Do animals have value as individuals?
The intrinsic moral value of animals raises many questions. If animals have value as individuals, should we save hares from foxes? Haven’t humans always made use of animals?
Animal ethicists have contemplated questions about the value of animals since the 1970s. A central claim has been that an individual’s value cannot be tied to biological factors, intelligence, or social status. This claim is part of human rights thinking: every human has equal intrinsic value regardless of gender, skin color, education, rational abilities and social class. For instance, a mathematically gifted white man who is part of the elite is no more valuable as an individual than a poor black woman with Down syndrome. We should also extend the same logic to non-human animals: species as a biological factor – let alone human forms of intelligence, or social class – does not affect an individual animal’s value. It is therefore not justifiable to disregard the value of a pig based on their species or because they cannot use human language, or indeed on the basis that pigs belong to the class of “farm animal” instead of “pet”.
What, then, gives an animal value? A common claim is that animals’ ability to feel and experience makes them intrinsically valuable beings. The same is true for humans. If the level or form of cognition were the basis for intrinsic value (the most common way of disregarding animals), many human groups from disabled people to small children or old people with dementia would fall outside of having value. This in itself shows that our criteria are flawed. In fact, we do not value other humans because of their rationality or linguistic capabilities. We value them because they are individuals who have their own unique experience of the world – they are “the subjects of their own lives”. The same also holds true for other animals.
As The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness from 2012 asserts, science and society should accept that most of the animal kingdom belongs to the domain of experientiality, of consciousness. Studies in the field of animal cognition show that typical farm animals are considerably more capable than has been traditionally assumed. This research is still emerging, but we already know that chickens, for instance, are even more skilled than primates at difficult tasks related to the use of abstract concepts. Pigs are known for their intelligence, and cows have a significantly more deeply developed emotional life than Western culture has led us to believe. In the light of this ever-expanding data, it is difficult to claim that we can draw an absolute dividing line between humans and other animals.
Today, it is commonly accepted that animals should be treated well and not made to suffer. The intrinsic value of animals, however, forces us to think even more deeply. We need to consider not just avoiding direct, physical pain but also the animal as an individual in a broader sense. We must ask what needs and abilities animals possess and strive to ensure that they are fulfilled. If we take seriously animals’ needs for movement, socializing, taking care of offspring or hunting prey, we soon find that these cannot be respected in animal agriculture. For example, a pig on a factory farm or a fox on a fur farm is simply unable to fulfill their own nature.
Respecting individual value requires that we let other animals live in ways that are intrinsic and natural for them and stop seeing them as tools through which we can pursue things like culinary pleasure, financial gain, or excitement. Consequently, practices such as meat production, fur farming and hunting become suspect.
“Naturalness”
Many people think that the use of animals is “natural” and therefore acceptable. However, in today’s animal agriculture, animals are kept under conditions in which they cannot fulfill their species-typical behavioral needs which developed during their long evolutionary history. The bodies of animals are forced to produce as much profit as fast as possible, with the result that they suffer from serious developmental disorders which, at their worst, make even walking or breathing difficult. Female animals are forced into a continual cycle of pregnancy and giving birth. Babies are often separated from their mothers straight after birth and either killed or transported to a factory farm to be force-fed so that they grow to slaughtering age as fast as possible.
The bodies of animals have become optimized production units, and the animals’ own experiences no longer hold any meaning. Animal agriculture has been industrialized and technologized to the point that animals simply cannot behave like animals anymore. Comparisons to “naturalness” are tragicomical.
There is also another reason why the “naturalness” argument does not work. One of the basic claims of moral philosophy is that we cannot infer how things should be from how they are right now. Facts must be separated from values. History shows that humans as a species have repeatedly been violent, greedy, and shortsighted. However, it does not follow that humans ought to behave violently, greedily and shortsightedly. We are also capable of being something else if we simply stop and think about the justifications of our actions. This, precisely, is the key to morality: the desire to act in a good, justified way instead of blindly following the way things have always been done. The same applies to our relationship with animals: the fact that many cultures have used animals for a long time does not mean that using animals is also justified in our present-day context.
But isn’t nature full of cruelty and killing? The response according to animal rights thinking is that moral thought is a natural capacity for humans – in other words, it is not in any way artificial. Humans are, in fact, fulfilling our basic nature when we act in a morally considered way, including in relation to other animals. The “amorality” of nature cannot be considered an example for human behavior unless we also consistently apply amorality to relationships between humans.
But if humans are the only beings capable of moral reflection, doesn’t that mean that we are the only beings who have moral value? This argument commits a common logical fallacy: the origin and the content of morality get mixed up. The fact that humans generate morality (origin) does not mean that only humans have moral value (content). This logic can be understood through a parallel example: the fact that humans generate aesthetic values does not mean that only humans are aesthetically beautiful. Morality extends also to other animals and the rest of nature – even if it originates from humans.
What about the violence of other species? If we recognize the moral value of animals, shouldn’t we prevent foxes from hunting hares? Species lacking the capacity for moral consideration live according to their own nature. A basic tenet of animal rights is that we should treat experiential, sentient beings in a way that respects their characteristic ways of living and being – thus, a fox has the right to hunt hares, and a wolf to hunt elk. For humans, in turn, it makes sense to follow our innate ability for moral consideration and direct our actions accordingly – including in relation to other animals. Bringing animals into the domain of morality does not in fact lead to absurd implications that we should intervene in the cycles occurring in nature.
In the Western world, it is hard to find situations or places in which using animals for purposes such as food or entertainment would be necessary for human survival. For this reason, respecting the intrinsic value and rights of animals in practice entails a vegan way of life through which the world can unfold for us not only from the point of view of humans but also countless other animals.
Empathy and our cultural image of animals
It is not difficult to find rational grounds for being vegan. Nevertheless, even many people who find these grounds convincing are unwilling to give up the use of animals. The reason is simple: most of our moral decisions are not based on rational thinking, but cultural stereotypes and emotions. We often adhere to culturally absorbed models of behavior as if they are self-evident. For many, the idea of animals as units of production is so obvious that claims about the rights of pigs, for instance, feel ridiculous. At the same time, though, many are unable to provide justifications for the “self-evident” nature of using animals, because this cultural model is being followed unquestioningly. Emotional reactions reinforce cultural stereotypes. Many farm animals inspire, through their assumed dirtiness and inability, disgust and even contempt, and large predators can even inspire hatred. Through these emotions, humans become increasingly alienated from animals and grow even more steadfast in our desire to hold on to the utilization of animals.
For some, self-deception is the main reason for rejecting animal ethics. Many love their cats and dogs, recognize their individuality, and know that this individuality and empathy could also easily be extended to other animals. However, because they are committed to their habits, tastes, and sometimes financial gains from using animals, the result can easily be a state of self-deception. In this state, the person knows something they do not wish to know and strives to suppress the knowledge. They may say they do not want to see photographic material from animal farms or try to deny the authenticity of such materials. It becomes important for them to push far away everything that could penetrate their self-deception.
If cultural stereotypes and emotions drive many people’s relationship with animals, it is important to provide a counterweight to these. Our cultural image of animals needs to change – away from faceless masses and towards bringing individual animals to the foreground. The philosopher Jaques Derrida emphasized that categorizing animals and thereby making them faceless is in itself a form of violence – one that, in turn, enables physical violence. As an alternative, he suggested experiences of individual animals. Perhaps, then, our culture needs a reminder that the cows tied to their stalls and the wolves driven to the brink of extinction are each of them unique beings with their own way of seeing the world.
One important moral feeling is empathy, the ability to resonate with the experience of other beings and share their point of view. Empathy is often precisely what is missing from our relationship with animals: producers and consumers do not want to identify with the experiences of chickens or minks, but instead treat them distantly, with estrangement. Indeed, a future challenge is invoking empathy in a culture that is used to seeing other animals as almost machine-like beings. Just as we recognize that dogs have their own inner world, we might recognize that the same is true for an elk or a cow.
It is time for us to finally consider the point of view of other animals. What does the world look like from the point of view of a pig confined to a gestation crate or a cow tied by their neck to their stall?
Elisa Aaltola
The writer is a Docent in Philosophy at the University of Turku who specializes in ethical questions related to animals, as well as environmental ethics.