Muskrat Ignores Moral Duty to Other Sentient Beings
A muskrat has undermined a levee on the Mississippi River, leading to the threatened destruction of homes. From the story:A heroic effort by hundreds of townspeople, volunteers and National Guardsmen to hold back the Mississippi River failed yesterday--undone by a burrowing muskrat. The furry rodent dug a hole through the earthen levee in the eastern Missouri community of Winfield, allowing water to penetrate the flood wall, which failed shortly before dawn.
Gasp. Undermining a human levee is as cruel as destroying a beaver's dam! Put that rodent in jail! This is a profound violation of the muskrat's duty to treat other members of the community of equals based on mere sentience, equally.
What? Oh, right. The muskrat owed the threatened homeowners nothing. It is not a moral being. It was merely doing what a muskrat does; dig. It was oblivious to the harm it was causing and couldn't have cared less if the whole town was swept away.
Duties only apply to humans--which is one of the things that makes us exceptional.
Labels: Animal Rights. Human Duties.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:45 AM
18 Comments
18 Comments:
Okay, okay. But the fact that a (non-human) animal cannot have moral obligations does not imply that it cannot have moral claims. Why should these two components of "moral being" come as a package deal?
But it does. Moral claims are outside the natural realm inhabited by animals. Indeed, those who argue that animals have moral claims are really asserting that humans have duties to them because we are human, since the only animal that animals would have any kind of claim against would be us. Why is that so difficult to acknowledge? Indeed, if it isn't our humanity that gives rise to duties toward animals, what does?
Maybe it's my legal training, but I think lexicon matters a lot in this debate. If we say that animals have a right to life because they are sentient, we elevate them out of their element, and reduce our own moral worth as unique rights and duty bearers. If we say, however, that because animals feel pain, because we understand pain and fear, because we empahtize, that humans have a moral obligation not to kill animals based on our human understanding, I would disagree with the extent of the human duty but would not worry about the claim diminishing the human species. Indeed, such a discussion would promote a proper understading of our unique status and promotes a proper self perception--necessary for our proper conduct.
Hence, Michael Vick was acting anti humanly--as we should properly be expected to behave--when he abused the dogs and caused them fear and gratuitous suffering. He not only diminished himself, but all of us.
It's like Lincoln. When Lee fled PA after Gettysburg, Meade wrote a letter to Lincoln telling him that the enemy had been driven out of "our sacred soil." Lincoln had a fit. "It is ALL our sacred soil," he said, UNDERSTANDING that the way the argument was framed in that great contest mattered.
It does here, too.
Thanks for your presence here at SHS.
I agree. I think that we are morally obligated to treat animals humanely, but they do not have the so-called right to life that some are attributing to them. The anti-animal research advocates are very wrong, and their tactics are repugnant.
Right: to say that animals make moral claims on us is to say that we — as exceptional, moral agents — are obligated to respond to those claims by acting (or refraining from action) in certain ways.
But it's not just our humanity that gives rise to our duties toward non-human animals. It's also something about the them. Which is why we have different duties to pigs than to worms or plants.
So the crux of this discussion, as you pointed out, is the framing effect of the word "rights." I'll grant that there's something weird about saying that non-humans can have rights, since they can't use their rights, or defend them, or (for that matter), respect the rights of others. But that's true of some humans too. (Notably: infants and comatose adults.)
I guess my own commitment to human exceptionalism is focused centrally on our unique status as duty-bearers — so much so that it hardly strikes me as any problem to ascribe rights to non-humans. But I'm really interested in understanding this difference of opinion as a matter of framing. And I'm open to persuasion — maybe exceptionalism-with-regard-to-rights is more important than I realize.
We agree on our being duty bearers is a crucial aspect of HE.
Consider this: Rights are crucially important to human freedom. If the term becomes too loosely used, if it is applied to areas in which it really does not belong, is there not a danger that the very concept will lose its potency?
Oh, absolutely. Whether the purported rights-bearer is human or not, someone would have to make a strong case before I'll acknowledge a purported right. I tend to think the word is overused for humans! (Richard @ Philosophy Etc. has a great recent post on that topic.)
I don't think "we have different duties to pigs than to worms or plants." I think our duty towards all forms of non-human life is the same--to avoid cruelty and unnecessary interference--but what that duty entails depends on the form of being we are dealing with.
And while "infants and comatose adults" may not be able to use or defend their rights any better than non-human life, there is a crucial and fundamental distinction between the two: human beings as a species are biologically capable of appreciating and exercising rights, while plants and animals are not. The biological design of non-human life does not permit comprehension of such things. Thus humans are exceptional, and are to be treated with the dignity they deserve by virtue of their humanity, whatever their mental capability. As Oxford professor John Finnis so aptly stated: "we each have them [rights] because every individual member of the [human] species has the dignity of being a person. And this is not a ‘status’ to be conferred or withdrawn, but a reality to be acknowledged."
Have you ever tried to take a bone away from a dog? I think those bared teeth and scary snarl are making a moral claim as to the rightful ownership of that bone. And when a cat meows and walks on your head to wake you up to feed it, isn't it making a moral claim to be fed? I certainly detect some sense of right and wrong in the cat's expressions and actions, and I don't think I'm reading anything into it. Animals get mad, and they get even, and they do things they think make other animals happy, that are the right thing to do.
I think animals are the most moral creatures on earth. God never cast them out of the Garden of Eden and darkened their vision so they could not discern right from wrong.
Dogs are different as they have been intelligently designed by people to exhibit certain personalities and traits. They no longer act like wolves.
Cats, to a lesser degree. But the dog hoarding its bone isn’t making a moral claim in that sense. It wants to eat the bone, and true to the tooth and claw world, will fight to keep it. Ever see wild animals fighting over carrion? It isn’t about morality. "Oh, Mr. Jackel, are you hungrier than me? By all means, eat that leg. I'll retire. It is about eating."
The Eden story, some traditions hold, also claim that the created world crashed with Man, hence predation.
Animals can be trained to do certain things or refrain from doing things, but they are not cognizant of moral analysis such as right versus wrong, justice versis injustice, or rights of any kind.
Lion Prides exhibit egalitarian behavior in their breeding methods and a voluntary system of communal cub rearing.
Generally the male Lion will defend the pride against attackers and enforce the cubs eating before the females.
The members of a pride typically spend the day in several scattered groups that may unite to hunt or share a meal. A pride consists of several generations of lionesses, some of which are related, a smaller number of breeding males, and their cubs.
Data show that cubs are more likely to survive when they are raised in a nursery rather than by a solitary mother.
The pride exists as a functional community with order and respect.
A moral community is
* a group of beings who live in relationship with each other and use and understand moral concepts and rules
* the members of this community can respect each other as moral persons
* the members of this community respect each other's autonomy
Animals possess many attributes that humans use to state the case for their own rights, even if on a less complex level
* They have similar levels of biological complexity
* They are conscious and aware that they exist
* They know what is happening to them
* They prefer some things and dislike others
* They make conscious choices
* They live in such a way as to give themselves the best quality of life
* They plan their lives to some extent
* The quality and length of their life matters to them
@ dark swan and john howard: None of these animal behaviors is sufficient to establish the case for animals as morally responsible agents. A morally responsible agent does not just do the right thing; she does the right thing because it is the right thing.
Non-human animals do not have sufficient cognitive capabilities to be able to affirm an action under a conceptual aspect, in the way that is required to qualify as moral. (See Dr. Doolittle's Delusion by Steve Anderson for an excellent survey of research on animals' cognitive abilities.)
Bennett Helm argues that non-human animals are capable of caring, on grounds similar to the ones that Dark Swan employed. But he points out that there is a difference between caring and valuing. (See the first and second chapters of Helm's book, Emotional Reason.) On my view (and Helm's, I think), a creature must be capable of caring in order to make moral claims, and it must be capable of valuing in order to respond morally to moral claims. Thus, those animal behaviors you described are — at best — analogous to moral behaviors.
Duties only apply to humans--which is one of the things that makes us exceptional.
When the male lion attacks a pack of Hyenas in order to protect the Pride is he not acting out of duty?
The Lion make a choice to become protector of the pride?
If this is not "duty", then why not?
I think animals do it with such purity of caring and morality that it seems like they aren't being moral, because.
but I've lost the point of this excersize. What are we trying to assert here? I'm certainly not asserting that animals have human rights or duties, just like humans don't have lion rights or duties. It seems to me human exceptionalism can best be stated as "humans are the only animals that have humans for parents and children and mates." Why look for some other source for exceptionalism or rights?
Choice is crucial in attaining the ultimate value in animal life. Morality has to be related to the needs, interests, and goals of an individual creature.
Value is instinctual.
Their is great value in the Prides choice of Hunting, Protecting, Nurturing.
Human Exceptionalism is basically Speciesism, where Human life is held above value of all other life forms, based from 2 main principals, one that we are created in the image of God, or that the humans have evolved extraordinarily and deserve to be set apart from the animal kingdom based on our cognitive skills.
I agree that we are more highly evolved and cognitive than any other species on earth, but not to the degree that we are more valuable than everything else in the world we co-habitat.
Perhaps the muskrats habitat was being threatened by the man made levee and the muskrat was acting in a way that protected its greatest value.
Sounds reasonable to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbh9c0noR4s
If a human toddler accidentally broke a dam and killed somebody, nobody would be claiming the child was morally responsible. And yet, children are moral beings.
Honestly, there is no clear link between duties and rights. One level of sentience is required for rights, and another for duties - it just so happens that adult humans meet both criteria and that most animals meet neither.
Right, so, I guess I'm coming from a Kantian place on this one. I think the same action may count as moral or not depending on whether it is chosen for a moral reason. Animals may do what seems like "the right thing" (protecting each other, altruism, holding hands, whatever) — but they aren't choosing to do it BECAUSE they can recognize that it's the moral thing to do. According to Kant, motivators such as instinct, preferences, or even physiological need cannot count as moral motivators, because they're heteronomous. (You can find a passably-good explanation of what Kant meant by that here.)
It's an animal. Kill it; eat its meat; wear its fur; and use its bones for tools, utensils and weapons.
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