Response to Todd, Again

Todd Asked: Is animal ownership the key to ending animal cruelty?

While it is certainly an interesting question, one that I will surely get to, I want to address your post itself first.

You make the distinction between the careful, caring ownership of animals and the careful, caring ownership of humans. You identify this difference as slavery is a subjection of a human soul. It would seem, then, that your argument for the ownership of animals being any different rests on the premise that humans have souls. While I am not purporting to know one way or another (though I happen to think that we do not) I am uncomfortable with a morality that rests upon a theological doctrine.

Now, to your question:

I would think, rather intuitively, that no, there needs to be more than animal ownership to end animal cruelty. At the risk of being too simple, ownership does not denote any obligation of treatment. People may be as cruel as they want to the things that they own. Indeed, considering animals to be owned may even further the notion of cruelty as it would imply that the owner may do whatever he or she wishes.

I think the animal guardian is a good step to ending animal cruelty, but not the animal owner.

Question: Does calling animals property propagate the propensity to abuse animals?

Ownership

Many of our arguments we have read about pet ownership have been concerned primarily with the effects ownership has on pets. Is harm done, in benefit done, to what degree do we owe an obligation of assistance to pets? In all this I think we may have passed over a more important question. What are the ethical implications of owning another sentient animal? In other words, is it morally acceptable to own an animal?

Is it fair to characterize it thus? Is it ownership, or is it a partnership, and are there moral differences there. We often invoke the verb 'own' to describe our relationship with pets; is this acceptable? Do we own another being or are we partners of proximity? All utilitarian consequences aside, there is something morally unsettling about the ownership of another sentient being.

Question: Is it morally acceptable to own another being?

A response to Todd

Todd Asked: Do you think that the abuse of animals, even by those who consume meat from and support CAFOs, is a reflection of a morally degraded society as a whole? Have we become complacent to cruelty?

Before I address your question directly, I wanted to mention a few things about your post. There is a strong correlation between animal abuse and human abuse. There is not necessarily a causation there. While animal abuse is in itself abhorrent, it is not necessarily indicative of a willingness to abuse others. And the abuse of others is likewise, I think, independent of animal abuse.

The unfortunate answer to both of your questions is a yes. Yes, the morally despicable abuse of animals must be a reflection of a morally degraded society. Absent this, the abuse would not be allowed to continue. On the other hand, however, I am not sure. This connection rests on the fact that people understand this abuse is happening. It would be unfair to say that society is morally degraded because of this abuse if the majority of the society does not comprehend the abuse is occurring.

We have, though, as a society, become numb to cruelty, and I will blame everyone's favorite scapegoat, the fourth estate. It is not only the press of course, media in general has some blame to account for. The press showing repeated clips of violence on the television, and movies and other media displaying gratuitous instances of violence and cruelty.

Question: To what degree can we blame institutions such as the media and the press, or must we take some responsibility upon ourselves?

Response to Nick

Nick: Is it likely that ‘lions’ the physical referent and signified ‘concept of: lion’ in the minds of the zebras is what “come to mind” at the use and perception of the word “god”? [especially of this context in relation to pain and suffering, a part of such words or phrases which can be considered ‘taboo speech’]

I must preempt here by saying that you have some of the most interesting posts and questions I have ever seen.

I would tentatively suggest that no, lions, or the concept thereof would not be the object of thought when the zebra invokes the word 'god'. So the situation would be. A lion is eating a zebra and the zebra distressingly thinks the phrase "oh my god." Since this is already anthropomorphizing to a dangerous degree, I will continue to do so. When a misfortune befalls a human who uses this phrase it is not the object of the misfortune that 'comes to mind' but a higher being who could possible be held accountable for said misfortune. Now you could argue that the lion fits that description, a higher being that is accountable for the misfortune (being eaten).

The end answer here would be, I suppose, the characteristics of, if it exists, a zebra belief system. Perhaps, like the Greeks of old, the Zebras believed in a pantheon that interacted with the people, so it is possible that a lion would be that 'god.' On the other hand, if the beliefs were more christian, than god would not summon a mental image of any worldly misfortune like a lion, but a more abstract higher entity that serves as a convenient scapegoat for life's calamities.

Now, reading this over again, it is probable that I have missed some critically relevant point you made and have thus misunderstood it entirely. Here it is regardless.

Question: Concerning especially the social creatures, is a belief system likely to be present?

Response to Todd

Todd: Thus, I raise the question of if it is possible to incrementally eliminate the factory food system with the slow push of the hunter-gatherer method? Should we teach this to our children instead of grocery bought foods? Or is it too late?

Interesting questions, no doubt, and I would like to address a few things within your post before I begin. While it may be a compelling example I do not think "The Omnivore's Dilemma" truly proves anything. Now I have not read it, that is fair, but it is far from the end arbiter of such topics.

I would posit, perhaps prematurely, that yes it is possible to incrementally initiate an innovation to, rather a gradual demolition of factory farming. And yes, I think it possible to switch the a hunter-gatherer method of obtaining food. The question I wanted to address most was whether or not this should be taught to our children instead of grocery bought foods.

I do not think it is too late, even for our generation, those raised on supermarkets and fast food joints. I do not hunt, nor do I gather, I have not the time, I do try to purchase from farmers markets and locally grown food, but it still is not the same. The issues is not of time, I think, but of practicality. If we were to start teaching our kids to hunt and gather rather than buy, there would have to be enough wild food readily available, is there? I do not know, that was not a rhetorical question. We might also consider Mary.

Who is Mary you might ask? I'm glad you did.

Mary is a forty year old single mother of two children. She and her two daughters live in a small home she was able to bu with a loan she's having trouble repaying. Why is she having trouble? Well, when she took out the loan she had a steady job managing the local supermarket, but lately so many customers have stopped coming because they have switched to a hunter-gatherer method. She lost her job. She's now scrubbing the floors of a local high school during the day and working at a gas station by night. She doesn't have the time to hunt and gather herself so she still needs a place to buy food, though there aren't many left, and they're getting more and more expensive.

I do not mean to argue from a single possibility, but it speaks to the possible difficulties in this switch. You mentioned incrementally, which may help to alleviate some of these problems, but not all of them. In this economy, a job lost is not a job easily gained elsewhere.

Question: What would be the economic ramifications of switching to a hunter-gatherer method?

Animal Experimentation

After we discussed in class the necessary and sufficient condition for vegetarianism to be morally obligatory, I wrote a blog post considering which if any of those conditions were currently actualized. And so, now that we have discussed the necessary and sufficient conditions for the moral acceptability of nonhuman animal testing, I figured I would, again, examine the conditions. Unfortunately, as it was relatively easy to determine the actualization of the previous conditions, these seem more difficult.

1. There must exist no morally viable alternative.
2. There must be placed a greater preference to human interests.
3. There must exist a tangible benefit.
4. The human interest that stands to benefit must be equitable to the animal interest being discounted.
4. The suffering of the test subject must be minimized.

I will return to condition 1, as it is, I think, the most problematic. A greater preference is naturally given to human interests as opposed to non-human interests, and while this is a necessary condition, it is a simple one. The benefit from these tests must be more than hypothetically possible, especially for the tests that will result in immense suffering and/or death of the test subject. "There might be a benefit" does not suffice, it must be tangible. The benefit needs, also, to be proportional. Immense animal suffering for the purpose of less dandruff does not suffice. If the test violates an interest of an animal, it must benefit that very interest of the humans. If a test kills an animal the benefit must be able to save the life of a human. Lastly, the suffering of an animal needs to be minimized. No harm can be unnecessary to the specific test.

The difficulty of the first condition is that it seems nigh impossible to verify. What does moral viability look like? When presented with two options is seems to be problematic at best to determine which is more morally viable. That having been said, for a test to be acceptable is must be the most morally viable option for getting that particular result.

Not all tests satisfy all these conditions, and there are few enough that can. This would greatly reduce the number of non-human experiments that would be allowed to be conducted, but as a general principle, animal testing is morally acceptable.

Question: How do we determine between the moral viability of two options?

Scientific Sensibility

Often, testing on animals is dismissed by students, philosophers, laymen due to the inability to extrapolate across species. Testing results, it is often said, are useless because nonhuman anatomy is different than human anatomy.

This epitomizes, or so it seems to me, a lack of interpretive charity. Yes. There are substantial qualitative differences between the anatomy of a human and the anatomy of a non-human. Do we not think that scientists know this? I would credit them with enough intelligence to not assume a direct applicability of test results. It may just be me, but I think the scientist understands that a rat is not a human. I think the scientist that experiments on a rat understands that there might be a different result if done to a human. As living beings there are some things that affect us both, in the same way, some in similar ways, and yes, some in completely different ways. It is ridiculous to assume all test results will be applicable to us, but it is equally, if not more inane to assume, on that basis, that no test results are applicable.

An apple is substantially different than a computer. The apple falls if let go of. Be careful not to assume that the computer will as well. They are different after all.

Question: To what degree can we, absent scientific education, criticize the actions of the scientist?