Saturday, April 21, 2007

The Moral Defensibilty of Pet Ownership.

To address the question of whether or not owning pets is moral, i will if permitted employ the strategy Regan used in morally discounting zoos and aquariums. According to Utilitarians, to assess whether pet ownership is moral we have to take into account the interests of the animals we call pets as well as the interests of the people directly or indirectly affected by someone having or not having a pet. This as we concluded earlier is information that far exceeds what humans can apprehend and those based on these shortcomings, we can't morally justify ownership of pets.
Secondly, i now employ the theory of holism or what some may call an environmentalist theory. According to holists, the community or group is valuable than the individual thus from time to time, we can sacrifice the individual interests for the the community or species. Now lets apply this to pet ownership; does having a pet put the interests of all animals of that specie at the forefront? I beg to differ that it does because i fail to see how having a goldfish protects the interests of goldfishes in the sea. With the same token, we now try to find a correlation between pet ownership and the rights view. Th rights view suggests that we treat animals with respect and in so doing respect their right to freedom. Pet ownership to the best of my knowledge infringes on the freedom of these we call pets as we find new ways of keeping various animals closer to our homes by means of leashes, fences and cages etc.

With this, i come to a conclusion that although pet ownership has and is a major part of our lives (one to which i have fallen prey to myself), it isn't morally defensible atleast according to utilitarians, holists and various animal ethicists of different dominions.

Animal Consciousness

Through my readings involving animal ethics and the allocation of rights to animals, one question which keeps appearing has been the question of animal consciousness? Do animals have a sense of awareness or a sense of being? Do they know of their existence like we do above all, how does this help us make an argument towards their moral integrity and value? In the same light, while watching a documentary on animal behavior in my 'animal and ethics' class it dawned on me that they might have a sense of being and awareness as i watched the reactions of both wild and domesticated chimps,baboons and even dolphins to mirrors they encountered.

A group of chimps in the wild stumbled upon a trash dump where they found pieces of mirrors and were fascinated by it. Some of these chimps thought their reflections in the mirrors were another monkey and as their curiosity and eagerness to find the monkey in the mirror grew, they finally realized there was no monkey and stopped looking. Whether they stopped out of hopelessness for not finding the other monkey or because they realized it was an image of themselves can only be speculated upon but that's a topic for a different conversation. One way mirrors where installed in dolphin tanks at an aquarium and the dolphins where observed to not react to the image in the mirror. Their calm and somewhat playful behavior after seeing the image of themselves suggested to the experts that they knew it was themselves and not another dolphin which may have brought about a much more excited and jubilant behavior. But some say the dolphins' responses and recognition to the mirror images are to be expected thanks to their evolved brain systems.

Domesticated chimps on the hand; those exposed to human relationships and experience had a similar response to the images in the mirror like the dolphins and although their well-developed may have played a role in this, it is safe to say that their observation of their "owners" , made it a lot easier. Seeing a human open a box with a key will make a intelligent observant monkey look for a key to open the same box if previous attempts to open it without the key fail! Nonetheless, these aforementioned instances bring us to the question of animal consciousness. Are animal conscious of themselves like being able to tell that they are looking at a reflection of themselves and not at some other monkey? Also, are they aware of the fact that they are other animals similar or dissimilar to them (specie wise) and do not just respond to prey and mates on just safety, livelihood instincts and pheromones alone?

Monday, April 16, 2007

Animal Experimentation: a cost-benefit analysis

"Several countries have taken the lead in requiring a cost-benefit analysis that links animal pain (and other harms) to the scientific worthiness and social significance of the experiment's purpose... The concept of making a cost-benefit analysis sounds reasonable but is difficult to apply because the costs and benefits are incommensurable."

When an entrepreneur or regular man or woman embarks or plans on investing in any business of their choice, they do a cost -benefit analysis as they investigate to see how much they would spend (cost)- cost of production, payments of workers, making the products or services available to the public and how much they will make out of this endeavor; benefit-profit. We all do something similar on a daily basis as we make decisions after taken into consideration the most profitable course of action. The above quote from Barbara Orlans' essay National regulations on animal experiments tries to do the same. It suggests to the reader that some countries and individuals in an attempt to justify animal experimentation have sought out to develop a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate animal experimentation; is the benefit of these experiments to humans worth the cost of the animal lives or better yet, could these benefits trump the cost of animal lives so much so that animal experimentation could be morally defensible?

"... the cost and benefits are incommensurable", incommensurable is just a flashy way or saying you can't add, subtract, multiply or divide apples and oranges. The cost-benefit analysis as Orlans' points out may be reasonable or a great tool for clarifying ethical choices but as i pointed out earlier it is incommensurable; we can't evaluate both aspects of this analysis since they lack the same unit of measurement. A cost-benefit analysis could be done for a business inventive because we could evaluate costs and profit in money value (dollars) but they same can't be done for animal lives and human benefits. Apples and oranges to some extent are even commensurable as we can evaluate them based on one unit "fruit units" since they are both fruits and this goes again to show the difficulties of doing so for animal experimentation. Given all these, lets say we could generate a reasonable and reliable cost-benefit analysis of animal experimentation, how do we put value on the lives of these animal? It is relatively easy to evaluate the benefit end of this analysis because we are the beneficiaries but how do we put ourselves in the animals shoes when we can't even value them as ends to themselves rather means to an end-our ends!

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Ethics in Practice

To borrow a great passage from the essay titled; " multicriterial value incrementalism" by David Johnson and Matthew Silliman,

" No intelligent and sensitive person, we suspect would let her neighbor drown to avoid harming a frog or dog-but neither would she feel totally indifferent to the animal's sacrifice..."


Although this passage was aimed at explaining why a moral theory that addressed both "basic moral concern for a wide range of sentient life, and significant moral differences among those beings", i think it is vital for this entry because it helps me address the moral theory behind what is normally considered an act of common sense. If made to choose between saving the life of a cat and fellow human being, irrespective of our relationship to the partied involved, the obvious answer will be the human being but this decision has more to do with our moral obligation and societal expectations rather than a common sense decision. No let's examine the moral basis of this claim. Why is it morally defensible to save a child over a pet you love dearly, why is it morally acceptable to chose if forced to save your child over your pet or better yet some stranger over your beloved animal companion?

Children and domestic animals like cats and dogs on the basis of the egalitarian view are both sentient beings and should have an equal moral value thus treated equally. In the same light, animal rights activist and members of the general public will display their displeasure if you choose to save an animal over a human stranger irrespective of your relationships to either one -human or non-human! The decision to save the human being over the non-human animal prima facie (for their face value) is a great example of ethical values being rooted in our daily actions so much so that we do the morally right thing without much deliberation and pondering.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Animal Therapy?

Recent studies and observations at prisons for pedophiles, sex-offenders and other high-rate criminals reveal decrease in the violent nature and otherwise negative behavior in these criminals over time. Close observations at a maximum facility in Orlando reveal that the criminals exposed to or those who interacted with the farm animals around the prison grounds became subtle and a little more friendly than the rest of the inmates. This got prison officials and experts involved with behavioral trends as well as animal ethics thinking, do animals have a calming effect on these individuals, do these animal interactions simulate human interactions, is it a wild stretch to say animal interactions could lead to positive animal therapy?

As the documentary; To love or To kill: Man vs Animal points out, these criminals barely had any human interactions with the outside world as the spent most of their time with fellow inmates and prison guards and the like. This lets us to believe that their interactions with the farm animals they had to feed filled the void of human relationships and obviously it worked for both parties since the inmates became a lot more calm and subtle behavior wise. Animal therapy or anything in that light may sound like a far stretch, but is it really? Why do we get pets, why do we love our pets and get attached to them the way we do? As we learn from the documentary, people are far more trusting of animals as the employ them to be pets and aids around the house rather than hire humans! Handicap people would employ the help of monkey, dogs or some other well trained animal rather than a human being. The same goes to people who just get pets for the companionship. Some people would whole-heartedly admit to the fact that in their busy lives, human-human relationships are hard to build let alone sustain thus resort to animal-human relationships with pets who soon become a part of our lives and more than just a pet.

This goes to show us how much more valuable animals are or could be once we realize this inherent value. This is a slippery slope as i dare say that they are valuable but do not suggest that we use them or continue to use them to further our own agendas. Animals are more than just sources of hide for leather products, food or laboratory test subjects. The world will be a better place if we realized that animals are passive moral valuers whose subject of a life criterion gives them inherent value of their own thus shouldn't be used as mere receptacles or an ends to a means but as passive moral valuers who deserve to be treated with humanely with respect and justice.

The Price of Freedom

The killing of animals have been justified or at least attempts at this justifications have been made based on our needs to test products on them, need for animal proteins and other nutrients from animal meat and produce etc. However, we have taken this killings to an extreme as animal martyrs have been linked to political holidays like labor day and so forth! In Pennsylvania, labor day is celebrated by killing hundreds of pigeons as people take turns shooting pigeons with guns. Also, we have canned hunting; hunting of deers and other wildlife in fenced in areas sweeping the nation as a favorite pastime for locations proximal to forests or some wildlife.
Some experts explain that these activities like pigeon shootings on labor day or canned hunting every other weekend or so are taking a life of their own and they are result of our freedom. Our freedom as Americans and humans to bear arm and be able to hunt what and sometimes when we want is responsible for this animal brutality.

Holiday celebrations aren't the only celebrations that require animal torture nowadays as killing in the name of religion has been a dominant practice since Adam and Eve first walked the planet. Killing animals as offerings to some higher spirit, as a symbolism for some feast like the break of the past period or in remembrance of some Saint are just a few examples of killing in the name of religion. The Andalusian and most of Spain celebrate certain Christian Saints feast days by torturing bulls,the bulls is stuck with darts and spears as it runs through the town making its way to the church where it is later on killed.

Whether as a celebration of religion or our freedom like through holidays like labor day or whatever, putting animals through such torture is sadistic and cruel!!!!!!!!!!!