Ethics, Humans and Other Animals

An Introduction with Readings

Rosalind Hursthouse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135199234
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

This introductory textbook is ideally suited to newcomers to philosophy and ethical problems. Rosalind Hursthouse carefully introduces the three standard approaches in current ethical theory: utilitarianism, rights, and virtue ethics. She links each chapter to readings from key exponents such as Peter Singer and Mary Midgley and asks students to think critically about these readings for themselves. Key features include clear activities and activities, chapter summaries and guides to further reading.

chapter

1 The utilitarian defence of animals

OBJECTIVES

When you have worked through this chapter, you should:

Have grasped the content and point of the principle of charity.

Have a good knowledge of Peter Singer’s view on our treatment of animals.

Have developed your ability to read long extracts from philosophical works by applying the basic reading method.

INTRODUCTION

As I began writing this book, the newspapers were filled with descriptions of demonstrators trying to prevent the export of live animals across the English Channel. Comparisons were drawn in the media with the actions of hunt saboteurs, and with the extreme actions of some ‘animal rights activists’ who have vandalized or bombed laboratories at which experiments on live animals are carried out. Now, according to many familiar arguments about human freedom, it would seem that all of these actions on the part of the ‘animal liberationists’ must be straightforwardly wrong. After all, they are all attempts to curtail the freedom of other human beings, and those other human beings are not doing anything that harms people or adversely affects their interests. They are, on the contrary, contributing towards providing people with tasty, cheap food, or just enjoying themselves (and keeping down the fox population) or pursuing medical knowledge which will relieve human suffering. How could interfering possibly be justified?

If we take it as a premise that morality or ethics is solely concerned with our actions in relation to each other, then it would, indeed, be very hard to find an argument to justify such interference. But, although many people are inclined to agree that ‘morality deals only with our relations to each other’ when they consider the question in isolation, a few obvious counter-examples to that general claim usually make them change their mind. Most people will agree that it is wrong to torture animals; that when we see small boys about to set fire to a petrol-doused cat, what we see is small boys about to do something wrong, which they should be prevented from doing and taught not to do. Most will also agree that the wanton slaughter of animals is also wrong. Though many will want to defend hunting as a sport, they distinguish hunting from wanton killing. Shooting flying ducks, one after another, fishing or angling; that is sport, they say, and a fine activity. But mowing down a hundred ducks sitting on a lake with a rapid-fire automatic, or dynamiting a whole lakeful of fish, just for the hell of it; that would be wanton slaughter and wrong.

All argument has to start somewhere, from some premises which, in the context of that argument, are not argued for. In this book, I shall be taking it as a premise (a) that ethics is not solely concerned with our actions in relation to each other and, as a related premise, (b) the claim that some of our treatment of animals is morally wrong.¹

You should note that premise (b) is very modest; that is, it claims very little. As long as you accept that, for example, the boys torturing the cat would be wrong, you agree with it. You can think that there is nothing wrong with not being vegetarian, support hunting, be in favour of experimentation on live animals, see nothing wrong in the fur trade, think quite generally that human beings and their moral claims are hugely more important than animals and any moral claims that might be made on their behalf … and still agree with premise (b).

The reason it is important to get the premise out in the open is this. For much of this book, I shall be looking at the arguments of two contemporary philosophers, Peter Singer and Tom Regan, who are in the vanguard of the ‘animal liberation’ movement; and they are both radical. They want to convince us that we should become vegetarians (if we are not already). They want to convince those of us who hunt, or wear furs, or buy cosmetics that have been tested on animals, that we should stop doing so. They want us to curtail drastically, or even abolish entirely, the use of animals in science. They are, in a word, extremists – and the difficulty with extremism is that it tends to provoke extreme responses. Faced with someone arguing (as both these philosophers do) that animals are in some sense equal to human beings, that they matter morally as much as human beings do, those who regard this as an absurd position are likely to find themselves taking up an extreme position in opposition to it. Instead of saying, reasonably and cautiously, that animals matter, but not as much as human beings do, some will insist roundly that animals do not count at all, that they just do not matter, that it is ridiculous to make moral claims on their behalf – quite forgetting that we ourselves are prepared to make a moral claim on the tortured cat’s behalf.

Mary Midgley, a more moderate animal liberationist whose arguments I shall also consider, draws a useful distinction between what she calls the ‘absolute’ and the ‘relative’ dismissal of animal claims (moral claims made on behalf of animals). On the absolute view, she says, ‘animals are not a serious case at all, but fall outside the province of morality altogether’ (Midgley 1983: 10). She illustrates the view by quoting from an early book by Peter Singer (1975: 67) describing ‘an American television programme in 1974’:

Robert Nozick asked the scientists whether the fact that an experiment will kill hundreds of animals is ever regarded by scientists as a reason for not performing it. One of the scientists answered ‘Not that I know of’; Nozick pressed his question: ‘Don’t the animals count at all?’ Dr A. Perachio, of the Yerkes centre, replied, ‘Why should they?’ while Dr. D. Baltimore, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, added that he did not think that experimenting on animals raised a moral issue at all.

On this view, claims on behalf of animals are not just excessive, but downright nonsensical, as meaningless as claims on behalf of stones or machines or plastic dolls.

(Midgley 1983: 10)

She contrasts absolute dismissal with relative dismissal:

Humanitarians occupied with human problems do not usually dismiss animal claims as just nonsensical, like claims on behalf of stones. Instead, they merely give them a very low priority. The suggestion is now that animals, since they are conscious, are entitled to some consideration, but must come at the end of the queue, after all human needs have been met. I shall call this idea relative dismissal… to distinguish it from absolute dismissal. As we shall see, the distinction makes a good deal of difference in practice, since many claims on behalf of animals do not compete with real human needs at all, and therefore do not seem to stand in the same queue. Englishmen baiting bears were not in the same position as Eskimoes killing them in self-defence.

(Midgley 1983: 13)

Absolute dismissal will not be ignored in what follows, but I shall be concentrating on arguments against it rather than any defence of it. Near the beginning of her book, Midgley says it would be useful if any reader who was feeling fairly dismissive about animals’ claims could use a particular example of cruelty to an animal as a test to decide whether their dismissal was actually absolute or merely relative, and that seems a good idea for a reader of this book too.

READING ‘ANIMAL LIBERATION’ PHILOSOPHY

One of the aims of this book is substantially to increase your confidence in your ability to read long extracts from philosophical texts by concentrating explicitly on reading techniques.

The first reading technique is particularly pertinent to reading philosophers with whose conclusions you may strongly disagree, for example, Singer and Regan, extreme animal liberationists that they are. ‘But,’ someone might wonder, ‘why are we not reading sensible philosophers arguing for reasonable views we can agree with?’.

One answer is that you have to be prepared to engage with writers you strongly disagree with as well as those that are arguing, comfortably, for such desirable institutions as toleration and freedom of thought and expression. Another answer is that we shall be trying to play the role of ‘sensible philosophers arguing for reasonable views’ ourselves, by trying to pin down just what we think is wrong with Singer’s and Regan’s arguments. We may be certain in advance that there must be something wrong with them, given the conclusions they reach, but pinpointing what it is will be no easy task.

I believe that one of the most interesting upshots of engaging critically with philosophers’ arguments is what one so often learns about one’s own thoughts or beliefs; and this is equally so whether one initially agrees or disagrees with them.

Before I first read Singer and Regan, I believed that whether or not to be a vegetarian just was not a serious moral issue, that using animals in scientific experiments was obvious common sense, and it had simply never occurred to me that there might be anything morally wrong with buying a fur coat. But after I had read them critically, had come up with a number of objections to them, and had read their responses to such objections, I found myself puzzled. My conviction that there was not much wrong with our treatment of animals remained unshaken (it took other authors I read later to do that) but I was puzzled about the grounds of my conviction.‘I know it’s all right for me to eat meat and wear fur coats,’ I said to myself, ‘but why is it all right?’What did I think about why it was all right? I was not sure.

Briefly continuing this psychological autobiography, I should tell you frankly that I eventually converted to vegetarianism. I tell you this because I think that, on such an issue, it is disingenuous if not downright dishonest of an author not to declare her cards, and I will say further that yes, I should be very happy if I converted you to vegetarianism. But that is very different from saying that that is what I am aiming to do. I say that what I am aiming to do is to give you a good knowledge of some of the most important philosophical arguments against much of our treatment of animals and objections to those arguments and leaving you to make up your own mind; I am not aiming to convert you.

All that I ask is that you read me in the light of the principle I am about to describe. And it does not matter if you approach reading Singer and Regan with the conviction that they must be wrong – as long as you read them in the light of this principle. For it governs finding out what a writer is really saying. Once you have found that out, you may make of it what you will: that is your freedom.

THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY

The principle of charity, roughly, requires that we try to find the best – the most reasonable or plausible – (rather than the worst) possible interpretation of what we read and hear, i.e. of what other people say. What does this high-sounding injunction amount to in practice?

At its most mundane level, consider ordinary conversation containing, as we say, ‘slips of the tongue’. My aunt is 85; like many people of her age, she tends to muddle up names, skipping generations. She is talking about ‘Jack’; my son, she says, saw him last week, such a splendid boy, so interested to hear he has decided to give up the law and go in for social work. But my son’s name is Jason; ‘Jack’ was my father’s name, and he is, alas, long dead. So there is my old aunt, rabbitting on about having seen Jack, and how proud I must be of him, and what they talked about … What do I do? Do I interpret my aunt as making a number of completely barmy claims about my long dead father? Or do I – knowing that she saw Jason just last week, that he has indeed decided to give up the law and go in for social work, that he told me he and his great aunt discussed it and so on – effortlessly, indeed, quite unthinkingly, but charitably, assume that when she says ‘Jack’ she means ‘Jason’? Of course I do. Anyone would. Thereby I act in accordance with the principle of charity.

This sort of example is so mundane that it is hard to see how the principle could embody anything important. But it is important because our capacity to communicate with each other – the very possibility of language – rests on our willingness to aim to interpret what others say as, if not true, at least reasonable rather than barmy. When I interpret my aunt’s utterances as being quite reasonable ones for her to make about my son Jason rather than crazy ones about my long dead father Jack (though maybe she has some details wrong) it is not just a matter of my being nice to her, but of my keeping the channels of communication open. If I neglect the principle of charity, I shall just interpret what she says as ravings and guarantee that she fails to communicate to me what she wants to say.

How does the principle work in practice applied to reading philosophy?

In some respects, very straightforwardly. If, at first glance, a philosopher appears to be contradicting himself, the principle requires that we look for a charitable interpretation in which he does not do so. After all, asserting a contradiction is about the most unreasonable, implausible, idiotic thing a philosopher (rather than say, a poet) could do. Uncharitably ascribing self-contradiction to a philosophical writer might seem to be a mistake that no one is likely to make, but in fact it is quite common. One way in which it comes about is through failing to...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• The utilitarian defence of animals
• Criticizing Singer
• Differences between humans and animals
• The rights-based defence of animals
• Midgley's approach: for and against speciesism
• The virtue ethics defence of animals
• Readings
• Bibliography
• Index