Each year, the deaths of billions of animals occur by the doings of one other particular animal species; by an array of means, the fish, insects, rodents, cattle, and all other creatures that crawl, slither, and swim upon the Earth are subject to wholesale slaughter to serve the ends of humanity. Still, despite the gruesome tone of such an allegation, there is much more to this interaction than the normal negative feelings that come as a result of reading it. The grossly large quantities of such killings are frequently invoked to shock, disgust, and guilt one who indulges in their profits, meanwhile morally indicting humankind as a greedy, destructive, and ethically misguided entity at large.
Several groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), a popular organization centered on animal rights, seem to imply that practices, including the consumption of animal meat, are inherently wrong and only perpetuated by habit and tradition. Simply put, however, our failure to cease such activity should not be considered a matter of practical constraint that we must overcome to “do the right thing,” as they might propagate in a righteous tirade against someone ill-equipped to counter it. Indeed, we do feel affinity and some empathy toward cute, furry animals, and as such are actually sometimes morally obligated to them to the same degree. Nevertheless, these obligations do not necessarily entail rights, or at least equal rights between those of animals and humans. (Note: For this discussion, the distinction that “animals” refers to non-human creatures will be made.)
“Speciesism” and intellectual difference
A term first used by the British psychologist Richard D. Ryder, speciesism is defined as the discrimination against animals by human beings, but more importantly serves to imply that this inequality is a sort of undesirable, irrelevant discrimination not unlike sexism or racism. In Animal Liberation, Peter Singer draws the connection between the three:
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of the own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.
Perhaps at first glance, this comparison seems viable, yet it is horrendously sophistic in its ability to vilify! As an experiment, envision the word “businessism,” now properly superimposed into the above passage:
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of the own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, businessists allow the interests of their own business to override the greater interests of members of other businesses. The pattern is identical in each case.
This is not to fallaciously imply that business-to-business relations are in the same dimension as those of species-to-species, but it demonstrates the type of semantic parallelism that can be utilized in order to come to an absurd moral conclusion!
Singer emphasizes that there is no difference between the incongruousness of a hierarchical society based on the intelligence quotient and one based on race or sex (and therefore, by his argument, species). Continuing further, he draws on the wisdom of anti-slavery writing to extend the likening of racism to speciesism, using Thomas Jefferson’s insight as an example: “Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the property or persons of others.” Definitely, there can be no dispute that this is true among humans, but to apply this to the rights of different species is questionable. Racism and sexism will be wrong so long as there continue to be no morally relevant differences between blacks and whites or men and women. On the other hand, there are universally appreciable differences between the human species and all others that make such a difference in rights plausible, just as a businessman will choose to discriminate more skilled workers from unskilled workers when he hires them; he would normally not be accused of being “productionist” for granting the skilled workers greater rights in giving them the job! Humans are therefore granted their rights based on their moral capacities: the ability to self-legislate, through the creation of moral laws; to morally reflect; and very importantly to recognize and accept justice that is contrary to self-interest. Animals possess none of these characteristics of moral autonomy, and it is therefore wrong to assume that they have a right to life merely because they are alive.
Human obligation to the beast
Of course, it does not follow that because animals have no right to life that human beings can run roughshod over them. Animals are, in many ways, quite similar to humans in their capacity to (at least instinctually) desire freedom to roam, have and nurture offspring, but most importantly, suffer. It is therefore not our place (if we are to consider ourselves decent) to needlessly obstruct and encroach upon animal life, but to eschew their suffering to the best of our abilities as we frequently hold dominion over them. As long as there are viable ways within our means to minimize suffering, we hold a moral obligation to do so. The young boy who gouges out a cat’s eyes should be heavily reprimanded for such behavior, because he is causing immense pain for his own mere whimsical entertainment. This does not dismiss the possibility of suffering altogether, but it strives for the best possible moral behavior toward these creatures.
Pain and Suffering
Many people adhere to vegetarianism on the grounds that there is no production of meat that does not involve inhumane methods. As R.G. Frey contends, this is a form of “tactical vegetarianism,” where vegetarianism is used as an economic tool to cease animal suffering. He poses an alternative, however, that could just as effectively replace that tactic:
For just as not eating meat is a tactic for dealing with the pains of food animals, so, too, is the package involving, among other things, maintaining and expanding traditional farming techniques, progressively eliminating painful practices in intensive farming, and funding research into and developing pain-killing drugs.
Would Singer’s and many “tactical” vegetarians’ objections to meat consumption be then dissolved? There might stand the objection that there is no such thing as humane meat production, but there can be no arguing that traditional farming methods, for example, are far more humane than factory farming. Is it not possible that this can be extended further-perhaps through sophisticated pain killers, or genetic growth of meat- until suffering is mitigated to nearly nothing? (Frey)