(Photo -- Steer on their way to slaughter as per human demand. Photo Credit -- Maria Karisson)
Doug from California submitted this comment yesterday that, due to its length and complexity, I choose to respond to further down:
"If I understand the material, the introduction of morality as the foil for some self-described ARers is rooted in recognition of sentience. Lots of variations, but sentience generally refers to the capacity of living being to perceive, be self aware, feel, and pain is at the fore of that element.
Recognizing sentience in animals is probably responsible for changing the view of animals as mere property no more significant than some inanimate thing. A good evolution in human thinking. At some point that thinking changed again and attempts to grade animals'sentience were made and resulted in differential regard for animals based on the degree to which they exhibited human-like traits. Great apes, famously, and dolphins do that can be accorded higher worth. That slope, however, got slippery in a hurry (turns out that crows can make and use tools, elephants and geese mourn, endless examples, grow by the day) and the thinkers have concluded that gradations in sentience require drawing really blurry lines (are clams, for example, or worms sentient?); so their determination is to avoid the question and hold up sentience at all (which usually means going vegan) as a reason by itself to render use of a sentient animal immoral, irrespective of abuse or the manner of treatment. Servitude for a sentient animal is wrong, to these self-described ARers. Stated another way, there is moral equivalence in their heads among: dog or cock fighting, factory farming, working animals such as plow/carriage horses or bomb sniffing dogs, and indeed caring for your pet dog. (Where are your readers on this list?)
The protagonists of this view actually equate animal use with slavery in antebellum America, a comparison I find personally offensive, indeed absurd.
A couple of things about the antagonists view that don't hold up:
First, while holding up all sentient animals as human equivalents, in a strange twist of irony, they deny the capacity in these animals for love, devotion, self sacrifice for protection - in general, they fail to recognize these animals' capacity to enter to a mutually beneficial, reciprocal "useful" relationship. I'm very confident, positive even, that the animals in my life (horses that jump in competition with my then 75 pound daughter, dogs that greet me at night, protect my place all the time and sleep on the couch) are happy to be here and to be with me and my family.
Second, the antagonists do not include in the elements of sentience the capacity to dream; aspire to be something different from what you are. It is that omission that annoys me about the human slavery play. I'm pretty sure my dogs don't lament not being selected to ride on the Budweiser wagon or in a firetruck. Equally, I doubt that wolves in Yellowstone sometimes decide they'd rather be an elk and go vegetarian. Human beings, whether tragically committed to slavery or privileged in contrast, often do have aspirations like or even wildly different than that. The gradation in sentience is real, however denied for to make the argument hang together in logical fashion but despite common sense observation. The hallmark of civilizations (and I include animals packs, herds, flocks...in that) is determining and implementing the highest use for the individuals involved, maximizing their chances and pushing through together.
I also agree with your observation that demonizing the middle of the bell curve of "AR" people is a mistake. Further to you metaphor, no one ever bought a running $200 shoe because the salesman said "hey, you immoral fatso; you're eating more than your share of food and stressing the health care system."
Doug from the Gold Country, California
Reply: Thank you, Doug for your comment. It is obvious you have spent much time in reflection and thought.
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I will say first, I agree with many of your points, particularly that the equation of animal abuse to human slavery is both, offensive and a mistake. But, while holding the same position, we do not appear to do so for the same reasons.
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While it can be presumed that animals do not aspire to greatness (as humans might define that word and many do), that should not be surmised to mean that animals do not possess and experience desires, drives and yearnings for something better.
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Were that not so, billions of mammals and birds would not migrate every year, often at great peril to individuals and the group. (Why not simply stay where they are and take their chances?)
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Animals migrate for better food sources, safer places to reproduce and raise young and more comfortable climate conditions applicable to the season.
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Some might argue that such migrations are a biological imperative necessary for survival, but they appear to be much more than that. While not "aspiration" or "ambition" as we know those terms, it appears that animals possess both, the desire and the will to change their circumstances for something better when they can.
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But, billions of chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, ducks and other animals imprisoned in animal factories for so-called, "food" are denied any means to act upon their desires, instincts and will. That should not be assumed to mean they don't have them.
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As evidence to this assertion, I submit this video of 752 egg laying hens rescued from a factory farm and released to a natural environment. Please observe carefully, the hens behavior and reactions both, when confined and crowded inside small battery cages inside the factory and later, when released on a real farm and experiencing the outdoors for the first time:
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These hens are not "emotionally dead" when confined to the cages. They are not without drives, yearnings, instincts and will. They are simply prevented from acting on them.
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But, when afforded the opportunity to finally act upon their desires and will, they do. They stretch their wings, they dust bathe and they build nests -- and that is without the hens ever having been outdoors before.
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What does that tell us, Doug?
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Aspirations to be President of the US? No. But, the desire and will to be and live as a chicken? Yes.
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While the deprivation, torture and eventual slaughter inflicted upon billions of "food animals" every year is every bit as brutal and unjustifiable (if not more so) as human slavery, it is however, incomparable for the simple reason that humans and other animals are different.
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All species (including humans) prioritize their own. The primal drive in every living being is the survival and protection of his/own species.
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Therefore, comparisons or equations of animal injustice to human injustice (e.g. "slavery" or "murder") are always going to offend most humans on the most primal level. But, it is not because animals don't feel, don't suffer, don't desire or don't possess the will to change and improve their lot in life. They do in ways similar to, but not exactly the same as ours. The problem is, that for billions of animals, we deny and completely prevent them from exercising any of that free will. Though not technically, "enslavement" from strictly the human sense of that word, it IS tyranny.
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This finally bring us to the other points in your comment -- specifically, animal/human connection and bonding.
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On this, there is total agreement. I cannot answer why some in Animal Rights appear to deny or dismiss that such reciprocal and mutually beneficial "use" relationships exist between animals and humans. As previously noted, even the relationships between pets and caregivers should properly be deemed of mutual "use" as both parties benefit, though humans are unquestionably the dominant partners in the associations, making all the decisions for both.
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(It should be noted that in situations of actual abuse, neglect or simply a poor connection between animal and human, animals usually possess the means and will to "act out" in some manner to let their displeasure or stress known. (Exception: intensive factory farming where animals are unable and prevented from acting on will.) Animals may act out aggressively, they may self-mutilate, neurotically pace, they may refuse to eat, recoil in fear, attempt to hide, or frantically try to escape. [The latter is different from an animal with a simple "wanderlust" born mostly out of curiosity or sense of adventure.])
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These days there are literally millions of examples of animal/human bonding, attachment and yes, love and devotion. Most often these are seen in relationships of humans with pets, but they also occur in many situations of "working animals" and their human partners. The latter are most prevalent among humans and long domesticated animals such as dogs and horses particularly.
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So what, in essence, is "Animal Rights?"
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Personally, I believe Animal Rights is a work in progress, particularly as we learn and understand so much more about animals than was ever realized or acknowledged in years and centuries past.
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Such knowledge and awareness calls upon and compels us to first and foremost confront and address the tyranny that exists and is inflicted upon billions of animals through egregious practices of "factory farming" -- practices that entirely strip animals of their species specific desires, instinctual drives and capacities for free will.
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What I don't believe Animal Rights to correctly or ethically be is some kind of drive to eliminate all domesticated or "human dependent" animals from the planet.
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Such would not be to recognize (as you put it) animals' capacity for devotion and allegiance to humans by their own free will. --PCA
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2 comments:
Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure the disagreement is as sharp as suggested. Didn't mean to suggest that animals don't appreciate a comfortable life over a horrific one.
My first entaglement with the confused AR "cause" led me to pose what I thought was a rhetorical question to counter the "use is wrong" contingent (carriage horses being the issue of the day): if that's correct, I asked, then why is it okay to have a dog?
I was startled to hear that the answer according to some was "it's not okay." Maybe that is the official AR position; if it is then the cause, as with extremism generally, is doomed.
In the comment you reply to here, I suggested a spectrum of animal use intended to represent extremes on either side and some grayer issues. It is not complete of course. Circus animals, responsible hunting for personal consumption, competition level frisbee dogs, lots of things along a bell curve. I was hopeful that there would be wide agreement on the extremes and expected disagreement at some points near the middle. It's up to AR to decide its identity I guess. We'll see.
Current AR doesn't think in curves; the "wrongness" line is bright and vertical. I think that however intellectually interesting that is a practical mistake and risks distracting from addressing problems now that are easily agreed upon as such.
An important step in that is to knock off the maligning of working and companion animals, and their human stewards. It's alienating,annoying and disregards the reality that animals and humans form connections of reciprocal (which doesn't mean equal) and mutual benefit and happiness.
Doug from the Gold Country California
Thank you again, Doug, for thoughtful comment worthy of reflection and response.
Once again, there is agreement that some in AR do not think in curves and rather draw bright, red lines of absolutes.
As you point out correctly, this may be interesting in terms of intellectual reflection (or demands for "purism") but can be very damaging, both in practical terms and gaining support from people in the middle who otherwise are sensitive to actual animal abuse and seek mitigation, if not complete elimination of it.
On the most pressing and egregious animal abuse issue(factory farming), were everyone to cut back on meat and dairy consumption, it would force change on the industries that the public is not supporting with purchase dollars, this type of tyranny inflicted on billions of sentient beings. To some degree, this is already happening as witness the rise of "free range" and "humanely raised" animal products over the past couple of decades, as well as wider availability of delicious vegetarian options to meat and dairy. Is it enough? No. But it is slowly going in the right direction.
Hopefully, the eventual goal is to lesson the demand for animal products so much that laws can finally be enacted that cover ALL animals under current animal welfare/protective laws and create newer and even stronger laws.
As for all those issues in the middle of bell curve, I think we first need to draw distinction between those practices "using" animals such as dogs or horses for some reciprocol task and those activities designed to result in an animal's death, such as hunting.
It is true that hunting itself presents its own bell curves such as you allude to. There is regulated hunting for "food" and there is hunting for trophy, "contests" and canned shoots in which the target animals have virtually NO chance of escape and are rarely utilized for anything.(Examples, "pigeon, coyote or squirrel shoots.")
As an Animal Rights proponent, I personally don't support activities that result in deaths of animals as I believe that primary among the "rights" for animals, is the right to continue living (assuming they are not posing direct threat to humans or suffering untreatable disease or injury).
But, for those supporting animal welfare more over "animal rights" perse, it is hoped we could agree on and work towards the elimination of the most egregious and indefensible forms of hunting as described above.
As far as "working animals," I am inclined to agree with you for the reasons you describe -- specifically, animal/human connection and bond.
However, it is important to point out that in any activity that benefits from the use or "work" of animals, great responsibiity falls on both animal stewards and law makers to ensure the animals are properly protected from abuse under the protocols of both,legal regulations and human decency.
Personally, I support working carriage horses in NYC because of the laws and regulations overseeing their protection and propoer care, as well as observations that the horses are loved, appear to be at ease with their work and seem to enjoy human interactions.
Moreover, as one who considers life to be primary among rights for animals, the reality in the modern world is that there is usually a grim future for horses without jobs. It should not, in my view, be a "goal" of AR to add more domestic animals to the lists of the already homeless whose lives are in peril for lack of caring and responsible humans to oversee their well being.
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