Hello,
I have been thinking and over-thinking and re-thinking a lot about Abolition versus Welfare. We discussed this issue in class. My course-mates had varying opinions. For instance, the fact that some of my course-mates were Vegan and some were omnivorous illustrates varying attitudes toward animal use. There were also various opinions on the ethics of animal welfare amongst our lecturers. Despite having different viewpoints and attitudes, we all cared greatly for animals and wanted to work to make life better for the other species with whom we share this Earth.
I had an applicant to the MSc programme as me about the issue of abolishing animal use vs. working in animal welfare. I have also noticed that this question comes up when I'm speaking to many Americans who care about animals in the US. It is still something that I am grappling with, but I just found this: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Debating/fallacy.html Even though this is on a website of what I consider to be an extreme organization, I like this balanced explanation. There need not be a sharp division between Abolitionists vs Animal Welfarists. We all want animals to have better lives. I think that the example of cage space is useful to explain this idea. A person who works in Animal Welfare may think that it would be best for zebra finches to live outside in a large social group as they would in the wild, but may publish a report that calls for laboratory finches to have larger cages. If the report improves the welfare of the finches by giving them more space, then the finches have better lives. One of our lecturers told me that she didn't think that we would completely stop using animals for human purposes within her lifetime, so she thought the best way to help the animals would be to improve their housing conditions. That is a pragmatic approach.
These are the 5 Freedoms of Animal Welfare:
1. Freedom from hunger and thirst
2. Freedom from discomfort
3. Freedom from pain, injury and disease
4. Freedom to express normal behaviour
5. Freedom from fear and distress
The Five Freedoms are goals of animal welfare work. They provide a rough framework to help create a concept of welfare, but it can be difficult to meet all of them at once. One goal may conflict with another. For example, freedom from injury and disease can require veterinary procedures that may be somewhat painful. The goal would be to reduce the pain as much as possible by providing analgesia to balance these freedoms, but it is not always possible to achieve both all aspects of all goals at the same time. It may not be possible for anyone to live a life that is free from fear and distress, because these are natural emotions. In reality that goal often means preventing excessive or constant/pro-longed fear or distress. Perhaps the a social group of finches is housed in a very large, enriched, naturalistic aviary without any stressful visitor presence, but to maintain the health of the group, the birds must be caught and taken to a veterinarian once a year. The birds will be free from distress and fear much of the time, but they may experience distress and fear when they are caught at for that annual examination. Perhaps these finches are wild and in their native habitat, but are caught by a researcher and tagged to monitor their population. Catching them could cause fear and distress, so an animal welfarist would recommend ways to reduce fear and distress, maybe by developing smaller tags and gentler handling methods.
Our broad goal is to reduce suffering and improve the lives of non-human animals.
Can that be achieved if we consider animals to be our property??? Should be abolish animal ownership?
I actually don't know. I know that many vegans, including myself, who don't think of animals as property do live with pets. These pets are usually stray or relinquished domestic animals which would otherwise be killed or suffer if they weren't provided with homes. There is a discussion about whether we refer to ourselves as pet "owners" or "guardians". "Guardian" has more of an animal welfare flavor to it and makes me think of the five freedoms.
There is agreement in the UK that animals are sentient beings that deserve respect. I think that respect for animals is very important, regardless of whether or not we label them as "property".
Now I'm going to make you feel uneasy. Try to breathe deeply and know that I am saying this from a place of love. I have really grappled with this for a long time, but I still find it very difficult. This is not the same as animal welfare. I must stress that this is a different topic with different ethics.
This is the thought that always creeps into my mind when I discuss Abolition vs Welfare. It reared its ugly head during our Livestock Auction Welfare Assessment project & it still haunts me.
OK -
People used to be legal property.
If you lived in a place and time when humans were legal property, would you work to improve the welfare of these people or would you work to abolish the practice of keeping humans as property?
Note: The Animal Rights ethical viewpoint is that non-human animals have a right to life and freedom.
People working in the field of Human Rights do work to abolish slavery (yes, unfortunately, slavery still exists in the world) and to improve human well-being/welfare. It is possible to do both. I am a fan of Human Rights. I think is is ethically appalling to begin to think that there is any excuse for humans to be considered property. I don't think that women are the property of men.
My course in animal welfare taught me that Aristotle set up an incorrect hierarchy with rich men at the top, women below them, enslaved people lower down, animals below that level, and plants at the bottom. I reject Aristotle's hierarchy. I prefer modern holistic philosophy. I think that science is showing us that we are all connected parts of an ecosystem and that all people and living beings deserve respect. I studied the Gaia Hypothesis during an Environmental Science class in undergrad which relates to this. I think there is a trend toward systems approaches in science. I think the future of science is analyzing the complex connections between things/beings. Our lectures on Consciousness and my undergraduate lectures in Social Psychology and Neuroscience lead me to think that every part of our Universe is important and deserves respect.
I have also learned that there is diversity and variation in nature. Aristotle's hierarchical concept of nature was too shallow and didn't explain the variation within each of his levels. For instance, if you think all rich men are at the high level, and women are below them, so women have smaller brains and are less intelligent (completely dis-proven by scientific research, by the way), you can't have a concept of neuro-elasticity or changes in intelligence. I recently saw an article about a person with almost no cortex (only a minuscule part of the brain was present) who functioned normally. I heard from a friend who works at a veterinary neurologist that she has seen a few dogs with almost no brain tissue that, amazingly, are normally functioning dogs. Irene Pepperberg and other bird researchers showed the cognitive abilities of birds, animals with very, very different brain structures than ours. Science is starting to reveal amazing things which are demolishing Aristotle's hierarchy.
I believe that to make the world a better place we must value all parts of the Earth. I am sitting on land that was once inhabited by the Powhatan tribe of Native American people. I gather that Native Americans respect all of nature. I also gather that Native Americans have broader gender concepts than we do and accept two-spirit people, while Westerners struggle to accept LGBT+ humans. During this course, I learned that homosexual behavior common in many species of animals and is a normal part of nature.
Darwin was a scientist who was from Shropshire, England. I saw his Origin of Species book at the museum in Edinburgh. I have recently read his text, the Descent of Man. Darwin is credited with shattering many concepts with his work and for improving our understanding of and respect for non-human animals. I was surprised to hear how biased Darwin was in his understanding of humans. In Descent of Man, he talks about how he thinks that Parrots have a concept of property ownership and love, but he also says, in an extremely problematic way, that indigenous people are savages and are less intelligent than Englishmen. I reject his statements about indigenous people. Other researchers showed that indigenous people are no less intelligent and no less cognitive than English people. Once again, our brains are the same size...as hard as that might be for old people like Darwin and Aristotle to understand.
I think it is important to value all people and all animals. I think we can learn a lot from people who have different perspectives than our own. I know that I learned a ton by talking to students from different parts of the world.
I also think we can learn from other species. Many researchers, especially in the US, refer to animals used in their research as "models". For example, mice are "models" of human anxiety and depression. Parrots have been referred to as models for the evolution of human social behavior. I have always thought that other species of animals evolved to have different abilities, and that we can actually learn from these species because they may be better at certain things than humans are. Hear me out. I cannot smell the difference between a ripe or unripe blackberry, but my dog can. My dog cannot see the difference between a red or black blackberry, but I can. Parrots live in huge social flocks. Instead of thinking of them as models of the evolution of human behavior which is a statement that is made with the assumption that humans are somehow "more" socially evolved that birds, despite the obvious problems that people have getting along and the amazing ability of birds to live in huge groups in very close proximity without fighting.... I think we could possibly learn from parrots about how to get along with one another. They are actually really good at it. They are probably way better at it than we are. It may sound crazy, but I think that parrots might respect one another. I know that they have complex social behavior and that African Grey Parrots barely ever have violent fights.
I've observed that humans can be very violent. This is apparent in recent news and in history.
We have very big brains. The science of Psychology is demonstrating that we also have very real cognitive biases. Our minds use short-cuts which evolved to help us survive. One of those short-cuts is called "In-Group Bias" in psychology. It is the shortcut that evolved so that we feel safer with our own family than with other people. We are fearful of others who don't look like us. It seems to be a very natural tendency with an important evolutionary function that helped us to survive. We used to live in family groups or tribes and we couldn't trust certain animals because they would eat us. "In-Group Bias" is a problem. It is why we are afraid of people who do not look like us. There is some fantastic current research by psychologists who are investigating how this causes racial bias. A couple of studies have also shown that In-Group Bias leads us to speciesist thinking. We are more likely to rely on this cognitive shortcut when we are already feeling afraid. We are less likely to feel comfortable around people and species that are not familiar, especially when we are fearful. One study also linked In-Group bias to right-wing conservative politics. (I will find that reference and insert it as soon as I can). Due to a our survival mechanism, we become more conservative when we experience cognitive dissonance, that is, when our core beliefs are challenged by our experiences. This is why people react so surprisingly passionately and aggressively (or "agonistically" as we say in behaviour science) when they see me eat a veggie burger instead of a hot-dog. It is really important to realize that In-Group bias exists and to recognize it.
During this course, we learned about history and culture, including Aristotle's hierarchy, so that we could be aware of all of our own biases when doing our research projects. I think this is a good and rational practice which helps me see through "cultural fog" as dear Dr. Susan Friedman always says when teaching Clinical Animal Behavior. Being aware of my biases allows me to be able to "take of my blinders" and see the bigger picture. It allows me to have my mind blown over and over again by the majesty of the universe and the complexity of humanity. Despite a lot of effort to recognize biases and respect others, even the very best scientists are still somewhat biased because we are all only human.
That reminds me of this song that I love: https://youtu.be/r5yaoMjaAmE (Human by Christina Perri)
I would like to apologize in advance for problematic statements in this post. I don't have a complete understanding of Native American spirituality, but I would like to learn more.
I have biases. I am always trying to recognize biases in my thinking and gaps in my knowledge.
...There is also a possibility that this dissertation period has caused me to completely lose my mind and that this is nonsensical gibberish...
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