Human Enough. Perhaps this should be a question rather than a statement. The ambiguity is deliberate, on my part. At what point is an animal considered ‘human enough’ to have rights, and at what stage in our evolution did we disconnect from our own Animality so that we could become ‘human enough’? Human enough for what, and why does it matter? The answer is simple; for animals, it is human enough to matter and for humans, it is human enough to matter more. This is why the struggle for equality beyond humanity exists. For animals to matter more, humans will matter less and this ‘right to matter’ is what is at the core of this blog. Animals Matter.
So where exactly is the metaphorical line drawn in the metaphorical sand? The line which divides humans from animals and which ultimately determines the ‘mattering’. And more importantly who holds the stick that draws the line? As the sands of time shift with the winds of religion, science and feisty debate, so too does the line.In this virgin post, I will release from the stick, the ghostly grappling hands of philosophers, one by one.
We so often humanise those outside of our own species in our fight for their rights, when perhaps we ought to be seeking the animal within ourselves, ‘being animal’, to empathise with that in others. Instead of proclaiming, ‘ but look, they are so much like us’, should we not instead be saying ‘ but look, we are so much like them’? My inner Greek philosopher tells me that this is a ridiculous suggestion.
According to Aristotle (384-322 BCE), it all comes down to positioning; the position of men. What is the rightful position of animals to man according to Aristotle? Firmly at the bottom of the ‘Great chain of being‘ , Scala naturae. Animals dangled there with a limited contribution by virtue of their inferior position to men (this blow lessened slightly by the position of women who again were also inferior to men).
Leaping forward to the 13th century and it was the philosophical-theological leanings of St Thomas Aquinas which positioned animals, again, as existing solely for the purpose of satisfying the needs and desires of humans. Creating a hierarchical- Christian philosophical hybrid, according to Aquinas, animals became the lowest creature in God’s pyramid of creation.
Yes, Aristotle and Aquinas believed that animals served man’s purpose, but does this mean they were making a statement about animal exploitation? Probably not, but it was undoubtedly the future interpretations and re-modeling of Aristotle’s taxonomy and Aquinas’ religious infusion that did.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a french philosopher, divided the world as he saw it, into mind and matter in a process popularised as ‘Cartesian Dualism’, from which his famous maxim Cognito ergo sum, ‘I think, therefore I am’ was derived. In Descarte’s view, animals were mere machines, Automata, incapable of thought, reason, intelligence and self-reflection. Thus, without thought, animals need not exist, except to serve man. In other words, to be exploited.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a German philosopher, also positioned humans as superior to animals based on our capacity for cognition and the possession of a conscious, but he did recognise a place for some ‘duties to animals’. But this was not about animal rights. Instead Kant was positioning humans as superior beings driven by a moral compass, which would veer humanity of course should an animal be mistreated by human hands. In other words Kant considered duties towards animals as merely ‘indirect duties towards humanity’. Kant implored that the heart of a man could be judged by his treatment of animals. Kant did not recognise a capacity for cognition in animals and in fact the exact opposite is the crux of his argument, ‘animals are not self conscious and are merely as a means to an end. That end is man’. According to Kant, tender feelings towards ‘dumb’ animals begets humane feelings toward mankind, which after all is moral. While Kant did advocate, in some sense, for the interests of animals, the principle was based on morality contained within the human context.
Few philosophers extended the concept of moral obligation beyond our own species, but one who did was the founder of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who advocated for the abolition of slavery, equal rights for women and the abolition of corporal punishment. Bentham was perhaps the first modern western philosopher to promote the entitlements of animals, based on what he considered to be a ‘common capacity for suffering’, claiming ‘it is not can they reason, nor can they talk but can the suffer?’ It was the late 1700s which saw one of the most major advances in western thinking about animal welfare when Bentham turned Kant’s philosophy on its head by proposing that animals, as well as humans, had the capacity to feel pain and that the line drawn in the sand by philosophers past, was incorrect.
The philosophical stick was carried by the utilitarian winds to be picked up and held by an Australian born ethicist, Peter Singer. Considered by many to be the founder of the modern movement of animal rights, Singer advocated for equal consideration to be given to animals based on their shared capacity with humans- to suffer. Singer criticises the effects of speciesism, a phenomenon described by his colleague Richard Ryder, in which humans mistreat another species in a way that we would not treat our own. Does this imply that we as humans are more likely to exploit animals that are less like us? How then do we treat species who are closet to our own and what does this mean for Animal Rights?
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” ~
Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869-1948)- Indian Independence Leader
At the end of each of my blogs I will reference any sources that inspired and informed my ramblings.
Texts referred to:
- Bagaric, M. & Akers,K. (2012). Humanising Animals: Civilising Humans. CCH Australian Limited
- Bruce,A. (2012). Animal Law in Australia: An integrated approach. Lexis Nexis
- Grant,C. (2006). The No-Nonsense Guide to Animal Rights. New Internationalist
Human Enough 