Embedded Files
Animal Friends
Animal Friends
When I was 7, I had two incidents with birds. One during the cusp of winter and the other at dawn of spring. Death and life. It is fitting then how both incidents concerned these themes as well. During the fall/winter, I was hanging around with my friends in the neighborhood when we found a dead bird by the base of a tree. It was upsetting to say the least, but we held an open funeral with a whole ceremony afterwards to mourn the passing of a single bird (we buried it under the tree in the same spot it was found in). On the other hand, when spring came along, my friends and I found a tiny nest with 3 blue robin eggs. We were tempted to take out the eggs and try to raise them ourselves, but thankfully we reasoned that the mother bird would feel sad if she was separated from her eggs.
I had pet fishes when I was younger as well. Goldfish. 10, in fact. They resided in my living room in a gigantic tank for many years, and by the time I had to move to a new state and home, 3 had already died and 7 remained. We couldn't take them with us on our move, so we decided to let them go in a lake (which, now thinking about it, was probably not the best idea for their survival). My 10 year-old-self was devastated at the time, but now I can't even remember the names I gave them. Interestingly, I was devastated whenever I thought about living without my goldfish, but whenever I ate fish for dinner, I never had a second thought about eating it. It gave me no regret or guilt, nor did it fill me with remorse. It actually filled me with great joy to eat these brethren of my goldfishes.
Now, I still really want to a pet. I just want a simple dog or cat or perhaps a hamster, nothing more, but there are a lot of challenges to taking care of a pet: taking it to pet appointments, making sure to feed it daily, show it the care and love it deserves. Treat it just like a vital being that is a part of the family. But what makes a pet different to the strays that roam my neighborhood? There are currently a couple of stray cats that always pass through my backyard throughout the day, and two of them even had kittens of their own. Too bad I couldn't take them in, but I made a compromise by giving them names and feeding them occasionally whenever they pop up (though to the distaste of my mother, who doesn't want me to accidentally train them to come to our house for food).
Animal Rights and Ethics
Animal Rights and Ethics
What is so important about the dead bird, goldfish, and stray cats? Or rather (the bigger question that was posed this quarter), do these animals have a conscience that can comprehend their life like how humans do? For Thomas Nagel, he responds with the question of "What is it like to be a bat?" While individuals can understand the biological, physical, and behavioral characteristics of a bat, no one has ever truly occupied the body of a bat and experienced what it is like to be a bat since we have only experienced our individual subjective reality. Many philosophers and scholars have grappled at these questions and there are many different conclusions. Below is a very brief overview of a few key theories and ideologies about animal ethics from some well known philosophers and scholars we have learned during this quarter.
Aristotle: Eudaimonia — he pursuit of "flourishing" or the great; only organisms who possess a rational soul can pursue Eudaimonia (only white, land-owning males)
Pythagoras: Pythagorean Way of Life; metempsychosis — all living beings have one soul that infinitely goes through life and rebirth
René Descartes: Cartesian Dualism (body-mind dualism) — animals only possess body matter but not mind, thus they can only perceive "mechanical" sensations
Pierre Gassendi: disagreed with Descartes' Cartesian Dualism; believed animals did have the ability to comprehend feelings and make judgements
St. Aquinas: The Great Chain of Being — a social hierarchy of living beings with humans above animals and plants. Since
Humphrey Primatt: God created all beings, thus it is immoral to harm or mistreat animals; believed that since humans have rational, we should use it to protect those that are vulnerable
Aristotle
Pythagoras
René Descartes
Pierre Gassendi
St. Aquinas
Humphrey Primatt
Personally, I disagree with the reasoning of Aristotle, Pierre Gassendi, and Augustine. I thoroughly believe animals do have a conscious mind and a rational. Aristotle's reasoning behind the human "rational" as a defining difference between us and animals means that we devoid and invalidate all empathy and intelligence animals have shown to us as humans and to others of the same species. While Gassendi claims that these actions and behavior comes from a "machine response" rather than conscious effort, there are countless times where animals go beyond what is considered their "normal" behavior. Go on YouTube (or any social media platform) and there are countless videos and clips of pets/animals saving their owners or somehow learning how to open doors and communicate with buttons. Although some of this can be due to conditioning or other outside factors, it shouldn't negate the intelligent capacity to associate actions with responses and consequences. Then what about non-pet animals, like all wild animals in the world? Does that mean we should only care about the pets that are in our care rather than ones kept in the wild? Of course, wild animals also have the capacity to form their own communities and groups, the ability to communicate and interact with others of the same species. So moral consideration should be extended to them as well.
On the flip side, I do believe animals have the capacity to comprehend their experiences and sensations, but I'm not entirely sure about the idea of rebirth and reincarnation in these theories. More specifically, I do not think that we should just protect animals solely because animals were possibly humans in their previous/future lives (Pythagoras) or that humans have a duty to protect those who are more vulnerable. Perhaps in the past, animals were not naturally vulnerable; they could have survived and thrived in the wild without any human interference. But human factors made them into vulnerable animals. When people mistreat animals, they can't communicate to us that they are suffering or in pain, but their behavior and their actions may show it. They are abused, mistreated, and caged for selfish reasons, for our own personal desires and comfort. In the work of Indian, classical, and modern philosophy, many of the theories and ideas seem to revolve around anthropocentric concepts that reinforces the superiority of humans to animals. Even theories that are pro-animal concentrate on the concept of animal vulnerability and the need to protect them (Primatt). I don't know if this sounds super hypocritical to call out anthropocentric factors in these theories while some animals might not survive without humans in the wild (like specific man-created, domesticated animals), but I feel exasperated whenever people underestimate the ability and power of animals.
Aside from our biological characteristics, what makes us different from animals? Are we truly the only ones who possess a consciousness or a rational? Even though we try to understand what is to be like an animal—and there are many different creative ways people have tried to create animal simulations through technology—we may truly never understand the answer to this question, but we can always make an effort to try.
Women and Animals
Women and Animals
While animal and human relationships can form in the physical sense, they also hold a high association with each other in our language and the way we communicate. Animals pop up in our everyday conversations, but what about the times when they don't? What about the times when they are not present, but underly the very statement being told?
As Carol Adams coins in her book Sexual Politics of Meat and Absent Referents, absent referents are beings that disappear in the consumption of their dead bodies. In language, people use the term "meat" or "lamb chops" to refer to a dead cow or lamb. Rather than bringing up images of a slaughterhouse or the horrible living conditions of these animals, it creates a wall between our perceptions and the reality for these animals. Similarly, this absent referent is also used in the discussion of women and their bodies. In media, food is often presented in a sexual manner that parallels that of female characteristics/appeal, while women frequently find similarities between the way people see their bodies as meat for consumption.
The image on the right is an example of Adam's "absent referent". In the Burger King poster, it shows a woman in a provocative position with Burger King's seven inch sandwich. Both the women and the animal animal becomes an absent referent when they are objectified within the ad. The animal is reduced to a sandwich while the woman stands in as a prop for sexual pleasure and attraction.
In light of recent developments in Roe v. Wade and the leak of the Court's first draft to overturn it, I can not help but draw further connections between women and animals. The practice of forced breeding in animals is another big topic for animal rights and ethics. Similarly, women have fought for the right to abortions and autonomy over their bodies. Though they are not exactly the same, they loss of control and objectification of the body is apparent. For animals in the food industry, they breed just to continue on supplying meat or animal products to the consumer, and for women, they also become incubators for a child with no say in the matter. Furthermore, other ethical approaches that applies to humans and animals come into play when discussing the topic of abortion: whether a fetus is considered sentient or not. Does it have a consciousness while in the womb? Would an animal who is alive compare to a fetus that is supposedly non-rational? Truly, it is a complicated question, but it is one that has to be saved for later discussions.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I always daydreamed of the lives that these animals lived around me. Their lives may be filled with leisure or inhibited stress from surviving in the huge world full of predators. Or perhaps they don't understand the vast amount of possibilities for death in this world like humans do, just focused on trying to get food and live to the next day. I can try to imagine the what it is like to be a robin taking care of her eggs, or a cat lazing around in my backyard, but I will never objectively understand their experiences. Do animals have consciousness to begin with? That is the difficult question when addressing animal ethics and the many scholars I have discussed above aimed to answer. They explored concepts of animal and human rationality, sentience, consciousness, etc. through the lens of descriptive, normative, virtue, and care ethic. But ultimately, what does it mean to us?
Even while I am creating this site, I'm coincidentally listening to a podcast talk about animal slaughter and extinction, which just reinforces the relevance of the topic at hand to our lives. Will we ever truly move on from caging animals? From mass production, inhumane slaughter, torturous research? Probably not. I am not all that optimistic for the future as I see all these companies, organizations, and institutions use animals. Granted, some animals will be used to advance human and animal lives in research, and there will probably a continued use of animals to test out medicine or procedures that can save lives (of not only humans, but animals as well). The overproduction of animal products, food, and objects have certainly caused a huge problem for our environment as well. So is this really going to change anything?
But, at the same time, I should not be too pessimistic. Ongoing discussions and discourse about this topic brings more public attention to the issue, pushing people to enact on these companies. Whether it is through an online post or a class lecture/discussion about animal ethics in the world, this information is spreading, morphing as people talk, argue, debate, rally. Just as Professor Donaldson said, public sentiment advances faster than legal law. Ongoing efforts continue to fight for legal rights for animals, and they will continue till we are satisfied with it. Simply put, I do not expect instant reforms in my habits to change the world instantly, but this unit about animal ethics—like all our other units this year— is a calling for us to plant the seeds of knowledge and see what it can become.
Reflection
Reflection
My own experience with animals is probably not a unique one. I deem some as pets that I will not eat, like dogs and cats, and others I eat without a second thought, like fish or cows. Even while listing these animals, I can automatically think of the food that comes from the animal at the same time as I name the animal itself, like salmon or beef. I am not a vegetarian, nor do I subscribe to any practices that inhibits me from consuming meat or poultry. I know that many do dissuade the consumption of meat due to personal, religious, or ethical factors, and I understand these are pretty good reasons to not eat animal products, but I still continue. Why is this my situation and the same for so many others? I reason that it is the act of distancing, obscuring the truth from the eyes of the consumer (as shown with Donaldson's presentation about absent referents). Rather than showing the brutal truth behind the wall of advertisement and appearances, companies and corporations would rather present a clean and aesthetically pleasing product that removes any negative traces of animal cruelty or suffering, removing the subjects by making them objects. Sure, there are some that try to sell animal products that are "ethically" sourced but what does that really mean? And the ones that actually are treating their animals humanely are few and far between. I can not guarantee that I will completely shift my eating habits or change my buying practices for cruelty free products (which might not even be completely cruelty free), but I am definitely more aware of it now than ever.
Page updated
Report abuse