Would You "Put Down" Your Child After a Broken Leg?
Professor Gary Steiner alerted
me to an interesting video from the Onion
News Network. It involves a “news” story about a young gymnast who is
“euthanized” by her parents after she suffers a minor, but career-affecting,
injury.
By applying the language that we hear when injured race horses are “put down”
in a context involving a human, we get an interesting insight into how even
those who claim to “love” animals often commodify them and regard them
exclusively as means to our ends.
We also hear expressed the idea that the problem is suffering and that as
long as the actual infliction of death is without pain, no separate moral
question is raised. That is, the act of killing does not, in itself, result in
harm. We easily see the problem in applying this in the human context. Even if
you killed a human painlessly and did while she slept and was unaware that her
death was imminent, you would still have harmed that person. Sure, you would
have harmed her more if you tortured her first and then killed her. But you do
harm her just by killing her without any pain or suffering.
When it comes to animals, most of us fail to see this point. We think that
the problem is suffering–not death. We think that it is acceptable for us to use
animals as long as we treat them “humanely.” That is the whole premise of the
animal welfare approach: it is morally acceptable for humans to use animals as
long as we minimize the suffering involved. This idea is promoted by many animal
advocates and I have written about it before on this blog (see this essay for example) and in
my other writings (it is a central theme of Animals as Persons). It is
precisely this notion that leads animal advocates to support campaigns to
promote “cage-free” eggs rather than spending their time and resources on
educating people about why they should not eat eggs at all. Campaigns for
welfare reform make sense only if the use of animals is morally
acceptable and the issue is only how we treat the animal we use. Many
welfarists are explicit in claiming that killing animals–if done painlessly–does
not raise a moral issue. As the Onion video demonstrates, we would regard that
as absurd in the human context.
It is only our specieism that makes us unable to see that it is equally
absurd in the animal context.
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Hmm, I had to look it up. Not because I could not figure it out, but to verify its authenticity as an actual word, having never heard it before.
Sadly, it is an actual word, meaning just what it looks like. According to Wikipedia:
"Speciesism involves assigning different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was coined by British psychologist Richard D. Ryder in 1973 to denote a prejudice based on physical differences.[1] "I use the word 'speciesism'," he explained two years later, "to describe the widespread discrimination that is practised by man against other species [...]. Speciesism and racism both overlook or underestimate the similarities between the discriminator and those discriminated against."[2]
The term is used mostly by advocates of animal rights and veganarchism, who believe that it is irrational or morally incorrect to regard animals (which are acknowledged to be sentient[3] beings) as mere objects or property. The view is motivated by an acceptance of Darwinism and the logical upshot which suggests that humans as they are today would be just as speciesist towards their lesser evolved forms.[4] Some philosophers and scientists, however, disagree with the condemnation of speciesism, arguing that it is an acceptable position and behaviour, as a form of human supremacy."
I now clearly that I, like Mark Twain before me, suffer terribly from specieism when considering my elected representitives in Congress.
Oh, to answer the absurd posit: No.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
And it really puts it in perspective for those who would like to shoot their horse with a broken leg.