Ethical Duties Based upon Animal Interests
| Autor | David Favre |
| Cargo | Michigan State University College of Law. |
| Páginas | 8-13 |
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While the issues of the existence and the scope of ethical duties by humans toward animals is a robust topic by itself, it is but a preliminary topic to the more difficult issue of what legal rights animals do or ought to have. Ethics are the product of individual thought, but laws are the synthesis of many individual ethics into a social perspective transformed into law. While this author’s primary focus has been on the development of the legal concepts of animal rights, the development of an ethical perspective has also occurred. The following article shares this ethical perspective while leaving to other articles my fuller thoughts about legal developments on behalf of animals1.
The threshold question is: how shall humans organize our thoughts about human relationships with the other beings of this planet What is the characteristic or attribute of animals that make a strong ethical claim upon humans It is the simple science based fact that they are alive, and that, as living beings each individual possesses a personal set of interests. Most ethical constructs exist in order to deal with the reality that humans have interests and these interests often conflict. We recognize that other humans exist and have interests which need to be taken into account in part because we want the reciprocal position, of other humans taking our interests into account when they act. Much ethical discussions focus upon the concept of mutuality of rights and obligations, but this is not helpful when discussing animals, as no one seriously suggest that animals can have ethical duties toward humans. Animal do not have the capacity to understand such duties. This is just a minor dead end of analysis.
Consider the case of young human children. Most adults accept that adult humans have an obligation toward children regardless of their capacity to reciprocate that obligation. As we understand and act upon the important interests of children that need to be supported such as food, water, medical attention, education and emotional support, so can humans understand and act upon the important interests of many animals. Thus, in this same manor, animal interests ought to trigger some obligations in adult humans without reciprocal obligations being imposed upon the animals.
Accepting for the moment that animals have self-interests independent of humans, there is a particular difficulty which needs to be considered. Society has long placed animals into a broad legal category of physical objects labeled as "personal property". This contains chairs, automobiles and computers (but not the software used by them which is intellectual property). So society and many individual within society have treated both animals and inanimate objects as being the same from a legal perspective and for some from an ethical perspective as well. In this view humans have no more duty to a pig than they do to a chair, and act accordingly. In a prior law review article I have set out an argument for the creation of new category of property, "living property". By having the law separate out the living from the non-living then it will be easier for many to consider them separate on both a legal and ethical basis.
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The creation of an interest ethics for animals is based upon the reality that these other living beings, like human beings, have individual interests worthy of our consideration, both within the world of personal morals and ethics, and the world of law. It is therefore important to consider in more detail just what is contemplated by the concept of "interests".
As a starting point, some of the behaviors that most, but not necessarily all, animals engage in and that demonstrate the scope of their interests include:
fighting for continued life
finding and consuming food daily
socialization with others (usually of same species) mating
caring for young
sleeping habits
accessing sunlight (or not)
exercising their inherent mental capacities
moving about in their physical environment
An American writer of the philosophy of the law, Roscoe Pound, starts his five volume analysis of jurisprudence with the proposition that human interests exist and that the resolution of conflicting or competing interests is a primary function of the legal system2. This article urges the same approach for the non-human animals. The concept of animal interests needs to be considered in relation to three fundamental questions. Do animals have interests Can humans be confident enough about understanding these interests to articulate them and give them consideration at a personal level. And finally, do they deserve to be acknowledged within the legal system as a group decision
That living animals have interests is not a matter of philosophy or debate, it is a matter of fact that is derived from the existence and nature of the DNA3that creates each individual being on Earth (pardon this brief foray into the realm of science). Inherent in the nature of the DNA molecule is the fact that it self-replicates. The DNA that is found in living beings are special groups of self-replicating molecules that have evolved increasingly complex packages that help assure the replication of the next generation of DNA molecules4. The package protects the DNA from environmental harm, seeks out optimal conditions for creating the next generation and may actually shelter and support the next generation of DNA until they have the best chance to survive on their own. Some packages learned to breathe oxygen, others to run toward or away from others. Some can see the world with color, others smell the world around them. Many DNA packages have developed the capacity to feel pain and some have a capacity for self-awareness. These specific packages of DNA, which we humans see in part as the animals around us, have evolved to their present state over the millions of years by the rules of natural selection acting upon our DNA. Rocks and cars have no DNA, do not have a capacity to self-replicate and therefore have no interests which might drive an ethical concern for their continued existence.
DNA beings desire to live, will fight to live, and will kill other DNA beings in order to live. To say that a living being has interests is to simply acknowledge that each individual has been endowed by their DNA with a package of skills and capabilities which may be expected to be exercised by the individual in pursuing his or her life. A primary interest of a bat is that it be in darkness during the day, while the turtle will seek out the sun to raise his body temperature and become fully functional. Having evolved within the family of mammals, it is easy to see how some of our primary interests or skills are shared with other mammals. For example, the desire of a mother to care for her young is shared with most mammals, be they sheep, whales or rabbits.
The list set out above is of course just suggestive of what is important to living beings. To the extent that we are comfortable in describing and protecting the interests of humans then we should also be comfortable in understanding at least the basic interests of mammals and perhaps other animals. Our scientific knowledge of other beings seems to grow exponentially each decade. It is not critical to know all the interests of all animals before we proceed to acknowledge the critical interests of some of the animals5.
Change in the legal system is inherently incremental, in part because information comes to us incrementally. As
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suggested above, our society has indeed already started down that path; it is now time to acknowledge the reality and to deal with the issues in a more systemic way.
There is one interest which others suggest is a paramount interest of animals which is not on the list above - that of personal liberty of movement. Assuming that liberty for animals is defined as the ability to self-direct individual movement without the restraint of humans or their fences, then clearly this is not possible in the world of living property, where possession is critical and restraint is presumed6...
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