                      Animal Rights Philosophy and Practice:
                                        or,
               Why no one can win an argument against any competent
                              animal rights activist



By David Sztybel, University of Toronto Students for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (June, 1990 edition)

Edited and uploaded by Ayse Tuzlak, U of T SETA.


"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -- Voltaire


Objection:
      Animals are just mindless, biological machines, as Ren Descartes
      suggested.  They are like robots or androids made of flesh and
      bone.  As such, they can feel neither pain nor joy.

Rejoinder:
      Animals possess all of the neurological capacities that we do
      that are necessary for the feeling of pain, and what is more, the
      higher mammals especially have brains that are highly analogous
      to humans', which is most remarkably true in the case of our
      closest evolutionary cousins: the apes, as well as the cetaceans
      (whales and dolphins).  As John Robbins reports:

            A striking similarity between the human and non-human
            mammalian brain is seen in the electrical activity patterns
            of electroencephalograph (EEG) readings.  A dog, for
            example, has the same states of activity as man, its EEG
            patterns being almost identical in wakefulness, quiet
            sleep, dreaming, and daydreaming.  As for the chemistry of
            the central nervous and endocrine systems, we know that
            there is no difference in kind between human and other
            animals.  The biochemistry of physiological and emotional
            states (of stress and anxiety, for example) differ little
            between mice and men.

      Animals also display much of the behaviour that we ourselves show
      when we feel pain: screams of protest and anger, writhing and
      twisting, wincing, trembling, attempts to avoid the source of
      pain, etc.  Richard Sergeant, in The Spectrum of Pain, wrote of
      higher mammalian vertebrates:  "[T]heir nervous systems are
      almost identical to ours and their reactions to pain remarkably
      similar".  Even fish have highly developed neurological systems. 
      According to noted zoologist, Lord Medway, in the British Enquiry
      into Shooting and Angling, fish are very much animals with well-
      developed brains and nervous systems, and they are as likely to
      feel pain as any other vertebrate (2).

      Animals also show signs of joy and fulfilment, depression and
      deprivation, stress, etc.  It might be counter-objected that we
      do not know whether or not animals feel pain because we never
      experience their pain.  But that would be a weak rationalization,
      for we do not know any other person's pain from direct experi-
      ence, either, but rather infer those others' pain in much the
      same way we infer that of non-human animals:  through behavioural
      similarities and physiological similarities to ourselves.  Thus,
      it would be irresponsible to assume on this or any other basis
      that animals cannot suffer.

O:    Animals are "programmed by instinct", and so are mindless.

R:    There are good reasons to believe that the thesis that animals
      are "programmed by instinct" (notice the computer science term,
      which is a mere metaphor) is false.  "Programmed" by whom?  Since
      apes have been taught American Sign Language (e.g., Washoe the
      chimpanzee, Koko the gorilla, and others), it seems that animals
      are capable of some degree of abstract thought.  Moreover, since
      even animals learn things from their environment (e.g., a cat can
      learn to trust a person and not flee from that person immediate-
      ly), they cannot totally be "programmed" by instinct.  They
      receive input through learning.  After all, no genetic program-
      ming could exist which says every time "flee all humans", or
      "flee humans at random" (as they flee or not in a pattern, based
      on their learning to trust humans).  If instincts are the results
      of learning accumulated from ancestors, do we imagine that the
      ancestors were any more intelligent than their present-day
      descendants?  

      Not everything humans do is by instinct, as we respond thought-
      fully to new situations in the environment, and think things
      through.  Imagine if we attributed many of the things that humans
      do to instinct--interpreting the weather, building homes,
      playing, searching for specific objects--many animals do all of
      these things and much more.  Absolute instinct theory seems
      little more than a conspiracy to make animals appear as robots,
      mere machines for our use, thus upholding human interests in
      exploiting them.  The best explanation seems to be that at least
      many of the higher animals operate by using their own minds,
      although they also appear to possess some rudimentary instincts
      for eating, mating, breast-feeding, etc.  However, even if this
      apparently false, reductionistic "instinctual programming" theory
      is true, it remains that these animals can feel pain and suffer
      all sorts of stresses, and this fact must be taken into account
      in our moral philosophy.

O:    Beasts are horribly savage and brutal.  Why should I care for
      them any more than for terrorists?

R:    It seems that human beings project their own potentially violent
      natures onto animals, and have done so since ancient times.  For
      example, consider the myth of the savage and violent gorilla,
      invading an English hunting expedition's encampment, trashing the
      site, killing and maiming, and making off with a fair maiden. 
      Actually, studies as recent as the 1960's have shown that
      gorillas are largely gentle, although powerful beasts, who are
      shy and slow to trust humans, and seldom mate with an extremely
      low sperm count.  Moreover, they are complete vegetarians, and
      eat no meat whatsoever, unlike the chimpanzee, which occasionally
      indulges in hunting for meat.  Now consider the wolf, the bane of
      the old fairy tales, and the ultimate, time-worn symbol of
      wickedness, evil, cunning, deceit, savagery, sadism, etc.  Farley
      Mowat wrote an excellent book, Never Cry Wolf, which helped
      explode the myth.  This passage from Midgely's The Concept of
      Beastliness is revealing in this context:

            We have thought of a wolf always as he appears to the
            shepherd at the moment of seizing the lamb from the fold. 
            But this is like judging the shepherd by the impression he
            makes on the lamb, at the moment when he finally decides to
            turn it into mutton.  Lately, ethologists have taken the
            trouble to watch wolves systematically, between meal-times,
            and have found them to be, by human standards, paragons of
            regularity and virtue.  They pair for life, they are faith-
            ful and affectionate spouses and parents, they show great
            loyalty to their pack, great courage and persistence in the
            face of difficulties, they carefully respect each other's
            territories, keep their dens clean, and extremely seldom
            kill anything that they do not need for dinner.  If they
            fight with another wolf, the fight ends with his
            submission; there is normally a complete inhibition on
            killing the suppliant and on attacking females and cubs. 
            They have also, like all social animals, a fairly elaborate
            etiquette, including subtle varied ceremonies of greeting
            and reassurance, by which friendship is strengthened, co-
            operation achieved and the wheels of social life generally
            oiled.  (3)

      Dolphins save drowning humans.  Even a pig once spontaneously
      saved a drowning child. (4)  Carnivores generally take their fill
      and do not kill and torture wantonly.  Humans seem to have a
      unique capacity for such atrocities.  Certainly animals would not
      wage war against their own kind.  What is more, gibbons, beavers,
      geese, robins, eagles, wolves, foxes, penguins, lynxes, and
      mountain lions (among many other species) mate for life.

O:    Animals are not rational, intelligent, self-aware language users. 
      So why should they count morally?

R:    The following is a principle of respect that most of us in a
      democratic society would agree with:  we do not give more
      rational, intelligent, and articulate humans the right to exploit
      or be cruel to other humans who are less so.  And we should
      extend this same principle of respect to non-human animals, who
      may well be less intelligent, rational, etc.  Even if animals
      lack a concept of self, not abstractly distinguishing themselves
      from their general surroundings (although they show enough
      awareness to lick themselves, feed themselves, etc.), they can
      still suffer, or be pleasantly fulfilled.  As Jeremy Bentham so
      famously wrote:  "The question is not, can they reason?  Nor, can
      they talk?  But, *can they suffer*?" (5)  Rationality, intelli-
      gence, etc. are not morally relevant criteria which could justify
      us in discriminating against non-human animals.

O:    But they aren't even human!

R:    Just the fact that an animal is not human is not a good reason
      for discriminating against it.  For we are all animals of
      different species, as any competent and unbiased biologist will
      tell you.  To discriminate against a sentient being just because
      it is not a member of one's own species is speciesism, which is
      irrational and unjust in the same way that racism and sexism are
      without rational basis.  Our "humanism" is all too often a
      whitewash of our human interests in exploiting other animals. 
      However, an interest is an interest, be it human or otherwise,
      and cruelty is cruelty, no matter what the species of the being
      against whom the cruelty is done.

O:    Why do you sometimes refer to animals using "who" and "whom",
      instead of "what", "it", or "which"?

R:    I choose to refer to animals as "who" and "whom", for "what" and
      "which" are psychological tricks that we employ so we can become
      desensitized, and think of animals as simply objects.  But they
      are not just objects, at least some evidently have minds, and we
      know that mammals, birds, and even reptiles have personalities
      (this is a reality we observe, not just something we project onto
      animals in an anthropomorphic way).  Now what could have a
      personality unless it is it personal in nature, that is, some
      sort of (non-human) person?

O:    A lot of animals are so disgusting!  It's true that many of them
      are cute, like dogs and cats, but why should I care about the
      rest?

R:    In a democratic society, we know we ought not to discriminate
      against people who are less "cute", selfishly exploiting and
      abusing them.  We must rid ourselves of any similar prejudice
      towards non-human animals.  Animals should not be regarded as
      mere instruments for our pleasure in regarding them as "cute".

O:    Non-humans are not as "advanced" as humans, and so are not
      deserving of respect.

R:    In general, we should not judge the lives of non-human animals by
      human standards, which are clearly irrelevant to evaluating non-
      human ways of life.  When evaluating the general quality of an
      animal life, we should ask how good it is to just such an animal,
      just as when evaluating the general quality of a human life, we
      ask how good that life is for a human.  It is just as absurd to
      evaluate humans in terms of "bearness".  For all we know, non-
      human animals can enjoy as richly satisfying and fulfilling a
      life in their own ways, as we do in our way.  We only judge a
      goodness of life for animals by irrelevant human standards to
      rationalize our selfish use and subordination of them.

O:    But animals are not moral agents.

R:    Although some animals may lack a concept of morality as such, the
      altruistic behaviour of creatures like dolphins which have saved
      human lives belies the claim that no non-human animal is a moral
      agent (what genetic programming or evolutionary advantage could
      be in this sea rescue?  Furthermore, even for a dolphin, rescuing
      a drowning man in landlost, stormy seas is quite difficult, and
      would not constitute mere "play").  But in any case, one does not
      have to be a moral agent to be a moral patient, that is, one who
      is capable of being benefitted or harmed by a moral agent.  We do
      not value creatures just because they can be used to promote the
      values of morality, for that would be to regard persons as mere
      instruments.  The severely mentally retarded, the senile, the
      comatose, the badly brain-damaged, and even young children are
      not moral agents in any full sense, but we do not exploit and
      abuse these creatures by experimenting on them, etc.  To say
      "Animals are not moral agents towards me so I don't have to be a
      moral agent towards them" is the immature and essentially selfish
      "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" mentality at work.

O:    Non-human animals are not participants in democratic society. 
      Therefore, they are not entitled to benefit from its democratic,
      unbiased principles.

R:    Do we callously ignore alien refugees who are not part of our
      society?  It's one thing if this refugee is potentially a
      productive member of our society, but should we refuse to aid a
      person starving in Ethiopia who never wishes to leave his/her
      home and is too poor anyway, and so will never be a participant
      in our society?  If you then speak of a "human community", as
      though our common genetic structure unites us socially and
      politically (which it does not, as wars violently attest), then
      you are finally saying we should ignore other animals just
      because they are not human, not of a certain species of animal--
      this is the same arbitrary speciesism which we have already
      dismissed as unjustifiable.

O:    But Bernard Williams argues against that statement when he says:

            The word "speciesism" has been used for an attitude some
            regard as our ultimate prejudice, that is in favour of
            humanity.  It is more revealingly called "humanism", and it
            is not a prejudice.  To see the world from a human point of
            view is not an absurd thing for humans to do. (6)

R:    Seeing the world from a human point of view is not what is being
      denied, so Williams' would-be defence is simply irrelevant. 
      Rather, it is seeing the world arbitrarily in favour of human
      interests that is being denied.  There are many morally
      enlightened people who (naturally, because they are human!) see
      the world from a human point of view, yet they do not play moral
      favourites because of species membership.

O:    Humans should have first priority, and as long as this is true,
      we should not waste our time with animals' concerns.  Humans have
      trouble enough.

R:    I have already argued that we have simultaneous duties to all
      sentient beings whom we affect--mindlessly subordinating some
      such beings just because they are not human is not the answer. 
      Still, a person can easily eat vegetarian foods, wear synthetic
      clothes, and use medicines and cosmetics developed without cruel-
      ty to animals, yet still help people primarily.  In any case, if
      humans were to take priority, we would still be obliged to
      mitigate our exploitation of animals in both laboratory testing,
      and factory farming.  Lab testing on animals has no predictive
      value for the effects of products on humans.  Cancer researchers
      admit that a substance giving cancer or not to an animal says
      nothing about whether a human will contract the disease from it. 
      Factory farming (the intensive methods now used in raising of
      animals for food) leads to people eating animals pumped full of
      drugs and antibiotics (to which we become immune; hence the now-
      reduced effectiveness of penicillin and tetracycline).  Provimi
      veal is made sick and anaemic so that its flesh may be pale. 
      Modern fowl, raised in closely packed, disease-ridden conditions,
      frequently carry salmonella bacteria, and the excess protein and
      fat found in animal flesh leads to much higher risks of heart
      disease, cancer, kidney failure, osteoporosis, etc.

O:    We should only be good and not bad to animals because our cruelty
      to them would overflow into our relationships with humans.

R:    This is simply human egoism, using animals as mere instruments
      for cultivating our own kindliness towards humans.  Why not
      consider animals for their own sakes, not as mere means, just as
      we do for human animals?

O:    Farm and laboratory animals are not harmed, but benefitted.  Just
      think, these animals would not exist but for the farms and labs.

R:    Some thinkers, like Henry Salt (7), have argued that it is absurd
      to speak of benefitting a "thing" which does not exist by giving
      it the gift of life simply because a "thing" by definition is an
      existing entity.  But even admitting the possibility that there
      are discarnate spirits waiting to be (re)born, the chief issue is
      not existence by itself.  Otherwise it would be good for a piece
      of ash to exist simply because it is, and by burning a leaf we
      did the ash a favour by bringing that ash into existence (al-
      though perhaps we did the leaf a disfavour in this hypothesis). 
      We are concerned not with mere existence, but with the *quality*
      of life or existence for sentient beings, and it does not look as
      though farm and lab animals are allowed to spend their time on
      this mortal plane in a worthwhile way, to say the least.

O:    We own animals in farms and labs, they are our own, private
      property, so we can do with them whatever we wish.

R:    You cannot do whatever you want with your private property, like
      assaulting people with your umbrella.  Moreover, it can be argued
      that sentient beings should not be anyone's property.  For
      example, black slaves, sentient beings of our species, were once
      owned by Americans as private property little more than a century
      ago, and discrimination against fellow sentient beings on the
      basis of skin colour is just as unacceptable as discrimination on
      the basis of species.  Non-human animals have their own lives as
      much as we.  They are not artifacts we have created, but we have
      simply manipulated them, usually for selfish reasons.  "Owner-
      ship" is merely a social construct that enables us to control the
      destinies of non-humans as we will--and no social construct
      should be above moral (re)evaluation.

O:    Animals are in our power.  That is why we can do whatever we want
      with them.

R:    It is true that power enables us to manipulate animals, but it
      does not justify us in this manipulation.  We need only observe
      that the Nazis had power over millions of Jews, and treated them
      in many ways that we treat animals:  Jews' skins were used for
      lampshades, they were imprisoned in vile, overcrowded, and
      disease-ridden conditions, they fell victim to cruel "medical"
      experiments without anaesthesia, and they were forced to perform
      slave labour.  The question here is not what we can do, but what
      we should do.

O:    A farmer has to treat his or her animals well, or else they do
      not produce good food.

R:    Battery hens are kept in horribly crowded, infested, stinking
      conditions (and so it is with most mammalian livestock in
      general), and these birds suffer enormous death rates, commonly
      10-20%.  But the massive crowding still produces a volume of
      "produce" that makes it more profitable to raise them this way
      rather than humanely, with a correspondingly lower mortality
      rate.  Many modern farmers only treat their animals well when it
      results in profit, and the cruel methods of intensive farmers
      show that such "humaneness" is far from always the case.

O:    So you want animal liberation?  You want to release all the
      livestock into the wild, where they'll starve, die of exposure,
      and cows will die for want of being milked?

R:    Cows are "milked" by their calves which suckle from them.  Our
      "milking" is merely depriving the calf of its milk so that we can
      drink it (no other animal drinks milk past infancy).  As for
      letting farm animals loose, that hardly coheres with an ethic of
      caring for animals.  We should take responsibility for these
      creatures which we have bred, domesticated, and rendered helpless
      in a wild environment.

O:    Aha!  Hypocrite!  Your shoes are leather.

R:    Actually, my shoes are entirely synthetic, as I'm a vegan (total
      abstainer from the use of animal products).  But even if they
      were leather, that would not affect the rightness or wrongness of
      the animal rights position (although it would legitimately bring
      into question how consistent I am, personally, with the animal
      rights philosophy).  Perfect goodness, of course, is a great
      thing (although perhaps impossible to attain, too)--who could ask
      for more?  Still, some good is better than less good, or no good
      at all; and more bad is worse than less bad.  Chances are that
      the leather-toting animal activist has done more good and less
      bad for non-human animals (and probably human ones too), than the
      caviller who pettily points out his or her footwear.  Moreover it
      is important to ask whether the animal rightist in question
      bought the leather before becoming enlightened about animal
      rights; perhaps he/she simply does not want to waste material
      from an animal that has already been killed.  Although, it should
      be added that some animal rightists disdain even this leather,
      finding it aesthetically revolting, symbolic of animal
      exploitation, and free public promotion for leather industries.

O:    You have a pet?  You hypocrite!

R:    Certain non-human animals who cannot survive in the wild anyway,
      may very well live as friends or wards of humans.  Besides, a
      person is surely doing a noble deed who volunteers to care for an
      animal who might otherwise die a needless death (10 million
      unwanted pet animals a year are killed in the U.S. alone), or
      worse, be forced to undergo cruel laboratory research (in many
      jurisdictions, animal shelters are legally required to surrender
      their animals for laboratory research).

O:    But you are arbitrary.  What about the plants you eat?  Why don't
      you give them equal consideration as well?  A plant is just as
      much alive as you are.

R:    Animal rights philosophy is not usually (nor defensibly) based on
      vitalism, which prizes life above all.  Vitalism would have to
      practice reverence for life with respect to the AIDS virus as
      well, which is alive but may have no sentience at all.  Sentience
      in living things (since only living things, not even computers,
      are capable of sentience--perceiving and feeling--a computer can
      only imitate these functions through its programming), rather
      than life itself, is our criterion of moral consideration.  Now
      it is not clear that plants have any sentience at all, as they do
      not seem to have any brain or nervous system.  What is more, some
      popular experiments publicly released in the book and film called
      "The Secret Life of Plants" are in poor repute.  None of the most
      striking experiments cited were carried out at serious research
      institutions, and more recent attempts by researchers in major
      universities to repeat the experiments have failed to obtain any
      positive results.  The response of the original researchers has
      been that these other experimenters were not psychically "in
      tune" with the plants, so the vegetables would not perform, which
      is a dubious defence indeed (8).  What is more, if the objector
      is truly a plants rights activist, then he or she should become a
      vegetarian.  Vegetarians consume at least ten times less plant
      matter than meat eaters, who indirectly consume more plants (9)
      because the meat they eat was once part of an animal who was fed
      a lot of grain, etc.  Also, meat eating causes the clearing of
      forests to create pasture land for grazing cattle (notably, much
      rain forest is being cleared away so that fast food places can
      raise cattle for their ground beef).  What have you done for
      plants lately?

O:    You must draw an unacceptably arbitrary line between all the
      different kinds of animals.  Do you give a monkey and an oyster
      the same rights?

R:    Surely it is perfectly consistent to afford some kind of moral
      consideration to all sentient beings and their interests. 
      Rather, it is the greatest of arbitrariness to only consider
      human sentient beings and their human interests, excluding all
      direct concern for other sentient beings.  We need not accord the
      same moral status to beings, but degrees of status corresponding
      to degrees of sentience.  This does not entail that we should
      merrily go on exploiting those beings of less sentience than
      ourselves, though.  Even the least sentient of creatures, it
      seems, resist being killed and would want nothing more than to
      live their own life in peace (the case for mollusks is doubtful,
      but fish are quite capable of suffering and quite possibly
      enjoyment; fish also strive to live, as any fisherman can attest
      who is amused in defeating the fish's powerful will to live while
      "battling" his or her hooked prey).  As long as sentient beings
      are at stake, we always ought to give such beings the benefit of
      the doubt whenever possible as to whether they are in fact sent-
      ient.  We should not take chances with what could be surprisingly
      sentient beings who are yet very different from ourselves.  This
      hierarchy of sentience would have no practical significance for
      our everyday lives; as long as a being is sentient, we should
      give it a minimal regard by "living and letting live".  It is
      only in a dilemma situation where one is forced to choose between
      one livelihood and another that these degrees of sentience come
      into play.  Going by degrees of sentience is far from arbitrary:
      it is based on whatever evidence we have, and it measures
      importance by how much something could be important to a
      particular being.  It is true that our limited understanding
      results in much vagueness on this issue, but vagueness is not the
      same as arbitrariness, and it is not arbitrary to give a creature
      the benefit of the doubt when it could well be sentient (where
      there is doubt as in the case of an oyster).  We are forced to
      have a vagueness of understanding because of human knowledge
      limitations, but it would be truly arbitrary to ignore even our
      vague understanding of things and so brush aside all evidence of
      sentience in beings other than humans.

O:    It is natural that we should eat meat.  Human beings simply eat
      meat.  That is how we have evolved.

R:    As vegans demonstrate daily, nothing in nature makes it necessary
      for humans to eat meat or otherwise exploit non-human animals. 
      Nature gives us the privilege of a choice.  Obviously, our nature
      mentally and physically permits us to eat meat, but it also
      mentally and physically permits us to rape, kill, steal, lie,
      etc.  The question here is not what possibilities are permitted
      by reality, but what possibilities are permitted by morality. 
      Similarly, the fact that humans have eaten meat for a long time
      in no way justifies the practice, just as an Aztec tradition of
      periodically sacrificing thousands of people is not necessarily
      just.

O:    If killing animals for meat is bad, shouldn't we kill all
      carnivores?

R:    There is nothing wrong with carnivores eating meat.  They have to
      eat meat to survive, unlike us.  There is something wrong with an
      agent's action only when that agent has a choice between a right
      action and a wrong action, and the wrong action is chosen.  Un-
      like humans, carnivores only take their mealtime needs, and never
      wantonly or sadistically murder, much less wage intraspecial war
      against other creatures.  What is more, carnivores are an inte-
      gral part of the ecosystem.  Their preying on herbivores prevents
      the plant-eaters from eating all of the plants by keeping down
      the population of primary consumers (i.e., eaters of plants
      only).  There are never any more lions or wolves than there need
      be for this purpose, since if there were too many, there would
      not be enough herbivores to eat for the secondary consumers
      (i.e., eaters of herbivores).  It is ironic that many people
      think that we should take the carnivore as our moral ideal, since
      these same people often hypocritically "caringly" ask animal
      rightists, "shouldn't we care just as much for plants?"  In this
      present objection, it is ludicrously implied that we have a
      responsibility to be the "vegan police" for all of nature.  We
      should live according to the best of our natures, and let others,
      including carnivores, live according to the best of theirs.  This
      does not mean that we should callously neglect other sentient
      beings in distress, or their needs; that would be no more
      consistent with caring for sentient beings, including humans,
      than killing all carnivorous sentient beings out of some
      adherence to a fanatically misguided ideal.

O:    Humans are required to control animal populations, often by
      killing them.

R:    Nature has its own population controls in the ecosystem.  Where
      rampant overpopulation is found, such as the multiplication of
      rabbits in Australia, and rats in cities, this is due to human
      intervention in natural systems.  We must rectify these
      ecological disruptions on our part with the minimal possible
      violence towards sentient beings, who are often considered to
      overpopulate only when they interfere with our selfish needs. 
      For example, we do not need to eat fish, yet we blame carnivorous
      seals for depleting the fish supplies--we all know that humans
      are responsible for this travesty, through voracious overfishing. 
      Certainly, hunting and fishing are not effective population
      controls, as hunters kill the most healthy animals and disrupt
      ecosystems by killing off non-game creatures.  Also, trapping is
      random in terms of what species of animal it destroys.

O:    But we inevitably have to compete with animals.  How do you think
      cities were built?  By clearing forests and killing wild animals.

R:    It is true that we must compete with other species, but the
      destructiveness of this competition should surely be minimalized. 
      And as Barry MacKay points out, we must compete with other humans
      too, but that does not mean we therefore deny them their rights
      (10).

O:    So you're a philosopher and you tell me one thing.  Other
      philosophers tell me other things.  Take Germain Grisez, for
      example:

            The justification for killing animals is that their life is
            not a good which human action must respect.  Thus, if it is
            useless to humans that an animal live and in accord with
            human feelings that it die, there is nothing wrong with
            satisfying the human impulse to kill it.  (11)

      Whom should I believe?

R:    Let us begin by taking the example given.  This philosopher,
      despite his claim, does not bother to justify his case at all. 
      He simply declares that their life is not worth anything, while
      arbitrarily assuming that human life is.  In philosophy one can-
      not appeal to any authority except one's own reasoned judgment. 
      Never accept anything that anyone says just because he/she says
      so.  The philosopher who should be heeded is he or she who is
      most justified in his or her particular assertions.  One cannot
      make an intelligent, informed assessment without being both
      analytical and critical.  Also, just because a person is correct
      in some cases, does not make him/her right all the time.  Judge
      every statement you receive on an individual basis.  Chances are,
      if a philosopher cannot convince you that his/her judgment is
      correct, he/she cannot really rationally convince himself/herself
      either, nor anyone else for that matter, and is merely prejudiced
      in his/her views while appealing to similar prejudices in others. 
      Grisez, in the above quote, gives no reason for his "natural law"
      theory views, but only succeeds in displaying his speciesist
      prejudices.

O:    You say that speciesism is arbitrary, but so what?  All morality
      is essentially arbitrary.  It is arbitrarily idiosyncratic in
      that it is both individually subjective, and relative to a given
      social context.

R:    It is all very well to be philosophical skeptic, and to say that
      epistemologically (i.e., as a question of knowledge, as opposed
      to mere rational belief or opinion), that it cannot be object-
      ively proven that there is an objective morality.  But it is also
      easy to be a philosophical skeptic about whether what we perceive
      is real, or a perceptual dream, hallucination, or a stream of
      ideas planted in our minds by some all-powerful demon, as
      Descartes once suggested.  These philosophical doubts do not
      plague us when we are standing in a path of an oncoming car--so
      we must draw practical boundaries around such philosophical
      doubts.  In any case, we try to hold reasonable, consistent
      beliefs about a reality we perceive, and we also try to hold a
      reasonable, consistent belief system about a morality we
      conceive.  No one, including the ethical nihilist (who believes
      there is nothing in the way of an objective morality), believes
      that we should act totally arbitrarily, killing or helping at
      random.  We all have our own selves, and want to be treated in a
      certain, beneficial and beneficent way.  And although we only
      have direct access to one mind (our own, unless of course
      telepathy actually exists), the reality or truth is that all
      creatures have selves that would like to be treated in a certain
      general way.  So we sense there is something reasonable and true
      about the old golden rule, "Treat others as you would like to be
      treated."  This collapses in the face of sado-masochism (should
      such a one be treated as he or she wishes?), but the core ideal
      is that we should treat others as they irreducibly *should* be
      treated.  Many of us have a strong intuition that there are some
      kinds of objective moral ideals, that a moral truth exists, and
      can be discovered through rational reflection.  What makes this
      powerful intuition any less reliable than the intuition of some
      that there is no moral truth?  Although perhaps one cannot prove
      that there is a moral truth, one also cannot prove that there
      isn't one.  Since one cannot rely on proofs, one must therefore
      call to one's sense of the matter.  What is your sense of the
      matter?  Do you believe at bottom that ethics is all random
      nonsense, or something merely taught in school or church, or do
      you believe that the underlying ideal of any plausible morality,
      love, has something more substantial to it besides an evolution-
      ary advantage?  Shouldn't we assess what objectively matters in
      terms of what really matters to actual sentient beings, or
      better, what should matter to them in terms of fulfilling them? 
      If you are personally committed to love (a moral kind of love,
      agape), why deny it to other creatures, even if not human?  Why
      make yourself that much less loving while correspondingly over-
      bloating your love for yourself and your group?  Moreover,
      theoretical nihilists or not, most of us, in our practical,
      everyday lives, subscribe to the beautiful principles of an ideal
      democratic society--not to be cruel, or unduly exploit anyone on
      the basis of age, sex, race, etc.--these natural "boundaries"
      cannot be defensible as moral boundaries for us.  Similarly, we
      believe that species differences are natural (and actually
      partially artificial) boundaries which rightfully should not cut
      off our moral consideration of other animals.  Let us not allow
      *allegedly* "objective" philosophical nihilism to become an
      excuse or coverup for our own petty, narrow-minded selfishness,
      as though one's own self were somehow more real, or more worthy
      of serving, than any other "self".  Remember each creature, human
      or not, language-speaking or not, objectively is a self to
      himself or herself--only we cannot directly perceive the
      "selfhood" of others, especially in the case of those who cannot
      speak to us.  Even a mink, who may lack a word for "self" in its
      vocabulary, is still aware of itself as it licks itself,
      undergoes suffering itself, etc.  Therefore, let us cultivate
      moral attitudes towards all sentient beings, not just human
      sentient beings, with the assurance that nihilism does not have
      the conclusive case for itself that is too often boasted for it,
      explicitly or implicitly, in this culture.

O:    What about choosing between a human and an animal, such as in a
      lifeboat where a human or an animal has to be thrown over for
      anyone to survive?

R:    It is true that such a dilemma would be challenging, to say the
      least.  But a dilemma involves a specific decision for a rare and
      unlikely instance; it does not affect our decisions of how to
      treat animals in general.  The chief importance of using such
      "thought experiment" examples is not practical, to instruct us
      what to do in an actual such case, but rather theoretical--they
      force us to look at the bottom line of what are our principles. 
      They may be true dilemmas, where each option is equally bad, or
      they may be decidable by usefulness to other sentient beings or
      other criteria.  Much depends on the specific instance.

O:    What you say seems to imply that we should all be vegetarians, or
      at least cut down on our meat consumption, and only buy free
      range meat.  But is vegetarianism not unhealthy, or less healthy?

R:    One can be perfectly healthy as a vegetarian.  There are hundreds
      of millions of healthy, functioning vegetarians in the world. 
      There are many famous vegetarians like Madonna, Leo Tolstoy,
      Michelangelo, George Bernard Shaw, Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and
      many more.  Also, there are many famous vegetarian athletes who
      were Olympic stars, like Andreas Cahling, winner of Mr.
      International body-building championships, Paavo Nurmi, with 20
      world records in distance running and nine Olympic medals, Pierro
      Verot, with the world's record for downhill skiing endurance, and
      so the list goes on and on (12).  As for the claim that one
      cannot get the vitamin B-12 from vegetable matter alone, that is
      false.  Dr. Neal Barnard, head of Physicians for Responsible
      Medicine in Washington, D.C., says that he was taught standardly
      in medical school that there are no vegetable sources of B-12,
      but now it is known that the vitamin is synthesized by micro-
      organisms found in algae, kelp, even the skin of a baked potato,
      and can be grown in fermented plant foods such as soy sauce and
      tempeh.  We require only extremely small amounts which are stored
      in our bodies for years (13).  Even babies can be healthy vegans,
      perhaps healthier than babies who are fed meat.  Far from being
      less healthy, vegetarianism is a more healthy diet (Please see
      Robbins' Diet for a New America, listed in the bibliography).

O:    Vegetarianism is expensive and difficult.

R:    It is not that difficult once you actually do it.  As for
      expense, vegetarian protein is cheaper per unit weight than meat
      protein.  Vegetables, legumes, and fruits are cheaper than
      chicken, beef, pork, etc.

O:    I love meat too much to become a vegetarian.  As they say, "Each
      to his own."

R:    Does "Each to his own" apply to the animals killed to please your
      palate, or do you discriminate against them just because they are
      not human?  Do you count their great suffering less than your
      comparatively slight pleasure from eating them, because of
      speciesist prejudice?  This is arbitrary, inconsistent, and
      unjustifiable, unlike the animal rights position.  We can
      imagine, with some horror, that human flesh can no doubt be quite
      tasty too if cooked with certain spices or what have you.  But it
      is not right to cannibalize people, and the only real difference
      between people and animals in this context is species membership
      which in itself is irrelevant.  It is wise to watch that you have
      a balanced vegetarian meal plan, and that you make a transition
      that works for you:  some do it gradually, over a period of
      years, and only a few very determined types can quit flesh-eating
      overnight.

O:    What about native people who hunt and trap?

R:    This is not as big an issue as that of urban North Americans and
      others, with a full range of choice for a vegetarian diet, but it
      is still an issue nonetheless.  I do not believe that anyone,
      given the choice, should exploit animals, and find it
      questionable that any should call "home" a place where people are
      forced to eat and exploit animals, unless they actually consider
      human sentient beings to be always worth more than non-human ones
      simply because of different species membership.  It is not even
      healthy to eat so much meat.  In China, where most cannot afford
      to eat meat, heart attack, stroke, and cancer statistics are very
      low, except among the rich, who emulate Western eating habits.
      (14)  Native trapping is chiefly made such a big issue by the fur
      industry, which, in its greed for profits, blows this matter all
      out of proportion.  The Fur-Bearers, a respected organization,
      cites the statistic that perhaps 1% of all animals are trapped by
      native people, and trapping is an income supplement for 80-90% of
      trappers, with an average value of $700 annually (less taxes). 
      Moreover, fur trapping is no longer a way of life, where natives
      treat the animals with reverence, and use all its parts.  What
      kind of reverence for life supports needless killing of an
      animal, after leaving it to suffer for days or perhaps weeks in
      the steel jaws of a trap, it not being a desired fur-bearing
      animal more than two-thirds of the time?  It is also unnatural
      for cultures like the Inuit hunters to subsist on a carnivorous
      diet, which leads to more heart disease, strokes, cancers, kidney
      disease, arthritis, epilepsy, osteoporosis, and just about every
      other major disease known to humanity (as John Robbins documents
      in detail in his book Diet for a New America, where he also
      reports on p. 154 that the Inuit, like other largely meat-eating
      populations, have the lowest of lifespans, about an average of 30
      years, which is less than half the Canadian national average
      lifespan).  In any case, those of us in modern cities have no
      need whatsoever for meat or fur, so that native case is most
      likely irrelevant to your own case.

O:    As a matter of religious freedom, I should be free to exploit
      animals for I have faith that God made them to serve human
      purposes.

R:    Like all freedoms, religious freedom must be restricted by a
      standard of what is reasonable in a democratic society.  For
      example, religious people are not allowed to perform human
      sacrifices, or to cut off the hands of thieves.  All of these are
      too arbitrary and too violent--so is our exploitation of non-
      human animals, which means that our civilization as a whole must
      take an important next step with respect to animals, regardless
      of religious dogma, at least much of which is arguably man-made. 
      Our faith must be able to withstand the tests of reason and
      facts, or else our faith is a beguiler and deceiver, not a beckon
      towards truth.  If someone has faith that men should "lord" over
      women, as many do, should we not reject any faith in so arbitrary
      a principle?  Why not then reject faith in so arbitrary a
      principle as "lording" over animals just because they are not
      human?  Why have faith in what appears exactly like random
      discrimination and is really a coverup for serving oneself or
      one's narrowly defined favoured group?  If a claim is made like
      "Animals have no souls", why should this be believed or relied
      upon in practical decisions?  Animals seem to have mental life
      even as humans do: perceiving, feeling, communicating, and in
      some cases, even conceiving.  It cannot even be shown that humans
      have a soul, much less that animals do not.  But let us even
      grant that only humans have immortal souls, and then let us
      listen to Hans Ruesch's reply:

            The argument that animals allegedly don't have an immortal
            soul doesn't justify our abuse of them, but aggravates it. 
            The knowledge that they won't be indemnified in another
            world for their sufferings in this one should prompt us to
            treat them more kindly, not less.  It is hard to understand
            how the alleged ownership of spiritual immortality could
            excuse the torture of creatures who terrestrial existence
            is the only gift they have received from their creator.
            (15)

O:    I'm just one person.  It doesn't matter if just one individual
      changes.  It can't make any real difference.

R:    Nonsense.  Mass movements for coping with massive problems are
      made of individuals--such movements have no existence "in
      themselves."  If all vegetarians changed to a meat-eating diet
      tomorrow, the market (and the earth) could not handle it.  All
      the problems of how societies treat nonhuman animals may seem
      overwhelming, but they are not insuperable, if only human beings
      choose what is right.  Your dollars withheld from firms that test
      on animals will mean fewer resources to perform needless and
      cruel products tests on animals, as well as less consumer demand
      on them, prompting these companies to change or decline.  That's
      how the market system works, supply and demand, and most animal
      suffering arises from greed for some kind of profit.  Join one or
      more local animal rights groups, and get involved educating
      friends and relatives, strangers, and let your protest of animal
      exploitation and abuse be shown in a non-violent way.  Consistent
      animal rightists advocate non-violence towards all sentient
      beings and their concerns, including humans--by and large animal
      rightists are the most peaceful people around, because they make
      their peace with non-human as well as human animals.  Write
      letters to your political representatives--phone the government
      and get their addresses and phone numbers.  You would be
      surprised at how influential these letters can be, as each one is
      interpreted as representing many times more people who remain
      silent.  Finally, becoming a vegetarian is perhaps the most
      important step in making a real, direct difference.  Think of all
      the animals you'll save by not putting a demand on the meat
      market.  The average meat-eater destroys over 1,500 non-human
      "livestock" sentient beings in his/her lifetime for food.



I would like to thank you for downloading and reading this dialogue. 
What we are trying to do is to ask you to consider adopting a new set
of ethical principles which are really ethical, and not just to speak
of them, but to act on them!  Compassion acted upon is worth
infinitely more than compassion felt but stifled or ignored.  So do
not be in collusion with greedy agribusiness and pharmaceutical firms
with only want you to consume their products, regardless of the cruel
treatment to animals in labs and factory farms.

May we suggest writing to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
for more information:

PETA
P.O. Box 42516
Washington, D.C.
USA  20015-0516

Thank you again.



Endnotes:

1.    John Robbins, Diet for a New America (Walpole, New Hampshire,
      Stillpoint Publishing, 1987), p. 41
2.    Patty Mark, "Fish out of Water", PETA News I:8, p. 19
3.    Mary Midgely, "The Concept of Beastliness", in Animal Rights and
      Human Obligations, eds. Tom Regan and Peter Singer (Englewood
      Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1976), pp. 95-96.
4.    John Robbins, "The Joy and Tragedy of Pigs", The Animals' Agenda
      (December 1989), p. 16
5.    Jeremy Bentham in Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York, Avon
      Books, 1975), pp. 7-8
6.    Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London,
      Fontana Paperbacks, 1985), p. 118
7.    Henry S. Salt, Animals' Rights (Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania: 
      Society for Animal Rights, Inc., 1980--originally published
      1892), pp. 62-63
8.    Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 248
9.    Ibid., p. 249
10.   Barry Kent MacKay, "Let's be Reasonable", in Skinned, ed. Anne
      Doncaster (North Falmouth, Massachusetts, International Wildlife
      Coalition, 1988), p. 223
11.   Germain Grisez, "Suicide and Euthanasia", in Death, Dying, and
      Euthanasia, eds. Horans and Mall (Washington, D.C., University
      Publications of America, Inc., 1977), p. 782
12.   John Robbins, Diet for a New America, p. 160
13.   Neal Barnard, M.D., "Eating for Life,"  PETA News, I:8, p. 12
14.   Ibid.
15.   Hans Ruesch, Slaughter of the Innocent (Swain, NY, CIVITAS
      Publication, 1983) p. 320
