Rock is Dead?

So says Jerry Coyne, but I think he's listening to the wrong stuff.  Using the word "rock" loosely (he seems to be using it loosely too), I think there's plenty of awesome music out there.  Our house playlist (by which I mean, what all four of us enjoy) includes:  Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Kanye West, Bjork, Sigur Ros, Wilco, PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Alabama Shakes, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Daft Punk, The Antlers.  And that's not including the vast amount of music my kids play and that I can't keep track of because I'm soooo old and too obsessive (I tend to listen to the same stuff over and over again).  I don't think I enjoy this music less than I enjoyed Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, etc., etc., way back when.  In honor of rock, let's have a song. I do truly love this (as well as the entire album):

Is it Speciesist to Support Animal Welfare Regulations? (part 2)

As he promised to do a while back, Gary Francione has put an essay on his website about why (he thinks) it's speciesist to support animal welfare regulations.  In a nutshell, he says those who support animal welfare regulations must, to be consistent, also support campaigns for humane rape, humane child molestation, and humane chattel slavery.  If you support animal welfare regulations but not the latter three, there's no other plausible explanation but speciesism.

Philosophy and Social Norm Violation

Philosophers enjoy being weird.  My logic professor in graduate school taught in his bare feet.  I know faculty members who swear in class, ask students what they're listening to on their iPods, throw candy to students who make good points, indulge in frequent political diatribes, and wear converse sneakers despite being over the age of 50.  I personally don't act too too weird, though I'm probably weirder (in my students' eyes) than I think.

Now, this all seems pretty so-what-ish, but Rebecca Kukla, guest blogging for Brian Leiter, says it's a problem.  Social norm violation has some connection to sexual norm violation, she says.  But even apart from that, she seems to think there's a problem:

The problem with all of this (or one of the many problems) is, again, that it comes at the cost of the most vulnerable members of the profession - those likely to be the targets of the boundary-violations and judgmental expectations rather than their instigators. Likewise it leaves us with no recourse when we feel violated. If we complain, we are just not understanding how to be a cool philosopher, or we are not intellectual enough to get the joke. It also generally puts women, people of color, and other disciplinary minorities in a different kind of impossible position: we can’t get away with the hobo look without repercussions, but we also get dismissed if we look like we care about social conventions...

I'm puzzled how it is that anyone is the "target" of non-sexual "boundary-violations" -- the ones that come to my mind, anyway -- and how it is that anyone is "violated."  But yes, I agree that "we can't get away with the hobo look" or whatever it might be -- candy-throwing, bare feet.    Eccentricity seems to be associated with brilliance in men, but not in women.  So women have fewer tools in their "how to impress" toolbox. 

Yeah, it's true and it's irritating, but I can't imagine expecting men to cut back on the eccentricity, just because it's not as much of an option for women.  And as for there being any connection to sexual norm violation, I'm just not seeing it. All the barefoot candy-throwing faculty members I know are not sexual norm violators in the slightest.  It's an intriguing possibility, but to believe there's any correlation between one type of norm violation and another, I'd need to see some evidence.

Frankenburgers

Last week's unveiling of the world's first cultured beef burger got everyone talking about "Frankenburgers".  The "Franken--" prefix is often used when scientists start concocting things that were once more or less natural.  Articles about genetically modified foods are always about "frankenfood".  People even talk about "frankenbabies", in connection with IVF.

This summer I decided it was about time I read the eponymous novel, the original Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.  Surely I've seen a Frankenstein movie or two, but honestly, I remembered very little from them.  In fact, I didn't even remember that Frankenstein is the scientist, not the monster (blush!).  So Frankenburgers are Frankenburgers because of their Frankenstein-like designers.  The monster actually has no name.

Speaking of the monster, his travails are the book's biggest surprise.  I always assumed he was innately monstrous, and the scientist was supposed to be fully to blame for the terrible outcome--the monster's murderous rampage.  When we tinker with nature, there's hell to pay--that was (I assumed) the message.  But no, no, no!  The monster is actually born innocent!  He seems dangerous when he first opens his eyes.  Frankenstein recounts--

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs ... Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance.  A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.  I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.

OK, so the monster is hideous.  But we later find out that he's completely innocent, and in fact kind, sensitive, and a lover of virtue.  Frankenstein cleverly runs out of his apartment in horror, not bothering to lock the door. The monster leaves and makes his way to the country, hiding in a hovel from which he observes a family who live in a small hut. He becomes their secret angel, bringing them firewood and food. He loves the good he sees in them, and longs for their society. Knowing he's a horror to look at, he first introduces himself to the blind old father of the family, but sadly, others come home before he's secured the old man's friendship, and they all turn on him.  The same thing happens when he makes a second attempt to bond with human beings--his kindness is repaid with cruelty because he's so hideous.  This is what makes him seek revenge against Frankenstein, not any innate monstrosity. And we even learn, at the end of the book, that he never enjoyed killing off Frankenstein's loved ones.

The moral of the story is not just that Frankenstein got carried away in his laboratory. Yes, he did, but the message is not "scientific over-reaching makes monstrosity"; the message is "scientific over-reaching PLUS human prejudice makes monstrosity."  Without the prejudice, there wouldn't have been any monstrosity.  The world would have just had one more citizen, a humanoid fashioned out of dead parts, and not nice to look at, but sociable, and good, and virtuous. 

The real message of Frankenstein, then, is "watch out for unbounded science" and  "watch out for prejudice."  If the new cultured beef burgers are "Frankenfood" that doesn't mean they're inherently problematic (if you appreciate the prefix in the context of the novel). They could be all to the good, and we could just be prejudiced against them.

Now, it would be nice to end this little foray into 19th century horror fiction with a "hip hip hooray!" for cultured beef burgers.  A nice, clear conclusion would be "We should drop our prejudices against lab meat and welcome the cultured beef burger.  After all, they certainly have many advantages--they can fulfill the human desire for meat while causing no animal suffering and using up far fewer resources.  Yay!"  Unfortunately, I'm about to take a hair-pin turn here.  Prejudice is bad, and maybe we do feel prejudiced against lab meat.  But is our negative reaction to lab meat mere prejudice?

*****

Another book I've been reading this summer is Cooked, by Michael Pollan.  This is a wonderful book on many levels--especially for people who love to cook.  Pollan is a great writer on what you might call the "meaning" of food.  He writes about what we want from food, what we value about it.  Reading Pollan, you start to realize that we want certain sensations from food, certain tastes, but we want much more.  When we eat, we want to have various thoughts and associations.  Some desirable thoughts (not all consistent with each other) are--

• This is homemade.
• We made this together.
• The ingredients grew from the soil, under the sun.
• I am eating what my friends and family are eating.
• I am eating what they eat, so finding out about their culture.
• This reminds me of the sea.
• People have been eating this way for thousands of years.
• The way I eat is like the way wild animals eat.
• This is artistic.
• etc

Frankenburgers wouldn't allow us to have a food experience with the right penumbra of thoughts, feelings, and associations. If we care about all these other dimensions of food experience -- we want food that's from the garden, homemade, rooted in long-standing culture, artistic, shared by family and friends -- is that prejudiced in the nefarious, Frankenstein-the book sense?   I think not.  I'm not drawn to Frankenburgers,  like I am to the lentil salad I'm about to eat for lunch, and I think that's for respectable reasons.  So yes, prejudiced be damned ... and that's one of the messages of Frankenstein.  And yes, we shouldn't reject Frankenfood for reasons of mere prejudice.  But people's doubts about it are not entirely a matter of prejudice.

*****

Puzzle:  how is it that food can have good Pollanesque associations if you know it comes from the bodies of formerly living animals, who were killed so you could eat?  Pollan's book is quite unapologetically meaty.  Joy of eating, for him, doesn't preclude killing.  That, in itself, is food for thought.

Some we love, some we eat, some we love and eat*

Update 8/13:  More buffalo pictures, sent by a reader.  This is what you get when you have a powerful camera and talent at photography!  These are calves in Custer State Park and/or Yellowstone.

***

I'm finally back from a long road trip through 8 states--Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado.

Starting at Badlands National Park in South Dakota, we started to get pretty obsessed with buffalo.  You can find yourself in the middle of a large herd, as you drive along the main ridge.

 

 

Later on in Yellowstone National Park, my daughter and I took a wonderful hike along buffalo trails.  With a few in the distance (we'd figured out by that point it wasn't smart to get too close), we walked along their dust-bathing spots, through their mud/crap, and even beside their bones.

It was interesting learning about the history of the buffalo, at various visitor's centers.  Plus, we got to visit two buffalo jumps--well, "push" would be a better word.  Native Americans hunted buffalo by scaring them into stampeding off a cliff.  Here's a buffalo "jump" in Badlands, plus two shots of the Vore buffalo jump excavation in Wyoming. (For an account of what went on at these places, there's a great deal of eye-opening information in The Ecological Indian, by Shepard Krech. The book's message in a nutshell:  "not so ecological as you might have thought")

Buffalophilia is much in evidence, all over the plains states.  For example, the "buffs" are the football team at Western Texas A&M.  "Buffs" even worship Jesus Christ!

A fascinating and puzzling thing is that all this buffalo-love doesn't preclude killing  Here's a stuffed buffalo at the highly perplexing "Wall Drugs" tourist attraction in Wall, South Dakota.

 

And then there's all the buffalo burgers. At the very same national park, you can admire buffalo in the afternoon and then eat them for dinner.  Here's a menu at Yellowstone:

The three categories (loved, hated, eaten) are not separate, except at the extremes.  We've come to love dogs and cats as family members, so don't eat them.  But there's love for buffalo too--or perhaps awe, respect, reverence, admiration.  Those more distant, less cuddly, emotions seem to be combinable with killing and eating, for many people.  There are both religious and naturalistic ways for people to think about this:  God made buffalo for us to use and eat. Or: it's the way of nature for life to come from death -- we would be showing contempt for animals if we refused to participate. Something like that.

Now that we are home, I have my very own buffalo who's going to buffalo me into getting a lot done before the semester begins at the end of the month.  This is Flo (yes, a boy named "Flo").

Finally, a wonderful song--"Now that the buffalo's gone" by one of my favorite singers, Buffy St. Marie. (The version on this album is more powerful--the whole album is great.)



And let's not fail to savor the fact that "buffalo" can be used 8 times in a row in a meaningful, grammatical English sentence.

*Title inspired by the book Some we love, some we hate, some we eat, by Hal Herzog

It's a Matter of Respect

I'm home from one trip and about to embark on another, so obviously I'm too busy for blogging--there's cleaning and packing to do, right?  Right, but that would be so boring....

Some long drives in the past week gave me time to think about animal welfare regulation just a little more.  In my past posts, I attempted to think about the ethics of welfare regulation "ad hominem" -- in the technical sense (see sense #2, here).  That is, starting from my opponent's premises.  My opponent draws a very sharp line between rights and welfare. Being raised as food violates a pig's rights, and then there is the separate question of the pig's welfare--how miserable or happy is the pig, hour to hour? My opponent is bothered by over-attention to welfare issues, because the rights violation is the underlying problem. 

Now, I think even with this sharp dichotomy, there's a good case for welfare regulations, as I initially argued here (before I saw the Francione-Friedrich debate), but that post was, as I say, "ad hominem" (in the technical sense!) -- I was going along with an approach to animal ethics that isn't actually my own, and thinking about where it leads (and doesn't lead).  But what about how these issues look from my own standpoint?

The primary thing we owe to animals (I argue, in my book Animalkind: What We Owe to Animals), is respect. Animals in extreme captivity are disrespected because they can't be themselves--pigs can't be pigs, fish can't be fish.  A calf who can't so much as turn around is treated not as an animal but as a meat machine (to use Ruth Harrison's excellent phrase).   We may need to supplement respect-talk with compassion-talk, but I think respect is primary.  And it's appropriate even when we are uncertain what an animal is feeling.  Do animals habituate to horrible environments and stop feeling or caring?  Even if they did, that wouldn't make those environments OK -- they're still disrespectful. 

Suppose a zoo gives the animals more space, or an animal farm releases a pig to a group pen or pasture.  On my view, this isn't a superficial change-- a change to mere welfare, as opposed to rights -- it's a change to what really matters.  It's more respectful.  The animal is now at least more able to exercise his or her natural capacities.  Now, very small changes aren't worth huge amounts of effort or money, so on this respect account, we can still debate how to focus animal advocacy.  But an increase in liberty is a meaningful change, not a surface change.

Now, imagine we gradually make life better for a pig. We respectfully increase the size of the pen, then we respectfully allow the pig out doors, and we respectfully allow herd behavior, etc.  We don't clip ears or dock tails, and so on.  Nevertheless, the day comes when the animal is slaughtered and turned into barbecue (aside: Dear Michael Pollan, I am not enjoying the description of a pig barbecue in part I of your new book Cooked).  How can any of the previous improvements be respectful if the last stage is so disrespectful?

You could try to make a case that killing animals doesn't harm them, but I think that's false (see Animalkind, p. 128-31).  No, it's clearly harmful and disrespectful to kill an animal for the pleasure of a good barbecue (even assuming this pleasure runs pretty deep -- and we should allow that it does).  But respect comes in degrees--you have done far more of what you should, if you allow an animal to exercise his or her natural capacities prior to death.  I don't think the purpose of the whole system (using animals for our benefit) annuls all the apparent progress.  And in any case, the whole system doesn't have to be completely brought down, in the name of respect.   I'm prepared to countenance situations in which respectful people will pursue their own good at the expense of animals--i.e. situations in which harming or killing is a necessary evil. (Animalkind embraces this "necessity" standard and gives examples of justifiable use.)

Anyhow, the point is that on some views in animal ethics, we can help animals in two radically different, incommensurable ways--by securing their rights and by improving their welfare -- with one way running deeper than the other. But on other views, there's just one basic parameter--such as respect.  So we do better by animals on the very same parameter, whether we give them more liberty or go much further and save them from all exploitation. This sort of "one parameter not two" approach can take many forms.  The respect approach in my book is one; the capacities approach in Martha Nussbaum's book Frontiers of Justice also eschews any sharp rights/welfare distinction; and of course utilitarians take a one parameter approach, with that one parameter being well-being (rights, they say, are "nonsense upon stilts").

Because I think in terms of respect, I don't really feel at home with the whole welfare vs. rights debate -- it's not really my debate.  For that reason, this could very well be my last post on the subject.  Time to get back to ... well, all sorts of philosophy-stuff on my desk, but mostly packing.

Watch and Enjoy!

Fabulous take down of the Texas legislature. I love this woman!

Is it speciesist to support animal welfare regulations?

Over at this blog (see end of comments) Gary Francione has said he's writing an essay tentatively called "The Welfare/Regulationist Approach is Deeply Speciesist."  He says he will be done in a few days or next week, by which time I'm not going to be around to read or respond (real life responsibilities are going to get in the way).

The tentative title got me thinking though.  It's certainly true that some who pursue a welfare/regulationist approach are speciesist.  Suppose you watch video footage of factory farms and slaughterhouses, and you think "Got it!  We'll just make the stalls a little bigger and then this will all be OK." If you think that's a sufficient response, you've pretty much got to think "They're just animals" or something a little more sophisticated, but along those lines. Certainly, footage of people being treated in some comparably cruel way  would make us feel total horror, and we'd instantly commit ourselves to getting them released.  Slow, small welfare changes would seem petty, like a waste of time.

But now, consider all the animal activists who support regulations.  They are not in that speciesist state of mind.  They are not attending to factory farms and slaughter houses, and thinking "A few changes will make this just fine."  They are attending to a much bigger picture.  The picture consists of the factory farms and slaughter houses and a wider society where the above speciesist response is very deeply entrenched and nearly universal.  "We have to regulate this while also pursuing liberation" isn't a first order response to animal farming, it's a second order response to the way others regard animal farming.  Where the first order response is speciest, the second order response is (in my view) just plain realistic.

Ah well, back to other things. I look forward to reading Prof. Francione's essay -- when it's out, and when I'm back at my desk.

Dueling Analogies

Alright, one more post on animal welfare regulations (like Prop. 2 in California, which requires animal housing large enough so the animal can turn around).  In my last post I talked about five cases in which progressives have supported both "revolution" for victims of an injustice and reform.  I argued that victims want both and are entitled to both.  Animals are entitled to both too, if they matter as individuals (and yes, they do).  The analogies were these--

1. Amnesty International works for better conditions for prisoners on death row (reform), while also working to abolish the death penalty (basic change).  
2. Feminists work for driving rights for women in Saudia Arabia (reform), while also aiming to change the underlying sexist social structures (basic change).
3. There used to be packed orphanages in the UK (and elsewhere) because adoption wasn't legal -- children were consigned to these places with no exit.  Children's advocates worked to make orphanages kinder places (reform) while also working to legalize adoption (basic change).
4. While waiting for child labor to be outright abolished (basic change), you could of course work for shorter working hours (reform).
5. It's perfectly reasonable that anti-slavery abolitionists worked to stop parents and children being separated in auctions (reform), while at the same time working to abolish the whole institution of slavery (basic change).

Elsewhere (see the comments on this post), I see a completely different set of analogies being used to argue against animal welfare regulations.  Some of the anti-regulation analogies are these (roughly--I've paraphrased)--

1. A law against sow crates is like an anti-bellum law limiting lashes to 40 instead of 42.
2. Persuading people to buy more humane products (e.g. pork produced without sow crates) is like persuading a rapist to rape less violently.
3. Advocating more humane treatment of farm animals is like advocating more humane treatment of people in death camps during the Holocaust.

My analogies are better for these reasons--

• In all of my cases, the reform is significant.  The prisoners clearly do want more time outside their cells, more phone calls, etc; women care about being able to drive; orphans want fewer beatings; child laborers want shorter hours; slave families don't want to be broken up.  This is important because I think animal can tell the difference between being able to turn around and not being able to turn around -- it matters to them. Anti-regulation analogy #1 is flawed because I very much doubt you can even tell the difference between being lashed 40 times rather than 42. 
• In my scenarios, the reformers want reform and more.   Everyone knows AI wants an end to the death penalty; everyone knows feminists want full equality for women, not just driving rights; etc. etc. We need this in a good analogy, because the pro-reform animal organizations and advocates are just as clear that they want reform and more.  In the anti-regulation analogies, we seem to be invited to imagine advocacy groups who want reform but nothing more.  I think that's why we recoil.  We think "How appalling to just want to make slavery, rape, and death camps more humane!"  Fill in the details so that the reform groups want reform and more, and now these reformers don't seem so bad -- in fact not bad at all.  Think about a covert German anti-Nazi group with influence on gas chamber designers. They shouldn't exert influence to make death easier for millions?  No--that just can't be right.
• In my analogies there's no implied approval.  That's important, because supporting reforms of the animal industry doesn't imply approval.  Some who support reform are adamantly opposed to animal consumption. In the anti-regulation analogies, implied approval is at least hinted at.  What's the idea in case #2? Will  rape counselors sit down with rapists and just ask them to tone it down a bit?  With more realistic details, the implied approval and absurdity disappears.  Suppose we try to deter violence by imposing harsher punishments for aggravated rape instead of punishing all rapists alike.  Now separately targeting the "how" and "that" of rape doesn't seem so absurd! In fact, this is exactly what the criminal justice system does.  And (surely) rightly so.

So--I'm not impressed with the anti-regulation analogies. I think they're flawed.  But perhaps "enough with the analogies". I support Prop. 2 for the sake of pigs, and not because pigs are analogous to death row prisoners, orphans, slaves, or anyone else. I think I can grasp the critical considerations without the aid of comparisons, which inevitably both illuminate and obfuscate.  If we must have analogies, though, let's have the right ones.

Animal Rights Reading List

I've been blogging more about animal issues lately, though these days I'm mostly focused on working on my book (er, manuscript until it has a publisher) about parenthood.  One reason why: because I'm gearing up to teach my course on animal rights again in the fall.  The course is cross-listed as both an upper-level philosophy course and a "cultural formations" class, which means (basically) it's supposed to be interdisciplinary. This year's books are (in case anyone's interested):

Jean Kazez, Animalkind: What We Owe to Animals

I'm using this for its survey content, not so much to turn students into Kazezians.

 Victoria Braithwaite, Do Fish Feel Pain?

 Nice way to delve deeply into questions about animal minds.

 Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson, Zoopolis

Super interesting book. Should dogs become citizens?  What is a citizen?  Looking forward to discussing this and a multitude of other good questions raised by the book.

Michael Faber, Under the Skin

This excellent novel could be read as an argument against human meat-consumption, but is the argument any good? Coming this year: the movie version starring Scarlett Johansson.  If there is a god in heaven, it will come out on time for class discussion.

Susan Armstrong and Richard Botzler, The Animal Ethics Reader

There's lots to choose from in here, and the collection is pleasingly interdisciplinary.  (Negatives:  The font his terrifyingly small. Even my youthful students complain.  The articles are excessively edited.  No, not another elipsis!)

Francione vs. Friedrich

Several years ago I wrote a series of posts countering Gary Francione's opposition to animal welfare legislation (Should Humane Farm Reform Be Opposed and The Thirsty Cow, for example).  The point I made, in various ways, is that someone who recognizes animals as having rights ought to support humane reforms.  Last week I made the argument again (The Rights Argument for Regulation) and now I see this was the subject of a debate between Francione and Bruce Friedrich (of Farm Sanctuary) at a national animal rights conference in June.  Friedrich's case against Francione is masterful. You can watch here.

One of Friedrich's main (and most compelling) points was that in analogous situations involving human beings, activists pursue both reform and basic change.

• Amnesty International works for better conditions for prisoners on death row (reform), while also working to abolish the death penalty (basic change).  
• Feminists work for driving rights for women in Saudia Arabia (reform), while also aiming to change the underlying sexist social structures (basic change).

There are lots and lots of examples like this.  Some more that come to mind--

• There used to be packed orphanages in the UK (and elsewhere) because adoption wasn't legal -- children were consigned to these places with no exit.  Children's advocates worked to make orphanages kinder places (reform) while also working to legalize adoption (basic change).
• While waiting for child labor to be outright abolished (basic change), you could of course work for shorter working hours (reform).
• It's perfectly reasonable that anti-slavery abolitionists worked to stop parents and children being separated in auctions (reform), while at the same time working to abolish the whole institution of slavery (basic change).

When we think of these human cases, it's very clear what the victims of these injustices want from us--they want humane reforms and they want abolition of the basic evil involved.  The day to day misery matters to victims, just as the underlying injustice does.  Friedrich says, and I agree:  we ought to see situations involving animals in just the same way.  It's speciesist to do otherwise.

Francione objects that reforms will satisfy the welfare-sensitive consumer, enticing her to buy more animal products, and so creating even more victims.  Friedrich challenges this both on empirical and moral grounds.  He says humane reforms have actually caused a decrease in demand for animal products (he cites this Kansas study*).  But he wisely also objects to seeing this as a decisive issue. 

To avoid speciesism, we have to keep the analogies in mind.  Are we really going to reject prison reforms for fear that voters will become more comfortable with the death penalty? Are we going to oppose shorter working hours for children to avoid postponing the day when child labor is abolished?  Should we let the Saudi Arabian women continue being prohibited from driving to maintain high levels of outrage about basic gender injustice in that society?

No, these choices would obviously be morally atrocious. We can't use victims of injustice, not even for the noble purpose of ending the injustice.  We can't do that to human victims, so why can we do it to animal victims?**

Perhaps the problem is that Francione sees animals (unlike humans) as having just one right--the right not to be treated as a resource.  A veal calf in a narrow stall who can't turn around is treated as a resource. But equally, a veal calf in a group stall who can turn around is treated as a resource.  As far as rights go -- given the way Francione thinks about rights -- there's no progress there.  The calf is a little less miserable, but the rights situation is unchanged.

But this is a very narrow way of thinking about rights.  For one thing, the right not to be treated as a resource surely flows from a more basic right-- perhaps the right not be used solely as a means.  Suppose Amnesty International decides to turn a blind eye to terrible conditions on death row, thinking this will speed abolition of the death penalty.  Prisoners wouldn't be treated as a resource (nobody's going to turn them into dinner), but they would be treated (by AI) as a means.  There's a rights violation in either case.  It's similarly a rights violation to deliberately turn a blind eye to mistreatment of animals in order to lower consumer demand for animal products.

Even that -- the right not to be treated solely as a means --  isn't all there is to it. We think animals shouldn't be treated solely as a means because they are volitional, sentient beings with desires of their own.  What could be more inconsistent with that than tying up or caging animals, making it impossible for them to move?  If animals have rights, liberty rights have to be considered basic. 

So there's a rights argument for animal welfare regulations after all.  There's a rights argument that can hold up even if more liberty for animals meant more demand for animal products from welfare-sensitive consumers and therefore more animals raised and killed for food.


___________________

* About the Kansas study.  From this summary, it looks as thought the study lumps together all kinds of "animal welfare media coverage".  This could be coverage of impending welfare regulations like California Proposition 2. It could be coverage of atrocities in a meat-packing plant.  If all this coverage combined lowers animal product consumption, it doesn't follow that coverage of Prop 2 type regulations alone would lower animal product consumption.  That's what Francione contests -- he says Prop 2 type regulations will increase demand for animal products. This study very possibly (I need to read the whole thing) neither confirms nor disconfirms his position. 

**  Would rights have to be respected no matter what -- even if the demand for animal products doubled or tripled after regulations were tightened?  It makes sense to think about it in terms of the human parallels. If working for a reform will double or triple the basic injustice, or postpone rectification of the basic injustice for 100 years, or some such ... well, most rights are "prima facie". Other considerations can trump the obligation to respect them and work for them.  But in such cases, we've got to have good verification of a large negative effect. I don't think we have that in the case at hand.

The Rights Argument for Regulation

After recently having a lively debate with someone about the ethics of regulating the farm animal industry, I found myself trying to set up my argument formally (in my mind).  So why not share?

(1) Most farm animals live in abysmal conditions and die miserable deaths.

(2) Some regulations do/would offer significant improvement to the lives of farm animals (e.g. regulations that improve the slaughter process; regulations that would abolish sow crates).

(3) Individual animals benefitted by such improvements have a prima facie right to them from people who control their living conditions, irrespective of whether those improvements would save any lives (prima facie means: so long as that right is not outweighed).

Analogy involving people instead of animals:  suppose in a Korean orphanage, the living conditions are awful (tiny beds, horrible food, no affection, etc.) and half that enter wind up dying.   If children have rights, they have a right to better food, bigger beds, etc., even if those improvements won't increase the adoption rate and reduce the death rate.  Likewise, if animals have rights at all, they have a right to reasonable living conditions when humans control their living conditions, even if improvements won't change the basic fact that they're being used and killed for food.

(3) Farm animals' rights to reasonable living conditions (from people who control their living conditions) can be outweighed, if (a) respecting their rights would create a huge increase in demand for animal products, thus significantly increasing the number raised and killed for food or (b) respecting their rights would eliminate a huge decrease that could otherwise be predicted; the rights are not outweighed if these increases/decreases are small.

Analogy involving people instead of animals: suppose we respect the rights of the kids in the orphanage, and that assuages the concern of some would-be adopters, who thus don't adopt.  There's a small increase in children who die in the orphanage.  Or alternatively, imagine that without the improvements, there would have been a decrease in children who would die.  These consequences are surely not a reason to leave the kids in their tiny beds, eating horrible food, and receiving no affection. The kids in the orphanage, we are assuming, have rights!  We could only begin to think of preserving the squalor if improvements would have hugely negative consequences--for example, leading to half as many adoptions, twice as many deaths.  Such is the nature of rights.  Respecting them doesn't always dovetail with maximizing utility.

(4)  Improving the conditions of farm animals won't create a huge increase in demand for animal products, if any increase at all; and improving conditions won't preempt a huge decrease that could otherwise be anticipated.

Discussion: (a) Improving conditions won't generate a huge increase in demand; such an increase presupposes that there are now a large number of people not eating animal products because of the way animals are treated.  But the very small number of vegans and vegetarians says otherwise.  (b) Improving conditions won't preempt a huge decrease that could otherwise be predicted.  All the evidence is that affluence is the main driver of animal product consumption.  When people have more money, they consume more animal products--until some high level of affluence is reached, at which point they taper off a bit.  The tapering of the very affluent might be reduced, with better conditions for farm animals, but that can't be expected to have a major effect on the total level of consumption.

Thus,

(5)   Farm animals have a right to improvements in their living conditions, and that right is not outweighed by considerations having to do with impact on consumption.

Discussion:  This is how rights are understood in other social justice realms.  Because death row prisoners are rights holders, their living conditions must be improved now, even if that could delay the day when the death penalty is abolished, thereby increasing the total number of executions.  Inmates who have a voice in the matter want the better living conditions and release from prison and abolition of the death penalty. It would take heroic self-sacrifice to endue terrible living conditions, for the sake of saving others from it, possibly in the far future.  It ought to be assumed that animals, if they had a voice, wouldn't be more heroic than death row inmates. In fact, they'd be less so, given the greater ability of humans to dedicate themselves to abstract principles, total strangers, and goods in the far future.  Like we say prisoners have a right to better food, bigger cells, and more humane killing methods now,  anyone who believes in animal rights should say the same of pigs, cows, and chickens.

***

Of course, you can also argue for regulations from a utilitarian perspective, but there's nothing especially utilitarian about supporting regulations.   A rights perspective allows it ... no, in fact demands it.

Judy Nicastro's Abortion at 23 Weeks

This past week democrats in Texas managed to stave off a bill that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks, thanks to a filibuster by Wendy Davis and a noisy gallery of abortion rights advocates.  A few days earlier, there was an editorial in the New York Times week in review section called "My Abortion at 23 Weeks".  I thought Wendy Davis should have read it during her filibuster.  Rarely does anyone even talk about her abortion at 10 weeks--openly discussing a second trimester abortion was incredibly brave and very relevant to the proposed Texas law.

Nicastro was pregnant with twins, one of which had a herniated diaphragm.  But that's not all--doctors informed her that "the organs were pushed up into our boy's chest and not developing properly."  After more testing, they told her "Only one lung chamber had formed, and it was only 20 percent complete."  Were the baby to be born, he would suffer through life support and probably (the article insinuates but doesn't say) die anyway.  The only complication is that aborting one of the twins would increase the chances of the other miscarrying.  But Nicastro took that chance and her daughter was born healthy three months later.

Did she do anything wrong?  There are four letters to the editor on Nicastro's story, two supportive and two critical. One is from Sarah Moses. Under her name it says "The writer, an assistant professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Mississippi, teaches a course on medical ethics."  It bothers me for readers to think her letter is representative of medical ethics, so I will point out that her departmental website says she is an "assistant professor of religion".  This may have some relevance to the substance of her letter.

Her opinion is that Nicastro had an alternative to intentionally killing the fetus at 23 weeks--she could have let the pregnancy continue and refused life support for the newborn baby.  She makes the point that at the end of life, refusing life support is morally better than outright killing the patient.  Her counsel (in so many words): see the pregnancy through, do nothing heroic to save the baby, let him die.  There's more suffering in that scenario, but she thinks that's what morality requires.

Yes? No?  No! First glaring problem: the fetus at 23 weeks is not yet a legal person, both in the opinion of most philosophers, and as judged by the supreme court in Roe vs. Wade.   So the choice between killing at 23 weeks and withdrawing life support after birth can't be compared to the choice between those two options as they pertain to a patient -- a person -- at the end of life.

Is intentional killing (painlessly at 23 weeks) really the worse alternative, compared to letting the newborn baby suffer and die?  Even granting the dubious supposition that a person is involved in both cases, rather than a fetus in one and a person in the other, this is highly dubious.  If death is inevitable, reaching it in the least painful way is not just permissible, it's imperative. To think intentional killing is forbidden, even when it achieves an inevitable death less painfully, involves a quasi-religious sensibility (which is why I mentioned Moses's position as a professor of religion, not philosophy and religion).  You can't explain the forbiddeness of intentional killing (to prevent the pain of an inevitable death) in secular terms--you have to bring in what God thinks about intentional killing, or God's ownership of our lives, or the health of the soul, or some such.  This is not medical ethics, simpliciter, it's religious ethics.

What do most philosophers think about killing to prevent a painful death?  They think it's justifiable.  In fact, they think it's justifiable at the end of life, too.  When the individual killed is a fetus, it's just all the more clear. 

The only puzzling thing about this case, to my mind, involves the healthy twin.  Was it right to put her life at risk, to prevent the painful death of her brother?  That's where there's some room for debate here. In our society we have limited alternatives, because infanticide is off the table.  Were that an option, it's hard to say why it would be better to terminate earlier, exposing the healthy twin to risk, rather than waiting until after birth.  It's probably only better psychologically--easier, all around, to bear.

The Adoption Radicals

I've been reading (for the second time, actually), Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays (ed. by Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt).  I find myself in violent disagreement with practically every author in the volume.  The theme of one article after another is that to properly value and respect families created through adoption, we must reduce the significance of biological parenthood.   Many of the authors say that parenthood is always contractual, volitional, "constructed"-- no more so in case of adoption than otherwise.

But what about the egg and sperm that came from Kim and Kanye--don't their genes give them special rights with respect to Kimye (er, North West)?  One of the authors, Jacqueline Stevens, says No--genetic parenthood is morally immaterial.  She does recognize pregnancy as conferring rights on gestational mothers, but that's because of all the work involved, not because a mother's genes go into making her biological child.  Since fathers contribute nothing but a moment's ejaculation, they have no rights over their biological children.  Stevens proposes that birth mothers should have to adopt as well (so all parenthood is adoptive), but have special rights--(a) they're first in line, and (b) they should have the power to select others as co-parents. Which others?  Maybe the father, maybe not.  Maybe a romantic partner, maybe not.  "Not the person I am dating, but perhaps my colleague or the person who I met in line at the supermarket could be the perfect parent. Enlarging the scope of potential parenting partners, acknowledging a broader community as potentially family, can only deepen all our connections."  (p. 94)

The person I met in the supermarket line?  There is a lot more silliness in the article.  For example, she writes "...the genetic contributions from a particular inseminated egg contribute little to the individual distinctiveness of progeny beyond species specificity."  (p. 81)   And she complains that another author "fails to appreciate the material importance of pregnancy, in contrast with the largely useless nature of sperm."  (p. 86) And then there are her strange views about disease--"99% of all diseases, including cancers have a preponderance of environmental etiologies, ranging from geographical location to wealth."  (p. 83) 

Anyhow.  I think genes do count, and that fathers have a natural right to their offspring, as mothers do. The amount of labor parents put into creating their progeny could be relevant (perhaps in a custodial conflict between the biological parents, it does make sense to give the edge to the mother, in virtue of the 9 months she spent carrying the child), but it's not the only relevant thing.  The fact that my child came from me and from my husband gives us special prerogatives.  Why?  Good question. I think we can explain that without regarding children as property of their parents, but that's a long story... (the book I'm working on -- or manuscript, as cautious academics prefer to say! -- contains an answer).

I find myself wanting to insist on the natural rights of biological parents for many reasons, but partly for the sake of those at risk of having their parental rights taken away--and that's young, poor women in many cases.  (A great, great book, and one that makes you see how vulnerable poor mothers are: Random Family, by Adrian LeBlanc.)  If we thought about who gets to raise which children in terms of societal fairness and justice, perhaps it would make most sense to redistribute children, transferring them from ill-prepared, low-income genetic/birth parents to well off gays and lesbians and infertile people.  That would overcome the natural injustice of infertility and probably give more children a better future.  But no--we have reproductive rights: both to not have a child at all and to keep a child we choose to have.  My child is my child, not up for redistribution, unless I'm outright neglectful or abusive.

Once biological parents do choose to give up a child to an adoptive parent, the adoptive parent's entitlement to the child has a different basis than the biological parents' did.  Many authors in this anthology seem to think that if this difference is countenanced (or made too much of), it must have problematic ramifications--adopted kids, adoptive parents, and families formed by adoption will be seen as second class.   This alleged danger comes as a surprise to me.  I wouldn't have thought that in this country, anyway, adoption creates any sort of stigma.  We admire the woman who gives up a baby instead of having an abortion (the movie Juno comes to mind); we admire people who adopt.  And then again, we just don't think about the whole matter.  I can't imagine anyone meeting friends in college and wanting to categorize them as "adopted vs. non-adopted" whereas we certainly do screen people in terms of race, sexual orientation, religion, and so on.

Nevertheless -- stigma or no stigma -- it's interesting to ponder how adoption works.  If some of the "meaning" of parenthood has to do with biological ties, does the same meaning carry over to adoptive parenthood?  And how does that happen?  Or are there other meanings? And are they just as satisfying?  Are the prerogatives of parents exactly the same, however parenthood comes about?   I've moved on now to Mary Shanley's book Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in an Age of Reproductive Technologies, Surrogacy, Adoption, and Same-Sex and Unwed Parents.  Plus I've been reading first person accounts of adoption (since I have no first hand experience to draw on).

Got adoption literature to recommend?  Suggestions welcome!

Self Ownership

Do we own ourselves?  I'm thinking about the concept because it facilitates a certain model of the parent-child relationship.  On that model, parents hold their children in trust, readying them for the self-ownership they'll attain upon majority.  That's an attractive view in some ways, but ... self-ownership?  What?

The idea that persons are self-owners is a cornerstone of libertarian philosophy.  Some say it's actually not so foreign really, but actually a natural outgrowth of Kantian ideas about autonomy and self-determination.  But that doesn't seem quite right.  Libertarians think we start out as self-owners but could transfer ownership to someone else. I could sell myself, just like I could sell my computer. After the sale, I'd have a new owner--not myself. The Kant-inspired idea would be that I'm necessarily a self-owner. I can't stop owning myself, even if I want to. 

This sort of limit on transfers wouldn't be so strange.  There are limits on what we can do with other owned entities.  We can own a dog but not torture him.  We can own an antiquity, but be prevented from selling it to a foreign museum.  So ... why not say we own ourselves, but can't sell ourselves to anyone else?  The idea of self-ownership would still have plenty of bite--it would place limits on what others can do to us.  Just as the government can't step in and use my computer for data crunching, it can't step in and use me to labor for the good of others -- so Libertarians would get some of what they want out of self-ownership, even if it were thought of as necessary self-ownership.

And yet, and yet .... the whole idea seems wrong.  Things owned have monetary value, right?  If I own myself, that adds to my estate (I take it).  If everyone owns themselves, the GDP of the US has to reflect all the people here, not just the goods and services.  And then you have to wonder about the valuation.  Does little North West, brand new daughter of Kim and Kanye, have more value than an ordinary kid?  And how is value calculated? Do the parts of persons (kidneys, pints of blood) have values too, on grounds that we own our parts as well as our whole selves?

More absurdities: I thought the horror of slavery was (partly) the treatment of humans as being up for ownership.  Buying and selling slaves offends against the idea that we can't be owned .... I thought.  But no, says the libertarian, we can be owned.  The problem with slavery is not that people were treated as up for ownership, but that slaves weren't recognized as their own owners.  You could strengthen that to "slaves weren't recognized as necessary self-owners" and be opposed to slavery in every instance.  But would you really have captured what's so terrible about slavery?  What's repugant (among many things) is the whole idea of a person being the sort of thing that has an owner.

Libertarians, I think, see dignity in self-ownership.  For them, "self-ownership" has the same flavor as "autonomy", "self-determination", "self-management", "sovereignty", and "inviolability".  But all those are concepts from the political sphere--the basic idea being that a person is self-governing.  Self-ownership is a concept from the marketplace.  Governing myself and owning myself are two different concepts.  I'll go for self-governance, but the idea that I have any owner seems like (as one used to say) a category mistake.

The Predation Defense

Lately I've been torturing my family with the question: what would the world be like if all animals were herbivores?  I'm pretty sure the answer is: not as good.  Evolving to hunt makes a species develop all sorts of perceptual and cognitive strengths, and likewise, evolving as another species' prey.  I can't see how a world filled with herbivores, and only herbivores, could have minds as sophisticated and varied.  Predatory mammals would be missing, but also carnivorous birds and fish.  You could wish the world had an intelligent and benevolent creator that would just make clever, diverse, bounteous animals, so the misery of prey being eaten could be avoided, but that's not what our world is like.  In our world as it is, predation is a necessary phenomenon that's shaped species for the better.  There aren't just vastly more species, because of predation, and more "filled" ecological niches, but the species that exist have more and better skills.  Or so it seems--I'd love to have an opinion from an evolutionary biologist given to speculation! 

If predation is a force for good, one thing that follows is that when we think of lions eating zebras, or raptors eating mice, or sharks eating baby whales, we should not disapprove. Few will outright morally condemn a lion but sometimes the reason for avoiding condemnation is not the right one. It's not just that the lion isn't a moral agent, so can't be condemned. A lion is not like a toddler drowning his baby brother--doing wrong, but not blameworthy. It's also not just that the lion, as an individual, needs meat to survive.  The imperative to hunt wouldn't go away, if the lion had a nutritious vegan alternative (faux zebra?). Because (to repeat) predation is a force for good -- without it, there wouldn't be some of the traits, abilities, and species that seem most valuable.   Yes, of course, predation does cause harm to the individual animal eaten, but it's still overall a force for good (in a world like ours, not run by a perfect being).

Now, what does this paean to predation mean for us? We are predators too, of course--since we are omnivores.  If predation is on the whole a force for good, we should at least not be disturbed by the impulse to eat meat or drink milk. These are not the least bit like impulses to torture animals for fun, or molest children, or rape women.  Your inner lion is okay, not criminal or pathological or malevolent.  So much for self-esteem!  We should have it, even as we feel attracted to the smell of barbecuing meat, on a hot summer night.  But should we go further--should we consume meat and other animal products?

I don't think I'd be in worse moral fettle than a lion, if I were running around in the wilderness killing rabbits for my dinner.  As a moral agent, though, I'd have to think through why I was doing this as well as how.   I'd have a duty to kill the rabbits as kindly as possible, and to kill no more than I needed.  Moral agency does, then, make a difference, but not the difference sometimes claimed: I don't have to refrain from killing rabbits, because I'm a moral agent. 

But what about meat consumption in a more typical case? Predation is a force for good in nature, to the extent that it makes nature more varied, bounteous, and mentally sophisticated.  It works wonders in an ecosystem.  But are we humans really still part of an ecosystem? We seem more like destructive aliens, relative to every ecosystem.  Predation is generally a force for good, but predation via domestication, as practiced today by our extremely populous species, is a special case.  Its impact is just the opposite of classic predation--we plus five or six domesticated species now dominate the biosphere, and these species have been bred so that they've lost mental acuity. They're so numerous and dominate so much land that they're a tremendous threat to biodiversity.

When all is said and done, the predation defense for meat-eating seems to exonerate the impulse to eat meat, and even acquit actual meat-eating in some conceivable cases.  But domestication throws a wrench into the works.  Human, predation-via-domestication is a very different thing from predation as it functions in a healthy ecosystem.

Why aren't you a vegan? (results)

HERE are the results of my survey.  88 people took the survey.  I asked--

This survey is aimed at people who are not vegans. You qualify as "not a vegan" if you deliberately consume some or all animal products (meat, eggs, milk, cheese, fish, oysters, clams, etc.) Which of the following statements capture your reason(s) for not being a vegan? Select ALL of the answers that express your viewpoint to any degree at all.

Note, responders could give multiple answers, so the percents don't add up to 100.

The most popular answer (43.2% gave it) was

I believe I am obligated to treat animals humanely but also think some animals raised for food are treated well enough

Next most popular (40.9%) --

I believe I should be a vegan, but I find it too difficult and so I am just a part-time vegan or vegetarian or part-time vegetarian.

Another 25% cited difficulty as their reasons for being omnivores.

I believe I should be a vegan, but I find it too difficult to limit what I eat, so I am an omnivore.

Those two answers are mutually exclusive, so I can (probably!) add the numbers together:  65.9% of those surveyed believe they should be vegans.

Responders rejected an obligation to abstain from animal products for a variety of reasons.  The most popular reasons (26.1%) was that "consuming animals is natural."  Another 25% gave a Kantian reasons for not being obligated to abstain--

I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products because animals are not persons, so I can use them as a means, as long as I am not gratuitously cruel to them.

20.5% think animal products are nutritionally necessary, and therefore ethically acceptable--

I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products, because they are nutritionally necessary, and we can't be obligated to abstain from something we need for our survival.

19.3% have their energies focused on problems they consider more important.

I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products because there are many other problems in the world and my energies are currently directed at problems I consider more important.

30 people selected "other".  Some of the explanations:

1) I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products because not every ethical issue is a matter of obligation: still, it might be good to abstain from animal products, or it would be morally better to do so.

2) There are upland areas of Britain (where I live) which are only suitable for grazing by animals. If there was no market for these animals, not only would the animals not exist, also the economy and environment of these areas would be detrimentally affected, along with the lives of people living there.

3) For reasons incomprehensible to me I cannot care about the rights of animals. I know that I should but I do not.

4) Very roughly: if for example I accept some animals have a right to not be killed or only to be killed humanely, then this should extend to wild animals too. If one takes a consequentialist type view that omissions are not that different from comissions, then we should maximize the welfare of animals in the wild, if it not too onerous. Since in fact, I think of the lifestyle of animals in the wild as the "baseline" good life, then a domesticated life at around that level is acceptable to me.

5) I believe that vegans make a category error by privileging the actions of humans over the actions of other animals. To elaborate: 1) If eating other animals is wrong, and 2) Humans are animals Then either all animals eating other animals is wrong (which seems absurd) or humans are in some way a special kind of animal (which seems contrary to the notion that animals should be treated with the same respect as humans).

6) For ethical reasons I don't eat sentient creatures. I doubt oysters feel pain, but still don't consume them because of yuck factor of eating any animals. Most people would describe me as vegan, but I can't see a serious ethical objection to silk or honey, so I guess I don't qualify as a real vegan. Boo hoo.

7) I am slowly transitioning into being vegan

8) I am not vegan because the ethical satisfaction I would derive by going vegan again would be minor to nonexistent, and so provides little to no motivation for me now that I enjoy eating animal products. If I got nothing out of eating animal products, and could achieve even slight ethical satisfaction from being vegan, I would be vegan -- but that's not the case at the moment. Also possibly relevant is that I don't believe in moral obligations (although it is of course possible to want to be vegan for ethical reasons without believing in moral obligations).

9) It's too exhausting to try to eat completely the "right" way. The rising demand for quinoa is apparently detrimental to the farmers who grow it (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/quinoa-boom-bolivian_n_2724251.html). Brown rice has arsenic. Unless you grow your own food, which I have neither the knowledge, skills or desire to do, you're hurting someone, somewhere. So I try to buy local, consume animal products in moderation (and pay extra for humanely raised, cage-free, etc. etc., to show that there is a market for these products instead of abstaining entirely), and live my life without constant anxiety and second-guessing at every meal. It's the best I can do right now. I also believe that everyone eating half as much meat would be the same as half the people abstaining entirely, which seems more realistic.

10) Admittedly, I don't try very hard. And clearly I don't feel that omnivorism is very wrong, as wrong as other things I refrain from doing, like murder or theft, or I would be more motivated to comply with my moral reasons. Rationally I believe veganism is the only morally defensible position - however I don't feel strongly enough motivated to comply with that, especially as I'm a lazy and unimaginative cook, and really love dairy.

11) BECAUSE OF CHEESE

You can find out who these responders were (philosophers? with background in ethics? knowledgeable about the treatment of animals?) by looking at the survey results.

Why did I create this survey?  I am a vegetarian (20 years now!), but not a vegan, and have a longstanding puzzlement about why I cannot make myself go further.  I like the milk in my cappuccino too much--I am a sinner!  But is that all there is to it? Periodically I ponder the possibility that I am not actually a sinner.  We all have a right to food that's "nutritious and delicious"--and our obligation is only to exercise that right in the most humane way possible. For me, given my taste preferences, that means being a vegetarian, not a vegan. That sounds a bit lame and "spin"-ish, so I wondered what other non-vegans have to say in their self-defense.   Several of the "other" answers strike me as food for thought--especially 4) and 5).

Why aren't you a vegan?

Perhaps you are! But if not, please take this survey and disseminate.  I will share the results here in a week.  SURVEY

The Missing Posts

I've made six trips since February to visit my father in Pennsylvania. This means my thoughts have been interrupted a lot.  I get on the plane, read a book about something I'm working on, keep the topic on my mind for several days, and by the time I'm on the return flight, I've lost the thread.  Blogging is further down the list of my priorities, so it's even more difficult to hang on to potential topics.

So here we go--a bunch of topics I started to think about in the last few months, but didn't get to pursue.  I'm giving myself just a few sentences for each topic!

Caregiving drones
Drones are useful for hunting and killing enemies, but why not use them peacefully?  When my father can't find his hearing aids, I'd love to be able to send in a little hornet-sized drone to have a look.

Must we be vegans?
I'm not sure about the idea that we must always justify harm by citing a more serious benefit.  In sports and business, competition doesn't work that way--you can cause a competitor harm without being able to cite a compensatory benefit.   Does this tell us anything about using animals for food? Is Finding Food competitive, like engaging in sports and business competition?

Must we be vegans?
In the debate about food ethics, people seem too puritanical about food enjoyment, making it seem trivial. For most people, oddly enough, food pleasure is one of the greatest pleasures. Does it make any sense to assert a right to nutritious and delicious food?

Latest atheist battle
I see nothing very wrong with Ron Lindsay's speech at the recent Women in Secularism conference.  It seems like a very, very bad sign that such an innocuous speech could generate so much controversy.

Priming
There's some fascinating research that seems to show we are affected unconsciously by tiny cues--if you see words like "old" and "geriatric" on a screen, you'll walk away more slowly than if you see words like "young" and "teenager".  This makes me wonder about the impact of spending many days in a row at a senior home  Is there a "dose-response" effect, so I should worry about being seriously infected with elderly attitudes and behaviors? (If not, why not?)

Where's the hot sauce?
It wouldn't be so bad to live in a senior home, if you could just hang onto your own lifestyle.  Why must the food be so bland?  How will I survive without hot-hot-hot Mexican and Indian food, if I ever wind up in such a place?

Stoicism can be useful
When dealing with stressful situations, do I get any use out of the Stoic philosophy I cover in my classes?  Well yes, a little. I like Epictetus's advice that you should remind yourself that you do possess the character traits that will be needed, come what may.

Stoicism isn't all that useful
Stoicism is all about mind-control--handling a situation by thinking about it the right way. Unfortunately, when you have dementia, you can wind up with lots of problems that you can't think your way out of.  Stoicism is for the intellectually advantaged.

When life begins
I almost have it figured out:-)  I am making progress on a book chapter (hurray!).

The Grim Reader
Everything I'm reading these days seems to be grotesquely depressing.  That's the topic of my next TPM column.

The Badness of Death

What makes death bad for someone who dies?  This is on my mind for lots of different reasons--so here goes, some thinking aloud.

The question is puzzling if you even just think about the death of one individual, of one age and species, but let's be masochists and thinking about lots of deaths.

Death of a zygote after 2 days development
Death of a newborn baby
Death of a healthy young adult
Death of a very, very old unhealthy adult
Death of a healthy young cat


My gut feeling is that there's a certain Basic Badness to death (caps do so much to dignify ideas!). The Basic Badness consists of the fact that a certain conscious vantage point on the world existed for some time and then came to an end.  It seems to me this is a yes/no matter. Either the basic badness is present or it's absent.  And it's present whenever there exists a conscious vantage point. It's present in four of the cases, but not the first. A zygote has no conscious vantage point, so the Basic Badness of death is not present.  It might be sad and bad or even tragic in some way for a zygote to die--think about the miscarriage of a much wanted pregnancy.  But there is not the awfulness of termination of consciousness.

It would be foolish to say that all deaths are equally bad, just because they involve termination of consciousness. They have a certain type of badness to an equal degree, but there are other types of badness besides Basic Badness. There are two further types of badness (at least!) that make different deaths bad to different degrees.  Death doesn't just bring an end to consciousness; it also takes away future life, and that future life can vary in quantity and quality.  So in addition to the Basic Badness of death, there is also some degree of Deprivation.  A very old unhealthy adult is deprived of less, by death, than a healthy young adult.

More "compare and contrast": I would say the deprivation involved when a cat dies is less than when a newborn baby or health human adult dies--both in light of quantity and quality.  There are different "goods" possible in different lives, and not as much good in the average hour of a cat's life.  (NB: no less an animal advocate than Peter Singer says exactly the same thing.)

Next:  the Basic Badness of death is compounded also by the degree to which death Interrupts.  It's one thing to take away future years that would have been good. It's another to interrupt a project that's already under way.  Both are bad, but they're bad in different ways.  In one case, precious days are lost, in the other, someone dies with "unfinished business."

Death interrupts very little for a baby, a great deal for a healthy adult, and once again, quite a bit less for a very old unhealthy adult.  Does death interrupt for a cat, or is a cat's life lived day after day after day, with no possibility of "unfinished business"?  There isn't much chance of "unfinished business" for most house cats, but many animals can die with unfinished business. Think of a salmon killed in the middle of its journey upstream, or a beaver killed while building a dam.  But yes, on average, there's bound to be less interruption than when a healthy human adult dies.

Now let's do the math ... but how should we do it?  A zygote's death is not bad as far as Basic Badness goes, but it's maximally depriving.  Should we (1) simply add the numbers together? Is death, for a zygote, pretty damned bad, because of the deprivation?  Or should we say (2) that only deaths that are Basically Bad can be even more bad, because of additional bad-making factors?

I say (2).  I cannot make myself think the death of a zygote is bad in anything at all like the death of the other four individuals is bad.   The badness of deprivation doesn't "kick in" because there's no basic badness to the death of a zygote.

The Basic Badness of death can be worsened by deprivation and interruption, but where there is no Basic Badness, there's nothing to worsen.  The way that death brings consciousness to an end is a privileged part of the picture, with everything else playing a secondary, "compounding" role.  Why is termination of consciousness the primary thing? Perhaps--bottom line--death is not really death, unless it terminates a consciousness.  So deprivation doesn't make a zygote's death extra bad, because it's not really a death, in the funeral sense, to begin with, however much (nevertheless) it can be a grievous thing to lose a pregnancy.

At least--that's how things appear at the moment! Back to reading the death literature (I'm currently reading Death, by Shelly Kagan).

Selling Justice

Via Leiter, I see the San Jose philosophy department is complaining in an open letter to Michael Sandel that an MIT/Harvard-affiliated company proposed that the department pilot Sandel's "blended online" course, Justice.  I'm intrigued, since I used his book, Justice, to teach Contemporary Moral Problems this semester.  I had to miss several classes, so I also had my class watch one of his online lectures (and I watched others).

The subtext to the letter is a cogent thought: "This kind of thing is a threat to our jobs and to students taking real world, interactive courses."  Fair enough.  Professors need jobs, and students are usually better off taking courses with real world instructors.   On the other hand (let's admit), there's got to be a cash-strapped school somewhere that would serve its students well by showing them the Justice lecture series.  And the quality concerns expressed in the letter are really quite groundless.

Let's see, there's the worry that the series isn't current.  That could become true some day, but for the moment, the series/book is very current.  Sandel talks about all of the issues that are typical in a Contemporary Moral Problems course, and then some. He also talks about "markets and morals" (the topic of his latest book)--which involves all sorts of very topical and colorful questions.  He talks about all of these issues using far more ethical and political theory than is typical in a course like this, and with a single, unifying voice (as opposed to the multitude of voices and styles you get in a typical anthology).  Certainly Harvard students are lucky to be able to take Sandel's course.

Another worry is that a lecture series "does not provide anything over and above assigning a book to read."  What a strange thing to say, just a paragraph after the authors note Sandel's excellent skill at lecturing and his lively interactions with students. No, watching a lively lecture and debate is not just like reading a book.  More specifically, Justice the book is much more dense than Justice the lecture series. One is not at all equivalent to the other.

Then there's the point that Sandel and his students at Harvard are a bunch of white people--there isn't the diversity you could find in a real, live classroom.  But wait--I thought the idea was to show this in a real, live classroom. If there were teaching assistants facilitating discussion, I think students would hear diverse points of view.  And besides, the Harvard classroom isn't that uniform. In the lecture my students watched, students actually drew on their rather different life experiences.

I can imagine situations in which this course would be a good purchase for a college or school district.  So why protest (to Sandel) the mere selling of it?  Should a department not only decline the series for itself, but work to make it unavailable to others? Strange!

Postscript. Not to be too zealous.  I do have one complaint about Justice (the book): Sandel blurs together questions about ethics (what should I do?) and questions about justice (what is fair in this society?). All moral questions, for him, come under the murky term "justice", leaving students without tools to think clearly about distinct topics and questions.  That's a fairly serious negative, but still... I find it hard to complain too much about a book so well written and so stuffed with interesting, colorful examples. 

Update: article on the issue in today's NYT.