The Pain Principle: What if the animal rights movement abandoned its focus on suffering and appealed to a different set of human emotions?
The animal rights movement could be a movement founded on animal potential, and the powerful emotion that stories and facts about animals can inspire in human beings. The difficult work is already being done by scientists, videographers, and naturalists, who every day are discovering and documenting new ways that animals process and interact with the world.
MATTHEW DENTON-EDMUNDSON: In Animal Liberation, Peter Singer argues that racism and sexism and what he calls “speciesism” all rely on arbitrary distinctions… He contends that in a few short decades, when the next generation (or the next) looks back on our treatment of animals, the practice may well be viewed in much the same way that we now view slavery — as despicable and inexcusable, an expression of extreme cruelty and selfishness…
No broad shift in our understanding of animal rights has taken place since the publication of Animal Liberation. There have been some small-scale developments. Vegetarianism and veganism are more common and more socially acceptable than ever before. More people are speaking out in support of at-risk “charismatic megafauna”— creatures like elephants and manatees. There is a growing awareness of the beef industry’s contribution to climate change. But in most ways, things are worse than ever for captive animals. Worldwide, we kill about three times more pigs in industrial slaughterhouses than we did in the 1970s. In the United States, animal welfare laws lag behind those of European countries, including Spain. Species everywhere are suffering from habitat destruction…
Singer … puts neurological functions at the center of his philosophy. Rather than erecting arbitrary lines between those species we feel comfortable exploiting and those we do not, Singer wants us to remember our own vested interest in avoiding sensations of pain, and to extend that consideration to members of other species.
This argument is part of a long tradition of animal rights activism. In ancient Greece, the philosopher and scientist Theophrastus railed against his teacher Aristotle’s callousness toward animals. Men and animals, he wrote, “do not differ, above all in sensations.” In 19th-century Britain, an Irish lawyer named Colonel Richard Martin prosecuted a street salesman for beating his donkey by bringing the animal to court as the sole witness, showing the judges her injuries and asking them to imagine sustaining similar ones. A few decades prior, the utilitarian thinker Jeremy Bentham had written, “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” In the late 19th century, the feminist and doctor Anna Kingford argued vehemently against the practice of vivisection. “Pain is pain,” she wrote, “and injustice is injustice, whoever the victim.”
Today, academics interested in “animal studies” tend to have complicated feelings about Singer. They critique his unbending allegiance to utilitarianism… But… nobody has meaningfully questioned his argument that the shared capacity for suffering is the best basis for changing the way we relate to animals. The pain argument has long defined the animal rights movement, and continues to do so… When people read about or watch animals in pain, they witness these beings in a reduced state, a state that does not accurately represent the creatures’ normal habits and abilities. Most people who see a PETA-sponsored video will feel guilt of some kind. But they may also be left with a lingering sense that the animals they have seen aren’t worthy of much more than cursory moral consideration.
None of this is to say that it is impossible (or even all that rare) for humans to meaningfully identify with nonhuman creatures. Rather, it means that we don’t do it readily when we encounter them incapacitated by suffering. In this sense, the animal rights movement took a wrong turn with Theophrastus, the first to articulate the pain theory. Singer writes powerfully of the parallels among racism and sexism and “speciesism.” But — fixated on pain as the basis of his call to action — he fails to remember that the civil rights movement did not gain momentum because white people pitied the suffering of Black people. Rather, the voices of Black artists, musicians, thinkers, and protesters became too powerful to ignore…
The animal rights movement could be a movement founded on animal potential, and the powerful emotion that stories and facts about animals can inspire in human beings. The difficult work is already being done by scientists, videographers, and naturalists, who every day are discovering and documenting new ways that animals process and interact with the world. Increasingly, philosophers and journalists are also part of this puzzle. David M. Peña-Guzmán’s recent book on animal dreaming is exemplary, linking the philosophic puzzle of consciousness—and the question of whether animals have it—with new evidence of their capacity to dream…
It’s important that the abysmal conditions in industrial farms and slaughterhouses continue to be well publicized. We can’t simply wish away the pain that is the day-to-day reality of too many animals. But because of human beings’ complex relationship with suffering, this information should be generously balanced by concrete evidence of animal potential. Rather than parading around in dinosaur costumes or harassing customers at neighborhood butcher shops, organizations such as PETA and AnimaNaturalis might devote a hefty portion of their resources to broadcasting and promoting the newest research on the behavioral and mental capabilities of animals. They also might work to encourage people to form relationships with a greater variety of animal species in sanctuaries and other places where humans can safely view wild animals.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people go to Florida’s springs to interact with the manatees. They come away with a sense of the animals’ calm majesty. Some rank the experience as one of the most memorable of their lives. As a consequence, there has been, to date, overwhelming public support for projects aimed at rehabilitating the state’s coastal seagrass, the disappearance of which due to water pollution is causing an unprecedented decline in manatee populations. This kind of collective energy (though it may ultimately prove no match for human-caused ecological degradation) is at least a start, and it might serve as a model for other at-risk species. Rights organizations could also connect people with farms where animals that provide humans with non-meat products are treated with dignity and lead fulfilling lives. People need to see animals at their best before they will care about saving them from the worst.
Instead of treating animals as things to be pitied, we should follow E. O. Wilson’s lead and try to think of them as if they came from another planet. Animals can show us new and radical ways of understanding and interacting with the world, if we give them the space to do so. When we advocate for their dignity and well-being, the question should not be, “Are they ever subject to pain?” but rather, “Do they have the space and habitat and social contact necessary to live up to their potential?” SOURCE…
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