Animal Rights
Presented by Simon Hatley, Animal Rights Activist
About the Speaker
About the Event
Announcements
Meeting Minutes for February 9, 2000; #62.
Upcoming next six meetings and events:
· February 23, 7PM: Buddhism, Moderated by Steve Andersen, @ the
Wyoming Public Library.
· March 8, 7PM: “Evolutionary Psychology,” Moderated by Dr. Greg
Miklashek. Note: THIS WILL BE OUR 1ST MEETING @ THE GRCC SCIENCE BLDG.
· March 22,7PM: “Evolution of Human Sexuality,” Moderated by Dr. Carl
Bajema, @ the GRCC Science Bldg.
· **April 11, Tuesday, 7PM. Skeptic Magazine Editor and author of the
books “Why People Believe Weird Things,” and “How We Believe,” will
give a lecture @ the GRCC Science Bldg.**
April 26, 7PM: “The Life & Times of Clarence Darrow,” Moderated by
Marshall Grate, @ the GRCC Science Bldg.
· April 30, 7PM: “Adopt-A-Highway” Coordinated by Dennis Murphy.
For more information or extended schedule of topics and events, go to
our website: http://my.voyager.net/freethought. Your contributions or
suggestions are welcome.
We have only one more meeting @ the Wyoming Public Library; the
February 23rd one, due to renovation. Our 1st meeting in March will
take place at the very accommodating Grand Rapids Community College,
The Calkins Science Center, downtown GR. We wish to extend thanks to
Dr. Greg Forbes for arranging this for us! A map was provided in the
bulletin passed out @ the meeting.
There is a possibility that skeptic, debunker of paranormal claims and
magician James Randi will speak @ Saginaw College soon. If we can
confirm and provide more specifics, we will do so.
Several of us met @ Applebee’s after the meeting for a continuation of
excellent talk and libations.
Presentation
Our meeting topic was “Animal Rights” and was moderated by Simon
Hatley. Due to time constraints, Simon focused primarily on
vegetarianism and the processing of animals for food production.
He introduced the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, saying it is
considered the Bible of the animal rights movement. Many of his
examples and quotes were from this influential work.
The Western attitude toward other animals is seen to stem from the
influence of the biblical account of “man’s dominion” over the animals
and other interpretive pronouncements from such religious authorities
as Thomas Aquinas. In his Suma Theologica, he further propounds the
idea that animals are for our use as we see fit and that this is
God-ordained. Rene Descartes gave further credence to the correctness
of this attitude, deeming the other animals as merely mindless
automata; clockwork creatures with negligible or no pain or fear
response, in his combination of a mechanistic approach with the
Christian worldview. The concept of the “soul” was ushered in to
further remove humankind from the supposedly non-sentient soul-less
beings. Only human beings have consciousness, given by God. No soul
equated to no consciousness, and this signified no insensibility to
pain or pleasure or awareness. This notion was held with strong
conviction due to our unique possession of the immaterial soul being
our ticket into immortality beyond the grave. It was thought that to
eschew this belief would lead to immoral conduct. So the suffering of
the “lower animals” was okay under these circumstances and they were
condemned to be only a means to an end—a human end. Any response seen
to vivisection, removal of an offspring from the mother, etc. was
considered only an instinctive reaction. Charles Darwin, in his
Descent of Man and other writings proposed a different view from his
research as a naturalist, that the same attributes of humanity can be
found in incipient or highly developed form in the other animals.
Voltaire also saw the practice of vivisection as negating the
similarity of experience correlation between human and non-human
animals.
Hatley also brought up examples from children’s books and cartoons
depicting animals as cute little things having nothing to do with the
actual biological beings they represent. This is, in modern society,
the main exposure most children have with the animals used in farm
food production.
He also talked about the practices involved in factory farming, where
cost/gain ratios are the only consideration. Animals are packed as
tightly together as possible, chickens are de-beaked, animals are
processed in assembly line manner, and the connection between animal
handling and agricultural understanding is lacking, since many factory
farms are owned by corporations having nothing to do with livestock.
When the concern is there for the product as to handling, according to
Hatley, it is for reasons of weight loss or bruising (from extremely
poor conditions) bringing in less money for the corporation.
The philosophy of Utilitarianism, often summed up as being that the
highest ethical good provides the greatest happiness for the greatest
number of people, and whose best known proponents were John Stuart
Mill and Jeremy Bentham, was given for consideration. Hatley stressed
the consideration of the interests of the given being as paramount in
this issue. Does the harm outweigh the intrinsic interests of the
animal; for instance, to avoid pain, to range freely, to stay united
with its family and so on. He mentioned that our fellow creatures are
often imbued with sharper senses, and arguably suffer just as deeply
as more neocortically endowed humans. He insists that the chief
response against the animal rights movement; that animals cannot
reason, is not the point but whether they can suffer. There still
persists a strong resistance to the reality of our common descent with
all other life, rather than being the specially ensouled pets of a
divine Creator. And when the interest factor is weighed, if the
interests between humans and animals clash, it is the other animals
that lose, to their detriment.
We talked about the medical problems attributed to our animal
fat-laden diet in this country and we discussed the environmental
impact of our copious meat processing, especially via factory farming.
A large quantity of the crops grown are given over to feed livestock
bred to larger numbers. Vast areas of land are used for the additional
crop- growing, additional water consumption due to irrigation,
breeding grounds, and the factories themselves. These practices are
said, by the animal rights activists to get more pollutants into the
environment. One member mentioned that since turkeys can acquire some
similar diseases as humans, they are then fed chemicals that when
ingested by people who consume them, can have bad consequences.
Hunting was brought up in the group as a more merciful alternative to
starvation in the deer population, but this was countered by examples
of wounded animals suffering from gunshot but not dying quickly and
that the increased population of deer is artificially created by
humans removing their natural predators. We also compared the natural
prey-predator situation with our manner of animal product production.
Convenience was cited as a reason why a burger is quicker and easier
to get on the run than a vegetarian dinner.
The difference between sentience and non-sentience was given as a
reason for plant-eating but not meat eating. It was pointed out that
there was no evolutionary reason for an avoidance of the pain response
in vegetation without a nervous system and consequently no means of
autonomous mobility ensued.
There was also the issue of medical research discussed. On the one
side, computer models and other non-animal use means to research
diseases were given, and on the other, that this would not take the
place of research using animals, and that we are “speciesist” in our
concern for our own kind. Or use a group-oriented ethics. If animals
have to suffer or die to find cures to diseases that can save human
lives, we are prone to opt for animal experimentation. More
challenging was the question of animal use to test cosmetics. It was
said that since humanity has difficulty showing equal concern to our
own kind (especially to others belonging to some different group),
then it will be even more challenging to extend this value of equal
interests to the rest of the biota.
A few last thoughts regarded the economic inefficiency of the ratio of
materials and resources used and the amount of meat produced, the
potential problem of agriculture going more and more to large
corporations, where a monopoly could arise, and a particularly strong
negative response to the idea that the violence by animal rights
activists who destroy property to stop what they see as animal abuses,
is justified, even if it circumvents the law of the land.
There were a great many more thoughts and sometimes rather heated
exchanges, borne of strong convictions at this meeting, but this
summarizes the content as best as space constraints allow.
Recorder: Charles LaRue
