I'm going to, periodically, post interesting thoughts I've come across in my travels, on my own (those will be infrequent), and in books I'm reading.
Here's the first, from Curious Minds about "speciesism," the assumption that humans are superior or deserve special treatment over animals:
"Doctrinaire antiabortionists who blow up clinics and murder good doctors turn out on examination to be rank speciesists. An unborn baby is by any reasonable standards less deserving of moral sympathy than an adult cow. The profiler screams 'murder!' at the abortion doctor and goes home to a steak dinner."
Yes, BUT... Richard Dawkins is an atheist, and some of his views are therefore perhaps not surprising. His use of the word "good doctor" implies a bias to the piece, because you simply can not know that. I'm not sure what "standards" he refers to, but if given the option of saving a baby, even an unborn one, or a cow, even an adult one, I'm pretty sure most would choose the baby. If this is speciesism, and I think this specific case almost certainly has some aspects, I think its culturally ingrained. And also not nearly as evil as Dawkins makes it out to be. In fact, I'm pretty sure that "reasonable" is up for debate, since Ayn Rand-following Objectivists would probably argue, reasonably, that the human is ALWAYS more deserving of moral sympathy than the cow.
I think Dawkins' big mistake comes in saying a cow is "more" deserving. I guess you can make the argument that they are equally deserving, but "more" seems a stretch. Equating an unborn human as equal and on a similar level as an adult cow (and thus both can be killed) is one thing, assuming it is LESS than a cow, that's another, in my mind.
I realize you can't necessarily consider their future "upside" when considering moral sympathy - otherwise you end up on a slippery slope to comparing the handicapped with those of us without noticeable handicaps, and that lands you in a sticky situation.
I have an internal battle with myself over the killing of animals for food for more than survival purposes. If some smarter alien race came along, could they kill us just because they could think in a different, more advanced way than us? Would they be justified? I feel, somewhat, that its that argument that we use to support our superiority over cows. But I also feel that if put in a purely "natural" situation, for lack of a better term, that we would end up being prey. I think our ability to think and reason like that, but more than that, our ability to create a system of laws and determine and assign rights, gives us a moral superiority. Also, if cows are off limits, then worms and bugs and ants probably should be as well, and then, well, the house I'm living in and typing this from is probably a mass murderer, as an I.
Its certainly not a fool-proof thought on my side, as I said, I battle with it, but there it is.
An interesting way you could look at the situation that Dawkins presents is that the antiabortionist is in fact the opposite of a specie-ist" since the antiabortionist is just as willing to kill an adult human (the doctor) as an adult cow (the steak).
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting (and possibly the point of Dawkins' example) is that it's "okay" to kill doctors who have done wrong (and thus "got what's coming to them) but babies are not okay to kill, since they are pure, good and have done no harm. The comparison was made to adult cows possibly because adult cows also have done no harm and are pure and good. The same could be applied to baby cows made into veal.
I think that most people prefer their own specie to any other--it's natural, and I do mean that in a biological sense. However, the question arises: as higher intelligent beings, should we be beyond our biological nature and choose to interfere with other specie's lives as little as possible.
It's a pretty good argument for being vegetarian/vegan/insanely green. Obviously there are limitations (such as the bugs we squash in our tub which is just gross), at least for most of us. How much are you willing to sacrifice in order to be "better" and "less of a specie-ist"?
I obviously don't judge on the matter. While I try to eat less meat, I'll never be able to stop eating steak and burgers. Or cheese. Or stop riding horses. But I do try to respect other animals (even insects: I apologize before I kill them). Of course, some people would argue I wouldn't have a problem eating a human steak either...but we'll probably never know.
Just some hurried (work-time) thoughts on that....
B.L. - Like I said, I think if you take out the argument to its logical extreme, you HAVE to include bugs and other "gross" creatures. I can't see any way around it. If killing living, thinking, feeling creatures is wrong, kill bugs & worms is wrong. And really, then, you should live in a hut, since that's the greenist option - building houses kill bugs. That's the thinking that has kept me from being a moral vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteLol - I apologize before I kill them
? - "we'll probably never know" Probably? lol.
"we'll probably never know" -- You never know, things happen.
ReplyDeleteThere is a story by Neil Gaiman called "Babycakes" and it starts with the line "One day, all the animals vanished" or something like that. They end up eating babies for meat...
I'm not sure my point, but it's an amusing bit.
I hear ya. The apocolyptic snowfall is here, and if I hadn't rushed out to buy milk and bread last night, We might have been roasting the dog for dinner.
ReplyDeleteI question the logic of eating babies, though. I mean, that's your future food and population. Wouldn't eating the elderly make more sense from a survival standpoint? Not to mention that they are bigger. Wow, this has really gone in a weird direction.