Pets and People
I haven’t had pets for most of my life. When I was a little girl, we lost two dogs in a row to a busy road outside our house. That was it. We got a cat–who was more-or-less an outdoor cat. And I’m allergic to cats. And as an adult, a hectic work and travel schedule made it seem irresponsible to get a pet.
But I spent the summer living with a dog– a very big dog–a Bernese Mountain Dog, to be exact. And I grew to be very fond of him. I also began to be more sympathetic to arguments on behalf of the moral status of animals. It struck me as indisputable that the dog could experience fear and pain–and could be comforted and calmed down, as well. He was capable of a sometimes faulty but mostly effective form of means-end rationality, particularly when it involved obtaining people food. He was definitely a personality, and a good, loyal companion. His sweetness was an antidote to some of the fire-and-brimstone sermons I was reading.
At the same time, animals are not human beings. Legally speaking, they are property–albeit a special sort of property. But that category doesn’t work either.
If one treated a pet purely as property, one would replace it when the cost of repair exceeded the cost of replacement. That’s not a hard monetary threshold to reach. The medical bills for pets can approach that for human beings –hip surgery, cancer care, etc. can run into the thousands of dollars.
At the same time, such an attitude strikes me as unthinkable–it was this particular dog that mattered to me, not some notion of fungible “dogness.” But. . . if a pet isn’t a human being, at what point does the expense become, so to speak, an “extraordinary means”? In what senses are pets “member of the family” — and I am now convinced they are, and as such are appropriate recipients of loyalty and care?
I’m not aware of any Catholic moral reflections on the responsibilities of pet ownership. Has anyone come across any? I know Lisa Fullam used to be a veterinarian. Have you seen anything, Lisa?
I haven’t seen any. But our family has spent a lot of money on ill pets – as you say, thousands of dollars. We’ve never had to make the “cost/benefit” decision – yet. We did have a cat put to sleep when the cancer was terminal.
Perhaps a related situation is that of the meat or dairy producer. Not the same thing as a pet, and my understanding (admittedly gleaned from James Herriott treacle :-)) is that they need to be pretty hard-hearted about the cost-benefit of veterinary bills. It’s a different kind of relationship than a pet relationship. But they’re still animals.
http://www.thecatholicpriest.com/Popes_on_Pets.html
“Popes on Pets” includes Benedict’s answer to a question about PETA.
And John Paul II had an interesting dream about cats. (Scroll down about two inches.)
From that:
“The Pope also said that the “solicitous care, not only toward [people] but also toward animals and nature in general,” that St. Francis demonstrated is “a faithful echo of the love with which God in the beginning pronounced his ‘fiat,’ which brought them into existence.” And, the Pope added, “[W]e, too, are called to a similar attitude.”"
Some popes had pets. Pius XII had canaries and a fish named Gretchen. Leo XII had a dog. Benedict loves cats, but is not allowed to have one in the Vatican.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8219384
We just put down our beloved dog of 15 plus years.
Francis would have talked about “brother dog” and rightly so for the unconditional love they offer is a lot better than some of our human brothers.
So they become “part of the family” for many and intellectualizing them as property turns some folks off.
I still liked “Marley and Me : the World’s Worst dog” as an example of how much we can learn from our pets if we observe them well.
Doesn’t Alastair MacIntyre have a discussion of animals in his book “Dependent Rational Animals”? One day I was playing with one of our Labs. I through a ball first, which somehow got lost. Then I threw a frisbee, which happened to land , inverted, near the ball. The dog found them both, looked from one to the other, picked up the ball and put in on the disk, and picked up the disk and began running back toward me. Is this what is meant by “means-end” relationships?
I don’t know of any good sources, alas. An anecdote or two: I know of a (fairly crusty, old-time) vet who, when explaining expensive treatment options to clients used to ask them to consider,”Do you want A dog, or do you want THIS dog?” Not the gentlest way to raise that point, but does get to the crux.
The disconnect between owners’ valuation of particular animals and that of veterinarians is a real stress point for many vets. It can work either way–when a client undervalues an animal compared to the vet’s valuation of it, putting the animal down feels tantamount to “convenience euthanasia.” Or the vet may be tempted to try to “adopt” the animal on the spot and treat it on the vet’s own dime, which raises a host of ethical issues around coercion. OTOH, when clients spend huge sums for what’s likely to be of little actual benefit for the animal, (and may be painful to boot,) (especially if they’re also inquiring about payment plans or some such indication that the financial burden is a stretch for them,) the vet often feels complicit in economic or medical injustice. I’ve also been asked to lie to children about treatment decisions to tell them it’s hopeless when it wasn’t. I never undercut parents in front of kids, but I don’t lie to kids, either.
Some consider that the object of veterinarians’ care is not the animal alone nor the client, but the relationship between them. Sometimes we do violate the animals’ best interest for the sake of the client or society (euthanizing dogs who are dangerous, e.g.,) and sometimes we override the clients’ wishes on behalf of the animal (taking animals from abusive owners, e.g.,) but except for those limit cases, generally we try to optimize the bond in the best interests of both, to the extent possible. Chemotherapy for cancer is a good example. For many cancers, there are options, some of which will likely work best but are very expensive. Other regimens buy time with lower burdens of both discomfort and cost. Either, IMHO, can be appropriate.
Now I would wager that around a big place like ND, if you had a dog and needed a sitter for times when you’re on the road, it wouldn’t be hard to find one. I’ve found that dogs are great company for late nights writing in the office, and a great excuse to take a break to go outside and throw a tennis ball. Myself, I’m better for the occasional tennis-ball break…
http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/america-o-when-the-dogs-go-marching-in.html
Joe, I was thinking of the way an entire loaf of bread or box of cereal would disappear off the counter — although I never actually saw him try to get anything on the counter when people were around.
Lisa, that is very interesting- I think there is an article there!
Maybe a Berner next spring!
Gerelyn,
“Benedict loves cats, but is not allowed to have one in the Vatican.”
I know that Benedict as Cardinal had cats. After he became pope I too came across the above statement. But this is extraordinary. Who is this “authority” over the pope that has prohibited from having cats in the Vatican?
“Who is this “authority” over the pope that has prohibited from having cats in the Vatican?”
I was wondering the same thing – is he or isn’t he the Supreme Pontiff? :-) Maybe there was a conclave of dogs …
“I’ve also been asked to lie to children about treatment decisions to tell them it’s hopeless when it wasn’t. I never undercut parents in front of kids, but I don’t lie to kids, either.”
Lisa – I’m probably not understanding what you wrote here, but … why would a parent want to tell a child that treatment is hopeless when it really isn’t?
I stubbornly hold onto the belief that there’s redemption for animals with some complex level of agency, such as dogs, cats, pigs, apes, etc. I’m sure that puts me on the frontiers of theology, but hey, this blog is for apostates, right?
I think so too.
Who has authority to tell the pope he can’t have his cat with him in the Vatican, but must be content with the cat tschotskes he and his brother collected on their travels?
I don’t know. Isn’t there a major domo who rules the housekeeping, pays the electric bill, etc.? Probably a nun. A modern-day Pascalina. (She got to keep the canary with Pius XII went to heaven.)
Do dogs go to heaven? Duh. I picture my Archie and Sandy in a Yorkshire-type heaven, rooting under cairns, running on the moors, etc. (Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard what God has prepared for us creatures.)
I like very much Donna Haraway’s discussion of “companion species” (it’s part of her project to develop complex understandings of personhood and agency). I’m far from digesting it all, but she argues from scientific debates about co-evolution (did we domesticate them? did they domesticate us?)…that it is probably both….as species we co-constitute one another, both giving and receiving in our mutual development.
What I think is a cheer-out-loud observation is that we really experience dogs as dogs, not as anthropomorphic projections. “Companion species are not involved in another Hegelian confrontation of self-other, culture-nature, or simular dualisms.” We know the difference between a puppy and an adult dog. They aren’t just like human kids and grownups. Even though any number of experts say they are the equivalent of 3 year olds, we know that doesn’t cut it. There are wise, mature dogs in dog ways. There are rambunctious and foolish dogs, in dog ways. Means-end rationality… perhaps, but we also understand in some way the dog-ness of their duplicity. (Either in our chuckle when they eat the special cheese set out for the confirmation guests… or when we discipline them sharply for eating the childrens’ food in more dire situations.)
The high likelihood of our co-evolution gives insight into the powerful draw of Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio. Yes, the saint who, in Christ, lives in edenic reconciliation with other creatures. But there’s more to it… could have been a snake or a wild boar. Those aren’t the same. Something in us that wants to be in communion with the wolf. John August Swanson captures it very well I think. The luminescence of every small thing in the resurrection restored Eden…but the center is the wolf, blood-red jawed, meeting Francis’ gaze, as they recline together in peace. A very, very old scene… perhaps a thousand centuries before Francis. Perhaps a constitutional event in the “Eden of history.” We feel some deep rightness in the world when the dog sighs and curls up near us.
http://www.johnaugustswanson.com/ImagesUpload/Francis500.jpg
I’ve only begin to read Haraway, who says so many things at once (please I _beg_, don’t post a catalog of all the things Catholics must reject), there are deep pointers here for theologies of communion…that are of a piece with her broader project… a decidedly non-liberal, non-individual, embodied, connected understanding of the person and the world.
When I get to heaven, first thing I’ll do,
Blow my horn and call old Blue.
Here, Blue, you good dog, you.
There is a large (I am tempted to say “enormous” as I try to keep up with it) and growing body of work being done in the area of “animal theology” (to use the title of one of Andrew Linzey’s books; Linzey is an Anglican priest, and is at Oxford, where he has a post that focuses specifically on animals, theology and ethics). For a book specifically looking theology and companion animals (pets), see Stephen H. Webb’s _On God and Dogs: A Christian Theology of Compassion for Animals_ (not new but still interesting). He’s also written on Christian vegetarianism, see his: Good Eating: The Christian Practice of Everyday Life. His is a moderate stance, that is, he does not see keeping companion animals as wrong in itself (as do some animal rights advocates) likewise certain farming practices that do not involve eating the critters. Webb was Lutheran (I think … ) when he wrote those books though is now RC, so I guess the books are not strictly speaking “Catholic” as such … but I am not sure this is a necessary criterion for material that can significantly provoke and inform the reflection of Catholics on their relationships with non-human animals. From the purely secular viewpoint, a recent time magazine article “Inside the Minds of Animals” looks at some of the latest research in this area and begins to acknowledge that scientific data also leaves many pointed questions at our ethical doorsteps. See: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2008759,00.html As mentioned above, Alasdair MacIntyre looks at questions of animal intelligence and ethical implications in his _Dependent Rational Animals_. In my experience in undergraduate theology & spirituality classes, the issue of animal ethics is the one that causes the most intense, passionate responses, positive and negative – even moreso than abortion, which is also a guarantee of fireworks – and I suspect it is because we are all directly implicated in one way or another in the questions. It seems we tend to prefer to discuss ethical issues in which we see ourselves as somehow innocent, but not so much ones that impinge upon, call into question our own beliefs and, worse maybe, our own behaviour.
Regarding the question about what amount of money are we ethically justified to spend on the health of companion animals, before even getting into questions of ontological status or ethical responsibilities re animals, one might wonder if the same question would arise if we were talking about what we spend on, say, car repairs. For many people, the well-being of their pets are as important as a working auto, a good stereo, an enriching trip is to someone else. At this level, the animal is still merely property. From there, the discussion complexifies considerably.
“one might wonder if the same question would arise if we were talking about what we spend on, say, car repairs. For many people, the well-being of their pets are as important as a working auto, a good stereo, an enriching trip is to someone else. At this level, the animal is still merely property.”
That’s very helpful, I’ve found the quandary emerges precisely because I don’t view pets as property.
If the car or furnace is broken, then we pay what it costs to fix, perhaps with regret or resentment, but not with any moral qualm.
But a pet needing expensive treatment…I begin to weigh that against the needs of poor children for health care. (I also do this with various elective health care expenses for the human members of our household. So, reading glasses, braces, etc….I feel the obligation to those children in the balance.) The similarity of the qualms says something pretty interesting.
Now that we know many non-human animals are rational and self-aware, one of the only remaining ontological ‘firewalls’ that supposedly exists between human and non-human animals is the idea the former have a moral sense and power (and therefore a free will) and the latter do not. But this is being challenged by the latest science detailed this new book from U of Chicago Press:
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Justice-Moral-Lives-Animals/dp/0226041611
As the book states, the 21st century (at least in the developed West) will likely be the century of liberation for non-human animals, much like the 20th was for women and the 19th for slaves. There is simply no justification for how we treat vulnerable non-human animal populations today…often as pets, but more importantly in our factory farms.
And Christians, a people with a tradition which depicts non-human animals as the kin of humans (and, originally at least, our companions and not our food) and as co-inheritors of the peaceable kingdom, should be leading the charge for their liberation.
@ Jim, I was asked to lie in circumstances where treatment of the animal was medically possible, but prohibitively expensive for the family. Certain fractures, e.g., always need surgical repair, a matter of a couple thousand bucks when I was last in practice a few years ago, and doubtless more now. Tragic cases–it’s not like the parents are bad people for not being able to afford big bucks for orthopedic surgery, but neither can you tell an 8 year old that such fractures are a death sentence. They’re just not.
These cases are hard on vets. Two years in a row it happened that on my last day working before heading home for Christmas I had to put down some kid’s pet for treatable, but very expensive, problems.
OTOH, there were the parents who would bring in a pocket pet for an exam if it was ill. Now hamsters and their ilk can get treatable problems, but are likely to be *very* sick before showing their owners signs of illness. (Most people just don’t notice hamster subtle signs as quick as we do dogs’ symptoms.) Sometimes they might even pay for cancer surgery for an animal that cost a few bucks. Often, those parents were teaching their kids how to be responsible pet owners, even if it meant dropping a hundred or more bucks to treat a $10 gerbil.
Vince, I do not view animals as mere property either. I don’t understand, one way or the other, though, why spending on an animal’s health vs spending on a sick child is more of a moral question than spending on anything else vs spending on a sick child. Why is one choice in spending more of a moral choice than another? I get a defense of subsistence spending, which you might claim for furnace in cold climate, or even on a car if you need it for work (I guess!), but very little of our spending is actually at the level of subsistence. So why is discretionary spending of one sort (on pets) more of a moral issue than any other discretionary spending? I am not suggesting that discretionary spending is bad/wrong/evil etc. I am just questioning why one choice in discretionary spending (on pets) is seen as more of a moral problem than other discretionary spending (on car, vacation, 5th pair of shoes etc etc etc). I think our posing the question in this way is interesting. If animals are not merely property, then one might ask if this gives more weight to the morality of spending on them, not less, no?
@Cathleen,
Bernese are great dogs. Make sure to ask the breeder pointed questions about hip and elbow dysplasia and Progressive Retinal Atrophy. (Both parents should be checked clear, and good breeders offer a guarantee against these.) Temperament can be a concern–the mom should be goofy and friendly. Best question to ask a dog breeder is: “Why are you breeding ____’s?” They should have a clear answer that makes sense. Not “well, shucks, we had one and decided to make a few bucks.” Rescue dogs are a great option, but harder to find rare breeds, and you’d want to be even more alert for hip, elbow, eye and temperament trouble. If you should find yourself looking at puppies in the Bay Area and want company…
Charles, that (at last *some*) animals have (at least *some* level) of moral agency is increasingly well supported by ethological research. That (at least *some*) are sentient is pretty much incontrovertible (unless there are still some strict mechanistic behaviorists out there?!). So let me trot out Jeremy Bentham’s much quoted line: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (Clearly there are ramifications here for some humans as well …). Moral agency makes the case even more compelling, but isn’t the only criterion for considering our moral relationships with sentient creatures. This does not mean, I think, that our moral relationships with non-human animals are the *same as* with humans, but a strict dividing line is seriously problematic from many points of view.
Further to my last reply (to Vince’s post), I shouldn’t have said that very little of our spending is subsistence spending: I should say that in affluent societies like ours, a (variously large) lot of spending is discretionary.
Sara, of course…I’m sorry that I gave the impression that I thought differently?
But almost everyone agrees that many non-human animals are sentient, but few think about traits which grant higher moral status and preclude things like keeping dogs in cages 12 hours a day and possibly even primates in cages for medical experiments.
Benedict/Ratzinger never actually kept cats as pets, I believe — just fed them on the Vatican grounds (the cemetery at the Teutonic College — and has a collection of porcelain kitties.
Montini gave away his beloved cat when he was elected Paul VI, keeping only a photo as a memento. He felt it wasn’t approporiate in his new role to have a pet. Graham Greene wrote (approvingly) that Pius XII treated his parakeets like children, and children like parakeets.
Lisa, I didn’t realize you were a vet … you usually sound more like a moral theologian :-). In the snippet I asked you about, I hadn’t realize you were talking about pets – I thought you were in a people hospital and being asked to lie to children about their own condition. Very different circumstances!
Re: cases that are hard on vets – when our cat was put down, I was elected to bring him into the vets to be put down. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever done.
A few days later, I received a little card from the vet’s office, with a hand-written note expressing sympathy. That is one of the nicest things that’s ever happened to me – I was really touched that the vets practice approached their work in such a pastoral way.
A minister I once knew, in a discussion about losing pets, told me that people grieve over the loss of their pets as much as they would over the loss of a family member. It’s true. It’s not something to just dismiss. People who have lost a pet need our love, compassion and sympathy.
Cathleen: Caution on the Berneses. They come with a big package of genetic predispositions to expensive illnesses, and they don’t last more than seven years. If you find you’re easily attached, it’s not a good breed, smart and sweet as they are.
Anyone: I tend to have similar visceral reactions when I see people mistreating animals as I do when I see them mistreating children. I don’t have a problem intervening in either case, regardless of what the Church might say.
When I see a dog locked in a car on a hot day, I put one of my pre-printed public service announcements on the windshield. Then I get the license number, go to the customer service desk, and tell them to page the owner and let them know there’s a dead dog in the car. The owner usually rushes out and finds the note. Sometimes owners have sense enough to do something about the situation.
When I see children locked in a car unattended under any circumstance, I call the cops.
There are many morons with animals and children out there.
When I was 17 or so, my father had me bring our family pet dog to the vets to be put down–she had an enormous tumor–while my mother and he took the little kids swimming. When they came home and the kids asked where Coke was, the answer they got was that we didn’t know, but the truth came out in the next couple of days. One of my sisters still refers to me as “the murderer”.
I’ve had to put down three cats since our son was old enough to realize they were gone. I brought them all home and let him see them. He helped dig the grave for the last two, and put a note in the last one, which he would not let us read.
I think it’s a huge mistake not to tell kids that the pet (or a person) is sick and probably won’t get well. Sometimes parents do it more because they don’t want to have to deal with crying kids, or because they think they’re saving them from grief.
Kids might better be guided through the death of pet or person by a loving adult than protected from grief or–shunted off somewhere so that they don’t upset the adult who is already upset by the impending death. Kids sometimes need to say goodbye.
“I think it’s a huge mistake not to tell kids that the pet (or a person) is sick and probably won’t get well.”
I couldn’t agree more. This is one of life’s most important lessons, and I really believe that parents are not being parental if they try to avoid guiding their children through it.
One of the aspects of longer life spans and the physical separation of extended families is that children can grow through childhood with little or no experience of the death of a loved one.
(It’s also a rarity for children to be invited to wedding receptions, at least in my little corner of the universe. It’s an impoverishment of their experience of family and communal celebration. It’s also one of the reasons that wedding receptions trend so raunchy these days).
Agree that children should know the truth. And I think pets should be shown the corpse of the departed other pet.
I think I made a huge mistake when Sandy, one of two Yorkie brothers, was put down at age 7. He had a collapsed trachea, and then had a stroke that paralyzed his back legs. A vet came to our house in her van and put him down. I kept his body in the garage until my husband came home to dig a grave. We didn’t show his body to Archie, his brother.
Archie lived another seven years, but was never the same. The joy and pride he took in his brother’s tricks (like placing a dog treat in the hall and then hiding so he could jump out and attack anyone who approached it) were gone. We got another dog, a sweet and wonderful poodle, but Archie never really liked her. (She lived to be 16. She died in my arms the night before her appt. to be euthanized. RIP)
The sense of humor that dogs have is another aspect that must be considered, imho. We had a bulldog who would bark at a statue in the park and then look up at us and grin, making sure we knew she was kidding.
Regarding the moral agency of animals: I suspect we all agree that animals have rights that need to be respected and protected, by virtue of being God’s creatures, just as humans have rights for the same reason.
At the same time, I don’t draw a moral equivalency. For example, I see no issue with instrumentalizing animals (sheep dogs helping with the flock; oxen pulling the plow) in a way that would seem problematic with humans.
Charles: My point has to do with sentience as itself implying some responsibility in our relationships with animals. As per Jim, this is not an equivalency with humans, but according to the interests and capacities of the animal. Again to use a common, silly-sounding, but still useful example, dogs do not get the right to vote. Capacity to suffer distress, pain, etc due to confinement, for example, would still provoke questions about that confinement … even if the animal, say, a chicken, is not a moral agent, but is capable of suffering from the confinement.
I was once a strong advocate of the use of “rights” language regarding animals, now I am not sure that that term is the best category with which to deal with the questions, though it may be a necessary tool in a secular-legal context. Jim says:
“I suspect we all agree that animals have rights that need to be respected and protected, by virtue of being God’s creatures, just as humans have rights for the same reason …
At the same time, I don’t draw a moral equivalency. For example, I see no issue with instrumentalizing animals (sheep dogs helping with the flock; oxen pulling the plow) in a way that would seem problematic with humans.”
Assuming this, how does a “right to be respected and protected” shake out in our everyday behaviour? What does it mean concretely … respected how? Protected from what?
In general, there are three stances with regard to animals’ status: that they are merely property and can be disposed of as their owners wish, that they require protection, (the “animal-welfare” approach,) and that they have rights of some sort, even if those rights don’t extend to voting and freedom of speech.
I’m a little antsy about rights language applied to animals. Which animals? Which rights? Who decides? On what grounds? A perhaps silly example: a kitten’s first vet visit often ends with a veritable slaughter of “innocent” ear mites, intestinal worms and fleas, and with a set of vaccines that then deny natural habitat to a range of viruses to boot. Why does one kitten matter more than all those other living communities? Especially since most kittens would survive a natural parasite load?
However, I happily go to bat for a virtue approach to animal welfare. If nothing else, treating animals decently can make us better people, more compassionate and responsible. Real love is never a zero-sum game, so caring for “non-human animal companions” (as the language goes in Berkeley,) can help us become more loving toward all. It’s complex, and, like everything else, requires reflection and on-going “formation.”
Lisa, I lean toward a virtue approach too, while recognizing that “rights” talk provides needed reminders about community and legal dimensions to the moral questions around human/animal relationships. Indeed: Which animals? How? and based on what foundations? According to whom? These questions must still be engaged, and not only individually, or they remains too easy unasked. I appreciate your reminder that compassion is of a piece: zero sum game thinking too commonly becomes another way to close this difficult but important conversation. The scale and nature of our contemporary use of animals makes it all the more urgent. The “rights” folks at least “shift the centre”, challenging our tendency to too easily rationalize and/or look the other way.
Lisa and Sara, I don’t claim to have thought as deeply as both of you have about these issues, and I’m grateful for your thought-provoking comments.
I suppose that I have a quite traditional view, in that there is a hierarchy: humans (in my view) are the stewards of creation, and so animal “rights” aren’t unlimited; if they conflict with human notions of justice or right, then the legitimate needs of humans can prevail. Thus, for example:
* I’m not an opponent of eating meat. Humans and other animals kill other animals to devour their flesh. But that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to cause animals to unnecessarily suffer in order to increase profitability.
* There are limits to the pain and distress that animals should suffer for the convenience or profitabiity of humans. I don’t have a problem with branding a steer with hot metal (or even slaughtering it humanely – whatever that means – to provide beef for the table), but I do have a probem with abusing a dog in order to discipline or train it. What differentiates the two examples, and what are the limits of what pain and suffering we can cause? I don’t know.
* Humans, as stewards, take responsibility for the welfare of certain classes of animals – pets, livestock, in zoos, endangered species in wildlife preserves. When humans do this, they have a special stewarding responsibility that exceeds their responsibility to, for example, the squirrels and robins that happen to live on property I own. If I own a dairy cow, then it’s my responsibility to milk it at the appointed times, see that it gets its shots, and feed it in the winter.
* While there is a moral difference between a pet and a car, from a legal point of view, both are property that may be owned, bought and sold, and both therefore I as the owner have property rights and responsiiblities. But the moral responsibilities to a pet certainly exceed that to a car. I’m not required to maintain my car to a very high standard, but I shouldn’t be allowed to starve my cat.
Thank you all so much. I has no idea of the richness of the discussion on this issue. And thanks for the advice and help on Berners. But who could resist that face?
Temple Grandin has written some remarkable books about animal sentience. She has been instrumental in making slaughterhouses more humane–and probably improving the meat that comes from them. One of the things that people ought to realize from the recent egg recall is that humane treatment of animals makes our own food healthier.
Jim P.:I think we are not used to giving animal/human relationships much serious and sustained attention, and this has implications of course for the animals whose lives we condition in one way or another, and it also has implications for ourselves as pilgrim humans called to compassion. Both suffering and compassion are in some senses of a piece. But habit, tradition, lifestyle preferences tempt us to forget *some* suffering, and most of all, but not only, animal suffering, which is so easily dismissible, by habit and/or rationalisation. So I appreciate your gathering and sharing your thoughts. As with any ethical question, it’s responsible to begin by sorting out what views we actually hold. And then to consider these critcally, inquiring into the truth and value of our assumptions and their foundations, the intelligibility, reasonability, consistency of our understanding, and the implications for responsible behaviour.
There was an interesting op-ed by Margaret Somerville (who founded the Faculty of Law’s Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, and is btw RC) in our English daily this morning, on the question of “human exceptionalism”, which necessarily deals with the *meaning* of other animals and their ethical status. See here if interested:
http://tinyurl.com/2ffz9hq
She considers Peter Singer’s ideas, which in many ways have shaped the animal ethics discussion since his seminal _Animal Liberation_ (mid-70s). I think both Somerville and Singer make important contributions to the discussion, though Singer’s utilitarianism is inadequate to me spiritually in its giving precedence to quantitative measure, and IMO a shallow measure of qualitative issues), and Somerville slightly skews her opponents poisitions (Singer included) to make her point, not ultimately useful for me, and does not provide an adequate account of her foundations, nor a consistent path of reasoning. If “rights” talk alone is problematic, I also think the category of “person”, with who get in and who doesn’t as basic. is also ultimately inadequate to the questions that arise about animal/human relationships. We need a wider and deeper look at capacities, needs and *well-being*, neither making animals into humans nor inventing a strict and all-encompassing bilateral dividing line (I think our predilection for simple dichotomies comes in here), with profound qualitative as well as quantitative considerations. It is a spiritual question.
If interested in a look at Singer on “animal liberation” see:
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer02.pdf
Maybe it should be noted here that there is a developing scandal involving a major researcher into animal cognition, specifically moral cognition. The relevant ethical issue is that it is now being said by some scientists that some animals have “self-awareness” which is, according to some philosophers a mark of intelligence, and, therefore, those animals are being said to have at least some rights similar to human ones. In other words, to some extent they share our rationality. (I should note that self-awareness is not the *only* such marker.)
Unfortunately, one of the major scientists in the field of the moral cognition of animals has been accused not only of relatively minor offenses such as sloppy data keeping but even of ‘fabricating data”. The scientist is Dr. Marc Hauser of Harvard, and he has been suspended by the university. Here is from today’s NYT report:
“Scientists trying to assess Dr. Hauser’s oeuvre are likely to take into account another issue besides the eight counts of misconduct. In 1995, Dr. Hauser published that cotton-top tamarins, the monkey species he worked with, could recognize themselves in a mirror. The finding was challenged by the psychologist Gordon Gallup, who asked for the videotapes and has said that he could see no evidence in the monkey’s reactions for what Dr. Hauser had reported. Dr. Hauser later wrote in another paper that he could not repeat the finding.”
I should also note that on another thread I recommended a report of the recent Edge conference on moral cognition. One of the scientists whose work was highly praised was, sadly, Dr. Hauser. One of his current most severe critics is Dr. Haidt who lead the Edge conference.
Dr. Hauser was turned in by some of his students who assisted in his research. Give those kids a medal.
Ann, there is a useful clearinghouse for info on animal cognition resreach at:
http://www.animalcognition.net/home.html
Includes reference to the scholarly journal _Animal Cognition_. Last time I wrote about any of this from a theological point of view was as part of my MA graduate work, under a prof who is a geneticist – that would be almost 10 years ago now – and I am struck by how much has been done in the interim, and how what was a somewhat marginal topic both scientifically and theologically has become pretty “hot”. Fashion is of course a double edged sword (as your Hauser story shows). Back in the day (less than a decade ago) there was still a substantial contingent of ethologists who sounded very close to Descartes on his animals-as-machines thing. It will be vitally interesting to watch the research into animal self-awareness as it develops, and it will have serious implications for our relationships with them. But it is not the only issue that impinges deeply on them. And besides the science, the philosophical and theological contributions to the questions are vital. I sometimes wonder if this will be one of the issues that future generations will wonder about in terms of our awareness or lack thereof.
Thanks Sarah. Interesting site. I just learned there are such things as social fish!
Oops — sorry, SarA.
This might be a simplistic question, but wouldn’t it follow that any intelligent and social animal MUST have some degree of self-awareness? OK, an ant might just go marching mechanistically, but consider how the function of a wolf-pack with its complex social hierarchy must hinge on at least enough self-awareness for a wolf to (perhaps inchoatively) think, “OK, well, I’m going to make a submissive gesture before I get beaten up really badly here,” and the like? Similarly gestures of submission and “shame,” and what we read as humor in dogs.
It’d really follow from Occam’s razor. Since intelligent animals have similar (though perhaps less-developed,) portions of the brain to those that are involved in social interaction in humans, and since we see similar, sometimes indistinguishable behaviors in humans to similar stimuli, wouldn’t we have to posit self-awareness, absent some compelling reason not to? Similar equipment, similar observations–likely similar inner realities? After all, we posit a degree of “humanness” in extinct anthropoid predecessors when we find evidence of ritual burial–same kind of argument.
On another sub-topic: the death of a pet can be a really hard thing for people, but it’s unfortunate that many ministers don’t quite know how to respond pastorally to such situations. Some people are ashamed of the depth of their grief, or hesitant to express religious ideas about pets, except with children. If we can bless inanimate objects like boats, and we can bless animals on Oct. 4, couldn’t we have some sort of informal ritual to mark pets’ passing? Before the liturgy-defenders jump me, let me say that I’m not arguing for church funerals–but a prayer at the loss of a non-human friend? In Catholic circles, perhaps we’re too quick to jump back to Aquinas’ insistence that non-humans can have no immortal souls–as though that was the question when you lose a pet that’s been part of your daily life for a decade or more.
Lisa, I think the difficulty is not just the tradition’s take (and/or our contemporary understanding of the tradition’s take) on animals and souls that is the problem – though it is a refuge for those who devalue and/or don’t understand/experience teh depth of possibilities in human/animal relationships. It is also a refuge for mistaken (I think) defense of a putative orthodoxy. And perhaps worse: let’s face it, the implications of taking the relationships seriously, I mean really seriously as relationshis of some kind of mutuality and deep significance, is a giant can of worms the implicationsof which are radical (as in, gets to the *roots* of our beliefs and practices). We are the “rich” here, and the “vested interest” …. here perhaps more than anywhere we can identify ourselves as the rich and the vested interests we often despise, and do not want to identify with.
What I mean by “rich” and “vested interest” is rich in terms power over powerless, and benefiting from the status quo.