In Search of Consistency: Ethics and Animals [Human–Animal Studies] Part 8 potx

376 chapter seven mally, can such patients be allowed to slip out of existence. In rare cases such patients can legally be allowed to die, through legal pro- ceedings initiated by the family and supported by medical person- nel. But such patients can never be killed even if treatments will never improve conditions, even if such patients can never experi- ence the benefits of treatment, and (in the United States) even if such care is clearly unwanted by the patient. Care can be termi- nated, permitting the patient to die, but patients can never be overtly euthanized. Death by starvation or suffocation—deaths brought on by withholding treatment—are necessarily slower and more painful (in the event that any sensations exist) than would be death brought on by outright killing. But Western morality and law covering med- ical practice do not permit killing patients under any condition. These cases highlight an ongoing dilemma in Western societies: When is it permissible to allow an innocent human being to die, and when, if ever, is it permissible to actively end the life of a patient—to kill an innocent human being? But this intriguing dilemma is not the focus of the present work, which asks a question that is less often raised, but which also cries out when examining these six cases: How is it morally acceptable to go to such measures to main- tain innocent human life while killing healthy adults in the full bloom of their lives simply because they are from another species? On what morally relevant grounds do United States surgeons annually “trans- plant about sixty thousand pig heart valves into humans,” destroy- ing the lives of every last one of these sixty thousand hogs in the hope of saving humans beings (“Medical”)? What line of reasoning might protect bodies such as that of Baby Theresa or Anthony Bland that are neither viable nor conscious, while annually killing six mil- lion anymals for “educational” purposes? How can medical person- nel be required to sustain the painful and unnatural life of Matthew Donnelly or Tracy Latimer, how can we invest in the limp little body of Samuel Linares, while nine billion chickens are slaughtered annually to pacify our insatiable taste buds? How can we rationally defend such an outrageous disparity in our treatment of life? There is as yet no generally accepted, morally relevant distinction between all human beings (including anencephalic infants and Anthony Bland) and anymals. An ethic that protects Baby Theresa’s little body while permitting anyone to kill a perfectly viable turkey vulture or Hampshire piglet is prodigiously difficult to justify. Indeed, it is difficult to envisage what sort of morally relevant distinction might the value of innocent human life 377 be found between anymals and all those human beings whose lives are currently protected (including Nancy Cruzan and Baby Theresa). Some are not conscious, and some never have been (nor can be) conscious (Baby Theresa). “Some of them cannot even be called ‘persons’ in the most minimal sense” (Pluhar 62). While Baby Theresa and the three hundred or so other anencephalic infants born in the United States each year are neither sentient nor conscious, the nine billion chickens killed annually are conscious and sentient. Baby Theresa cannot suffer. Every last chicken that died last year suffered. Why do we treat these hens with no regard while paying all due respects to these hopeless human infants? This disparity is usually defended by noting a given quality that is generally shared among humans—though not by all humans—but not thought to be part of the lives of anymals. Homocentrists often cite rationality, creativity, intelligence, language use, and autonomy. Aquinas believed that we were favored by God because we alone were made in God’s intellectual image; Descartes held that beings with minds are all capable of expressing thoughts lin- guistically. Again, however, as others have pointed out, none of these characteristics serves to distinguish all humans from all nonhumans. (Pluhar 46) Patients such as anencephalic infants and the brain dead reveal that innocent human life is valuable in the West with or without lan- guage, rational thought, or even consciousness. Human life has moral standing even when bereft of every attribute that human beings have ever used to set themselves apart from other species, attributes that humans have used to justify protecting human life while exploiting and squandering the lives of anymals. Western ethics places supreme value on innocent human life, especially in comparison with all other life- forms; innocent human life is protected to such a degree as to be truly incomparable with our treatment of any other form of life. In the United States, Baby Theresa is protected, but we can maim or kill anymals at will, so long as those anymals are neither pro- tected as endangered, nor considered to be anyone’s “property.” Anymals can be maimed by tail or ear “docking,” the cutting off of horns or beaks, inbreeding, hormone treatments, branding, tagging, or by catch and release fishing, for example. The philosophical eye- brows of rational beings cannot help but be raised at such an incon- sistent and (thus far) unjustified state of affairs. 378 chapter seven Do we owe an irreversibly comatose, terminally ill human every med- ical effort needed to sustain such “life” as remains for him or her, while a nonhuman animal is due no special consideration whatever ? Should we make heroic efforts for brain-dead humans but, “without any moral compunction,” give lethal injections to blind dogs? Or cause calves suffering and death because we like their tender, “milk-fed” flesh? [H]ow justified [can] such differential treatment really be? (Pluhar 116) Why does this remarkable moral disparity persist so many years after Darwin? How can we believe that every human life has special value, “sanctity,” or dignity that no other animal holds? Why are human beings still not classified as “animals” in Western law when the sci- ences have (cautiously) acknowledged for decades that we are animals? Why doesn’t our scientific classification reveal that Homo sapiens and chimpanzees are more closely related to one another than either one is to any other species? Why do so many of our “scientific” and educational materials discuss primates as if we were separate, dis- tinct from all other primates? Microsoft’s encyclopedia defines pri- mates as an order containing “humans, apes, which are the closest living relatives to humans, monkeys, and some less familiar mam- mals, such as tarsiers, lorises, and lemurs” (Burnie). Webster’s Dictionary defines “primate” as composed of human beings, apes, monkeys, lemurs, and others. Why not state the truth? The primate order con- sists of apes (including human beings), monkeys, tarsiers, and lorises? We are animals; we are apes. We are not other, outside, separate. Our DNA has given us away, exposed us as apes not unlike those we have caged and mocked in zoos and used for our scientific pur- poses. Why do not scientists honor our close affiliation—at least with other primates—by refusing to exploit them for research? Most human beings want to believe that they/we are different, separate, and special. Our belief “that human life has unique value is deeply rooted in our society and is enshrined in our law” (Singer, Writings 125). It is also evident in the sciences. It is fascinating reading about the history of Western scientific classifications of anymals. A book like that of Ernst Mayr, nearly one thousand pages long, reveals the various ways we have attempted to classify anymals, and how wrong we have often been. Part of this sordid history includes scientists that sought symmetry in their classification—they “thought that all taxa should have approximately the same number of species” because the value of innocent human life 379 “taxa of highly uneven size seemed too capricious to be worthy of the planning of the creator” (241). While theology muddied the work of some, arrogance clouded the eyes of others who assumed that there was a scale of perfection, with some anymals being “more per- fect” than others—and with human beings at the top. Understanding evolution scarcely affected this assumption; the language was simply altered so that “more perfect” became “higher,” or “more highly evolved.” This led to further complications, however: “Why should fish be higher than the honeybee? Why should mammals be higher than birds? Is a parasite higher or lower than the free-living form from which it was derived?” (Mayr 242). Mayr attests to how “uncer- tain our understanding of degrees of relationship among organisms still is” in spite of years of work in the field (217). Scientific justifications of human supremacy have worn thin as we learn more about any- mals, and more about the human animal. But the realities of Darwin’s work, while taking hold in the sciences, seem to have no affect on our behavior; we continue to behave as though we are a very spe- cial species, elevated beyond all calculation in the world of life. Christianity is a cornerstone and sustaining force for our con- temporary outlook. Christians often believe that humans, and only humans, are made in the image of God, and that only humans have intrinsic value. Many people justify this ongoing flagrant moral dis- parity on religious grounds, convinced that human life, “no matter how feeble or impaired, is a sacred gift from God” (Olen 268). Why a just and loving god would instigate such a discrepancy in the value of creation is difficult to comprehend, but this justification, however weak, remains a common explanation for the status quo, at least in the Western world. Current convictions regarding the place of humans in the world put us on an entirely different plane. In this view all other life-forms are here for our purposes, and not only can be handled as we so choose, but ought to be dominated and used for our benefit because human beings are the apex of all life. Their worth is measured in terms of human utility. Small wonder there is such a flagrant dis- parity between our respect for the lives of innocent human beings and our treatment of all other life-forms. 380 chapter seven b. Do We Really Value Human Life? Some might argue that human life is not held in such high esteem as the above six cases suggest: Our financial choices do not support this assertion, abortion is permitted, capital punishment is legal in Western nations, and we continue to send soldiers off to kill and be killed. i. economics One might reasonably argue that medical practices in the above six cases have nothing to do with the value of human life, and every- thing to do with the value of a hospital bed. Perhaps the cost of such medical care is a benefit in capitalistic countries and the main- tenance of innocent human life merely incidental. Medical profes- sionals will, no doubt, deny such allegations, but can they honestly believe that they have Tracy Latimer’s best interests in mind? Did they operate on her distorted body out of respect for this dilapi- dated, pain-ravaged little girl? What of Matthew Donnelly? And what of the other infants that perished while Baby Theresa languished in her crib? There seem to be other factors at stake, and no doubt capitalism, greed, and profits have some effect on medical practices. Likely economic forces aside, the point is not that we are morally exemplary in handling human life. The point is that Western moral- ity and law tend to hold “innocent” human life to be incalculably precious while showing no regard for any other form of life, and that this flagrant disparity cannot be rationally defended. While some of those who profit from forcing intensive medical care on people like Matthew Donnelly may be greedy (or malevolent) rather than benevolent, the laws behind these medical practices reveal a deeper and wider commitment, a commitment of the larger Western com- munity to protect vulnerable patients from being hastily dispatched— a commitment to preserve and protect innocent human life. Humans are thought to have rights, and the right to life is perhaps the most fundamental of all human rights. After all, do you want someone else to decide whether or not you ought to continue living? ii. we do not invest in life Still others might argue that the United States does not value life— if we did, we would quit investing in bombs and make basic med- the value of innocent human life 381 ical care available to all citizens. Every day, every hour, life-and- death decisions are made in Western countries based on the avail- ability of resources such as life-sustaining machines and expensive medicines. Every day citizens suffer because of the high cost of med- ical care, and because of the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. Do we really respect human life? Bombs are not the only example of investments that indicate a lack of respect for human life. Starvation kills millions of otherwise perfectly viable human beings while citizens of Western nations dine out on the many legs of a squid, diet to lose the extra pounds they have gained by eating large portions of flesh from cattle and pigs, and engage in rigorous exercise programs to burn off excess calo- ries consumed. If we value life, why do we not prevent human hunger worldwide? These charges are valid, but they do not harm this overarching assertion: Innocent human life is held in extremely high value relative to the lives of anymals. Indeed, the word “extremely” does not seem strong enough to describe the current situation. Human life is not everywhere and always respected at the level evidenced by the above six cases. These cases reveal that Western medical practice and laws regulate the protection and preservation of innocent human life, no matter if they wish to live, no matter if they are in pain, no matter if there is any hope of recovery, no mat- ter if they are viable. Respect for human life is not always so read- ily available, but these six cases reveal an ethic of respect for innocent human life, a respect that has led to medical practice, backed by laws, that protect and preserve innocent human life in nearly any condition where it is possible to do so. iii. abortion With regard to abortion, the question is not whether human life is of value, but rather what constitutes human life. Is a newly fertil- ized egg to be considered a human being, worthy of all the same protections that you, the reader, are granted by the Western legal system? Is the single cell from which a human child develops to be considered a full-fledged human being? Is this single living cell’s life to be granted all the same protections that your life, or my life, is to be granted? Is this single cell to be granted as much protection as the mother, whose life might be endangered by that cell? The question of abortion is not a disagreement about the value of innocent 382 chapter seven human life; it is a question of whether or not a single cell, an embryo, or a fetus, is a “human being.” In the Western world innocent human life is always protected and preserved, but in the case of abortion, it is not always clear what constitutes a human life. Abortion also balances the rights of the mother with those of the developing embryo. Inasmuch as we are unsure when the develop- ing organism inside the mother ought to be considered a human being, complete with human rights, we are certain that the mother is a human being, protected by human rights. iv. we kill people Capital punishment, and our predilection for warfare, situations in which human life is willfully destroyed, are distinct in morally significant ways from our destruction of innocent human life, and are distinct from the killing of anymals. In the case of capital punishment and warfare the individuals killed have moral standing. They can only be killed because both the convicted criminal and the enemy soldier are judged to have made decisions that warrant revoking the standard protec- tion of human life. Criminals who fall victim to the death penalty have moral standing and are only executed on the basis of what is assumed to be their previous wrongdoings. Typically, extensive legal proceedings determine their fate. There is a distinct difference between killing someone because she or he is convicted of committing a heinous crime after extensive legal proceedings and the routine killing of anymals that are by all admissions innocent. Convicted criminals are a small subset of human beings. They go through a rigorous process to determine guilt. They are at all times assumed to have moral standing and are only put to death in carefully prescribed ways if convicted. In contrast, we have decided that anymals have no moral standing and, consequently, can be exploited and executed at will. Any innocent Ayrshire cow may be killed by anyone who “owns” her or by anyone given the go- ahead to do so (by her “owner”). Her life is for sale. In contrast, innocent human beings may never lawfully be slaughtered under any condition by any individual. This is the point: Any innocent cow may be killed; not one innocent human being may be killed. There you have it. Capital punishment is not a case against the value of innocent human life, nor does it in any way compare with our treat- ment of anymal life. the value of innocent human life 383 As with convicted criminals, soldiers have moral standing. Soldiers are assumed to have jeopardized their right to have their lives pro- tected and preserved by engaging in warfare. As convicted serial killers are thought to have forfeited their right to life, soldiers are considered guilty of being in opposition to a given state. Were those same individuals not soldiers fighting against Western countries, but visitors to Western lands, their lives would be granted full protec- tion because every innocent human being has moral standing. In contrast, anymals have no moral standing, and though blameless, are the targets of human exploitation. Warfare and capital punishment both suggest that human life is not everywhere and always protected and preserved by Western nations. In Iraq, the United States (in particular) killed civilians as though they were mannequins in a test scenario simply to “defend our way of life” ( Jhally, Ellis, G. Smith, Bush). Morally speaking, “our way of life” is indefensible in a world of limited resources in which the United States uses considerably more than its share of the wealth. Such wars are not consistent with respect for human life, any more than is our acceptance of world hunger. These events demon- strate that not all innocent human life is respected in all cases. The important point is not that we always respect human life, but that innocent human life is held in extremely high value relative to the lives of anymals—even though anymals are inherently innocent with regard to human morality and law. Our disregard for the lives of certain people at certain times in certain places does not compare with our lack of moral and legal protection for the lives of anymals. Humans, but not anymals, are assumed to have moral standing. The lives of innocent humans, but not the lives of innocent anymals, are pro- tected and preserved. v. rationalizations Those who attempt to blame the innocent in the hope of justifying their actions sometimes accuse anymals of beings stupid, or dumb, and therefore deserving what they get—or don’t get—during their shortened lifetime. Cattle are so dumb, chickens are so stupid—how can we be concerned about their innocent lives? This embarrassing response is a form of “blaming the victim” (Davis, “Holocaust”). An apt example of blaming the victim is when a woman is said to deserve sexual assault because of her intellect, attitude, behavior, 384 chapter seven appearance, or choice of clothing, for example. Anymals do not “deserve” to be treated like chattel; it is simply a habit of ours to do so. While human life cannot be taken without just cause, there is generally thought to be no need to explain the killing of anymals. This is because the former are granted moral standing while the lat- ter are not. Conclusion While world hunger and warfare may cast serious doubt on the depth and extent of our commitment to innocent human life, for citizens living in Western countries there can be no doubt that human life is generally viewed as priceless, and anymal life as cheap and expendable. We debate whether fetuses can be killed in the last trimester, we ponder whether lethal injection is an acceptable method of capital punishment, we consider whether the death penalty is acceptable even for the most dangerous of criminals, and engaging in warfare is always controversial. We hold human life in such high value that we ponder whether those who are suffering terribly, those who are soon to die and wish to die, will be allowed to die. Meanwhile, we unceremoniously slaughter millions of white leghorn chickens for no better reason than that someone will pay to eat their fleshy lit- tle bodies; we euthanize millions of “pets” annually because human beings want their children to witness the miracle of life—puppies and kittens born into the world only to be killed by the hundreds of thousands because no one wants them. (We do not like our chil- dren to witness the horror of euthanizing millions of cats and dogs, however.) We even shoot hundreds of innocent animals for sport and then mount their body parts on the wall as decorations. It is permissible to experiment on any other primate but people are shocked and horrified to learn of painful or deadly experiments that have been done on unwitting human beings, such as the Tuskegee syphilis studies (Regan, Animal 67–89). This moral disparity raises a perplexing dilemma in the case of primates. At some point in history a nonhuman primate gave birth to a “human being.” If we could identify this historic moment of transition, and the primates involved, our current ethical standards would deny moral standing to the parent, while granting moral sta- the value of innocent human life 385 tus to the offspring (a “human”). The mother or father could be exploited and destroyed for science, while the “human” child would be entitled to experiment on their parents. How can such a moral system be defended? But this conundrum is the least of our worries. The six cases pre- sented above reveal a flagrant inconsistency in contemporary Western morality. Human patients can only be permitted to die if they can- not be saved, or in very specific instances, in very carefully moni- tored ways. Even if a human being is not viable, even if a human being feels no pain and has no brain waves, even if a human being is terminally ill and in terrible pain, and even if a human life can only be maintained at tremendous cost to society, Western nations have a moral imperative and legal requirement to preserve innocent human life. The six cases presented are but a few examples of the extreme limits to which Westerners take their collective regard for innocent human life on a day-to-day basis. In most instances any and all inno- cent civilian lives are protected and preserved, even at great cost. “Contrary to the best attempts of several fine philosophers, there is no way to avoid the conclusion that if sentient, conative humans are highly morally significant, then many nonhuman animals are so as well” (Pluhar xiii). What would this extreme value for innocent human life look like if extended, for the sake of consistency, to all life not proven to be different in morally relevant ways? 3. Western Ethics and the Value of Human Life in Practice Consistency and impartiality are critical to sound applied philosophy. Casuistry is a respected tool of philosophical inquiry (see chapter 1). Each indicates that like cases should be treated in a like manner. In almost all instances, regardless of abilities such as language or rea- soning, regardless of functioning (either mentally or biologically in the sense of viability), the moral imperative is to preserve and pro- tect innocent human life. In fact, even if human beings beg to be allowed to die, or beg that their loved ones might be allowed to die, laws and medical practice dictate that human life ought to be pre- served even against such wishes. We have already explored what these cases do not demonstrate— [...]... the will of God: “[A]ll things are determined by the necessity of divine nature for existing and working in a certain way” (Spinoza I, XXIX) Spinoza concludes that all of nature—all that exists—must be God, and must be set out to function in a particular way by the divine: God and the universe are one and the same (Spinoza I, XV) Like Socrates and Plato, Marx and Gandhi, Spinoza was interested in philosophy... preservation of its existence.” In Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics (1632–1677), conatus is the essence of every living entity: “Everything endeavors to persist in its own being”; such 392 chapter eight endeavoring “is nothing else than the actual essence” of a living entity (Spinoza III, VI and VII) In the writings of Spinoza, conatus is virtue, which is power, which is understanding; knowledge of God is the... other primary determinants of moral standing such as “having an interest” and “sentience.” Recall Regan’s clarification of two distinctive types of “interest,” active and passive, such that the good of an entity can be either consciously sought or a passive reality of biological existence: Regan distinguishes between being interested in (active), versus something being in one’s interest (passive) (Narveson,... contemporary Western ethics regarding the protection and preservation of innocent human life minimize harm maxim 399 4 Moral Standing The four theories presented and discussed in this book each present a different set of criteria for moral standing: • • • • Regan: subjects -of- a-life Singer: sentient beings Taylor: natural teleological entities Linzey: all of creation, out of duty to the divine The Minimize Harm... understanding one can have (Spinoza XXV) Spinoza reasons that God, being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, must be everything: “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God” (Spinoza I, XV) If God is everything, then nothing is separate from God and there can be nothing outside of the divine The Almighty dwells in all things, and each entity acts necessarily according... are often interested in things that are not in their interest; they may want to eat nothing minimize harm maxim 401 but candy Adults are not all that different Those addicted to cigarettes want to smoke, but smoking is clearly not in our interest The same is true for drug addicts In fact, those who are interested in eating the flesh of pigs, or in eating at KFC, fall into the same category It is not in. .. of God (Spinoza IV, XXVIII; Schacht 93) Conatus—the endeavor to persist shared by all living entities—is the power of God (Shahan 131) Spinoza viewed God as the root source and ultimate means of self-preservation In Spinoza’s writing, conatus is a natural and virtuous pathway to happiness, power, understanding, and the knowledge of God (Spinoza IV, XXV) For Spinoza, knowing that God figuratively stands... entities have what Spinoza describes—conatus Both plants and animals have a drive to maintain integrity or unity Conatus is fundamental to the “biological nature” of living beings (McGinn 81 –99) Conatus, Webster’s Dictionary notes, is “an effort or striving” to maintain existence, is present in all living entities, and only in living entities Any being lacking this basic biological drive to persist is not... to moral standing DeGrazia writes, “[T]he greater a being’s cognitive complexity, the more moral weight her interests should receive” (249) Philosophers (including Regan and Singer) tend to include consciousness in their assessment of moral standing, generally favoring anymals with larger brains and those we suppose to have more complex mental functioning Peter Singer writes: “Apart from individuals... to pain and suffering, plants and animals are in completely minimize harm maxim 403 different categories because only the latter can suffer But anencephalic infants demonstrate that the presence or absence of pain and suffering are not morally relevant to the preservation and protection of innocent human life In fact, medical personnel were required by law to inadvertently increase the emotional pain of . sixty thousand pig heart valves into humans,” destroy- ing the lives of every last one of these sixty thousand hogs in the hope of saving humans beings (“Medical”)? What line of reasoning might. 18 years of age, and terminally ill with a prognosis of death within six months or the value of innocent human life 387 less. In addition, the attending physician must be licensed in Oregon, and. essence” of a living entity (Spinoza III, VI and VII). In the writings of Spinoza, conatus is virtue, which is power, which is understanding; knowledge of God is the greatest understanding one