The Greanville Journal

EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER 1 OF TOM REGAN’S BOOK EMPTY CAGES

Tom Regan wrote the seminal work A Case for Animal Rights. He is a professor of philosophy at NC State and has written or edited more than twenty books and numerous articles on animal rights amongst his many other talents. Regan is viewed as one of the early pioneers of the animal rights movement. His interest in animal rights and vegetarianism came about from his study of Gandhi. In 1986 he received the Farm Animal Reform Movement’s Mahatma Gandhi Award for Outstanding Contributions to the animal rights movement.

NOTE: We are happy to present this discussion not only because it offers a lucid analysis of some of the issues affecting progress in the animal liberation field, but, just as importantly, because it sketches out the Establishment’s criminalization via unrelenting propaganda of a legitimate strong dissenting sector of society. Studying and learning from the system’s tactics to defame the character of the animal rights movement is something that no person seriously involved in social change should be indifferent to.

Do animals have rights? Different people give different answers. Sometimes people give different answers because of a disagreement about the facts. For example, some people believe cats and dogs, chickens and hogs do not feel anything; others believe they do.

Sometimes different answers are given because of a disagreement over values. For example, some people believe animals have no value apart from human interests; others believe the opposite. Disagreements of both kinds are important certainly, and both will need to be explored along the way. As important as these kinds of disagreements are, neither touches a third, more basic source of division, this one concerning the idea of animal rights itself.

Some people think this idea is synonymous with being kind to animals. Since we should be kind to animals, the inference is obvious: animals have rights. Or they think animal rights means avoiding cruelty. Since we should not be cruel to animals, the same conclusion follows: animals have rights. Given either of these two ways of understanding animal rights, it is hard to explain why the idea is so controversial, with animal rights advocates on one side, and animal rights opponents on the other.

The heated, often acrimonious controversy that pits advocates against opponents tells us that these familiar ways of thinking (we should be kind to animals; we should not be cruel to them) fail to capture the real meaning of animal rights. Its real meaning, as it turns out, is both simple and profound.

Animal rights is a simple idea because, at the most basic level, it means only that animals have a right to be treated with respect. It is a profound idea because its implications are far reaching. How far reaching? Here are a few examples of how the world will have to change once we learn to treat animals with respect.

1. We will have to stop raising them for their flesh.
2. We will have to stop trapping them for their fur.
3. We will have to stop training them to entertain us.
4. We will have to stop using them in scientific research.

Each example illustrates the same moral logic. When it comes to how humans exploit animals, recognition of their rights requires abolition, not reform. Being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.

UNTRUTH IN LABELING

Opponents think animal rights is an extreme idea, and it is not unusual for them to pin the label “extremists” on animal rights advocates. It is important to understand how this label is used as a rhetorical tool to prevent informed, fair discussion; otherwise, chances are we won’t have an informed, fair discussion.

“Extremists” and “extremism” are ambiguous words. In one sense, extremists are people who will do anything to further their objectives. The terrorists who destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center were extremists in this sense; they were willing to go to any lengths, even if it meant killing thousands of innocent human beings, to further their ends.

Animal rights advocates (ARAs) are not extremists in this sense. Let me repeat this: ARAs are not extremists in this sense. Even the most militant advocates of animal rights (the members of the Animal Liberation Front, say) believe there are absolute moral limits to what can be done in the name of animal liberation, acts that should never be performed, they are so bad. For example, the ALF opposes hurting let along killing human beings.

In another sense, the word “extremist” refers to the unqualified nature of what people believe. In this sense, ARAs are extremists. Again, let me repeat this: ARAs really are extremists, in this sense. ARAs really do believe that it is always wrong to train wild animals to perform tricks for human amusement, for example. But in this sense, everyone is an extremist. Why? Because there are some things all of us (one hopes) oppose unqualifiedly.

For example, everyone reading these words is an extremist when it comes to rape; we are against rape all the time. Each of us is an extremist when it comes to child abuse; we are against child abuse all the time. Indeed, all of us are extremists when it comes to cruelty to animals; we never favor that.

The plain fact is, extreme views sometimes are correct views. That being so, the fact that ARAs are extremists, in the sense that we have unqualified beliefs about right and wrong, by itself provides no reason for thinking that we must be mistaken. So the question to be examined is not, “Are ARAs extremists?” It is, “Are we right?” As we shall see, this question is hardly ever fairly asked let alone fairly answered. Collusion between the media and powerful special interests sees to that.

THE MEDIA

One barrier to fair discussion of animal right is the media. As so often happens today, our perception of the “real world” is based on what we see on television or read in the newspaper. This should raise a red flag immediately. Think about it. The media loves a plane crash. Safe landings? Not newsworthy. As the first axiom of news reporting states: ”If it bleeds, it leads.” The second? “Good news is no news.” So if something happens and it doesn’t bleed or isn’t bad? Well, it’s probably not worth reporting, at least not in depth. Any doubts about this, just watch the news tonight or read the paper tomorrow.

Because the media looks for what is sensational, there is a strong tendency for them to cover animal rights only when something unlawful or outlandish occurs. Members of the Animal Liberation Front firebomb a lab. An anti-fur activist throws a pie in Calvin Klein’s face. These are the sorts of stories judged to be newsworthy. As for the peaceful protest that took place outside a fur store yesterday, or the lecture on animal rights given at the law school last night? Forget about it. Non-sensational news is not news; it doesn’t “bleed” enough for the media’s tastes. No wonder the general public views ARAs as a band of merry pranksters and social misfits. With rare exceptions, this is the only message that works its way through the media’s filters.

SPECIAL INTEREST POLITICS

That the general public tends to have a negative picture of ARAs is not the result only of the media’s appetite for the sensational; it is also due to what the media is fed by the public relations arms of major animal user industries. By “major animal user industries” I mean the meat industry, the fur industry, the animal entertainment industry, and the biomedical research industry, for example. The people who work in these industries speak with one voice, tell the same story, even use the same words to denigrate their common enemy: animal rights extremists.

The origin of the most recent chapter in this story is not hard to find. It begins in 1989, with the publication of the American Medical Association’s white paper, “Use of Animals in Biomedical Research: The Challenge and the Response.”(1) Among the AMA’s recommendations: People who believe in animal rights “must be shown to be not only anti-science but also (a) responsible for violent and illegal acts that endanger life and property, and (b) a threat to the public’s freedom of choice.” ARAs must be seen as people who are “radicals,” “militants,” and “terrorists,” who are “opposed to human well being.” By contrast, sane, sensible, decent people must be shown to favor animal welfare, understood as humane, responsible use of animals by humans, for humans.

The AMA’s strategy was both simple and inspired. If the public’s perception of using animals in research could be structured as a contest between know-nothing animal rights extremists who hate humans and have an insatiable appetite for terrorism, on the one hand, and wise scientific animal welfare moderates, true friends of humanity, on the other, ARAs would be repudiated and the ideology of humane, responsible use would prevail.

Since 1989, a steady stream of press releases, memos, email messages, press conferences, and web site miscellany, denouncing ARA extremists and lauding reasonable animal welfarists, has flowed from the AMA’s and other biomedical research industry’s public relations offices straight into the hands of reporters, news directors, and editors. How does this work? Here is one example.

The Foundation for Biomedical Research describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest organization dedicated to improving human and animal health by promoting public understanding and support for the humane and responsible use of animals in medical and scientific research.” FBR’s web site includes a page entitled “Journalist Resources,” featuring three links. One is “Expert Opinion,” which is described in this way. “FBR works to bring scientists and journalists together to inspire exceptional, outstanding and ongoing news coverage that contributes to public understanding and appreciation for the humane and responsible use of animals in medical and scientific research. When you need to quote an expert from the American research community, contact us first.”

“To inspire exceptional, outstanding . . . coverage.” That’s positive and appealing. Who could be against that?

A second link is “FBR News Tips,” described as “a monthly tip sheet for journalists that promotes story ideas that will strengthen public understanding and respect for the humane and responsible use of animals in medical research. It provides a summary of the latest medical discoveries, as well as reliable contact information. In every case, the research described demonstrates the essential need for lab animals in medical research.”

“Humane and responsible use of animals in medical research,” which is “essential.” Hard to be against that, either.

And the third link? This one is “Animal activism,” where FBR presents (quoting) “a record of all known criminal activities committed in the name of ‘animal rights’ since 1981.”

Let’s see, now. “Animal activism” equals “criminal activities committed in the name of ‘animal rights’,” which equals “illegal and violent acts.” If that’s what ‘animal rights’ involves, who (except those who support criminal, illegal and violent acts) could possibly be for it?

There we have the basic story: Animal welfare moderates versus animal rights extremists. Wise scientists who treat animals humanely versus know-nothing, emotionally overloaded ARAs bent on destruction. This is the message special interest groups like FBR spoon-feed the media. Does it work? Does the media slant its coverage because of efforts like FBR’s? Before we answer, let’s do some imagining. Here we have Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet. His beat includes biomedical research. On a monthly basis, he receives FBR’s tip sheets. On a daily basis, he receives the latest installment of authoritative quotes from “experts” who support research using animals. And on a timely basis, he receives an up-to-date inventory of “criminal activities committed in the name of ‘animal rights’.”

So let us ask ourselves: what are the odds of Clark’s giving an impartial, fair story about the “latest medical break-through using animals”? Might the odds be just a tiny bit skewed in one direction rather than another? Should we mention that among the Daily Planet’s biggest advertisers are major animal user industries, including economically powerful interests (major pharmaceutical companies, for example) represented by FBR? Or that Clark’s 401(K) is heavily invested in these same industries, as are those of the Daily Planet’s publisher and editorial staff? Can we really think, when we think about it objectively, that the odds of an impartial, fair story about the “latest medical breakthrough using animals” are even-steven?

There may be some people who will answer yes, but my experience tells me they would be in the minority. Most people, once they understand how the cards are stacked, understand why the news is dealt the way it is. Remember the old adage: “Those who pay the piper call the tune?” Its truth did not pass away when paid pipers became an extinct species. The plain fact is, many people have a negative image of animal rights because the media relentlessly presents ARAs in a negative light.

And the media relentlessly presents ARAs in a negative light because the media is relentlessly fed a negative image by the financially powerful and influential spokespersons for the major animal user industries. It’s not all that surprising, once we stop to think about it.

ALL ABOARD!

With so prestigious a group as the AMA having raised the sails, it did not take long for other major animal user industries to come on board. The meat industry. The animal entertainment industry. Sport hunters and rodeo enthusiasts. The story is everywhere the same. Animal welfare moderates versus animal rights extremists. Law-abiding citizens versus law-breaking terrorists. By way of example, consider the following discussion of animal welfare and animal rights from the Fur Information Council of America. First, we have a description of the sane, sensible position of those who favor animal welfare.

Animals enrich our lives in many ways. They provide food, clothing and companionship. Animals used for medical research have given us important advances in medicine that have saved millions of lives. Most people today recognize that the use of animals under humane circumstances is important.

Animal welfare organizations also support the wise use of animals under humane conditions. The animal welfare ethic has been promoted over the past century by many groups, including the fur industry. Working with the government and the veterinary community, industries that involve animal use have adopted high standards for the treatment of animals. For instance, today there are strict regulations governing livestock; guidelines have been implemented for the care of animals used in medical research; and humane care standards have been implemented by the fur industry.

Next, we have a description of the “out-of-touch-with-reality” extremists who favor animal rights.

In the past few years, however, an extreme movement called “animal rights” has emerged. The basic philosophy of these groups dictates that humans have no right to use animals for any purpose whatsoever. These groups oppose the use of animals for food, clothing, medical research, and in zoos and circuses . . .

The majority of Americans support animal welfare groups, but do NOT support [any] out-of-touch-with-reality, publicity-hungry animal rights groups . . . Animal welfare groups support humane treatment and responsible care of animals while the animal rights philosophy not only condemns the use of all animals for any purpose but it also is known for its increasingly terroristic tactics. The current mindset of the animal rights movement is, “Believe what I believe . . . or else.”

True to the spirit of the AMA’s white paper, the debate over fur is here framed as a contest between animal welfare moderates, who favor “humane treatment and responsible care of animals,” and animal rights extremists who, like the criminals who blew-up the twin towers of the World Trade Center, resort to “terroristic tactics.”

But (you might well ask) is this true of all ARAs? Do we all favor terrorism and intimidation? This is what the Fur Information Council is saying. They presume to tell us what “[t]he current mindset of the animal rights movement” is, not what a small handful of ARAs think. The mindset of the movement is, “Believe what I believe . . . or else,” where the “or else” carries with it the threat of one “terroristic tactic” or another. ARAs must really be terrible people.

“THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT, WOULD THEY?”

Having adopted a pro-active strategy, one pillar of which is the depiction of ARAs as lawless terrorists, the major animal user industries face a daunting challenge. For their strategy to work, there has to be illegal, terroristic activity attributed to ARAs. And not just a little. What is needed is a lot. It did not take long before anti-ARA forces decided that they would need to do a little free lance terrorist work of their own.

Consider this possible scenario.(2) Why not hire someone to infiltrate the animal rights movement, as an agent provocateur, with one main purpose: to find a malleable person in the movement who could be “encouraged” (shall we say) to try to do something that would really discredit ARAs. Like, maybe this person could be “encouraged” to try to murder someone. And not just anyone. No, the “someone” should be a pillar of the community, someone who (what an odd coincidence) just happened to be a leader in a major animal user industry, someone who just happened to have been famously outspoken in his criticisms of ARAs. An attempt on his life would be perfect. It would show the public that ARAs really are extremists who will stop at nothing to further their ends. It is not hard to visualize the headline: “Animal Rights Terrorist Attempts to Murder Pillar of Community.”

A few problems would have to be solved. It takes time to find the right person for the job. It takes money to pay all the players. Who is going to come up with the necessary cash? Well, suppose the pillar himself could pay for the attempt on his life. Suppose the pillar himself (such is his influence) could arrange to have the local police on hand to arrest the would-be murderer. “Nah,” you might say, “This is too fanciful, too conspiratorial. I don’t think anyone in a major animal user industry would ever do anything like this.” Think again.

Leon Hirsch, president of the Norwalk, Connecticut-based U. S. Surgical company, played the role of the pillar of the community. Hirsch’s company manufactures staples used in place of ordinary sutures in many operations. Physicians receive training by practicing on live dogs, who are vivisected, then killed. ARAs (led by Friends of Animals, also located in Norwalk) mounted an in-your-face campaign against Hirsch and his company back in the late 1980s. His ingenious way of getting even was to put-up the necessary money to arrange for an ARA to try to murder him.

On November 11, 1989, a man on the payroll of a firm Hirsh had hired drove a young woman named Fran Trutt, a self-professed ARA, along with her two recently purchased pipe bombs, from New York City to Norwalk. When she placed the bombs adjacent to Hirsh’s parking space, Hirsh’s friends in the Norwalk police department just happened to be on hand to arrest her.

The resulting story (not the bombs, which never exploded) was the real bombshell. There it was: “Animal Rights Terrorist Attempts to Murder Pillar of Community.” As John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton observe, “Normally, of course, company presidents do not arrange their own murder, but Hirsch was neither crazy nor suicidal. He was trying to engineer an embarrassing scandal that would discredit the animal rights movement.”(3)

Hirsch would have succeeded, too, except for one thing: the ensuing trial brought to light extensive tape transcripts that implicated everyone, from Hirsh on down, who had hatched the plot to discredit ARAs. Friends of Animals sued Hirsh, but their suit was unsuccessful, and he never faced any criminal charges. Perhaps not surprisingly, Fran Trutt was the only person to serve time (a year in prison, followed by a year on probation). She seems to have left the movement.

IT ONLY GETS WORSE

This is not the only case where people in major animal user industries have taken on the job of trying to make sure there is enough “ARA terrorism” to go around. Books, not just people, can be deceiving. The infamous Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, knows this. One of his books, African Atto, is a manual written for violent black street gangs, supposedly authored by an “insider” (that is, a gang member). Another of his books (like the first, this one was not published under Duke’s name, for obvious reasons), is a sex manual written by and for the “liberated” woman. You know the type: mindless of “family values,” lusting after sexual adventures with the next guy to turn the corner.

In both cases, Duke’s books were written to reinforce prejudicial stereotypes of the sort Duke wants his constituency to fear: the predatory black male, in the one case, the “liberated” woman (whatever her race), in the other. Given the familiar stereotype of ARAs as misanthropic violent law-breakers who are anti-science, anti-reason, anti-American, anti-everything any decent human being values, one might expect to find a fraudulent animal rights expose written by someone posing as an ARA insider.

This expectation was fulfilled with the publication of A Declaration of War: Killing People to Save Animals and the Environment, written anonymously by an author identified only as “Screaming Wolf.”(4) A real charmer, Screaming Wolf makes it clear that there is no limit to the violence real ARAs (“liberators”) are prepared to carry-out. It is not just the university researcher who uses animals in harmful studies, not just the furrier, not just the hunter, whose lives are at risk; it is the researcher’s children, the furrier’s rabbi or minister, the hunter’s friends or business associates. In short, anyone can be chosen as a legitimate, justifiable victim by the army of “liberators” who have decided the time has come to kill people in order to save animals and the environment.

Haven’t the major animal user industries been saying as much? Screaming Wolf (a liberator “insider”) is only confirming what these industries have been saying about ARAs all along. The industries could not have done a better job of discrediting ARAs if they had hired some fictitious “Screaming Wolf” to write this book for them. (5)

Which is precisely what happened. At least this is the finding I believe the available evidence supports. In my judgment, A Declaration of War is nothing more than a work of fraudulent provocation, a work of fiction disguised as fact. And a clever work of fiction it is. For liberators, you see, will rarely take credit for their actions. In general, they prefer to remain anonymous.

Consider the illogic of this logic. Suppose a researcher’s car is blown up. Or she dies or disappears mysteriously. Or strangers rape her daughter. Then either liberators will take credit for this or they will not. If they do, then they did it. If they don’t, then they probably did it anyhow. Here, most assuredly, is a strategy that cannot fail to create the appearance that animal rights terrorism is on the rise.

And the moral of the story is? The moral of the story is simple. The next time the media shows or tells a story about “animal rights terrorism,” we should all think twice before buying into its veracity. We do not know how often violent, unlawful acts that the media attributes to ARAs actually were paid for by someone trying to do what Leon Hirsch tried to do: discredit the animal rights movement by encouraging an impressionable ARA to break the law. And we do not know how often violent acts that the media attributes to ARAs actually are carried out by people who, paid or unpaid, have nothing to do with the movement. What we do know is, all this happens some of the time, which should be reason enough to make us raise a skeptical eyebrow when we open tomorrow morning’s paper and read “Animal Rights Terrorists“ do one bad thing or another.

NORMAN ROCKWELL AMERICANS

Let me be perfectly honest. My wife Nancy and I have been involved in animal advocacy for more than thirty years. During this time, we have met some people we would not want to watch our children. Misanthropic people, mean-spirited to the core. People who hate hunters, hate trappers, hate butchers, hate every living, breathing human being, even themselves. We have also met ARAs who could be described (to speak charitably) as weird, kooky, or strange, and others who have had no respect for reason or science. More, we have known ARAs who believe violent, criminal acts, as well as personal threats made against animal users or their family members, when done in the name of animal liberation, are morally justified. Yes, some ARAs are prepared to go this far.

For a variety of reasons, the attitudes and values of the ARAs I have just described are regrettable. One reason concerns the public’s perception of animal rights. The violent, lawless behavior of a few, the hateful attitudes of a handful, is grist for the opponents of animal rights’ mill. Representatives of the meat and fur industry, for example, want nothing more than to have the general public accept the accuracy of the stereotype of ARAs as misanthropic violent law-breakers. Fortunately for industry spokespersons, some ARAs cooperate by actually being this way. They don’t have to be invented.

If I have learned anything from my years of involvement in animal rights, it is that the ARAs who fit the stereotype are the rare exception, not the rule. The great majority of ARAs are just ordinary folks: neighbors and business associates; the family that runs the print shop or cleaners down the street; the guy next to you on the exercise bike at the gym; students and teachers in the local schools; the woman who sings solos in the church choir; teenagers who belong to Luther League or Wesley Fellowship; the couple that volunteers for Meals on Wheels; homemakers, nurses and physicians; counselors and social workers; whites, blacks, browns, reds, yellows, of every shade and hue; rich, poor, middle class; the old and the young; Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and every other faith, including those with no faith; political liberals and conservatives; people who love family and country, who work hard, mow their lawn, and pay their taxes.

Moreover, while the ARA message the public receives is one of negativity (ARAs are against greyhound racing, against sport hunting, against rodeo, for example), the other, positive side of the story never gets told. With rare exceptions, ARAs are for love of family and country, for human rights and justice, for human freedom and equality, for compassion and mercy, for peace and tolerance, for special concern for those with special needs (children, the enfeebled, the elderly, among others), for a clean, sustainable environment, for the rights of our children’s children’s children–our future generations.

In a word, the vast majority of ARAs are Norman Rockwell Americans, straight off his famous Thanksgiving cover for the old Saturday Evening Post, only with this noteworthy difference. We’ll pass on the turkey, thank you. We don’t eat our friends.

So let us put an end to the untruths that the major animal user industries spread about “animal rights extremists.” Not all ARAs are violent law breakers, and “[t]he current mindset of the animal rights movement” is not “‘Believe what I believe . . . or else.’” This is just special interest propaganda meant to forestall fair, informed discussion. That said, it has to be acknowledged that ARAs are, well . . . we are . . . different than most people. Especially if you’re a Muddler, you have to wonder how we got that way. Answering this question is a good place to begin the discussion.

Tags: The Logical Misanthropist, Controversy, Academic Battlefields, Brickbats, Animals & Environment by Greanville
No Comments »

INTERVIEWED BY CLAUDETTE VAUGHAN

Tom Regan wrote the seminal work A Case for Animal Rights. He is a professor of philosophy at NC State and has written or edited more than twenty books and numerous articles on animal rights amongst his many other talents. Regan is viewed as one of the early pioneers of the animal rights movement. His interest in animal rights and vegetarianism came about from his study of Gandhi. In 1986 he received the Farm Animal Reform Movement’s Mahatma Gandhi Award for Outstanding Contributions to the animal rights movement. Susan Finsen said that “Tom Regan is a master of clear argumentation, and (in his latest book — “Defending Animal Rights”) he expresses his views more clearly and incisively than ever…”

Professor Regan has graciously agreed to speak to Vegan Voice for the first time. Almost without exception a common problem of being interviewed is being misrepresented in print and by the media. Unfortunately Tom Regan has this same ground for complaint as well. We asked him to defend his “Rights” position and he does so admirably. Here are the results of that interview.
(originally published in Vegan Voice)
�
Claudette: Do philosophers have a grip of what the grassroots issues are? Are they aware of the difficulties involved with “on the ground” work? I was out moving our rescued pigs the other day and the thought did occur to me “I wonder if philosophers ever get their hands dirty?”

Tom: Not all philosophers do the same things or live the same way. For example, Susan Finsen, who teaches philosophy in California, oversees a veritable Noah’s Ark of rescued animals on her land. And Bernie Rolland, a philosopher who teaches courses in veterinary ethics at Colorado State University, deals directly with animals everyday. Among philosophers in general, though, Susan and Bernie are the exception, not the rule. Most philosophers involved in the animal rights movement (ARM) are not hands-on activists. That is my experience anyway, and it certainly is true in my case. Like most of my philosophical peers, I try to make a contribution of a different kind.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Thirty years ago there was not a single philosophy department in a single American college or university (some 4,000 altogether) in which animal rights was discussed. Today, judging from my experience, I would say that there is not a single philosophy department in America’s colleges and universities in which animal rights is not discussed. This quiet revolution has occurred because ARM philosophers have done the necessary hard work, work that has made the animal rights debate as respectable and important as the contemporary debates about physician assisted suicide, abortion, and terrorism, for example.

Doing this kind of work is not the same as getting your hands dirty the way hands-on activists do. Still, I don’t think this means that the work done by philosophers is unimportant, any more than I think philosophers think the same of the good efforts of those doing hands-on activism. I have never met a philosopher who did not regard hands-on activists in anything but the highest esteem, and the dedicated work of activists I know personally (for example, those who devote themselves to Trap/Neuter/Release programs involving feral cats) know they have my admiration, because I never tire of expressing it. But this is not the form my activism has taken. ARM moves forward because of the efforts of many hands pulling on many oars. There is strength in our diversity and room enough, I think, for everyone to acknowledge the contributions of others even as they do their best at what they do best.

Claudette: Are we winning any friends over to our side when you say things like, when asked which you would save, a dog or a baby, if the boat capsized in the ocean: “If it was a retarded baby and a bright dog, I’d save the dog”. What is so wrong with being differently abled in any case?

Tom: I have heard the quote attributed to me but it is not something I have ever written so I assume it is something someone says I once said. With what evidence did they say that I said this? Where, when, and in what context? Obviously, I don’t know. But my guess is the context would be something like the following:

Different people make different judgements about what should be done in extreme, tragic cases, cases (philosophers call them “life boat cases”) where we must choose to save one life rather than another, lest both lives should be lost. Discussing such cases can be interesting no doubt, but we should never lose track of their limited importance. For example, your house is on fire and so is your neighbour’s. You can either save your daughter or your neighbour’s daughter. What should you do? I have never met anyone who says, “You should save your neighbour’s daughter” or “You should flip a coin”. However, no one thinks that choosing to save your daughter in this extreme case commits you from doing flame retardant research on the other children in your neighbourhood. In other words, the judgement we make in an extreme case never serves as the basis for what we should do in normal cases — what we should do as a matter of everyday practice.

So we imagine various possible scenarios. You can either save a young child or a comatose human. You can either save a young child or a senile human. You can either save a normal adult human or an old, infirm dog. You can either save a profoundly retarded baby or a bright dog, etc. Throughout this exercise one asks whether some general principle can be applied in all the different cases so that one’s judgement in the different cases is not arbitrary or capricious.
The basis I use views the harm of death as variable. Everyone who dies loses everything in terms of the life they had before them, because everybody loses every way of relating to and being in the world. But some individuals who die lose more than others. For example, the young child loses more than the comatose or senile person. I believe the same would be true if we considered the deaths of a profoundly retarded child and a bright, healthy dog. In death, the latter loses more than the former. Of course some people might offer a different appraisal and use a different general principle. This is to be expected.
The important thing to keep in mind, though, is what I mentioned earlier: the judgement we make in an extreme case never serves as the basis for what we should do in normal cases — what we should do as a matter of everyday practice. And as for whether what I may have said on some occasion is “winning any friends over to our side”: I would rather reformulate the question to ask whether I think that the books I have written, the papers I have published, and the talks I have given have done this. I think this would be a fairer way to judge my own or anyone else’s work over a lifetime, rather than to make such a judgement on the basis of what someone says that that person said, somewhere, some time, in some unspecified context.

Claudette: Would you agree or disagree with the statement that part of the problem of the ARM lies in the overwhelming negative way both the movement and nonhuman animals continue to be defined?

Tom: Like most things, the public’s perception of ARM is a product of the media. And the media is no friend of ARM. With rare exceptions, the media is not interested in truth, not interested in justice, not interested in compassion, not interested in educating the public. It is interested in selling it’s wares to a public with a thirst for plane crashes and violence. Which is why the media loves to cover disasters and confrontations, especially if they include good photo-ops. As the saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads”.

To get the media’s attention, therefore, ARM (with few exceptions) needs to do something that is either outrageous or unlawful. An activist throws a tofu pie in someone’s face. That might get covered. Other activists torch a lab. That might get covered too. So, with a steady diet of such media coverage, what’s the public to think? It thinks, naturally enough, “These ARM folks: what they do is always outrageous or unlawful”. In either case, it’s understandable why most people have a “overwhelmingly negative” view of who we are and what we believe. A negative view is what the movement feeds the media and what the media in turn feeds the public. Nothing will change in this regard until we create opportunities for media coverage that do not perpetuate this negative pattern. Unless we do this, our public image will continue to turn more people off than it turns people on.

Claudette: You have said that what is fundamentally wrong with the way animals are treated isn’t the details of the abuse — it’s the whole system. I wonder why then you don’t appear to support the actions of the ALF because they work outside of that morally bankrupted system that you are also against?

Tom: I have never questioned the depth of commitment ALF activists bring to their work. If someone were to say that these activists display more courage than I ever have, I could not disagree. Obviously, they run risks in their activism that I do not run in mine. No less obviously, some of them have spent, and others are now spending, years in prison. I don’t think any of us should ever underestimate the price these activists have paid and are paying in pursuit of animal liberation.
Why, then do I not support their form of activism? Not because I think that it is always wrong to break the law. I don’t think it is, and I don’t think I have done any wrong when, using classic forms of civil disobedience, I have broken the law in the name of animal rights. So my differences with the ALF go deeper than whether it is always wrong to break the law. They concern the role of violence in a movement that purports to have ARM’s values.

Now, I know there are people who will say that ALF actions are always non-violent because they never hurt anyone, they only destroy or damage property. But I think this reflects a serious misunderstanding of what violence is. When, a few years ago, African American churches in the South were being torched by arsonists, no one was hurt but serious violence was done. People who would deny this, people who would say no violence was done because no one was hurt, simply would not be taken seriously in any open discussion of minority rights. Similarly, I think that people who insist that ALF sponsored arsons and other destructive acts are “non-violent” would not be taken seriously in any open discussion of animal rights. So the question is not, “Does the ALF engage in violence?” to which I think the answer is, “yes”. The real question is, “Are their violent actions justified?” to which I think the answer is, “no”.

Why? Fundamentally, because I believe that the ideals informing ARM concern the means used to achieve our ends, not merely the ends themselves. I believe these ideals appeal to what is best in humanity, our ability to be moved by non-violent, informed appeals to our shared moral sensibility, in particular. The ALF’s violent acts makes no such appeal. Just the opposite. And calling them “non-violent” does not change the fact that they are. Still, at the end of the day, the question remains: “Are ALF actions more useful than any moral arguments (including any moral philosopher) can give?” Here, obviously, different people not only can, they will give different answers.

Claudette: Are any more students in the States saying “No” to dissection in the classroom nowadays Tom?

Tom: All the available evidence supports the view that more and more students in America are just saying “No” to dissection. Several states, including Florida, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and Maine have laws that provide students with a non-invasive alternative. And more states are passing similar laws. Short of that, it is possible to work at the local level. We have a policy at my university (we instituted this at least 15 years ago) that provides students with an alterative to dissection. We were able to institute this policy through the Faculty Senate on the basis of student rights, not animal rights. I think this kind of institutional policy is a realistic goal throughout the world of education, whatever the level. Of course, we all look to Italy for true leadership in this regard. The Italians have a national law that exempts any student, in any lab, in any course, at any level, from compulsory dissection. I don’t think we’ll have anything comparable to this legislation in America for a long time; but perhaps in other, more progressive countries, countries such as your own, this sort of legislation is achievable. The possibilities of forming alliances here, between animal rights, children’s rights, anti-violence, and religious progressives, for example, really are very strong. Incidentally, the best work on the subject, in my opinion, is Jonathan Balcombe’s The Use of Animals in Higher Education: Problems, Alternatives, and Recommendations.

Claudette: I hear on the grapevine that a formidable vegan challenge to yourself was Blue Vein and Stilton cheese. Give us the inside information here Tom.

Tom: Everyone has a different story about how they made their journey to where they find themselves today. Mine includes working as a butcher during my college years, only to turn to vegetarianism in the early ’70s. I was influenced in my thinking by Gandhi, who was not a practicing vegan. I think I must have assumed that if vegetarianism was good enough for the Mahatma, it was good enough for me. I always had a fierce liking for cheese, the stronger, the better. My picture of the absolutely perfect meal was, oh, about half a pound of the ripest cheese available, a loaf of fresh crusty bread, and a bottle of really good red wine, shared with friends. To my mind back then, in my early years as a vegetarian, this was as good as eating could be. If the ethics of diet rested on taste alone, I would think the same today.

Claudette: How did your latest book “Defending Animal Rights” come into being? Please sketch for us some of the main features and themes of the book.

Tom: Like any other writer, I have always been concerned about not repeating myself, about saying something new, or at least saying something old in a new way. During my lifetime, I have been fortunate because I have been invited to meet this challenge by speaking on a variety of animal rights topics, sometimes to ARM activists, sometimes to an academic audience, sometimes to the general public. I don’t know what the total is but I guess I have given several thousand animal rights talks by now.

“Defending Animal Rights” is a collection of some of my more recent presentations, a work that draws a map, so to speak, of where my thinking has lead me during the last decade. Of particular interest to ARM activists, I think, is a chapter entitled “understanding Animal Rights Violence” and a second, entitled “Patterns of Resistance”. In both I spend a good deal of time developing the parallels between the struggle for animal rights, on one hand, and other struggles for social justice, including the anti-slavery movement in America in particular. The parallels are amazing, something every ARM activist should know, I think, and something from which we can learn and take encouragement. I hope the same is true of an even more recent book, “The Animal Rights Debate”, co-written with the philosopher Carl Cohen. I think my contributions to this book represent my best animal rights position in the debate triumphs in every possible respect, and this against Cohen, the vivisection industry’s favourite philosopher. Which is why I hope the book will enjoy the widest possible readership. Folks who are interested in this book, as well as “Defending Animal Rights”, might check-out the reviews at Amazon.com

Claudette: Could you explain how your position differs from Peter Singer’s?

Tom: Singer has two main ideas. First, we should count everyone’s interests, and count equal interests equally. Second, after having done this, we should do what brings about the best overall balance of the interests of those affected. The first idea concerns procedure: what we have to do before we decide what the right thing to do is? The second idea concerns moral judgement: what is the right thing to do? I believe both his ideas are not only mistaken; they are fundamentally mistaken, in ways that are harmful to animals.

With respect to procedure: It is profoundly mistaken, I believe, to say that we should count the interests of rapists, or slave owners, or child abusers before we can judge that these people are doing something terribly wrong. Similarly, I believe it is profoundly mistaken to say that we should count the interests of people in the fur industry, or the vivisection industry, or the animal agriculture industry before we can judge that these people are doing something terribly wrong. My position could not be more opposed to this idea. You should never count the interests of those who violate the rights of animals (or humans) before you judge that they are doing something wrong because they are violating someone’s rights. Of course, many people will say, “Doesn’t Singer say the same thing? Doesn’t Singer believe in animal rights?” To which the honest answers are, “No, he does not say the same thing. No, he does not believe in animal rights.” And if someone asks, “What does he believe in, then?” the answer is, ” He believes in the two ideas I have just described”.

As for Singer’s second main idea (and here I will limit my comments to the issue of vivisection): Singer does not believe that vivisection is always wrong. On the contrary, he believes that it is sometimes right. If the consequences are on balance better than otherwise could be obtained, then his view is that there is nothing wrong with using animals in research. Let me repeat this: his view is there is nothing wrong with using animals in research. This is one way in which I think Singer’s ideas are harmful to animals. My position could not be more opposed to the idea.

Of course, I know that many people will find it incredible that Singer is not opposed to vivisection, not just some of the time but all of the time. But, in all honestly, I can only say: this is his view (see his by now infamous piece in Nerve.com) that having sex with animals is not always morally wrong. Provided the sex takes place in private, and assuming that the participants enjoy themselves, no wrong is done. This is perfectly consistent with Singer’s two main ideas: Indeed, this is required by his two main ideas. Again, my position could not be more opposed. In my view, bestiality is always morally wrong for the same reasons that nonconsensual sex with children is always morally wrong: the rights of those that cannot give consent are violated.

Our philosophical differences to one side, let me just say one thing about Singer’s position. The last thing animals need is for the exploiters of animals to insinuate that ARM activists are claiming rights for animals so that we can have mutually satisfying sex with them. I mean, my God! If that happened, ARM activists would be seen as dishonest at best, depraved at worst. In either case, what ARM activists say of behalf of animals would be totally disregarded. And if that happened, it would be very difficult even to begin to calculate the massive harm that would be done to animals. So while I acknowledge the important role Singer played in the early stages of the modern Movement, and much as I like Peter personally, I do not believe his ideas represent what ARM activists believe. I hope this becomes clearer as we move forward. It needs to be.

Claudette: Your moral position in A Case for Animal Rights rejects utilitarianism because it is committed to maximising the good with no prior commitment to how the good is to be distributed. So therefore Utilitarianism fails to respect the moral importance of individuals as individuals — but then you limit your individuals — “subjects-of-a-life” — to mammals. Why did you do that?

Tom: In one sense it is true that, in The Case for Animal Rights, I limit “my individuals” to mammals; in another sense, this is false. The sense in which it is true is rhetorical. What I do in The Case… is say (roughly), “Look, everyone knows there are all these line-drawing questions when we talk about what rights matter morally. I propose to set these questions to one side and say, “Wherever you draw the line, assuming you draw it rationally, mammals are above it. So let’s limit our discussion of animal rights to this classification of animals”. This is the (rhetorical) sense in which it is true that I limit “my individuals” to mammals. Why? In order to keep rhetorical control of how the argument develops, in order to insure that it does not get bogged down in divisive debates about whether mollusks or insects matter morally, and so on. I want to make it as clear as possible that we can make some morally informed judgements about some animals without having to know everything about all animals.

The sense in which it is false to say that I limit “my individuals” to mammals is logical. As should be clear from what I have just said, and what I try to explain in The Case…, I in no way say or imply that only mammals have rights. In The Case…, I leave this question open. More recently, in contexts where I have not felt the same need for rhetorical control, I have explained why in my view birds also are subjects-of-a-life.

Claudette: There are two problems here as I see it. First. It is humanocentric in that we decide/decree just who gets the right to be a “subject-of-a-life” therefore we have failed to respect the moral importance of individuals as individuals right across the board…

Tom: We must understand ‘humanocentric” differently. A view is “humanocentric”, as I understand this idea, if all and only human beings enjoy a particular moral standing — if all and only human beings have basic human rights and possess equal moral worth, for example. That certainly is not my view. Not at all. At the same time, I certainly believe that the people reading these words, for example, have basic rights and possess equal moral worth. But this is not because they are human beings. Again, such a humanocentric view is not my view at all. What makes the people reading these words different from a protozoa, for example, is that they (but not the protozoa) are what I call subjects-of-a-life, meaning (roughly) that they are alive, in the world, aware of the world, aware of what happens to them, and aware of what happens to them matters to them — aware that it makes a difference to the quality of life they are living. Moreover, I believe that nonhuman animals who are subjects-of-a-life have basic rights and possess equal moral worth. If someone wants to say more than this; in particular, if someone wants to say (what your words suggest) that the same is true of every individual living being — they all have the same basic rights; that they all are equal morally — that certainly is their prerogative. All I can say is I have never seen such a view defended adequately by anyone, even including what I consider its definitive statement by Paul Taylor, in his book Respect for Nature, which is why I do not accept it.

Claudette: The second problem I see in your theory is that we in the movement seem fixated on the “Rights” position and yet it is a foregone conclusion (almost) in that granting “Rights” for the higher intelligent mammals will not automatically trickle down to encompass the so-called “lower” intelligent animals in a court of law. I don’t know about you Tom, but I am not working to “bring them back home”, to then turn and leave without the chickens.

Tom: Again, you seem to have a different understanding of “intelligence” than I do. It is not as if I am saying that, before someone can have rights, they have to pass some sort of IQ test. In fact I cannot remember ever using that idea of “intelligence” anywhere in anything I have ever written anywhere. So I would want to scrap the idea of intelligence in the case of nonhuman animals, just as if I have scrapped it in the case of humans with profound cognitive disabilities who nevertheless are subjects-of-a-life.

Are chooks subjects-of-a-life? This would be the crucial question for me, a question that different people answer differently. People who really know chickens (and I’m thinking of Karen Davis, of United Poultry Concerns) — these people will insist that they are, a position I have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting. As I explained earlier, I have never maintained that only mammals are subjects-of-a-life.
As for your separate idea, the one concerning what will or what will not “trickle down” in a court of law — in my cynical moments I believe we have the laws we do because of who has the power to dominate. Socrates discusses this idea in Plato’s Republic when he considers the view that justice is what is in the interests of the stronger. I hope justice is more than this, both in theory and in fact. I really do. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to think that justice for other animals will come about just because we have the best arguments. No, justice for other animals will come to pass, if it does, because the ranks of ARM swell and because we (those of us who speak for the animals) become “the stronger” in numbers and influence. If we do — but only if we do — I have no doubt that the rights of chooks will be recognised.

Claudette: Is equal consideration for all animals a possibility in your view?

Tom: If by “all animals” you mean “everything we classify as an animal” (as distinct from what we classify as vegetable and mineral), I am not certain that I understand the idea. What is it that we are being asked to consider equally? If you take a view like Singer’s, the answer is reasonably clear. For example, we need to consider the suffering of all those animals who suffer and, having done this, we need to count equal suffering equally, no matter whose suffering it is. But Singer does not believe that this extends to all animals; and he does not believe this because he does not think that all animals can suffer. As you may know, I disagree with Singer about much, but on this matter I could not agree with him more.

However, perhaps what is meant is that we need to consider the life of every animal and, having done this, we need to count every life equally. But (as I said earlier) I have never seen this position adequately defended, which is why I do not accept it myself. I do not believe that the life of microorganisms, for example, deserve the same (equal) moral consideration as the life of anyone reading these words. So concerning the question, “Is equal consideration for all animals a possibility in my view?”, I would have to say, “Yes, I suppose it is a possibility; but no, I do not believe it myself”.

Claudette: Many people assume that the Animal Rights Movement has made extraordinary progress. It’s an awful thing to say considering the amount of blood, sweat and tears that activists have gone through but would the results have been any different from old welfarism, if we had chosen to stay at home instead, these past 25 years?

Tom: Any answer would have to be speculative since (obviously) we don’t know what would have happened if ARM activists had stayed at home and let the “old welfarists” carry on with their work. Personally, I am not very much interested in what we have accomplished (though this is of some importance certainly). My eyes, my concerns always look to the future, to the work that remains to be done.

ARM waxes and wanes; this we know. There are times when we are clearly moving forward, times when we are standing still, and times when we are losing gains we thought we had. I don’t know what it’s like for you folks, but here, in the States, I’d say we definitely are not in one of the “moving forward” periods. There is a lot of disenchantment and dissent in the ranks, a lot of attrition. Even as we attract new people, we are losing seasoned activists every day. Everyday. Keeping these activists and adding to the base of ARM: this is the greatest challenge we face, I think, one for which we will only have ourselves to blame if we fail.

Simply put, we are not going anywhere if too few of us want to get there. Whatever the size of your organisation today, your goal should be to double it by the end of next year; then double that the next year; and so on. The same for other activist groups. What we have and what we have not accomplished in the past 25 years, and whether traditional welfarists could have done as much, ARM activists will not accomplish anything of lasting importance in the next 25, if we fail to add significantly, dramatically, in historically unprecedented numbers, to the critical mass of committed activists. If I have learned anything in my more than 25 years in ARM, this is it.

Claudette: Siding with McDonalds and Burger King. Are you for or against it?

Tom: ARM activists can be both radical and realistic. On the radical side, we work for empty, not merely larger, cages. On the realistic side, we know that the cages will not be empty tomorrow. The wall of oppression has to be taken apart one brick at a time. We are not going to have every right of every animal respected in one fell swoop; but we can have some rights of some animals respected in an incremental basis. For example, we can pass legislation that prohibits debeaking or face branding of cattle, legislation designed to respect an animal’s right to bodily integrity within a system of exploitation even while we cannot thereby end that system of exploitation. Changes like these (incremental rights respecting changes) are the kind of change I support, the kind I think anyone committed to animal rights should support. I don’t see McDonalds and Burger King making changes of this kind, which is why I do not support them.

Claudette: What is so wrong with holding our own species into account as the cause of the problems we inflict upon nonhuman animals (the weak and the vulnerable). Why not look at root causes instead of the logic that dictates who has rights? Who is entitled to these rights? Why you may ask? Because it’s hierarchical and territorial to do so. As an inference, becomes an issue about power and dominance. Why not start the way we intend to finish and that is abolitionist in essence?

Tom: “Animal Rights” is not an issue about power and dominance in my view. Just the opposite. “Animal Rights” places limits on power and dominance. In other words, because animals have various fundamental moral rights, humans must (morally) limit what we do with them. So when you ask “What is so wrong with holding ourselves into account because of what we do to animals?” I would say. “Nothing is wrong with doing this! Of course we are to be judged responsible for the evil we visit upon other animals!” We are one mind on these matters.
The difference that separates us, perhaps, is how best to explain this evil, how best to make coherent sense of the moral limits of our “power and dominance”. The position I favour assigns a central role in these matters is a better way. I can only say that I have not seen it.

Claudette: Finally Tom, One of the chief criticisms of the animal rights movement is that it is “anti-intellectual”. Do you buy that? Is it even an issue in your opinion?

Tom: Usually, the claim that ARM activists are “anti-intellectual” goes hand in hand with the charge that we are “emotional” and “irrational”. And (of course) almost always the people talking this way just happen to be making their living off the backs of the animals they exploit, whether in the fur, agricultural, entertainment, or biomedical research industries, for example. Such a coincidence! The accusers are the beneficiaries! If ever there was a case where people should “consider the source”, this is one of them.

There are two ways to respond to these anti-intellectual/emotional/irrational accusations, I think. First, we can point out that animal exploiters have no philosophical defence for all that they are doing. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Given all that I know and have experienced, I can tell you, without the slightest reservation: there is not a single philosopher, in any department, at any university, in any country that today defends all that is being done to animals. Even when a philosopher like Carl Cohen offers a dense of vivisection, the philosopher will, as Cohen does, register misgivings about the fur trade and factory farming, for example.

This is not good news for the exploiters. So (naturally enough) they take the only route available to them: they attempt to silence the animal rights message by attacking the animal rights messengers. Maybe this works as a matter of public posturing. I don’t know. But it certainly does not work as a matter of respectable philosophy. I hope all your members and readers will find some encouragement, as they should, in the knowledge that no philosopher anywhere in the world defends everything that is being done to other animals. In the court of informed, rational argument, in the “intellectual universe”, so to speak, the pro-animal thinkers win the philosophical argument hands-down.

Second, we can point out that feeling strongly, being emotional is not anything for which those who are one our side of the right and the just need to apologise. I am against rape, and I feel very strongly about it. I am against child abuse, and feel very strongly about it. I am against racial discrimination, and feel very strongly about it. If someone said to me, “You are being very emotional about these matters,” I would say ” You’re damned right I am! Anyone who doesn’t feel “very emotional” about rape, child abuse and racism is the one who has some explaining to do, not those of us who do feel very emotional”. Once the appropriateness of having strong feelings about some matters are acknowledged, it should be clear why saying that we are “very emotional” about animal abuse settles no moral issues. If animal rights are being violated, in the ways ARM activists believe, then everyone should be just as “emotional” as the ARM activists are. As for the fact that some (even most) people are just not “just as emotional” as ARM activists are: this is a symptom of their failure (so far) to see the many faces of evil when it comes to animal abuse. Our enduring challenge is to make this (for them) invisible evil, visible.

Tom Regan’s new book “Defending Animal Rights” is published by the University of Illinois Press.

Tags: Animals & Environment by Greanville
1 Comment »

Dateline: Animals’ Agenda, Dec 1986
INTERVIEWED BY PATRICE GREANVILLE

A wide-ranging discussion with Tom Regan, wherein the author of The Case for Animal Rights speaks about the future development of the animal liberation movement as a force for social change, and as a focus for resolving the
great ethical dilemmas facing humanity as it enters the 21st century.

Religion, because of its concern for ethics, would seem to be a natural field to take animal rights, but its response so far has been tepid, non-committal or even hostile. Is that correct?

I don’t think it’s altogether an accurate assessment. In fact, once the religious community sees what the issues are, once we do our job as representatives of the
animals and present a fair depiction of the issues, I find that the religious community
responds very strongly and very favorably. I’m not saying, of course, that we’re going to see mass veganism sweeping Christianity. But I think they see the relevance of the issues we raise to their faith, and they’re challenged to respond. It’s a matter of growth, process, change.

I asked you that question because religions, particularly the Judeo-Christian beliefs, are usually repositories of what we might call a very sturdy anthropocentrism. In fact, the liberal denominations-in a world fraught with so many abuses of humans-now stand out for their “super humanism;’ if you want to call it that; while those on the right are proud of their speciesism. On that basis, how do you see an approach to the religious community?

I think the religious community is not homogenous. Not everyone out there has
the same views about all the same things. In fact there’s as much diversity, probably
more diversity in the religious community than in the animal rights community.
And anyone involved in the animal rights movement knows how diverse we are and
how much disagreement there is. So, yes, we should expect to find people who profess to speak for the faith accepting and defending practices abhorrent to us. But
at the same time, there’ll be just as many; and hopefully more, among the religious
who will see their faith as wanting the same kinds of changes that the secular
wing of the animal rights movement wants. In fact, I don’t want to separate
‘them’ and ‘us’. What I say is that we need some sort of solidarity with these people.
And the change is going to come from within that community rather than from
the outside. Hence, all we can do, as active animal rights supporters, is present
the issues to that community. Don’t expect that the church is going to respond
with one voice. On the contrary, there will be many voices, as my film, We Are
All Noah shows.

We should be flexible, then…

My view is that we should never take an uncompromising position. It goes back to finding common ground. When I’m asked, ‘Are you against all animal research?”, I say, “Yes, I am:’ Then they say, “Well, I can’t follow you that far:’ So I say, “Well, how about cosmetics testing; how about the LD-5O tests?” “Well, no, I’m against that:’ I say, “OK, let’s just work on that:’ So, the answer is not to have an uncompromising position right upfront. We mustn’t say, “You have to join me all the way to join me part of the way.” Let’s raise consciousness incrementally to get people to act on what they see is right and feasible in their immediate experience…

As a professional philosopher, I’m sure you have reflected many times on the intimate linkage that seems to exist between humanity’s attainable level of morality and technological prowess. In fact, some thinkers maintain that the intuitive road to morality is secondary or false. . . and that the only reality in this field is shaped by the extent we understand nature. . . what is sometimes called the “realm of necessity:’ Do you think, therefore, that as humanity advances technologically we’ll be able to aspire to a much higher morality?

I’m not an opponent of technology. I think technology does increase our range
of choices. It does offer us the opportunity to grow spiritually and morally.
The question is, how do we direct it? How is technology going to be used? Are we
going to develop a technology to further subjugate those which we already have
power over or to liberate them and us? The most desirable path, of course, is to
find in technology ways of liberating ourselves from this kind of dominant relationship
we have with the rest of creation.

As real problems of ecological destruction…overpopulation, political unrest, nuclear war, terrorism (retail and wholesale), whatever, keep pressing on humankind, more and more people are beginning to realize that the world needs an entirely new ethic toward nature. Do you have any suggestions, besides those embodied in your Culture and Animals Foundation, on how to accelerate the process?

The first axiom of activism is that people are busy and when you show up with some new cause, it’s very difficult for them to fit it into their agenda. So you have to have a kind of tolerance. It’s not like the church, for example, hasn’t been doing anything-there’s the sanctuary movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-Nicaraguan-intervention movement. There’s a lot of stuff that the religious and progressive political communities are doing that a lot of people aren’t doing, so let’s be sure to give credit where credit is due. But how we accelerate the process, I’m not sure. The
message I try to get to people is that it’s not an “either/or” proposition; either
work to bring a sense of the importance of animals into your life or do something
else (i.e., work against nuclear war, apartheid, or in the sanctuary movement).
It’s rather an “and/both” proposition. The way we make this idea clear to them is by talking about the details of their life—what sort of shampoo they are using, what toothpaste, what detergent (i.e., are they products of animal suffering,
ingredients or testing?) If you’re going to tell me you can’t fight apartheid and
change your brand of toothpaste I don’t understand that. So our great strength
lies in the concreteness of our challenge. It’s enormously difficult to work against apartheid in a meaningful way as an isolated individual. But we can give someone
something explicit and attainable to do they can be activists with a dollar bill. So
one test of how we succeed is how people spend their money-especially in this
country. Now, as for this question of how we “accelerate” the process. . .I’d say, ‘Go
to the mountain. Don’t wait for it to come to you: Go where they’re meeting; don’t
call a meeting and ask them to come because they’re going to be too busy. You
go to where they’re meeting and get onto their agenda and make the challenge as
detailed and concrete as you can. And make clear to all that they don’t have to
forego all other activities.

The manner in which we present ourselves to others, the way we couch our arguments, therefore, may be as important as the moral substance contained in
our vision. . .

Yes, definitely. One of the things that those of us who speak for the animals have to be mindful of is how we appear to the world because if we appear as losers, sulkers and complainers, bitter and so on, there aren’t many people who are going to want to be with us. That’s the mindset of our society. And so the change we’re working on, which is a sign of our own maturity, is to go from our adolescence-a period of rejection and rebellion, denial and negation and so on-to be affirmers rather than deniers, be for things rather than against things, positive rather than negative. Say ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ all the time. And we want to celebrate the beauty, the dignity, the integrity of the animals, and not just spout a steady diet of complaint. We’ve got to help the public see that the people who are on the cutting edge of doing the visionary work in the movement are self-actualized people who are making something creative with their lives. For each of us-at one point or another-the great
challenge is to recreate who we are, not simply accept who we are in terms of what culture, the environment or genetics have given us. The great challenge is to take what we’ve been given and to rearrange it and to make something new out of all those things. I think that there are people on the cutting edge of the movement who are the role models of that, who are self-actualizing, creative, talented, gifted, committed and who have given their lives meaning and value by making soemthing of it. Now those people are the ones you want to be around.

There have been some thinkers over the centuries who have thought that profound
structural changes must occur in society on a very broad general front before true specific changes can take root at lower levels. Can any kind of revolution occur in one country and not in the whole world, for example? It seems we have a similar question facing us. Can we hope to have real progress for animals before sweeping structural improvements occur in the fabric of contemporary society?

My view is that within my limited time, talent, energy I don’t think I’m going to
be able to bring about these large structural changes. So what I have to do is
work in the existing structure and try to make whatever progress I can there and
leave it to the next generation to try to do more. As mentioned earlier, within our
civilization and structure there is an issue of how people spend their money. Are
they spending it on cruelty-free products? If so, we’re making progress. We need to
outline the connection that animal rights issues have with the larger picture. The
idea that animal liberation is human liberation is fraught with tremendous meaning because the way out of our own bondage and current predicaments is not possible without helping the animals.

You mention the church as a fertile ground for education. But the same can be said for other realms of action, other movements, like feminism, for example. Is it fruitful, in your opinion, to try to form theoretical and practical alliances with movements which, like our own, are engaged in expanding the frontiers of moral and political “enfranchisement?”

Sure, I think that it’s both necessary and desirable to forge those kinds of alliances. We’re a social movement, a human potential movement. The big job at hand for many of the big and small group leaders is how to get people in the movement. Forging alliances like the ones you mention is one of the ways-blacks, gays, native people, feminists, etc. . . the peace movement, the radical ecologists, the Green Party. In some ways I think it would be tremendously desirable for some of the leading groups in our movement to meet with the heads of the major organizations struggling for social justice, and try to work out where and how we can forge those alliances. I’ve talked with people in the Green Party in England and they’re very receptive. They want to forge cooperation.

That, of course, doesn’t prevent us from appealing also to other constituencies which may not be so clearly organized, and which are apparently being passed over…

Exactly. There are many neglected constituencies that we need to get out there
and talk to - the religious community is just one. The artistic community is another-
not just show biz-but they’re important too. I’m talking about the creative people who often set the tone for an entire cultural period, and entire outlook on life and events. The choreographers, TVshow writers, poets, popular musicians. We have a very narrow definition of activism-it’s debating a researcher and that’s it. But there is a cultuml activism that we should begin to cultivate. Also, the chances of receptivity are much greater.

Go give a lecture to a bunch of biology majors, and then go give the same lecture
to a bunch of art majors. The difference is profound-the art majors are sympathetic
to our viewpoint. So why aren’t we out there talking to the art majors instead
of just the biology majors?

The next constituency I want to reach is the elderly. We’ve never done anything
with the elderly, always the young people. And this country is becoming grey at the temples.. .What do we do with them? They’ve become like animals in our culture. We put them in homes and wait for them to die. We shelter them, we warehouse them. So if there are people whose lives are going to enable them to empathize with the plight of animals, it’s the elderly who have seen the ephemeral qualities of beauty, and many of whom now feel powerless in regard to the larger society. Yet they have leisure time, they’re looking for meaning and growth. We need to try to figure out, not in an exploitative way, how to take our concerns to them so they enhance their own lives.

Let’s pause for a moment to ask a rather personal question. How did you become an animal rights person?

Two main things—one intellectual, one emotional/experiential. The intellectual thing was that my wife and I were heads of a small group called North Carolinians Against the War, we were in the anti-war movement. At the time, it seemed that the way to make my activism respectable was to combine it with scholarship and research, so I did research on non-violent conflict resolution and pacifism. In the course of doing that I naturally read Gandhi. Gandhi simply said to me, ‘Look, would you like to limit the amount of violence in the world?’ I said, ‘Yes’. ‘Well, what are you eating?’, he asked. Wow, I’d never thought about that—I was as blind as everyone else on that issue. I didn’t see the fork as a weapon of violence. I saw the gun as a weapon of
violence but not the fork. And so it was Gandhi who lifted the scales off my eyes.
That was an important intellectual thing.

But, experientially, we were away and came back from vacation and our dog had
been killed that day, hit by a car. It was an accident, but it plunged the family into
tremendous grief. And I came through that realizing the contingencies of one’s
life. It was like I realized in a flash that there was something about the boundlessness
of what I was trying to feel that couldn’t be contained by that one dog…it reached out to all dogs, all cats—and of course, all cows and pigs, and all the rest.

But it was that experience. Philosophy can lead the mind to water but only emotion can make it drink. Maybe it’s a combination of the two things. In my case it was both an intellectual and an experiential/emotional process.

I’ve seen other people go through similar experiences—the sudden realization of our fellowship with others—it’s a very powerful jolt to the heart.

Yes, and again, this is related to the more general thing we’re talking about.
The animal rights movement is providing an opportunity for people to take control
of their lives. This is so vital- not in some flimsy ephemeral way-but in the details,
and in the larger implications. . . I keep coming back to this-the details of your
life-that’s what you have control of. You can’t easily control nuclear power but you
have control of the details of your life. Also, within the peace movement, within
the religious community. . . what I like to hammer away at is that there will be no
peace in the world until there’s peace in your home. You’re not going to change
the structure of the world if you’re not willing to change your life. Who is kidding whom? And there’s no peace in your home so long as you keep consuming products directly related to the suffering of animals.

You were talking about reaching out to students, and new fields of mass education. What sense do you get in your travels around the country about the receptivity of college students? Because they are obviously a crucial constituency. They have a lot of free time for activism.

The next five years are really crucial for the success of the movement, because if
we fail to radicalize the college students I think well have to sit back and really
ask, ‘Where are we going with this movement?’ I think the kids have to be fed up
with all this conspicuous consumption. They have to be ready to chuck it. They’ve
got to be ready to go back to some sense of alternative meaning of life other than
having a BMW and the latest Sony stereo. This is a great opportunity, then, and
what we should be doing in a cooperative manner, not in a competitive way, is to
be preparing well-conceived, well-staffed presentations for college campuses.

Is there any possibility in the near future, say, in the next five years, of having university chairs devoted to the subject of a new global ethic, one that stresses the sacred interconnectedness of life? We, of course, see the urgency in this.. .

Sure. Here’s my experience with universities. If somebody puts up the money, they’ll do it. If you want to create these chairs and you have the money, there will be universities knocking one another over to get it.

You raise the idea that the animal rights movement is the movement for the 21st century. Considering the myriad of problems plaguing humanity today, do you
really see a possibility to make animal rights the centerpiece of attention? In
other words, why should animal rights be the 21st century’s preeminent movement?

We are trying to affirm the notion of the liberation of the person - taking control of
our lives, assuming more responsibility for ourselves. You can grow in a positive
way, in a life-affirming way, a self-affirming way, and the passage from where you are now to where you can be must pass through the problem of how we relate to animals.

My view is that the animal rights thing has tended to be very negative-don’t do
this, don’t do that. I’ve been doing it myself. I’m for protest, for direct action,
for all those things. But, I’m for something positive, too. This is part of a larger
attempt to bring forth the full-flourishing of the human being, and that’s what we’re
for and to do that we must be against the mechanized, routinized, institutionalized
exploitation of animals.

You mentioned once that the process of attaining a mature ethic, a true reverence for life, could be substantially helped by focusing first on our respect for animals. Are you saying that animal rights could be the bridge, the philosophical anchor for this moral breakthrough?

Our movement is one that begins with the animals, but it doesn’t end with the
animals. That’s what we’ve got to begin to see. To have respect for the beauty and
dignity and integrity of animals; to regard them as having a life of their own and so
on, is the beginning of wisdom. This is not one more big ego trip, one more passing fad. On the contrary, what comes out at the end of this is this sense of who we are.

Are you talking about what the Chinese, the Buddhists, called ‘the strength that comes from becoming one with the universe’? The peace of no longer being an isolated fragment of life?

There is this possibility of understanding oneself through empathy with
the other; and this is very close. But what we wish to emphasize is that there is a
sense of fulfillment of human life that is impossible to achieve without going through
the door of respect for animals. with all this conspicuous consumption.

You have just published a new book, Animal Sacrifices, and also done work on a new video tape. Could you give us an idea of what the Culture and Animals Foundation is? What are its main goals?

The main objective of the foundation is to try to find those creative, gifted people
out there who care about animals, in order to support their work. We need to
realize how artistic our culture is, how painting, poetry, fiction, drama, sculpture-
all these things speak very powerfully to us. Ask yourself this: when was
the last time you read a poem that celebrated vivisection? The answer, of
course, is “never:’ When was the last time you read a poem that celebrates the
animals? Well.. .why aren’t we doing something with that? Now, when I do a
presentation, I work poetry into it because poetry is a sort of secular Bible.
People listen differently because language is being purified—the impact of poetry is
tremendous.

Yes, poetry can always have a tremendous impact. But in the U.S. poetry itself is not as popular as in other countries. People don’t generally fill great halls to hear a poet read his latest creations. I’m afraid that in the U.S. pop music is where it’s at.

Yes, and that’s an important point to keep in mind. Much of the growth of the
movement may happen as a result of trickling down into popular culture. But
I’m also talking about ‘high’ culture. Usually we’re outside the theatre protesting
people walking in with their fur coats. We need to be in the theatre. The
question of animal rights must be on the stage, in the gallery, in the concert hall.

What do you say to those people who say nature doesn’t have the sense of compassion that we humans attribute to our moral destiny? Nature—they claim—is
blind; it has created murderous food chains and many other terrors, and we have no duty to rise above its inscrutable arrangements. . .

This goes back, I think, to the acceptance of limitation on human growth, and
the problem of human self-actualization and fulfillment. It’s what Sartre would
call bad faith, to attribute my lack of integrity and self-discipline to nature. ‘It’s
nature’s fault that I’m like this.’ It’s bad faith. Nature gives us, you might say, the
canvas. Your past is the paints, you’re the artist—what do you do with what you’ve
got? The bottom line, as I see it, is that a full human life is not possible without
respect for animals—so that’s the first thing we put on the canvas.

Do you see the ‘lion and the lamb’ finally lying down together?

Not in my lifetime.

Not even in the 21st century?

Yes (chuckle), maybe in the 21st century. Of course, the symbolism there is probably too strong for what we’re prepared for right now.
____________
Professor Regan’s current activities center around The Culture and Animals Foundation, which can be contacted at 3509 Eden Croft Drive, Raleigh, NC 27612. A powerful animal rights introductory tool, ‘We Are All Noah,” is available for purchase through the foundation in various formats.

“All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals.” — Peter Singer

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE IN 1986.
Additional materials follow.
_____________________________________________________

Tom Regan is professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University. He is a prolific writer on animal liberation and animal rights philosophy. The publication of his The Case for Animal Rights marked a major advance in the philosophical underpinnings of the animal rights movement. This book brought the discussion of animal rights to new levels of serious attention within scholarly circles.
extracts from ‘Animals’ Rights: a Symposium’

We must realise that some people will find in our speaking of a subject such as the rights of animals all the evidence they need to convict us of absurdity. Only people can have rights and animals aren’t people. So, the more we speak, in a serious way, of animal rights, the more they will see us as supposing that animals are people; and since it is absurd to suppose that animals are people, it’s equally absurd to think that animals have rights. That, for many, is the end of it.

Let us be honest with ourselves. There is little chance of altering the mental set of those wedded to thinking in this way. If they are content simply to spout their slogans (”Only people have rights!”) as a substitute for hard thinking, we will fail to change their minds by spouting ours or by asking them to look beneath the words to the ideas themselves.

The Case for Animal Rights
by Tom Regan
[buy US]
extract from ‘The Case for Animal Rights’

Cruelty is manifested in different ways. People can rightly be judged cruel either for what they do or for what they fail to do, and either for what they feel or for what they fail to feel. The central case of cruelty appears to be the case where, in Locke’s apt phrase, one takes a “seeming kind of Pleasure” in causing another to suffer. Sadistic torturers provide perhaps the clearest example of cruelty in this sense: they are cruel not just because they cause suffering (so do dentists and doctors, for example) but because they enjoy doing so. Let us term this sadistic cruelty.

Not all cruel people are cruel in this sense. Some cruel people do not feel pleasure in making others suffer. Indeed, they seem not to feel anything. Their cruelty is manifested by a lack of what is judged appropriate feeling, as pity or mercy, for the plight of the individual whose suffering they cause, rather than pleasure in causing it; they are, as we say, insensitive to the suffering they inflict, unmoved by it, as if they were unaware of it or failed to appreciate it as suffering, in the way that, for example, lions appear to be unaware of, and thus are not sensitive to, the pain they cause their prey. Indeed, precisely because one expects indifference from animals but pity or mercy from human beings, people who are cruel by being insensitive to the suffering they cause often are called “animals” or “brutes”, and their character or behaviour “brutal” or “inhuman”. Thus, for example, particularly ghastly murders are said to be “the work of animals”, the implication being that these are acts that no-one moved by the human feelings of pity or mercy could bring themselves to perform. The sense of cruelty that involves indifference to, rather than enjoyment of, suffcnng caused to others we shall call brutal cruelty.

Laboratory animals are not a “resource” whose moral status in the world is to serve human interests. They are thcmselves he subjeets of a life that fares better or worse for them as individuals, logically independently of any utility they may or may not have relative to the interests of others. They share with us a distinctive kind of value - inherent value — and whatever we do to them must be respectful of this value as a matter of strict justice. To treat them as if their value were reducible to their utility for human interests, even important human interests, is to treat them unjustly; to utilize them so that humans might minimize the risks we voluntarily take (and that we can voluntarily decide not to take) is to violate their basic moral right to be treated with respect. That the laws require such testing, when they do, does not show that these tests are morally tolerable; what this shows is that the laws themselves are unjust and ought to be changed.

One can also anticipate charges that the rights view is anti-scientific and anti-humanity. This is rhetoric. The rights view is not anti-human. We, as humans, have an equal prima facie right not to be harmed, a right that the rights view seeks to illuminate and defend; but we do not have any right coercively to harm others, or to put theni at risk of harm, so that we might minimize the risks we run as a result of our own voluntary decisions. That violates their rights, and that is one thing no-one has a right to do.

Nor is the rights view anti-scientific. It places the scientific challenge before pharmacologists and related scientists: Find scientifically valid ways that serve the public interest without violating individual rights. The overarching goal of pharmacology should be to reduce the risks of those who use drugs without harming those who don’t. Those who claim that this cannot be done, in advance of making a concerted effort to do it, are the ones who are truly anti-scientific.

Perhaps the most common response to the call for elimiiiation of animals in toxicity testing is the benefits argument

Human beings and animals have benefited from toxicity tests on animals. Therefore, these tests are justified.

Like all arguments with missing premises, everything turns on what that premise is. If it read: “These tests do not violate the rights of animals,” then we would be on our way to receiving an interesting defense of toxicity testing. But, unfortunately for those who countenance these tests, and even more unfortunately for the animals used in them, that premise is not true. These tests do violate the rights of the test animals, for the reasons given. The benefits these tests have for others is irrelevant, according to the rights view, since the tests violate the rights of the individual animals. As in the case of humans, so also in the ease of animals: Overriding their rights cannot be defended by appealing to the general welfare”. Put alternatively, the benefits others receive count morally only if no individual’s rights have been violated. Since toxicity tests of new drugs violate the rights of laboratory animals, it is morally irrelevant to appeal to how much others have benefited. Lab animals are not our Tasters. We are not their Kings.

. . . Animals are not to be treated as mere receptacles or as renewable resources. Thus does the practice of scientific research on animals violate their rights. Thus ought it to cease, according to the rights view. It is not enough first conscientiously to look for non-animal ~ternatives and then, having failed to find any, to resort to using animals. Though that approach is laudable as far as it goes, and though taking it would mark significant progress, it does not go far enough. It assumes that it is all right to allow practices that use animals as if their value is reducible to their possible utility relative to the interests of others, provided that we have done our best not to do so. The rights view’s position would have us go further in terms of “doing our best”. The best we can do in terms of not using animals is not to use them. Their inherent value does not disappear just because we have failed to find a way to avoid harming them in pursuit of our chosen goals. Their value is independent of these goals and their possible utility in achieving them.

. . The rights view . . calls upon scientists to do science as they redirect the traditional practice Of their several disciplines away from reliance on “animal models” toward the development and use of non-animal alternatives. All that the rights view prohibits is that science that violates individual rights. If that means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it. There are also some things we cannot learn by using humaus, if we respect their rights. The rights view merely requires moral consistency in this regard.

Veterinarians are the closest thing society has to a role model for the morally enlightened care of animals. It is, therefore, an occasion for deep anguish to find members of this profession increasingly in the employ of, or rendering their services to, the very industries that routinely violate the rights of animals - the farm animal industry, the lab animal industry, etc. On the rights view, veterinarians are obliged to extricate themselves and their profession from the financial ties that bind them to these industries and to dedicate their extensive medical knowledge and skills, as healers, as doctors of medicine, to projects that are respectful of their patients’ rights. The first signatures in the “new contract” involving justice and animals would be from those who belong to the profession of veterinary medicine. To fail to lead the way in this regard will bespeak a lack of moral vision or courage (or both) that will permanently tarnish the image of this venerable profession and those who practice it.

That science that routinely harms animals in pursuit of its goals is morally corrupt, because unjust at its core, something that no appeal to the “contract” between society and science can alter.

Both the moral right not to be caused gratuitous suffering and the right to life, I argue, are possessed by the animals we eat if they are possessed by the humans we do not. To cause animals to suffer cannot be defended merely on the grounds that we like the taste of their flesh, and even if animals were raised so that they led generally pleasant lives and were “humanely” slaughtered, that would not insure that their rights, including their right to life, were not violated.

I cannot help but think that each of us has been struck, at one moment or another, and in varying degrees of intensity, by the ruthlessness, the insensitivity, the (to use [I.B.J Singer’s word) smugness with which man inflicts untold pain and deprivation on his fellow animals. It is, I think, a spectacle that resembles, even if it does not duplicate, the vision that Herman calls to mind - that of the Nazi in his treatment of the Jew. “In their behaviour toward creatures,” he says, “all men [are] Nazis.” A harsh saying, this. But on reflection it might well turn out to contain an element of ineradicable truth.

…The human appetite for meat has become so great that new methods of raising animals have come into being. Called intensive rearing methods, these methods seek to insure that the largest amount of meat can be produced in the shortest amount of time with the least possible expense. In ever increasing numbers, animals are being subjected to the rigors of these methods. Many are being forced to live in incredibly crowded conditions. Moreover, as a result of these methods, the natural desires of many animals often are being frustrated. In short, both in terms of the physical pain these animals must endure, and in terms of the psychological pain that attends the frustration of their natural inclinations, there can be no reasonable doubt that animals who are raised according to intensive rearing methods experience much non-trivial, undeserved pain. Add to this the gruesome realities of “humane” slaughter and we have, I think, an amount and intensity of suffering that can, with propriety, be called “great”.

To the extent, therefore, that we eat the flesh of animals that have been raised under such circumstances, we help create the demand for meat that farmers who use intensive rearing methods endeavour to satisfy. Thus, to the exteuL that it is known that such methods will bring about much undeserved nontrivial pain on the part of the animals raised according to these methods, anyone who purchases meat that is a product of these methods and almost everyone who buys meat at a typical supermarket or restaurant does this - is causally imphcated in a practice that causes pain that is both non trivial and undeserved for the animals in question. On this point too, I think there can be no doubt.

… Contrary to the habit of thought which supposes that it is the vegetarian who is on the defensive and who must labor to show how his “eccentric” way of life can even remotely he defended by rational means, it is the nonvegetarian whose way of life stands in need of rational justification. Indeed, the vegetarian can, if I am right, make an even stronger claim than this. For if the previous argument is sound, he can maintain that unless or until someone does succeed in showing how the undeserved, nontrivial pain animals experience as a result of intensive rearing methods is not gratuitous and does not violate the rights of the animals in question, then he (the vegetarian) is justified in believing that, and acting as it is wrong to eat meat, if by so doing we contribute to the intensive rearing of animals and, with this, to the great pain they must inevitably suffer. And the basis on which he can take this stand is the same one that vegetarians and nonvegetarians alike can and should take in the case of a practice that caused great undeserved pain to human beings - namely, that we are justified in believing that, and acting as if, such a practice is immoral unless or until it can be shown that it is not.

Of course, none of this, by itself, settles the question “Do animals experience pain?” Animals . . . certainly appear at times to be in pain. For us to be rationally justified in denying that they are ever in pain, therefore, we are in need of some rationally compelling argument that demonstrates that, though they may appear to suffer, they never really do so. Descartes’s argument does not show this . . . how animals who are physiologically similar to man behave in certain circumstances for example, how muskrats behave when they try to free themselves from a trap - provides us with all the evidence we could have that they are in pain, given that they are not able to speak; in the ease of the muskrats struggling to free themselves, that is, one wants to ask what more evidence could be rationally required to show that they in pain in addition to their cries, their whimpers, the of their bodies, the desperate look of their eyes, and so on. For my own part, I do not know what else could be required, and if a person were of the opinion that this did not constitute enough evidence to show that the muskrats were in pain, I cannot see how any additional evidence would (or could) dissuade him of his skepticism. My position, therefore, is the “naive” one - namely, that animals can and do feel pain, and that, unless or until we are presented with an argument that shows that, all the appearances to the contrary, animals do not experience pain, we are rationally justified in continuing to believe that they do. And a similar line of argument can be given, I think, in suppoi-t of the view that animals have experiences that are pleasant or enjoyable, experiences that, though they may be of a low level in comparison to, say, the joys of philosophy or the raptures of the beatific vision, are pleasurable nonetheless.

Moreover, if it is unjust to cause a human being undeserved pain (and if what makes this unjust is that pain is evil and that the human is innocent and thus does not deserve the evil he receives), then it must also be unjust to cause an innocent animal undeserved pain. If it be objected that it is not possible to act unjustly toward animals, though it is possible to do so toward humans, then, once again~ what we should demand is some justification of this contention; what we should walit to know is just what there is that is characteristic of all human beings, and is absent from all other animals, that makes it possible to treat the former, but not the latter, unjustly. In the absence of such an explanation, I think we have every reason to suppose that restricting the concepts of just and unjust treatment to human beings is a prejudice.

various extracts from ‘In Defence of Animals’

What’s wrong fundamentally wrong - with the way animals are treated isn’t the details that vary from case to case. It’s the whole system. The forlornness of the veal calf is pathetic, heart-wrenching; the pulsing pain of the chimp with electrodes planted deep in her brain is repulsive; the slow, tortuous death of the racoon caught in the leg-hold trap is agonizing. But what is wrong isn’t the pain, isn’t the suffering, isn’t the deprivation. These compound what’s wrong. Sometimes often - they make it much, much worse. But they are not the fundamental wrong.

The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us - to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we accept this view of animals - as our resources - the rest is as predictable as it is regrettable. Why worry about their loneliness, their pain, their death? Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in one way or another, what harms them really doesn’t matter - or matters only if it starts to bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy when we eat our veal escalope, for example. So, yes, let us get veal calves out of solitary confinement, give them more space, a little straw, a few companions. But let us keep our veal escalope.

Whether and how we abolish [the use of animals] are to a large extent political questions. People must change their beliefs before they change their habits. Enough people, especially those elected to public office, must believe in change - must want it - before we will have laws that protect the rights of animals. This process of change is very complicated, very demanding, very exhausting, calling for the effort of many hands in education, publicity, political organization and activity, down to the licking of envelopes and stamps. As a trained and practising philosopher, the sort of contribution I can make is limited but, I like to think, important. The currency of philosophy is ideas - their meaning and rational foundation - not the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, say, or the mechanics of comillunity organization.

website: Tags: Animals & Environment by Greanville
No Comments »