 CREATURES
LIKE US?
The author of our fourth article in the
Great Debate, Dr Lynne Sharpe, is a doctor of philosophy and a qualified
teacher and interpreter, providing simultaneous translations between the Welsh
and English languages. Having lived with animals all her life, her major criticism
of many philosophers is that their perspective is purely theoretical. Applying
such theories to the real world, she believes, is often problematical.
Of those philosophers who ask the questions 'what are
our obligations to animals, do they have rights and what is their moral status?',
many have chosen to answer by raising another question, 'are they like us?'.
But this question can only be answered if we know who 'we' are, what are our
defining characteristics, and what, if anything, gives us moral status.
For Singer, Harris and others like them, the quality that defines 'us' is rational,
self-conscious 'personhood'; for Regan and De Grazia 'we' are 'normal adult
human beings' - which amounts to much the same. Consequently, the traditional
belief in the sanctity of all human life is challenged on the grounds that,
since not all humans are self-conscious, not all humans are persons. Babies,
the senile or brain-damaged, for example, may fail to qualify. On the other
hand, there is in principle no reason why some non-humans should not be persons,
in which case they must be accorded equal moral status. I say that this is in
principle possible, but in practice the introspective self-consciousness that
defines personhood is unlikely to be a possibility for non-language users, and
the 'new order' of Animal Liberation is still a two-tier system, with the traditional
divide between human and animal being replaced by that between person and non-person.
The self-conscious ('we') are moral equals and equally entitled to have our
welfare and wishes treated with respect. The non-self-conscious are, in this
supremely important respect, not 'like us' and are only worthy of our concern
in the negative sense that - if, like us, they are sentient - we are to avoid
causing them pain. The effect of this reclassification is not so much to favour
animals - for few will qualify for admission to the upper tier - as to reduce
to the ranks the many humans who will not make the grade.
Although the adherents of this view present it as egalitarian and argue vehemently
against racism, sexism and speciesism, their unquestioning acceptance of their
own superior status exposes their 'egalitarianism' as just another version of
the hierarchical system that underlies the very prejudices they condemn. Racism,
sexism and speciesism start with the assumption that 'we' are special in a way
that makes 'us' superior to other groups whose members do not share the particular
quality that defines 'us'. The choice of one quality - whether skin colour,
sex, species, race - or linguistically defined self-consciousness - as definitive,
privileges those who possess it and the perception of 'them' as not merely different
but as inferior, prevents us from getting to know them, so that the professed
concern for their 'interests' is limited by an inadequate grasp of what those
interests are.
In this respect, the fiercely 'anti-speciesist' philosophers mentioned above
are much closer than they would admit to those such as Peter Carruthers and
Michael Leahy, who also take self-consciousness as the most important quality
that any creature can have but who argue that the limits of our moral concern
should be co-terminous with the limits of the human race. The main difference
between the two groups is that, whereas the first recognises - in theory at
least - that 'pain is pain, whoever suffers', the second argues either that
animals' capacity for suffering is insignificant compared to that of humans
(Leahy) or that animal consciousness is so far removed from human consciousness
that animals are 'not appropriate objects of moral concern' at all (Carruthers).
Raymond Frey has a foot in each camp, being anti-speciesist but denying that
animals can have any interests at all. I believe that all of these views over-emphasise
the role of language in human perceptions and feelings, distorting our understanding
not only of animals but of humans too.
For Carruthers, Leahy and others, those who treat animals as thinking, feeling
beings with desires and preferences and to whom we can relate are guilty of
'anthropomorphism' - of attributing to them qualities and capacities which are
exclusively human. Anthropomorphism is not a word in the vocabulary of Singer,
Harris and other 'anti-speciesists' who claim blindness to species barriers.
Nonetheless they condemn not only emotional involvement with animals, but emotional
involvement with babies or other 'non-persons' as inappropriate, dismissing
it as 'soggy sentimentality' or evidence of excessive vulnerability to the appeal
of the 'cute and cuddly'.
But the exclusivity of linguistically defined 'self-consciousness' or 'personhood'
is not the only way in which we might define ourselves. Most ordinary people
do not define themselves primarily in terms of their rationality and self-consciousness,
but rather in terms of their relationships with others - as mother, sister,
carer or teacher for example. As social mammals we belong to a class much wider
than that of 'persons' and the qualities which all social mammals share - the
qualities essential for successful parenting and social living, for instance
- are no less important than those which are unique to 'persons'. Indeed, it
might well be argued that the problems of the world are caused, not by any shortage
of rationality or self-consciousness, but by an inability to get on with our
neighbours.
Once we see ourselves in relation to others, we see not only that our own rationality
and self-consciousness are less important than philosophers would have us believe
but that our concern for others, our affection for them and loyalty to them
depends less on their being self-conscious than on their being conscious of
us as individuals. We do not judge our babies or our dogs to be 'replaceable'
or their lives dispensable on the grounds that they are not self-conscious,
but their ability to recognise us and respond to us is crucial to our relationships
with them. If there is what Singer calls a 'turning point in our relationship'
with them it comes, not when - or if - we have evidence that they are self-conscious
but when they recognise us as individuals. It is the smiles and gurgles with
which an infant greets his parents that seal the infant/parent bond, not the
recognition of what Harris calls the 'inner quality' needed for 'personhood'.
For those who regard the non-self-conscious as mere experiencers of pleasure
and pain, the possibility of having relationships with them doesn't even arise,
whereas, for those who do have relationships with dogs and small children, for
example, their status as livers of lives is never in doubt. If we have a need
for a category of 'persons' as distinct from 'human beings', why should we not
define 'person' as 'someone capable of being a friend'? A creature with the
qualities that make this possible might have at least as much claim to 'personhood'
as one who is self-conscious and rational but entirely lacking in emotion, affection
or concern for others. The Utilitarian notion of the self as an independent,
introspective individual defined without reference to others, is a legacy of
a way of thinking which is shared with Cartesianism but which is now rejected
by many.
I offer a quite different way of looking at animals and our attitudes and responsibilities
towards them, by recognizing that just as self-awareness is an awareness of
oneself as one among other selves, so is an understanding of human beings an
awareness of homo sapiens as one species among others and that the ways in which
we differ may be less important than the ways in which we are similar. Many
animals, especially the other social mammals, share many of our emotions, attitudes
and feelings and we are able not only to relate to them but - in some cases
- to have personal relationships with them. I have examined the special relationships
of humans with those that I call 'partner' animals and I suggest that the different
skills and capacities of different species are not an obstacle to the partnership
but crucial to it, so that those most like us may not be those closest to us.
The ability of these animals to form close social relationships with human beings
entails their being concerned not only with our actions but also with our attitudes.
This makes it reasonable to ask not only the question 'does this creature, like
me, have feelings, emotions and intentions?' but also 'does this creature recognize
me as having feelings, emotions, and intentions?'
In pointing out that partner animals do indeed regard humans in this way, I
suggest that this 'other-awareness' and the resultant ability to form close
relationships with us, constitutes a capacity which is as valid a justification
for special moral status as are the more widely accepted criteria of sentience,
self-consciousness or language use. There is nothing arbitrary about the choice
of dog or horse as a partner; it is just that these species, and a few others
- none of them among our 'closest relatives' - are able to be our friends. This
is something that I have learned from a lifetime spent living and working with
animals of many different species. Personal relationships are not something
which can be studied in a laboratory. What is true of a dog studied in a laboratory
will not be true of a dog who lives with people since partners in a relationship
change each other. For this reason, I challenge the validity of the detached
approach of those philosophers on both sides of the animals issue whose views
are based on a false impression of animal capacities and a limited conception
of what is relevant.
Human/animal partnerships are a fact and I challenge the theories of those
philosophers whose arguments are based on the assumption that all non humans
are separated from humans by an unbridgeable chasm and that those who regard
some animals as friends, companions or work-mates are simple minded individuals
under the influence of an illusion. As Mary Midgley writes '... I want to point
out how odd it would be if those who, over many centuries, have depended on
working with animals, turned out to have been relying on a sentimental and pointless
error in doing so, an error which could be corrected at a stroke by metaphysicians
who may never have encountered those animals at all.'
Whilst not denying that language use and the intellectual abilities which go
with it do indeed make homo sapiens a very remarkable animal, I do want to challenge
the view that these qualities make him a superior animal in any objective sense
or that they entitle him to regard the lives of others as being at his disposal.
I would rather say that his special abilities entail not special privileges
but special responsibilities and that if persons have a unique awareness of
the consequences of their actions, then persons have a unique responsibility
for their actions.
So what of the question 'are they like us?' In one sense the question is irrelevant.
To regard ourselves and those most like us as having greater moral status than
others is to be guilty of something analogous to racism. But I also consider
that our ability to relate to others depends upon their sharing at least some
of our most significant features. Those who regard homo sapiens as a superior
species by virtue of his ability to introspect give a distorted view of what
is important to and about human beings and ignore the fact that many creatures
are like us in more significant ways in that they share with us the vulnerability,
the pains, the fears and the joys that are the life of social animals.
Remember, you don't have to be a philosophy graduate to take
part in the Great Debate. Nor do you
have to speak a complicated special language. If you have a thoughtful, well
reasoned set of ideas that you believe would carry the debate forward, then
we want to hear from you. Please send an outline of your proposed article (no
more than 200 words) to info@animalaid.org.uk
- mark it: GREAT DEBATE.
Please tell your friends and add a link from your own website
- the address for the Great Debate
is www.animalaid.org.uk/debate.
|
