Ethical
Consistency
The
time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which
breathes... ' - Jeremy Bentham
By what means do we apply natural inalienable
rights, or an ethics that counts the greatest happiness for the greatest
number, or an ethics that says we must not treat people as means but as ends,
and so on, to human beings?
Do we
consider human life to be valueable because it is the most intelligent and
capable of reason. If we do, then this must mean we attribute more value to the
more intelligent among us (by whatever criteria we choose to measure it). Where
does this leave children, or those mentally handicapped, or those disadvantaged
- beneath consideration?
No, it seems that intelligence alone is not enough
to grant something 'rights', or the measure to be considered valueable.
Do we then
consider human life to be valueable because of the magic of revealed religious
teachings. Again, we have to say no, as not all of us hold such religious views
and the cause of human rights is championed by secular (non-religious)
philosophy.
Do we then
consider human life to be valueable because it is sentient (consciously aware),
and thus has the capacity to be free, but only when it is not in a state of
suffering.
This
generalization seems to have more potency than the others, and leaves very few
people outside of its mantle (only those who threaten the freedom and well
being of others are themselves at risk).
It would be a fair generalization to suggest that
most human beings in a stable and peaceful environment, looking in from the
outside at a massacre, or a distant war, would be sickened by the images and
eye witness reports. Further, regarding the more directly observable violence
we find inside our own familiar boundaries, who would not be disgusted by such
atrocity?
Evidently, most of us!
For if I may be so provocative, whilst it is
reassuring that we do not tolerate mass suffering of our fellow humans, we seem
all too willing to turn a blind eye to the suffering of animals; we incorporate
their slaughter into the most pleasant and polite of our routines: 'Would
you care for another slice of animal Lionel?' is not something you are
likely to hear at a dinner table, instead 'meat' shall be used as the
appropriate euphemism, but as you can see, the violent acquisition of food is
engrained in our everyday lives.
If we do subscribe to the ethics of 'That which can
suffer, should not suffer needlessly' and 'Do as you will, so long as you harm
none', then this should be an ethical position consistently held. Why should an
animal be made exempt from our consideration? If anything, the amount of animal
suffering, if measured numerically, is now greater than ever before, to the
factor of millions of animals raised in ever-worsening conditions, for the
whole of their short and brutish lives.
We could separate ourselves from the world of
animals, or place ourselves at the peak of some vast food chain. This is
normally the knee-jerk reaction of the religious; that some divine entity has
given us dominion of the earth and created the beasts that we might devour
their succulent flesh.
On a more
philosophical note, Descartes is often criticised for reducing the animal to
little more than a flesh-machine, incapable of reason, or possessing any form
of 'soul'; primarily on account of its lack of language. This is another means
of dispossessing the animal of any ethical considerations.
Yet surely if we admit but one animal into our
sphere of consideration; if we call but one animal conscious (in a way at least
somewhat similar to our own human consciousness) then suddenly a large swathe
of creatures in the animal kingdom gain at least some measure of worth; for no
longer are we strictly dividing life into human and non-human.
The
elephant's brain has as many neurons in its cortex as does a human brain.
Whatever we have that makes our suffering 'real', must surely also be in the
elephant. And if in the elephant, why not the chicken, the cat, the dog, or
anything which we can actively recognise as having similar components to
ourselves? How can we dismiss the entire life of an animal as being a simple
case of reacting to stimulus, when there is at least some capacity for an
animal to learn, to recognise individuality, to recognise itself, and most
compellingly to suffer.
If we rose out of nature ourselves, then by the
basest logic, are we not simply the furthest reach of consciousness thus
created by nature, trailed by our ape cousins and all others? How is the human
body transcendent (beyond the mundane) if it is related to, and at one time had
ancestors no more complex than the great ape!
What we do
have is the advantage of intelligence and creativity, that allows us to create
technologies, ethical values, and so on. If these values hold that violence in
nature is something beneath us; the province of starving predators or a last
resort to survive, then why not dispense
with the behaviour altogether. Energy can more efficiently be grown and
absorbed from plant life, and all without treading on anyone's hooves.
It would be a foolish person indeed to place all
life on an equal footing, doubly so if we allocate our hearts love to smallpox
bacteria, common garden weeds, fleas and such like. Human beings are the
greatest of all life thus discovered, and perhaps the most powerful entity in
the universe itself. Yet considering the fact that we can now slowly adjust our
means to survive and thrive without causing unnecessary harm what arguments can
be presented against the animal ethics position?
By Selim 'Selim' Talat
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Animals' Issue 27
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Animals' Issue 27
