Animal Liberation: 40 Years On

To know how far we have come, we must remember where we started from

The Hebrew tradition: Genesis

“And 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 fowl of the air, and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

The Greek Tradition: Aristotle“Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man…” Aristotle, Politics

The Christian Tradition: Aquinas

“It matters not how man behaves to animals, because God has subjected all things to man’s power.”

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

The philosophical tradition: Descartes

“…it seems reasonable, since art copies nature, and men can make various automata which move without thought, that nature should produce its own automata, much more splendid than artificial ones. These natural automata are the animals.”

Descartes, letter to Henry More, February 5, 1649.

The philosophical tradition: Kant

“So far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious, and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.” Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics.

The Utilitarian tradition

“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Jeremy Bentham,Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

The Twentieth Century Mainstream View (1)Humans have an incomparably higher moral status than animals.

Animals are items of property.

Comparisons between humans and animals are offensive to humans.

The Twentieth Century Mainstream View (2)

We have duties to be kind to animals and to avoid being cruel to them. But we do not have to give the same weight to their interests that we give to human interests – even where the interests are similar.

1975-

Rejecting Speciesism

“Speciesism… is a prejudice or attitude of bias towards the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.”

Animal Liberation, Chapter 1

Equal Consideration

“If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering – in so far as rough comparisons can be made – of any other being.”

Animal Liberation, Chapter 1.

Philosophical Questions (1)

Is painlessly killing animals wrong? Even if they will be replaced by other animals living good lives?

“There is a real distinction, for a human being, between timely and untimely death. To be ‘cut short’ before one’s time is a waste- even a tragedy…No such thoughts apply to domestic cattle. To be killed at thirty months is not intrinsically more tragic than to be killed at forty, fifty, or sixty.”Roger Scruton, “The Conscientious Carnivore” in Steve Sapontzis, ed, Food for Thought

Roger Scruton on killing animals

Philosophical Questions (2)What are the experiences of animals like?

How do we weigh the pleasures and pains of chimpanzees, pigs, dogs, cows, chickens and fish against those of normal humans?

Philosophical Questions (3)Should we try to reduce the suffering of wild animals? Or is there intrinsic value in nature that counts against our interference?

What Progress Have We Made Since 1975?

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Why We Should Focus on Animals Used for Food

Number of vertebrate animals killed annually in research, worldwide: approximately 100 million.

Number of vertebrate land animals killed annually in food production worldwide: 60 billion (UN FAO estimate)

In other words, food production uses roughly 600 times more animals [without including fish].

What has been achieved?

Sow Stalls1999 Banned in UK2001 EU gives notice of ban by

20132002-8 Banned in Florida,

Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, & California (with various phase-out periods

2013 EU ban comes into effect2015 California ban comes into

effect.

Veal Calves

Veal Calf Stalls1990 banned in UK2007 EU ban in effect2015 California ban in effect (calves must have space to turn around)

2007- major US veal producers agree to phase out.

Standard Laying Hen Cages1992 banned in Switzerland1999 banned in Sweden2012 EU ban in effect (modified cages with more room and nesting boxes still permitted)

2015 California ban in effect (hens must have space to spread wings)

Little or no progress…

Chickens raised for meatIn numbers, the largest of all sources of animal suffering among farmed land animals.

EU: minor changes only, elsewhere often no change at all

Fish

Number of wild fish caught annually for human consumption: 1 – 2.7 trillion [www.fishcount.org]

By-catch not included in this figure

There is strong evidence that fish do feel pain (See V. Braithwaite, Do Fish Feel Pain?)

None of these fish were killed humanely, except for some trials in The Netherlands and Norway.

From Steven Pinker, Better Angels of Our Nature.

Increase in Vegetarianism, UK and US, 1984-2009Source: UK: Vegetarian Society, US: Vegetarian Resource CenterCompiled by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature.

Americans are eating less meat

Source: GuoTingshuang and Yang Zhenhai, Ministry of Agriculture, Chinahttp://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y1936E/y1936e05.htm

But in China…

Google searches for “vegan”

https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=vegan&cmpt=q&tz=

Google searches “vegan”: regions

https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=vegan&cmpt=q&tz=

Changing standards in animal research

Let me tell you about the worst thing I have ever done. In 1975, as a twenty year-old sophomore, I got a summer job as a research assistant in an animal behavior lab. One evening the professor gave me an assignment… [Pinker then describes how, following his professor’s instructions, he tortured a rat to death.]

The reason I bring up this blot on my conscience is to show what was standard practice in the treatment of animals at the time…just five years later, indifference to the welfare of animals among scientists had become unthinkable, indeed, illegal.

Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, p.455-6

Chimpanzees as legal persons?