable. By looking in some detail at the way in which the general moral principle that it is wrong to act callously has gradually won acceptance, we can hope to see revealed, first, how reluctantly Western man has accepted any restriction whatsoever on his supposed right to deal as he pleases with Nature and, secondly, how changes in his moral outlook have nevertheless come about.

(John Passmore, "The Treatment of Animals," Journal of the History of Ideas 36 [April-June 1975]: 195-218, at 195 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

From Yesterday's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “A Disgraceful Farm Bill” (editorial, May 16):

While the farm bill recently approved by Congress deals with enormous agricultural policy issues, it also includes three important provisions to protect animal welfare.

Because the Agriculture Department enforces the Animal Welfare Act, this authorizing bill deals with a broad range of subjects regarding the humane treatment of animals.

The bill contains sweeping new penalties against animal fighting, included after the Michael Vick case revealed the pervasiveness of this crime.

The bill also bans the importation of puppies from foreign puppy mills, and increases penalties for violations of the Animal Welfare Act from $2,500 to $10,000. Enforcement has been inconsistent at best. These new penalties would give the law some much needed teeth.

The Humane Society of the United States and other animal protection organizations support the farm bill because of these achievements for animals. We hope Congress will vote to override the president’s veto.

Wayne Pacelle
President and Chief Executive
The Humane Society of the United States
Washington, May 21, 2008

Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) on the Fallacious Appeal to Nature

Of the many dense prejudices through which, as through a snow-drift, Vegetarianism has to plough its way before it can emerge into the field of free discussion, there is none perhaps more inveterate than the common appeal to "Nature." A typical instance of the remarkable misuse of logic which characterises such argument may be seen in the anecdote related by Benjamin Franklin, in his Autobiography, of the incident which induced him to return, after years of abstinence, to a flesh diet. He was watching some companions sea fishing, and observing that some of the fish caught by them had swallowed other fish, he concluded that, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you"—a confusion of ichthyology and morals which is ludicrous enough as narrated by Franklin, but not essentially more foolish than the attempt so frequently made by flesh-eaters to shuffle their personal responsibility on to some supposed "natural law."

(Henry S. Salt, The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 36)

Note from KBJ: Here is Franklin:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Never underestimate the human capacity for rationalization!

Animal Rights

A few years ago, philosopher David Oderberg published an essay entitled "The Illusion of Animal Rights" in The Human Life Review. A few months ago, having belatedly discovered Oderberg's essay, I wrote a critique entitled "Oderberg on Animal Rights," which I duly submitted to The Human Life Review for publication. The editor rejected it, which means Oderberg gets the last word as well as the first. It's unlikely that any other periodical would publish my essay, since it's a critique rather than a stand-alone essay, so I decided to "publish" it here. Enjoy!

Global Warmism

Al Gore will dismiss these scientists as ideologues. In doing so, he will prove that he is the ideologue. Ideology is imperviousness to countervailing evidence.

Levi and Bandit

Levi Leipheimer is one of the world's top cyclists. Here he is with his rescued companion Bandit. Here is a story about Levi on the web page of Helping Animals. Here is an interview with Levi.

R. G. Frey on Animal Rights

The question of whether animals possess rights is once again topical, largely as a result of the recent surge of interest in animal welfare and in the moral pros and cons of eating animals and using them in scientific research. If animals do have rights, then the case for eating and experimenting upon them, especially when other alternatives are available, is going to have to be that much stronger; and those who engage in and support these practices are going to be increasingly beleaguered. Animal rights may not give vegetarians and animal liberationists all that they want, but the existence of such rights would unquestionably strengthen the cases of both camps. Arguments to show that animals do have rights, therefore, are at a premium.

(R. G. Frey, "Animal Rights," Analysis 37 [June 1977]: 186-9, at 186 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “On the Ground, Counting Deer” (New Jersey and the Region, May 4) and the efforts of Essex County officials to justify the deer hunt in South Mountain Reservation:

When I moved to New Jersey from New York City 13 years ago, I was enchanted to encounter deer in a forest two blocks from my house in South Orange (which abuts the reservation).

People who move out here from the city generally feel the same way. It tends to be the Jersey natives who drive too fast and refuse to build fences in their backyards who view wildlife as the enemy.

You report that Susan Predl, a senior biologist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, uses “distance sampling” to count the deer that managed to survive the recent county-organized, taxpayer-financed slaughter.

You also note that “counting deer is an imprecise science” and that an aerial survey is expensive, “but some believe it yields the most accurate count.” Grid searches are the best, although that would require patience and commitment, which seem in short supply in Essex County.

The article’s observations regarding “rutted roads” and “long-neglected picnic groves and campgrounds” more accurately describe the pitiful condition of the reservation. The lack of maintenance and patrol is staggering under the stewardship of Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., the county executive. The fault does not lie with the deer.

Kelly Bishop
South Orange, N.J., May 5, 2008

From the Mailbag

Keith,

Here is a photo of a little guy we found across the street. It was chewing on the remains of a little bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was right on the curb and I was concerned about it getting run over. My son and I put it in a box and took it to a ditch area behind our house. Usually possums this small are with their mothers. This little guy appeared weak and the wound on its head is very apparent. The heart in me wanted to take him in and get him up to strength. What to do? During this season, a lot of little birds will be falling from the trees. There is really nothing you can do for them. A young bird, yet to reach flight, is extremely vulnerable to pet cats and dogs. Feeding and caging them from your own pet, is impossible. Birds, possums, same problem.

I regret that I didn't leave that little fellow with some dog food or a can of tuna. However, my son and I did remove him from the dangers of man (cars). We took positive action. We did leave him in nature in a more secure location than when we found him. Nature has already been cruel.

We did our part. There is a philosophical lesson here somewhere.

Regards,
Christopher

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Another Horse-Racing Horror” (editorial, May 6):

Thank you for adding your voice to the many who are demanding that the welfare of racehorses should come before profits. But let us also give thought to the thousands of horses that are bred every year for racing and don’t make the cut or outlive their usefulness to the investors and owners.

Most wind up auctioned off for a few dollars each and sent to the foreign slaughterhouses to be made into pet food or dinner for someone overseas. Even the 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand ended up in a Japanese slaughterhouse because he wasn’t proving his monetary value as a stud.

It’s not just the injured horses that suffer. It’s the thousands of faceless colts and fillies we never see that suffer from this so-called sport.

Jane Shakman
Ossining, N.Y., May 6, 2008

From the Mailbag

Keith,

Here is an online ethics and animals class I developed for the Humane Society of the United States. Perhaps its content would be useful for your readers.

Thanks
Nathan Nobis, Ph.D.

Farm Sanctuary

Let's take a roll in the hay.

Babies and Animals, Part 2

Seven months after R. G. Frey's essay was published, philosophers Dale Jamieson and Tom Regan replied to it. (Dale Jamieson and Tom Regan, "Animal Rights: A Reply to Frey," Analysis 38 [January 1978]: 32-6.) They make the following points:

1. Nobody makes the argument Frey criticizes. It is certainly not an "important argument," as Frey claims.

2. Frey claims that there are only three grounds for premise 2 of the argument: potentiality, similarity, and immortality. None of these grounds, he says, applies to animals. Jamieson and Regan reply that some animals are potentially rational. If so, then it is not the case, as Frey claims, that every ground for affirming premise 2 renders premise 1 false. At least one ground for affirming premise 2 renders premise 1 true.

3. The three grounds Frey supplies for premise 2 are not exhaustive. There is at least one other ground—namely, sentience—for the proposition that babies have rights. Unfortunately for Frey, this ground, unlike the three he supplies, does not preclude animals from having rights. Since both babies and animals are sentient, both have rights.

I think point 2 is shaky. Animals are not rational in any meaningful sense, and if they are not rational, then they are not potentially rational. Point 3 is a good reply, in my opinion. The right not to be made to suffer derives from (i) sentience and (ii) the intrinsic badness of pain. As for point 1, I don't see why it matters whether anyone has made the argument. It's an argument in favor of animal rights. Those who deny that animals have rights (e.g., Frey) must find fault with it. As for whether it's an "important" argument, I don't know. Nothing hinges on whether it is.

Babies and Animals

Here is a common argument in favor of animal rights:

1. If babies have rights, then animals have rights.
2. Babies have rights.
Therefore,
3. Animals have rights.

In 1977, philosopher R. G. Frey argued that at least one of the premises of this argument must be false, and hence that the argument is unsound. (R. G. Frey, "Animal Rights," Analysis 37 [June 1977]: 186-9.) This doesn't show that animals don't have rights, for an unsound argument can have a true conclusion; but it does show—if Frey is right—that there must be some other basis for animal rights than the one provided by this argument.

What is Frey's argument? Frey claims that (i) there are only three grounds for ascribing rights to babies and (ii) none of them applies to animals. Thus, what makes premise 2 true makes premise 1 false. What are the three grounds?

1. Potentiality. Babies may not be rational, but they're potentially rational. If we ascribe rights to babies on the basis of their potential rationality, we thereby deny rights to animals, for animals are not even potentially rational.

2. Similarity. Babies may not be rational, but they're similar in many other respects to "other members of our species." If we ascribe rights to babies on the basis of their similarity to other human beings, we thereby deny rights to animals, for animals are not similar in many other respects to human beings.

3. Immortality. Babies may not be rational, but they have immortal souls. If we ascribe rights to babies on the basis of their immortality, we thereby deny rights to animals, for animals are not immortal.

One way to challenge Frey is to show that (i) there is a ground other than these three for ascribing rights to babies and (ii) it applies to animals. Can you think of such a ground?

Plant Rights

Here is an essay by Wesley J. Smith. There is no inconsistency in rejecting plant rights while accepting animal rights. If Smith thinks that plant rights and animal rights stand or fall together, then he is confused, for there is a morally relevant difference between plants and animals, namely, that only the latter are sentient.

Addendum: Smith appears not to understand the animal-rights movement. He writes:

The animal rights movement grew out of the same poisonous soil. Animal rights ideology holds that moral worth comes with sentience or the ability to suffer. Thus, since both animals and humans feel pain, animal rights advocates believe that what is done to an animal should be judged morally as if it were done to a human being. Some ideologues even compare the Nazi death camps to normal practices of animal husbandry. For example, Charles Patterson wrote in Eternal Treblinka—a book specifically endorsed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—that "the road to Auschwitz begins at the slaughterhouse."

Animal-rights advocates do not believe "that what is done to an animal should be judged morally as if it were done to a human being." What they believe is that animals matter, morally. Animals have weight on the moral scale. Morally speaking, animals are something, not nothing. Inflicting pain on animals must be justified. This is not to say that it can't be justified, only that it must be.

Addendum 2: Smith wants the circle of moral concern to be the same as the circle of biological humanity. In his view, neither animals nor plants have rights. He seems to think that if we expand the circle to include animals, we will have to expand it, on pain of inconsistency, to include plants. This is false, for there is, as I say, a morally relevant difference between animals and plants that justifies drawing a line between them. The circle of moral concern should include all sentient beings, not all living organisms.

Addendum 3: When I was a law student at Wayne State University in the early 1980s, I took a graduate philosophy course in ethics with Bruce Russell. He allowed me to write a term paper entitled "Do Plants Have Rights?" Little did I know that I'd be coming back to that topic a quarter of a century later!

Addendum 4: Smith should grapple with the biocentric arguments of Paul W. Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). It is one of the best books I've read. It sounds to me as though Europeans are taking Taylor's theory seriously.

H. J. McCloskey on Animal Rights

The issue as to who or what may be a possessor of rights is not simply a matter of academic, conceptual interest. Obviously, important conclusions follow from any answer. If, for instance, it is determined that gravely mentally defective human beings and monsters born of human parents are not the kinds of beings who may possess rights, this bears on how we may treat them. It does not settle such questions as to whether it is right to kill them if they are a burden or if they are enduring pointless suffering, but it does bear in an important way on such questions. Even if such beings cannot be possessors of rights it might still be wrong to kill them, but the case against killing those who endure pain is obviously easier to set out if they can be shown to be capable of possessing rights and in fact possess rights. Similarly, important conclusions follow from the question as to whether animals have rights. If they do, as Salt argued, it would seem an illegitimate invasion of animal rights to kill and eat them, if, as seems to be the case, we can sustain ourselves without killing animals. If animals have rights, the case for vegetarianism is prima facie very strong, and is comparable with the case against cannibalism.

(H. J. McCloskey, "Rights," The Philosophical Quarterly 15 [April 1965]: 115-27, at 122 [footnote omitted])

Animal Prosthetics

Here is the story of Albie the goat.

Statistics

I almost feel guilty about not posting more often (and more substantively) on this blog, given its expanding readership. This past month, there were 5,208 visitors to the blog, which is an average of 173.6 per day. The previous records (set in March 2008) were 4,200 and 135.4. I have a number of posts about animals waiting in the wings, but I have been saving them for summer, when I have more time. One of them is a long critique of philosopher David Oderberg's argument against animal rights. Mylan and I appreciate your interest in our blog. Perhaps Jonathan will post some items this summer as well. He has been busy with his studies at UT-Austin.