In
the first part of this article I argued against the sentiments of
anthropomorphism - that is, applying human characteristics to natural
elements. Now I would like to continue by arguing that we do not need
to make something human in order to be concerned with it, and that we
should not harm the 'sacred' phenomena that is life.
Animals
do not need to be changed into human shape to qualify as 'moral
agents'. If we accept the typically scientific world view that things
exist outside of our perception, that the world exists independent of
being observed by us, then the implications for all life on the
planet should be astounding: if
a dog barks in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does the dog
still bark?
We answer yes. It means that independent of your valuation of life,
that life exists and is very real; that life is a valid moral agent.
It is not anthropomorphic to suggest that all life shares some kind
of perception, and inner driving force; the internal process that
goes on inside of you, also exists in that other life. It exists in
all life as a universal.
We
seem to forget all too often that things exist independently of us.
We can only see the world from one perspective, and it is
understandable that we cannot see it from all angles and create a
total theory of how it works. However, to 'imagine' a universal code
of ethics we do not need anything other than our one
perspective. It is the work of our powerful minds, not the work of
some natural principle, that can lift human beings above nature, and
allow us to view the world from a loftier perspective.
The
rational mind - which our western tradition has separated from nature
for better or worse - can work out how
to change this world, but it cannot tell us why
we ought to in the first place. For the why,
we have feeling. We have the principle of pain and pleasure; to avoid
one and to seek the other. With this principle, we can infer that
others are capable of feeling some kind of physical pleasure or pain,
joy or anguish. Even if those feelings are different to ours in
degree,
they are not different in kind
- a
jellyfish may experience pain in a way different to you, but
nonetheless it is still some kind of pain. (Whether it is possible
for scientific research to contradict this is unknown to me at this
point. However, the appeal of a universal driving force within all
living entities seems more intuitive). Even if a creature is
incapable of emotional suffering (whatever that means), it's actual
body can still be hurt.
Weighing it up -
The question remains as to
how much we value pleasure and pain, and how much more we consider
human beings over other entities. I do believe we should consider
human beings as most valuable (perhaps due to nothing more than a
species bias). This 'humans first' attitude does not give us the
right to do as we please. Whilst human suffering should be averted
over animal suffering, human pleasure should not be placed above
animal suffering. In effect, I do not feel that one 'unit' of human
pleasure is worth causing one 'unit' of animal pain, and we can
therefore only accept pleasure provided it causes no, or minimal,
pain.
Which
immediately leads to the following question. What
is this grounded in?
You
might be asking how an entity being able to perceive gives it the
right to live. It doesn't. It just means that it's existence is as
real
as yours, even though it exists differently to you. However, just
because something does
not
have a magically-generated, "god given" right to live free
from pain, nor then do you have the right to inflict it, unless you
have a good reason to.
Both of these 'rights' are
based on mischief - the right to live is just random sentiment, based
on nothing more than ones own displeasure at suffering. But equally
the right to kill something is based on being able to kill it, and
enacting upon that urge; effectively, it is the right of the
intelligent and strong to overcome a weaker adversary. This is
nothing if not the basest and lowest means to determine who should
have what in life. It is an appeal to force, and humanity should be
long past such a poor weighing up of the value by this stage in our
evolution.
The safest bet in this
instance must be to assume that nothing has rights to protect it, yet
no one has rights to harm it, outside of necessity. Which means we
are agnostics, and can but leave it alone. Except to avert
catastrophe, or harm to humans, and to study it, I do not believe
nature should be interfered with, nor romanticised. It is a complex
system, and it may well be beyond our reach altogether.
Animals in our societies
-
To
my mind, once we come to the conclusion that personifying nature is a
distortion of reality, we lose the notion that nature is specifically
designed
for
us, and we become more cautious about tampering with nature, and we
change the way we perceive animals in nature, and we then lose the
'right' to harm animals in our own societies. This is because we are
no longer a part of nature, and it is in fact we who shape nature
with our minds, and then profess to learn from it! As such, any
appeals to nature are null and void. Whatever 'natural laws' may or
may not exist out there are irrelevant to our profoundly unnatural
species.
Worse than our treatment of
animals outside of our societies are those distorted by romantic
sentiments and comfortable lies - those creatures directly under our
control. By anthropomorphizing 'culturally relevant' animals as happy
dairy cows, as jolly sheep, as singing and dancing hens, we are
hiding the truth behind industries that are a blight on our ethical
record. Iron shackles, killings gone wrong, a world without sunlight,
warehouses full of blood and shit and suffering; this is the price
people are willing to pay for their pleasures.
To see the scale of this
reality requires a clear and rational mind, to understand the full
ethical implications of our cultural practices and our personal
choices. It then requires an emotional commitment to wish no-harm
upon creatures quite radically different from us, but nonetheless
sharing one of the universal principles of all life; to avoid
suffering.
We must first dispel the
myths, and confine the romance of anthropomorphism to where it
belongs. Such romantic perceptions are the most innocent form of
tyranny, but they allow mass-violence to triumph, and drain reality
of its urgency, trivializing the massive, unnecessary suffering we
cause on a daily basis.
Selim 'Selim' Talat
