Our Obligations to the Non-human

Obligations to animals and to the environment are overlapping but separable issues. In terms of prioritization, environmental considerations must take precedence over the interests of individual animals, just as national interests take precedence over those of private citizens. Every one of us, human and non-human alike, depends on the stability and sustainability of the whole ecosystem.

Regardless of how moral obligations are grounded, a being, entity, community, or system has direct moral standing if we have moral obligations towards it. How moral obligations are to be grounded may make a significant difference in which entities we will recognize as having moral standing, but differing meta-ethical grounds may display more flexibility than textbook introductions lead us to expect. For instance, a Judeo-Christian theology of Dominion over Nature has been blamed for an anthropocentric attitude regarding animals and nature as having only instrumental value for humans; however, (a) as Boss admits, such an attitude can and does have roots in pre-Christian, Hellenistic teleological dualism, and (b) the Judeo-Christian tradition could also be appealed to in support of a more ecologically and zoologically respectful theology of Stewardship of Nature.

Normatively, a general ethical theory might commit us to any one of the following:

We have moral obligations to only some humans, but not all, namely members of our own community, to whom we are tied by kinship, culture, and social contract (communitarianism/chauvinism).
We have moral obligations to all humans, but not to non-humans (anthropocentrism/speciesism).
We have moral obligations to all sentient beings, that is beings capable of a degree of awareness and thus some degree of suffering (sentientism).
Narrow sentientism defines sentience as including a sellf-concept or having psychological “interests”).
Broad sentientism defines sentience as including any being capable of suffering. Singer’s utilitarian advocacy of animal liberation is an example of this view.
We have obligations to all living things, simply because they are living things (biocentrism)
We have moral obligations to whole ecosystems, “the Land,” or the “Biotic Community,” or even the biotic community plus inanimate features of the landscape (ecocentrism.

Meta-bioethics: the possible grounds for obligations to either animals or the environment. Grounds for recognizing moral standing might be:

Religious Grounds
Contractarianism
Deontology (Kantian Ethics)
Rights Theory
Consequentialist Theories
Virtue Ethics

A. Religious Grounds

1. Monotheism and God’s Intent. Claims are regularly made in religious discourse about the will of the Creator, what God intended in terms of human attitudes toward the rest of creation. While an anthropomorphic theism has historically been invoked to justify anthropocentrism and an exploitive view of nature, it could and has been alleged to provide a foundation for the natural phenome, species, and ecosystems having intrinsic value. A theist might advocates a theology of Stewardship, arguing that God put us on Earth to take care of Nature, not conquer it. Augustine’s affirmation of the goodness of the created order (Confessions VII) might be appealed to here. Amendments might have to be made to classical Natural Law theory, the Thomistic version of which is very anthropocentric.

2. Monism and the Recognition of Universal Interdependence. South Asian traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism suggest a second religious path: recognizing one’s identity with all nature (Atman is Brahman), or one’s commonality with the situation of all suffering beings (interdependent arising).

B. Contractualist Views

Conservative Interpretations. The view that moral obligations are grounded in an implicit social contract has been used to justify relativism, nationalism, racism, and, of course speciesism. If rights do not exist in nature, but are created by implicit mutual agreement within human commonwealths, then moral obligations to humans not in the commonwealth are contingent upon the collective choices of those who are. Humans outside the contract, being human, can of course be brought into a commonwealth over time, and differing local communities can enter larger agreements and form larger communities; but non-humans cannot even potentially enter into such mutual agreements and exist only as things that may be treated better or worse as conventional agreement dictates. Arguments that we should care for animals’ welfare, if they are to count as moral arguments at all, will essentially be virtue-based appeals to the kind of people we should be, not grounded in any intrinsic rights or interests of the animals themselves.
Liberal “contractualist” rhetoric might suggest that a social agreement can and does exist between humans and animals, who do, after all, enter mutually beneficial arrangements. While it may be objected that this sort of talk is highly metaphorical, it can be countered that social contract discourse in general rests on a metaphor. The agreements are typically implicit or tacit, the sense in which the social contract is entered into is usually “voluntary” only in a passive sense. Nel Noddings and Vicki Hearne should be looked at here. But this sort of rhetoric has limitations that suggest it cannot be employed to make a strong case for significant reform. Noddings, for instance, suggests that while we may have moral obligations toward domestic animals with which we voluntarily enter into and stand in a relationship of care, not such relation, and hence no such obligation, obtains between humans and the animals they use for food.

C. Deontology

It is well-known that Kant held that moral obligations only held toward rational agents, and that animals were not rational agents in the relevant sense. At most, according to Kant, humans have an “imperfect obligation” not to harden themselves through cruelty toward animals; but this is an obligation we have to ourselves, not to the animal, and it extends only to causing “unnecessary” suffering—i.e., cruelty for sport or entertainment—it does not preclude, at least in Kant’s formulation, human-caused animal suffering that occurs in the normal course of using animals for “necessary” human benefits. Deontologists have differed on what constituted a necessary human benefit. C. S. Lewis ate meat, but opposed animal vivisection for animal research on virtue-ethical grounds similar to Kant’s. In any case, following the Categorical Imperative that one should act only on a maxim which one could at the same time will to be a universal law, there appears to be no “practical contradiction” in willing a world where rational agents use animals as means to their ends, even if not all rational agents would will such a world. On the other hand, there might well be a "practical contradiction" in universalizing disregard for the environment, and this would include any ecologically unsound and unsustainable exploitation of animals. Surely, if the answer to "What if everyone did that?" is that there would be no biotic community to exploit, no Land to inhabit, and thus ultimately no more people to do the exploiting, that would literally be the practical contradiction to end all practical contradictions. It follows that in addition to rational agents, the biotic community as a whole must be admitted into the Kant's "Kingdom of Ends." (Turning from Kant to Rawls for a moment, it might be wondered what conception of sort of laws the hypothetical legislators in the “Original Position” would enact, if they didn’t know what species they would be?)

D. Rights Theories

Rights theorists differ sharply on the topic of animal rights. Some, like Tom Regan, see rights as based in interests, and arguing that animals have very palpable interests in avoiding suffering, argue that humans are flagrantly, brutally, and systematically violating animals rights. Carl Cohen, among many others, sees the rights-based-in-interests view as fundamentally misguided. Cohen argues that rights are claims made by moral agents, where both the claimant and the target of the claim are governed by the same principles. Even without the talk of moral agency, and even if many non-human animals have a kind morality, it is clear that not all not all species are subject to the same principles of action. An entity can be the target of a claim only if the entity is capable of acknowledging and responding to that claim. Another person can violate my rights, a tornado or lightning-bolt cannot; and arguably, neither could a large, hungry predator; the predator, like the tornado or the lightning-bolt, is a “force of nature.” If animals have rights even as mere moral patients, they have them only in relation to moral agents capable of recognizing such claims and choosing whether or not to engage in predation. A pig might have a "claim" against us, but an antelope cannot have a claim against a lion. (And for that matter, humans can’t have a right-claim against a lion in the wild, either.)
This amounts to a point in favor of the rights view over utilitarianism when it comes to animal welfare. If, as the utilitarian position insists, all suffering is morally relevant in a way such that we are obligated to prevent or end suffering tout court, then whether the suffering of animals is human-caused seems only incidental, and natural predation takes on a sinister hue. Michael Pollen quotes Peter Singer as saying, “It must be admitted . . . that the existence of carnivorous animals does pose one problem for the ethics of Animal Liberation, and that is whether we should do anything about it.” Pollens adds a quote from Matthew Scully, who calls predation “’the intrinsic evil nature’s design . . . among the hardest of all things to fathom’,” and then concludes, “A deep Puritan streak pervades animal rights activists, an abiding discomfort not only with our animality, but with the animals’ animality too.”[1] But, on one point at least, Pollen seems to misspeak here: actual animal rights activists, insofar as they can be theoretically distinguished from purely utilitarian Animal Liberationists, needn’t have any problem with natural animal predation. If animal have rights at all, these rights are claims that can only target moral agents capable of recognizing them, so animal rights are seldom or never violated by other animals in the wild. We are not, on such a conception of rights, obligated to interfere with predation in nature. Suffering is a datum of existence, or at least an inevitable part of any ecosystem that includes complex chordates such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
The real limits of the rights-orientation come to the fore when considering the welfare of whole eco-systems.

E. Consequentialist Theories

Utilitarianism
Classical utilitarianism, with its emphasis on pleasure and suffering, provides a possible foundation for a non-individualistic sentientism.

Eco-centric Consequentialism
a. Michael Pollen points out, the existence of each and every one of us is predicated on the past deaths of billions of living beings. Should “universal compassion” for the suffering of all beings would not only mean we should be concerned for the beings whose suffering is a direct result of our own actions, but also animal suffering owing to natural causes? That would be impossible ask for limited creatures, creatures, with hearts and bodies evolved for dealing only with others in our specific localities. If all suffering is morally relevant, then the suffering that occurs in non-human nature is morally relevant. But we cannot be concerned for the suffering of the antelope at the expense of the lion. The lion is not evil. In as much as the Buddha-nature is in all things, it is in the lion as much as it is in the antelope. But we cannot enter into discourse with the brute predator, we cannot persuade nature’s carnivores to give up meat, there will be no dialogue between the lion and the lamb. As long as there is life on Earth, the Bodhisattva ideal (of universal nirvana) will never be brought to fulfillment; we should hope it will never be brought to fulfillment, for that could only happen with the end of animal life on this planet. When (1) negative utilitarianism is combined with the idea that (2) we are responsible not only for the suffering directly caused by our actions, but for the suffering our inaction permits, as in Singer’s well-known argument for assistance to the Third World, and these combined with (3) anti-speciesism, the consequences are problematic. A caveat that we are only obligated to minimized human-caused animal suffering seems ad hoc; a case of reverse speciesism. To say that human-caused suffering is to be prevented, but then exempt suffering caused by non-human causes on the grounds that humans are rational agents who can choose their actions rather than brutes who can only follow their natures, seems to invoke the very same essentialist distinction (of dubious moral relevance) used by the speciesist to privilege human suffering. One might argue that while the distinction is of dubious moral relevance in discount pain caused, it is perfectly relevant when considering human versus non-human agents and when the onus falls on other human agents to interfere. Alternatively, we can give up one of the premise, (1), (2), or (3), listed above. Alternatively, one might claim that rights exist only as claims against members of a community that are capable of responding to them, thus, the right to life, whether that of a human being or an antelope, is a claim binding other humans, but not to lions, tigers, or bears. It would further follow from this presumption that we have no obligation to interfere with the natural order of predation as it occurs in nature, even if does cause suffering.
The case against the absolute moral relevance of pain might be made by ecocentrism. In “The Land Ethic,” Aldo Leopold proposed the following normative formula: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Leopold’s moderate ecocentrism is a viable alternative to utilitarianism. It gives additional grounds for opposing many of the worst abuses of animals such as factory farming, while not absolutely opposing hunting or meat-consumption by natural omnivores such as humans. It also might warrant or even demand the killing of animals, especially when invading species without natural predators in a given ecosystem have been introduced and threaten that system’s stability and diversity.

Leopold grounds his ethic in his understanding of ecology.

An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from antisocial conduct. These are two definitions of one thing. The thing [an ethic or moral code] has its origin in the tendency of interdependent individuals or groups to evolve modes of co-operation. The ecologist calls these symbioses.

So moral codes, moralities, are arrangements that allow individuals a better chance of survival and replication by reciprocal benefaction. That is why moral systems evolve in the first place. A moral system that ultimately leads to societal collapse is the extensional definition of a failed moral system.

Leopold holds that ethics have been evolving, from codes dealing only with relations between individuals, to ones dealing with relations of the individual to the society (or society to society?), to now, hopefully, the relation between human individuals to the biotic community as a whole. He calls this step an “evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity,” suggesting that a purely economic valuation of the natural order is ultimately unsustainable: we must become more eco-centric if we are to survive. (In the sense that our survival depends on the sustainability of the biotic community, Leopold’s ethic seems not wholly divorced from anthropocentrism).

Traditional conservationism is an anthropocentric managerial ethic that looks at nature solely as a set of economic resources. Since maybe 95% (or more) the biotic community (wildflowers, songbirds, wolves, etc.) have no economic value, their welfare is generally not factored into land-management calculations. But Leopold argues that the stability of the biotic community as a whole depends on more than the 5% of the community that can be put to economic use, thus entitling the non-economic species (and their habitats) to preservation.
Implausible arguments to give economic importance to under-valued species is no substitute for this more holistic view, which would count even the alpha-predators as co-citizens of the biotic community with a right not to be exterminate for the sake sf some real or imagined benefit to certain humans. The interdependence of economic and non-economic species needs to be better understood.
Parceling preservation to reserves and parks interspersed with more economically valuable (and much less regulated) private lands relegates entire biotic communities to extinction over large areas.

The biotic pyramid consists of many layers, soil at the base, plants, insects, birds and rodents, etc., on up to alpha predators. Its levels are defined and united by the inhabitants of that level consume. Its complex chains of interdependence are even now not fully understood, but its stability proves it to be a complex structure. It started out flat and wide, new levels and chains of interaction evolving slowly over geologic time. Human intervention has led to rapid, widespread change resulting is mass extinctions, and destabilization of entire ecological systems.

So Leopold advocates that we stop thinking of nature (decent land use) in exclusively economic terms. Our criteria should be ecological and aesthetic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Some Questions about “The Land Ethic”

Should we adopt Leopold’s land ethic? What difficulties would arise?
(Costs and benefits? “Ecological fascism”?)
Should economic considerations at least sometimes trump ecological ones? When? (What criteria should we use to decide when?)
How would a “Leopoldian” eco-centrist respond to t the objection that since “you can’t derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’,” that:
No private inclination to treat Nature in a certain way is any better or worse than any other?
b. There is “no normative definition of the natural state” (Baxter) that we ought to strive toward?
Leopold implies that our own survival ultimately depends on the integrity of the biotic pyramid. Does this make his argument subtly anthropocentric? If so, what would a totally (or more completely) non-anthropocentric environmental ethic look like?

Four Arguments for Vegetarianism

Animal Suffering
Human Nutrition and the Imperfect Obligation to maximize one’s health.
Global Justice and Industrial Animal Farming
Global Ecology and Industrial Animal Farming

[1] Pollen, Michael. “An Animal’s Place,” New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2002.