Liberating Animals

-- By MarkusVonDerMarwitz - 31 Mar 2016

Introduction

One of the most important moral questions effecting us today is the way human beings treat animals.

How does one measure importance? If this is on the "one of the most important" lists how did it get there? The crucial point is that one either does or does not accept the claim of interspecies equality: that the moral questions raised by how we treat animals are not less important than the ones about how we treat humans. If that proposition is not accepted, this question cannot be on the "most important" list, because there are a few thousand questions automatically ahead of it.

Does "how we treat animals" come before or after "how we treat the planet" as a source of moral questions? We are going to be responsible for the extinction of more species, probably more entire orders, perhaps more phyla, than any organism in the history of life. We are by ourselves increasingly likely to stimulate a mass extinction almost as drastic as that caused by the largest asteroid impacts in Earth's history. On that scale of biological massacre, what measurable difference does factory farming make?

I first began to rethink my position about animals after reading Peter Singer’s work “Animal Liberation.” Following this, I became aware of the horrific nature of the conditions animals in factory farms. I began to entirely rethink my eating habits and the way I viewed food, and I questioned the premise of why exploitation of animals was acceptable, simply because they are part of a different species.

Life of our kind could not exist without predation and exploitation among species. The development of interspecies predation is the historical precondition for all existing life on Earth, from viruses up. Singer's position requires human beings, by virtue of consciousness and a resulting capacity for bullshit, to adopt a moral system incompatible with the existence of the entities he urges us to treat just like ourselves, as a result of treating ourselves as though we were fundamentally unlike all of them. How, in coming to agree with him, did you resolve yourself with respect to this objection?

While there is a general sense that animals experience pain and are entitled to some rights,

Are you sure? There is a general sense, meaning a specific sense, in most cultures, that differs in every respect from culture to culture, that certain forms of mistreatment of certain animals are wrong. Almost nowhere and to almost no one does that take the form of concluding that "animals have rights," in the sense that you and I mean "animals," or (most certainly) "rights." What Hindus mean by prohibiting eating beef, for example, has nothing to do with believing chickens have rights, or even cows, which have privileges.

there is still a prevailing idea that exploitation of a different species is generally viewed as morally acceptable, or at least more morally justified than exploitation of different groups of human beings.

Yes.

This makes animals incredibly vulnerable.

No, it makes them not human.

If one views animals as beings warranting protection because they feel pain, experience fear, and are able to form relationships, it is important to act in order to protect them, and recognize that their well-being should be seen as a legitimate concern, which should concern us.

Concerns should concern us. But this conclusion doesn't tell us how much to be concerned with each concern. Only a conclusion that this concern is equivalent in order to concerns about humans, allows us to be concerned in the way you mean it.

Context

While considering this, it is important to recognize that people in different positions will have different opportunities regarding the food they are able to purchase and eat. Thus, justifications for eating animals will of course vary according to the necessities or conditions people find themselves in. The main point I am making is that the concern for the suffering and interests of animals is a legitimate one, and one that has been too easily ignored. The legitimate interests of animals need to be given greater weight when balanced with legitimate concerns of human beings. We must reject notions that animals are simply objects that can be exploited at will by human beings and recognize that their concerns warrant serious consideration.

Animals Raised for Food & Medical Experimentation

It is easy to distance oneself from the immense cruelty that we allow in our treatment of animals, particularly animals raised for food production and those used in scientific experimentation. My view is that we are able to tolerate the former because of the ease at which it is possible to remove oneself from the food production process. A piece of meat from an animal raised in cruel factory farm conditions looks virtually identical to a piece of meat from an animal raised in more humane conditions. The only clear indicator is in the price, and it becomes a mental exercise to equate this price differential with more suffering by the animal. There would likely be a radical change in our food consumption habits if every time we wished to purchase meat we would have to go to the farm or factory where the animal was raised and killed. This alienation from the production process allows us to continue this practice of extreme cruelty.

Why is "cruelty" acceptable in cats but not in humans? Does it make sense to attempt to punish or deter cruelty in cats? Or should we recognize the cruelty of cats as the element that used to cause human beings to form relationships with them, which the cats only formed back because human beings were too big to torture to death?

Medical experimentation is normally justified by a need to develop medication that saves or improves the lives of human beings. Inherent in this justification is the notion that a human being’s life is more valuable than an animal’s simply because it is a human being. Yet it is important challenge this assumption and ask why this is necessarily the case. I am not claiming that no extermination on animals is ever justified; yet, it does not appear obvious to me why an animal’s concerns should not be given greater weight than they currently do. When scientific experimentation is necessary to prevent greater human suffering, there is a strong argument to be made that this experimentation is justified. But to me it is not self-evident why a sentient animal—with the ability to feel pain, form relationships—should be viewed as readily exploitable by the mere fact that it is not part our species, and the laws should change to place a greater emphasis on the legitimate interests of animals. Our current laws are still far below what is necessary to prevent the continued exploitation of animals.

Conclusion

Human beings are different than animals in a number of ways, particularly adult humans that have far greater mental capacities than animals. Yet, as philosopher Peter Singer argues, it is not a justification to regard animals as having no, or virtually no interests, simply because they are less intelligent. Fully grown Chimpanzees possess greater mental capacities newborn babies generally do, which at the very least should warrant a greater consideration of their concerns.

I have no doubt that future generations will view the current practices regarding the treatment of animals with moral incredulity. Just as the overwhelming viewpoint today is that we find it incomprehensible how the exploitation of one race by another in the form of slavery was ever accepted as “normal”, future generations will look back at disbelief at the level of cruelty that we allow in our treatment of animals; particularly at the level of indifference that we have displayed to the realities of their treatment. It is important to reconsider the underlying assumption that human beings are inherently more valuable merely because they belong to our species. Moreover, taking into consideration the rights of animals has the added benefit of promoting policies that protect the environment, along with reducing an immense amount of suffering.

If it is intellectually unsound to ignore altogether the ideas we call Marx and the ideas we call Freud, why is it intellectually sound to build our understanding of morals around denial of the idea we call Darwin?

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