Posted by:
Human
(
)
Date: October 22, 2021 01:47PM
Henry Bemis once again called out a few RfMers for their squishy, self-serving sense of morality, as expressed under the guise of “purpose of life”. RfM needs more of this if only because Humankind needs more of this. Whose morality isn’t squishy and self-serving? Of course, no one really wants to discuss morality because no one really wants to think about morality. Why?
To think about morality is to create the possibility of coming up with reasons against our cherished feelings or desires or preferences or actions. No one really wants reasons to deny themselves or reasons for actions they’d much rather not make. Better to not think about it, which is the state of most people’s morality, religious or not, and which properly prompts Bemis’s ire.
So let’s think about subjecting dogs to our medical experiments, including vivisection, shall we?
In 2016 alone more than 800,000 animals were subjected to our experimentation in the US, but since dogs are our best friends, let’s focus on the 61,000 of those animals that were dogs. The dogs that were used of course aren’t the pampered dogs that sit at our feet or the dogs our neighbours are walking and playing with in the parks; no, the dogs come from breeding factories with all the attending cruelties, only to be sent to labs somewhere to be experimented upon. Let’s not be squeamish about this, they are bred to be tortured.
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/17/inside-the-barbaric-u-s-industry-of-dog-experimentation/https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/cambridgeshire-beagle-animal-experiments/Is this wrong?
Let’s dispense with the sentimental arguments first, which aren’t really arguments. People who are against the above are accused of being too sentimental about animals and not caring enough about people. Those levelling this charge are right, the arguments against are often based on sentiment. But so are the arguments for, because preferring people over dogs is just as much a sentiment. They prefer dogs suffer so that grandma has her medication; I suppose PETA types prefer grandma goes without her medication and spare the dogs their suffering. Neither of these positions are arguments, however, so what are the arguments for and against?
To get at this we first have to get to what is the meaning of pain, the topic Bemis and others were discussing. Simply put, is pain evil or not?
If pain is not evil then none of this matters. Both cases for and against animal experimentation are mooted. Neither grandma’s or the beagles’ suffering is an issue.
But most agree that pain is evil, grandma’s and the beagles’, and so the infliction of pain must also be evil. But what of necessary evils, pain inflicted for a greater good? To relieve an addict of the pains of addiction one must inflict the further pain of removing them from the addictive substance. In all cases like this, inflicting pain for a greater good, a justification is necessary. If pain is evil, then the infliction of pain for a purported greater good has to be justified. So what justifies the torture of animals?
An old-fashioned christian has at least some grounds to go on. We have been granted dominion over the earth and all that lives upon it for our own use, and, besides, we have souls and animals do not. For this, C.S. Lewis offered an ingenious argument: saying an animal hasn’t a soul is also saying that an animal has no moral responsibility and will not face an afterlife. Therefore pain can’t be corrective for the animal, it cannot deserve pain, and there is no moral gain from pain here or in an afterlife. An animal’s soullessness is an argument against inflicting pain upon the animals, since inflicting pain is evil. But what of our God granted dominion, our place in an hierarchy between angels above us and animals below us? Well…there’s room for argument.
The scientific (naturalist) argument is even more groundless. Not only are there no such things as souls, in people or animals, but there isn’t really a difference between people and animals, except that we are individually smarter and collectively stronger in our ability to survive and pass on our genes. People belong to just one of the many species of organisms inhabiting the planet. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the scientific argument still boils down to sentiment: we naturally prefer ourselves to other species, we naturally are smarter and stronger than other species, and so if other species must suffer for our happiness, so be it. People of this view have absolutely no grounds to be finger-wagging at the PETA people for their sentimentality. (Maybe a scientist here could make the more correct argument?)
An implication of the scientific argument (or lack thereof) is rarely delved into. If we are all animals, but our collective strength and intelligence allows for our using animals for our purposes, including inflicting pain, why does this not also apply to stronger, smarter people using other people for their purposes, including inflicting pain? Other people are just other animals. Why cannot the smart and strong inflict pain on the stupid and feeble? If people are nothing more than stronger, smarter animals than dogs and monkeys, why not just leave the dogs and monkeys alone and experiment on people directly? Scientifically speaking, I’m sure vivisection upon a fellow human would yield better, more accurate scientific/medical knowledge than vivisection upon a beagle.
Like I said, no one really wants to think about this kind of thing. Medical research is one moral horror, where our food comes from is another. Best to not think about it.
For my own part, everything in me, from first memories to this moment now, convinces me that I am just another animal like any other. But unlike those of the scientific world view, I am also just as convinced that we, animals and humans alike, are souls just as much as we are bodies. At least, that’s how it feels to me, sentimental whether I wish it or not.
Human