Animal Aid

The author of our opening article in the Great Debate, Dave Eaton, is 31 years of age and has recently finished a Masters degree in environmental philosophy at Lancaster University. Prior to this he spent five years studying for a part-time degree in Humanities, while working. He has been vegan for approximately thirteen years and currently lives in Nottingham.

Introduction

Although most people who become vegetarian or choose to support the various causes commonly associated with "animal rights" do so because of a felt sense of injustice and a natural empathy for the suffering of exploited animals, there is a growing philosophical effort to formulate a clear understanding of why the current relationship of western society with non-human animals is so intuitively wrong.

Various approaches have been taken to this problem and what follows is a basic introduction to what are arguably the three most significant of these. Presenting these ideas in this format will not do full justice to their complexity, or indeed to the excellent work that has been done by many other writers. The purpose of what follows is to stimulate thinking and debate amongst Animal Aid supporters about how to understand and convey most effectively our awareness that the kinds of animal abuse systematically practiced by our society are wrong.

The following are the three approaches that will be outlined:

1. Tom Regan's claim that animals should be understood to have formal moral rights.
2. Peter Singer's emphasis on utilitarianism and the expanding moral circle.
3. The work of several ecofeminist writers, most notably Carol J. Adams, in investigating the social and cultural mechanisms that allow systematic oppression to exist.

Tom Regan, moral rights for animals

The term "animal rights" is commonly used in a loose sense as a label for the movement that opposes such forms of animal abuse as hunting, vivisection and the meat industry. This usage is accepted and understood without the need for a well defined theory of what specific rights animals should possess. However, Tom Regan, a leading American philosopher, has advanced a theory claiming that animals should be recognised as having rights analogous to human rights, and that these rights should be considered to be inviolable except in certain very specific instances.

In his book The Case for Animal Rights (1)speciesist - a form of prejudice analogous to racism or sexism. Regan considers several ethical approaches to correcting this wrong, concluding that the extension of rights to animals is the only option that adequately addresses the many moral dilemmas that may be thrown up.

Regan does however carefully distinguish moral rights from legal rights. He claims that moral rights are universal, whereas legal rights vary from country to country and from time to time. His argument is that animals possess moral rights and therefore that vegetarianism is morally obligatory and hunting, trapping and vivisection are wrong. The enactment of laws giving legal rights is not specifically called for by Regan, although this is a logical inference of his approach. A recent book, Rattling the Cage: Towards Legal Rights for Animals, (2)

Peter Singer, utilitarianism and the expanding moral circle

Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation (3)

In Animal Liberation Singer makes a powerful case against the modern meat industry and against vivisection. In other publications he has set out more fully the detail of the ethical principles underlying his condemnation of these practices. Singer advocates utilitarianism as a guide to ethically good behaviour. Utilitarianism favours actions that bring about the greatest overall sum of happiness in the world, and the least overall sum of pain. Utilitarianism is an accepted principle on which many decisions are supposedly made by those who govern our society. However, it is a principle which is usually only applied to balancing the happiness and pain of human beings. Singer demonstrates that there are no reasonable grounds for not extending the same moral principle to the welfare of other animals.

Utilitarianism provides an approach to morality with significant differences from the rights approach. For example, whereas any use of animals for harmful experiments would constitute an unacceptable infringement of their rights, the utilitarian emphasis on the overall sum of happiness/pain means that Singer endorses in theory the idea that conducting certain medical experiments on animals may be justifiable if (and only if) it would definitely lead to the relief of a greater amount of pain than would be inflicted. It is important to point out, though, that Singer insists on the equal consideration of the interests of animals and humans and the fact that these interests may be different due to their differing natures is the only valid basis on which different treatment may be appropriate. This means that forcibly conducting experiments on animals is only preferable to conducting them on humans insofar as the greater comprehension of their predicament is likely to significantly increase the subjective level of suffering experienced by humans. It also means that conducting experiments on animals in cases where a wider benefit is not immediately apparent is unsupportable, and therefore that the great majority of experiments currently carried out on animals are morally intolerable, motivated as they are by economic rather than humanitarian factors.

The application of utilitarian thinking to the western meat industry unequivocally condemns that industry. The consumption of meat in the western world is shown to be a luxury, producing no overall benefit other than the fairly insignificant amount of pleasure produced by the fact that some people enjoy its taste. When that pleasure is contrasted against the massive amounts of suffering inflicted on meat-animals (4)

Singer's work not only elaborates the implications of extending utilitarian thought to animals however - it also contains a fascinating analysis of ideas about how morality may have originated in evolution and why these ideas support the extension of moral concern beyond the boundary of the human species. The discipline of sociobiology (5)

Singer, in his book The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, (6)

A fascinating book that lends a great deal of support to Singer's expanding circle idea is the primatologist Franz de Waal's Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. (7)(8)

Ecofeminism and the commonality between different types of oppression

An immensely fruitful source of important ideas for understanding and improving the way that our society treats animals is provided by the work of several ecofeminist philosophers. Ecofeminism is a fairly new field of ideas that uses the insights of feminism to shed light on the domination of animals, the natural world, and underprivileged societies by western culture.

Central to ecofeminist theory is the influence of dualisms on western thought. Val Plumwood, in her book Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, (9)

An important strand to ecofeminist thinking is the rejection of purely rational moral codes. One of the central feminist books is Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, (10)

One of the leading ecofeminist thinkers on this topic is Marti Kheel (11)

Perhaps the most significant single contribution to ecofeminst thinking about animal abuse has been made by Carol J. Adams. Adams has made a detailed analysis of the social and cultural politics surrounding the issue of meat eating. She points out that there is little middle ground in this debate - one either eats meat or one doesn't. Unfortunately this places vegetarians at a distinct disadvantage as they are in a minority. Adams examines many of the ways in which legitimacy is denied to arguments for vegetarianism by the dominant perspective. She points out that people who eat meat often view the existence of vegetarians as a personal challenge and employ a variety of means to attempt to make vegetarianism appear ridiculous. One of her most fascinating observations is that the power to set the boundaries of a discussion is usually set by those with the least knowledge about the matter, and therefore that although vegetarians in general may know more about the actual facts surrounding the production of meat, the resistance of meat-eaters to this knowledge automatically places vegetarians at a disadvantage. Meat-eating is presumed to be a normal activity within western culture, and vegetarians, when their arguments begin to appear threatening to this activity, can be absorbed within the dominant culture by being represented either as deviant or as representative of a minority interest. Accusations that caring about animal suffering is "emotional" or even "feminine" help to reduce the perceived seriousness of the issues and to mute the impact of arguments.

Adams points out that central to the ability of the dominant culture to absorb vegetarianism in this way is the claim that meat-eating is natural. This claim ignores the enormous differences between natural forms of predation and the way in which animals are kept in western farming systems, especially factory farming (which Adams terms "the animal-industrial complex") (12)The Sexual Politics of Meat:

"To destabilize patriarchal consumption, eat rice have faith in women. By doing so... we restore wholeness to our fragmented relationships with each other and the other animals. The question before us is, which images of the universe, of power, of animals, of ourselves, will we represent in our food? Of that which has preceded us, what shall remain." (13)

Closing thoughts

The various approaches outlined here are not 100% compatible with each other, and there has been some limited mutual criticism between the authors of the different approaches. My own opinion is that the ecofeminist approach has the most relevance to the complex business of living a morally good life in modern society. While formal theories such as Regan's "rights" approach or Singer's utilitarianism are useful in showing how the interests of animals can be fitted into existing moral concepts, I can't help feeling that the systematised approach that they take to moral dilemmas will inevitably always be lacking because it can never take account of all possible factors in the real world.

In addition, these theories, although undoubtedly rooted in a passionate emotional response to the plight of exploited animals, may risk contributing to a much less obvious problem. The elevation of logical or legalistic theories has been linked by some writers to the distancing of modern humans from an adequate awareness of the nature that exists within them. We absorb the emphasis that our culture places on objectivity and rationality, and risk alienating ourselves from other kinds of awareness about who we are and what kinds of relationships to the world and the other beings within it are genuinely healthy. (14)

I strongly believe that the animal liberation movement represents a healthy rejection of the role that western culture attempts to give us - a role that involves buying whatever commodities are offered for sale without questioning the processes that bring these commodities into being. By refusing to accept the fragmentation of life in this way we restore a bond that has been broken, both outside and within us, and make ourselves more whole, and our culture less mechanistic. We don't need a systematic laying out of what our obligations are in order to do this, we need to understand in depth the true nature of the relationships that make us, and we need to care enough to make those relationships better.

My opinion is only one opinion, however, and understanding is nearly always deepened by constructive debate. For this reason, Animal Aid would like to invite anybody who cares about the suffering of exploited animals to contribute their own thoughts about the issues that it raises. Contributions are invited on the following subjects:

• Are systematised moral theories actually more useful than I have suggested?
• Does the suggestion that moral concern originates in evolutionary adaptation imply a dangerous moral relativism that undermines attempts to expand the circle of inclusion?
• If it is accepted that vegetarianism is morally right for privileged westerners, is eating flesh acceptable for cultures living closer to nature? And if so, is it acceptable for westerners who choose to live closer to the land and perhaps supplement their diet by catching wild rabbits or other free-living creatures?

References

1. Tom Regan, The Case For Animal Rights (1983), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
2. Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage: Towards Legal Rights for Animals (2000), London: Profile Books
3. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (1990), London: Jonathon Cape (Originally published 1975)
4. Please see the relevant other sections of Animal Aid's website if you are not familiar with the details of this suffering.
5. The major founding work in this field is Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press. Another major contribution is Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (1976), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle: Ethhcs and Sociobiology (1981), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. Franz de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (1996), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
8. Franz de Waal, Good Natured, p.12
9. Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1990), London: Routledge
10. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (1982), Cambridge: Harvard University Press
11. See, particularly, Marti Kheel, "The Liberation of Nature: A Circular Affair" in Environmental Ethics Vol.7, Summer 1985, p.135-149 or Marti Kheel, "From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge" in Greta Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (1993), Philadelphia: Temple University Press
12. Carol J. Adams, Neither Man Nor Beast (1995), New York: Continuum Publishing Company, p.113
13. Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990), Cambridge: Polity Press, p.190
14. See, for example, David W. Kidner, Nature and Psyche: Radical Environmentalism and the Politics of Subjectivity (2001), Albany: State University of New York Press

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