In Defense of Animals, page 8
Most champions of equal consideration for animals acknowledge some morally important differences between normal humans – persons – and most or all nonhuman animals. The point of greatest convergence is that the presumption against killing persons is stronger than the presumption against killing nonpersons. This claim is consistent with equal consideration if your life-interest, your interest in remaining alive, is not comparable to your cat’s life-interest – if, that is, different things are at stake for you and your cat because you (ordinarily) stand to lose much more from death. Although providing a fully coherent justification for this claim of noncomparability is very difficult, here I simply note that many defenders of animals accept it. Thus, one possible source of importance for personhood is this: personhood is necessary and sufficient for life-interests of full strength.9
This thesis implies that animal persons such as Kanzi and Koko have rights to life comparable to ours. It would therefore be morally outrageous to use them in lethal experimentation even if their interest as language users diminished. What about borderline persons? I believe we should regard human and nonhuman borderline persons as having rights to life like ours, though I cannot defend this claim here.10 If this is correct, then to the extent that similar points can be made about liberty – freedom from harmful confinement – another implication is that dolphins should be confined only when the conditions of confinement represent a net benefit for them. I suspect that this would mean banning dolphin exhibits. More generally, it would call for extending to apes and dolphins legal rights to life and liberty.11
A second possible thesis about the importance of personhood is this: personhood is necessary and sufficient for deserving full (equal) consideration. On this view, the interests of persons deserve full moral protection while the interests of sentient nonpersons deserve serious, but less than full, consideration.
This unequal-consideration framework can be developed in different ways. One possible picture is a sliding scale of moral status, determined by the possession of personhood-relevant properties and culminating in the plane of persons. Accordingly, while we should never cavalierly cause anyone to suffer, the presumption against causing persons to suffer is stronger than the presumption against causing dogs to suffer (justifying, for example, some experimentation we would not permit on persons), which is stronger than the presumption against causing a reptile to suffer, and so on. An alternative specification of this framework posits not a sliding scale among nonpersons, but simply two tiers: that of persons, whose interests are generally not to be sacrificed in the name of utility; and the tier of sentient nonpersons, whose interests are subject to consequentialist tradeoffs.12
Naturally, the two assertions about the importance of personhood face theoretical and moral challenges. Both, for example, face the problem of human nonpersons: can we really accept the apparent implication that their lives are less morally protectable than ours, or that their interests across the board deserve less weight than ours? If not, how can we afford them adequate protection without contradicting our thesis about the importance of personhood?
Even if both major theses about personhood’s importance are correct (something I doubt), personhood is less important than moral tradition has assumed. The world does not divide neatly into persons and nonpersons, some individuals beyond Homo sapiens are persons, and many are borderline persons. These facts have practical implications – which we should clarify, disseminate to the broader public, and employ as a basis for reforming attitudes and practices.
Notes
Thanks to Peter Singer for several useful suggestions.
1. I develop this argument in DeGrazia (1997: 312–14).
2. I argue that many animals can act intentionally and to some degree rationally in DeGrazia (1996: 129–72).
3. For a summary of relevant evidence, see Wise (2000: 204–5).
4. Gordon Gallup (1977) demonstrated such mirror use in chimpanzees and orangutans. See also Patterson and Gordon (1993: 71).
5. “Boy Adopted by Chimps,” article on news.com.au, March 15, 2002.
6. I explore this issue in DeGrazia (1996: 199–200).
7. For a review, see Herman (1980: 406–7).
8. For an overview of the debate over animal language, see DeGrazia (1996: 183–98).
9. Similar points can be defended regarding humans’ and animals’ interests in liberty and functioning (DeGrazia 1996: ch. 8), although they raise special complications.
10. My arguments appear elsewhere (see DeGrazia 1996: 264–8).
11. Thus I largely support the calls for reform outlined in Singer and Cavalieri (1993) and, although I believe his definitions of “person” and “autonomy” are problematic, Wise (2000). I also salute Martha Nussbaum’s (2003) call for constitutional rights for animals.
12. For a theoretically powerful effort to develop this account, see McMahan (2002).
References
Byrne, Richard (1996) “The Misunderstood Ape: Cognitive Skills of the Gorilla,” in Anne Russon, Kim A. Bard, and Sue Taylor Parker (eds), Reaching into Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 111–30.
Caldwell, M. C., and Caldwell, D. K. (1971) “Statistical Evidence for Individual Signature Whistles in Pacific Whitesided Dolphins, Lagenorhynchus obliquidens,” Cetology 10, 1–9.
Cavalieri, Paola, and Singer, Peter (eds) (1993) The Great Ape Project, New York: St Martin’s Press.
Cheney, Dorothy, and Seyfarth, Robert (1990) How Monkeys See the World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Connor, Richard, and Peterson, Dawn (1994) The Lives of Whales and Dolphins, New York: Holt and Co.
Dawkins, Richard (1993) “Gaps in the Mind,” in Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer (eds), The Great Ape Project, New York: St Martin’s Press, pp. 80–7.
DeGrazia, David (1996) Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—— (1997) “Great Apes, Dolphins, and the Concept of Personhood,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 35, 301–20.
Dennett, Daniel (1978) Brainstorms, Hassocks, England: Harvester.
de Waal, Frans (1997) Bonobo, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Frankfurt, Harry (1971) “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68, 829–39.
Gallup, Gordon (1977) “Self-Recognition in Primates,” American Psychologist 32, 329–38.
Goodall, Jane (1986) The Chimpanzees of Gombe, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hecht, Jeff (2003) “People and Chimps Belong Together on the Family Tree,” New Scientist, May 24, p. 15.
Herman, Louis (1980) “Cognitive Characteristics of Dolphins,” in Louis Herman (ed.), Cetacean Behavior, New York: Wiley & Sons, pp. 364–430.
—— (1994) “What the Dolphin Knows, or Might Know, in Its Natural World,” in Karen Pryor and Kenneth Norris (eds), Dolphin Societies, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 349–64.
Herman, Louis, and Morrel-Samuels, Palmer (1990) “Knowledge Acquisition and Asymmetry between Language Comprehension and Production,” in Marc Bekoff and Dale Jamieson (eds), Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of Animal Behavior, Vol. I, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 283–312.
Locke, John (1694) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2nd edn.
McGrew, W. C. (1992) Chimpanzee Material Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McMahan, Jeff (2002) The Ethics of Killing, New York: Oxford University Press.
Mann, Janet, Connor, Richard C., Tyack, Peter L., and Whitehead, Hal (2000) Cetacean Societies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Maple, Terry (1980) Orang-utan Behavior, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Miles, Lyn White (1993) “Language and the Orang-utan,” in Paolo Cavalieri and Peter Singer (eds), The Great Ape Project, New York: St Martin’s Press, pp. 42–57.
Norris, Kenneth, and Dohl, Thomas (1980) “The Structure and Function of Cetacean Schools,” in Louis Herman (ed.), Cetacean Behavior, New York: Wiley & Sons, pp. 211–61.
Nussbaum, Martha (2003) “Beyond ‘Compassion and Humanity’: Justice for Non-Human Animals,” third Tanner Lecture, delivered at Cambridge University, March 6.
Patterson, Francine (1978) “Linguistic Capabilities of a Lowland Gorilla,” in Fred Peng (ed.), Sign Language Acquisition in Man and Ape, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 160–200.
Patterson, Francine, and Gordon, Wendy (1993) “The Case for the Personhood of Gorillas,” in Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer (eds), The Great Ape Project, New York: St Martin’s Press, pp. 58–77.
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Reiss, Diana, and Marino, Lori (2001) “Mirror Self-Recognition in the Bottlenose Dolphin: A Case of Cognitive Convergence,” PNAS 98 (May 8), 5937–42.
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Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, and Brakke, Karen (1990) “Animal Language: Methodological and Interpretive Issues,” in Marc Bekoff and Dale Jamieson (eds), Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of Animal Behavior, Vol. I, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 313–43.
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4
The Animal Debate
A Reexamination
Paola Cavalieri
Accustomed to centuries of mean discussions about how much animals can actually suffer, and how much suffering we may impose on them for human benefit, we may tend to think that nonhumans are indeed second-class beings. True, their condition deserves to be improved, but in the end, they will always belong in a different moral category. It can be argued, though, that the inferior status to which animals are relegated is, like many other historical phenomena, really accidental. A different perception of animals could have prevailed had it not been defeated in some specific clashes of views.
Such clashes, I will suggest, occurred at critical moments in the history of our dominion over the other animals. This claim rests on the more general methodological view that our ideology partially results from our concrete problems and ways of life. Many approaches to the history of ideas defend this general view, so I will not justify it here. What I will do instead is to apply it to the history of our conceptions of animals. In doing this, however, I shall pay special attention to the role played in the handling of the crisis by the different theoretical tools available on any specific occasion.
On a preliminary reconstruction, Western debate on the treatment of animals can be assembled around three key moments, two of which were followed by long periods of stagnation. The first moment saw a struggle within the Classical Greek world between the idea of an original bond among all conscious beings and a contrasting global plan of rationalization of human and nonhuman exploitation. The latter prevailed, and the situation remained unaltered for the many centuries of Christianized Europe. Then, the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century generated a novel round of controversy by setting a new agenda for animals, one which required the removal of the only constraint left on their treatment – the prohibition of cruelty. This agenda, while not entirely successful, forced the advocates of animals into a defensive position. Accordingly, the overall level of discussion declined, and the reinstatement of some form of concern for animal suffering long remained the only ethical issue at stake. In the last few decades, a third critical moment has arrived with a new turn of the screw in animal exploitation. The rapid process of industrialization and mechanization of farming practices has altered the traditional landscape, and has generated a new wave of debate, characterized by the fact that reactions have preceded attempts at rationalization, and that different voices have been raised against the new kind of exploitation. In considering these voices, I will claim that two different strands of thought are clearly distinguishable, and that while one of them is still conditioned by past distortions, the other has overcome them.
Framing the Question: The Prevalence of Rationalization
A different view of animals existed at the dawn of our civilization. There was a time and a place in which nonhumans were perceived by some among the intellectual masters of the age as cognate and allied beings. The time was the fifth century bc, and the place was Greece. Keeping in mind that, if it is impossible to deal with history without criticism, this holds even more in the case of documentary sources from classical antiquity, we shall try to draw a concise picture of what was utterly original in the Greek debate.
It is related that, around the middle of the fifth century, the naturalist philosopher Empedocles of Agrigentum, after a victory at the Olympic games, rejected the customary procedure of slaughtering an ox. Instead, he built an ox out of aromatic plants and shrubs, and he ritually shared it with all those who were present. In doing this, he made a gesture that called into question the entire practice of the bloody sacrifice around which revolved the life of the political community – the polis – and the covenant between the Greeks and their gods. How could this happen? We can infer from one of the surviving fragments of his work that Empedocles considered the killing of animals for food as criminal. More important perhaps, we know that he was a follower of Pythagoras of Samos.
Pythagoras was not a philosopher in the subsequently accepted sense of the word. Naturally associated with Apollo – the god lying at the source of Greek wisdom – he was one of the archaic sages whose teachings were mainly oral and esoteric, and whose lives shaded into legend. Accordingly, what has reached us of his thinking – a large and often contradictory body of information coming from late biographies and mentions by other authors – has had to be subjected to a complex work of interpretation. Renowned for his speculations in mathematics and music, as well as for his endeavor to reform the political life of the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia, Pythagoras taught that we should respect the rules of justice, not only in our dealings with human beings, but also in our dealings with nonhuman animals. In line with such teaching, as it is clear from Empedocles’ gesture, he urged the replacement of bloody sacrifices by offers of frankincense and herbs on bloodless altars. Moreover, a vegetarian himself, he forbade the eating of animal flesh.
Vegetarianism is important since it directly points to the value of animal life. Challenging the most widespread practice in which animal lives are routinely taken prevents the question of the status of nonhumans from being relegated to a secondary ethical concern. Possibly because of this, Pythagoras’ vegetarianism tends to be dismissed by many critics as inconsequential, or as a mere “superstition.” It is inconsequential, it is claimed, because it is merely a part of a bios, a virtuous existence aiming at the self-interested goal of purification and contemplation. What the critics overlook, however, is that the elaboration of an ideal form of life is a constant feature of Greek thought, and self-interest is a natural part of it. The virtuous life is also the good life. So, the actual problem is, what is the “way” to such a life? And, for Pythagoras, an important part of the way is being just toward animals. As for the charge of superstition, it is tied to the doctrine of metempsychosis, or of the transmigration of souls. On this view, Pythagoras was not really interested in animals. Human beings were still the object of his concern, and this concern extended to animals only because of an eccentric belief. But Pythagoras was not alone in accepting the doctrine of metempsychosis. In different versions, the idea of a general transmigration of souls was a component of ancestral Greek thought still present in Plato. The fact that it matched respect for nonhumans only in some authors clearly suggests that there is no strict relation of cause and effect between the two.
The truth, then, seems to lie elsewhere. Pythagoras’ philosophy expressed an integrated worldview based on the notion of harmony. Mathematics was the instrument to decode the universal harmony of the cosmos, music was the art that could best express harmony, and, at a normative level, politics and ethics should heighten harmony both among humans and between humans and the other “ensouled” beings – nonhuman animals. Already present in the form of similarity and kinship, harmony ought to be implemented through the virtue of friendship. That is the reason why Pythagoras used to commend this virtue, and also the reason why, when he so preached, he did not fail to extend it to animals, as similar and related beings.
From a more general perspective, on the other hand, Pythagorism is perhaps the highest expression of a deep current in Greek thought about animals whose origins can be traced back to the great tradition of the agricultural mystery cults of Orphism – an ideologically alternative tradition to the existent system of the polis. Traces of such a view can be detected in both Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. Indeed, Plato himself suggested that human beings and animals once lived a life in common, and even conversed on philosophical questions. But perhaps the clearest evidence of the continued existence of this view comes from Plato’s second successor in his school, the philosopher and mathematician Xenocrates of Chalcedon. Before the end of the fourth century BC – two centuries after Pythagoras’ death – when the Athenians punished a man for flaying a living ram, Xenocrates declared that torturing is no worse than killing; that what is really criminal is taking the life of a being who is of one’s own kind, homogenés. If one thinks of the sacral significance which was attached to blood relationships in the initial stages of Western civilization, one can grasp the radicality of the tradition which emerged in Xenocrates’ claim.
