Animal Neopragmatism

From Welfare to Rights

John Hadley

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030259792
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030259808
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

This book affords a neopragmatic theory of animal ethics, taking its lead from American Pragmatism to place language at the centre of philosophical analysis. Following a method traceable to Dewey, Wittgenstein and Rorty, Hadley argues that many enduring puzzles about human interactions with animals can be 'dissolved' by understanding why people use terms like dignity, respect, naturalness, and inherent value. Hadley shifts the debate about animal welfare and rights from its current focus upon contentious claims about value and animal mindedness, to the vocabulary people use to express their concern for the suffering and lives of animals. With its emphasis on public concern for animals, animal neopragmatism is a uniquely progressive and democratic theory of animal ethics.

© The Author(s) 2019

J. HadleyAnimal Neopragmatismhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25980-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

John Hadley¹

(1)

Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia

John Hadley

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

NeopragmatismAnimal welfareAnimal rightsAnimal ethicsAnimal welfare scienceRealismExpressivismRationalismPluralismEpistemologyPragmatismPeirceRorty

End Abstract

There are things people do to animals that give us pause for thought, even though it is unlikely the animals concerned are suffering. Relevant examples of the kinds of action I have in mind include using animals in artworks or as studio guests on television, confining them in more or less natural surroundings, petting zoos, genetic modification, fancy dress competitions, corpse desecration, and organ harvesting. What can be said in opposition to these practices if the animals are not suffering?

The standard response from proponents of animal rights is to appeal to concepts like dignity or respect. For example, it might be argued that to dress a bear in an Elizabethan collar is to treat it in an undignified way, or to use a python as an object of curiosity on television is to fail to respect its inherent value. The problem with appeals to dignity and respect, however, is that they amount to changing the subject (Hadley 2017b)—of turning an issue that can be framed in the familiar terms of animal welfare into the specialized and idiosyncratic terms of animal rights. While media attention on animal protection issues is increasing, the distinctive features of animal rights philosophy rarely rate a mention in reporting or commentary. Against the background of widespread ignorance about animal rights, the concern with appeals to rights-based concepts like dignity and respect is that otherwise sympathetic people may be inattentive to claims they don’t understand or find too challenging.

Yet it is appropriate for proponents of animal protection to object to certain seemingly benign uses of animals. After all, in liberal democracies that is their right. There is also a fair chance that persons objecting to practices in which animals do not suffer will find support amongst a significant number of their fellow citizens. This is because the average person is not simply anti-pain. What I mean is that, contrary to the presuppositions of the hedonists, citizens of liberal democracies have more diffuse and wide-ranging concerns than aversive phenomenology. ¹ While these concerns may be difficult for most people to articulate, arguably, they are part and parcel of human nature and spring from the moral psychology of the reasonably socialised person. In effect, the reasonably socialised person carries with them a picture of what appropriate human and animal relations ought to be like, and practices that are at odds with this picture can have a jarring effect on one’s moral sentiments (Hadley 2013, p. 98). Certain practices just seem problematic and make people feel uneasy. The proponent of animal rights is correct, therefore, to draw attention to questionable practices involving animals because doing so likely accords with the concerns of her fellow citizens.

Neopragmatism

In this book I aim to show how thinking about human concern for animals as broad-based and nonhedonistic facilitates the development of an animal rights theory that avoids the practical and theoretical problems associated with appeals to rights-based considerations such as dignity and respect. The solution is to more closely align such considerations to the familiar and uncontroversial concept of animal welfare, specifically, the badness of pain which, I presuppose, is the central moral consideration of animal welfare theory and practice. ² The key to this alignment is to adopt a distinctly relational approach to animal welfare and focus on the linguistic practices of persons. A linguistic analysis is a signature feature of the version of American pragmatism known as neopragmatism. As two leading neopragmatists explain:

Pragmatism begins with linguistic explananda; with phenomena concerning the use of certain terms and concepts, rather than with things or properties of a non-linguistic nature. It begins with linguistic behaviour and asks broadly anthropological questions. How are we to understand the roles and functions of the behaviour in question? What is its practical significance? Whence its genealogy? (Macarthur and Price 2007, p. 95)

In effect, the neopragmatist in animal ethics moves from analysis of a particular concept or property purportedly possessed by animals to an ostensibly anthropological analysis of the usage of terms by persons. In other words, instead of trying to define dignity or respect with reference to a natural feature of animals, we simply focus on why persons are using the terms. Accordingly, in line with the discussions in Chapters 4 and 5, the motivation for using terms like dignity and respect is to signal a concern about what is being done to animals, and this concern is more wide-ranging than simply a concern for any aversive phenomenology the animal may be experiencing.

The two signature pieces of theory that serve to distinguish animal neopragmatism are: firstly, a psychological-cum-anthropological thesis about the scope of a person’s concern for pain and, secondly, an expressivist analysis of the semantic value of the usage of rights-based or nonhedonistic terms such as dignity and respect. In line with the former, the claim is that the scope of concern for pain extends beyond aversive phenomenology to include nonhedonistic considerations; in line with the latter, the claim is that sentences containing rights-based terms like dignity and respect are expressions of emotions, attitudes or opinions.

The Function of Language

The linguistic focus of animal neopragmatism requires analysing the usage of terms like respect and dignity in what philosophers call anti-representational fashion. Anti-representationalism is contrasted with representationalism; each is a rival theory about the function of language. The representationalist accepts the standard picture of knowledge as a matter of having mental states which accurately correspond to the external world. In line with representationalism, sentences express beliefs which describe a state of affairs in the world. Accordingly, when someone says, “Using an animal as a studio guest fails to respect its inherent value”, they are making a claim about an action (using an animal as a studio guest) and the property of an animal (inherent value).

In contrast to representationalism, anti-representationalism rejects the standard picture of knowledge as a matter of possessing beliefs that accurately describe the world; instead, sentences are understood in terms of the role they play in human practices (Bacon 2012, p. 175). In line with the form of anti-representationalism known as expressivism, sentences function to express the speaker’s emotions, attitudes or opinions. Accordingly, when someone says, “Using an animal as a studio guest fails to respect its inherent value”, they are expressing their disapproval of the practice. When a sentence is understood in line with anti-representationalism, no change of subject problem occurs because the speaker is not making a claim about animals and aligning their usage of rights-based terms to properties that are distinct from the capacity to suffer. ³ How, then, can registering disapproval of a practice in which animals are not suffering be interpreted as a concern about the welfare of animals as opposed to their rights?

Animal Welfare and Public Reason

Providing a credible answer to that question is an important concern of Chapter 4. The answer is two-fold: in liberal democracies, welfare is the only game in town and any practice involving animals must fall under the remit of the established animal welfare paradigm if it is to be the proper subject of ethical evaluation and, potentially, progressive policy reform. Any attention directed at the practice, therefore, by practical necessity renders the practice a welfare issue. In other words, because the usage of animals is governed by welfare legislation and norms, when an activist expresses objection to, say, the use of animals as studio guests on television, the action is bona fide welfare-directed. Secondly, as the empirical analysis in Chapter 2 and the Helmsian psychological thesis in Chapter 4 will show, people’s concern for others is broad-based, encompassing a range of concerns over and above aversive phenomenology. Simply put, a concern for an individual just is a concern for the individual in a wide-ranging and holistic sense. ⁴ By corollary, the badness of pain encompasses more than simply aversive phenomenology and extends to a range of impacts upon the life of the sufferer. These impacts reflect the relational dimension of pain, and I will argue they deserve to be viewed as authentic elements of welfare. Accordingl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Political Problem of Welfare
• 3. The Philosophical Problem of Welfare
• 4. Relational Hedonism
• 5. Responses to the Welfare Problems
• 6. Two Problems for Animal Rights Theory
• 7. Objections to Animal Neopragmatism
• 8. Welfare, Rights, and Pragmatism
• Back Matter