a fairer society
It seems that as our international society develops, we become clearer about what is useful behaviour and what is harmful behaviour. We have a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which tells us what we should be able to expect wherever we go, such as freedom, equality, protection, education and culture. This may not be totally implemented throughout the world, but it’s the standard that was agreed on in 1948 and is still generally aimed for. So once we’ve achieved this standard, will our society be fair? Well, certainly for humans.
What comes next, gives me a case of the cringe – an involuntary reflex from my upbringing that taught me the superiority of us: the special animal made in the image of a deity. But where is the document for my dog, the force-fed geese, the brain-damaged monkeys and the tortured bunny rabbits testing make-up? When did humans stop seeing the life in the sentient animal and start seeing a lump of matter ripe for exploitation? Probably round about the time that the flesh of these animals arrived anonymous and pre-prepared to our cities, with no need to glimpse their painful and meaningless lives, and their frighteningly stressful deaths.
Everything lives on the web. So I googled the animal equivalent, and someone has down the groundwork:
The ascription of moral and legal rights to animals, and their enshrinement in a United Nations Declaration of Animal Rights is the logical and inevitable progression of this principle. We introduce, therefore, the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights:
- Inasmuch as there is ample evidence that many animal species are capable of feeling, we condemn totally the infliction of suffering upon our fellow creatures and the curtailment of their behavioural and other needs save where this is necessary for their own individual benefit.
- We do not accept that a difference in species alone (any more than a difference in race) can justify wanton exploitation or oppression in the name of science or sport, or for use as food, for commercial profit or for other human ends.
- We believe in the evolutionary and moral kinship of all animals and declare our belief that all sentient creatures have rights to life, liberty and natural enjoyment.
- We therefore call for the protection of these rights.
Sounds like a fairer society to me, what about you?
It sure does!
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🙂
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Heaven isn’t for dogs? I don’t wanna go there.
There is no reason to treat ‘animals’ less than humans, or, there is no reason to treat hairless apes better than other animals. We can do better now.
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You’re right, and we should be doing a lot better than we are …
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Are you a vegan?
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Damn you and your nasty questions PeW! 🙂
I’m not a vegan yet. I’m a woman living with a meat-eating man with limited joint meal choices as it is, I’m a mother living in a country with limited, basic and relatively expensive food options, I’ve recently stopped breastfeeding, and I’m a lazy food-for-fuel eater. All of this put together makes veganism a choice that will just make my teeth fall out and bones crumble even quicker. So, I put convenience before my concern for the most probably cruelly engorged dairy cows, and assume that when I’m out of child-bearing years and in a country where I’m able to spend the time required to structure a balanced diet, I’ll be a vegan.
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Just curious! 🙂
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Curious to push me into a defensive corner. 🙂
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Noooo. I was genuinely interested. Sorry if it came off as accusative!
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This is my problem with this movement, too. I’m all for animal rights, but I still want my convenient meal choices. And bacon. Mmmm.
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I find the claim of a moral imperative requiring humans to eschew the use of lower animals to be without justification.
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It depends. Historically, farming relationships are symbiotic: farmer tends animals and eats them. Nothing else does.
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You’re right, but I think in terms of small-holdings the farmers realised that the animals responded better to careful handling. Their livelihood was linked to the welfare of their livestock, and I know farmers that still care deeply for their animals. However, it’s when it becomes a simple money-making machine to fill the vast supermarket shelves that people with no interest in the land or animals move in and attempt to squeeze every last penny out of every animal. I would also be interested to know how often people used to eat meat, and what quantity of meat they would consume compared to the quantity consumed with the easy and cheap access we have now.
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Hi Violetwisp! I like the way you ask the question and I personally think we humans are nothing special and our treatment of animals should respect that. I remember first coming to your site because you wrote about being a vegetarian.
On the other hand, I find I have difficulty with these declarations. They cannot cater to every situation, (for instance I am not against using monkeys in AIDS-research) and the people who cannot think for themselves anyway aren’t likely to be convinced by these texts.
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Yes, medical testing is an angle that often divides people, as I think most people broadly agree that animals should be treated well. I think of animal use personally – as in I love the taste of meat but I wouldn’t kill a cow or a chicken to eat it, so why would I expect it’s alright for someone else to do it on my behalf? I feel the same about animal testing for any reason – I can see it may bring benefits (although there are lots of areas where it’s unnecessarily used) to human health, but as I would never personally keep monkeys in a lab and play with their brains for my benefit, regardless of the threat to my life, I can’t agree to it for any reason.
Who are the people who cannot think for themselves?
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Good question. Should have thought about that before I wrote it down… What I meant was, that the UN declarations in general are not worth the paper they’re written on. Ask any poor woman in a Third World country how she was benefitted by them and she will tell you that she cannot read, for starters. It might be cynical to say that, but it is my honest opinion. So I don’t see any declaration of this kind benefitting animals anytime soon.
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This is such a tricky subject for me. I agree with it on every level but one: the consumption part. I believe that we should continue to eat animals — they provide a certain nourishment other foods cannot and among other things, let’s face it, the consumption of animals worldwide has created and sustains a TON of jobs (farmers, butchers, restaurateurs, etc.) HOWEVER, I do not believe that we should be force feeding them garbage or pumping them with steroids and other harmful chemicals just to make them bigger, fatter and more plentiful. I also do not agree that they should be kept in tiny little cages with no room or freedom to roam as they please. There is no need to torture and/or mistreat these animals, regardless of whether they are meant for consumption or for farming purposes (i.e. eating the weeds on a farm, producing milk, eggs, etc.)
I also believe that scientific testing on animals is a double-edged sword. Do I agree with it on principle? Absolutely not — It’s not fair and they can’t volunteer or opt-out. BUT, they have helped our medical community make HUGE strides in the way we understand certain illnesses and diseases and, if they haven’t led us to a cure already, are making progress on that front as well. Animal testing has saved probably hundreds of thousands of lives so, from that perspective it seems slightly more acceptable to me. I am still not sure what takes more precedence with me: the obvious and disturbing torture for the poor animal that must endure the testing or the discovery of a cure and/or treatment to suppress an illness of disease that plagues and kills hundreds of thousands of people.
I struggle with these feeling every day and am constantly torn back and forth between my compassion for them and the sometimes necessary evil imposed upon them in respect to both consumption and testing. Great post. This is a tough one!
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It’s a tricky area. I have to admit that to follow my principles through I should be a vegan, but as I’ve said to PeW, it’s something that would be very difficult for me right now. I disagree with any argument for meat processing from an employment point of view, I think the food-related professions would just move to other areas, and any change that comes about would be over generations – not just a halt and mass unemployment. I also think we can get sufficient nourishment from other sources, although I’ve yet to meet a vegan who isn’t an odd shade of green …
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It’s a slippery slope. Yes, a lot of animals have to endure inhuman (funny using that word, isn’t it?) conditions and that should be avoided. That said, if we stop eating cows they will go extinct, because they are not adapted to the wild any more. We have created a symbiotic relationship with some animals (and plants): we grow them, take care of their predators for them and, in exchange, we eat them. The animals thrive and so do we. If humans stopped eating these animals, the need for them would be gone and they would be left to look after their own. If we look at how well wild animals have been doing, compared to domestic ones, it’s hard to not notice the difference. Also, humans can be pretty harsh, but Nature is way worse than us in some ways (not all, I’ll admit).
And now I’m going to make a brutal point with which I myself may not agree, but which must be considered. Moral laws are a social pact: we have them to avoid aggression. I promise I won’t go around killing people and, in exchange, I don’t get killed. Everybody wins. These laws exist because I have some kind of power: I can go around and start killing people. With the right to not be killed comes the obligation to not kill. For animals, this doesn’t apply. First, they don’t have any power over us; second, they can’t be reasoned with (try to make a pact with them and they will not say much). Therefore they cannot have any rights and obligations (let’s not forget: humans have both).
This brutal way of looking at morality is pretty disheartening. I actually feel empathy towards animals and don’t like to see them hurt. I wouldn’t mind giving some of them rights (cockroaches, for example, would be out of the question). But I don’t forget that our moral laws originally come from pacts of non-aggression and that it will be difficult to convince everyone to grant rights to animals, when animals cannot retaliate.
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Thanks for such an interesting and thoughtful comment, you bring up so many angles. First of all I would say that in terms of going extinct, I don’t really agree with you. Most animals could still have a commodity angle. Cows for instance in providing natural fertilizers or even fuel (am I making that up?), any grazing animals are useful for land maintenance, sheep for wool, and following death from natural causes there’s a huge leather industry to cater for. Certainly numbers of certain breeds would change, but much of their ‘invention’ was man-made to suit our needs. We don’t need to force make millions of animals for horrible lives, or feel guilty when we stop the cruel breeding program for the animals that didn’t live.
Your moral pact argument is new to me, I might give that further thought, but my immediate reaction is that I have moral pacts with all the animals I come into contact with. Animals can be reasoned with, they are sentient and respond to behavioural cues, the only limitation is human language. I think it’s about learning to change our relationship with them, which is an ongoing process, as is the way we human animals change in the way we relate to each other.
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Hi Violet,
Well, I agree with your first point: there are ways we can keep those animals being useful to us so that they don’t go extinct. Whereas you consider this exploitation inhuman or against animal rights is another matter, though.
On the moral pact issue, though, I’m afraid I have to disagree. Firstly, I disagree that (most) animals can be reasoned with. You can’t convince a snake to not bite you: you can threaten it or use its instincts in your own favor. Snakes are incapable of reasoning (in the human definition) simply because they lack that part of the brain. Seeing reasoning in a snake is projecting your humanity into it. The same goes for insects in general. You’re probably thinking about dogs or monkeys when you say “reasoning” and I agree that some level of reasoning can be achieved with those, though taming works with reward/punishment schemes, which can hardly be called reasoning. No matter how much you try convince a lion, he will keep eating gazelles unless you threaten it (which is not reasoning) or you physically keep it from doing so.
However, whether animals can be reasoned with or not is irrelevant to my pact argument. For there to be some kind of pact, there needs to be the possibility of retaliation. I can kill a cow and the rest of the cow population won’t be out to get me. They are powerless against us, since we have the technology (and the intelligence) and they don’t. “Homo lupus homini” (man is a wolf to man) because humans can hurt other humans. Animals (with few exceptions) can’t.
Again, this way of looking at morality is pretty crude and I repeat I am fine with treating animals humanely. I am just explaining why we don’t: simply, because they cannot pressure us to do so. They are no threat.
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In the Ender’s Game science fiction series, the author Orson Scott Card explored some of the philosophy of rights and reasoning with other beings that he separated into two groups he called ramen and varelse. Both groups are identified as sentient and intelligent, but communication was deemed impossible with varelse, and thus different rules applied when determining the interactions possible with each group. Very interesting moral questions.
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Hell yeah. I’ll fight for that cause
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(need to get some rousing music on this page)
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