1. Archive-name: ar-faq
Last-modified: 95/Apr/29
Version: ar_faq.txt 2.08a
--------------------------
Animal Rights
Frequently Asked Questions
(AR FAQ)
--------------------------
------------
INTRODUCTION
------------
Welcome to the Animal Rights Frequently Asked Questions
text (AR FAQ).
This FAQ is intended to satisfy two basic goals: a) to
provide a source
of information and encouragement for people exploring the
issues involved
in the animal rights movement, and b) to answer the
common questions and
justifications offered up by AR opponents. It is
unashamedly an advocacy
vehicle for animal rights. Opponents of AR are invited to
create a FAQ
that codifies their views; we do not attempt to do so
here.
The FAQ restricts itself specifically to AR issues;
nutrition and
other vegetarian/veganism issues are intentionally
avoided because they
are already well covered in the existing vegetarianism
and veganism FAQs
maintained by Michael Traub. To obtain these FAQs,
contact Michael at
his e-mail address given below.
The FAQ was created through a collaboration of authors.
The answers have
been attributed via initials, as follows:
TA Ted Altar
taltar@beaufort.sfu.ca
JE Jonathan Esterhazy
jester@cc.umanitoba.ca
DG Donald Graft dgraft@gate.net
JEH John Harrington jeh@bisoym.com
DVH Dietrich Von Haugwitz
vonha001@mc.duke.edu
LJ Leor Jacobi
leor@mellers1.psych.berkeley.edu
LK Larry Kaiser lkaiser@umich.edu
JK Jeremy Keens
keens@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au
BL Brian Luke
luke@checkov.hm.udayton.edu
PM Peggy Madison
madison@alpha.acast.nova.edu

2. BRO Brian Owen
brian6@vaxc.middlesex.ac.uk
JSD Janine Stanley-Dunham
janine@wlb.hwwilson.com
JLS Jennifer Stephens jlstephe@uncc.edu
MT Michael Traub
traub@btcs.bt.co.uk
AECW Allen ECW
aecw001@mayfair.demon.co.uk
The current FAQ maintainer is Donald Graft (see address
above). Ideas and
criticisms are actively solicited and will be very
gratefully received. The
material included here is released to the public domain.
We request that it
be distributed without alteration to respect the author
attributions.
This FAQ contains 96 questions. If they are not all
present, then a mailer
has probably truncated it. Contact the FAQ maintainer for
a set of split-up
files.
DG
-------
GENERAL
-------
-----------------------
#1 What is all this Animal Rights (AR) stuff and why
should
it concern me?
-----------------------
The fundamental principle of the AR movement is that
nonhuman animals
deserve to live according to their own natures, free from
harm, abuse, and
exploitation. This goes further than just saying that we
should treat
animals well while we exploit them, or before we kill and
eat them. It
says animals have the RIGHT to be free from human cruelty
and
exploitation, just as humans possess this right. The
withholding of this
right from the nonhuman animals based on their species
membership is
referred to as "speciesism".
Animal rights activists try to extend the human circle
of respect and
compassion beyond our species to include other animals,
who are also
capable of feeling pain, fear, hunger, thirst,
loneliness, and kinship.
When we try to do this, many of us come to the conclusion
that we can no

3. longer support factory farming, vivisection, and the
exploitation of
animals for entertainment. At the same time, there are
still areas of
debate among animal rights supporters, for example,
whether ANY research
that harms animals is ever justified, where the line
should be drawn for
enfranchising species with rights, on what occasions
civil disobedience
may be appropriate, etc. However, these areas of
potential disagreement do
not negate the abiding principles that join us:
compassion and concern
for the pain and suffering of nonhumans.
One main goal of this FAQ is to address the common
justifications that
arise when we become aware of how systematically our
society abuses and
exploits animals. Such "justifications" help remove the
burden from our
consciences, but this FAQ attempts to show that they do
not excuse the
harm we cause other animals. Beyond the scope of this
FAQ, more detailed
arguments can be found in three classics of the AR
literature.
The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan (ISBN 0-520-
05460-1)
In Defense of Animals, Peter Singer (ISBN 0-06-
097044-8)
Animal Liberation, Peter Singer (ISBN 0-380-71333-0,
2nd Ed.)
While appreciating the important contributions of Regan
and Singer, many
animal rights activists emphasize the role of empathetic
caring as the
actual and most appropriate fuel for the animal rights
movement in
contradistinction to Singer's and Regan's philosophical
rationales. To the
reader who says "Why should I care?", we can point out
the following
reasons:
One cares about minimizing suffering.
One cares about promoting compassion in human
affairs.
One is concerned about improving the health of
humanity.
One is concerned about human starvation and
malnutrition.
One wants to prevent the radical disruption of our
planet's ecosystem.
One wants to preserve animal species.
One wants to preserve wilderness.

4. The connections between these issues and the AR agenda
may not be obvious.
Please read on as we attempt to clarify this.
DG
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation
may acquire those
rights which never could have been withholden from them
but by the hand
of tyranny.
Jeremy Bentham
(philosopher)
Life is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is
no difference
there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a
human
conception for man's own advantage...
Sri Aurobindo (poet and
philosopher)
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the
goal of all
evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings,
we are still
savages.
Thomas Edison (inventor)
The time will come when men such as I will look upon
the murder of
animals as they now look on the murder of men.
Leonardo Da Vinci (artist
and scientist)
SEE ALSO #2-#3, #26, #87-#91
-----------------------
#2 Is the Animal Rights movement different from the
Animal Welfare
movement? The Animal Liberation movement?
-----------------------
The Animal Welfare movement acknowledges the suffering
of nonhumans and
attempts to reduce that suffering through "humane"
treatment, but it does
not have as a goal elimination of the use and
exploitation of animals. The
Animal Rights movement goes significantly further by
rejecting the
exploitation of animals and according them rights in that
regard. A person
committed to animal welfare might be concerned that cows
get enough space,
proper food, etc., but would not necessarily have any
qualms about killing
and eating cows, so long as the rearing and slaughter are
"humane".
The Animal Welfare movement is represented by such

5. organizations as the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the
Humane Society.
Having said this, it should be realized that some hold
a broader
interpretation of the AR movement. They would argue that
the AW groups do,
in fact, support rights for animals (e.g., a dog has the
right not to be
kicked). Under this interpretation, AR is viewed as a
broad umbrella
covering the AW and strict AR groups. This interpretation
has the advantage
of moving AR closer to the mainstream. Nevertheless,
there is a valid
distinction between the AW and AR groups, as described in
the first paragraph.
Animal Liberation (AL) is, for many people, a synonym
for Animal Rights
(but see below). Some people prefer the term "liberation"
because it brings
to mind images of other successful liberation movements,
such as the movement
for liberation of slaves and liberation of women, whereas
the term "rights"
often encounters resistance when an attempt is made to
apply it to nonhumans.
The phrase "Animal Liberation" became popular with the
publication of Peter
Singer's classic book of the same name.
This use of the term liberation should be distinguished
from the literal
meaning discussed in question #88, i.e., an Animal
Liberationist is not
necessarily one who engages in forceful civil
disobedience or unlawful
actions.
Finally, intellectual honesty compels us to acknowledge
that the account
given here is rendered in broad strokes (but is at least
approximately
correct), and purposely avoids describing ongoing debate
about the meaning
of the terms "Animal Rights", "Animal Liberation", and
"Animal Welfare",
debate about the history of these movements, and debate
about the actual
positions of the prominent thinkers. To depict the flavor
of such debates,
the following text describes one coherent position.
Naturally, it will be
attacked from all sides!
Some might suggest that a subtle distinction can be
made between the Animal
Liberation and Animal Rights movements. The Animal Rights
movement, at least
as propounded by Regan and his adherents, is said to
require total abolition
of such practices as experimentation on animals. The

6. Animal Liberation
movement, as propounded by Singer and his adherents, is
said to reject the
absolutist view and assert that in some cases, such
experimentation can be
morally defensible. Because such cases could also justify
some experiments
on humans, however, it is not clear that the distinction
described reflects
a difference between the liberation and rights views, so
much as it does a
broader difference of ethical theory, i.e., absolutism
versus utilitarianism.
DG
Historically, animal welfare groups have attempted to
improve the lot of
animals in society. They worked against the popular
Western concept of
animals as lacking souls and not being at all worthy of
any ethical
consideration. The animal rights movement set itself up
as an abolitionist
alternative to the reform-minded animal welfarists. As
the animal rights
movement has become larger and more influential, the
animal exploiters have
finally been forced to respond to it. Perhaps inspired by
the efforts of Tom
Regan to distinguish AR from AW, industry groups intent
on maintaining the
status quo have embraced the term "animal welfare". Pro-
vivisection,
hunting, trapping, agribusiness, and animal entertainment
groups now refer
to themselves as "animal welfare" supporters. Several
umbrella groups whose
goal is to defend these practices have also arisen.
This classic case of public-relations doublespeak
acknowledges the issue
of cruelty to animals in name only, while allowing for
the continued use and
abuse of animals. The propaganda effect is to stigmatize
animal rights
supporters as being extreme while attempting to portray
themselves as the
reasonable moderates. Nowadays, the cause of "animal
welfare" is invoked by
the animal industry at least as often as it is used by
animal protection
groups.
LJ
SEE ALSO: #1, #3, #87-#88
-----------------------
#3 What exactly are rights and what rights can we give
animals?
-----------------------

7. Despite arguably being the foundation of the Western
liberal tradition,
the concept of "rights" has been a source of controversy
and confusion
in the debate over AR. A common objection to the notion
that animals have
rights involves questioning the origin of those rights.
One such argument
might proceed as follows:
Where do these rights come from? Are you in special
communication
with God, and he has told you that animals have
rights? Have the
rights been granted by law? Aren't rights something
that humans
must grant?
It is true that the concept of "rights" needs to be
carefully explicated.
It is also true that the concept of "natural rights" is
fraught with
philosophical difficulties. Complicating things further
is the confusion
between legal rights and moral rights.
One attempt to avoid this objection is to accept it,
but argue that
if it is not an obstacle for thinking of humans as having
rights, then it
should not be an obstacle for thinking of animals as
having rights. Henry
Salt wrote:
Have the lower animals "rights?" Undoubtedly--if men
have. That is
the point I wish to make evident in this opening
chapter... The
fitness of this nomenclature is disputed, but the
existence of some
real principle of the kind can hardly be called in
question; so that
the controversy concerning "rights" is little else
than an academic
battle over words, which leads to no practical
conclusion. I shall
assume, therefore, that men are possessed of
"rights," in the sense
of Herbert Spencer's definition; and if any of my
readers object to
this qualified use of the term, I can only say that I
shall be
perfectly willing to change the word as soon as a
more appropriate
one is forthcoming. The immediate question that
claims our attention
is this--if men have rights, have animals their
rights also?

8. Satisfying though this argument may be, it still leaves
us unable to
respond to the sceptic who disavows the notion of rights
even for humans.
Fortunately, however, there is a straightforward
interpretation of
"rights" that is plausible and allows us to avoid the
controversial
rights rhetoric and underpinnings. It is the notion that
a "right" is the
flip side of a moral imperative. If, ethically, we must
refrain from an act performed on a being, then that being
can be said to
have a "right" that the act not be performed. For
example, if our ethics
tells us that we must not kill another, then the other
has a right not to
be killed by us. This interpretation of rights is, in
fact, an intuitive
one that people both understand and readily endorse. (Of
course, rights so
interpreted can be codified as legal rights through
appropriate
legislation.)
It is important to realize that, although there is a
basis for speaking
of animals as having rights, that does not imply or
require that they
possess all the rights that humans possess, or even that
humans possess all
the rights that animals possess. Consider the human right
to vote. (On the
view taken here, this would derive from an ethical
imperative to give humans
influence over actions that influence their lives.) Since
animals lack the
capacity to rationally consider actions and their
implications, and to
understand the concept of democracy and voting, they lack
the capacity to
vote. There is, therefore, no ethical imperative to allow
them to do so,
and thus they do not possess the right to vote.
Similarly, some fowls have a strong biological need to
extend and flap
their wings; right-thinking people feel an ethical
imperative to make
it possible for them to do so. Thus, it can be said that
fowl have the right
to flap their wings. Obviously, such a right need not be
extended to humans.
The rights that animals and humans possess, then, are
determined by their
interests and capacities. Animals have an interest in
living, avoiding pain,
and even in pursuing happiness (as do humans). As a
result of the ethical
imperatives, they have rights to these things (as do
humans). They can

9. exercise these rights by living their lives free of
exploitation and
abuse at the hands of humans.
DG
SEE ALSO: #1-#2
-----------------------
#4 Isn't AR hypocritical, e.g., because you don't give
rights to
insects or plants?
-----------------------
The general hypocrisy argument appears in many forms. A
typical form
is as follows:
"It is hypocritical to assert rights for a cow but
not for a plant;
therefore, cows cannot have rights."
Arguments of this type are frequently used against AR.
Not much
analysis is required to see that they carry little
weight. First, one
can assert an hypothesis A that would carry as a
corollary hypothesis
B. If one then fails to assert B, one is hypocritical,
but this does
not necessarily make A false. Certainly, to assert A and
not B would
call into question one's credibility, but it entails
nothing about the
validity of A.
Second, the factual assertion of hypocrisy is often
unwarranted. In
the above example, there are grounds for distinguishing
between cows
and plants (plants do not have a central nervous system),
so the charge
of hypocrisy is unjustified. One may disagree with the
criteria, but
assertion of such criteria nullifies the charge of
hypocrisy.
Finally, the charge of hypocrisy can be reduced in most
cases to
simple speciesism. For example, the quote above can be
recast as:
"It is hypocritical to assert rights for a human but
not for a plant;
therefore, humans cannot have rights."
To escape from this reductio ad absurdum of the first
quote, one
must produce a crucial relevant difference between cows
and humans,
in other words, one must justify the speciesist
assignment of rights

10. to humans but not to cows. (In question #24, we apply a
similar reduction
to the charge of hypocrisy related to abortion. For
questions dealing
specifically with insects and plants, refer to questions
#39 through #46.)
Finally, we must ask ourselves who the real hypocrites
are. The following
quotation from Michael W. Fox describes the grossly
hypocritical treatment
of exploited versus companion animals.
DG
Farm animals can be kept five to a cage two feet
square, tied up
constantly by a two-foot-long tether, castrated without
anesthesia, or
branded with a hot iron. A pet owner would be no less
than prosecuted for
treating a companion animal in such a manner; an American
president was, in
fact, morally censured merely for pulling the ears of his
two beagles.
Michael W. Fox (Vice
President of HSUS)
SEE ALSO: #24, #39-#46
-----------------------
#5 What right do AR people have to impose their beliefs
on others?
-----------------------
There is a not-so-subtle distinction between imposition
of one's views
and advertising them. AR supporters are certainly not
imposing their views
in the sense that, say, the Spanish Inquisition imposed
its views, or the
Church imposed its views on Galileo. We do, however, feel
a moral duty to
present our case to the public, and often to our friends
and acquaintances.
There is ample precedent for this: protests against
slavery, protests
against the Vietnam War, condemnation of racism, etc.
One might point out that the gravest imposition is that
of the exploiter
of animals upon his innocent and defenseless victims.
DG
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to
tell people what
they do not want to hear.
George Orwell (author)
I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they
think it's hell.
Harry S. Truman (33rd U.S.

11. President)
SEE ALSO: #11, #87-#91
-----------------------
#6 Isn't AR just another facet of political
correctness?
-----------------------
If only that were true! The term "politically correct"
generally refers
to a view that is in sync with the societal mainstream
but which some might
be inclined to disagree with. For example, some people
might be inclined
to dismiss equal treatment for the races as mere
"political correctness".
The AR agenda is, currently, far from being a mainstream
idea.
Also, it is ridiculous to suppose that a view's
validity can be
overturned simply by attaching the label "politically
correct" or
"politically incorrect".
DG
-----------------------
#7 Isn't AR just another religion?
-----------------------
No. The dictionary defines "religion" as the appeal to
a supernatural
power. (An alternate definition refers to devotion to a
cause; that is
a virtue that the AR movement would be happy to avow.)
People who support Animal Rights come from many
different religions
and many different philosophies. What they share is a
belief in the
importance of showing compassion for other individuals,
whether
human or nonhuman.
LK
-----------------------
#8 Doesn't it demean humans to give rights to animals?
-----------------------
A tongue-in-cheek, though valid, answer to this
question is given by
David Cowles-Hamar: "Humans are animals, so animal rights
are human rights!"
In a more serious vein, we can observe that giving
rights to women and
black people does not demean white males. By analogy,
then, giving rights to
nonhumans does not demean humans. If anything, by being
morally consistent,
and widening the circle of compassion to deserving

12. nonhumans, we ennoble
humans. (Refer to question #26 for other relevant
arguments.)
DG
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be
judged by the way
its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi (statesman
and philosopher)
It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first
makes him truly a man.
Albert Schweitzer
(statesman, Nobel 1952)
For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill
each other. Indeed, he
who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and
love.
Pythagoras (mathematician)
SEE ALSO: #26
-----------------------
#9 Weren't Hitler and Goebbels in favor of animal
rights?
-----------------------
This argument is absurd and almost unworthy of serious
consideration.
The questioner implies that since Hitler and Goebbels
allegedly held views
supportive of animal rights (e.g., Hitler was a
vegetarian for some time),
the animal rights viewpoint must be wrong or dubious.
The problem for this argument is simple: bad people and
good people can
both believe things correctly. Or put in another way,
just because a person
holds one bad belief (e.g., Nazism), that doesn't make
all his beliefs
wrong. A few examples suffice to illustrate this. The
Nazis undertook smoking
reduction campaigns. Is it therefore dubious to
discourage smoking?
Early Americans withheld respect and liberty for black
people. Does that
mean that they were wrong in giving respect and liberty
to others?
Technically, this argument is an "ignoratio elenchus
fallacy", arguing
from irrelevance.
Finally, many scholars are doubtful that Hitler and
Goebbels supported
AR in any meaningful way.
DG
SEE ALSO: #54

13. -----------------------
#10 Do you really believe that "a rat is a pig is a dog
is a boy"?
-----------------------
Taken alone and literally, this notion is absurd.
However, this
quote has been shamelessly removed from its original
context and
misrepresented by AR opponents. The original context of
the quote is
given below. Viewed within its context, it is clear that
the quote
is neither remarkable nor absurd.
DG
When it comes to having a central nervous system, and
the ability to
feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is
a boy.
Ingrid Newkirk (AR
activist)
SEE ALSO: #47
--------------------
ANIMALS AND MORALITY
--------------------
-----------------------
#11 There is no correct or incorrect in morals; you have
yours and I
have mine, right?
-----------------------
This position, known as moral relativism, is quite
ancient but became
fashionable at the turn of the century, as reports on the
customs of
societies alien to those found in Europe became
available. It fell out of
fashion, after the Second World War, although it is
occasionally revived.
Ethical propositions, we are asked to believe, are no
more than statements
of personal opinion and, therefore, cannot carry absolute
weight.
The main problem with this position is that ethical
relativists are
unable to denounce execrable ethical practices, such as
racism. On what
grounds can they condemn (if at all) Hitler's ideas on
racial purity?
Are we to believe that he was uttering an ethical truth
when advocating
the Final Solution?
In addition to the inability to denounce practices of

14. other societies,
the relativists are unable to counter the arguments of
even those whose
society they share. They cannot berate someone who
proposes to raise
and kill infants for industrial pet food consumption, for
example,
if that person sees it as morally sound. Indeed, they
cannot articulate
the concept of societal moral progress, since they lack a
basis for
judging progress. There is no point in turning to the
relativists for
advice on ethical issues such as euthanasia, infanticide,
or the use of
fetuses in research.
Faced with such arguments, ethical relativists
sometimes argue that
ethical truth is based on the beliefs of a society;
ethical truth is
seen as nothing more than a reflection of societal
customs and habits.
Butchering animals is acceptable in the West, they would
say, because
the majority of people think it so.
They are on no firmer ground here. Are we to accept
that chattel
slavery was right before the US Civil War and wrong
thereafter? Can all
ethical decisions be decided by conducting opinion polls?
It is true that different societies have different
practices that
might be seen as ethical by one and unethical by the
other. However,
these differences result from differing circumstances.
For example, in
a society where mere survival is key, the diversion of
limited food to
an infant could detract significantly from the well-being
of the
existing family members that contribute to food
gathering. Given that,
infanticide may be the ethically correct course.
The conclusion is that there is such a thing as ethical
truth
(otherwise, ethics becomes vacuous and devoid of
proscriptive force).
The continuity of thought, then, between those who reject
the evils of
slavery, racial discrimination, and gender bias, and
those who denounce
the evils of speciesism becomes striking.
AECW
Many AR advocates (including myself) believe that
morality is relative.
We believe that AR is much more cogently argued when it
is argued from the
standpoint of your opponent's morality, not some

15. mythical, hard-to-define
universal morality. In arguing against moral absolutism,
there is a very
simple objection: Where does this absolute morality come
from? Moral
absolutism is an argument from authority, a tautology. If
there were such
a thing as "ethical truth", then there must be a way of
determining it, and
obviously there isn't. In the absence of a known proof of
"ethical truth",
I don't know how AECW can conclude it exists.
An example of the method of leveraging a person's
morality is to ask the
person why he has compassion for human beings. Almost
always he will agree
that his compassion does not stem from the fact that: 1)
humans use language,
2) humans compose symphonies, 3) humans can plan in the
far future, 4) humans
have a written, technological culture, etc. Instead, he
will agree that it
stems from the fact that humans can suffer, feel pain, be
harmed, etc. It is
then quite easy to show that nonhuman animals can also
suffer, feel pain, be
harmed, etc. The person's arbitrary inconsistency in not
according moral
status to nonhumans then stands out starkly.
JEH
There is a middle ground between the positions of AECW
and JEH. One can
assert that just as mathematics is necessarily built upon
a set of
unprovable axioms, so is a system of ethics. At the
foundation of a system
of ethics are moral axioms, such as "unnecessary pain is
wrong". Given
the set of axioms, methods of reasoning (such as
deduction and induction),
and empirical facts, it is possible to derive ethical
hypotheses. It is
in this sense that an ethical statement can be said to be
true. Of course,
one can disagree about the axioms, and certainly such
disagreement renders
ethics "relative", but the concept of ethical truth is
not meaningless.
Fortunately, the most fundamental ethical axioms seem
to be nearly
universally accepted, usually because they are necessary
for societies to
function. Where differences exist, they can be elucidated
and discussed,
in a style similar to the "leveraging" described by JEH.
DG
To a man whose mind is free there is something even

16. more intolerable
in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of
man. For with the
latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and
that the man
who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are
uselessly
butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any
man were to
refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is
the unpardonable
crime.
Romain Rolland (author,
Nobel 1915)
SEE ALSO: #5
-----------------------
#12 The animals are raised to be eaten; so what is wrong
with that?
-----------------------
This question has always seemed to me to be a fancy
version of "But
we want to do these things, so what is wrong with that?"
The idea that
an act, by virtue of an intention of ours, can be
exonerated morally is
totally illogical.
But worse than that, however, is the fact that such a
belief is a
dangerous position to take because it can enable one to
justify some
practices that are universally condemned. To see how this
is so,
consider the following restatement of the basis of the
question:
"Suffering can be excused so long as we breed them for
the purpose."
Now, cannot an analogous argument be used to defend a
group of
slave holders who breed and enslave humans and justify it
by saying "but
they're bred to be our workers"? Could not the Nazis
defend their
murder of the Jews by saying "but we rounded them up to
be killed"?
DG
Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and
that fails to
recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living
thing, and
shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes
that see
the sun!
Arthur Schopenhauer
(philosopher)

17. SEE ALSO: #13, #61
-----------------------
#13 But isn't it true that the animals wouldn't exist if
we didn't raise
them for slaughter?
-----------------------
There are two ways to interpret this question. First,
the questioner
may be referring to "the animals" as a species, in which
case the argument
might be more accurately phrased as follows:
"The ecological niche of cows is to be farmed; they
get continued
survival in this niche in return for our using
them."
Second, the questioner may be referring to "the animals"
as individuals,
in which case the phrasing might be:
"The individual cows that we raise to eat would not
have had a
life had we not done so."
We deal first with the species interpretation and then
with the
individuals interpretation. The questioner's argument
applies
presumably to all species of animals; to make things more
concrete,
we will take cows as an example in the following text.
It is incorrect to assert that cows could continue to
exist only if
we farm them for human consumption. First, today in many
parts of India
and elsewhere, humans and cows are engaged in a
reciprocal and reverential
relationship. It is only in recent human history that
this relationship
has been corrupted into the one-sided exploitation that
we see today.
There IS a niche for cows between slaughter/consumption
and extinction.
(The interested reader may find the book Beyond Beef by
Jeremy Rifkin
quite enlightening on this subject.)
Second, several organizations have programs for saving
animals
from extinction. There is no reason to suppose that cows
would not
qualify.
The species argument is also flawed because, in fact,
our intensive
farming of cattle results in habitat destruction and the
loss of other
species. For example, clearing of rain forests for

18. pasture has led to
the extinction of countless species. Cattle farming is
destroying
habitats on six continents. Why is the questioner so
concerned about
the cow species while being unconcerned about these other
species?
Could it have anything to do with the fact that he wants
to continue
to eat the cows?
Finally, a strong case can be made against the species
argument from
ethical theory. Arguments similar to the questioner's
could be
developed that would ask us to accept practices that are
universally
condemned. For example, consider a society that breeds a
special race
of humans for use as slaves. They argue that the race
would not exist
if they did not breed them for use as slaves. Does the
reader accept
this justification?
Now we move on to the individuals interpretation of the
question. One
attempt to refute the argument is to answer as follows:
"It is better not to be born than to be born into a
life of
misery and early death."
To many, this is sufficient. However, one could argue
that the fact that the
life is miserable before death is not necessary. Suppose
that the cows are
treated well before being killed painlessly and eaten. Is
it not true that
the individual cows would not have enjoyed their short
life had we not
raised them for consumption? Furthermore, what if we
compensate the taking
of the life by bringing a new life into being?
Peter Singer originally believed that this argument was
absurd because
there are no cow souls waiting around to be born. Many
people accept this
view and consider it sufficient, but Singer now rejects
it because he accepts
that to bring a being to a pleasant life does confer a
benefit on that being.
(There is extensive discussion of this issue in the
second edition of Animal
Liberation.) How then are we to proceed?
The key is that the AR movement asserts that humans and
nonhumans have a
right to not be killed by humans. The ethical problem can
be seen clearly
by applying the argument to humans. Consider the case of
a couple that gives

19. birth to an infant and eats it at the age of nine months,
just when their
next infant is born. A 9-month old baby has no more
rational knowledge of
its situation or future plans than does a cow, so there
is no reason to
distinguish the two cases. Yet, certainly, we would
condemn the couple. We
condemn them because the infant is an individual to whom
we confer the right
not to be killed. Why is this right not accorded to the
cow? I think the
answer is that the questioner wants to eat it.
DG
It were much better that a sentient being should never
have existed,
than that it should have existed only to endure
unmitigated misery.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(poet)
SEE ALSO: #12
-----------------------
#14 Don't the animals we use have a happier life since
they are fed and
protected?
-----------------------
The questioner makes two assumptions here. First, that
happiness or
contentment accrues from being fed and protected, and
second, that
the animals are, in fact, fed and protected. Both of
these premises can
be questioned.
Certainly the animals are fed; after all, they must be
fattened for
consumption. It is very difficult to see any way that,
say,
factory-farmed chickens are "protected". They are not
protected from
mutilation, because they are painfully debeaked. They are
not protected
from psychological distress, because they are crowded
together in
unnatural conditions. And finally, they are not protected
from predation,
because they are slaughtered and eaten by humans.
We can also question the notion that happiness accrues
from feeding
and protection alone. The Roman galley slaves were fed
and protected
from the elements; nevertheless, they would presumably
trade their
condition for one of greater uncertainty to obtain
happiness. The same
can be said of the slaves of earlier America.

20. Finally, an ethical argument is relevant here. Consider
again the
couple of question #13. They will feed and protect their
infant up to
the point at which they consume it. We would not accept
this as a
justification. Why should we accept it for the chicken?
DG
SEE ALSO: #13
-----------------------
#15 Is the use of service animals and beasts of burden
considered
exploitative?
-----------------------
A simple approach to this question might be to suggest
that we all must
work for a living and it should be no different for
animals. The problem is
that we want to look at the animals as like children,
i.e., worthy of the
same protections and rights, and, like them, incapable of
being morally
responsible. But we don't force children into labor! One
can make a
distinction, however, that goes something like this: The
animals are
permanently in their diminished state (i.e., incapable of
voluntarily
assenting to work); children are not. We do not impose a
choice of work for
children because they need the time to develop into their
full adult and
moral selves. With the animals, we choose for them a role
that allows them
to contribute; in return, we do not abuse them by eating
them, etc. If this
is done with true concern that their work conditions are
appropriate and not
of a sweat-shop nature, that they get enough rest and
leisure time, etc.,
this would constitute a form of stewardship that is
acceptable and beneficial
to both sides, and one that is not at odds with AR
philosophy.
DG
-----------------------
#16 Doesn't the Bible give Humanity dominion over the
animals?
-----------------------
It is true that the Bible contains a passage that
confers on humanity
dominion over the animals. The import of this fact
derives from the
assumption that the Bible is the word of God, and that

21. God is the ultimate
moral authority. Leaving aside for the moment
consideration of the meaning
of dominion, we can take issue with the idea of seeking
moral authority from
the Bible. First, there are serious problems with the
interpretation of
Biblical passages, with many verses contradicting one
another, and with
many scholars differing dramatically over the meaning of
given verses.
Second, there are many claims to God-hood among the
diverse cultures of
this world; some of these Gods implore us to respect all
life and to not
kill unnecessarily. Whose God are we to take as the
ultimate moral
authority?
Finally, as Tom Regan observes, many people do not
believe in a God and
so appeals to His moral authority are empty for such
people. For such
people, the validity of judgments of the supposed God
must be cross-checked
with other methods of determining reasonableness. What
are the cross-checks
for the Biblical assertions?
These remarks apply equally to other assertions of
Biblical approval of
human practices (such as the consumption of animals).
Even if we accept that the God of the Bible is a moral
authority, we
can point out that "dominion" is a vague term, meaning
"stewardship" or
"control over". It is quite easy to argue that
appropriate stewardship
or control consists of respecting the life of animals and
their right
to live according to their own nature. The jump from
dominion to approval
of our brutal exploitation of animals is not contained in
the cited
Biblical passage, either explicitly or implicitly.
DG
-----------------------
#17 Morals are a purely human construction (animals
don't understand
morals); doesn't that mean it is not rational to
apply our morality
to animals?
-----------------------
The fallaciousness of this argument can be easily
demonstrated by making
a simple substitution: Infants and young children don't
understand morals,
doesn't that mean it is not rational to apply our
morality to them? Of course

22. not. We refrain from harming infants and children for the
same reasons that
we do so for adults. That they are incapable of
conceptualizing a system of
morals and its benefits is irrelevant.
The relevant distinction is formalized in the concept
of "moral agents"
versus "moral patients". A moral agent is an individual
possessing the
sophisticated conceptual ability to bring moral
principles to bear in
deciding what to do, and having made such a decision,
having the free will
to choose to act that way. By virtue of these abilities,
it is fair to hold
moral agents accountable for their acts. The paradigmatic
moral agent is the
normal adult human being.
Moral patients, in contrast, lack the capacities of
moral agents and thus
cannot fairly be held accountable for their acts. They
do, however, possess
the capacity to suffer harm and therefore are proper
objects of consideration
for moral agents. Human infants, young children, the
mentally deficient or
deranged, and nonhuman animals are instances of moral
patienthood.
Given that nonhuman animals are moral patients, they
fall within the
purview of moral consideration, and therefore it is quite
rational to accord
them the same moral consideration that we accord to
ourselves.
DG
SEE ALSO: #19, #23, #36
-----------------------
#18 If AR people are so worried about killing, why don't
they become
fruitarians?
-----------------------
Killing, per se, is not the central concern of AR
philosophy, which is
concerned with the avoidance of unnecessary pain and
suffering. Thus, because
plants neither feel pain nor suffer, AR philosophy does
not mandate
fruitarianism (a diet in which only fruits are eaten
because they can be
harvested without killing the plant from which they
issue).
DG
SEE ALSO: #42-#46
-----------------------

23. #19 Animals don't care about us; why should we care
about them?
-----------------------
The questioner's position--that, in essence, we should
give rights only
to those able to respect ours--is known as the
reciprocity argument. It is
unconvincing both as an account of the way our society
works and as a
prescription for the way it should work.
Its descriptive power is undermined by the simple
observation that we
give rights to a large number of individuals who cannot
respect ours.
These include some elderly people, some people suffering
from degenerative
diseases, some people suffering from irreversible brain
damage, the
severely retarded, infants, and young children. An
institution that, for
example, routinely sacrificed such individuals to test a
new fertilizer
would certainly be considered to be grievously violating
their rights.
The original statement fares no better as an ethical
prescription.
Future generations are unable to reciprocate our concern,
for example, so
there would be no ethical harm done, under such a view,
in dismissing
concerns for environmental damage that adversely impacts
future
generations.
The key failing of the questioner's position lies in
the failure to
properly distinguish between the following capacities:
The capacity to understand and respect others' rights
(moral agency).
The capacity to benefit from rights (moral
patienthood).
An individual can be a beneficiary of rights without
being a moral
agent. Under this view, one justifies a difference of
treatments of two
individuals (human or nonhuman) with an objective
difference that is
RELEVANT to the difference of treatment. For example, if
we wished to
exclude a person from an academic course of study, we
could not cite the
fact that they have freckles. We could cite the fact that
they lack
certain academic prerequisites. The former is irrelevant;
the latter is
relevant. Similarly, when considering the right to be
free of pain and

24. suffering, moral agency is irrelevant; moral patienthood
IS relevant.
AECW
The assumption that animals don't care about us can
also be
questioned. Companion animals have been known to summon
aid when
their owners are in trouble. They have been known to
offer comfort
when their owners are distressed. They show grief when
their human
companions die.
DG
SEE ALSO: #17, #23, #36
-----------------------
#20 A house is on fire and a dog and a baby are inside.
Which do you
save first?
-----------------------
The one I choose to save first tells us nothing about
the ethical
decisions we face. I might decide to save my child before
I saved yours,
but this certainly does not mean that I should be able to
experiment on
your child, or exploit your child in some other way. We
are not in an
emergency situation like a fire anyway. In everyday life,
we can choose to
act in ways that protect the rights of both dogs and
babies.
LK
Like anyone else in this situation, I would probably
save the one to
which I am emotionally more attached. Most likely it
would be the child.
Someone might prefer to save his own beloved dog before
saving the baby
of a stranger. However, as LK states above, this tells us
nothing about
any ethical principles.
DVH
-----------------------
#21 What if I made use of an animal that was already
dead?
-----------------------
There are two ways to interpret this question. First,
the questioner
might really be making the excuse "but I didn't kill the
animal", or
second, he could be asking about the morality of using an
animal that

25. has died naturally (or due to a cause unassociated with
the demand for
animal products, such as a road kill). For the first
interpretation, we
must reject the excuse. The killing of animals for meat,
for example,
is done at the request (through market demand), and with
the financial
support (through payment), of the end consumers. Their
complicity is
inescapable. Society does not excuse the receiver of
stolen goods because
he "didn't do the burglary".
For the second interpretation, the use of naturally
killed animals,
there seems to be no moral difficulty involved. Many
would, for esthetic
reasons, still not use animal products thus obtained.
(Would you use the
bodies of departed humans?) Certainly, natural kills
cannot satisfy the
great demand for animal products that exists today; non-
animal and
synthetic sources are required.
Other people may avoid use of naturally killed animal
products because
they feel that it might encourage a demand in others for
animal products,
a demand that might not be so innocently satisfied.
DG
This can be viewed as a question of respect for the
dead. We feel
innate revulsion at the idea of grave desecration for
this reason.
Naturally killed animals should, at the very least, be
left alone rather
than recycled as part of an industrial process. This was
commonly
practiced in the past, e.g., Egyptians used to mummify
their cats.
AECW
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the
slaughterhouse is
concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is
complicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(author)
-----------------------
#22 Where should one draw the line: animals, insects,
bacteria?
-----------------------
AR philosophy asserts that rights are to be accorded to
creatures that
have the capacity to experience pain, to suffer, and to
be a "subject of

26. a life". Such a capacity is definitely not found in
bacteria. It is
definitely found in mammals. There is debate about such
animals as molluscs
and arthropods (including insects). One should decide,
based upon available
evidence and one's own conscience, where the line should
be drawn to adhere
to the principle of AR described in the first sentence.
Questions #39 and #43 discuss some of the evidence
relevant to drawing
the line.
DG
SEE ALSO: #39, #43
-----------------------
#23 If the killing is wrong, shouldn't you stop
predators from killing
other animals?
-----------------------
This is one of the more interesting arguments against
animal rights. We
prevent human moral patients from harming others, e.g.,
we prevent children
from hitting each other, so why shouldn't we do the same
for nonhuman moral
patients (refer to question #17 for a definition of moral
patienthood)? If
anything, the duty to do so might be considered more
serious because
predation results in a serious harm--death.
A first answer entails pointing out that predators must
kill to survive;
to stop them from killing is, in effect, to kill them.
Of course, we could argue that intervening on a massive
scale to prevent
predation is totally impractical or impossible, but that
is not morally
persuasive.
Suppose we accept that we should stop a cat from
killing a bird. Then we
realize that the bird is the killer of many snakes.
Should we now reason
that, in fact, we shouldn't stop the cat? The point is
that humans lack the
broad vision to make all these calculations and
determinations.
The real answer is that intervening to stop predation
would destroy the
ecosystems upon which the biosphere depends, harming all
of life on earth.
Over millions of years, the biosphere has evolved complex
ecosystems that
depend upon predation for their continued functioning and
stability. Massive
intervention by humans to stop predation would inflict
serious and

27. incalculable harm on these ecosystems, with devastating
results for all life.
Even if we accept that we should prevent predation (and
we don't accept
that), it does not follow that, because we do not, we are
therefore justified
in exploiting moral patients ourselves. When we fail to
stop widespread
slaughter of human beings in foreign countries, it does
not follow that we,
ourselves, believe it appropriate to participate in such
slaughter. Similarly,
our failure to prevent predation cannot be taken as
justification of our
exploitation of animals.
DG
SEE ALSO: #17, #19, #36, #64
-----------------------
#24 Is the AR movement against abortion? If not, isn't
that hypocritical?
-----------------------
Attempts are frequently made to tie Animal Rights
exponents to one side
or the other of the abortion debate. Such attempts are
misguided. Claims
that adherence to the ethics of AR determine one's
position on embryo
rights are plainly counter-intuitive, unless one is also
prepared to argue
that being a defender of human rights compels one to a
particular position
on abortion. Is it the case that one cannot consistently
despise torture,
serfdom, and other barbaric practices without coming to a
particular
conclusion on abortion?
AR defenders demand that the rights currently held by
humans be extended
to all creatures similar in morally relevant ways. For
example, since
society does not accept that mature, sentient human moral
patients (refer
to question #17 for a brief description of the
distinction between patients
and agents) may be routinely annihilated in the name of
science, it
logically follows that comparable nonhuman animals should
be given the same
protection. On the other hand, abortion is still a moot
point. It is
plainly illogical to expect the AR movement to reflect
anything other than
the full spectrum of opinion found in society at large on
the abortion issue.
Fundamentally, AR philosophers are content with
submitting sufficient

28. conditions for the attribution of rights to individuals,
conditions that
explain the noncontroversial protections afforded today
to humans. They
neither encourage nor discourage attempts to widen the
circle of protection
to fetuses.
AECW
There is a range of views among AR supporters on the
issue of abortion
versus animal rights. Many people believe, as does AECW,
that the issues
of abortion and AR are unrelated, and that the question
is irrelevant to the
validity of AR. Others, such as myself, feel that
abortion certainly is
relevant to AR. After all, the granting of rights to
animals (and humans)
is based on their capacity to suffer and to be a subject-
of-a-life. It
seems clear that late-term fetuses can suffer from the
abortion procedure.
Certain physiological responses, such as elevated heart
rates, and the
existence of a functioning nervous system support this
view.
It also can be argued that the fetus is on a course to
become a
subject-of-a-life, and that by aborting the fetus we
therefore harm it.
Some counter this latter argument by claiming that the
"potential" to
become subject-of-a-life is an invalid grounds for
assigning rights, but
this is a fine philosophical point that is itself subject
to attack. For
example, suppose a person is in a coma that, given enough
time, will
dissipate--the person has the potential to be sentient
again. Does the
person lose his rights while in the coma?
While the arguments adduced may show that abortion is
not irrelevant
to AR, they do not show that abortion is necessarily
wrong. The reason
is that it is possible to argue that the rights of the
fetus are in
conflict with the rights of the woman, and that the
rights of the woman
dominate. All may not agree with this trade-off, but it
is a consistent,
non-hypocritical stance that is not in conflict with AR
philosophy.
See question #4 for an analysis of hypocrisy arguments
in general.
DG
SEE ALSO: #4

29. -----------------------
#25 Doesn't the ethical theory of contractarianism show
that animals
have no rights?
-----------------------
Contractarianism is an ethical theory that attempts to
account for our
morality by appealing to implicit mutually beneficial
agreements, or
contracts. For example, it would explain our refusal to
strike each other
by asserting that we have an implied contract: "You don't
hit me and I
won't hit you." The relevance of contractarianism to AR
stems from the
supposition that nonhuman animals are incapable of
entering into such
contracts, coupled with the assertion that rights can be
attributed only
to those individuals that can enter into such contracts.
Roughly, animals
can't have rights because they lack the rational capacity
to assent to a
contract requiring them to respect our rights.
Contractarianism is perhaps the most impressive attempt
to refute the AR
position; therefore, it is important to consider it in
some detail. It is
easily possible to write a large volume on the subject.
We must limit
ourselves to considering the basic arguments and problems
with them. Those
readers finding this incomplete or nonrigorous are
advised to consult the
primary literature.
We begin by observing that contractarianism fails to
offer a compelling
account of our moral behavior and motives. If the average
person is asked why
they think it wrong to steal from their neighbor, they do
not answer that by
refraining from it they ensure that their neighbor will
not steal from them.
Nor do they answer that they have an implicit mutual
contract with their
neighbor. Instead of invoking contracts, people typically
assert some variant
of the harm principle; e.g., they don't steal because it
would harm the
neighbor. Similarly, we do not teach children that the
reason why they should
not steal is because then people will not steal from
them.
Another way to point up the mismatch between the theory
of contractarianism
and our actual moral behavior is to ask if, upon risking
your own life to

30. save my child from drowning, you have done this as a
result of a contractual
obligation. Certainly, one performs such acts as a
response to the distress
of another being, not as a result of contractual
obligations.
Contractarianism can thus be seen as a theory that
fails to account for our
moral behavior. At best, it is a theory that its
proponents would recommend
to us as preferable. (Is it seen as preferable because it
denies rights to
animals, and because it seems to justify continued
exploitation of animals?)
Arguably the most serious objection to contractarianism
is that it can be
used to sanction arrangements that would be almost
universally condemned.
Consider a group of very rich people that assemble and
create a contract
among themselves the effect of which is to ensure that
wealth remains in
their control. They agree by contract that even
repressive tactics can be
used to ensure that the masses remain in poverty. They
argue that, by virtue
of the existence of their contract, that they do no
wrong. Similar contracts
could be drawn up to exclude other races, sexes, etc.
John Rawls attempts to overcome this problem by
supposing that the
contractors must begin from an "initial position" in
which they are not yet
incarnated as beings and must form the contract in
ignorance of their final
incarnation. Thus, it is argued, since a given individual
in the starting
position does not know whether, for example, she will be
incarnated as a rich
woman or a poor woman, that individual will not form
contracts that are based
on such criteria. In response, one can begin to wonder at
the lengths to
which some will go in creating ad hoc adjustments to a
deficient theory. But
more to the point, one can turn around this ad hoc
defense to support the AR
position. For surely, if individuals in the initial
position are to be truly
ignorant of their destiny, they must assume that they may
be incarnated as
animals. Given that, the contract that is reached is
likely to include strong
protections for animals!
Another problem with Rawls' device is that
probabilities can be such that,
even given ignorance, contracts can result that most
people would see as
unjust. If the chance of being incarnated as a slave

31. holder is 90 percent, a
contract allowing slavery could well result because most
individuals would
feel they had a better chance of being incarnated as a
slave holder. Thus,
Rawls' device fails even to achieve its purpose.
It is hard to see how contractarianism can permit
movement from the status
quo. How did alleged contracts that denied liberty to
slaves and excluded
women from voting come to be renegotiated?
Contractarianism also is unable to adequately account
for the rights we
give to those unable to form contracts, i.e., infants,
children, senile
people, mental deficients, and even animals to some
extent. Various means
have been advanced to try to account for the attribution
of rights to such
individuals. We have no space to deal with all of them.
Instead, we briefly
address a few.
One attempt involves appealing to the interests of true
rights holders.
For example, I don't eat your baby because you have an
interest in it and I
wouldn't want you violating such an interest of mine. But
what if no-one
cared about a given infant? Would that make it fair game
for any use or
abuse? Certainly not. Another problem here is that many
people express an
interest in the protection of all animals. That would
seem to require others
to refrain from using or abusing animals. While this
result is attractive to
the AR community, it certainly weakens the argument that
contractarianism
justifies our use of animals.
Others want to let individuals "ride" until they are
capable of respecting
the contract. But what of those that will never be
capable of doing so, e.g.,
senile people? And why can we not let animals ride?
Some argue a "reduced-rights" case. Children get a
reduced rights set
designed to protect them from themselves, etc. The
problem here is that with
animals the rights reduction is way out of proportion. We
accept that we
cannot experiment on infants or kill and eat them due to
their reduced rights
set. Why then are such extreme uses acceptable for
nonhumans?
Some argue that it is irrelevant whether a given
individual can enter into
a contract; what is important is their theoretical
capacity to do so. But,
future generations have the capacity but clearly cannot

32. interact reciprocally
with us, so the basis of contractarianism is gutted
(unless we assert that we
have no moral obligations to leave a habitable world for
future generations).
Peter Singer asks "Why limit morality to those who have
the capacity to enter
into agreements, if in fact there is no possibility of
their ever doing so?"
There are practical problems with contractarianism as
well. For example,
what can be our response if an individual renounces
participation in any
implied moral contracts, and states that he is therefore
justified in
engaging in what others would call immoral acts? Is there
any way for us to
reproach him? And what are we to do about violations of
the contract? If an
individual steals from us, he has broken the contract and
we should therefore
be released from it. Are we then morally justified in
stealing from him? Or
worse?
In summary, contractarianism fails because a) it fails
to accurately account
for our actual, real-world moral acts and motives, b) it
sanctions contractual
arrangements that most people would see as unjust, c) it
fails to account for
the considerations we accord to individuals unable to
enter into contracts,
and d) it has some impractical consequences. Finally,
there is a better
foundation for ethics--the harm principle. It is simple,
universalizable,
devoid of ad hoc devices, and matches our real moral
thinking.
TA/DG
SEE ALSO: #11, #17, #19, #96
----------------
PRACTICAL ISSUES
----------------
-----------------------
#26 Surely there are more pressing practical problems
than AR, such
as homelessness; haven't you got better things to do?
-----------------------
Inherent in this question is an assumption that it is
more important
to help humans than to help nonhumans. Some would dismiss
this as a
speciesist position (see question #1). It is possible,
however, to

33. invoke the scale-of-life notion and argue that there is
greater suffering
and loss associated with cruelty and neglect of humans
than with animals.
This might appear to constitute a prima-facie case for
expending one's
energies for humans rather than nonhumans. However, even
if we accept
the scale-of-life notion, there are sound reasons for
expending time
and energy on the issue of rights for nonhuman animals.
Many of the consequences of carrying out the AR agenda
are highly
beneficial to humans. For example, stopping the
production and consumption
of animal products would result in a significant
improvement of the
general health of the human population, and destruction
of the environment
would be greatly reduced.
Fostering compassion for animals is likely to pay
dividends in terms
of a general increase of compassion in human affairs. Tom
Regan puts it
this way:
...the animal rights movement is a part of, not
antagonistic to,
the human rights movement. The theory that rationally
grounds the
rights of animals also grounds the rights of humans.
Thus those
involved in the animal rights movement are partners in
the struggle
to secure respect for human rights--the rights of
women, for
example, or minorities, or workers. The animal rights
movement
is cut from the same moral cloth as these.
Finally, the behavior asked for by the AR agenda
involves little
expenditure of energy. We are asking people to NOT do
things: don't
eat meat, don't exploit animals for entertainment, don't
wear furs.
These negative actions don't interfere with our ability
to care for
humans. In some cases, they may actually make more time
available for
doing so (e.g., time spent hunting or visiting zoos and
circuses).
DG
Living cruelty-free is not a full-time job; rather,
it's a way of life.
When I shop, I check ingredients and I consider if the
product is tested
on animals. These things only consume a few minutes of

34. the day. There is
ample time left for helping both humans and nonhumans.
JLS
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights.
That is the
way of a whole human being.
Abraham Lincoln (16th U.S.
President)
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than
that of a
human being.
Mahatma Gandhi (statesman
and philosopher)
Our task must be to free ourselves...by widening our
circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature
and its beauty.
Albert Einstein
(physicist, Nobel 1921)
SEE ALSO: #1, #87, #95
-----------------------
#27 If everyone became vegetarian and gave up keeping
pets,
what would happen to all the animals?
-----------------------
As vegetarianism grows, the number of animals bred for
food gradually
will decline, since the market will no longer exist for
them.
Similarly, a gradual decrease would accompany the
lessening demand for
the breeding of companion animals. In both cases, those
animals that
remain will be better cared for by a more compassionate
society.
LK
SEE ALSO: #75
-----------------------
#28 Grazing animals on land not suited for agriculture
increases the food
supply; how can that be considered wrong?
-----------------------
There are areas in the world where grazing of livestock
is possible but
agriculture is not. If conditions are such that people
living in these
areas cannot trade for crops and must raise livestock to
survive, few
would question the practice. However, such areas are very
small in

35. comparison to the fertile and semi-arid regions currently
utilized for
intensive grazing, and they do not appreciably contribute
to the world
food supply. (Some would argue that it is morally
preferable not to live in
such areas.)
The real issue is the intensive grazing in the fertile
and semi-arid
regions. The use of such areas for livestock raising
reduces the world
food supply. Keith Acker writes as follows in his "A
Vegetarian
Sourcebook":
Land, energy, and water resources for livestock
agriculture range
anywhere from 10 to 1000 times greater than those
necessary to
produce an equivalent amount of plant foods. And
livestock
agriculture does not merely use these resources, it
depletes them.
This is a matter of historical record. Most of the
world's soil,
erosion, groundwater depletion, and deforestation--
factors now
threatening the very basis of our food system--are
the result of this
particularly destructive form of food production.
Livestock agriculture is also the single greatest cause
of world-wide
deforestation both historically and currently (between
1967 and 1975,
two-thirds of 70 million acres of lost forest went to
grazing). Between
1950 and 1975 the area of human-created pasture land in
Central America
more than doubled, almost all of it at the expense of
rain forests.
Although this trend has slowed down, it still continues
at an alarming and
inexorable pace.
Grazing requires large tracts of land and the
consequences of
overgrazing and soil erosion are very serious ecological
problems. By
conservative estimates, 60 percent of all U.S. grasslands
are overgrazed,
resulting in billions of tons of soil lost each year. The
amount of U.S.
topsoil lost to date is about 75 percent, and 85 percent
of that is
directly associated with livestock grazing. Overgrazing
has been the
single largest cause of human-made deserts.
One could argue that grazing is being replaced by the
"feedlot

36. paradigm". These systems graze the livestock prior to
transport to a
feedlot for final "fattening" with grains grown on crop
lands. Although
this does reduce grazing somewhat, it is not eliminated,
and the feedlot
part of the paradigm still constitutes a highly
inefficient use of crops
(to feed a human with livestock requires 16 times the
grain that would be
necessary if the grain was consumed directly). It has
been estimated that
in the U.S., 80 percent of the corn and 95 percent of the
oats grown are
fed to livestock.
TA
I grew up in cattle country--that's why I became a
vegetarian. Meat stinks,
for the animals, the environment, and your health.
k.d. lang (musician)
-----------------------
#29 If we try to eliminate all animals products, we'll
be moving back to
the Stone Age; who wants that?
-----------------------
On the contrary! It is a dependency upon animal
products that could be
seen as returning us to the technologies and mind set of
the Stone Age.
For example, Stone Age people had to wear furs in
Northern climates to
avoid freezing. That is no longer the case, thanks to
central heating
and the ready availability of plenty of good plant and
human-made fabrics.
If we are to characterize the modern age, it could be in
terms of the
greater freedoms and options made possible by
technological advance and
social progress. The Stone Age people had few options and
so were forced
to rely upon animals for food, clothing, and materials
for their implements.
Today, we have an abundance of choices for better foods,
warmer clothing,
and more efficient materials, none of which need depend
upon the killing
of animals.
TA
It seems to me that the only Stone Age we are in any
danger of entering
is that constituted by the continuous destruction of
animals' habitats
in favor of the Portland-cement concrete jungle!
DG

37. SEE ALSO: #60, #62, #95
-----------------------
#30 It's virtually impossible to eliminate all animal
products from one's
consumption; what's the point if you still cause
animal death without
knowing it?
-----------------------
Yes, it is very difficult to eliminate all animal
products from one's
consumption, just as it is impossible to eliminate all
accidental killing
and infliction of harm that results from our activities.
But this cannot
justify making it "open season" for any kind of abuse of
animals. The
reasonable goal, given the realities, is to minimize the
harms one causes.
The point, then, is that a great deal of suffering is
prevented.
DG
SEE ALSO: #57-#58
-----------------------
#31 Wouldn't many customs and traditions, as well as
jobs, be lost if
we stopped using animals?
-----------------------
Consider first the issue of customs and traditions. The
plain truth is
that some customs and traditions deserve to die out.
Examples abound
throughout history: slavery, Roman gladiatorial contests,
torture, public
executions, witch burning, racism. To these the AR
supporter adds animal
exploitation and enslavement.
The human animal is an almost infinitely adaptable
organism. The loss of
the customs listed above has not resulted in any lasting
harm to
humankind. The same can be confidently predicted for the
elimination of
animal exploitation. In fact, humankind would likely
benefit from a
quantum leap of compassion in human affairs.
As far as jobs are concerned, the economic aspects are
discussed in
question #32. It remains to point out that for a human,
what is at stake is
a job, which can be replaced with one less morally
dubious. What is at
stake for an animal is the elimination of torture and
exploitation, and

38. the possibility for a life of happiness, free from human
oppression and
brutality.
DG
People often say that humans have always eaten animals,
as if this is a
justification for continuing the practice. According to
this logic, we
should not try to prevent people from murdering other
people, since this
has also been done since the earliest of times.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
(author, Nobel 1978)
SEE ALSO: #32
-----------------------
#32 The animal product industries are big business;
wouldn't the economy
be crippled if they all stopped?
-----------------------
One cannot justify an action based on its
profitability. Many crimes and
practices that we view as repugnant have been or continue
to be
profitable: the slave trade, sale of child brides, drug
dealing, scams of
all sorts, prostitution, child pornography.
A good example of this, and one that points up another
key
consideration, is the tobacco industry. It is a
multibillion-dollar
industry, yet vigorous efforts are proceeding on many
fronts to put it out
of business. The main problem with it lies in its side-
effects, i.e., the
massive health consequences and deaths that it produces,
which easily
outweigh the immediate profitability. There are side
effects to animal
exploitation also. Among the most significant are the
pollution and
deforestation associated with large-scale animal farming.
As we see in
question #28, these current practices constitute a
nonsustainable use of
the planet's resources. It is more likely true that the
economy will be
crippled if the practices continue!
Finally, the profits associated with the animal
industries stem from
market demand and affluence. There is no reason to
suppose that this
demand cannot be gradually redirected into other
industries. Instead of
prime beef, we can have prime artichokes, or prime pasta,
etc. Humanity's

39. demand for gourmet food will not vanish with the meat.
Similarly, the
jobs associated with the animal industries can be
gradually redirected
into the industries that would spring up to replace the
animal
industries. (Vice President Gore made a similar point in
reference to
complaints concerning loss of jobs if logging was halted.
He commented
that the environmental movement would open up a huge area
for jobs that
had heretofore been unavailable.)
DG
It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by
its purely physical
effect on the human temperament would most beneficially
influence the lot of
mankind.
Albert Einstein
(physicist, Nobel 1921)
SEE ALSO: #28, #31
----------------------
ARGUMENTS FROM BIOLOGY
----------------------
-----------------------
#33 Humans are at the pinnacle of evolution; doesn't
that give them
the right to use animals as they wish?
-----------------------
This is one of many arguments that attempt to draw
ethical conclusions
from scientific observations. In this case, the science
is shaky, and the
ethical conclusion is dubious. Let us first examine the
science.
The questioner's view is that evolution has created a
linear ranking of
general fitness, a ladder if you will, with insects and
other "lower"
species at the bottom, and humans (of course!) at the
top. This idea
originated as part of a wider, now discredited
evolutionary system called
Lamarckism. Charles Darwin's discovery of natural
selection overturned
this system. Darwin's picture, instead, is of a
"radiating bush" of
species, with each evolving to adapt more closely to its
environment,
along its own radius. Under this view, the idea of a
pinnacle becomes
unclear: yes, humans have adapted well to their niche

40. (though many would
dispute this, asserting the nonsustainable nature of our
use of the
planet's resources), but so have bacteria adapted well to
their niche. Can
we really say that humans are better adapted to their
niche than bacteria,
and would it mean anything when the niches are so
different?
Probably, what the questioner has in mind in using the
word "pinnacle"
is that humans excel in some particular trait, and that a
scale can be
created relative to this trait. For example, on a scale
of mental
capability, humans stand well above bacteria. But a
different choice of
traits can lead to very different results. Bacteria stand
"at the
pinnacle" when one looks at reproductive fecundity. Birds
stand "at
the pinnacle" when one looks at flight.
Now let us examine the ethics. Leaving aside the
dubious idea of a
pinnacle of evolution, let us accept that humans are
ranked at the top on
a scale of intelligence. Does this give us the right to
do as we please
with animals, simply on account of their being less
brainy? If we say yes,
we open a Pandora's box of problems for ourselves. Does
this mean that
more intelligent humans can also exploit less intelligent
humans as they
wish (shall we all be slaves to the Einsteins of the
world)? Considering
a different trait, can the physically superior abuse the
weak? Only a
morally callous person would agree with this general
principle.
AECW
SEE ALSO: #34, #37
-----------------------
#34 Humans are at the top of the food chain; aren't they
therefore
justified in killing and eating anything?
-----------------------
No; otherwise, potential cannibals in our society could
claim the same
defense for their practice. That we can do something does
not mean that it
is right to do so. We have a lot of power over other
creatures, but with
great powers come even greater responsibilities, as any
parent will
testify.

41. Humans are at the top of the food chain because they
CHOOSE to eat
nonhuman animals. There is thus a suggestion of tautology
in the
questioner's position. If we chose not to eat animals, we
would not be
at the top of the food chain.
The idea that superiority in a trait confers rights
over the inferior is
disposed of in question #33.
AECW
SEE ALSO: #33
-----------------------
#35 Animals are just machines; why worry about them?
-----------------------
Centuries ago, the philosopher Rene Descartes developed
the idea that
all nonhuman animals are automatons that cannot feel
pain. Followers of
Descartes believed that if an animal cried out this was
just a reflex,
the sort of reaction one might get from a mechanical
doll. Consequently,
they saw no reason not to experiment on animals without
anesthetics.
Horrified observers were admonished to pay no attention
to the screams
of the animal subjects.
This idea is now refuted by modern science. Animals are
no more "mere
machines" than are human beings. Everything science has
learned about
other species points out the biological similarities
between humans and
nonhumans. As Charles Darwin wrote, the differences
between humans and
other animals are differences of degree, not differences
of kind. Since
both humans and nonhumans evolved over millions of years
and share
similar nervous systems and other organs, there is no
reason to think
we do not share a similar mental and emotional life with
other animal
species (especially mammals).
LK
-----------------------
#36 In Nature, animals kill and eat each other; so why
should it be wrong
for humans?
-----------------------
Predatory animals must kill to eat. Humans, in
contrast, have a choice;
they need not eat meat to survive.

42. Humans differ from nonhuman animals in being capable of
conceiving of, and
acting in accordance with, a system of morals; therefore,
we cannot seek
moral guidance or precedent from nonhuman animals. The AR
philosophy asserts
that it is just as wrong for a human to kill and eat a
sentient nonhuman as
it is to kill and eat a sentient human.
To demonstrate the absurdity of seeking moral
precedents from nonhuman
animals, consider the following variants of the question:
"In Nature, animals steal food from each other; so
why should it be
wrong for humans [to steal]?"
"In Nature, animals kill and eat humans; so why
should it be wrong for
humans [to kill and eat humans]?"
DG
SEE ALSO: #23, #34, #64
-----------------------
#37 Natural selection and Darwinism are at work in the
world; doesn't
that mean it's unrealistic to try to overcome such
forces?
-----------------------
Assuming that Animal Rights concepts somehow clash with
Darwinian forces,
the questioner must stand accused of selective moral
fatalism: our sense of
morality is clearly not modeled on the laws of natural
selection. Why,
then, feel helpless before some of its effects and not
before others?
Male-dominance, xenophobia, and war-mongering are
present in many human
societies. Should we venture that some mysterious,
universal forces must be
at work behind them, and that all attempts at quelling
such tendencies should
be abandoned? Or, more directly, when people become sick,
do we abandon them
because "survival of the fittest" demands it? We do not
abandon them; and we
do not agonize about trying to overcome natural
selection.
There is no reason to believe that the practical
implications of the Animal
Rights philosophy are maladaptive for humans. On the
contrary, and for
reasons explained elsewhere in this FAQ, respecting the
rights of animals
would yield beneficial side-effects for humans, such as
more-sustainable

43. agricultural practices, and better environmental and
health-care policies.
AECW
The advent of Darwinism led to a substitution of the
idea of individual
organisms for the old idea of immutable species. The
moral individualism
implied by AR philosophy substitutes the idea that
organisms should be
treated according to their individual capacities for the
(old) idea that it
is the species of the animal that counts. Thus, moral
individualism actually
fits well with evolutionary theory.
DG
SEE ALSO: #63-62
-----------------------
#38 Isn't AR opposed to environmental philosophy (as
described, for
example, in "Deep Ecology")?
-----------------------
No. It should be clear from many of the answers
included in this FAQ, and
from perusal of many of the books referenced in question
#92, that the
philosophy and goals of AR are complementary to the goals
of the mainstream
environmental movement. Michael W. Fox sees AR and
environmentalism as
two aspects of a dialectic that reconciles concerns for
the rights of
individuals (human and nonhuman) with concerns for the
integrity of the
biosphere.
Some argue that a morality based on individual rights
is necessarily
opposed to one based on holistic environmental views,
e.g., the sanctity
of the biosphere. However, an environmental ethic that
attributes some
form of rights to all individuals, including inanimate
ones, can be
developed. Such an ethic, by showing respect for the
individuals that make
up the biosphere, would also show respect for the
biosphere as a whole, thus
achieving the aims of holistic environmentalism. It is
clear that a rights
view is not necessarily in conflict with a holistic view.
In reference to the concept of deep ecology and the
claim that it bears
negatively on AR, Fox believes such claims to be
unfounded. The following
text is excerpted from "Inhumane Society", by Michael W.
Fox.

44. DG
Deep ecologists support the philosophy of preserving
the natural
abundance and diversity of plants and animals in natural
ecosystems...
The deep ecologists should oppose the industrialized,
nonsubsistence
exploitation of wildlife because...it is fundamentally
unsound ecologically,
because by favoring some species over others, population
imbalances and
extinctions of undesired species would be inevitable.
In their book "Deep Ecology", authors Bill Devall and
George Sessions...
take to task animal rights philosopher Tom Regan, who
with others of like
mind "expressed concern that a holistic ecological
ethic...results in a
kind of totalitarianism or ecological fascism"...In an
appendix, however,
George Sessions does suggest that philosophers need to
work toward
nontotalitarian solutions...and that "in all likelihood,
this will require
some kind of holistic ecological ethic in which the
integrity of all
individuals (human and nonhuman) is respected".
Ironically, while the authors are so critical of the
animal rights
movement, they quote Arne Naess (...arguably the founder
of the deep
ecology movement)...For instance, Naess states: "The
intuition of
biocentric equality is that all things in the biosphere
have an equal
right to live and blossom and to reach their own forms of
unfolding and
self-realization..."
Michael W. Fox (Vice
President of HSUS)
SEE ALSO: #28, #59
------------------
INSECTS AND PLANTS
------------------
-----------------------
#39 What about insects? Do they have rights too?
-----------------------
Before considering the issue of rights, let us first
address the
question "What about insects?". Strictly speaking,
insects are small
invertebrate animals of the class Insecta, having an
adult stage

45. characterized by three pairs of legs, a segmented body
with three major
divisions, and usually two pairs of wings. We'll adopt
the looser
definition, which includes similar invertebrate animals
such as spiders,
centipedes, and ticks.
Insects have a ganglionic nervous system, in contrast
to the central
nervous system of vertebrates. Such a system is
characterized by local
aggregates of neurons, called ganglia, that are
associated with, and
specialized for, the body segment with which they are co-
located. There
are interconnections between ganglia but these
connections function not so
much as a global integrating pathway, but rather for
local segmental
coordination. For example, the waves of leg motion that
propagate along
the body of a centipede are mediated by the
intersegmental connections.
In some species the cephalic ganglia are large and
complex enough to
support very complex behavior (e.g., the lobster and
octopus). The
cuttlefish (not an insect but another invertebrate with a
ganglionic
nervous system) is claimed by some to be about as
intelligent as a dog.
Insects are capable of primitive learning and do
exhibit what many would
characterize as intelligence. Spiders are known for their
skills and
craftiness; whether this can all be dismissed as instinct
is arguable.
Certainly, bees can learn in a limited way. When offered
a reward from a
perch of a certain color, they return first to perches of
that color. They
also learn the location of food and transmit that
information to their
colleagues. The learning, however, tends to be highly
specialized and
applicable to only limited domains.
In addition to a primitive mental life as described
above, there is some
evidence that insects can experience pain and suffering.
The earthworm
nervous system, for example, secretes an opiate substance
when the
earthworm is injured. Similar responses are seen in
vertebrates and are
generally accepted to be a mechanism for the attenuation
of pain. On the
other hand, the opiates are also implicated in functions
not associated
with analgesia, such as thermoregulation and appetite

46. control. Nevertheless,
the association of secretion with tissue injury is highly
suggestive.
Earthworms also wriggle quite vigorously when impaled
on a hook. In
possible opposition to this are other observations. For
example, the
abdomen of a feeding wasp can be clipped off and the head
may go on
sucking (presumably in no distress?).
Singer quotes three criteria for deciding if an
organism has the
capacity to suffer from pain: 1) there are behavioral
indications, 2)
there is an appropriate nervous system, and 3) there is
an evolutionary
usefulness for the experience of pain. These criteria
seem to satisfied
for insects, if only in a primitive way.
Now we are equipped to tackle the issue of insect
rights. First, one
might argue that the issue is not so compelling as for
other animals
because industries are not built around the exploitation
of insects. But
this is untrue; large industries are built around honey
production, silk
production, and cochineal/carmine production, and, of
course, mass insect
death results from our use of insecticides. Even if the
argument were
true, it should not prevent us from attempting to be
consistent in the
application of our principles to all animals. Insects are
a part of the
Animal Kingdom and some special arguments would be
required to exclude
them from the general AR argument.
Some would draw a line at some level of complexity of
the nervous
system, e.g., only animals capable of operant
conditioning need be
enfranchised. Others may quarrel with this line and place
it elsewhere.
Some may postulate a scale of life with an ascending
capacity to feel pain
and suffer. They might also mark a cut-off on the scale,
below which
rights are not actively asserted. Is the cut-off above
insects and the
lower invertebrates? Or should there be no cut-off? This
is one of the
issues still being actively debated in the AR community.
People who strive to live without cruelty will attempt
to push the line
back as far as possible, giving the benefit of the doubt
where there is
doubt. Certainly, one can avoid unnecessary cruelty to
insects.

47. The practical issues involved in enfranchising insects
are dealt with in
the following two questions.
DG
I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely
with the beings
called human, but I want to realize identity with all
life, even with
such things as crawl upon earth.
Mahatma Gandhi (statesman
and philosopher)
What is it that should trace the insuperable line?
...The question
is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can
they suffer?
Jeremy Bentham
(philosopher)
SEE ALSO: #22, #40-#41, #47
-----------------------
#40 Do I have to be careful not to walk on ants?
-----------------------
The Jains of India would say yes! Some of their more
devout members
wear gauze masks to avoid inhaling and killing small
insects and
microbes.
Regardless of how careful we are, we will cause some
suffering as a
side-effect of living. The goal is to avoid unnecessary
suffering and
to minimize the suffering we cause. This is a far cry
from wanton,
intentional infliction of cruelty. I refer here to the
habit of some of
pulling off insects' wings for fun, or of torching a
congregation of
ants for pleasure.
This question is an issue for the individual conscience
to decide. Perhaps
one need not walk around looking out for ants on the
ground, but should one
be seen and it is easy to alter one's stride to avoid it,
where is the harm
in doing so?
DG
SEE ALSO: #39, #41
-----------------------
#41 There is some evidence of consciousness in insects;
aren't you
descending to absurdity to tell people not to kill
insects?
-----------------------

48. Enfranchising insects does not mean it is never
justifiable to kill
them. As with all threats to a being, the rule of self-
defense applies.
If insects are threatening one's well-being in a
nontrivial way, AR
philosophy would not assert that it is wrong to eliminate
them.
Pesticides and herbicides are often used for mass
destruction of insect
populations. While this might be defended on the self-
defense principle,
one should be aware of the significant adverse impact on
the environment,
on other non-threatening animals, and indeed on our own
health. (Refer to
question #59 for more on the use of insecticides.)
It is not absurd to attempt to minimize the amount of
suffering
that we inflict or cause.
DG
We should begin to feel for the flies and other insects
struggling to
be free from sticky fly paper. There are humane
alternatives.
Michael W. Fox (Vice
President of HSUS)
SEE ALSO: #39-#40, #59
-----------------------
#42 Isn't it hypocritical to kill and eat plants?
-----------------------
It would be hypocritical IF the same criteria or
morally relevant
attributes that are used to justify animal rights also
applied to
plants. The criteria cited by the AR movement are "pain
and suffering"
and being "subjects-of-a-life". An assessment of how
plants measure up
to these criteria leads to the following conclusions.
First, our best science to date shows that plants lack
any semblance
of a central nervous system or any other system design
for such complex
capacities as that of conscious suffering from felt pain.
Second, plants simply have no evolutionary need to feel
pain. Animals
being mobile would benefit from the ability to sense
pain; plants would
not. Nature does not gratuitously create such complex
capacities as that
of feeling pain unless there is some benefit for the
organism's
survival.

49. The first point is dealt with in more detail in
questions #43 and #44.
The general hypocrisy argument is discussed in question
#4.
TA
SEE ALSO: #4, #39-#44
-----------------------
#43 But how can you prove that plants don't feel pain?
-----------------------
Lest we forget the ultimate point of what follows, let
us not forget the
central thesis of AR. Simply stated: to the extent other
animals share
with us certain morally relevant attributes, then to that
extent we confer
upon them due regard and concern. The two attributes that
are arguably
relevant are: a) our capacity for pain and suffering, and
b) the capacity
for being the "subject-of-a-life", i.e., being such that
it matters to one
whether one's life fares well or ill.
Both of these qualities require the existence of mental
states. Also
note that in order to speak of "mental states" proper, we
would denote, as
common usage would dictate, that such states are marked
by consciousness.
It is insufficient to mark off mental states by only the
apparent presence
of purposefulness or intentionality since, as we shall
see below, many
material objects possess purposeful-looking behaviors.
So then, how do we properly attribute the existence of
mental states to
other animals, or even to ourselves for that matter? We
cannot infer the
presence of felt pain simply by the presence of a class
of behaviors that
are functional for an organism's amelioration or
avoidance of noxious
stimuli. Thermostats obviously react to thermal changes
in the environment
and respond in a functionally appropriate manner to
restore an initial
"preferred" state. We would be foolish, however, to
attribute to
thermostats a capability to "sense" or "feel" some kind
of thermal "pain".
Even placing quotes around our terms doesn't protect us
from absurdity.
Clearly, the behavioral criterion of even functional
avoidance/defense
reactions is simply not sufficient nor even necessary for
the proper
attribution of pain as a felt mental state.

50. Science, including the biological sciences, are
committed to the working
assumption of scientific materialism or physicalism (see
"The Metaphysical
Foundations of Modern Science", E. A. Burtt, 1924). We
must then start
with the generally accepted scientific assumption that
matter is the only
existent or real primordial constituent of the universe.
Let it be said at the outset that scientific
materialism as such does
not preclude the existence of emergent or functional
qualities like that
of mind, consciousness, and feeling (or even, dare I say
it, free will),
but all such qualities are dependent upon the existence
of organized
matter. If there is no hardware, there is nothing for the
software to run
on. If there is no intact, living brain, there is no
mind. It should also
be said that even contemporary versions of dualism or
mind-stuff theories
will also make embodiment of mental states dependent on
the presence of
sufficiently organized matter.
To briefly state the case, cognitive functions like
consciousness and
mind are seen as emergent properties of sufficiently
organized matter.
Just as breathing is a function of a complex system of
organs referred to
as the respiratory system, so too is consciousness a
function of the
immensely complex information-processing capabilities of
a central nervous
system. It is possible, in theory, that future computers,
given a
sufficiently complex and orderly organization of hardware
and clever
software, could exhibit the requisite emergent qualities.
While such
computers do not exist, we DO know that certain living
organisms on this
planet possess the requisite complexity of specialized
and highly
organized structure for the emergence of mental states.
In theory, plants could possess a mental state like
pain, but if, and
only if, there were a requisite complexity of organized
plant tissue that
could serve to instantiate the higher order mental states
of consciousness
and felt pain.
There is no morphological evidence that such a
complexity of tissue
exists in plants. Plants lack the specialized structures
required for
emergence of mental states. This is not to say that they

51. cannot exhibit
complex reactions, but we are simply over-interpreting
such reactions if
we designate them as "felt pain".
With respect to all mammals, birds, and reptiles, we
know that they
possess a sufficiently complex neural structure to enable
felt pain plus
an evolutionary need for such consciously felt states.
They possess
complex and specialized sense organs, they possess
complex and specialized
structures for processing information and for centrally
orchestrating
appropriate behaviors in accordance with mental
representations,
integrations, and reorganizations of that information.
The proper
attribution of felt pain in these animals is well
justified. It is not for
plants, by any stretch of the imagination.
TA
The absurdity (and often disingenuity) of the plant-
pain promoters can be
easily exposed by asking them the following two
questions:
1) Do you agree that animals like dogs and cats
should receive
pain-killing drugs prior to surgery?
2) Do you believe that plants should receive pain-
killing drugs
prior to pruning?
DG
SEE ALSO: #42, #44
-----------------------
#44 Aren't there studies that show that plants can
scream, etc.?
-----------------------
How can something without vocal apparatus scream?
Perhaps the questioner
intends to suggest that plants somehow express feelings
or emotions. This
notion is popularized in the book "The Secret Life of
Plants", by Tompkins
and Bird, 1972. The book describes "experiments" in which
plants are
claimed to respond to injury and even to the thoughts and
emotions of
nearby humans. The responses consist of changes in the
electrical
conductivity of their leaves. The truth is, however, that
nothing but a
dismal failure has resulted from attempts to replicate
these experiments.