"The question is not, can they reason?
nor,
can they talk? but, can they suffer?"
Jeremy Bentham
Over the last few
years, the public has gradually become aware of the existence of a new cause:
animal liberation. Most people first heard of the movement through newspaper
articles, often of the "what on earth will they come up with next?" variety.
Then there were marches and demonstrations against factory farming, animal
experimentation or the Canadian seal slaughter; all brought to an audience of
millions by the TV cameras. Finally there have been the illegal acts: slogans
daubed on fur shops, laboratories broken into and animals rescued. What are
the ideas behind the animal liberation movement, and where is it heading? In
this essay I shall try to answer these questions.
Let us start with some
history, so that we can get some perspective on the animal liberation
movement. Concern for animal suffering can be found in Hindu thought, and the
Buddhist idea of compassion is a universal one, extending to animals as well
as humans; but nothing similar is to be found in our Western traditions. There
are a few laws indicating some awareness of animal welfare in the Old
Testament, but nothing at all in the New, nor in mainstream Christianity for
its first eighteen hundred years.
Paul scornfully
rejected the thought that God might care about the welfare of oxen, and the
incident of the Gadarene swine, in which Jesus is described as sending devils
into a herd of pigs and making them drown themselves in the sea, is explained
by Augustine as intended to teach us that we have no duties toward animals.
This interpretation was accepted by Thomas Aquinas, who stated that the only
possible objection to cruelty to animals was that it might lead to cruelty to
humans - according to Aquinas there was nothing wrong in itself with
making animals suffer. This became the official view of the Roman Catholic
Church to such good - or bad - effect that as late as the middle of the
nineteenth century, Pope Pius IX refused permission for the founding of a
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Rome, on the ground that
to grant permission would imply that human beings have duties to the lower
creatures.
Even in England, which
has a reputation for being dotty about animals, the first efforts to obtain
legal protection for members of other species were made only 180 years ago.
They were greeted with derision. The Times was so lacking in
appreciation of the idea that the suffering of animals ought to he prevented,
that it attacked proposed legislation that would stop the "sport" of
bull-baiting. Said that august newspaper: "Whatever meddles with the private
personal disposition of man's time or property is tyranny." Animals, clearly,
were just property.
That was in 1800, and
that bill was defeated. It took another twenty years to get the first
anti-cruelty law onto the British statute-books. To give any consideration at
all to the interest of animals was a significant step beyond the idea that the
boundary of our species is also the boundary of morality. Yet the step was a
restricted one, because it did not challenge our right to make whatever use
we choose of other species. Only cruelty - causing pain when there was no
reason for doing so, merely sheer sadism or callous indifference - was
prohibited. The farmers who deprive their pigs of room to move does not offend
against this concept of cruelty, for they are only doing what they think
necessary to producing bacon. Similarly the scientists who poison a hundred
rats in order to find the lethal dose of some new flavouring agent for
toothpaste are not cruel - only concerned to follow the accepted procedures
for testing for the safety of new products.
The nineteenth century
anti-cruelty movement was built on the assumption that the interests of
nonhuman animals deserve protection only when serious human interests are not
at stake. Animals remained very clearly "lower creatures"; human beings were
quite distinct from, and infinitely far above, all forms of animal life.
Should our interests conflict with theirs, there could be no doubt about whose
interests must be sacrificed: in all cases, it would be the interests of the
animals that had to yield.
The significance of
the new animal liberation movement is its challenge to this assumption. Animal
liberationists have dared to question the right of our species to assume that
human interests must always prevail. They have sought - absurd as it must
sound as first - to extend such notions as equality and rights to nonhuman
animals.
The case for animal equality
How plausible is this
extension? Is it really possible to take seriously the slogan of Orwell's
Animal Farm: "All Animals are Equal"? The animal liberationists contend
that it is; but in order to avoid hopelessly misunderstanding what they mean
by this, we need to digress for a moment, to discuss the general ideal of
equality.
It will be helpful to
begin with the more familiar claim that all human beings are equal. When we
say that all human beings, whatever their race, creed or sex are equal, what
is it that we are asserting? Those who wish to defend a hierarchical,
inegalitarian society have often pointed out that by whatever test we choose,
it simply is not true that all humans are equal. Like it or not, we must face
the fact that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with
differing moral capacities, differing intellectual abilities, differing
amounts of benevolent feeling and sensitivity to the needs of others,
differing abilities to communicate effectively, and different capacities to
experience pleasure and pain. In short, if the demand for equality were based
on the actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop demanding
equality. It would be an unjustifiable demand.
Fortunately the case
for upholding the equality of human beings does not depend on equality of
intelligence, moral
capacity, physical strength, or any other matters of fact
of this kind. Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There
is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in
ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of
consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The principle
of equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual
equality: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.
Jeremy Bentham
incorporated the essential basis or moral equality into his utilitarian system
of ethics in the formula: "Each to count for one and none for more than one".
In other words, the interests of every being affected by an action are to be
taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any
other being.
It is an implication
of this principle of equality that our concern for others ought not to depend
on what they are like, or what abilities they possess - although precisely
what this concern requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics
of those affected by what we do. It is on this basis that the case against
racism and the case against sexism must both ultimately rest; and it is in
accordance with this principle that speciesism is also to be condemned. If
possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human being to
use another for its own ends, how can it entitle human beings to exploit
nonhuman beings?
Many philosophers have
proposed the principle of equal consideration of interests in some form or
other, as a basic moral principle; but not many of them have recognised that
this principle applies to members of other species as well as to our own.
Bentham was one of the few who did realise this. In a forward-looking passage,
written at a time when black slaves in the British dominions were still being
treated much as we now treat nonhuman animals, Bentham wrote:
"the day may come when the rest of
the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been
withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already
discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being
should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may
one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of
the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally
insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is
it that should trace the insuperable line? It is the faculty of reason, or
perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond
comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an
infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were
otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor
Can they talk but, Can they suffer?"
In this passage
Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that
gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering -
or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment of happiness - is not just
another characteristic like the capacity for language, or for higher
mathematics. Bentham is not saying that those who try to mark "the insuperable
line" that determines whether the interests of a being should be considered
happen to have selected the wrong characteristic. The capacity for suffering
and enjoying things is a pre-requisite for having interests at all, a
condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any
meaningful way. It would he nonsense to say that it was not in the interests
of a stone to be kicked along the road by a child. A stone does not have
interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could
possibly make any difference to its welfare. A mouse, on the other hand, does
have an interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is.
If a being suffers,
there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into
consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of
equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like
suffering - in so far as rough comparisons can be made - of any other being.
If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or
happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. This is why the limit of
sentience (using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate, shorthand
for the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only
defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this
boundary by some characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to
mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some other characteristic, like
skin colour?
Racists violate the
principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of
their own race, when there is a clash between their interests and the
interests of those of another race. Similarly speciesists allow the interests
of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other
species.
Equal consideration of interests
If the case for animal
equality is sound, what follows from it? It does not follow, of course, that
animals ought to have all of the rights that we think humans ought to have -
including, for instance, the right to vote. It is equality of consideration of
interests, not equality of rights, that the case for animal equality seeks to
establish. But what exactly does this mean, in practical terms? It needs to be
spelled out a little.
If I give a horse a
hard slap across its rump with my open hand, the horse may start, but
presumably feels little pain. Its skin is thick enough to protect it against a
mere slap. If I slap a baby in the same way, however, the baby will cry and
presumably does feel pain, for its skin is more sensitive. So it is worse to
slap a baby than a horse, if both slaps are administered with equal force. But
there must be some kind of blow - I don't know exactly what it would be, but
perhaps a blow with a heavy stick - that would cause the horse as much pain as
we cause a baby by slapping it with our hand. That is what I mean by the same
amount of pain; and if we consider it wrong to inflict that much pain on a
baby for no good reason then we must, unless we are speciesists, consider it
equally wrong to inflict the same amount of pain on a horse for no good
reason.
There are other
differences between humans and animals that cause other complications. Normal
adult human beings have mental capacities which will, in certain
circumstances, lead them to suffer more than animals would in the same
circumstances. If, for instance, we decided to perform extremely painful or
lethal scientific experiments on normal adult humans, kidnapped at random from
public parks for this purpose, every adult who entered a park would become
fearful that he or she would be kidnapped. The resultant terror would be a
form of suffering additional to the pain of the experiment.
The same experiments
performed on nonhuman animals would cause less suffering since the animals
would not have the anticipatory dread of being kidnapped and experimented
upon. This does not mean, of course, that it would be right to perform
the experiment on animals, but only that there is a reason, which is not
speciesist, for preferring to use animals rather than normal adult humans, if
the experiment is to be done at all. It should be noted, however that this
same argument gives us a reason for preferring to use human infants - orphans
perhaps - or retarded human beings for experiments, rather than adults, since
infants and retarded human beings would also have no idea of what was going to
happen to them.
So far as this
argument is concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded human beings
are in the same category; and if we use this argument to justify experiments
on non human animals we have to ask ourselves whether we are also prepared to
allow experiments on human infants and retarded adults; and if we make a
distinction between animals and these humans, on what basis can we do it,
other than a bare-faced - and morally indefensible - preference for members of
our own species?
There are many areas
in which the superior mental powers of normal adult human beings make a
difference: anticipation, more detailed memory, greater knowledge of what is
happening, and so on. Yet these differences do not all point to greater
suffering on the part of the normal human being. Sometimes animals may suffer
more because of their more limited understanding. If, for instance, we are
taking prisoners in wartime we can explain to them that while they must submit
to capture, search and confinement they will not otherwise be harmed and will
be set free at the conclusion of hostilities. If we capture a wild animal,
however, we cannot explain that we are not threatening its life. A wild animal
cannot distinguish an attempt to overpower and confine from an attempt to
kill; the one causes as much terror as the other.
It may be objected
that comparisons of sufferings of different species are impossible to make,
and that for this reason when the interests of animals and human beings clash
the principle of equality gives no guidance. It is probably true that
comparisons of suffering between members of different species cannot be made
precisely, but precision is not essential. Even if we were to prevent the
infliction of suffering on animals only when it is quite certain that the
interests of human beings will not be affected, we would be forced to make
radical changes in our treatment of animals that would involve our diet, the
farming methods we use, experimental procedures in many fields of science, our
approach to wildlife and to hunting, trapping and the wearing of furs, and
areas of entertainment like circuses, rodeos, and zoos. As a result a vast
amount of suffering would be avoided.
Killing
So far I have said a
lot about the infliction of suffering on animals, but nothing about killing
them. This omission has been deliberate. The application of the principle of
equality to the infliction of suffering is, in theory at least, fairly
straightforward. Pain and suffering are bad and should he prevented or
minimised, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that
suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts,
but pains of the same magnitude are equally bad regardless of species.
While self-awareness,
intelligence, the capacity for meaningful relations with others, and so on are
not relevant to the question of inflicting pain - since pain is pain, whatever
other capacities, beyond the capacity to feel pain, the being may have - these
capacities may be relevant to the question of taking life. It is not arbitrary
to hold that the life of a self-aware being, capable of abstract thought, of
planning for the future, of complex acts of communication, and so on, is more
valuable than the life of a being without these capacities.
To see the difference
between the issues of inflicting pain and taking life, consider how we would
choose within our own species. If we had to choose to save the life of the
normal human being or a mentally defective human being, we would probably
choose to save the life of the normal one; but if we had to choose between
preventing pain in the normal human being or in the mentally defective -
imagine that both have received painful but superficial injuries, and we only
have enough painkiller for one of them - it is not nearly so clear how we
ought to choose. The same is true when we consider other species. The evil of
pain is, in itself, unaffected by the other characteristics of the being that
feels the pain; the value of life is affected by these other characteristics.
Normally this will
mean that if we have to choose between the life of a human being and the life
of another animal we should choose to save the life of the human being; but
there may be special cases in which the reverse holds true, because the human
being in question does not have the capacities of a normal human being. So
this view is not speciesist, although it may appear to be at first glance.
The preference, in
normal cases, for saving a human life over the life of an animal when a choice
has to be made is a preference based on the characteristics that normal
humans being have and not on the mere fact that they are members of our own
species. This is why when we consider members of our own species who lack the
characteristics of normal human beings we can no longer say that their lives
are always to be preferred to those of other animals. In general, though, the
question of when it is wrong to kill (painlessly) an animal is one to which we
need give no precise answer. As long as we remember that we should give the
same respect to the lives of animals as we give to the lives of those human
beings at a similar mental level we shall not go far wrong.
Goals of the movement
Now that we have
looked at the philosophy behind the animal liberation movement, we can turn to
the movement's aims. What is animal liberation trying to achieve?
The aims of the
movement can be summed up in one sentence: to end the present speciesist bias
against taking seriously the interests of nonhuman animals. But where do we
begin? This is so broad a goal that it is necessary to have more specific
aims.
The traditional animal
welfare organisations concentrate on trying to stop cruelty to animals of
those species to which we most easily relate. Dogs, cats and horses are high
on their lists, because we keep these animals as pets or companions. Next come
those wild animals that we find attractive especially baby seals, with their
big brown eyes and soft white coats, the mysterious whales and the playful
dolphins. Animal Liberationists are also, of course, opposed to the suffering
and killing that is needlessly inflicted on dogs, cats, horses, seals, whales,
dolphins and all other animals. They do not, however, think that how appealing
an animal is to us has anything to do with the wrongness of making it suffer.
Instead they look to the severity of the suffering, and the numbers of animals
involved.
This means that the
animal liberation movement is more likely to demonstrate on behalf of
laboratory rats, or factory-farmed hens, than for dogs or cats that are being
mistreated by their owners. After all, there are some 45 million rats
and mice used in laboratories each year in the United States alone; and in the
same country, every year, over 3 billion chickens get raised in factory
farms, stuffed into crates on the backs of trucks, and then hung upside-down
on the conveyor belt that takes them to slaughter. The amount of suffering
involved in such institutionalised speciesism dwarfs the harm done to dogs and
cats by thoughtless or even cruel pet owners.
So while animal
liberation groups oppose all exploitation of animals, they have concentrated
on animal experimentation and the use of animals for food. Let us look at
these two areas a little more closely.
Experimental animals - tools for
research
Speciesism can be seen
in the widespread practice of experimenting on other species in order to see
if certain substances are safe for human beings, or to test some psychological
theory about the effects of severe punishment on learning, or to try out
various new compounds just in case something turns up. People sometimes think
that all this experimentation is for vital medical purposes, and so will
reduce suffering overall. This comfortable belief is very wide of the mark.
Here is one common
test carried out by cosmetic companies like Revlon, Avon and Bristol-Myers on
many substances they plan to put into their products. It is called the Draize
Test, after the man who developed it. You start with six albino rabbits.
Holding each animal firmly, you pull the lower lid away from one eyeball so
that it forms a small cup. Into this cup you drip 100 millilitres of whatever
it is you want to test. You hold the rabbit's eyelids closed for one second
and then let it go. A day later you come back and see if the lids are swollen,
the iris inflamed, the cornea ulcerated, the rabbit blinded in that eye.
This is a standard
test, performed without anaesthetic on virtually every substance sold that
might get into someone's eye. Other commercial tests include the LD 50 - the
"LD" stands for "Lethal Dose" and the "50" refers to the percentage of animals
for which the dose is to be made lethal. In other words in an LD 50 test, you
take a sample of animals - rats, mice, dogs or whatever - and feed them
concentrated amounts of the substance you are testing, until you have managed
to poison half of them to death. Then you have found out the dose that is
lethal for 50 per cent of your sample. This is known as the "LD50 value" and
is supposed to give some indication of how dangerous the substance is for
humans. Apart from the misery it causes for the
animals, all of which usually
get very ill, and half of which of course get so ill that they die, the test
is not at all reliable as a guide to human safety. There are too many
variations between the species. Thalidomide, to take one notorious example,
does not produce deformities in many animal species.
These are standard
tests in commercial laboratories. In the universities there are also many
experiments which could not be considered justified by anyone who takes
seriously the interests of nonhuman animals. In psychology departments
experimenters devise endless variations and repetitions of experiments that
were of little value in the first place. Animals will be punished with
electric shock, or reared in isolation to see how neurotic this makes them.
Animals as food
For the great majority
of human beings, especially in urban, industrialised societies, the most
direct form of contact with members of other species is at meal-times; we eat
them. In doing so we treat them purely as means to our ends. We regard their
life and well-being as subordinate to our taste for a particular kind of dish.
I say "taste" deliberately - this is purely a matter of pleasing our palate.
There can be no defence of eating flesh in terms of satisfying nutritional
needs, since it has been established beyond doubt that we could satisfy our
need for protein and other essential nutrients far more efficiently with a
diet that replaced animal flesh by high-protein vegetable products.
It is not merely the
act of killing that indicates what we are ready to do to other species in
order to gratify our tastes. The suffering we inflict on the animals while
they are alive is perhaps an even clearer indication of our speciesism than
the fact that we are prepared to kill them. In order to have meat on the table
at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat
production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for
the entire durations of their lives. Animals are treated like machines that
convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in a higher
"conversion ratio" is liable to be adopted.
As one authority on
the subject has said, "cruelty is acknowledged only when profitability
ceases". So hens are crowded three of four to a cage with a floor area of
sixteen inches by eighteen inches, or less than the size of a single page of a
daily newspaper. The cages have wire floors, since this reduces cleaning
costs; though wire is unsuitable for the hens' feet; the floors slope, since
this makes the eggs roll down for easy collection, although this makes it
difficult for the hens to rest comfortably. In these conditions all the birds'
natural instincts are thwarted: they cannot stretch their wings fully, walk
freely, dust-bathe, scratch the ground or build a nest. Although they have
never known other conditions, observers have noticed that the birds vainly try
to perform these actions. Frustrated at their inability to do so, they often
develop what farmers call "vices" and peck each other to death. To prevent
this, the beaks of young birds are cut off.
This kind of treatment
is not limited to poultry. Pigs are now also being reared in stalls inside
sheds. These animals are comparable to dogs in intelligence, and need a
varied, stimulating environment if they are not to suffer from stress and
boredom. Anyone who kept a dog in the way in which pigs are frequently kept
would be liable to prosecution, but because our interest in exploiting pigs is
greater than our interest in exploiting dogs, we object to cruelty to dogs
while consuming the produce of cruelty to pigs.
Animal liberation today
In the past few years
the animal liberation movement has made unprecedented gains. Whereas a few
years ago the public in most developed countries are largely unaware of the
nature of modern intensive animal rearing, now in Britain, in West Germany, in
Scandanavia, in the Netherlands and in Australia, a large body of informed
opinion is opposed to the confinement of laying hens in small wire cages, and
of pigs and veal calves in stalls so small they cannot walk a single step or
even turn around. In Britain a House of Commons Agriculture Committee has
recommended that cages for laying hens be phased out. Switzerland has gone one
better, actually passing legislation which will get rid of the cages by 1992.
A West German court pronounced the cage system contrary to the country's
anti-cruelty legislation - and although the government found a way of
rendering the court's verdict ineffective, the West German state of Hesse
announced that it would follow Switzerland's example and begin to phase the
cages out.
Perhaps the most
positive step forward for British farm animals has been in the worst of all
forms of factory farming, the so called "white veal trade". Veal calves were
standardly kept in darkness for 22 hours a day, in individual stalls too small
for them to turn around. They had no straw to lie on - for fear that by
chewing it they would cause their flesh to lose its pale softness - and were
fed on a diet deliberately made deficient in iron, so that the flesh would
remain pale and fetch the highest possible price in the gourmet restaurant
trade. A campaign against the trade led to a widespread consumer boycott; as a
result, Britain's largest veal producer conceded the need for change, and
moved its calves out of their bare, wooded, five feet by two feet, stalls into
group pens with room to move and straw for bedding.
The other major area
of concern to the animal liberation movement, because of the numbers of
animals and the amount of suffering involved, is animal experimentation. Here
too there have been important gains, although in contrast to the situation
with factory farming, these have occurred mostly in the United States. The
first success came in 1976, in a campaign against the American Museum of
Natural History. The museum was selected as a target because it was conducting
a particularly pointless series of experiments which involved mutilating cats
to investigate the effect this had on their sex lives. In June 1976 animal
liberation activists began picketing the museum, writing letters, advertising
and gathering support. They kept it up until, in December 1977, it was
announced that the experiments would no longer be funded.
This victory may have
saved no more than sixty cats from painful experimentation, but it had shown
that a well-planned, well-run campaign can prevent scientists doing as they
please with laboratory animals. Henry Spira, the New York ex-merchant seaman,
ex-civil rights activist who had led the campaign against the museum, used the
victory as a stepping stone to bigger campaigns. He now runs two coalitions of
animal groups, focusing on the rabbit-blinding Draize eye test and on the
LD50, a crude, fifty-year old toxicity test designed to find the Lethal Dose
for 50% of a sample of animals. Together these tests inflict suffering and
distress on more than five million animals yearly in the United States alone.
Already the coalitions
have begun to reduce both the number of animals used, and the severity of
their suffering. US government agencies have responded to the campaign against
the Draize test by moving to curb some of the most blatant cruelties. They
declared that substances known to be caustic irritants, such as lye, ammonia
and oven cleaners, need not be re-tested on the eyes of conscious rabbits. If
this seems too obvious to need saying by a government agency, that merely
indicates how bad things were until the campaign began. The agencies have also
reduced by one-half to one-third the suggested number of rabbits needed per
test for other products. Two major companies, Procter and Gamble and Smith,
Kline and French have released programs for improving their toxicology tests
which should involve substantially less suffering for animals. Another
company, Avon, reported a decline of 33% in the number of animals it uses.
In another recent step
forward, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced
that it does not require the LD 50. At a stroke, corporations developing new
products have been deprived of their standard excuse for using the LD50 - the
claim that the FDA forces them to do the test if the products are to he
released onto the American market.
Other dramatic
successes came about through the patient work of individual activists. In one
celebrated case Alex Pacheco volunteered for work in the laboratory of a Dr.
Edward Taub. Pacheco found that Taub's work involved severing the nerve
connections in the arms of monkeys, and then seeing to what extent they could
recover the use of their limbs. Moreover the conditions in the laboratory were
filthy, and when the monkeys inflicted wounds on themselves, they were not
given veterinary attention. Patiently Pacheco gathered his evidence, and then
he went to the police. Taub was convicted of cruelty, the first American
experimenter ever to be found guilty of this offence. The conviction was later
reversed on a technicality relating to the jurisdiction of state law when
federal government grants were involved; but Taub lost a sizable government
grant, and the public image of animal experimentation was badly dented.
That public image was
to suffer even worse damage in 1984-5 when members of the Animal Liberation
Front broke into a head injury research laboratory at the University of
Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. At the laboratory, Dr. Thomas Gennarelli
specialised in inflicting head injuries on baboons. The animal liberationists
did not release any of the baboons, but they took several hours of videotapes,
made by the experimenters themselves. When segments of these tapes were shown
on national television they caused a horrified reaction. They showed the
experimenters joking as they handled the baboons roughly, calling them
"sucker" and using other mocking language. The tapes also made it plain that,
contrary to Gennarelli's claims, the baboons were not properly anaesthetised
when the head injuries were inflicted. After much protest, a sit-in at the
offices of the National Institutes of Health, the government body which had
funded the experiments, led to a dramatic victory: the United States Secretary
for Health and Human Services announced that there was evidence of "material
failure" to comply with guidelines for the use of animals, and funding to the
laboratory was suspended.
The Future of Animal Liberation
Those who live from
exploiting animals are now on the defensive. The research community is
especially alarmed. Many laboratories have increased their security
arrangements, but this is a costly business, and money spent on fences and
guards is presumably not then available for research - which is just what the
animal liberation activists want. To guard every factory farm would be even
more expensive. No wonder that some of those who experiment on animals, or
raise them for food, hope that animal liberation will just prove to be a
passing fad.
That hope is bound to
be disappointed. The animal liberation movement is here to stay. It has been
building steadily now for more than a decade. There is wide public support for
the view that we are not justified in treating animals as mere things to be
used for whatever purposes we find convenient, whether it be the entertainment
of the hunt, or as a laboratory tool for the testing of some new food
colouring.
But there is still the
question of the course the movement will take. Within the animal liberation
movement, some forms of direct action have widespread support. Provided there
is no violence against any animal, human or nonhuman, many activists believe
that releasing animals from situations in which they are wrongly made to
suffer, and finding good homes for them, is justified. They liken it to the
illegal underground railroad which assisted black slaves to make their way to
freedom; it is, they say, the only possible means of helping the victims of
oppression.
In the worst cases of
indefensible experiments, this argument is surely correct; but there is
another question that should be asked by everyone interested not only in the
immediate release of ten, or fifty, or a hundred animals, but in the prospects
of a change that affects millions of animals. Is direct action effective as a
tactic? Does it simply polarize the debate and harden the opposition to
reform? So far, one would have to say, the publicity gained - and the evident
public sympathy with the animals released - has done the movement more good
than harm. This is, in large part, because the targets of these operations
have been so well selected that the experimentation revealed is particularly
difficult to defend.
Now there are signs
that this crucial matter of selecting only the most blatantly indefensible
targets is being neglected as the groundswell of militant activity increases.
Some activists are even going beyond actions directed at releasing animals or
documenting cruelty. In 1982 a group calling itself the "Animal Rights
Militia" sent letter-bombs to Margaret Thatcher. The group had never been
heard of before, has never been heard of since, and may not have been a
genuine animal rights organization at all. But the "Hunt Retribution Squad",
an offshoot of the highly successful Hunt Saboteurs Association, is
undoubtedly real. To disrupt a hunt so as to make it possible for the intended
victim to escape is one thing; to seek "retribution" on the benighted hunters
is another thing altogether, and morally far more dubious. (If we consider the
unfortunate social background and childhood experiences of most hunters, their
atrocious behaviour becomes readily explicable, and more a matter for pity
than retribution.)
I do not believe that
illegal actions are always morally wrong. There are circumstances in which,
even in a democracy, it is morally right to disobey the law; and the issue of
animal liberation provides good examples of such circumstances. If the
democratic process is not functioning properly; if repeated opinion polls
confirm that an overwhelming majority opposes many types of experimentation,
and yet the Government takes no effective action to stop them; if the public
is kept largely unaware of what is happening in factory farms and laboratories
- then illegal actions may be the only available avenue for assisting animals
and obtaining evidence about what is happening.
My concern is not with
breaking the law, as such. It is with the prospect of the confrontation
becoming violent, and leading to a climate of polarization in which reasoning
becomes impossible and the animals themselves end up being the victims.
Polarization between animal liberation activists, on the one hand, and the
factory farmers and at least some of the animal experimenters, on the other
hand, may be unavoidable. But actions which involve the general public, or
violent actions which lead to people getting hurt, would polarize the
community as a whole.
The animal liberation
movement must do its part to avoid the vicious spiral of violence. Animal
Liberation activists must set themselves irrevocably against the use of
violence, even when their opponents use violence against them. By violence I
mean any action which causes direct physical harm to any human or animal; and
I would go beyond physical harm to acts which cause psychological harm like
fear or terror. It is easy to believe that because some experimenters make
animals
suffer, it is all right to make the experimenters suffer. This
attitude is mistaken. We may be convinced that a person who is abusing animals
is totally callous and insensitive; but we lower ourselves to their level and
put ourselves in the wrong if we harm or threaten to harm that person. The
entire animal liberation movement is based on the strength of its ethical
concern. It must not abandon the high moral ground.
Instead of going down
the path of increasing violence, the animal liberation movement will do far
better to follow the examples of the two greatest - and, not co-incidentally,
most successful - leaders of liberation movements in modern times: Gandhi and
Martin Luther King. With immense courage and resolution, they stuck to the
principle of non-violence despite the provocations, and often violent attacks,
of their opponents. In the end they succeeded because the justice of their
cause could not be denied, and their behaviour touched the consciences even of
those who had opposed them. The struggle to extend the sphere of moral concern
to non-human animals may be even harder and longer, but if it is pursued with
the same determination and moral resolve, it will surely also succeed.
FURTHER READING
ANIMAL RIGHTS
Animal Rights Peter Singer (Thorsons)
In Defence of Animals ed. Peter Singer (Blackwell)
Animal Rights and Human Obligations ed. Torn Regan & Peter Singer
(Prentice-Hall).
Men and Beasts: an Animal Rights Handbook Maureen Duffy (Paladin)
The Animals Report Richard North (Penguin)
Animals and Why They Matter Mary Midgley (Pelican)
The Moral Status of Animals Stephen Clark (Oxford University Press)
Voiceless Victims Rebecca Hall (Wildwood)
The Case for Animal Rights Tom Regan (Routledge and Kegan Paul)
The Extended Circle: a Dictionary of Humane Thought Jon Wynne-Tyson
(Centaur)
FOOD
Compassion the Ultimate Ethic: an
exploration of veganism Victoria Moran (Thorsons)
Food for a Future Jon Wynne-Tyson (Abacus)
Assault and Battery Mark Gold (Pluto)
International Vegetarian Handbook (Thorsons)
Why Veganism Kath Clements (Heretic)
Easy Vegan Cooking Sandra Williams & Joy Scott (Old Hammond Press)
Eva Batt's Vegan Cookery (Thorsons)
VIVISECTION
Victims of Science: the use of animals
in research Richard Ryder (N.A.V.S.)
Slaughter of the Innocent Hans Reusch (Civitas)
HUNTING
Outfoxed Mike Huskisson (Michael
Huskisson Associates)
The Hunt and the Anti-Hunt Philip Windeatt (Pluto)
NONVIOLENCE
Preparing for Nonviolent Direct Action
Howard Clark/Sheryl Crown/Angela McKee/Hugh MacPherson (Peace News)
Manual for Action Martin Jelfs & Sandy Merrit (Action Resources Group)
The Politics of Nonviolent Action Gene Sharp (Porter Sargent)
Direct Action April Carter (Peace News/Housmans)
CONTACTS
ANIMAL RIGHTS (General)
ANIMAL AID SOCIETY, 7 Castle Street,
Tonbridge. Kent. Publishes Outrage.
ANIMUS, 34 Marshall Street. London W1V ILL Produces badges, records, The
Animal Diary etc.
FOOD
THE VEGAN SOCIETY, 33-35 George Street
Oxford OX1 2AY.
Publishes The Vegan.
THE VEGETARIAN SOCIETY. 53 Marloes Road, London W8 6LA.
Publishes The Vegetarian.
COMPASSION IN WORLD FARMING, 20 Levant Street, Petersfield, Hants GU32 3EW.
Publishes Agscene.
VEGFAM, The Sanctuary, Nr Lydford, Devon.
Feeds the hungry, without exploiting animals.
ANIMAL WELFARE/RESCUE
R.S.P.C.A., The Causeway, Horsham,
Sussex.
Publishes RSPCA Today.
VIVISECTION
NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY, 51
Harley Street, London W1N 1DD.
Publishes Animals' Defender and The Campaigner.
BRITISH UNION FOR THE ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION, 16a Crane Grove, Islington.
London N7 8LB. Publishes Liberator.
HUNTING
HUNT SABOTEURS ASSOCIATION. PO Box 19,
London SE22 9LR.
Publishes Howl.
LEAGUE AGAINST CRUEL SPORTS, 83-87 Union Street, London SE1 1SG.
Publishes Cruel Sports
Reproduced from:
http://www.utilitarian.org/texts/alm.html
Pictures added by Gnostic Liberation
Front obtained from:
http://www.liberation-mag.org.uk/Home.htm
Rainbow
Bridge 
