Animal rights is a natural
outgrowth of feminism, since it is related to compassion and doubts
about the rights of man to exploit the environment.
Is Survival the Motivating Force Underlying the
Law?
Editor
The Mississippian
Editor,
In response to Mr. McCarthy's column on animal abuse, I think
the problem here lies in the definition of terms. When discussing
this issue the questions of legality, morality, and ethics keep arising
and the definition of these terms seems vague making it difficult to
decide if they apply. This difficulty, no doubt, has to do with the
changing moral climate in our country.
At one time morality meant within the Mosaic Law, or more
narrowly, not condemned by The Ten Commandments. Later, moral
came to mean legal, that is to say not illegal, since the law does not
define acceptable behavior except in a negative way. Ethics refers
to that behavior that is offensive or causes pain to others while not
being included in a legal proscription.
These definitions are inadequate because they don't provide any
generalization. One can't say with assurance that since this is against
the law and therefore immoral that another act is also. And what
informs the judiciary and legislature? One supposes legal precedent
on the one hand and popular opinion on the other. But, one can't be
sure of the motive behind creation of the law. Many times it seems
due to fads, such as the current anti-smoking fad or the period of
alcohol prohibition. Sometimes it seems to be that the behavior is
repulsive to the majority. Many times it seems to come from The
Mosaic Law or an extension of it.
But these ideas don't provide any understanding either. Just
what motivates or should motivate the creation of law?
I guess the answer is survival. What kinds of activities redound
to the long term survival of one's family and community should be
the guiding principle. Of course this question will have many
opinions in response. But some clarification could result. For
instance, since overpopulation is the most threatening fact of life,
now that the bomb has faded into history as an immediate
consternation, one could conclude that laws promoting population
growth, since they operate against the long term survival prospects
of society, should be considered immoral.
In this case, indiscriminate killing of animals would seem to
point to the long term extinction of us.
Joe Schiller
Is Individual Survival as a Policy, Moral?
Mr. Frohnen, in his column on animal rights (Oct. 8, 1990),
successfully summarizes the positions of both sides of the
controversy, and then draws his own conclusions.
He says that the whole argument is one of rights, with the
animal supporters concluding that the experience of pain governs
the conclusions reached. Their wish is, at any expense, to remain
humane. Mr. Frohnen's conclusion seems to be that, since humans
are superior to animals ("Only men have rights with purposes higher
than eating, sleeping, or procreating.") we need not concern
ourselves with animal rights.
The argument that humans are superior to animals is tenuous.
It presupposes several things, 1) that one knows which end of a
spectrum is best and which worst (the scale of size and complexity
of life forms), 2) that this same someone can define good and evil, 3)
that destruction of the environment and the use of all other living
things for humanity's benefit is perfectly rational. My own view is
that a person with these views has concluded that his own needs
and wishes are the paramount concern of the universe. All of life's
experiences brand this view as childish.
There are people that have concluded that the development of
life forms is a degeneration to a more and more undesirable state.
This conclusion is just as valid as our own. Finally, though, one has
to believe in his species, because to do otherwise is suicidal. That
being the case, good and evil must be identified with survival. In
the short term, survival means survival of the individual, but in the
long term survival means that of the species. We should look at how
our treatment of animal test subjects affects our prospects for
species survival, if we wish to reach a conclusion about its
desirability.
Medical research will lead to means of defeating those things
(viruses, etc.) which threaten the lives of individuals within our
society. This is certainly pro life in the short term, but this activity
can also be described as disabling the natural mechanisms in our
environment that hold the numbers of humans in check. This will
lead to a runaway population problem, which we now have, and this
is anti-life in the long term.
Conclusion: we should give up medical research that has as its
goal the prolongation of individual lives.
The reason this has become a hot issue now is that feminism is
producing a rising feeling of reverence for the natural world. This
feeling will be offended by all abuses of nature and lead to
environmental activism. Animal rights is a form of
environmentalism. The feeling referred to will affect us all more
and more as time goes by and is the same as that which would apply
if someone tossed their food wrappers on the church aisle as they
came in.