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diff --git a/jordan.im/w/fellow-creatures.7 b/jordan.im/w/fellow-creatures.7 deleted file mode 100644 index a257468..0000000 --- a/jordan.im/w/fellow-creatures.7 +++ /dev/null @@ -1,420 +0,0 @@ -.Dd February 11, 2021 -.Dt FELLOW-CREATURES 7 -.Os jordan.im -. -.Sh NAME -.Nm Christine M Korsgaard - Fellow Creatures -.Nd Our Obligations to the Other Animals -. -.Sh SYNOPSIS -These notes are taken from lectures, essays, and book excerpts by Christine -Korsgaard as they relate to her book Fellow Creatures. -. -.Sh DESCRIPTION - -Korsgaard's views are based on the views of Immanuel Kant, who's held that we -must value every human being as what he called "an end in itself", by which he -meant that we should treat every human being as having inherent value, from -which it follows that their choices should be respected, that their ends should -be promoted, that their rights should be recognized and upheld by the -community, and that their happiness is valuable and their suffering is bad; -it's to say the things which matter to them should matter to all of us, and -that they should matter to us because they matter to them. - -Kant contrasted treating someone as an end in themselves with treating them as -mere means, which means using them for our own purposes in a way that's -contrary to their own good and to which they could not possibly consent. - -Many people accept something like a Kantian notion of the inherent value of -individuals as a basis for our moral obligations to other humans, but we human -beings have not been willing to afford this kind of value to the other animals -who share the world with us; instead, we use them in all kinds of ways. - -We eat them, we experiment on them, we test products on them, we keep ourselves -warm with their fur, skin, and feathers, we use them for transport, we've -enlisted them in our wars and police work, employed them to sniff out bombs and -drugs, we've made them fight and race for our amusement, have found joy and -comfort in their companionship, and subjected them to immense amounts of -torture and suffering in factory farms where they live short lives in dreadful -conditions where they never get to see the sky. - -These uses have been, by and large, at the expense of the interests of the -animals themselves. Even when we don't use other animals for our own ends, -human beings have often been completely heedless of their welfare, freely -killing them whenever they're a nuisance to us, and depriving them of the -habitat upon which they and their communities depend for leading their own -lives. - -We need to ask ourselves what, if anything, could possibly justify this -difference between the way we treat other human beings (or how we think we -ought to treat them) and the way we treat the other animals. After all, -animals, or at least many of them, are beings capable of suffering and joy, -with lives and interests of their own. They are the types of beings for whom -things can be good or bad. We, then, should ask ourselves what accounts for the -vast moral difference in what we believe constitutes permissible treatment of -humans compared to non-human animals. - -Kant believed only rational beings should be seen as ends in themselves, and -that we're therefore free to use the other animals as means to our ends. He -thought we have no moral duties to the other animals, and that they are not -objects of direct moral consideration. Most people are uncomfortable with that -conclusion, because most people believe that it's morally wrong to subject an -animal to unnecessary cruelty. Like Thomas Aquinas before him, Kant explained -this by arguing that it's wrong to be cruel to animals not because we owe kind -treatment directly to the animals themselves, but because if we're cruel to -animals we're more likely to be cruel to people too. He thought we have what -people have come to call an "indirect duty" to avoid cruelty to animals. - -Korsgaard disagrees with Kant in thinking we should not be kind to animals to -keep our kindness "in practice" for the sake of humans but because we owe it to -the animals themselves not to harm them if we can avoid it. Although many -people acknowledge that we have some duties to animals, most people seem to -believe these duties are rather weak as they apparently give way to almost any -human interest short of a malicious delight in cruelty itself. - -People who think the ways in which we treat animals today is morally -permissible never seem to write about it or say why they think so; the -philosophical literature on animal ethics is almost entirely devoted to -defending the idea that we have more extensive duties to animals than most -might usually suppose. The defender of animals has almost no -philosophically-articulated position to argue against. - -What non-philosophical people tend to believe is that humans are simply more -important than the other animals, and this difference explains the vast -difference in the ways we're willing to treat them. This is the starting point -in Fellow Creatures; she begins by asking whether human beings are really more -important than the other animals. The conclusion she reaches is that we're not, -not because the other animals are as important as we are, but rather because -claims about the relative importance of different kinds of creatures do not -make any sense at all. - -Things are important only when they are important to someone, human or -non-human. While it's true that I can be more important to my mother or my dog -compared to someone to whom they have no relation, we cannot therefore -establish some sort of cosmic hierarchy of importance among creatures. If -everything that's important is important because it's important to someone, -then there could only be such cosmic hierarchy if some kind of creature was -more important to all of the creatures than they are even to themselves. -Similarly, Korsgaard believes that for something to be good or bad it has to be -good or bad for someone. In the second chapter of Fellow Creatures Korsgaard -offers a theory of the good based on this idea. - -If it does not make sense to say that humans are simply more important than -other animals, is there some other difference between them that might explain -in the ways we think we're allowed to treat them. Many philosophers who write -in support of the moral claims of animals believe that in order to make their -case, it's necessary to establish that all differences between humans and other -animals are matters of degree; that there's no flat distinction between us, -sometimes appealing to evolution in arguing any difference must necessarily be -a matter of degree, and that claims of human uniqueness are therefore -unscientific. - -In contrast, Charles Darwin argued in The Descent of Man that humans are the -animals who base their decisions about what to do on thoughts about what we -ought to do; that humans are the only moral animals. He held that sociability, -intelligence, and memory are matters of degree, but when combined in a high -degree they produce something new, like the capacity for thoughts about what we -ought to do, and that a belief in human uniqueness is not unscientific so long -as you can explain it in terms of other attributes that we have to a higher -degree than other animals. - -Korsgaard agrees that humans are indeed different from the other animals, but -asks in the third chapter of Fellow Creatures what difference (if any) supports -the claim that human beings are entitled to treat animals in the ways that we -do. She argues that human beings are rational and moral animals, that the other -animals are not. By rational, she does not mean that we're merely intelligent -and think in an orderly way, but rather that we ask ourselves whether the -reasons for which we believe and do things are good or bad. Korsgaard believes -the other animals do not ask evaluative questions about their reasons for -action and belief. By moral, she does not mean that humans are morally good, -but that because of the way we choose our actions, our actions are subject to -moral standards, that they can be either morally good or bad, while the actions -of the other animals are not subject to moral standards, and cannot be morally -good or bad. - -It does not follow from these differences that human beings are better than the -other animals, because you can only judge one creature to be better than -another when they're subject to a common evaluative standard. In the absence of -such a common standard we cannot rate them against one other. What follows from -the fact that we're rational and moral and the other animals are not is not -that we're superior, but rather that we can have duties to them even though -they can have no duties to us. - -For similar reasons, Korsgaard argues against the view that what matters to -people matters more because our lives are more valuable in the sense of being -richer and more interesting than the lives of the other animals. Many people, -including some of the more important philosophical defenders of animals like -Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan think that life matters more to humans than it -does to the other animals because people can enjoy art, music, science, -philosophy, have deep, meaningful friendships and so on. Korsgaard rejects this -argument, and argues instead that what counts as a good life for an animal -depends on the nature of that animal; a dog's life is no worse for him because -he doesn't enjoy listening to music than yours is for you because you don't -enjoy chasing squirrels. - -There's a different way in which it might matter that we're the only moral -animals (if indeed we are), which brings us back to Kant and the second part of -Fellow Creatures which addresses Kant's views and what they imply about the -treatment of animals. As mentioned above, Kant believed only rational beings -should be treated as ends in themselves, and therefore believed the other -animals are not direct objects of moral concern. His view is not, as people -commonly suppose, that rationality is an especially valuable property, and we -are especially valuable because we have it, but rather that the capacity to -recognize and respond to reasons, including each other's reasons, places -rational beings in relations of reciprocity which enable us to make certain -claims on each other. - -Kant's argument was something like this: I'm a rational being when I judge that -something is good or bad for me or one of my loved ones; I treat is something -that is good absolutely, and by absolutely I mean that I have a good reason to -pursue or realize it as long as I neither harm nor wrong anyone else in doing -so. To be good absolutely is to be recognized as good in anyone's eyes. -Furthermore, I feel that I demand that others must respect my pursuit of it by -not interfering with my actions or attempting to manipulate my choices, and by -aiding me in my pursuit of the end if I'm in need of help. - -By the same token, when I recognize that another person has a good reason for -what he does, I recognize that I should not interfere with his choice, and -possibly should also help him if he's in need. In this way, when we choose to -pursue our ends, we make a set of demands on ourselves and on others, a set of -laws by which we mutually obligate one another to respect and assist us. The -reciprocal demands which rational beings make on each other constitute us as -a moral community, pursuing common ends under common moral laws; Kant famously -called this the "kingdom of ends". Kant thought that animals should not be -treated as ends in themselves because they cannot be part of this community -because, not being rational, they cannot create or respond to moral laws, and -therefore are not ends in themselves. - -Unlike the argument that human beings are privileged or superior simply because -rationality is such a valuable property, this is not an uninteresting argument. -Relations of reciprocity are essential to our moral duties to other human -beings. Nevertheless, Korsgaard argues that Kant's story was incomplete. As -Kant saw it, when I make a choice, I make a kind of law for myself that -I should realize a certain end, adopt it as a principle, and I make it a law -for others to not interfere with me in the pursuit of this end, and possibly -that they should even help me to achieve it. But prior to that decision is -another: the decision that something should be treated as a good end absolutely -by myself and others simply because it's good for me, or someone I care about. -This is a prior weighing which I claim the standing of the end itself, simply -because I'm a creature for whom things can be good or bad, I claim that what's -good for me should be treated as good absolutely, as something that someone -must respect and pursue. - -Human beings are certainly not the only creatures for whom things can be good -or bad, that's true of all the other animals or at least the sentient ones. If -the arguments for human superiority and importance fail, as Korsgaard thinks -they do, there is no reason why what is good for rational beings should be -treated as good absolutely, while what is good for the other animals can be -ignored or discounted. Animals are ends in themselves in this sense too. - -There are two senses of being an end in yourself. Being a legislator in the -moral community by making and responding to the laws we make for each other is -one way of being an end in yourself, shared only by rational beings, having -a good is another, shared by the other beings and rational beings alike. -Korsgaard argues that Kant was correct in thinking that other animals cannot -join us in making laws for one another in the kingdom of ends; our moral -relations to humans are different from our relations to the other animals. We -owe other rational beings certain duties of respect, having to do with choice -and freedom that we don't owe to the other animals, but we have the same reason -for treating what's good for the animal as good absolutely as we do for -treating our own good that way, which is because it's somebody's good; the good -of a creature for whom things can be good or bad. - -Rational beings are members of the moral community in the active sense. We -create it by making the laws for ourselves and each other. Animals are members -of the moral community in a passive sense, they fall under the protection of -its laws. - -It's worth discussing the similarities and differences between the Kantian -position sketched above and the utilitarian or consequentialist defense of the -moral claims of animals. Utilitarians usually believe that either pleasure and -the avoidance of pain or the satisfaction of desire and the avoidance its -frustration are good in themselves. Any creature who is capable of experiencing -those things has an interest in getting pleasure or his desires satisfied, and -all such creatures have moral standing, meaning that what happens to them -matters for its own sake. On Korsgaard's view, creatures for whom things can be -good or bad have moral standing, they're ends in themselves in the sense of -them having a good, which is the Kantian analog to moral standing. The two -positions identify the same creatures as having moral standing (sentient -animals). - -Where the two theories differ is in how they understand the idea that if you -have standing then what happens to you matters for its own sake. Utilitarians -understand that this way: pleasure or the satisfaction of desire is good in -itself, so it matters wherever it happens, human or non-human. Animals have -standing because good and bad things occur in their lives. The Kantian instead -places value in the first instance on the creature herself. People and other -animals matter, and what happens to them matters because it matters to them. In -the utilitarian theory, the value of humans and other animals in inherited from -the value of the things that can happen to them. In the Kantian theory the -importance of what happens to the creature derives from its importance to the -create himself. - -This difference between the Kantian and utilitarian view has practical -consequences. Because utilitarians think that pleasure is good in itself, they -think it makes sense to add and subtract pleasures across the boundaries -between creatures. If the sacrifice of one animal's good led to a greater total -good for a number of other animals it would, according to the utilitarian, be -justified, which is why utilitarians are often in favor of medical research on -animals. A few animals lead lives of torment, but as a result many other -animals (humans, predominantly) are saved. If my pleasures are good only -insofar as they're good for me, and yours are good only insofar as they're good -for you, we cannot simply add and subtract them in this way; there's no being -for whom your pleasures in addition to my pleasures are better. The sacrifice -of one creature's life or happiness for the sake of others is never that -straightforwardly justified. - -In the third part of Fellow Creatures, Korsgaard explores the consequences of -this position. She takes the wrongness of factory farming to be obvious, but -she argues that we should not eat animals at all. Some people believe in what -they call "humane farming", where the animals are allegedly treated well and -then slaughtered mercifully. Even in a so-called humane farm however the -animals must be killed as soon as they reach a sufficient size and development -to be eaten, living a life far shorter than they would've otherwise lived. -Likewise, dairy animals are killed when they can no longer be productive, which -is long before their natural term of life. The idea that humane farming is -morally acceptable depends on another quite controversial thesis: the idea that -death is not a bad thing for a non-human animal. - -It's said that whether animals are healthy and comfortable while they're alive -is what matters, but not how long they live, or whether at any moment they -continue to live. Korsgaard contests this argument. While there are some -reasons to believe that death is often a worse thing for a human being than for -another animal; human beings have plans and hopes for the future in a way that -so far as we can tell the other animals do not, and death disrupts these plans, -philosophers believe that the main thing that's bad about death is that it's -loss. It's the loss of whatever good you would've experienced had you continued -to live, an argument which holds for animals as much as it does for humans. If -death is bad for animals then we shouldn't eat them given that it's perfectly -possible to have an adequate diet without doing so. - -Korsgaard believes the entailment most people would contend with is the -implication that we should not perform experiments on animals for the sake of -medical progress; it's a much more serious matter than simply giving up a kind -of food we might like. That said, she believes that once we give up the idea -that we're free to use animals in ways that are contrary to their good, there -is no way around it. After all, the best way to make medical progress and -improve human lives would be to do experiments on people, but we don't do that -because we know that it's wrong, and no one thinks that's an unacceptable -sacrifice. - -There exists a certain kind of overheated rhetoric which claims that by -experimenting on animals we can "save" human lives. It's a good idea to -remember that there's an important sense in which we can't actually do that, -namely that everyone dies anyway. What we can do is extend human lives (which -of course is good), but we should ask ourselves whether it's worth imposing -immense suffering and death on animals in order to do so. - -Korsgaard also argues that we should not use animal products or make animals -work if the only way to do that is harmful or fatal to the animals themselves, -which in many cases it is. In the military, dolphins and seals are often used -in naval operations because of their ability to detect underwater objects with -sonar. In police work, dogs are used to sniff out drugs and locate humans. If -we have the right to ask people to take risks to fight crime, do we have the -right to ask the other animals to do so as well? Korsgaard argues it depends on -whether the animals, like humans, benefit from living in the state and are -adequately dependent on its laws, something which is certainly not the case in -the present. This case raises very different issues for wild and domesticated -animals since the law treats them very differently. Wild animals are for the -most part only protected as representatives of their species, not as -individuals, and do not live in any particular state. - -Another set of practical questions concern the extinction and preservation of -species. As many noticed, the concerns of environmental ethics and the concerns -of animal ethics often seem to be at odds, since the preservation of species or -the environment may require doing things which are harmful to individual -animals. The obvious example is when a group of animals is culled to prevent -them from populating beyond the carrying capacity in which they live. Korsgaard -does not propose a solution, but does devote space in the last part of the book -to ask what a species is, and why it's something we should care about at all. - -There's obvious reason to care about the biodiversity upon which we all depend, -but that's not a reason to care about each particular species. Some species -matter much more to the health and ecosystem than others do. It's puzzling how -so many people care deeply about the survival of endangered species who do not -seem particularly inclined to care about individual animals. In fact, concern -for species sometimes makes people treat individual animals as if they were -nothing more than abstract representatives of their species. Korsgaard believes -it's important to remember that each individual animal is a center of -subjectivity with a life of his or her own. She argues that it's important to -care about and value communities of animals for the sake of the animals -themselves by virtue of their individual dependence on their respective -communities, but it is not however a reason to a reason for keeping members of -endangered species in zoos, at least unless there's some hope of reestablishing -their communities, but possibly not even then. Keeping animals in zoos at their -own expense is often a case of treating them simply as an abstract -representative of its species and not as an individual with a life of their -own. - -The friends of animals tend to divide themselves into two opposing groups. -Animal welfarists and so-called animal rights theorists. Animal welfarists are -focused on the elimination of cruelty, while animal rights theorists focus in -the idea that it's wrong to use animals as a means to our ends. The word -"right" is sometimes used to refer to a kind of moral claim, a kind of claim -which philosophers associate with what's called a "perfect duty". A right in -this sense is a moral claim that's either absolute, or can only be overridden -by another right; it cannot be overridden simply because it does a lot of good -to override it. The word right is also used to refer to the kind of moral claim -that either is or should be coercively enforced by laws. - -Animal welfarists often advocate interventions in nature to protect wild -animals, for example using contraception to keep populations at reasonable -levels so we don't have to face the question of culling them. The most extreme -view advocated by Jeff McMahan and others is that if we could find a way to -eliminate predator species without harming individuals or upsetting the balance -of nature then we would be obligated to do so, since predation is so cruel. If -we phased out the predators perhaps with contraception, we would of course have -to find a different way to control the populations of prey animals; maybe that -would be through contraception too. - -Such extensive interventions in the case of wild animals would in a way turn -them into domestic animals, animals whose breeding and welfare is dependent on -human beings, which is what we understand "domestic" to mean. Many animal -rights theorists on the other hand oppose all human interaction with animals on -the grounds that we could only be using them for our own ends, and we could -certainly not get their consent. They think this is true even when keeping -pets, a practice which they believe should be phased out. We should of course -take care of the animals who have been bred to be pets already, but we should -stop breeding pets for this purpose now so that the practice of keeping pats -will eventually be eliminated, or so they believe, and think all animals should -be wild. - -Korsgaard notes that both sides advocate for what amounts to be a sweeping -change in the relation between human beings and nature itself. If the -welfarists have their way, all animals would be domestic animals, actively -cared for by human beings. If the rights theorists have their way, all animals -will be wild animals, whom we may only admire at a distance, taking no -responsibility for the cruel aspects of their lives, such as predation and -injury, and as far as possible not interacting with them at all. - -The animal rights position as understood in the philosophical literature mostly -uses rights in the first sense, to refer to an especially strict kind of moral -duty, although many animal rights theorists also champion legal rights for -animals. Korsgaard does not discuss legal rights for animals in Fellow -Creatures, but does discuss them in a paper entitled "The Claims of Animals and -the Needs of Strangers: Two Cases of Imperfect Right", wherein she works out -a Kantian case for animal rights in the natural rights tradition. - -In the last part of the book, Korsgaard talks about why it's so hard for people -to accept the idea that we have a sense of duty toward the other animals. It -isn't simply because the sacrifice of goods and services upon which we -traditionally claim seems demanding, but that she believes people find the idea -of our having duties to other animals unsettling, because given what human -beings are and the ways we live, and what other animals are and the way they -live, it's not possible for us to always treat them rightly. - -We can't control the violence in nature but given our moral standards we can't -simply ignore it either. Rather than face this fact, people pretend that we -have no moral duties to animals at all, or only very weak ones. Learning to -relate rightly with the other animals with whom we share the planet is not just -a matter of being willing to make this or that sacrifice of our interest when -they're at odds with the good of animals, it's a matter of coming to terms with -our relationship with a natural world that is at the same time both our home -and a place governed by standards which are alien to the standards of human -beings. - -Korsgaard thinks we should face this fact squarely, and do as much as we can to -treat those animals with whom we do interact in accordance with our moral -standards. Animals are beings who share a fate with us, they are conscious -creatures, and they are creatures for whom things can be good or bad. That -makes them our fellow creatures and we should treat them as such. |