stemann
Time Bandit
Animal rights, as understood by most scholars, are defined by Encarta as 'the moral right of animals to be treated with respect and without exploitation'4. These rights are based on the same grounds as human rights, which are derived from the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. This 'Golden Rule' is the teaching that is at the heart of almost every religion in the world; certainly every major religion.9
As Christine Stevens says: 'the basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position.'1 This implies a certain amount of empathy on our part is needed, allowing us to 'put ourselves in their place.' In the case of other humans this is not too hard, as they are the same species and so it is easier to identify with them.
However, in the case of animals we cannot put ourselves in their place as easily because they are a different species, and so have different body and mind structures to us. So in asking the question 'how would I feel if I were that animal,' it is almost impossible to empathise. Thus many people attempt to mistakenly imagine their human mind inside an animal's body. Others decide it is easier to eat meat and not think about it than to make a moral decision based on the animal's conscious experience.
Contrary to this many people, such as vegetarians and animal rights activists, can and do invoke the Golden Rule when making decisions on how animals should be treated. Everyone thinks differently depending on a number of factors including their environment and their natural disposition, so the way certain people think make it easier for them to empathise with animals than for others.
One of the first scholars to advocate care for animals was Pythagoras (580-500BC). However he did not do this out of compassion for the animals themselves; he believed that they might contain the souls of ancestors and so advised against treating them badly. After this, however, Aristotle put forward the theory that as man is more powerful than animals, using technology such as nets and weapons, they are ours to do with as we wish.2
Saint Augustine (350-430AD) said that animals, being devoid of reason, do not exist in the same moral sphere as humans, meaning we can do what we like to them. By this he meant that they are devoid of reason and thus have no sense of right and wrong. An animal that kills another animal is neither good nor bad, it is merely acting on instinct. Therefore, according to Augustine, we have no duty to act towards animals in a certain way as they are not moral creatures like us. Augustine, as a Christian, believed that by nature humans were the most important creatures in the world due to our faculty of moral reasoning. He also believed that animals were created at the same time as humans, specifically for humans. From this, he claims that they are there for us to treat as we wish.2
In this he is backed up by Genesis 1:26, which says: 'Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."'
This backs Augustine up as it asserts man's position above animals in God's eyes; both in being created after His likeness- animals being given meaningless forms- and in our dominion over them.
The theologian St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) makes his position on the subject very clear in his Summa Theologica: 'It matters not how man behaves to animals, because God has subjected all things to man's power and it is in this sense that the Apostle says that God has no care for the oxen, because God does not ask of man what he does with oxen or other animals'. Here, Aquinas is going further than Augustine in saying that it does not even matter about the animals' morality, we can treat them how we wish because of our God-given power over them. It is Aquinas' belief that God created humans as controllers over the rest of His creation.3
There are many counterarguments to both Augustine's and Aquinas' views. Many people, including the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), believe that we should decide how to treat something depending on its ability to feel pain, not its moral capacity. After all, is it acceptable to kill a baby that has no sense of right and wrong? It is obvious to some people that animals feel pain as clearly and acutely as humans, so why should we be allowed to make them suffer when we have a 'moral obligation' not to harm humans?8 Bentham illustrated this point clearly in his Principle of Morals: 'The question is not "Can they reason?" nor "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?"'1 This means that for someone following the Golden Rule it must be used for everything that can feel pain, regardless of whether they are conscious. This would therefore include animals.
However, it is not possible for something that is not conscious to feel pain. Further, not all animals are conscious. From this we can derive that not all animals can feel pain. So a problem remains in establishing which animals are conscious and which are not.
A conscious entity is one that is defined as 'aware of itself as a thinking being.'4 There is some debate as to the nature of consciousness. It could be binary, for example everything is either conscious or not conscious; or it could be continuous, where there is a 'scale of consciousness' and some things are more conscious than others. If the latter then it is almost certain that animals such as monkeys operate on a higher level of consciousness as they seem to display complex human-like emotions, such as remorse. A dog, for example, can be taught good or bad using a simple system of reward and punishment, and many are also known to save their owners when in life-threatening situations. Could a creature that was not on some level conscious commit acts such as this?
According to Christianity all life, conscious or otherwise, is God-given and therefore sacred, from microscopic bacteria to human beings. Some believe it is cruel to kill something that is alive even if it is not conscious. The logic here is that it is a living thing and it is cruel to take away its life.But this is no more logical than saying it is cruel to throw a computer away, as any creature that is not conscious is nothing but a body that behaves in a certain way depending on things that happen to it.9 Its processes can be modelled as computer processes, and so why should it be cruel to kill such a creature as an insect, and not cruel to destroy a computer?
Christians would say that humans have created the computer for our own purposes, and so God does not come into it. We are free to do what we like to computers as we created them. However, does this not mean that we could artificially create life, for instance through cloning, and then it would be ours to do what we like with it? This would not be acceptable to many Christians as it would be creating life that would naturally arise through the ways that God intended, whereas a computer is something separate from God's creation and therefore does not have the sanctity of life that other animals do. Further to this, many Christians also believe that cloning animals and even microscopic cells is wrong, as it is only God who can give life through the miracle of birth and it would be against God's will to create life by any other means.
The problem here is that Christians have had to decide this based only on their own sense of morality and on teachings by religious leaders, as there is obviously nothing regarding the modern technologies of cloning or test-tube babies in the Bible. Thus the Christian view can be criticised as it seems moral obligations have been extrapolated from general examples given in the Bible and applied to modern situations, to which they are not necessarily suited. This is just one of many problems of the Bible; due to its contradictory nature it seems to some that Christians take heed to only selected parts.
If all life is sacred, arent we all committing millions of sins just by existing, since our bodies destroy bacteria and viruses constantly? As well as this, many rats, locusts and other pests are killed regularly simply because they are regarded as pests. Christians here would say that human comfort takes precedence over the sanctity of the pests' lives, since Christianity teaches that human life is more valuable than animal life.
A famous reference to the value of animal life is found in Matthew 10:29-31, which states: 'A man is worth many sparrows, but not one sparrow can die unnoticed in God's World'. This is suggesting that all life has value, and should be treated as such; however the value of a man's life is greater as he is greater, for the reasons described above. This is justified in the same way by Augustine; that is, humans are moral creatures and therefore capable of salvation, whereas it seems that animals, having no morals, will not live on in any sense after death except in memories.
This can also be proposed in answer to the question: do animals have souls? The soul is classically defined as what lives on when our bodies die, and so is judged by our 'right' and 'wrong' actions on earth to decide where we spend the afterlife. If animals are amoral and have no concept of right and wrong, then they do not have souls, since there would be nothing to judge in the afterlife.
So, if human life is more valuable than animal life, how should humans treat animals? Religions such as Buddhism hold beliefs that make it mandatory to be vegetarian: 'Why do Buddhists advocate vegetarianism? The main reason is "mercy", and because we "cannot bear to eat the flesh of living creatures." And our belief in karma tells us that we must eventually suffer the consequences of our evil actions.'11
Other religions, including Christianity, believe that humans have the right to eat animals and use them for other things, such as work, as we have a God-given 'authority' over animals. This view, as Augustine's before, is backed up by Genesis 1:26, especially in the word 'dominion' which expresses man's position in relationship to animals. However, the Bible was written in Hebrew and not English, and so through translations the original word may not have meant dominion as such.
Whatever the meaning, Christians still use this passage as a teaching telling us that God has placed animals under our authority; authority that is accepted along with a position of trust and responsibility, known as stewardship. This means that even though man has power over the earth and animals he should treat them with respect and care, as God has entrusted the earth to humans, and to abuse it would be irresponsible and disrespectful to God.10 As John Forsythe said, 'Man is not the lord of all the world's animals. He is the protector.'1
Also, if we did not treat animals with care we would be displaying evil tendencies which may then spread to our treatment towards other people. Cruelty to animals is absolutely prohibited, as members of a civilised society should not display such characteristics as cruelty.5
This latter argument seems like weak reasoning; only treating animals well for the sake of humans. This places no value on the animal's life or awareness of pain at all. However, from this rule has grown compassion towards animals for their own sake, not just by vegetarians but from many meat-eating people as well. Many people who eat meat are also against the cruel treatment to animals before they are killed for food, for example the recent controversy over the containment of calves for veal and battery hens.
There are also certain biological reasons for eating meat. A meat-less diet may mean the body does not get all the amino acids it needs to generate certain vital proteins; however, these could be found in a careful vegetarian diet. Also, by not eating meat you automatically consume less cholesterol and saturated fat. So, it would seem that by eating a sensible vegetarian diet you would become healthier.6 Again, though, this argument for vegetarianism puts no value on the animals' lives you are sparing, only on human health.
Despite the health implications, the biology of the human body is one suited, indeed designed for meat ingestion and digestion (it does not matter whether you believe we evolved naturally or if we were created by God). We all have canine teeth, which are there for tearing flesh. The human body, however it came about as it is, is fashioned for eating meat. However, there are many things that we also have that are not really there for any reason, or have been rendered useless through evolution, such as earlobes, the appendix, and the little toe. Canine teeth may merely be outmoded tools that are not needed anymore.
A controversial argument regarding animal rights is the experimentation on animals for medical research, cosmetic research, and also for detergents and household objects. The death of mice and other small animals is sometimes seen as morally justifiable when it prevents the painful deaths of thousands of people who suffer from terminal diseases such as cancer. Medical experimentation, carried out in order to further human knowledge regarding human illnesses is generally seen as acceptable by many religions, as long as it also minimises the pain and suffering of the animals involved. However the extent to which animal experimentation can minimise the suffering of animals is highly questionable as its nature is to cause pain. However many still believe that as human life is more important than animal life, it is worth sacrificing animals in order that more humans may live. So in this case, the animals' rights to life are overruled.7
However it is regarded as cruel and unnecessary to test cosmetic products on animals, causing them pain in the process. This is for two reasons: firstly, there are already sufficient products on the market to keep the human race healthy and good-looking; and secondly, vanity and financial gain are not seen as good enough reasons to cause pain and suffering. Many believe animals suffer for our greed and pride in the way we look, which is not morally acceptable, yet still legal. The fur industry is another example of this. It is not that we would all die from the cold if we did not kill millions of animals and wear their fur; it is for the sake of fashion and vanity. This is one of the seven deadly sins in the Christian religion and therefore not a morally justifiable reason for the slaughter of animals. Again, this is still legal.
As Christine Stevens says: 'the basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position.'1 This implies a certain amount of empathy on our part is needed, allowing us to 'put ourselves in their place.' In the case of other humans this is not too hard, as they are the same species and so it is easier to identify with them.
However, in the case of animals we cannot put ourselves in their place as easily because they are a different species, and so have different body and mind structures to us. So in asking the question 'how would I feel if I were that animal,' it is almost impossible to empathise. Thus many people attempt to mistakenly imagine their human mind inside an animal's body. Others decide it is easier to eat meat and not think about it than to make a moral decision based on the animal's conscious experience.
Contrary to this many people, such as vegetarians and animal rights activists, can and do invoke the Golden Rule when making decisions on how animals should be treated. Everyone thinks differently depending on a number of factors including their environment and their natural disposition, so the way certain people think make it easier for them to empathise with animals than for others.
One of the first scholars to advocate care for animals was Pythagoras (580-500BC). However he did not do this out of compassion for the animals themselves; he believed that they might contain the souls of ancestors and so advised against treating them badly. After this, however, Aristotle put forward the theory that as man is more powerful than animals, using technology such as nets and weapons, they are ours to do with as we wish.2
Saint Augustine (350-430AD) said that animals, being devoid of reason, do not exist in the same moral sphere as humans, meaning we can do what we like to them. By this he meant that they are devoid of reason and thus have no sense of right and wrong. An animal that kills another animal is neither good nor bad, it is merely acting on instinct. Therefore, according to Augustine, we have no duty to act towards animals in a certain way as they are not moral creatures like us. Augustine, as a Christian, believed that by nature humans were the most important creatures in the world due to our faculty of moral reasoning. He also believed that animals were created at the same time as humans, specifically for humans. From this, he claims that they are there for us to treat as we wish.2
In this he is backed up by Genesis 1:26, which says: 'Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."'
This backs Augustine up as it asserts man's position above animals in God's eyes; both in being created after His likeness- animals being given meaningless forms- and in our dominion over them.
The theologian St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) makes his position on the subject very clear in his Summa Theologica: 'It matters not how man behaves to animals, because God has subjected all things to man's power and it is in this sense that the Apostle says that God has no care for the oxen, because God does not ask of man what he does with oxen or other animals'. Here, Aquinas is going further than Augustine in saying that it does not even matter about the animals' morality, we can treat them how we wish because of our God-given power over them. It is Aquinas' belief that God created humans as controllers over the rest of His creation.3
There are many counterarguments to both Augustine's and Aquinas' views. Many people, including the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), believe that we should decide how to treat something depending on its ability to feel pain, not its moral capacity. After all, is it acceptable to kill a baby that has no sense of right and wrong? It is obvious to some people that animals feel pain as clearly and acutely as humans, so why should we be allowed to make them suffer when we have a 'moral obligation' not to harm humans?8 Bentham illustrated this point clearly in his Principle of Morals: 'The question is not "Can they reason?" nor "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?"'1 This means that for someone following the Golden Rule it must be used for everything that can feel pain, regardless of whether they are conscious. This would therefore include animals.
However, it is not possible for something that is not conscious to feel pain. Further, not all animals are conscious. From this we can derive that not all animals can feel pain. So a problem remains in establishing which animals are conscious and which are not.
A conscious entity is one that is defined as 'aware of itself as a thinking being.'4 There is some debate as to the nature of consciousness. It could be binary, for example everything is either conscious or not conscious; or it could be continuous, where there is a 'scale of consciousness' and some things are more conscious than others. If the latter then it is almost certain that animals such as monkeys operate on a higher level of consciousness as they seem to display complex human-like emotions, such as remorse. A dog, for example, can be taught good or bad using a simple system of reward and punishment, and many are also known to save their owners when in life-threatening situations. Could a creature that was not on some level conscious commit acts such as this?
According to Christianity all life, conscious or otherwise, is God-given and therefore sacred, from microscopic bacteria to human beings. Some believe it is cruel to kill something that is alive even if it is not conscious. The logic here is that it is a living thing and it is cruel to take away its life.But this is no more logical than saying it is cruel to throw a computer away, as any creature that is not conscious is nothing but a body that behaves in a certain way depending on things that happen to it.9 Its processes can be modelled as computer processes, and so why should it be cruel to kill such a creature as an insect, and not cruel to destroy a computer?
Christians would say that humans have created the computer for our own purposes, and so God does not come into it. We are free to do what we like to computers as we created them. However, does this not mean that we could artificially create life, for instance through cloning, and then it would be ours to do what we like with it? This would not be acceptable to many Christians as it would be creating life that would naturally arise through the ways that God intended, whereas a computer is something separate from God's creation and therefore does not have the sanctity of life that other animals do. Further to this, many Christians also believe that cloning animals and even microscopic cells is wrong, as it is only God who can give life through the miracle of birth and it would be against God's will to create life by any other means.
The problem here is that Christians have had to decide this based only on their own sense of morality and on teachings by religious leaders, as there is obviously nothing regarding the modern technologies of cloning or test-tube babies in the Bible. Thus the Christian view can be criticised as it seems moral obligations have been extrapolated from general examples given in the Bible and applied to modern situations, to which they are not necessarily suited. This is just one of many problems of the Bible; due to its contradictory nature it seems to some that Christians take heed to only selected parts.
If all life is sacred, arent we all committing millions of sins just by existing, since our bodies destroy bacteria and viruses constantly? As well as this, many rats, locusts and other pests are killed regularly simply because they are regarded as pests. Christians here would say that human comfort takes precedence over the sanctity of the pests' lives, since Christianity teaches that human life is more valuable than animal life.
A famous reference to the value of animal life is found in Matthew 10:29-31, which states: 'A man is worth many sparrows, but not one sparrow can die unnoticed in God's World'. This is suggesting that all life has value, and should be treated as such; however the value of a man's life is greater as he is greater, for the reasons described above. This is justified in the same way by Augustine; that is, humans are moral creatures and therefore capable of salvation, whereas it seems that animals, having no morals, will not live on in any sense after death except in memories.
This can also be proposed in answer to the question: do animals have souls? The soul is classically defined as what lives on when our bodies die, and so is judged by our 'right' and 'wrong' actions on earth to decide where we spend the afterlife. If animals are amoral and have no concept of right and wrong, then they do not have souls, since there would be nothing to judge in the afterlife.
So, if human life is more valuable than animal life, how should humans treat animals? Religions such as Buddhism hold beliefs that make it mandatory to be vegetarian: 'Why do Buddhists advocate vegetarianism? The main reason is "mercy", and because we "cannot bear to eat the flesh of living creatures." And our belief in karma tells us that we must eventually suffer the consequences of our evil actions.'11
Other religions, including Christianity, believe that humans have the right to eat animals and use them for other things, such as work, as we have a God-given 'authority' over animals. This view, as Augustine's before, is backed up by Genesis 1:26, especially in the word 'dominion' which expresses man's position in relationship to animals. However, the Bible was written in Hebrew and not English, and so through translations the original word may not have meant dominion as such.
Whatever the meaning, Christians still use this passage as a teaching telling us that God has placed animals under our authority; authority that is accepted along with a position of trust and responsibility, known as stewardship. This means that even though man has power over the earth and animals he should treat them with respect and care, as God has entrusted the earth to humans, and to abuse it would be irresponsible and disrespectful to God.10 As John Forsythe said, 'Man is not the lord of all the world's animals. He is the protector.'1
Also, if we did not treat animals with care we would be displaying evil tendencies which may then spread to our treatment towards other people. Cruelty to animals is absolutely prohibited, as members of a civilised society should not display such characteristics as cruelty.5
This latter argument seems like weak reasoning; only treating animals well for the sake of humans. This places no value on the animal's life or awareness of pain at all. However, from this rule has grown compassion towards animals for their own sake, not just by vegetarians but from many meat-eating people as well. Many people who eat meat are also against the cruel treatment to animals before they are killed for food, for example the recent controversy over the containment of calves for veal and battery hens.
There are also certain biological reasons for eating meat. A meat-less diet may mean the body does not get all the amino acids it needs to generate certain vital proteins; however, these could be found in a careful vegetarian diet. Also, by not eating meat you automatically consume less cholesterol and saturated fat. So, it would seem that by eating a sensible vegetarian diet you would become healthier.6 Again, though, this argument for vegetarianism puts no value on the animals' lives you are sparing, only on human health.
Despite the health implications, the biology of the human body is one suited, indeed designed for meat ingestion and digestion (it does not matter whether you believe we evolved naturally or if we were created by God). We all have canine teeth, which are there for tearing flesh. The human body, however it came about as it is, is fashioned for eating meat. However, there are many things that we also have that are not really there for any reason, or have been rendered useless through evolution, such as earlobes, the appendix, and the little toe. Canine teeth may merely be outmoded tools that are not needed anymore.
A controversial argument regarding animal rights is the experimentation on animals for medical research, cosmetic research, and also for detergents and household objects. The death of mice and other small animals is sometimes seen as morally justifiable when it prevents the painful deaths of thousands of people who suffer from terminal diseases such as cancer. Medical experimentation, carried out in order to further human knowledge regarding human illnesses is generally seen as acceptable by many religions, as long as it also minimises the pain and suffering of the animals involved. However the extent to which animal experimentation can minimise the suffering of animals is highly questionable as its nature is to cause pain. However many still believe that as human life is more important than animal life, it is worth sacrificing animals in order that more humans may live. So in this case, the animals' rights to life are overruled.7
However it is regarded as cruel and unnecessary to test cosmetic products on animals, causing them pain in the process. This is for two reasons: firstly, there are already sufficient products on the market to keep the human race healthy and good-looking; and secondly, vanity and financial gain are not seen as good enough reasons to cause pain and suffering. Many believe animals suffer for our greed and pride in the way we look, which is not morally acceptable, yet still legal. The fur industry is another example of this. It is not that we would all die from the cold if we did not kill millions of animals and wear their fur; it is for the sake of fashion and vanity. This is one of the seven deadly sins in the Christian religion and therefore not a morally justifiable reason for the slaughter of animals. Again, this is still legal.
In conclusion, it is generally accepted in Christianity that animals can be treated in a way that would lead to their death, as long as they die for the purpose of increasing human knowledge, comfort, or prolonging human life. This includes killing animals humanely for food, using animals in medical experiments- inducing as little pain as possible on the animals' parts- to further knowledge in the treatment of human diseases, and in killing pests and dangerous animals. These examples are all acceptable because human life is regarded as of greater value than animal life, and because God entrusted humans with power and responsibility over animals, so that we may treat them well.
Genesis 2:15 says: 'The Lord God took the man [Adam] and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it.' Humans are stewards of the earth and as such should take care of it and everything in it, including animals and other people. Leading from this, unnecessary cruelty to animals for the sake of sins such as greed (in the ivory trade) and vanity (in the fur trade) are generally not acceptable as the animals are not suffering and dying for justifiable causes.