What
characteristic or "defect" is it that animals
have that justifies our treatment of them
as our slaves, as our things, as property
that exists only for the sake of us, the
human masters?
Some
people say that animals are different because
they cannot think. But that is simply not
true. We know that mammals and birds, for
example, have very complex mental faculties.
And besides, there are human beings who cannot
think. Some people were born without parts
of their brain, and they have less cognitive
functioning than a healthy rat. Some other
people develop brain death later in life and
simply appear to be functioning.
Some
people say that animals are different because
they cannot talk. But animals communicate
in their own ways, and besides, some people
are unable to talk.
The
list goes on and on but the bottom line remains
the same: there is no "defect" that is possessed
by animals that is not possessed by some group
of humans, and yet we would never think of
using that group of humans in experiments,
or of eating those people.
Animals,
like humans, have certain interests in their
own lives that transcend what their so called
"sacrifice" might do for us. And it is precisely
those interests that preclude us as a matter
of simple morality from treating them merely
as "things."
It
has been posited that humans are "superior".
"Superiority" of species is, like superiority
of race or sex, a social construction, and
not a scientific one. It is a concept that
is formulated and used to sustain hierarchical
power relationships. Superiority is not an
argument for anything; it is a conclusion
that assumes the very point it starts out
to prove. It begs the question, as it were.
It
has been pointed out that dogs do not write
symphonies and humans do. I replied that I
had never written a symphony and, as far as
I knew, neither had you. Did that mean that
it was ok for people to eat us, or use us
in experiments? And besides, writing symphonies
is only a "superior" act if you happen to
be a human that values that activity. Some
dogs can jump six feet in the air from a sitting
position. Now that's what I call "superiority."
But "superiority," like many of the buzz words
of modern life, such as "merit" and "beauty"
are a matter of value, not of fact.
To say that we can exploit animals because
we are "superior" is nothing more than to
say that we are more powerful than they. And
nothing more. And, most of us reject the view
that might makes right. So why, do tell, is
that principle so blindly embraced when it
comes to our treatment of animals? The reality
is that we progressives like to think that
we have eschewed all vestiges of slavery from
our lives, but the reality is that we are
all slave owners, the plantation is the earth,
sown with the seeds of greed, and the slaves
are our nonhuman sisters and brothers.
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