Response to Jake

Jake asked if it was morally acceptable to own another being. I think this is indeed very important and that we have been bumping over it heavily in class. Allow me to clarify before I begin that I am justifying the ownership of beings as they refer to animals. In no way do I make a defense of slavery or any other time of human bondage.

Now, in regards to animals, I do think it can be morally acceptable to own an animal. I believe we have touched upon the concerns that most people would have regarding care, treatment, etc. of said animal. The animal deserves respect and care just like that of any other being. I mean this in the very basic sense of the word because I believe you could retort here by saying slavery would then be justified. But slavery is a sort of subjection of the human soul and a degradation of existence. I do not think you can aptly compare the two here.

But, I believe that if the animal is cared for with the utmost of respect, then you start to ascend to a mutual existence instead of ownership. For example, I own a small robo-dwarf hamster. He is just over two months old and he's a lot of fun. Left to his own devices, he may have been killed by now. He may have stayed in the pet store until he died from sickness or loneliness. Or worse yet, he may have made his way into the hands of someone cruel. In this strange sense, it's as if I've rescued him. And as he grows, I continue to rescue him.

I provide his food, his home, safety, security, and anything else he will need to live out his three to four years of life. In the wild, it is likely that this highly intelligent rodent would not last long. But here, we have formed a mutual bond. My care for his company has caused us to reach a mutual understanding of sorts. And though he does try to escape once in awhile out of pure curiosity, he will not resist coming back into my hand and heading back into the cage.

In the same broader sense, many animals function in this way. I recall the YouTube clip that went viral a couple years back which showed a lion that was raised in captivity for many years of its life. After having lived in the wild for many years, the old caretaker returned and the animal 'attacked' him with love. If you haven't see this, then check it out.

So yes, I would assert ownership is acceptable, because I think it ultimately transcends that. It puts us back in touch with something we have lost: connections with other beings.

Question: Is animal ownership the key to ending animal cruelty?

Epstein Goes to Extremes

In his article entitled The Dangerous Claims of the Animal Rights Movement, Richard Epstein asserts that the assertions Steve Wise and other animal rights activists are not only wrong, but also a danger to human society. After outlining some of the "crazy ideas" of animal rights activists, Epstein states that, "...if systematically implemented, would pose a mortal threat to human society that few human beings would, or should, accept" (604). I have another assertion: Epstein is the radical here. Allow me to clarify.

First, Epstein really doesn't present a morally-based argument very well. He simply states that, "...one difference stands out: through thick and thin, animals do not have the capacity of higher cognitive language and thought that characterizes human beings as a species..." (601). Really? Is that so? I seem to recall that dolphins and other aquatic animals have a very developed form of underwater communication. In fact, we have discussed that many animals speak in ways of their own that we cannot understand. I assert that this is their language, just as French would be to a French person. I do not understand it, but I know it to be language.

Next, Epstein makes this wild assertion that by equating human and ape DNA together, animal rights activists must also consider that we may be related to the horse, dog and cow (602). This is like asserting that the hamster and the shark have the same DNA. Evolution has weeded out and replaced strands of DNA within species. An ignorance of modern science will produce a comment like Epstein's. It just so happens that humans and apes are evolved from the same strands. Thus, we still share a good amount of traits.

But not long after this is where Epstein starts to get radical in his own right. He states that, "The early society that did not rely on animals for food, for labor, for warfare was the society that did not survive to yield the heightened moral sensibilities of today" (602). What a statement! I seem to recall that most Native Americans did not just hunt, but also gathered. In fact, gathering was a major source of nutrition for them. And as I also recall, it was the meat-eating, profit-desiring, animal-slaughtering Westerner that took care of them.

However, Epstein doesn't stop there. He then takes the extreme of Gary Francione and somehow applies it to the entire animal rights movement. The theory of one man is not science. Just as one idea is not philosophy. So do not suggest it.

And finally, Epstein goes off his rocker with the statement, "The principle of first possession should therefore block us from clearing the land for farms, homes, and factories unless we can find ways to make just compensation to each individual animal for its own losses" (603). How is this even a suggestion? And how was it extrapolated? Human beings have lived peacefully with animals, in co-habitation, for thousands of years. The system we have now, one of pollution and exploitation, has perverted such an existence. We do owe animals a respect, just as we would hopefully respect another human's right to property and life.

But in the end, Epstein does not believe this. He follows up in summation by saying, "We should not undermine, as would surely be the case, the liberty and dignity of human beings by treating animals their moral equals and legal peers" (604). So there you have it. Epstein is the radical here. He picks apart the radicals of this movement and then makes a statement of his own which is just as radical. Giving animals liberty and dignity would no doubt trash human ability to have the same.

I do apologize if I come across snide or angered, but I am. And I hope that someone responds to my claims here, as well as Epstein's, in order to spur some discussion.

Question: Do you believe that animals can have freedom and liberty, even if we still utilize their resources and their labor? (This sort of goes back to our discussion of space and care for animals; sorry to bring it back it but I don't think it was done justice.)

Garbarino's Limited Argument

In James Garbarino's essay Protecting Children and Animals from Abuse: A Trans-Species Concept of Caring, he essentially argues that the ability to harm animals is the ability to harm children, and vice versa. He states very simply that, "...using the occasion of investigating animal abuse as an opportunity to do an assessment of the quality of care for any children cohabiting with the animals in question" (562).

This assertion is oftentimes validated in every day society. Many serial killers once began with the mutilation of animals as a means towards mutilation of humans. Take for example, Ted Bundy, who was executed in the 1980's for the murders of 22 women. It was discovered in the trial that Bundy had participated in the mutilation of squirrels for fun as a young boy. This had fueled his "blood-thirst" as he matured. This too validates Garbarino's point that "...shame based on the denial of basic human rights is the engine that drives the violence machine" (563).

However much I may agree with Garbarino, I think his assertions are very narrow-minded. Indeed, children and animals exhibit much of the same "innocence" as one another. They both can be easily subjected to tortures and terrors that no grown human would, in the right moral mind, go along with. However, couldn't any human be subjected to the tortures of the sadistic human mind? I believe there are 22 dead women because of one.

What I am suggesting is that Garbarino should broaden the assertion to include the fact that human beings who participate in animal harm are more likely to harm human beings as a whole. Just because children are innocent does not mean that they are the only subjects of this abuse. As Garbarino stated, a denial of basic human rights will fuel the violence machine. There is no limit to where violence begins or ends. It simply is.

Question: Do you think that the abuse of animals, even by those who consume meat from and support CAFOs, is a reflection of a morally degraded society as a whole? Have we become complacent to cruelty?

A Response to Jake

Jake posits the question: What would be the economic ramifications of switching to a hunter-gatherer method?

It's a hard one to answer and I've taken some time to reflect on it. I think it is asked from the point of view of which I have spoken of. The day we moved away from hunter-gatherer, we moved into the capitalist system in which every man and woman fights for himself. This then turned into every man and woman fighting for the gold which humankind made "valuable". And it's never stopped turning then. Economic ramifications were indeed considered in the first switch to agrarian, but only with the mindset of profit. As Billy Joel would say, the fire's burnin' since the (and I'm adding my own artistic abilities here) tiller started churnin'.

So maybe a switch runs a little bit deeper? Sure, Mary will have to find other jobs and continue on in complacent misery. So is the way the system is set up. Maybe I've struck a nerve not just with the food system, but possibly the 'system' as a whole. I believe I suggested in an earlier entry that the food system today is a representation, pure and simple, of the capitalist mind. And if I did not assert it, then here I am. Profit, profit, profit. No matter the cost.

Maybe by considering the economic ramifications of this switch, we are considering the ramifications of a complete economic change. Statistics show that there is enough food in the world to feed its populous, for now. Simply, certain men and women keep it locked up and out of reach of the poor "children". So maybe by tearing down the dam of factory-farming and opening up the flood of hunter-gatherer, you are entering a new age. Maybe it is our way of getting what Marx wanted us to. In order to bring food to all, we have to share that food. And in sharing that food, maybe it will open up new doors to sharing other things. We will possibly enter that utopian socialist republic we never should have stopped seeking.

I suppose this entry might seem idealistic, but that is truly my question: Is a push toward the hunter-gatherer system not just a change in the way we eat, but in the way we think and live? Is it a final abandonment of capitalist ideals and a push to Utopian socialism?

Response to Bryan A

Bryan asked, "What is the most practical way to get people to experience the actual process of getting meat to the dinner table?...Do you think this would change people’s attitudes towards eating meat?". I think he answers his question a bit in his own post and I have answered it in a previous. However, I think his answer was arrived at a bit differently.

I say this because I truly do wonder if humanity would have as much "trouble" killing an animal as they would actual trouble. Let me clarify this otherwise coded little statement. I believe that the United States is a society based on aggressiveness and violence. Our television shows, video games, movies, our international policies, and even our very own food system reflect this. It is obvious that we as a people have no problem killing things. However, we would have trouble actually learning how to track down and kill an animal. Therein lies your "trouble". There are a very small percentage of people who would actually know how to gather the meat they desire. And the few people who did would dominate. This couples with my assertion that a return to hunter-gatherer system would create a whole new feudal system.

I don't make this assertion blindly. Anyone who has read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemna would realize this to be true. The whole point of his book is not just to point out corruptions in the food system, but also to examine if it is possible to create a meal through "hunter-gatherer" methods. He spends a significant amount of time in the hills of Northern California trying to hunt wild boards and finds it to be more than just a challenge: it's near impossible, even for his hunting companion who has been doing so for several years. On top of this, he cannot gather the mushrooms or yeast for the rest of his meal. If my memory serves me right (though please correct me if wrong), he had to buy things from a store to complete the meal for his guests. Thus, proving my assertions in literature.

So in short, there really is no 'practical' way to get back to hunter-gatherer methods. And even if there were, I think you would see people eat less and less meat by far. Slowly, the factory farm system may even collapse on itself.

Thus, I raise the question of if it is possible to incrementally eliminate the factory food system with the slow push of the hunter-gatherer method? Should we teach this to our children instead of grocery bought foods? Or is it too late? Several questions here, but I'd really like to see the discussion and thoughts because it's something I have given a lot of thought to.

My Argument for Hunting

I know, shocking, right? Coming from a newly devout vegetarian and strong animal rights advocate, this must seem quite the shocker. However, this section on hunting has broadened my perspectives on something and helped me adapt a few others. First off, I think it's important for me to mention that I have no problem whatsoever with people who eat meat. That is a choice you must reconcile, or not, with yourself. Though I do have a problem with the way in which the meat was produced (referring here to the dominance of CAFOs as our meat source), I do not hold anyone who consumes it at fault.

That said, I will state simply that I believe subsistence hunting is the only defensible type of hunting. I will explain this assertion.

First, we discussed the bushmen who rely on gorilla meat as the only source of food in their area. How can we tell them there are other alternatives when there clearly are not? In more advanced societies like the one we live our daily lives in, there are indeed other ways to obtain all the necessary nutrients to survive. But this is not true of say, as Alex brought up, people living in the Himalayas who will without a doubt have to consume a yak's meat, drink its milk, and use its fur for warmth in order to survive. Thus, you cannot tell these people their actions are wrong or immoral. There is a justification of survival here for humans that exists just so much so for animals. An animal would kill to survive, so I justify it here on that basis.

The second reason I justify subsistence hunting is because it was a practice which naturally regulated our ecosystem in the, what now seems, long-distant past. I stated today in class that "By not interfering, you are interfering"; and I stand by this statement 110%. What I mean by it is that when humans do not hunt animals, as was necessary like mentioned above, they do become "overpopulated" and tend to eventually trample on one another. Example: There are too many coyotes and not enough food; not only will the food source be forced towards extinction, but the coyotes will also as they cannot feed their lot.

It's really a common sense concept. And I suppose I will have to go against my own statement that saying "animal overpopulation" is a human interest, because I just proposed it was an animal one too. In the same right, humans lived with wild animal populations in complete peace for thousands of years. This was done so by subsistence hunting which kept everything completely in check.

Concepts around respect or morality seem to bog down a conversation which could otherwise be solved relatively easily. And I believe I just have resolved it. As for trophy hunting, it is out of the question simply because it serves no purpose except to satisfy a cruel and vile human interest. There is no point and it should not continue.