Morality of our rights
Re: "The circle of life", (PostBag, April 12).
In a Buddhist nation, it is presumably accepted that animals do have rights. What is less certain is the degree of respect that those rights demand. Even more interesting is how reflecting on animal rights strengthens our understanding of human rights. One hundred years ago, it was "obvious" that women were in many ways inferior to men. If asked, "Why can't women vote?" men, and even many women, thought it reasonable to answer, "Because they're women." Similarly, in 1950s America, when asked, "Why can't black people sit where they like on buses?" whites and perhaps some African Americans thought it sufficient to answer, "Because they're black." And today there are still some who honestly think that "Because they're gay" is a sufficient reason for discrimination against a group of people. These prejudices inherited from our morally less-evolved ancestors teach us that what might seem "obvious" is often as irrational as it is morally wrong.
The same applies to animals. When asked, "Why is it OK to eat pigs, kill street dogs, gobble turkey, or wage chemical warfare on cockroaches?" it is no answer at all to lamely insist, "Because they're not human." Rather, we have to give relevant reasons that distinguish human animals from other animals, just as it is necessary to give relevant reasons if we want to justly discriminate between men and women, between white people and others, or between gay and straight men. In the absence of any relevant reason, such discrimination is nothing but morally indefensible prejudice, however hoary its dogmatic antiquity.
The Buddha realised this in his first precept: "Abstain from causing death." Sadly, his wise teaching is largely rejected by the religion known as Thai Buddhism, which uses legalistic dodging worthy of a Thai politician or influential magnate to subvert the plain intent. The lame response that the pork eater did not herself kill the pig that provides the tasty chop has all the force of a mafia don piously insisting that he did not pull the trigger: If you order paid servants to kill on your behalf, you cause the killing. When we buy chicken at the market or order a juicy steak at a restaurant, we are paying others to kill on our command.
This is where reflecting on animal rights intersects with Mr Setter's comments to deepen our understanding of human rights. We don't have human rights because we are human; rather, we have human rights because of characteristics we have. I agree with the Australian philosopher Peter Singer that the salient characteristic is the capacity to suffer. But this comes in degrees. In the case of ants, their biology limits how much pain they can feel, and there is little reason to suspect them of deep emotional attachments, so killing an ant is much less bad than killing a pig. Pigs do, however, have the same intelligence and other abilities as a newborn human baby, so reason really does suggest that a pig deserves the same respect as a newborn human baby: if the biological abilities, including reasoning ability and emotional attachments are the same, it is not enough to repeat the prejudice that "the baby is human." More importantly, as we mature as human animals, our abilities increase, which the law sensibly recognises when it discriminates between minors and adults. We do not treat a 12-year-old murderer the same way as we treat an adult of normal mental and emotional competence.
Finally, humans have preferences which they can choose as individuals, and we suffer when these preferences are violated. This seems to me a solid basis for respecting human rights. A just state must accordingly allow each individual citizen to exercise his or her unique preferences, with state interference justified only to stop actual harm to others. It follows that free speech must be given strong legal protection, and that, for example, laws against personal drug use, however harmful such use is to the user, are immoral violations of the rights that come with being an adult human being. We might think with good reason that using alcohol or heroin is foolish, but the individual human being has the same rights as we do to form and exercise their own preferences in making such decisions: many choose to enjoy red wine or puff opium, and there can be no justification for state interference in either decision unless the user proceeds to get behind the wheel of a car or engage in some other activity that directly harms or threatens others.
And eating meat? If an animal has a life free of inflicted suffering, for example, freedom to move around and enjoy its animal pleasures, before it is painlessly killed, then it seems OK to enjoy that animal's tasty flesh. But exactly the same considerations make painless abortion acceptable at any stage in a pregnancy and dictate that just law should allow female humans to make such decisions.
The moral issues raised by eating meat give us much to chew on.