Bernard E.

Rollin
To Linda and Michael, to Yetta, and to the memory of Dr. Bernard
Schoenberg
Preface to the Third Edition

Original Preface to the Second Edition

Updated Preface to the First Edition

1. MORAL THEORY AND ANIMALS

Introduction

Moral Intuitions and Moral Theory

Finding a Fulcrum-The Need for an Ideal

Constructing an Ideal for Animals

Having a Soul

Relevant Differences

Human Dominion

Duties toward Animals as Duties toward Humans

Reason, Language, and Moral Concern

Social Contract Theories

Kant's Theory of Reason

Kant's Ethic

Humans as "Ends in Themselves"

Animals as Means

Language and Reason

The Ordinary Notion of Rationality

Do Animals Behave Rationally?

Are Only Humans "Language-Rational"?Do Animals Use

Concepts?

Animals and Human Language

Moral Concern and Nonrational Humans

Our Concern for Nonrational Human Interests

The Moral Relevance of Pleasure and Pain

Scientific Ideology and the Denial of Animal Pain and

Consciousness

A Critique of Scientific Ideology

Variability of Pain Experience in Humans and Animals

Interest in Survival and Freedom

Moral Concern and Creatures with Interests

Interests, Language, and Natural Signs

Life and Awareness as the Source of Interests: The Telos of Living

Things

Interests and Awareness

Moral Theory and Our Worldview

 Do Animals Have "Moral Rights"?

The Right to Moral Concern

The Right to Life

The Violation of Rights

Animals as Ends in Themselves

Specific Rights and Animals Nature

Telos and Ethology

Telos and Genetic Engineering

Where Do You Draw the Line?

How Do We Deal with Competing Interests?

Must We Police Creation?

Don't Animals Kill Each Other?

The Nonliving Environment

Don't We Have Enough Problems with Human Morality?

Isn't All This Utopian?

2. ANIMAL RIGHTS AND LEGAL RIGHTS

How Are Law and Morality Connected?

Natural Law Theory

Natural Rights
 The Rejection of Natural Law and Natural Rights: Legal
Positivism

The Revival of Natural Rights

Rights Are a Protection for the Individual against the

General Welfare

How Rights Are Established

How Does This Relate to Animals?

Don't Animals Have Legal Rights Now?

Do Animals Need Rights? Their Legal Status Today

Legalizing the Rights of Animals

What Can We Expect to Achieve?

Is Our Position Absurd?

Legal Rights of Animals Today

3. THE USE AND ABUSE OF ANIMALS IN RESEARCH

Introduction

The Six Senses of Research

Moral Principles for Research: The Utilitarian and

Rights Principles

Introduction to the Testing of Consumables

The LD50 Test

The Draize Test

Carcinogen, Mutagen, and Teratogen Testing

The Concept of Alternatives to Animal Experimentation

The Use of Animals in Teaching

Research Abuse and the Training of Scientists

The Debasement of Language in Science

Creating a Revolution in Science EducationSome

Personal Notes

Introduction to the Use of Animals in Basic Research

Freedom of Thought versus the Moral Status of Animals

The Use of "Alternatives" in Basic Research

Theory-based Science versus Empirical Dabbling

Improving the Lot of Research Animals

The Emergence of Viable Legislation

Positive Features of the New Laws

Distress

Limitations and Inadequacies in the New Laws

Animal Happiness

Threats to the Current Regulatory System

The Role of Humanists in Science

Introduction to the Use of Animals in Applied Medical

Research
 The Focus of Medical Research and Practice: Some
Philosophical Reflections

Introduction to the Use of Animals in Drug Research

Introduction to the Use of Animals for Product Extraction

Conclusion

4. MORALITY AND PET ANIMALS

Morality, Empathy, and Individuality

The Triggering of Empathy

Pet Animals and the Social Contract

The Changing Role of Companion Animals in Society

Human Breach of Contract

Violating the Right to Life

The Human Tragedy

Violation of Telos

Canine Racism

Social Institutions as a Mirror of Individual Irresponsibility

Viable Legislation and the Pet Problem

The Need for an Educational Blitzkrieg

The Role of Animal Advocacy

The Role of Veterinarians

5. ANIMAL AGRICULTURE

Introduction

Husbandry Agriculture

The Rise of Industrialized Agriculture

Welfare and Productivity

Problems of Industrialized Agriculture

Sow Confinement

Other Problems in Confinement Swine Production

Piglet Welfare

Grower-Finishers

Handling and Transport

Recommendations

Egg Production

Broiler Production

Dairy

Veal

Husbandry versus Industry-Beef

Welfare Problems in the Beef Industry

Feedlots

What Is to Be Done?
Afterword to the Second Edition

Afterword to the Third Edition

Bibliography

Index
 'hen I began to write the first edition of this book in the late
1970s, it seemed clear to me that social concern about animal treatment,
relatively embryonic then, would inevitably proliferate and create a major
social issue. I never, however, anticipated the degree to which this would
occur, nor the rapidity of its seizure of public imagination.

According to both the US National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the

National Institutes of Health (the latter being the source of funding for the
majority of biomedical research in the United States), neither group was
inclined to exaggerate the influence of animal ethics; by the early 1990s, the
US Congress had been consistently receiving more letters, phone calls,
faxes, e-mails, and personal contacts on animal-related issues than on any
other topic. Whereas twenty years ago one would have found no bills
pending in the US Congress relating to animal welfare, the last seven to
eight years have witnessed fifty to sixty such bills annually, with even more
proliferating at the state level-some two and a half thousand a few years
ago! The federal bills range from attempts to prevent duplication in animal
research to saving marine mammals from becoming victims of tuna
fishermen, from preventing importation of ivory to curtailing the parrot
trade. State laws passed in large numbers have increas ingly prevented the
use of live or dead shelter animals for biomedical research and training, and
have focused on myriad other areas of animal welfare. Eight states have
abolished the steel jawed leghold trap. When Colorado's politically
appointed wildlife commission failed to act on a recommendation from the
Colorado Division of Wildlife to abolish the spring bear hunt (because
hunters were liable to shoot lactating mothers, leaving their orphaned cubs
to die of starvation), the general public ended the hunt through a popular
referendum. Seventy percent of Colorado's population voted for this to
become a statewide constitutional amendment. In Ontario, the
environmental minister stopped a similar hunt by executive fiat in response
to social and ethical concerns. California abolished the hunting of mountain
lions, and state fishery management agencies have been taking a hard look
at catch-and-release programs on humane grounds.

In fact, wildlife managers writing for academic journals have worried

about "management by referendum," since the general public favors
"nonconsumptive" use of wildlife, whereas hunters and fishermen have
traditionally paid for wildlife management. According to the director of the
American Quarter Horse Association, the number of state bills related to
horse welfare when summarized filled a telephone book-sized volume in
1998 alone. Public sentiment for equine welfare in California carried a bill
through the state legislature, making the slaughter or shipping of horses for
slaughter a felony in that state. Municipalities have passed ordinances
ranging from the abolition of rodeos, circuses, and zoos to the protection of
prairie dogs, and, in the case of Cambridge, Massachusetts (a biomedical
Mecca), there are the strictest laws in the world regulating animal use in
research.

Perhaps even more dramatic is the worldwide proliferation of laws to

protect laboratory animals. As we shall discuss, in the United States the US
Congress passed two major pieces of legislation (Animal Welfare Act and
Health Research Extension Act) regulating and constraining the use and
treatment of animals in research in 1985, despite vigorous opposition from
the powerful biomedical research and medical lobbies. This opposition
included well-financed, highly visible advertisements and media
promotions indicating that human health and medical progress would be
harmed by implementation of such legislation. There was even a lessthan-
subtle film titled Will I Be All Right, Doctor? with the query coming from a
sick child. The response from a pediatrician was, in essence, "You will be if
`they' leave us alone to do as we wish with animals." With social concern
for laboratory animals unmitigated by such threats, research animal
protection laws moved easily though the US Congress and have been
implemented at considerable cost to taxpayers. Even zealous advocates for
unfettered research now agree that these laws have not only not destroyed
research, but have also made for better research by controlling pain and
stress variables.

In 1986 Britain superseded its pioneering act of 1876 with new laws
aimed at strengthening public confidence in the welfare of experimental
animals. Many other European countries have moved or are moving in a
similar direction, despite the fact that some 90 percent of laboratory animals
are rats and mice, which are not often considered the most cuddly and
lovable of animals.

Many animal uses seen as frivolous by the public have been abolished
without legislation. Toxicological testing of cosmetics on animals has been
truncated, companies such as the Body Shop have been wildly successful
internationally by totally disavowing such testing, and freerange egg
production is a growth industry across the Western world. Greyhound
racing in the United States has declined, in part for animal welfare reasons,
with the Indiana veterinary community spearheading the effort to prevent
greyhound racing from coming into the state. Zoos that are little more than
prisons for animals (the state of the art during my youth) have all but
disappeared, and the very existence of zoos is being increasingly
challenged, despite the public's unabashed love of seeing animals. And, as
George Gaskell and his associates' work has revealed, genetic engineering
has been rejected in Europe-not, as commonly believed, for reasons of risk,
but for reasons of ethics, and in part for reasons of animal ethics. Similar
reasons have in part driven European rejection of bovine somatotropin
(BST), a bovine growth hormone, for fear of harming cattle. Rodeos such as
the Houston Livestock Show have, in essence, banned jerking calves in
roping, despite opposition from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys
Association, who themselves never show the actual roping of a calf on
national television.

Inevitably, agriculture has felt the force of social concern with animal
treatment-indeed, it is arguable that contemporary concern in society with
the treatment of farm animals in modern production systems blazed the trail
leading to a new ethic for animals. As early as 1965, British society took
notice of what the public saw as an alarming tendency to industrialize
animal agriculture by chartering the Brambell Commission, a group of
scientists under the leadership of Sir Rogers Brambell, who affirmed that
any agricultural system failing to meet the needs and natures of animals was
morally unacceptable. Though the Brambell Commission recommendations
enjoyed no regulatory status, they served as a moral lighthouse for
European social thought. In 1988 the Swedish Parliament passed, virtually
unopposed, what the New York Times called a "Bill of Rights" for farm
animals, abolishing in Sweden the confinement systems currently
dominating North American agriculture in a series of timed steps. Much of
northern Europe has followed suit, and the European Union is moving in a
similar direction. For example, sow stalls must be eliminated in ten years.
Recently, activists in the United States have begun to turn their attention to
animal agriculture and have begun to pressure chain restaurants,
manufacturers, and grocery chains. It is reasonable to expect that US
society will eventually demand changes similar to those that have occurred
in Europe. Unfortunately, the agricultural community did not heed the signs
and, as people at the 2002 Reciprocal Meat Conference told me, they lost
the moral high ground to the activists.

In this and the other editions of the book, I have tried to articulate the
social/ethical principles underlying this unprecedented concern for animal
treatment. Years ago, I realized that, if animal ethics is to move forward, it
must do so by extending our extant body of social/ethical beliefs to apply
mutatis mutandis (appropriately modified) to the treatment of animals. By
making people conscious of the implications of their ethics for animals, I
hope to accelerate such applications. As Plato said, in dealing with adults
and ethics, one cannot teach ethics, one can only remind, i.e., help people
realize the unnoticed implications of their own beliefs.

This continues to be the method of choice for me-it undergirds my work

with scientists, agriculturalists, veterinarians, and other animal users. No
matter how eloquent and coherent a philosopher may be, why would
another person listen unless the philosopher is telling the person the
unnoticed implications of his or her own beliefs? This method works,
although it may take time to see results. I will illustrate this throughout the
book, but probably most clearly in the discussion of multiple surgery.

I have added a chapter on agriculture to this edition-the issue is too

important to leave undiscussed, as I unfortunately did in earlier editions
when I was heavily focused on issues of science. Now that I have given
literally hundreds of speeches to agriculturalists, have enjoyed literally
thousands of hours of discussions with them, and have earned some
credibility with them despite my New York City roots, I feel better prepared
to engage the issue.

Special thanks to Holly Griffin, typist extraordinaire.

 ~n years have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of this
book. Much of what I have argued in the book has come to pass. In
particular, my philosophical strategy of extracting a new ethic for animals
from our consensus, commonsense, social ethic for humans seems to be
indeed what is taking place in society. Second, and most gratifying,
significant changes are taking place in the scientific community in response
to this emerging ethic. The proposed legislation I described in the first
edition has recently become federal law, and entrenched scientific attitudes
about the ethics of animal research and about animal consciousness and
animal pain are beginning to change.

At the same time, during those ten years, I have enjoyed remarkable
opportunities to explain the new ethic and help put it into effect all over the
world. I have spoken to lay audiences and experts over three hundred times
in fields I would initially never have imagined possible. I have consulted for
the governments of the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands,
and South Africa on the issue of animals in research; lectured to scores of
veterinary schools on four continents on animal ethics; and helped these
schools to develop new courses dealing with the moral status and treatment
of animals. I have spoken to business people, med ical researchers,
psychologists, rodeo managers, ranchers, farmers, circus promoters,
wildlife managers, librarians, genetic engineers, cowboys, animal scientists,
humane societies, activist groups, veterinarians, church groups, elementary
schools, toxicologists, and corporate executives; and I have found them
almost universally open to and intrigued by the issues of animals and
morality. I have been fortunate enough to see people put my philosophical
ideas to use in reforming traditional practices involving animals in teaching,
research laboratories, rodeos, and government offices that set policy for
wildlife. At the same time, I have learned incalculable amounts from the
people I talked to and have been forced to learn more when they demand of
me not only philosophical arguments, but practical solutions as well. Thus,
for example, I have been compelled to learn a good deal about laboratory
animal care, husbandry, and analgesia so that I can help change odious
practices, and about such things as alternatives to castration in cattle raised
for beef. Contrary to my training, I have come to learn that a philosopher
working in applied ethics cannot be content with midwifery of ideas,
conceptual clarification, and helping people to articulate their own ethic;
one must also be prepared to help them put the ethic into practice, or else
one is throwing away priceless opportunities for effecting morally positive
reform.

All this has been exciting and gratifying and has forced me to sharpen,
refine, and apply my earlier ideas. This new edition contains some of these
refinements, as well as extensive revision of the chapter on animal research
in light of what has occurred during the past decade. I have continued to
emphasize reform in animal research not only because it is an excellent
exemplar for reform in all areas of animal use, but also because it is the area
I know best, not only theoretically, but in virtue of daily interactions with
researchers for almost fifteen years. There is a great deal more to be said
about animal consciousness and animal pain than I have been able to
include in this book. Readers interested in this question should read my
recent book, The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and
Science (Oxford University Press, 1989).

The main problem, which continues to concern me the most, and which I
discussed in the introduction to the 1980 edition, is polarization and
irrationality on the animal ethics issues by both sides. There is hardly any
more rational dialogue between the two camps in 1990 than there was in
1980very likely there is less. The American Medical Association's recent
paper on animal rights labels all animal advocates as "terrorists," and
scientific and medical researchers continue to equate animal rights
supporters with lab trashers, Luddites, misanthropes, and opponents of
science and civilization. Animal rights activists continue to label all
scientists as sadists and psychopaths. Thus an unhealthy pas de deux is
created that blocks rather than accelerates the discovery of rational
solutions to animal ethics issues.

Not surprisingly, I have been assaulted by extremists from both sides. In

one notable week, in reviews of the first edition of this book, I was called
an "apologist for the lab trashers" and one who "exonerates the Nazis" by
the New England Journal of Medicine, and a sellout for "accepting the
reality of science" by an extreme animal rights person. So incredibly
virulent have been some of the reviews, in fact, that the reviews themselves,
rather than the book, have been the subject of an article by a philosopher
who marveled that such a straightforward, clear work could elicit such
extreme reactions.

Nor did I fare any better when giving speeches. Some years ago, I was
asked to give the keynote address to the twenty-fifth annual general meeting
of a major national humane organization. I was specifically asked to avoid
my usual tendency to raise hackles and blood pressures. I agreed and
prepared what I thought was a rather innocuous talk arguing for the need for
more rationality in the humane movement, especially for greater attention to
moral reasoning and greater command of scientific knowledge relevant to
animal issues. In any event, my speech was well received and I was given a
standing ovation, but I noticed that the chairman of the board of the
organization, a prominent lawyer who shared the podium with me, was less
than happy; in fact, he was turning purple. As soon as the applause ended,
he strode toward me in a rage. "I knew we shouldn't have invited you. We
don't need your kind of people. We don't need reason, logic, science, or
philosophy in the humane movement-all we need are emotion and Christian
ethics!" I pointed out that emotion had not carried the humane movement
very far-that it simply evoked counteremotion and that Christian ethics, to
my knowledge, had traditionally very little to say about our obligations to
animals. At this, he grew even angrier and told me, in front of hundreds of
people, "You're lucky I didn't get up there during your speech and pull you
off the stage physically." Later, after I had gone, he admonished the
audience not to listen to "Jew logic."
 A remarkably parallel response from the other side occurred when I was
invited to give the banquet speech to the international annual meeting of a
group of researchers who study circulatory shock in humans and animals
and do some significantly invasive things to animals in research, including
inflicting trauma, septic and burn shock, and so on. The night of the
banquet, I sat at the head table, where I was introduced to the president of
the organization. I extended my hand to shake his. In full view of all, he
pointedly refused it and snapped, "How long is your speech?"

"Forty-five minutes," I replied. "That's what the program chairman told

me to prepare a year ago."

"Cut it to ten minutes," he snapped. "No one wants to listen to you for
any longer than that."

"Tick me off," I replied, "and I'll talk for two hours."

It is to the great credit of the rank-and-file members of both these

audiences that they turned on their leaders and supported my speeches
wholeheartedly-in the case of the shock researchers, our discussions went
on for almost four hours. But the point to bear in mind is that the leaders
felt no compulsion to be rational or even polite.

Thus, I conclude that there is perhaps no set of social issues on which

otherwise sane people on either side of the question allow themselves to be
so overwhelmingly irrational as in matters pertaining to the treatment of
animals and our moral obligations to them. Certainly these issues generate a
great deal of emotion, but so, too, do women's issues or homosexuals' rights
issues. But there is a great difference between these cases: whereas gays
and women are powerful and vocal constituencies, animals are voiceless
and powerless, so we are not forced in issues pertaining to their welfare to
be rational even in public forums, let alone in private. Thus, however much
the male rednecks in the United States might wish in their heart of hearts to
have all women barefoot, pregnant, and chained to the microwave, if not the
pot-bellied stove, they resist the urge to say this in public. But, as the above
anecdotes illustrate, there is no such pressure regarding animals.
 This is a truly tragic situation. Anyone with any historical perspective on
the United States knows full well not only that we have never had a social
and moral revolution that was not incremental, but also that one cannot hold
back these revolutions. In a democracy, such incremental change should
surely proceed by rational dialogue and consensus, not through hysteria,
bullying, and crisis management. The animal issues are in principle no
different from any other issues except, perhaps, that we have no track
record in dealing with them. It is all the more exigent, then, that we be
guided by the light of reason and not be drawn toward the seductive songs
played on the pipes of expediency and emotion.

In preparing the revised edition, I have received valuable assistance from

Grace Bell, Marguerite Forest, and Linda Rollin.
 its book concerns itself with the theoretical and practical issues
related to animals and morality. The origins of the book were themselves
both theoretical and practical. In the first place, my research in philosophy
of language had led me to believe that one could not draw a neat line
between human beings and animals on the basis of language and reason.
Denial of this gap in turn led me to question the moral status of animals,
since it is on the basis of the absence of reason that animals are usually
excluded from moral concern or, at least, from moral concern on a par with
that granted to humans.

My interest in these questions, which was initially abstract and

academic, became very practical and immediate when I began to teach
veterinary medical ethics at the Colorado State University College of
Veterinary Medicine, the first such course ever taught anywhere. To teach
this course properly, I was forced to become acquainted with a number of
very specific problems related to the use and abuse of animals in our
society. At the same time I was asked to help draft legislation for the state
of Colorado, aimed at improving the condition of laboratory animals. My
activities in these areas led to my working almost daily with both scien tists
and animal welfare workers on such varied problems as the use of animals
in teaching surgery, the problem of the unwanted pet, and the legal status of
animals. These activities in turn led to numerous speaking engagements all
over the United States, where I found myself addressing very diverse
audiences ranging from veterinarians to research scientists, to those who
would stop research on animals altogether.
 In the course of these lectures, I became aware of some disturbing facts.
First, I discovered that there was very little dialogue or open
communication between the opposing parties on most of these issues. Many
scientists tended to dismiss those concerned with animal welfare as
"bleeding-heart humaniacs." Many people concerned with animal welfare
tended to view research scientists as ravening sadists who enjoy torturing
puppies and kittens. These stereotypes, which I knew from my own
experience to be in the main false, were perpetuated by profound ignorance
on both sides of the opposing positions and a failure to seek common
ground. The net result had been a sort of trench warfare, with each side
firing salvos at the unseen enemy. Yet from my own perspective, I knew
that there was much room for compromise and common interest between
the two extremes, and I said as much in my lectures to all parties.

Second, I saw that a major stumbling block to dialogue was posed by the
extraordinarily emotional nature of the issues involved. Both scientists and
animal welfare workers tended to shoot from the heart. Fortunately, many
of these people recognized this when it was called to their attention. I found
myself being asked to present a rational argument for the moral status of
animals to both sides. Such an argument, people suggested, might provide a
basis for dialogue, both within the opposing groups and across them. Why, I
was asked, didn't I write a book that was philosophically argued yet
accessible to nonphilosophers, and that discussed the question of animals as
objects of moral concern? Furthermore, I was told such a book should also
use these philosophical ideas to provide rational suggestions for solving
actual concrete, practical problems.

The present book is my response to this challenge. It is an essay in

applied philosophy, attempting to stimulate dialogue and provide a rational
framework for solving specific moral problems. And the requests for the
book have determined the shape it has taken. Most importantly, it is written
in such a way as to be rigorous and detailed yet accessible to people with no
background in philosophy. Unlike most books in philosophy, it is anecdotal
and personal-nonphilosophers enjoy the relief this provides from abstract
argument. Both the problems discussed and the solutions offered result for
the most part from firsthand experience of the issues involved, and I will
often cite these experiences.

The discussions in chapters 1 and 2 are meant to provide a moral ideal, a

yardstick against which to measure current practice, a target to aim at, and a
basis for dialogue. These chapters present the philosophical basis for the
moral status of animals, and for their moral and legal rights. In chapters 1
and 2, I have held practical considerations in abeyance. What, I have asked,
would the moral and legal status of animals be in the best of all possible
worlds? In chapter 3, the discussion of research animals, I have tried to find
the best approximation of these ideas that one could reasonably hope to
achieve for these animals in our current sociocultural context. In chapter 4,
recognizing the importance of empathy in changing people's moral gestalt, I
have applied the moral ideas to a practical problem with which, unlike the
question of research animals, most people have direct and immediate
existential involvement: the pet problem. In chapter 5 (added in 2006), I
engage the issues of animal mass production in industrialized agriculture.
These chapters, taken together, I hope will provide the reader with a
philosophical and factual basis for rational and passionate thought and
action in some important areas where the lot of animals needs significant
improvement and will provide as well the tools for dealing with other
problem areas.

If scientists, animal welfare workers and advocates, veterinary students,

and other nonphilosophers cannot read and enjoy this book, I will have
failed in my mission. And if I have not illuminated very specific problem
areas regarding the animals we use and have not offered workable solutions
for ameliorating the suffering of these animals, I shall also have failed. In
order to ensure as far as possible that the book does what I would like it to
do, I have tested it upon both volunteers and captive audiences. Earlier
versions of the manuscript served as required texts in my freshman honors
biology courses and in my course for veterinary students. I am grateful to
these students for their lively responses and for showing me what areas
needed reworking. The manuscript was also read and criticized by
veterinarians, including laboratory animal veterinarians, private
practitioners, and academics; animal welfare advocates and workers;
humane society officials and members; animal shelter managers and
workers; biomedical research scientists; lawyers; philosophers; government
officials; and interested laypersons. The value of their criticisms has been
considerable. In addition, the entire book grew out of constant dialogue
with persons in all of the above categories, as well as university
administrators, physicians, and leaders of organizations opposed to animal
welfare legislation.

Among all of these people, I am most indebted to Dr. David H. Neil,

laboratory animal veterinarian by vocation, philosopher by predilection, and
the man from whom I learned most about the practical issues discussed in
this book. We engaged in almost daily dialogue for four years and worked
together on innumerable specific problems. There are others to whom I owe
a similar debt: the late Dr. Harry Gorman, past president of the American
Veterinary Association, renowned surgeon, and my fellow teacher of
veterinary ethics; Mr. Robert Welborn, attorney and long-time Humane
Society leader, and the motive force behind the amendment to the Animal
Welfare Act described in this book; Dr. Michael Fox, director of the
Institute for the Study of Animal Problems, veterinarian, ethologist, and
author; Dr. Andrew Rowan, associate director of the Institute for the Study
of Animal Problems, biochemist and authority on research animals; Dr.
Robert Phemister, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado
State University, the force behind my work in veterinary ethics, and the
man who gave me the chance to put philosophy into practice; Dr. M. Lynne
Kesel, artist and veterinarian, who is equally comfortable in science and the
arts and who gave me repeated insights into science education; and most of
all, my wife, Dr. Linda Rollin, a humanist and mathematician, with whom I
have discussed every idea I have ever put on paper, and who refined and
sharpened them all.

Among veterinarians, I am grateful to the late Dr. Harold Breen, who

first directed my attention to veterinary medical ethics; Dr. Dale Brooks; Dr.
Bill Hancock; Dr. Wally Morrison; Dr. William J. Tietz, former dean of the
CSU Veterinary College; Dr. R. F. Van Gelder; Dr. James Voss; Dr. James
Wilson, veterinarian and attorney; and Dr. Stephen Withrow.
 Among research scientists, I have benefited from dialogue with the late
Dr. Bill Banks, anatomist; the late Dr. Jay Best, physiologist; Dr. Dale
Grant, microbiologist; Dr. John Patrick Jordan, biochemist; Dr. William
Marquardt, zoologist; Dr. Murray Nabors, botanist, with whom I taught
biology; Dr. David Robertshaw, physiologist; Dr. Robert Tengerdy,
microbiologist; Dr. Frank Vattano, psychologist; and Dr. Wayne Viney,
psychologist.

Among philosophers, I have received cogent criticisms, suggestions, and

dialectical interchange first and foremost from Professors David Crocker,
Donald Crosby, and Daniel Lyons, and also from Professors Jann Benson,
Arthur Danto, Kenneth Freeman, Kevin Keane, Richard Kitchener, Holmes
Rolston, and Ron Williams.

In dealing with the law, I benefited from discussions with Darryl

Farrington.

People in the humane movement from whom I learned much in dialogue

are the late Marie Carosello, Pat Curtis, Jeff Diner, Ilse de Hoff, John Hoyt,
Neil Jotham, Barbara Orlans, Martin Passaglia, Victoria Ward, and Linda
Wildman. I am especially grateful to John Hoyt, president of the Humane
Society of the United States, for his commitment to this book, and for his
willingness to provide the support of the Humane Society of the United
States to ensure its publication in its first edition.

I am grateful to Eva Wallace, Clarice Rutherford, and Irene Lewus.

I also wish to thanks all those people who have attended my lectures,
across the country and abroad, whose questions, suggestions, and
enthusiasm were ultimately responsible for my undertaking this project.
 ver since human beings began to think in a systematic, ordered
,fashion, they have been fascinated by moral questions, for it is upon
morality that the possibility of all cultural advances depends. Few of us
confronting the Dialogues of Plato, the Nicoinachean Ethics of Aristotle,
the Bible, or the Talmud fail to experience a sense of awe at the breadth and
depth of moral theorizing initiated in Athens and Jerusalem, and at the
timeless nature of the questions addressed. If, as Thomas Hobbes remarked,
leisure is the mother of philosophy, it is surely natural philosophy of which
this is most true, for civilization itself is the mother of moral philosophy. At
all stages of the development of human thought, mirrored in the
development of each human child, questions of right and wrong, good and
bad, emerge and cannot be avoided. With the origin of medicine in Greece,
for example, came questions of medical ethics, not as a separate area of
study, but as part and parcel of the thought of the school of the physician,
now known as Hippocrates, whose oath eloquently bespeaks the unity of
medicine and morality. And so it has been with morality and law, morality
and politics, morality and art, and so forth. In our post-industrial age of
specialization and analysis, we have often tried to bury these questions as
"unanswerable" or to shunt them off to be dealt with by "experts," or worse,
by theologians, but they always reemerge, for they are as inseparable from
culture as life itself.

Yet despite the perennial presence of ethical questions, and the perennial
writings of those individuals who articulated these questions for their own
age, Western thought has been characterized by a major omission, an
omission so pervasive as to have become essentially invisible. Though the
child's mind invariably frames this question, it is forgotten as we grow up,
repressed by some strange mechanism that allows us to ignore what makes
us uncomfortable. To be good philosophers, Thomas Reid reminded us in
the eighteenth century, we must become again as children and allow
ourselves to wonder. For the question is indeed childlike in its simplicity
and profundity:

• Why do we restrict our moral theorizing and the practices that follow
in its wake to human beings?

• What makes something an object of moral attention, worthy of being

spoken of in the moral tone of voice?

• What brings a thing into the moral arena; what makes it an object of
moral concern?

Is moral concern something owed by human beings only to human

beings? Certainly twenty-five hundred years of moral philosophy have
tended to suggest that this is the case, surprisingly enough, not by
systematic argument, but simply by taking it for granted. Yet this answer is
by no means obvious, and it crumbles when exposed to the most childlike
question of all, "Why?" Few thinkers have come to grips with the question
of what makes a thing a moral object, and again, one wonders why.
Philosophers have, after all, devoted much attention to proving that motion
is impossible, that time is unreal, that change is an illusion, that the mind
exists in the brain, that the brain exists in the mind, that God must be one or
three or a committee, that there are neither minds nor bodies, and so forth.
Surely the question of the moral status of nonhuman beings, of whether
animals are direct objects of moral concern, is at least as legitimate a
subject for inquiry. Yet, as we shall see, few thinkers have addressed this
issue, and those who have done so have done it in a way that will not stand
up to rational scrutiny. What has prompted our ignoring of this question?
Perhaps a cultural bias that sees animals as tools, in Martin Heidegger's
phrase, "ready at hand" to be used by us. Or, perhaps, a sense of guilt,
mixed with a fear of where the argument may lead. For if it turns out that
reason requires that other animals are as much within the scope of moral
concern as are humans, we must view our entire history as well as all
aspects of our daily lives from a new perspective. When Nicolaus
Copernicus moved the center of the universe, the core of our existence was
untouched. Whether or not the Earth is at the center of the universe, we eat,
sleep, and work. But if animals must be brought under the umbrella of
moral concern and deliberation, the comfortable sense of right and wrong,
which securely governs our everyday existence, is no longer tenable, and
we can no longer eat, sleep, and work in the same untroubled way.
How does one answer this question? As with most moral questions, we are
inclined to start with our moral intuitions, our "gut feelings" about right and
wrong, and the scope of morality. Whether ethical intuitions are inborn,
socially conditioned, or parentally instilled, we all have such feelings.
When such intuitions are virtually universal, ethical theorizing proceeds
most easily, for at least all tentatively agree with the raw material. So, for
example, virtually all of us share the intuition that it is wrong to boil babies
for fun (our babies or anyone else's), though perhaps many of us could not
provide a very articulate defense of that intuition. When it comes, however,
to the moral status of animals, our intuitions are mixed and inchoate and
inconsistent: for example, we may feel that our dog is an object of moral
concern but not our neighbors', and they in turn may feel just the opposite.
Or we may feel that it is not immoral to chain a dog, provided the chain is
not too short. Or we may feel it is fine to kill ten Siberian tigers as long as
they are not the last ten Siberian tigers. Or we may feel that it is legitimate
to kill an animal "for its own good," while also feeling that the ultimate
value for any living thing is life. Historically, we find the Catholic Church
denying that animals have souls, yet excommunicating them. (In the Middle
Ages, a horde of locusts was excommunicated in France for destroying
crops!) We find secular society denying that animals are free agents, yet
putting them on trial. In his book, Criminal Prosecution and Capital
Punishment of Animals, M. P. Evans chronicles these extraordinary
proceedings, which continued into the nineteenth century. As early as 1697,
Pierre Bayle, the great skeptic, marveled at this absurdity in his Historical
and Critical Dictionary.

Fortunately for all ethical thought, intuitions are just a starting point. We
begin with our intuitions; proceed to construct theories that explain, justify,
and ground these intuitions; and most interestingly, we oftentimes change
our intuitions on the basis of our theories. For example, many of my ethics
students begin with the intuition that there is nothing immoral about telling
a "little white lie." After reading Immanuel Kant on ethics, however, they
often tend to modify that intuition on the basis of Kant's powerful
theoretical argument that all lying, whatever the purpose, is immoral and
irrational. Or, to take a more personal example, throughout much of my
adult life I have had strong intuitions about abortion, namely, that abortion
is essentially a matter of a woman's control over her own body, and thus I
had no feelings that it was immoral. As I began to theorize about the moral
status of animals, it was pointed out to me that many of my arguments
extending the scope of moral concern to animals applied equally well to
unborn children. In the face of these arguments, I was led to new intuitions
more consonant with my general theory.

Thus, the relationship between intuitions and theory proceeds

dialectically, each modifying the other. A strong analogy exists here
between ethics and science. Just as intuitions lead to ethical theories that
modify intuitions, so perceptions too give rise to scientific theories that may
in turn modify our perceptions. Consider primitive people who see, as do
children, the sun and the moon as small objects, not far away. They develop
theories about these objects, test them, find them wanting, and conclude
that they are large objects, far away. With this new theory, perception
changes, and the sun and moon are seen differently. Or think of how one's
perception of other people's remarks changes after one first encounters the
theoretical notion of a "Freudian slip." One of my colleagues recounts the
story of the nervous, male adolescent student who stands up in a literature
class and quotes the line, "The best planned lays of mice and men gang oft
aglay." Another of my colleagues recalls with amusement his response to a
worried, buxom coed seeking solace about the final examination: "Don't
worry, just do your breast."

When dealing with the question of the moral status of animals, our
intuitions, both individual and societal, as we have seen, send mixed
messages. So we must turn to theoretical accounts in the hope of finding
some stable conceptual framework for tethering our intuitions or for
cultivating new ones. Unfortunately, as we indicated, few moral theorists
have directly addressed the question in any detail. Yet an examination of
some of the standard grounds for excluding animals from the scope of
moral concern may well give us the clue for arriving at a satisfactory
account.
It is patent that both traditional moral theory and traditional moral practice
have failed to deal adequately with the moral status of animals. In the face
of such disregard, how can one make rational progress on both the
theoretical and practical fronts pertaining to the treatment of animals we so
depend upon in society? Wherein lies the fulcrum for levering change? One
is, of course, free to approach the question de novo and to generate an
ethical theory for animals ex nihilo. Such a strategy presents an almost
irresistible temptation to creative philosophers, to soar unfettered in ethics
as they have soared in metaphysics.

Yet to succumb to this temptation would be socially irresponsible. As

Kant realized, ethical theory cannot soar unfettered, but must be tethered to
common sense, common practice, and ordinary moral experience. If our
ethical account of human moral obligation to animals cannot effect
sympathetic resonance in the hearts and, even more so, in the minds, and
ultimately in the practices of those in society to whom it is addressed, then
it is of no value. Like a good motor, a good piece of moral philosophy
should not only spin freely, but it should also move something. Similarly,
our ethical account must speak not only, or even primarily, to the converted,
to those already convinced in their hearts that we owe more to animals than
we have provided, but even more important, to those not so convinced.

This was the dilemma I faced when I began to work in the area of animal
ethics in the mid-1970s. On the one hand, I could get little help from extant
social behavior and established moral theory because they essentially
ignored animals. On the other hand, I could not merely gen erate my own
ideal ethic for animals, for, however elegant I might find it, why would it be
at all persuasive to others? Yet it seemed to me imperative that we in
society have an articulated and shared ideal for the treatment of animals, as
we do for the treatment of humans. To be sure, we do not always live up to
our ideal for treating people, because of lack of resources, weakness of will,
selfishness, and the like. We do not really treat people equally; all sorts of
prejudices color that ideal. But we try, and we judge ourselves remiss when
we fail. An ethic is a yardstick, a measure of where we are deficient, or a
target to aim at that sharpens our skill. As Aristotle put it in stressing the
need for an ideal:

Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life?
Shall we not, like an archer who has a mark to aim at, be more likely
to hit upon what is right?

Without an ideal, we confuse the way things are with the way things ought
to be, and we are smug and complacent. Only by having an ideal to move
toward can we progress beyond the status quo. It is by referring to the ideal
of equality that we were able to achieve progress for blacks, women, and
other minorities in the past few decades. It is by appeal to the ideal of
fairness that we redistribute income, or share our wealth.

Similarly, we stand in desperate need of an ethical ideal for the treatment

of animals in society. As we shall see later in our discussion, the closest we
have come to an ideal for the treatment of animals is the notion embodied in
what I have called the Presley Principle-"Don't be cruel"-which essentially
enjoins us not to maliciously, willfully, or sadistically hurt animals for no
purpose. Such an approach is basically flawed. For one thing, it describes
our obligations to animals solely in terms of what is prohibited but is silent
on our positive obligations to them. Second, it assumes that animal abuse is
a matter of intentional cruelty, something patently not the case. Most animal
agriculturalists, animal researchers, hunters, trappers, circus people, rodeo
cowboys, zoo managers, and others who use animals are not cruel. They are
decent people trying to make a living, advance human welfare, or pursue
some other natural human goal; or else they are trapped by habit, tradition,
training, lack of thought, or improper education. Yet, in pursuit of these
goals, they cause incalculable amounts of animal suffering. The over
whelming majority of animal suffering is not the result of cruelty.
Therefore, the injunction to avoid cruelty is largely irrelevant to the
treatment of animals in society. At the same time, restricting one's moral
vocabulary to "cruelty" in assessing the treatment of animals leads to a
situation where those who are concerned about animals tar all those who
cause animal suffering with the same brush, be they dog fighters or medical
researchers; if they cause animal suffering, they are ipso facto "cruel." Over
the years, I have given hundreds of lectures on animal ethics to a huge
variety of groups. At some point during the lecture, I always ask the
audience the following question: "Suppose I draw a pie chart representing
all the suffering that animals experience at human hands. How much of that
chart represents the results of intentional cruelty of the sort singled out by
the anticruelty ethic and laws?" Whether I am speaking to animal activists
at San Francisco State College or the Northern Rodeo Association in
Billings, Montana, the answer is invariably the same: "One percent, i.e., a
very tiny slice." In short, when reminded, most people recognize that
cruelty is not the main component of why animals suffer!

By the same token, the paired exhortations to "be kind to animals" or to

"love animals" are equally misdirected. Kindness suggests that the proper
treatment of animals represents an overflowing of benevolence on the part
of human beings rather than a duty or moral obligation binding on them.
(Imagine someone suggesting that women should have equal access to
educational opportunities only because we should "be kind to women"!)

In the absence of a rationally based, shared ethical ideal for the treatment
of animals, the categories of kindness and cruelty are asked to bear far more
weight than they are structurally capable of doing, and a social vacuum is
created that is filled by emotion, sentiment, and much debate with little
social awareness. Polarization inevitably occurs, with animal advocates
stereotyping animal users as sadists, and with animal users seeing animal
advocates as sentimental, misanthropic "bunny huggers." Social policy
resulting from such polarization is inevitably irrational as well. Thus, when
the Animal Welfare Act, allegedly designed to protect laboratory animals,
was passed in 1966, it covered only cute and cuddly animals. According to
the language of the act, as we shall discuss in detail later, a dead dog is an
animal while a live mouse or rat is not.
But our earlier question still remains: How does one arrive at a shared ideal
for the treatment of animals? After a considerable number of years spent
pondering this question, I finally realized that the answer lay in the
teachings of Plato. (It is not for nothing that Alfred North Whitehead
remarked that all subsequent philosophy may be viewed as a series of
footnotes to Plato!) Throughout his writings, Plato stresses that a
philosopher (especially a moral philosopher, which was his main concern)
cannot teach others; he or she can only remind. In other words, while I can
certainly teach you the state capitals, the names of the Moguls of India, or
some other body of facts, I can't simply impart to you the facts of right and
wrong. In morality, as in geometry, the issue is not communication of data;
it is leading you to extract, by reason, conclusions from assumptions you
see to be true. Thus, the philosopher can help you to reason out these
conclusions; in Plato's beautiful metaphor, the philosopher helps you to
recollect, to draw from inside of you in a clear way what you don't realize is
there.

Being of a combative nature and often asked to explain the ideal for
animals to hostile groups of animal users, I tend to augment Plato's
characterization of this enterprise with one of my own. One can conceive of
the task of attempting to hammer out an ideal ethic for animals as analogous
to physical combat. Physical combat can be approached either as sumo or as
judo. In sumo, two large, well-nourished opponents attempt to remove each
other from an eight-foot ring. If one combatant weighs two hundred pounds
and the other weighs five hundred pounds, chances are that the smaller chap
will quickly exit the circle. Such is my own situation in addressing, say,
members of a scientific society with vested interests in seeing animals as
tools. If we clash head-on, I will get nowhere.

Fortunately, there is another form of combat where size is not the key
factor. This of course is judo, where the ninety-eight-pound weakling can
happily send a sand-kicking bully packing by turning the opponent's force
back against him. If you throw a ferocious punch at me with all your might,
I simply sidestep and give you a slight encouraging push in the direction of
your punch. You are off balance and are defeated by your own force.

This is precisely the strategy one must adopt to create an ethical ideal for
animals in society. I cannot force my ideal, however polished and articulate,
on you. I can, however, attempt to show you that you are already committed
to that ideal by virtue of certain assumptions you already hold, and thereby
show you that the ideal I am pressing upon you is in fact a consequence of
beliefs you yourself entertain.

Not surprisingly, this judo strategy is far more effective than direct
confrontation. It is, in fact, a standard approach that has been successfully
utilized in advancing our ethic for human beings. One can argue that the
success of the civil rights movement, or of the movement to provide equal
opportunity for women, lies to a large extent in the fact that what was being
proposed was not a revolutionary new ethical principle, but rather that it
was already implicit in moral beliefs that opponents of equal opportunity
themselves shared. In other words, segregationists, or those opposed to
equality for women, typically did share with other Americans the belief that
all humans should have equal opportunity. They simply failed, because of
powerful habit and tradition, to combine that belief with the premise that
blacks and women were human and thereby, by simple reasoning, to extract
the conclusion that blacks and women should enjoy such opportunity. If
something along these lines had not occurred, these social movements
would have been as ineffective as Prohibition, which was an attempt to
change society by sumo.

One of the most dramatic and moving examples of the efficacy of this
judo approach to facing a hostile audience occurred when I was invited to
lecture to a group of ranchers in Kiowa, Colorado, on animal rights. One of
my ex-students, an agricultural extension agent, had invited me to address
the Stockman's Seminar, an educational series for ranchers run by the
extension service. When the day of the talk came, I had some trepidations,
significantly magnified as I drove into Kiowa, which looks very much like a
set for a cowboy western movie (dirt streets, elevated sidewalks,
tumbleweeds). I was scheduled to speak at the high school, so I flagged
down the sheriff's car and asked for directions. He lowered his mirrored
sunglasses and looked at me through Clint Eastwood eyes: "You the
speaker?"

I didn't feel a great deal better when I was introduced to the group of a
hundred or so ranchers who responded to the introduction by booing,
whistling, and stamping their feet for well over a minute as I stood at the
podium. This, I realized, would not do. So I said, "Wait a minute. I've just
driven two and a half hours to get here. You aren't paying me. And you
haven't heard what I have to say yet. I'm also pretty sure you haven't read
my material, and you're not familiar with my ideas. Yet you're booing me.
So, I have to conclude that you are booing me personally. You are probably
looking up here and seeing a sissy, a commie, a damn wimpprofessor, a do-
gooder, right?"

"Damn right!" they roared.

"That's what I thought," I said. "And I'm taking it personally. So I'd be

happy to take you outside one at a time and kick your butts!"

Silence suddenly reigned, silence one could have sliced and sold at a
roadside stand. I had gotten their attention because I was not as their
stereotype dictated. I then said, "Okay, now that I have your attention, let
me ask you two questions in hope of clearing the air. If your answers turn
out as I hope, we will have a profitable evening! If not, I'll go back home,
and you guys can spend the evening lynching somebody or whatever you
do for recreation."

"Fine," they said. "Ask your questions."

"First question: Do you guys believe in right and wrong?"

"Hell yes, this is Kiowa, not New York."

"Good. Second question: Would you guys do anything at all to an animal

to increase profit and productivity? What I mean is, suppose you could
increase weight gain or milk production by torturing a cow's eyes with hot
needles, would you do it?"

"Hell no," they replied.

"Good," I said. "Then we're just haggling about price!" The hostility
vanished like smoke. We went on for over four hours, and they came up to
me afterward and apologized, and later invited me to speak at the annual
Farm Bureau banquet.

In the course of our discussion, we made excellent progress on a variety

of issues. For example, during the question period, they asked me to
indicate what aspects of the cattle business were morally problematic from
an animal ethical perspective. "Why ask me?" I replied. "What do I know? I
am merely a college teacher, whereas you people are experts." They
proceeded to detail far more examples of animal abuse than I could have
done! When they later argued that ranching was a business and that the only
values that enter into judging the situation were economic, I was able to get
them to realize that this was not the case. Few of them were willing to
endorse the corporatization of agriculture, even if it was in fact more
"economically efficient"; even fewer would choose to become dress
manufacturers for the sake of tripling their incomes.

Indeed, when I was criticizing the standard ranching practice of

castrating cattle without anesthesia, I suggested that perhaps they believed,
as some scientists had suggested, that animals didn't feel pain, a Cartesian
position that became widespread in twentieth-century science, as we shall
discuss shortly. Their reply was eloquent, brief, and very commonsensical.
One rancher waved his pocketknife at me and asked, "How'd you like yours
cut off with a rusty pocketknife?"

I have subsequently addressed well over fifteen thousand ranchers on the

same issues and repeatedly found them quite open to the ethic I espouse, as
long as I take the trouble to extract it from them and do not appear to be
preaching at or attacking them.
 So at last we can see the strategy whereby we can create a consensus
ethical ideal for the treatment of animals in society, despite the traditional
absence of such an ideal and despite the incoherencies in our practices. The
key to creating such an ethic lies in the existence of a consensus social
ethical ideal for the treatment of humans in society. Although we tend to
make much of ethical disagreements in society-these are the stuff of fiction,
film, and theater-in actuality we have far more ethical agreement than
disagreement. If we did not, we simply could not live together. We tend to
focus on disagreement, which is much more attractive than agreement, but
our agreements are legion and our major disagreements relatively rare. If, as
I have actually done on hundreds of occasions, I ask my lecture audience
for examples of major ethical disagreements in society, they invariably
come up with abortion and capital punishment, and then hesitate. I, in turn,
show them that for every such disagreement, we manifest literally hundreds
of agreements: We don't take candy from a baby even if we're hungry and
no one is watching; we don't approve of cheating on tests; we don't punch
our conversation partners in the face when we can't refute their points, and
so on.

The point is that we do have a consensus ethical ideal for the treatment
of humans, a consensus we share in our society, one that is encoded in our
theory, our practice, and, most significantly, in our legal and political
system. We will discuss this in detail in chapter 2. Here we need only point
out, as we have indicated earlier, that we have not always applied that ethic
fairly and uniformly to humans. At various times, we have excluded
humans from that ethic for reasons such as gender, place of national origin,
race, color, and the like. By the same token, by rational examination of
those reasons, we have seen that they are bad reasons, and so we have to
transcend them.

So, our strategy is as follows: Given that we have a consensus ethical

ideal for the treatment of humans, and an elaborate moral machinery
associated with that ideal for judging and weighing our treatment of humans
in society, the question before us is whether there are any good, defensible
grounds for excluding animals from the scope of moral concern or the
moral arena; that is, from having our treatment of them assessed, mutatis
mutandis by the same moral machinery we have developed and all share for
the treatment of humans in society. Or, to put the question differently, are
there any rationally defensible reasons for not protecting the core interests
of animals in our moral system as we protect the core we have postulated as
essential to human interests? (Note that I talk of a "moral arena." One can
be treated as a moral object, yet not have one's interests prevail. If I ask all
my students what sort of exam they wish to take and, out of fifty students,
twenty-six vote for an in-class test and twenty-four vote for a take-home,
and I go by majority rule, twentyfour students do not win, but they have
still been treated as objects of moral concern.)

Our first task, then, is to examine the standard grounds that have
historically been offered by philosophers and others for excluding animals
from the moral arena, or from being covered by the same sorts of
protections we afford humans.
It is instructive to examine one of the most pervasive reasons usually
offered for excluding animals from being direct objects of moral
consideration-the claim that whereas humans possess an immortal soul,
animals are not so blessed. Though such a claim is invariably met with
raised eyebrows among intellectuals in our age of skepticism, it permeates
the popular mind and has certainly dominated Catholic thought for
centuries. (It is still, in fact, official Catholic dogma.) Laying aside
positivistic doubts about the grounds for such a claim, let us explore its
logic. Even if we suppose that animals do not have a soul while humans do,
the key question is this: What does the possession of a soul have to do with
being an object of moral concern? Why does the lack of a soul exclude
animals from moral consideration? In fact, even some Catholic theologians
who did deny souls to animals drew an opposite conclusion from that fact.
Since, argued Cardinal Bellarmine, animals do not have immortal souls,
wrongs perpetrated upon them will not be redressed in the afterlife in the
way human wrongs will be rectified. For this reason, animals most certainly
ought to be objects of moral concern for us and even ought to be treated
better than we treat one another!

The point of this example is clear. For excluding animals from moral
concern it is not sufficient simply to cite some alleged difference,
metaphysical or practical, between humans and animals. The key point is
that difference must also be shown to be morally relevant-to have rationally
defensible bearing on being an object of moral attention. As we have just
seen, the soul example, if anything, serves the opposite of its intended
purpose-it does not exclude animals from moral concern, but rather gives us
some grounds for including them and even giving them pride of place.
The lesson to be learned, then, is this. It will not do simply to cite
differences between humans and animals in order to provide a rational basis
for excluding animals from the scope of our moral deliberations. Certainly
humans are the only creatures who grate Parmesan cheese over food, wear
panty hose, pay taxes, and join health clubs. There are innumerable
differences between people and animals. The question is, do these
differences serve to justify a moral difference? After all, there are
innumerable differences among humans. I have curly hair; some men have
no hair. But surely no one would accept my excluding bald men from the
province of my moral deliberations simply on the grounds of baldness.
Suppose I suddenly walk up to another man and punch him in the eye.
When asked why, I reply, "Because he is bald, that's why." Obviously, this
is unacceptable; baldness is not a morally relevant reason for striking
someone or for suspending the usual moral strictures against striking
someone. On the other hand, if I say that I struck him because I saw him
molesting a child, that does seem to be morally relevant, i.e., to be a
difference that makes a moral difference.

Some reincarnationist theories seem to have grasped this point about

moral relevance and the soul; they have made life as an animal a
punishment the soul must suffer for transgressions in a previous life as a
human. Such a theory at least utilizes the notion of the soul in a morally
relevant way, for to be an animal is in some sense to be guilty. But such a
move is of course untenable for Christians for whom, ironically enough,
being born human, with an immortal soul, involves being born guilty in
virtue of the doctrine of original sin.

It is this notion of morally relevant differences between humans and

animals that serves as the most powerful tool in the investigation of the
moral status of animals. If we can find no morally relevant differences
between humans and animals, and if we accept the idea that moral notions
apply to humans, it follows that we must rationally extend the scope of
moral concern to animals. Armed with this notion, let us examine some
other alleged differences between humans and animals that have
traditionally served to exclude animals from the scope of moral concern.
It is often argued that humans have been granted dominion over nature by
God. This claim is also put nontheologically when it is asserted that humans
stand at the apex of the evolutionary pyramid. Once again, holding
theological skepticism in abeyance, we may unearth a profound
philosophical point in discussing this claim. Even if humans have been
placed by God at the peak of the Great Chain of Being, or even in command
of it, it does not follow that the creatures beneath us may be treated in any
way we see fit. (The Bible, as we shall see, clearly and explicitly counters
this claim in the many passages devoted to moral behavior toward animals.)
Correlatively, even if we can sensibly talk about an objective "top" of the
evolutionary scale (which I doubt, since in evolutionary terms there is only
survival, nonsurvival, reproductive success, and adaptation), the same point
holds. Being at the top does not entail that one can treat the creatures
beneath in any way one chooses. (Ironically, Darwinism has historically
been used both to justify exclusion of animals from moral concern, because
of human supremacy, and to justify inclusion of animals within the scope of
moral concern, because of the evolutionary continuity between people and
animals!)

To better understand our rejection of the moral relevance of human

"supremacy," one must consider what sense can be made of the claim that
humans are at the "top." Of course, since humans create the ratings, they
can do as they choose, but what is the criterion of superiority? Surely it is
not longevity, adaptability, and reproductive success, else turtles,
cockroaches, and rats would be at the top. Is it intelligence? But why does
intelligence score highest? Ultimately, perhaps, because intelligence allows
us to control, vanquish, dominate, and destroy all other creatures. If this is
the case, it is power that puts us on top of the pyramid. But if power
provides grounds for including or excluding creatures from the scope of
moral concern, we have essentially accepted the legitimacy of the thesis
that "might makes right" and have, in a real sense, done away with all
morality altogether. If we do accept this thesis, we cannot avoid extending it
to people as well, and it thus becomes perfectly moral for Nazis to
exterminate Jews, muggers to prey on old people, the majority to oppress
the minority, and the government to do as it sees fit to any of us.
Furthermore, as has often been pointed out, it follows from this claim that if
an extraterrestrial alien civilization were intellectually, technologically, and
militarily superior to us, it would be perfectly justified in enslaving or
eating or experimenting on or exterminating human beings.

Some may be tempted to assert that might does, in a fundamental sense,

make right. After all, those in power do call all the shots. But this is to
ignore a very basic distinction. While those in power are indeed in a
position to impose their will on others, and even to call what they decree
"right," that does not of course mean that it is in fact right. I may force you
at gunpoint to call black "white" and white "black," but that would not
make black into white and white into black. To accept the principle that
might makes right is to vitiate all talk of justice and injustice, to render
meaningless any claims about what ought to be the case. Even to assert that
it is right that might makes right or it ought to be the case that might makes
right is self-defeating. The very possibility of making the assertion
presupposes some notion of right above and beyond that created by superior
force, since, presumably, the person who holds that position holds it even if
what is considered right happens to be determined at that time by something
other than superior force, for example, religious tradition.

The superior position of humans does not serve as adequate grounds for
excluding animals from moral concern. Once again, as we saw in the case
of the immortality criterion, if it has any moral relevance at all, it is in the
other direction altogether. From a moral standpoint, one can plausibly argue
that humans are obligated to behave morally towards other creatures
precisely because of their supreme position and superior power. Just as we
morally expect fair and benevolent treatment at the hands of those capable
of imposing their wills upon us, so ought we extend similar treatment to
those vulnerable to us. To my knowledge, no one has put this point better
than David Hartley, the great eighteenth-century psychologist. Speaking of
animals, Hartley said:
We seem to be in the place of God to them, to be his Viceregents, and
empowered to received homage from them in His name. And we are
obliged by the same tenure to be their guardians and benefactors.
One of the most pervasive claims about the moral status of other creatures-a
claim that, as we shall see, permeates our laws concerning cruelty to
animals-grows historically out of the positions we have discussed. This
approach, epitomized in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas and
Immanuel Kant, suggests that although animals are not themselves direct
objects of moral concern, there are nonetheless certain things that are not
morally justifiable when done to animals. In this view, unnecessary cruelty
to animals is forbidden, not, however, because animals are intrinsically
objects of moral attention but, rather, because of the psychological fact that
people who brutalize animals will or may tend to behave cruelly toward
other people. Interestingly enough, similar arguments were used by early
abolitionists against slavery. It was argued that although black people were
not really human, they were sufficiently enough like humans to brutalize
people who abused them, resulting in a subsequent danger to real humans.
Clearly, in this view, people are the only objects of moral concern; animals
are relevant only insofar as treatment of them might affect our treatment of
people. If we had good psychological evidence that certain sadistic
individuals could expunge their brutality by exercising it on animals, say by
torturing kittens, and thereby become more moral toward people, this view
would not only permit the torturing, but would also seem to make it morally
obligatory!

Thus, this position, while seeming in some measure to allow animals

entry into the scope of moral concern, in fact is totally irrelevant to our
fundamental question. For this approach takes it for granted that the only
morally relevant creature is the human, and treatment of animals is at best
instrumental vis-a-vis human morality. To make the point more clear, let us
suppose that psychologists had established through research that beating
rugs resulted in wife beatings, because the rug beater's bloodlust was
aroused. The Aquinas-Kant position would presumably consider rug
beating immoral, at least for those persons so affected, not because rugs
were objects of moral concern, but rather because wives were.
We turn now to the most serious and important criterion of demarcation that
has historically served to delineate the scope of moral concern. At least
since Plato and Aristotle, and even in the Catholic tradition, the notion of
the soul providing the basis for excluding animals from moral concern has
been given philosophical content by equating the soul with the rational
faculty, or the ability to reason. Humans are rational, or at least have the
capacity for rational thought, while animals are not and, for this reason, the
scope of morality does not extend beyond humans. This claim that only
humans are rational has traditionally been linked to another criterion used to
distinguish people from animals, the claim that only humans possess
language or the ability to use what are called "conventional signs." (This is
often put in various other ways-humans use symbols, animals have only
signs or signals; humans use artificial signs, animals are restricted to natural
or instinctual signs, and so forth.) The great philosopher Rene Descartes
saw the possession of language as the only real evidence we have that other
beings have minds like ours and can think, feel, and reason. For Descartes,
animals were just machines and were thus incapable of thinking or feeling.
This Cartesian view was terribly important as a justification for the
burgeoning science of physiology, since it provided a convenient rationale
for ignoring the "apparent" suffering that experimentation engendered.
Many Cartesians, such as the residents of the famous Port Royal Abbey,
were actively involved in research on animals, research that was shocking
to contemporaries who had not accepted Cartesianism. The influence of
Descartes, coupled with the development of ingenious machinery in the
eighteenth century that could behave in lifelike ways, has left its mark on
the Western mind, and, to some extent, current thought about animals is still
very Cartesian, as we shall see in subsequent discussion. To take one
astonishing example, the official International Association for the Study of
Pain definition of pain, until 2001, required the possession of language as a
necessary condition for the ability to feel pain!
 The position linking rationality, language, and moral status may very
briefly be schematized as follows:

1. Only humans are rational.

2. Only humans possess language.

3. Only humans are objects of moral concern.

Although a great number of thinkers have historically entertained this view

and it is still quite prevalent today, remarkably little has been done to spell
out or defend the connections between (1), (2), and (3). There are, after all,
many questions to be asked here. We may ask, for example, what is
rationality, and what grounds do we have for asserting that only humans
possess it? We may further ask, what is the connection between rationality
and language? Is language evidence for rationality, as Descartes suggests, or
is language somehow the essence of rationality? And most important for
our purposes, we are faced with the question of why the possession of
rationality and language is morally relevant, i.e., makes a difference to
morality.

It is easy to see, of course, why rationality would be important for a

being to be considered a moral agent, that is, a being whose actions and
intentions can be assessed as right and wrong, good and bad. We are
certainly not inclined to hold anyone responsible for his actions if he is
incapable of reason-even our laws reflect this notion. We do not hold
children, the insane, or idiots morally or legally responsible for their
actions. But it is, of course, not obvious that one must be capable of being a
moral agent before one can be considered an object of moral concern. In
fact, we certainly consider children and the insane to fall within the scope
of moral concern even though we do not hold them responsible or consider
them to be moral agents. So our other questions still remain.
There is one theory, which dates back to the Sophists, that attempts to link
being a moral agent with being a moral object. This theory has appeared in
many forms in Western ethical and political thought and is quite popular
today. According to this view, only creatures capable of acting morally, i.e.,
rational creatures, are themselves deserving of moral concern. Moral laws
and principles are the product of convention, or of social contract, and only
rational beings are capable of participating in a social contract or, indeed, in
any agreement at all. The social contract is an agreement among rational
individuals to treat others a certain way provided they are themselves
treated the same way in return. For example, valuing my own possessions, I
agree to respect your ownership of certain things in return for your agreeing
not to encroach on mine. Since animals are incapable of entering into such
agreements, lacking both reason and language and not being moral agents,
they are not objects of moral concern.

There are many questions that can be raised about this account. For one
thing, when encountering this sort of theory for the first time, most people
wonder how such theorists can know for certain where and when in
prehistoric times such a contract took place. Even more important, if it did
indeed take place, why are we today bound by it? After all, my children are
not bound by my contracts. And I was never asked to agree to any such
contract! In actual fact, this is not a problem for the contract theorist, for the
contract is not alleged to be a single historical event that binds all humans
for all time. Rather, the contract is an agreement in action rather than a
verbal contract that rational beings implicitly agree to simply by living in
society; and any rational being would agree to it, if asked, and would be
able to articulate it. Thus, for example, I respect your property on the
assumption that you respect mine and, as a rational being, would affirm this
if asked to do so.

In a recent version of this view developed by John Rawls, the theory is

sharpened by recourse to an imaginary device called the veil of ignorance.
In Rawls's view, the parties to the social contract should be seen as looking
at the contract, i.e., the principles of morality and justice that they set up,
behind a "veil of ignorance," whereby no one knows his own strengths and
weaknesses. No one knows if he or she is rich or poor, strong or weak,
aristocrat or peasant. This ensures that the principles agreed on will be fair,
for none of the parties can know with what advantages or disadvantages
they may happen to be endowed. Once again, for Rawls animals are not
moral objects because they are not party to the moral deliberations that are
involved in setting up the contract.

Whatever merits this theory may have, it does not seem to provide us
with legitimate grounds for excluding animals from the scope of moral
concern. Most basically, it does not follow from either version of the theory
that just because only rational agents can set up or be party to the rules,
only such agents are protected by the rules. In a nutshell, there is no
argument showing that only moral agents can be moral recipients. Why is
agency morally relevant? Let us suppose moral concepts do indeed arise out
of concerns that humans have relative to one another. And suppose, further,
that humans intend to exclude animals. Given all this, it can still be that the
logic of these moral concepts as they are set up requires that we, as rational
beings, extend them to animals if it can be shown that animals cannot be
clearly demarcated from individuals to whom we do wish the concepts to be
applied. Basically, suppose we set up these rules because we want to live
and because we don't want to be hurt, yet we are vulnerable. These
characteristics hold of animals as well. Would it be rational not to cover
these creatures by the protective rules?

In the contractualist view, it is also hard to see why animals differ in a

morally relevant way from all sorts of humans who can't rationally enter
into contracts-future generations of humans, infants, children (especially
terminally ill children, who will not live long enough to actualize
rationality), the retarded, the comatose, the senescent, the brain-damaged,
the addicted, the compulsive, or the sociopaths, who are all also incapable
of entering into or respecting contracts. If the contractualist wants to say
that we have no obligations to these sorts of humans, the theory becomes
wildly implausible in its failure to account for our basic, deep, and broad
moral intuitions about such people. And if the contractualist wishes to
include these humans as entities to whom we have obligations, then he must
admit that entities become moral objects in virtue of characteristics other
than the rational ability to enter into contracts-characteristics like the ability
to suffer or to have needs. But if that is the case, then animals must be
covered by moral rules, since they, too, have these characteristics.

The point is that whatever the motivation behind moral principles or

adherence to moral principles, these principles have, so to speak, a life of
their own, and implications that the rational contractor must respect, even if
he or she was not initially aware of or favorably disposed toward these
implications. Euclid may well have objected to my using geometry to set
out a football field; the ancient Shahs may spin in their graves at the
thought of commoners playing chess-nonetheless, geometry, chess, and
morality have lives of their own that transcend the intentions of those who
first articulated them.

A related point must be made relative to the Rawls version of contrac-

tualism. Even if Rawls is correct that only rational beings can enter into the
original contract position, it does not follow at all that such individuals
would necessarily adopt moral rules that apply only to themselves and that
exclude animals from concern or protection. It is perfectly possible, and
indeed plausible, that rational agents setting up moral rules would favor a
society where these rules were applied to animals. It is also possible that
such rational agents might choose to make animals party to the original
position by proxy, where their interests are represented by rational agents.
Rational agents might well want a society where nonrational beings are
granted rights and protection just like those granted to rational beings. (The
fact that many of us rational beings would like to see just such an ideal
society if we could start from scratch is good evidence of its possibility!) In
short, nothing follows from Rawls's theory about excluding animals from
the scope of moral concern.

Shortly we shall show that rationality is but one component in what can
serve to make something an object of moral concern. But we shall also
show that it is not clear that animals are not rational! Is it obvious that
animals, lacking language, are incapable of entering into contracts or
agreements of the sort posited by the contract theories, since animals cannot
deliberate and cannot affirm if asked their acceptance of moral or other
rules? Not at all. As David Hume pointed out in his Treatise of Human
Nature, two men who must row a boat across a river may adopt one certain
rhythm from among many possibilities without verbally articulating this
agreement in action, or even being able to affirm their acceptance. The
point is that even if these rowers refuse to affirm that what they are doing
involves an implicit agreement, they would surely still have one. The ability
to affirm linguistically what one is doing seems irrelevant to having an
implicit agreement-the mutually adjusted actions are what is important. So
obviously, language-using reason is not necessary for such agreements. And
it is quite clear that animals also exhibit behaviors that qualify as
agreements, both with humans and with each other. Anyone who has seen
different species of animals taking turns at a water hole can hardly doubt
that they have rules governing this activityincluding not molesting one
another. Given the variety of such rules and their flexibility in myriad
situations, including new situations that could not plausibly have been
evolutionarily programmed, it is hard to call these rules purely blind natural
instinct. Even more interesting, it seems likely that the animals would
affirm what they were doing if they suddenly were granted the power of
speech. And it is also clear to anyone who has been around domestic
animals that they are locked to us and to each other by an intricate series of
agreements. When my Doberman pinscher did not bite the head off the
kitten stealing her food, or snap at my baby when he was hanging from her
ears, she was surely obeying rules that are very like human "conventional"
rules. When a horse and rider interact, the same point holds. If someone
objects that it is stretching the concept to call this a contract, I would
suggest the same thing about the whole concept of "social contract." If
someone else suggests that animals have been bred by artificial selection or
natural selection to exhibit such appearent contractual behavior, I should
suggest that the same thing is probably true of humans. (Humans who did
not exhibit this sort of behavior are likely to have been selected out of the
gene pool!) Furthermore, humans are capable of entering into social
relations with nondomestic animals, as in the case of veterinarian and
ethologist Michael Fox, who raised a wolf from cub to adult-and these
relations go both ways.
 In fact, some animals even seem to exhibit behavior that bespeaks
something like moral agency or moral agreements. Canids, including the
domesticated dog, do not attack when a vanquished combatant bares its
throat, showing a sign of submission. Animals typically do not prey upon
members of their own species. Pack carnivores share kills according to fair
"rules." Elephants and porpoises will and do feed injured members of their
species. Porpoises will help humans, even at risk to themselves. Some
animals will adopt orphaned young of other species. (Such crossspecies
"morality" would certainly not be explainable by simple appeal to
mechanical evolution, since it is of no advantage whatever to one's own
species.) Dogs will act "guilty" when they break a rule such as stealing food
from a table and will, for the most part, learn not to take it.

I had an attack dog once, a giant German shepherd, who had spent six
years as a security dog. He was left at construction sites and gas stations,
never had a relationship of mutual care with a human, and was trained to
attack savagely anything-man, woman, child, animal-that set foot on the
property. I was told by experts that such a dog could not be domesticated,
that he was dangerous and unpredictable. Yet, after six weeks of close work,
we were bonded-I could pick him up, tussle with him, even play-fight. He
returned good for good. To my amazement, he allowed puppies and kittens
to share his food and a turkey to share his doghouse and even to sleep on
his head.

The dog and the turkey story is worth recounting in more detail. One
day, as I was outside with the guard dog, what I thought was a prehistoric
animal walked up our quarter-mile driveway. It was in fact a large male
turkey belonging to my neighbor. I quickly ran over to restrain the dog and
phoned the neighbor, who retrieved his turkey. Three hours later, the turkey
was back, snoozing in the sun next to the dog. The neighbor returned,
retrieved the turkey again-the turkey was back again within hours. Finally,
the neighbor said, "Why don't you keep him, since he keeps coming back
here?" We grew quite attached to the turkey, but nothing remotely like the
dog did. They spent most days together. The turkey learned aggressive
watchdog behavior from the dog; they ate and drank from the same bowls.
Somewhere I have a photo of me mowing the lawn, followed by the dog,
who was followed by the turkey! On one sunny day, I caught the turkey
sleeping atop the dog!

The relationship continued splendidly for three more years, until the dog
developed degenerative spinal myelopathy, a disease that made him unable
to stand up or walk. I used to go home three times a day to move him so he
did not develop pressure sores or stay in his own excrement. One night my
wife and I came home late in the evening. We opened the car door and in
jumped a giant malamute. Amusement turned to dismay-"Oh God! The
turkey!" Our fears were confirmed as we saw blood on the malamute's
mouth. With trepidation, we followed a trail of blood and feathers to where
the German shepherd lay. There, between his paws, was the turkey, torn
open but still conscious and breathing. The shepherd was keeping the
malamute away from the turkey by snarling and snapping, even though he
could not walk! Such cross-species friendship, in my view, is totally
contrary to Cartesian mechanism. It certainly was not "hard-wired" into
these animals to be friends; if anything, the "natural" relationship should
have been one of predator and prey.

The stock reply to such examples is to say "Animals do it by nature; we

do it by convention." Unfortunately, the distinction between nature and
convention is not a clear-cut line. As I have shown in my book, Natural and
Conventional Meaning: An Examination of the Distinction, it is impossible
to give clear-cut criteria for distinguishing what is natural from what is
conventional. (In fact, it was working on this question that got me interested
in the question of the moral status of animals in the first place.) In my view,
anything called a "social contract" will be an admixture of both "natural"
and "conventional" elements. As we shall see, reason is traditionally
equated with the use of conventional signs or meaning vehicles or language.
But again, it does not seem possible to provide a clear-cut line between
nature and convention. The result is that we should not expect a clear split
between "rational" human moral action and certain aspects of animal
behavior, though, for the most part, human behavior obviously exhibits
infinitely more of what we would call moral agency than does animal
behavior. In short, the split is fuzzy enough that we cannot say confidently
that if there is a social contract and associated moral rules, animals cannot
ever be said to be party to it. In fact, in discussing pet animals later in the
book, we shall see that the notion of a social contract seems quite
appropriate there, since the role of the dog, for example, in human society is
essentially a complicated fabric of agreements in action between people and
animals.

In general, then, contract theories do not seem to provide us with a good

argument for cashing out the claim that rationality represents an adequate
ground for distinguishing humans from animals as moral objects. We now
turn to another attempt to develop such an argument.
One major philosopher whose work explores the questions we have been
raising is Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher of the
Enlightenment. In fact, Kant's moral theory can be seen as an attempt to
extract all of morality, both being a moral agent and being a moral object,
from a particular concept of rationality. In this attempt, Kant represents an
articulation of a tradition begun in Greek moral thought (by which he was
influenced), and an amplification of the position taken by Descartes. In his
discussion, Kant argues that only rational beings can count as moral agents
and, even more important for our purposes, that the scope of moral concern
extends only to rational beings. Because of the crucial importance of this
sort of argument for contemporary views of animals and moral concern, we
shall carefully explicate and delineate Kant's position before criticizing it.
We shall also attempt to show the alleged connection between reason,
language, and morality.

The notion of reason is central to the philosophy of Kant, who was a

major figure in the Age of Reason. For him, the bases of science and ethics
needed to be logically proved, much as theorems in geometry are proved,
not merely assumed or derived from experience. In his major work, Critique
of Pure Reason, Kant devotes a good deal of attention to explaining and
justifying reason, and defining what it means to be a rational being. Kant
was very much opposed to the British empiricist tradition, the tradition that
based all knowledge on sense experience or perception, and that had
culminated in the skeptical writings of David Hume. Hume, like an early
Pavlov, had concluded that reason was merely habit, custom, and
conditioning, and that if humans could be said to reason, so, too, could
animals. For Hume, the scientist who expects a given mixture to behave the
way other such mixtures have behaved in the past is in exactly the same
position as the chicken who expects to get fed when it hears the farmer
come out in the morning. Just as the farmer may kill the chicken on the next
morning, so the world may also change for the scientist, and his or her
predictions, carefully based on past experience, can be totally invalidated.
The net effect of Hume's work was to call science and reason into question,
and Kant's work is in essence a defense of reason. But in addition to saving
science, Kant's work serves to preserve the unique place of humans in
nature.

Kant proceeds by stressing the human ability to arrive at what

philosophers call a priori knowledge, that is, knowledge that cannot be
shown to be false by experience and can be known to be true simply by
thought. A good example of a priori knowledge is "The sum of the angles
of a Euclidean triangle is 180 degrees." As we all know from studying
geometry, we can prove that by reason, and once we have proved it, we can
know that it must always be true. Kant ingeniously shows that science rests
upon certain items of knowledge that we can know a priori, and for this
reason, a number of things in science are certain, contrary to Hume's claim.
The important point for our purposes is Kant's claim that only human
beings can possess a priori knowledge, and only the possession of a priori
knowledge can allow a being to go beyond the particular instances one
finds in the sensory experience of the world and to assert judgments that
claim universality, not tied to specific times and places. This for Kant is the
essential meaning of rationality. Since only humans can entertain,
understand, apprehend, and formulate statements that are universal in
scope, only humans are rational. This is because, according to Kant,
animals are tied to stimulus and response reactions. An animal may respond
to this particular fire in a way that indicates its awareness that this fire is
dangerous here and now, but only a human has the mental capacity to
understand and formulate an assertion like "All fires, wherever and
whenever they may occur, are potentially dangerous."
Kant thus characterizes rationality in terms of the ability to understand and
articulate universal claims or, as he calls them, laws. (In science and in
social life, of course, laws are meant to be universal in scope.) But what
does all this have to do with morality? Kant's reply, developed in his great
works, Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical
Reason, is ingenious. If humans are by nature rational beings, in fact, the
only rational beings we know of, then it is the human function to be rational
in all aspects of life, be it knowledge or action or in dealings with others. In
science humans must seek universally true laws; in daily actions we must
intend, plan, and evaluate our activities according to whether they are
rational, that is, whether they meet the test of rationality, namely, uni
versality and generality. This, in turn, means that given any action or
intended action, a person must ask himself or herself if this individual
action can be expressed as a universal law without generating an
inconsistency or contradiction. This is Kant's moral theory in a nutshell. It
is expressed in his famous Categorical Imperative, or basic moral law:

Act only according to a principle which you can will would be a

universal law.

To appreciate the ingenuity of Kant's ethical theory, let us take a forceful

example. Suppose I have been out drinking with the boys, a practice my
wife abhors. I come home three hours late, and she asks me where I have
been. I am considering a "little white lie" in order to avoid a battle, and I
propose to tell her that I have been working on my book. Suddenly, Kant,
like Jiminy Cricket, appears on my shoulder. He informs me that as a
rational being, I cannot lie at all. I then ask why. He asks me to consider
what happens if I universalize lying at will, that is, imagine it to be a law
governing human behavior that anyone can lie whenever he or she chooses
to. If I universalize lying at will, I essentially destroy the concept of telling
the truth, since no one could trust anyone else. But if I destroy the concept
of telling the truth, I also destroy the concept of lying, since without truth
telling there can be no lies. Thus, I destroy the possibility of the very act I
am considering doing! So it is irrational to universalize lying, and lying is
therefore immoral. A similar argument works for stealing. If I try to
universalize stealing, I destroy the concept of private property, which in
turn destroys the concept of stealing.
That is the basic point of Kant's ethics. He proceeds to draw some
interesting conclusions from his Categorical Imperative. In a puzzling
passage he claims that the Categorical Imperative can also be stated as
follows:

So act that you treat any human being, whether yourself or any other,
always as an end and never merely as a means.

What does this have to do with the previous statement? And what
exactly does this mean, and how does Kant prove this? As I have shown in
detail elsewhere, Kant seems to have meant something like this: All rational
beings are in a deep sense the same. Since they are all seeking what is
universally true and since there is only one universal truth, it is absurd to
talk about different rationalities in different individuals the way we talk
about different personalities. We can talk about different degrees of
rationality; clearly, Donny Osmond has not actualized his rationality to the
same degree that Albert Einstein had, but fundamentally, both have the
same kind of rationality. As such, they have the same ultimate "end" or goal
or nature. For a rational being, the ultimate goal and the ultimate object of
value is the exercise of rational function.

Let us examine this point. There must be some "end" to all our actions,
or else we are in the position of a dog chasing its own tail. That is, we seek,
for example, to increase our wealth. Do we do it for its own sake? Surely
not. Wealth is a tool; as philosophers put it, it has only instrumental value,
value as a means to something else, not intrinsic value; that is, we do not
seek it for its own sake. But for Kant (as for Aristotle), rational functioning,
for a rational being, is an end in itself and does have intrinsic value.

We can now see how Kant arrives at his claim that to be moral involves
treating other humans as ends in themselves. If rationality is the same kind
of thing in all humans, it would be absurd for one human rational being to
treat another human rational being in a way that simply uses the other
person as a means to some immediate goal, say, wealth. For as rational
beings, we are seeking rational activity as our end or ultimate purpose or
goal. Since others are striving for exactly the same goal, and all rational
activity is the same, it is irrational for us to use them as means; rather, we
are obliged to nurture them in their attempt to accomplish that which we
ourselves are and ought to be trying to achieve.
It is for this reason that Kant concludes that only rational beings are "ends
in themselves"; that is, beings that are not to be used as means to achieve
some immediate or long-term goal. Many of us who do not read much
philosophy may nonetheless be familiar with this notion from recent
popular discussions of sexual ethics. Many sexologists take as basic the
idea that what determines the rightness or wrongness of a given sexual
activity is not the "normalcy" of the activity but, rather, whether or not one's
sexual partner is being seen simply as a tool or means to gratifying one's
lust, rather than as an end in himself or herself. On this view, even
"normal," "missionary position" sexual intercourse between married people
can be grossly immoral if one partner is simply using the other as a release,
seeing the other as a body alone, without love or care and without concern
for his or her individuality and unique needs as a person.

In any event, it follows clearly for Kant that since only human beings are
rational beings, only human beings fall within the scope of moral concern.
As far as animals are concerned, they have only instrumental value; that is,
any worth they may have stems from their usefulness for humans. In his
Lectures on Ethics, Kant actually says this:

Animals are ... merely as means to an end. That end is man.

Kant does assert that we should avoid cruelty, but only for the reasons
mentioned earlier, that cruelty to animals can lead to cruelty toward
humans, or that an animal is human property, and to damage that animal is
to harm a person.

This then is a sketch of the argument that thinkers in the tradition of

Kant might advance to justify excluding animals from the scope of moral
concern. We must now show the connection between all this and the
possession of language. When we have done this, we can turn to our
attempt to refute this pervasive and influential argument.
It is clear from the Critique of Pure Reason that Kant, like Plato, Aristotle,
Aquinas, Descartes, and innumerable other thinkers, equated reason with the
possession of language and denied linguistic ability to animals. The basic
pattern of argument seems to be this. In order to reason, one must be able to
deal with generalities, with what philosophers call "universal judgments"
and "general terms." Almost all reasoning involves some state ment-or as
Kant put it, judgment-that refers to some general feature of the world, and all
reasoning follows some universal pattern.

Consider a very elementary piece of reasoning:

Notice in the above piece of reasoning that each of the premises as well
as the conclusion are universal statements. The first one asserts, for example,
that anything in the universe that is a pentagon will have more sides than
anything in the universe that is a square. We make this assertion about all
pentagons and all squares that exist now, in the past, or in the future, or even
those that could exist or that we can imagine. Our ability to do this stems
from the fact that we have concepts, or general terms, that refer to types of
things expressed by words in our language. A proper name like "President
Harry Truman" refers to only one individual, whereas a word like "square"
or "fire" refers to an indefinite number of entities. Without such general
concepts, we could not reason, nor could we communicate our reasoning to
others. What allows us to have such general concepts, which we can put into
general statements, is language. In language we use particular symbols, for
example, the printed word "SQUARE," to stand for a general concept. Thus,
language allows us to deal with generalities as well as particulars. Also
through language, we can deal with highly abstract notions like good and
bad, which refer to things we do not perceive with our senses.

So reasoning is made possible by language, which allows us to deal with

past and future as well as present, generalities as well as particulars,
possibilities as well as actualities, abstractions as well as concrete things we
can see, hear, feel, touch, and smell. Only through language, then, can we
reason. Animals, it is further argued, clearly do not have a language. They
can communicate, they do have and apprehend signs, as we mentioned
earlier, but they do not have symbols. The difference lies precisely in the
universality we have been discussing. And thus, according to this theory,
animals cannot reason, nor can so-called wolf-children, children brought up
in isolation or by animals.

The difference between humans and animals with regard to reason and
language postulated by a Kantian sort of theory can be expressed in the
following way: Imagine an animal, say a dog, signaling to another dog a
threat, and the second dog responding with submissive behavior, for
example, rolling over and showing its throat. Here we clearly have a case of
understanding and communication, but not of reasoning. It is not reasoning,
a Kantian would say, because the dog's behavior is tied to the particular
stimuli confronting him and, furthermore, can be totally explained by tracing
the process of cause and effect leading from the first dog's growl to the
second dog's submission. The first dog's growl is analogous to my pushing
the "off' button on my television set. Just as a set of purely mechanical steps
fully explains the television's going off, so the growl of one dog leads to the
submission of another by a series of purely mechanical steps, presumably
through the brain and central nervous system. When animals respond, they
do so because their "switches" are activated by direct causal processes in
their immediate environment, and the full meaning of their reaction can be
explicated simply by tracing these steps. (Note the tie between this account
and Descartes's view of animals as machines.)

Not so, it is argued, with humans. With a rational being, while it may
indeed be possible to specify the causal steps going on in the brain and
nervous system when a universal judgment or sentence involving a concept
is uttered or apprehended, the meaning of that event is not given by listing
these causal processes. For no set of particular causal processes can explain,
in our earlier example, that our sentence manages to refer to all pentagons.
Meaning must be sought beyond the purely mechanical. In other words,
language has this unique feature: while the processes that make language
possible in a human being are indeed bodily activities happening at a
specific time in a specific place, the resulting linguistic statements have
meanings that transcend that place and time. When I utter the statement
about pentagons, the actual utterance is indeed a localized event that can be
described in terms of brain activity, neural transmission, vocal chord
vibrations, and so on. But the meaning of the statement, and the fact that it
refers to all pentagons that have existed in the past, that do exist now, that
will exist in the future, or that could exist, or for that matter, the fact that it
also refers to purely abstract mathematical objects that cannot exist in the
physical world, cannot be accounted for simply by a description of what is
happening in my body.

Let us summarize by contrasting two cases as the Kantian position would

see them. Imagine a dog seeing a fire and fleeing. According to this
argument, the sight of the fire in some way triggers an avoidance reaction.
On the other hand, consider a father telling his young son, "All fires are
dangerous." In the first place, he can utter this without any fire being present
to stimulate that utterance. Second, the meaning of that utterance cannot be
explained by reference to what is going on either in his or in the child's
brain, since what is happening there is some set of specific events happening
at a certain time, whereas the sentence makes reference to any possible fire,
anywhere, at any time.

This sort of argument enjoys great popularity and is held by many and
probably by most linguists, psychologists, and philosophers. One can find
this argument in the writings of Noam Chomsky and Jonathan Bennett, to
name two very clear recent expositors of this position. It is neatly
summarized in the following poem by Edwin Muir:

THE ANIMALS
 In any event, we have finally presented the major philosophical stance
that has been used to exclude animals from moral concern. In summary, this
Kantian position argues that rationality is required for something to be an
object of moral concern (as well as to be a moral agent). The essence of
rationality is the ability to universalize and transcend mere particulars. Only
a being with language can be rational, because rationality requires concepts.
Animals lack language, are tied to stimulus and response, are not, therefore,
rational beings, and for this reason do not enter into the scope of moral
concern. We have spent a good deal of time on this argument, and it is quite
complex, but it is also very important. Most people, I suspect, when pressed
as to why they exclude animals from moral concern, will fall back upon
some such claim as "animals can't speak." Furthermore, even in a nonmoral
context, language is usually used (as it is by Chomsky) to draw a clear-cut
gulf between humanity and the rest of nature; so it is of great importance to
understand the rationale behind this position.
Is the Kantian account a persuasive reason for excluding animals from
moral concern? I think not, for a variety of reasons. In the first place, I am
not sure that Kant has even clearly captured what is ordinarily meant by
rationality. While it is certainly the case that the ability to universalize and
generalize is a major aspect of what we call "rational," there are many cases
of rationality in which we do not make even implicit reference to
universalization. For example, we speak of the rationality of a man's
swerving into a snowbank to avoid colliding with a truck, or we speak of
the rationality of one's giving up in a fight when the opponent has clearly
outmatched him. Interestingly enough, animals such as dogs can and do
engage in this sort of behavior, and, in this sense, seem to behave perfectly
"rationally." In point of fact, we regularly speak of animal behavior as being
rational, not only in ordinary discourse (implicitly at least) but also in our
scientific works on animal behavior. In fact, a good deal of our
psychological research that studies the learning behavior of animals is
based on an implicit assumption that human cognitive behavior bears
significant analogies to animal intellectual processes.
It is interesting to note also that many philosophers do not share Kant's
view that reason is unique to humans. Philosophers like David Hartley and
David Hume, who are in the empiricist tradition and tend to stress the
importance of experience rather than pure thought as the basis of
knowledge, do not hesitate to assert that when humans reason about the
world, they do so in exactly the same way that animals do. As we said
before, for Hume all reasoning about the world is based on habit or
conditioning. Thus, there is for Hume no real difference between a dog
expecting to get fed when you pick up his dish and a scientist expecting an
atomic pile to explode when it reaches critical mass. True, the scientist
makes reference to laws of nature, but according to Hume these laws are
just experientially based habits! I am not intending here to decide which
account of rationality is correct-that is far too deep a philosophical issue to
decide conclusively, and fortunately it is not necessary for our purposes. My
only point is to show that there do exist alternative views of reason, ones
that do attribute reason to animals, and that these views are in many ways
persuasive. If it is even plausible to suggest that animals do reason, it seems
to be irrational to deny them entrance into the scope of moral concern on
the basis of an undecided and controversial theory of reason. It is especially
odd now that Lana, a young gorilla, has scored eighty-five on a standard IQ
test, higher than some humans.

In point of fact, I am quite certain that almost everyone reading this

book has probably heard of some cases of animal behavior that they would
be prepared to call reasoning. In my own reading on dog behavior and in
my own work with dogs, I have come across many such cases. For
example, I had a highly intelligent German shepherd that I acquired when
he was an adult. One extremely hot day, while my wife was filling the
horses' tank from a high-pressure hose, the dog approached her, clearly
wanting a drink. Not having a bowl handy, she turned the hose towards the
ground, and the dog attempted to drink but was thwarted by the extreme
pressure. Undaunted, he proceeded to dig a hole beneath the stream,
allowed the water to pool, and drank his fill.

One of the best stories I have ever run across in this area was told by a
German trainer of police dogs. He related that he had trained a police dog in
Berlin to apprehend suspects and hold them by the arm unharmed until the
officer arrived. Only if the suspect resisted was the dog to bite, and then
only to disable the offensive arm. On the dog's first day at work, he was
patrolling a large public park along with his handler. They came upon a
robbery in progress, perpetrated by two men. When the men caught sight of
the dog, they ran toward a fork in the path and took off in different
directions thinking that the dog could not pursue them both. The dog chased
one suspect up the left fork, apprehended him, disabled his leg, left him,
then proceeded up the right fork and held the second man by the arm,
unharmed. The dog had never been trained to attack the leg.

As I said, anyone who has lived with animals can tell such stories, and
many such incidents have been filmed and documented. It seems to me only
common sense to call such behavior rational and to say that such animals
reason. We all know, of course, that common sense is often wrong, as when
it tells us that Earth does not move. But still, in order to abandon common
sense, one needs strong counterevidence, or powerful philosophical or
scientific arguments that demonstrate its inadequacy. And to my
knowledge, such evidence and arguments have not hitherto been
forthcoming. (This point is discussed at length in my book The Unheeded
Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain and Science.)
Perhaps a holder of the Kantian position would be quite prepared to admit
the plausibility of everything we have just said. Very well, he might say,
you have indeed shown that as the words "reason" or "rationality" are
ordinarily employed, animals can indeed be said to be "rational" or to
"reason." But still, what is interesting and morally relevant is not the
ordinary use of the word but Kant's very special sense, which expresses the
idea of universalizing, language- or concept-using rationality. It is this idea,
which in German could be put into one long word, that is the basic way of
distinguishing humans from animals with regard to the scope of moral
concern. After all, Kant's argument does show the relevance of this
restricted sense of rationality to morality. In short, Kant might say that there
is no reason to believe that animals have concepts or general notions, since
they lack the linguistic marks of those concepts.

One very obvious answer we may tender to the Kantian is this: It is by

no means clear that even this restricted concept of rationality applies to
humans alone. For one thing, there does seem to be reasonable evidence
that animals do have something like concepts or general notions, or else
how could they learn? My dog knows that my puttering around his food
dish means that he is likely to get fed. He knows this even though on
different days I am wearing different clothes, atmospheric conditions are
different, and sometimes it is light outside and sometimes it is dark. The
claim that an animal acts only mechanically by stimulus and response loses
plausibility as we vary the stimuli markedly, and yet the animal continues to
react appropriately. He even knows it if I use a completely different dish, in
a different place. Does not any animal recognize certain visual perceptions
as being marks of food or water, even though these perceptions differ
widely from time to time? Surely this sort of activity bespeaks some general
notions or concepts, as do the examples of animal reasoning discussed in
the last section.
 The major obstacle to accepting the idea of animals having concepts is
of course their lack of language. First of all, we see no overt obvious marks
of their possession of concepts. But there is an even deeper philosophical
problem that some philosophers have raised against the idea that a
nonlinguistic being could have concepts. This is called "the private
language argument" and was developed by the great twentieth-century
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. To have a concept, the argument goes,
there must be publicly checkable rules for the use of the concept. That
means that there must be ways in which I can conceivably misapply the
concept and be detected and corrected. This is only possible when the
vehicles of the concept are public, accessible to others who can see how
you are using the concept, and who can correct deviations from proper use.
Thus, consider a child learning the concept of "dog." In his mind he may
wish to group a cow with dogs. But when he calls the cow a "dog," there is
someone available to correct him. On the other hand, in the absence of a
public way of expressing the concept and of being corrected, what is to stop
him from using it differently each time? What criteria does he have for
deciding whether the concept does or doesn't apply to some new case? Such
a state, says Wittgenstein, is comparable to a game where you make up the
rules as you go along. Without some fixed, externally checkable rules, the
activity is not really a game at all.

This is indeed a strong argument. But does it really count against

animals having concepts? Let us see. A person has words for his concepts.
These words can be checked against what other people say. This is
supposed to be different from the animal who presumably only has some
ideas in his head or perhaps certain perceptions to use as marks of his
concepts. For example, the animal has only some memory of the
appearance of water or the visual appearance of the water itself (for
example, its shimmering) to serve as a mark of his concept.

Is there ultimately a difference between the two situations? On the

surface, yes. But in a deeper sense, perhaps not. According to the private
language argument, the animal must rely on memory and thus has no way
of being shown to be wrong. But suppose, as we all know happens, a puppy
sees me rattling a martini shaker and approaches me, thinking that it is
about to be fed. I say, "No, that's not for you," and fail to feed him. In such
a way, his initial concept of "dish rattling-food time" is corrected, and I see
no relevant difference between this case and the case of the child who calls
a cow a "horse." Nor does this process of public correction require a human
being at all. Let us return to the visually shimmering perception serving as
the visual sign of water. An animal may see shimmering on asphalt and
believe it to mean water (even as we do), but he is "publicly" corrected by
approaching the road and finding there is no water there at all.

If the private language theorist is persistent, he might say, "But how does
the animal know the next time that he is using the sign or idea in anything
like the way he did before? The animal has only memory; we at least have
other people." The answer is simple. If we can be skeptical about memory,
we can also be skeptical about other people's memories and ask how do we
ever really know that they are using the word or con cept the way they did
before? So public checks don't really help in the face of extreme skepticism.

This discussion has, of course, presupposed that animals can remember

without language. Aside from the fact that behavioral evidence supports this
claim, it is obvious that we humans must be able to remember without
language, or else we could never learn language in the first place.

There is an even deeper philosophical response to the private language

argument. The possibility of publicly checking linguistic concepts itself
depends on my leaving certain linguistic concepts unchecked. For example,
let us return to the case of the child who wants to group a cow under his
concept of dog. He is corrected when he points to the cow and says "dog,"
for example, by a parent who says, "No, cow." The presupposition here is
that the child's concept of "No" is correct. How do we check that publicly
without presupposing some other concept that we cannot check without
presupposing some other concept and so on, ad infinitum? We do not, of
course, worry about this-we take the correct behavior as evidence that the
child does have the concept correct. Well, if that is so, why do we not take
the animal's correct behavior in context as evidence that it, too, has
concepts? Its concepts are, as the philosopher Berkeley said, learned from
the language of nature and are certainly not as complex, abstract, variable,
or precise as ours, but they still seem to be concepts; that is, some sort of
intellectual capability that allows the creature to recognize repeatable
features of the world.

So perhaps we may conclude that animals have something like general

notions or concepts. But even so, the Kantian would say the animal cannot
make universal judgments because it has no language. In the first place, it is
not so clear that this is so, for reasons very similar to the ones just given in
our discussion of denying concepts to animals. Animals do seem to make
judgments, at least as evidenced by their behavior. A watchdog seems to
judge, for example, that strangers are a danger until proven otherwise.
Furthermore, it is not so clear that the difference between language (a
system of artificial signs) and a system or set of natural signs such as
animals have is a difference in kind, rather than merely a difference in
degree of complexity. In my own book Natural and Conventional Meaning,
I have tried to show, contrary to the belief of most philosophers, that there
is no clear-cut line between the two. But I do not wish to rest on that here,
for there are a number of other points more directly relevant.
The reader may be surprised that I have not yet mentioned the remarkable
research that has been done on teaching language, or at least what seems to
many scholars to be language (sign language, computer language), to
chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. This work is indeed fascinating and
certainly, to my mind, supports the claim that no hard and fast line can be
drawn between human reason, thought, and sign apparatuses and those
capabilities of animals. My view is shared by many evolutionary theorists,
even those who think that humans are "at the top" of the evolutionary
pyramid, since all of evolutionary theory strongly suggests the absence of
sharp breaks in the chain of life. But I fear that this research will have little
effect on those people who hold to a sharp cleavage. If a person believes
that language creates a sharp gulf between humans and animals, and such a
person is shown that the higher primates have language, he or she will tend
to respond not by obliterating the unbridgeable gulf between humans and
animals, but by moving the higher primates from the realm of animals to
the realm of humans and saying that if these animals indeed have language,
they, too, should fall within the scope of moral concern, but that this has
nothing to do with the animals that do not have language. So it is unwise, I
think, to rest too much upon primate language research when trying to show
that animals fall within the scope of moral concern.
No, to rest a great deal on the attempt to prove that animals do have
language is to ignore our earlier warning about the moral relevance of
criteria used to distinguish humans from animals. And herein lies the source
of our major direct objections to the Kantian position. For we will now
show that rationality and language do not explain the scope of moral
concern. If, indeed, as the Kantian argument suggests, only rational and lin
guistic beings fall within the scope of moral concern, it is once again
difficult to see how we can allow infants, children, the mentally retarded,
the insane, the senile, the brain-damaged, the autistic, or the comatose to be
considered legitimate objects of moral concern. We do consider them such
objects; yet they lack rationality and/or language. This shows that
rationality and language do not represent a necessary condition for moral
concern. Perhaps one might try to answer this objection by saying that it is
because the human species, as such, is characterized by rationality that
these nonrational individuals fall within the scope of moral concern. But
this is inadequate, if only because such an argument would make the
species the object of moral concern and not individuals at all; yet it is
individual and not species considerations that are the focus of our moral
reasoning, as we shall later discuss.

Is it then the fact that such people are potentially rational? This might
work for infants and children, but certainly not for the senescent and the
hopelessly brain-damaged or insane, who are not in fact potentially rational.
If one were to argue that perhaps future scientific progress might allow for
these (or such) people to be made rational, the same might be said for
animals. In this fanciful sense, all animals are "potentially" rational, as
indeed they are in the long-term evolutionary sense as well. (Squirrels
might evolve into rational beings!)

It has been suggested that the analogy between animals and "marginal
humans" is misguided, because such deficient humans are in fact not direct
objects of moral concern. In a move reminiscent of the Aquinas-Kant
argument prohibiting cruelty to animals because of its potential for harming
people, some philosophers have suggested that deficient humans are treated
morally not for their own sakes, but because they are enmeshed in a tissue
of relationships with real humans, and not treating them morally would
cause pain to these bona fide, twenty-four-karat humans.

Such an argument clearly will not do the job. Surely there could be
marginal humans that no "real humans" care about, or that "real humans"
positively loathe. It would then presumably follow that we had no moral
obligations to such people, and we would then be free to do invasive
research on them, cook and eat them, or test for product safety using their
eyes. (Since they are physiologically a much higher-fidelity model for
normal humans than animals are, research done on them would surely be of
far greater scientific value than research done on animals.) But the fact is
we are not out there determining which marginal humans are of concern to
real humans and which are not, and happily exploiting the latter.

Furthermore, the argument contains the seeds of its own undoing, for it
cannot distinguish marginal humans from animals even in its own terms. As
we all know, animals are enmeshed in a web of relationships with "real
humans," the most obvious case being pet animals, but the point would hold
of almost every other imaginable kind of animal as well. Many
antivivisectionists, for example, feel deeply for laboratory animals, both in
a general sense and vis-a-vis specific animals they know. And doubtless, if
one took the trouble, one could find people willing to establish relationships
with any animals about to be used invasively. If the argument we are
discussing is correct, then we surely would (or ought to) exhibit the same
degree of concern for such animals as we do for marginal humans; so we
are back, via a different route, at our initial point.
The chief criticism of Kant's theory, however, is far more basic and, in fact,
points us toward resolving the general problem of candidacy for moral
concern. The Kantian position suggests, as we have seen, that rationality is
necessary and sufficient for considering something to be a moral agent, that
is, to be held responsible and accountable for its actions. With this we have
raised no disagreement, and, in fact, this is a common assumption of moral
practice. On the other hand, we have been asking the question of why
rationality is the criterion for entrance into the arena of moral consideration.
And we readily note that Kant's theory does not in this respect accord with
our fundamental moral intuitions and practices. Very simply, we may ask, if
the Kantian theory is an adequate account of why people are objects of
moral concern, namely, because they are actually or potentially rational
beings, why do we extend our moral concern, attention, deliberation, and
consideration beyond the strictly rational aspects of human life and
activity? Why do we concern ourselves morally with human activities that
have nothing to do with our rational side? Is it only because these other
aspects of life, our daily pleasures and pains, hopes, fears, aspirations, and
desires, all ultimately affect our rational activity? Surely this is not the case.
Most of what we worry about in our moral thinking about other people has
nothing to do with the fact that they are rational beings. In fact, if Kant is
correct, it seems impossible to explain why any human interests that
admittedly have nothing to do with a person's nature as a rational being
ought to figure as morally relevant at all.

Why, according to the Kantian theory of morality, are there any

prohibitions against harming a rational being in ways that demonstrably do
not harm his or her rationality? Why do we feel any obligation to nurture
and assist those aspects of human life and activity that are irrelevant to
rationality? Let us consider some extremes that bring this point home.
Suppose we discover that a certain amount of physical torture, regularly
administered, is biologically conducive to developing a person's rational
abilities. It seems that the Kantian theory would not only allow such torture,
but also would actually make it obligatory! On the other hand, suppose that
we discover that taking candy from a baby, or misleading or tripping a blind
person, does not at all impede their rationality. It is difficult to see why the
Kantian ethic would in any way forbid these obviously unacceptable
actions. In short, if the Kantian approach to morality through rationality is
correct, then those aspects of human nature that are independent of our
rational abilities necessarily fall outside of the scope of moral concern. Yet
this is clearly a major inadequacy in a moral theory, since surely most of
our moral concern for people has nothing whatever to do with their rational
aspects. A good deal of our moral concern toward people is oriented toward
alleviating unnecessary suffering, whatever its effect on their rationality. We
would not, for example, wish to have people cold and hungry all the time
even if it became known that this sort of torment fueled their intellectual
capabilities; so rationality alone does not seem to delineate the sphere of
moral concern.
Of course, as we said earlier, a moral theory often does cause us to change
our intuitions. But I do not think that this is the case here, because the
Kantian theory flies in the face of far too many intuitions and excludes far
too much of what we take to be central to morality. Frankly, most of us do
not worry excessively about rationality in our moral delib erations-we
consider pleasure and pain to be far more important criteria of concern. So
important are pleasure and pain to our intuitions about morality that some
philosophers have made the ability to suffer the sole criterion for admittance
into the sphere of moral concern. For example, Jeremy Bentham, the great
English utilitarian who argued in his Principles of Morals and Legislation
that the test of rightness and wrongness of actions was whether they
produced the greatest amount of pleasure (or least possible amount of pain)
for the greatest number, argued that in calculating this total amount of
pleasure and pain, we needed to take account of all creatures capable of
suffering, including animals. Certainly this theory accords far better with
our intuitions than does Kant's, and it furthermore serves greatly to increase
the scope of moral concern. (It does not, for example, suggest that the
mentally retarded or the insane ought not be legitimate objects of moral
concern.) And some recent discussions of the moral status of animals that
have attempted to draw our attention to the fact that animals ought to be
included within the scope of moral concern have begun by taking pleasure
and pain as basic requirements of moral consideration. This, for example, is
the argument of Peter Singer in his pioneering work Animal Liberation.

Although we are perhaps a good deal closer to an adequate theory when

we consider pleasure and pain, I do not believe that this gives us the
complete picture. We can readily see the problems involved in this view by
pursuing the same line of criticism we leveled against Kant. If pleasure and
pain are the determining characteristics that make something an object of
moral concern, in the way that rationality is for Kant, it is difficult to see
why those actions that do not touch pleasure and pain have any bearing on
morality. Yet a moment's reflection makes us aware that we have strong
moral intuitions about all sorts of activities toward people that do not
directly touch pleasure and pain. In fact, we may begin by drawing from
Kant's insight. I believe that we would all consider it wrong to impede a
person's intellectual or rational development, even if we cause him or her no
suffering. Self-fulfillment is a good quite independent of pleasure. Or
consider the sort of situation vividly described in Aldous Huxley's Brave
New World, a situation where people are kept in a state of happy idiocy by
the use of drugs. Even though they are not suffering and are indeed feeling
considerable pleasure, we still find such a society to be immoral and
monstrous. Clearly we tend to think of freedom, for example, as in many
instances more important than pleasure and lack of pain. We consider it
immoral to restrict a person's freedom even if we can ensure that they will
be happier (or experience less pain) without that freedom. Thus, medical
schools permit a student to apply for admission year after year, even though
they know he or she will never be accepted. We resist things done "for our
own good." Very often we do not consider it right to withhold the truth from
a person, even if the truth will "hurt." We do not consider it right for the
mass media to manipulate people's desires and actions even if they are not
pained by it. And so forth. In addition, many of the negative experiences we
shun and the infliction of which we would consider wrong, be it on people
or animals, are not what we would call pain, though we might say they
generate distress or suffering or unhappiness. These would include inducing
fear, anxiety, frustration, restriction of normal movement or behavior,
boredom, loneliness, social isolation, or feeding bad-tasting food.
Performing such actions would all be considered wrong, yet would not
count as what we ordinarily mean by pain. Obviously, we cannot relieve
such negative states by analgesics or pain killers, drugs that relieve genuine
physical pain. (We will discuss the issue of controlling such distress in
research animals in our chapter on animal research.)

Nonetheless, even though concern for pleasure and absence of pain does
not capture all of our intuitions about our moral concern for people, it
certainly captures a good many of them. And concern for pleasure and pain,
taken in conjunction with Kant's concern for rationality, gives us a much
better theoretical purchase on our morality vis-a-vis people. Certainly, using
pleasure and pain as additional criteria for candidacy for moral concern
would not allow us to exclude animals from moral concern, at the very least
the "higher" animals who evidence pain behavior and for whom we have
good, sound, neurophysiological evidence that they have nervous systems
relevantly similar to ours.
Ordinary people would never dream of denying that animals think and feel.
If anything, common sense sometimes errs by going to excess in the other
direction and attributing to animals (most often pets) total understanding of
human speech, preferences in television programs, and so on. Even David
Hume, the most skeptical of philosophers, who was prepared to call into
question the existence of mind, body, persistence and externality of objects,
causality, identity, scientific rationality, and cosmic intelligibility,
considered the presence of thoughts and feelings in animals an indubitable
truth. As he asserted in his Treatise of Human Nature:

Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking

much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident
than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men.
The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the
most stupid and ignorant.

The belief in animal mentation thus seems firmly ensconced in common

sense, so much so, indeed, that it has been pointed out by psychologist D.
O. Hebb that we simply could not deal with animals if our license to talk in
these terms was revoked. This belief hardly needed support from
mainstream science, but it nonetheless garnered support unequivocally with
the advent of Darwinism. For Darwin himself, and for the nineteenth-
century biologists (at least in England and America) who carried forth his
ideas, thought and feeling in animals was an inevitable consequence of
phylogenetic continuity. If morphological and physiological traits are
evolutionarily continuous, so, too, are psychological ones. Thus, in the
Descent of Man, Darwin affirmed that "there is no fundamental difference
between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties," and that "the
lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and
misery." In the same work, Darwin attributed to animals the full range of
human subjective experience and took it for granted that one could
scientifically gather data about such experience. In The Expression of
Emotions in Man and Animals, a work that brazenly hoists a middle finger
at the Cartesian tradition, Darwin detailed his conclusions concerning
animal feelings, and in later work, both his own and that which he entrusted
to his colleague George Romanes, he explored the cognitive dimensions of
animal experience, even including the problem-solving abilities of
earthworms!

One might conclude, then, that animal mentation, buttressed as it was

both by common sense and by the foundational theory of modern biology,
enjoyed a secure position ensconced in the studies and concerns of the
mainstream scientific community in the twentieth century. In fact, nothing
could be more erroneous than such a conclusion. By the 1930s one would
be hard pressed to find a psychologist, biologist, or medical scientist willing
to talk openly of animal thought and feeling, though most continued to
think of themselves as Darwinians. Talk of animal thought and feeling, and
most relevant for our discussion, talk about animal pain and suffering had
gone the way of talk about life-forces, entelechies, essences, absolute space,
and spirits-banished from the legitimate purview of scientific inquiry. The
persistence of this legacy is manifest even today. One must still search
extensively if one wishes to find a respectable scientist willing to echo
Darwin's unequivocal statements quoted earlier.

To what can we attribute the abandonment of what appeared to

latenineteenth-century science to be a legitimate, rich, nonproblematic,
empirical domain of inquiry, susceptible to investigation by standard
scientific methods? A study of the history of science reveals that the view
of animals having thought and feeling was neither empirically disconfirmed
nor shown to be conceptually flawed, which are the only ways science
recognizes that scientific ideas are superseded. In actual fact, as I have
shown in detail in my book The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness,
Animal Pain, and Science, belief in the animal mind vanished because of
new philosophical ideas that seized the scientific community in the first two
decades of the twentieth century and dominated scientific thought and
practice for over fifty years. These ideas persist even today.
 Though science tends to ignore its philosophical basis, it should be
recalled that every human activity with any intellectual component
whatever, from geometry to law, from art to science, must rest on certain
assumptions that are taken for granted by practitioners of the discipline.

As in the paradigmatic case of geometry, one must begin with certain

notions that cannot be proved, for it is on them that all proof rests, although
most fields do not neatly and explicitly articulate their assumptions as well
as does geometry. As Aristotle pointed out, to prove our basic assumptions
in a given area, one would need other assumptions, which in turn would
require proof ad infinitum. In practice, one's assumptions are as invisible to
one's daily activities as the air one breathes, although one could not function
intellectually without such assumptions, just as one could not function
biologically without air.

What is often forgotten is that although assumptions in a given area are

rarely questioned-practitioners in the area are too busy advancing the
discipline on the basis of assumptions to question them-assumptions are, in
principle, subject to questioning, and are in fact often flawed. To question
such assumptions is the task of philosophical or conceptual activity, for it is
necessarily nonempirical. The philosophic questioning of such assumptions
can become the basis for major scientific revolutions, as in Einstein's
critique of foundational concepts of Newtonian physics, or Newton's
conceptual critique of the Aristotelian assumption that the science of
motion must be qualitative.

In the case of scientific activity for most of the twentieth century, certain
general assumptions have ossified into an invisible dogma so taken for
granted by most scientists that I have termed it the Common Sense or
Ideology of Science, because it is to scientific activity what ordinary
common sense is to daily life. Not surprisingly, the common sense of
science may and does conflict with ordinary common sense, just as science
conflicts with common sense. The philosophical roots of scientific common
sense lie in the movements known as positivism and behaviorism that
evolved in the early twentieth century.
 For purposes of our discussion of pain in animals, two components of
the common sense of science are especially worthy of note. The first is the
widespread belief that, in and of itself, science has nothing to do with
values in general and with ethics in particular-the usual slogan is that
science is value-free. This is assumed because science allegedly deals with
what is objective, verifiable by experiment, observation, and data gathering,
that which is intersubjectively confirmable. Because value judgments
cannot be so verified, they are said to be outside of the purview of science
itself. Hence, the common sense of science sees ethics as a subjective
matter of taste and personal preference-as matters of emotion, not reason.
Scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and have said that they did
not consider the development of the atomic bomb except as a scientific
question-ethics was for the politicians-epitomize the belief that science is
value-free. An even more extraordinary example occurred in 1989 when the
head of the National Institutes of Health, James Wyngaarden, arguably the
main representative of the US biomed ical community, was speaking at his
alma mater, Michigan State University, and was discussing genetic
engineering with an audience of students. In that venue, Wyngaarden made
the following statement: "Although research advances such as genetic
engineering are always controversial, science should never be hindered by
ethical considerations." When I ask my freshman students, who in the
twentieth century made that statement, they invariably guess Hitler!

Other evidence of the common sense of science's view that science itself
is value-free is manifest. Few scientific textbooks explore ethical issues
inherent in their subject matter-indeed many basic textbooks stress in their
introductory chapters that science is value-free. For the majority of the
twentieth century, scientific use of human subjects was largely
unconstrained; witness the widespread use of disenfranchised human beings
(i.e., convicts, the retarded, and the aged) for invasive research without
informed consent. Note that I am not here referring to moral monsters such
as Josef Mengele. I am rather focusing on generally accepted practices that
bespoke a widespread belief in a clear schism between science and ethics.

By the same token, one may cite the remarkable dearth of arguments and
discussions in biomedical research circles and publications on the complex
moral questions associated with animal research. (Ordinary people
immediately see the moral issues involved.) Until recently, and still to a
large extent, such discussions tended to be defensive reactions to criticism
or long lists of the benefits to human beings produced by such animal use.

As a result, since scientific ideology turned a blind eye to the moral

questions associated with inflicting pain on animals, there was no moral
pressure to concern oneself with morally relevant mental states in animals.

The second component of scientific ideology that blocked concern with

animal pain is the claim that animal consciousness-what an animal thinks
and experiences-was outside of the purview of scientific inquiry, since
mental states were not subject to observation and experimentation. This
positivistic component, in tandem with a new movement in psychology
called behaviorism that was launched in 1913 by J. B. Watson, banished
consciousness from the scientific arena. In its pure form, behaviorism
denied the knowability and reality of consciousness in human beings or in
animals. We do not really have thoughts, we only think we do, said the
behaviorists in essence. And so psychology became the study of behavior,
specifically of learning, not of mentation. The scientific acknowledgment of
mental states in animals was dealt a deathblow. By the 1940s virtually all
psychologists in the United States were behaviorists.

So strong was the positivist flame that it consumed talk of consciousness

in animals in Europe as well, where Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen
were opposing behaviorism with the fledgling science of ethology, on the
grounds that behaviorism ignored genetic and evolutionary determinants of
behavior. Nonetheless, ethologists also denied the legitimacy of talking
about consciousness in animals, the one point in which they stressed their
agreement with behaviorists. Lorenz spoke of appetite behavior in animals,
not of their appetites, to stress the need for eschewing mentalism;
behavioral psychologists spoke of aversive behavior and negative
reinforcers, not of pain animals felt. Biologists were carried along by the
same current.
 These two components of scientific ideology-the denial of values in
science and the methodological elimination of talk about consciousness-
naturally reinforced each other and were in turn buttressed by other factors.
In particular, the philosophical denial of scientific reality to thought and
feeling in animals helped allay reservations that scientists might have had
about hurting animals in the pursuit of scientific goals. Interestingly
enough, as we mentioned earlier, the same thing had occurred in the
seventeenth century when Descartes declared that animals were machines
with no souls, minds, or feelings. Thereby, he reconciled in one
masterstroke the demands that animals not have souls with his belief that
biology is a part of physics and with the demands of a growing science of
physiology forced in its quest for knowledge to do what common sense
called painful procedures to animals without anesthetics. No need to control
the pain, said Cartesian physiologists, because it is not really experienced
pain, merely mechanical response. And so, too, in the twentieth century, the
study of animal pain became the study of mechanical responses, not of felt
hurt. Similarly, "stress" became a catchall for what ordinary common sense
would call suffering and misery of a variety of forms, and then was
described purely mechanistically in terms of activation of the pituitary-
adrenal axis and its effects, with any notion of experienced suffering
suppressed as scientifically illegitimate.

Furthermore, while ordinary common sense never denied the reality and
knowability of animal pain, and thus was shocked by the common sense of
science (when it knew about it), it was not morally shocked. For although
ordinary common sense never denied pain and suffering in animals, it did
not care a great deal about them either. Too much of ordinary practice and
economic life depended on inflicting pain and suffering on animals to
devote much moral attention to animal pain and suffering. This cavalier
disregard for the moral relevance of animal suffering was of course
mirrored in the legal system, which accorded animals the status of property,
and, as we shall shortly discuss, proscribed only overt and usually
intentional cruelty, which might endanger human beings, and turned a blind
eye to "necessary," expedient, and usual suffering. By the same token,
although veterinary medicine at the turn of the twentieth century was
certainly Darwinian in not denying pain to animals, its sense of moral
responsibility for controlling pain was as limited as it was reflective of
society in general, as the following quotation from a 1906 surgery text
illustrates:

In veterinary surgery, anesthesia has no history. It is used in a kind of

desultory fashion that reflects no great credit to the present
generation of veterinarians.... Many veterinarians of rather wide
experience have never in a whole lifetime administered a general
anesthetic in performing their operations. It reflects greatly to the
credit of the canine specialist, however, that he alone has adopted
anesthesia to any considerable extent.... Anesthesia in veterinary
surgery today is a means of restraint and not an expedient to relieve
pain. So long as an operation can be performed by forcible restraint
... the thought of anesthesia does not enter into the proposition.

Thus, for most of last century, ignoring animal pain, suffering, and the
ethical dimensions of animal research was buttressed not only by a general
social disregard for animal pain and suffering, and by a hard-fought
tradition of academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, but also by a
ubiquitous and powerful ideology that said science had no truck with values
and that talk of animal mentation was operationally, empirically, and
scientifically meaningless. Only in such an environment could routine use
of paralytics without anesthesia for some surgery (e.g., horse castration)
flourish uncriticized, as it indeed did in research and veterinary practice.

Until about twenty years ago, little was known concerning analgesia in
laboratory animals; more papers have been published in this area in the past
few years than in the past hundred years, although the literature is still
scanty. There still exist no textbooks of veterinary analgesia; the subject is
rarely covered in depth in veterinary schools; few papers exist on "food
animal" analgesia, and the average research worker has little if any
knowledge of good analgesia protocols; and even board-certified laboratory
animal veterinarians and their journals have not made laboratory animal
analgesia a major concern. When I went before Congress in 1982 to defend
the laboratory animal laws my colleagues and I wrote (described in a later
chapter on animal research), I was told to demonstrate the need for such
laws, or there would be no chance of their passing. To accomplish this, I did
a literature search on animal analgesia. Much to my amazement, I found
only two papers, one of which argued that there should be papers!

Ironically, although virtually all analgesics have been screened in

rodents, rodents used in painful procedures were almost never the recipients
of analgesics. Only in the last two decades have people turned to the
voluminous database that has been gained in the course of screening
analgesics for human use, with an eye toward abstracting information from
that data to be used to control pain in rodents.

The papers presented at the first conference ever held in the United
States on animal pain, convened in 1982, and later published as Animal
Pain by the American Physiological Society, were, with a few notable
exceptions, by and large aimed at exploring what I call the plumbing of
pain-the mechanisms of pain response. The papers tended to circuit moral
issues involved in pain infliction, control, and the fundamental morally
relevant experiential dimension of pain; that is, the fact that the animal
hurts.

Later on in our discussion of animal research, we shall explain how

scientific ideology is changing in virtue of new social moral concerns about
animals and the laws that follow in their wake. Here, however, it is
appropriate to sketch the philosophical critique of scientific ideology that I
presented in great detail in The Unheeded Cry. Before doing so, we should
point out that the two components of scientific ideology were mutually
reinforcing. The claim that science was value- and ethics-free prevented
ethical concerns from surfacing about infliction of pain or failure to control
it; the denial of the scientific knowability and reality of subjective mental
states forestalled acknowledgment of morally relevant experiences. This
was true not only in animals but in people as well, particularly powerless
people. Throughout the twentieth century there was systemic
undertreatment of pain in animals and humans in general, but most
dramatically in the disenfranchised. The most egregious example of this
was the practice of doing open-heart surgery upon human neonates using
paralytic drugs rather than anesthetics for highly dubious ideological
reasons-babies didn't feel pain; if they did they didn't remember it;
anesthesia was dangerous to babies. When an irate parent found out that her
child had been subjected to what she saw as "torture," and nurses concurred
this, the human medical community was forced to backtrack. By the late
1980s, they had to reappropriate common sense about infant pain; admit
that uncontrolled pain was a major stressor; acknowledge that anesthesia
was dangerous to all sick people, not just babies; and eventually affirm that
it might be that babies felt pain more significantly than adults.

In a similar vein, ketamine, a powerful somatic analgesic and

hallucinogenic, capable of causing both "bad trips" and "flashbacks" like
LSD, was cavalierly used on animals, the very young, and the very old, but
not on other people. I spent much time trying to figure out the physiological
differences between the very young and the very old and everyone else.
Finally, I was told by an anesthesiologist that ketamine use had nothing to
do with physiology, but rather that it was used only on people incapable of
suing!

Children and adolescents still receive less pain control than adults for the
same procedures. A 1991 study by B. R. Ferrell and M. Rhiner revealed that
although 90 percent of cancer pain could be controllable with available
treatments, 80 percent was not controlled! In other words, scientific
ideology has wrought moral mischief on people as well as animals!
Scientific ideology must be shown up for what it is: bad philosophy. In the
first place, science is neither value-free nor free of ethical judgment.
Indeed, the very notion of what will count as a fact, as a legitimate object of
investigation, or as data relevant to a given question, rests squarely on
valuational presuppositions. Consider, for example, the Scientific
Revolution, when the commonsense, experience-based physics and
cosmology of Aristotle were replaced by the rationalistic, mathematical,
geometrical physics of Galileo and Newton. The discovery of new data is
not what forced the rejection of Aristotelianism; on the contrary, empirical
observations all buttressed Aristotle's idea of a world of qualitative
differences. What led to the rejection of Aristotelianism was essentially a
change in value; a discrediting of information provided by the senses( as
Descartes does so well in his Meditations); and a correlative valuing of the
rational and mathematically expressible over the empirical, of Plato over
Aristotle, so nicely expressed in Galileo's claim that, in essence, an
omniscient deity would have to be a mathematician and create a
mathematical unity underlying apparent diversity.

In the same way, the adoption of the behavioristic/positivistic view of

science as incapable of dealing with animal consciousness earlier last
century, as a replacement for the Darwinian view that animal consciousness
was a legitimate object of study, was a change not forced by new facts nor
by the discovery of logical incoherences in the older approach. Rather, it
was a change in how philosophical approaches are valued, one that was
defended in valuational terms about what science ought to be, and in terms
of the benefit to society coming from a science of psychology aimed at
controlling behavior.

Biomedical science, too, is based in valuational assumptions. The key

concepts of health and illness of disease in human or animal medicine rest
on valuational notions. One cannot have a concept of illness without a
concept of health; yet any concept of health must rest in valuational
assumptions. No set of facts, including the fact of statistical normalcy,
forces us to call an organism healthy or sick. Thus, the recent-and
questionable-US medical community's proclamations naming obesity and
alcoholism as diseases rather than conditions leading to disease, and child
or wife abuse as sickness rather than badness, all bespeak debatable moral
and other valuational assumptions. We will discuss this in greater detail
later.

A second piece of bad philosophy is the common sense of science's

shibboleth that ethics is subjective and not rationally adjudicable. Such a
view is incorrect. One is free to choose one's own use of the English
language, but certain uses are incorrect. Similarly, one can be wrong in
one's moral positions. One cannot logically be a Christian and a moral
relativist at the same time, though many people believe they are. One
cannot commit oneself to fairness as a moral principle and discriminate
against others on the basis of skin color. One cannot rationally be a
libertarian and support censorship.

One cannot hold the moral principles we all implicitly share in virtue of
living in the same society under the same set of laws and not be logically
committed to the notion that animals are more than tools for our use,
although most people fail to draw these conclusions unaided by
philosophical dialogue. Therefore, the invasive use of animals for research
does raise moral valuational questions intrinsic to science and does require
making inescapable moral commitments. As soon as one has admitted that
animals can be hurt in ways that matter to them, or admitted even that
animals are entitled to humane care and treatment, or that unnecessary
animal suffering is wrong, one has implicitly but inescapably presupposed
that animals are in the moral arena, that it makes sense to talk about them in
the moral tone of voice, that one can be morally wrong in how one uses or
treats animals, none of which one would say of chairs or wheelbarrows.

The common sense of science's claim that one cannot know animal
mental experience is bad philosophy. The same positivism that would
exclude talk of animal consciousness from science would also exclude talk
of an external world existing independently of perception, talk of other
minds in human beings, and the knowability of the past. Evolutionary
continuity and neurophysiological and behavioral analogies across species
militate in favor of the claim that animals experience pain, and the fact that
the failure to feel pain is biologically disastrous in human beings so born or
suffering from conditions like Hansen's disease (leprosy). This is ample
evidence that animals also feel pain and do not merely exhibit the pain
mechanisms and pain mitigation responses that are remarkably similar in all
vertebrates in a mechanical way.

"Stress" is not simply a catchall nonspecific response, but is in fact

under the control of and modulated by the animals' cognitive, emotional,
and, thus, mental states. In addition, although we cannot directly perceive
thoughts and feelings in animals, we cannot directly perceive quanta and
black holes either; all are postulated theoretical entities that are presumed to
exist because they provide us with the best explanations for certain
phenomena and enable us to predict features of those phenomena.

In sum then, despite its pervasiveness, the scientific ideology that denied
the ability to know and study animal thought and feeling throughout the
twentieth century cannot be defended.

Nonetheless, when the first edition of this book appeared, it was quite
common to encounter researchers who espoused the skeptical position on
animal pain. This, for example, could be found expressed in the Bulletin of
the National Society of Medical Research, a lobby group that attempted to
block legislation that would in any way place restrictions on biomedical
research. Or let me cite some more personal examples.

In the early 1980s I debated a prominent neurophysiologist whose field

of specialization is pain. During the course of his presentation, he brought
forward an elaborate argument purporting to show that since the
electrochemical activity in the cerebral cortex associated with pain is
different in animals and human beings, animal pain is not really like human
pain since the cerebral cortex governs higher intellectual activity. My
rebuttal was brief. I pointed out to him that his actions belied his rhetoric
since his own area of research was pain, and he used animal subjects and
extrapolated the results to people!
 In the same vein, I challenged a wildlife biologist who had flatly
asserted to his students that fish don't feel pain. I pointed out that
evolutionary evidence, neurophysiological analogies, and behavioral
evidence, including the fact that fish can be conditioned to swim in certain
directions by electroshock, all militate against his claim. His reply was
telling: "Well, these sorts of questions are like the existence of God." In a
deep sense, this is true. None of us can feel anyone else's pain, man or
animal. But if this is what this man believes, he is certainly not in a position
to categorically deny that fish feel pain! We shall return to this point.

It is also worth noting some remarkable scientific discoveries that have

direct bearing on the question of animal pleasure and pain. Most ordinary
people have been willing to attribute pain (and pleasure) to mammals and
birds and, perhaps to a limited extent, fish. Although a child will suggest
that a worm being put on a hook is suffering, we tend to dismiss this as
immature anthropomorphism or sloppy sentimentality. However, in 1979
four Swedish researchers reported in Nature that earthworms possess P-
endorphins and enkephalins. Other researchers have found a-endorphins.
These chemicals, which have been the subject of much research in human
beings, are hormones produced by the brain that are similar to morphine
and whose pain-killing properties are many times more powerful than that
of morphine. It has been theorized that release of these chemicals is
responsible for the masking of pain after severe injury. It has also been
suggested that endorphin release is triggered by acupuncture, thus
explaining the latter's possible anesthetic effects. In any event, the presence
of these chemicals in invertebrates strongly suggests that these creatures do
feel pain, and thus, a child's concern for the worm may well be vindicated.
It also suggests that something like pain is a valuable evolutionary device
across the entire evolutionary scale, and that what has hitherto been
dismissed as "anthropomorphism" may just be plausible extrapolation from
behavior to sensation. One of my colleagues at Colorado State University,
the late physiologist Dr. Jay Best, is convinced that consciousness pervades
the entire evolutionary ladder, and that even planaria (or flatworms) possess
some rudimentary "mind." Best and others have performed experiments in
which planaria are taught to take certain routes and avoid certain foods by
the use of electroshock, once again suggesting that the animal is capable of
experiencing some unpleasant sensation that we might as well call pain.
And in a fascinating article, famed Cambridge entomologist V. B.
Wiggelsworth argued that insects most likely experience visceral pain, as
well as pain elsewhere, caused by heat and electroshock.

It is indeed ironic that in physiology, as in cosmology, contemporary

thought has come full circle. It was the mechanical model of Descartes that
led to the claim that animals do not feel pain and that they should be studied
as physicochemical machines. But as we become more and more conversant
with the physiology and biochemistry of the animal and human bodies, we
find ourselves led back to a rejection of Descartes. For if the human body
possesses a biochemical mechanism that serves only to mask pain, is it
reasonable to deny the sensation to a "lower" creature possessing the same
mechanism?

Incidentally, it is also important to recall that animals can feel pleasure

and enjoy all sorts of positive sensations and experiences. While it has been
known for a long time that fear, frustration, anxiety, and so on can induce
various diseases and lesions in animals, it is only recently that the other side
of the coin was studied. (This is itself a revealing fact about our attitude
toward animals.) In an article in Science (June 27, 1980) researchers
dramatically showed that love and affection can make a major difference to
the physical health of experimental animals. In this study, two groups of
rabbits were fed a 2 percent cholesterol diet. One group of rabbits was
handled, cuddled, and petted by the researchers; a control group was not.
The rabbits who had received the love and attention had 60 percent fewer
cholesterol-induced aortic lesions! (It is sad and ironic that the researchers
had to kill the rabbits to establish this important fact!) It is also known that
animals, as well as humans, recover and heal more quickly when routinely
given postsurgical analgesia.

We must also recall, as just mentioned, that we have no way of knowing

what another person suffers as compared with what we suffer when put in
certain circumstances. For instance, it is perfectly possible that a Marie
Antoinette, with a sensitivity refined by years of high living, may have
suffered more from being deprived her truffles than a clod like me would
suffer from being deprived of food altogether! In short, if we become too
skeptical about our ability to know that animals suffer pain, we have no real
reason to avoid extending that skepticism to other people. While it might be
argued, as it was by Descartes, that at least people can communicate their
pain linguistically, it is worth remembering that the most eloquent signs of
pain, human or animal, are nonlinguistic. A scream tells me much more
about pain than does a long-winded description of symptoms. We shall
shortly return to this question of language.

It may be suggested that while animals may indeed feel pain, human
pain is always infinitely greater because humans have the ability to
anticipate, fear, and remember the pain, as when we go to the dentist. In
response to this, two points must be made. First, even if human pain is
always greater than animal pain, that is irrelevant to our basic question,
namely, what beings enter into the scope of moral concern? If animals feel
pain at all, and feeling pain is legitimate grounds for entering into the moral
arena, then animals should be objects of moral concern. Second, there is
good behavioral evidence that animals do anticipate and remember pain.
After all, the dog fears the stick and trembles at the rage in his master's
voice. Finally, let us note that the argument cuts both ways. If animals
indeed cannot anticipate or remember, then an animal in pain cannot
anticipate an end to pain, or remember a time without pain, as we can. The
entire horizon of its universe is filled with pain, whereas we can see an end
to suffering. If this is the case, perhaps animal pain confers even higher
claim to moral concern! In contrast to the poem by Muir quoted earlier, and
in order to illustrate the current point that animal pleasure and pain may be
more deep than human, the following poem by Robinson Jeffers is worth
citing:

THE HOUSE DOG'S GRAVE

Unquestionably, animal pain responses are not always the same as
ourscompare a horse's wincing rather than crying out when hurt-but, for that
matter, human pain responses vary across different cultures and subcultures
and among individuals. While the pain-detection threshold (that is, the
minimum stimulus that, when applied to a person or an animal, gives rise to
the perception of pain) is relatively uniform across human beings, the pain-
tolerance threshold (that is, the maximum pain that a subject can endure
before the stimulus is perceived as unbearable) varies widely from
individual to individual, depending on a number of factors. Indeed, it varies
widely even in the same individual, depending on the context of the pain,
the person's mood, anxiety level, and so on. Athletes are notoriously good at
ignoring great pain. What else would one expect when locker rooms are
festooned with giant signs declaring "No pain, no gain" and football great
Johnny Unitas's quote that "If pain bothers you, you have left your game in
the locker room"?

Ordinary observation as well as classical research supports the view that

sociopsychological and sociocultural factors loom large in shaping the
experience of pain in humans. Compare, for example, the way in which
middle-class New York Jewish children are sometimes encouraged to
express pain and are reinforced upon doing so when they fall down as
toddlers, in contrast to children raised on ranches in the West who are
taught to ignore the pain and get on with their business. Research has
shown that northern Europeans are less susceptible to painful stimuli than
southern Europeans-that is, have a higher pain-tolerance thresholdand this
is explained by cultural, rather than biological, differences. Stoicism,
control, and keeping emotion in check are valued among northern
Europeans; volubility, effusiveness, and emotional display are accepted and
encouraged among southern Europeans. Other studies show similar results.
When told that Jews are less able to tolerate pain than Christians, Jewish
subjects were found to increase their pain tolerance significantly; but when
told that Jews can take more pain than Christians, they showed satisfaction
with the status quo and did not increase their tolerance. Other studies
indicate that Jews are much more concerned about future pain than Italians,
whose concern tends to be with immediate relief. Italians forget about the
pain after it has been relieved, while Jews continue to complain even after
the pain is alleviated. This is explained by the notion that Jews tend to be
culturally future-oriented, as well as pessimistic. This dovetails with the
well-known fact that fear and anxiety increase pain, and indeed may cause
it.

In his now classic 1956 work, H. K. Beecher showed that wounded

frontline soldiers required less analgesia than nonmilitary surgical patients,
even though the injuries they sustained were more massive. He explained
this by reference to the fact that the soldiers saw real benefit in the wound-
that is, no longer having their lives at risk on the battlefieldwhereas the
surgical patients focused more on their pain. Facts like these have
sometimes been used to claim that animal pain is qualitatively different
from human pain because it is unaffected by psychological and cultural
factors. However, clinical veterinarians and common experience dispute
this. A wounded animal seems to suffer less pain in the presence of its
owner; less when treated at home or in familiar surroundings and when
reassured; less when a rapport is established with the clinician; less when
stroked, and so on. "Cultural" differences appear here as well. Dogs
accustomed to rough treatment and minor injury (like athletes) show far less
pain behavior than highly pampered lap dogs-even members of the same
breed. Poodles provide a notable example. In addition, various breeds of
dogs or other animals selected for certain purposes appear to tolerate pain
better than others selected for other purposes. Thus, pit bulls, bred for
fighting, seem to tolerate pain better than lap dogs. Furthermore, it is widely
known that dogs learn to utilize pain behavior to manipulate people;
Michael Fox and others have reported feigned injury by animals that is
clearly designed to elicit better treatment.

I myself experienced this vividly in a Great Dane I had when living in

New York. After a day of romping in the park, she developed a severe limp,
which my wife and I proceeded to overtreat with massage, heating pad,
treats, and a great deal of attention. Predictably, I now realize, she continued
to limp until ten days later when we took her to a major veterinary hospital
where she was diagnosed as having degenerative cartilage disease that
would inevitably cripple her permanently and that required immediate
surgical intervention. I decided to take her to the park for what could well
be her last run with her friends. We slowly made our way down the hill to
Riverside Park, she limping bravely and pathetically at my side. We finally
arrived at the park. The dog spotted her playmates and began to wag her
tail. Choking down my emotion and steeling myself to the inevitable
pathetic scene, I slipped off her leash and-to my utter amazement-watched
her take off like the proverbial "bat out of hell" to join her peer group. That
was the end of the limp forever, with one notable exception. Two years later
we were in the Canadian North Woods, and, spotting a rabbit, the dog took
off heedless of my demands that she come and heel. Twenty minutes later
she bounded back to confront her enraged master. As I roared "Bad dog!"
she suddenly began to limp pathetically, desisting as soon as I convulsed
with laughter. Melzack and Scott have provided another interesting example
of "social" influence on animal pain. They showed that puppies raised in
total social isolation did not react to painful stimuli like burns and pinpricks
as if they felt pain.

All this raises an important, often neglected point about animal pain. As
with humans, one should not forget about individual differences; what hurts
one person significantly may seem irrelevant to another, even one closely
related. (This is equally true, of course, of what gives pleasure to humans or
animals.) Hereditary and environmental factors are both operative here;
even "macho" dogs like pit bulls can be rendered very sensitive to pain if
pampered. Thus, if one wishes to be able to recognize pain in animals, or
humans for that matter, one can try to develop general criteria that apply to
the type of creature in question. But one must also know the individual
animal (or human). One needs to know some people quite well to become
aware that extreme quiet, rather than voluble outcry, is a sign of pain in that
person. (In the same way, excessive cheerfulness can be a sign of
depression in certain people.) All of which leads to an inevitable result,
namely, that to be morally responsive to pain in animals, one must ideally
know animals in their individualities.
 The practical problems involved in doing this in research colonies or
feedlots are obviously monumental. In fact, I believe that these practical
barriers are a greater obstacle to recognizing pain in animals than the
epistemological ones posited by the common sense of science. Farmers or
caretakers (uninfected with scientific ideology) who deal with small groups
of animals have no problem identifying pain in their animals. But one can
conjecture that the large numbers of animals dealt with today in science,
animals identified by number not name, have contributed to the hold of the
ideology of science. The animals become as indistinguishable as grains of
sand, which in turn weakens both our sensitivity to signs of pain and our
moral response. This is what happened in the concentration camps; shaved,
starved prisoners, identically dressed, lacked individuality in the eyes of
their captors and were thus more easily perceived as part of an endless flow
of clones, about which one need not feel moral concern.
In any case, pain and pleasure have still not given us a complete account of
moral candidacy, because, as we have seen, there are aspects of our
treatment of people that we consider immoral even if we are not causing
pain. And this would similarly be true of animals. It would seem to me
paradigmatically immoral to kill a person for no reason, even if it were
done painlessly, and even if we had reason to believe that the remainder of
the person's life would bring him more suffering than pleasure. (Most of us
probably will have more suffering in our lives than pleasure.) By the same
token, it seems to be wrong to do this to an animal. We shall discuss this in
more detail later. It is true that we do regularly kill animals to forestall their
suffering, but we are usually thinking of great suffering, as in the case of a
severely injured animal, or of sacrificing a few for the sake of the majority,
as in the case of a starving deer population. And in any case, it is not at all
clear that such practices are moral on examination. After all, if our criterion
for moral concern is amount of suffering, yet we consider it immoral to kill
people painlessly to forestall future suffering, it is difficult to see why we
allow it for animals since we have not given a morally relevant difference
between people and animals. (On the other hand, some people have argued
that we ought to euthanize humans who are suffering uncontrollable pain
and justify this claim by appealing to what we do with animals.)

It would also seem to be clearly wrong for us to take an animal that was
by nature roaming free, say, a gazelle or tiger or, more dramatically, an
eagle, and condition it to prefer living in a tiny cage and to abhor or fear
open space. Even though we were producing no pain in the animal, and
possibly even conditioning it to feel a good deal of pleasure at being in its
cage, we would consider such an action to be monstrous for moral reasons
having nothing to do with pleasure and pain, namely, violating the animal's
nature and dignity. This same intuition may explain the repugnance we feel
at watching bears ride bicycles, even when we are assured that they have
not been trained using negative reinforcement and are, in fact, well-fed and
well-cared for. The concept of an animal's nature is crucial here, and we
shall shortly discuss it in detail.
The moral of the story so far is that neither rationality nor ability to
experience pain and pleasure nor even both taken together give us an
adequate account of what makes a being an object of moral concern.
Certainly the presence of rationality and the ability to suffer are relevant for
entrance into the moral arena, but they do not seem to give us the whole
story. In order to arrive at what is missing, let us engage in what
philosophers and scientists call thought experiments, imaginative exercises
designed to help us understand our concepts better. We can certainly imagine
a nonrational being falling within the scope of moral concern; indeed, we
have already discussed the case of infants, children, the insane, the
comatose, the senescent, and so on. But more interestingly, we can imagine
something happening to a whole group of people, say, some strange
mutation that rendered them incapable of suffering and of feeling pleasure
and pain. We certainly would not feel that it would be moral to do whatever
we wished to such people. It would certainly be immoral to starve such a
person, even if he didn't suffer while we were doing it.

One more thought experiment will help supply the missing piece to our
puzzle. Let us imagine a totally powerful, indeed, omnipotent being who is
totally self-contained and has no needs, desires, goals, interests, dependence
on anyone else, nor can be at all affected by anyone else. (Some accounts of
the Judeo-Christian God fit this description.) Now let us ask ourselves if this
being would enter into our scope of moral concern. I would argue that it
would not, since anything we did or did not do would be totally irrelevant to
it. This in turn leads me to argue that what makes something fall within the
scope of moral concern of a being capable of moral action is the presence of
needs, desires, goals, aims, wants, or, more generally, interests, which that
being has and which the being capable of moral action can help, ignore, or
hinder. Thus, ration ality and the ability to suffer are not in themselves what
make the creatures who have them fall within the scope of moral concern-it
is rather the fact that rationality and the feeling of pleasure and pain are
interests for those beings that can be helped or hindered by those of us who
act. They are examples of interests. I am thus suggesting that there could be
and indeed are other interests that make something worthy of moral concern
besides reason and the ability to suffer. In our previous discussion, it seems
that freedom, for example, is such an interest. And going back to our thought
experiments, a perfect rational being would not be an object of moral
concern because what we did or did not do would make no difference to it.
But what exactly is an interest? And what things can be said to have
interests? Quite clearly, as in the case of our uses for all moral concepts, our
exemplars derive from human beings. And we can have little reason to
doubt that other human beings have desires, aspirations, wants, goals,
needs, and intentions: objectives that they strive to achieve in order to
survive, to avoid suffering, to increase pleasure, and to actualize their
nature. This is certainly the paradigm case of interests. First of all, we
impute something like our own mental lives and experiences to others.
More important, as we acquire language and linguistic abilities, we become
increasingly aware of the needs and goals of others. In point of fact, it is
through language that we impart to others an awareness of our needs,
desires, goals, and intentions and discover that they can impede, ignore, or
nurture them, and this in turn spurs our sensitivity to them and to their
linguistic expressions of needs. This, it seems to me, contrary to the Kantian
argument, is the link between the possession of language and counting as an
object of moral concern. It is not that linguistic ability is constitutive of
rationality, which in turn is the chief criterion for entrance into the moral
arena. Rationality is, after all, one interest among many. It is rather that
through language we become aware of the needs, wants, aspirations, goals,
and intentions of others, often with unambiguous clarity. Hence Descartes's
exaggerated claim that language is the only evidence of the presence of a
mental life at all, as given in a letter to Henry More:

Language is the one certain indication of latent cogitation in a body,

and all men use it ... whereas on the other hand not a single brute
speaks, and consequently this we may take for the true difference
between man and beast.

Now certainly no one can deny the importance of language as a vehicle

for communicating needs, goals, desires, etc. But it is equally important to
realize that language is not the only source of such information, even
among human beings. In fact, our earliest and in many ways most eloquent
communication of needs occurs between infant and mother, long before the
baby has even begun to actualize its linguistic potential. And throughout
our lives, some of the subtlest communication among human beings, some
of the clearest expression of needs and desires, occurs nonlinguistically
through what have traditionally been called natural signs. Certainly the best
clues to another's emotional and psychic pain, and indeed physical pain,
comes about in spite of the breakdown or failure of language. As poets and
lovers have always been aware, language breaks down at the most
emotionally critical junctures, and communication is best achieved by a
glance, a touch, an expression, or even, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty has
shown, by silence.

When this is called to our attention, none of us would wish to deny it.
Yet when the argument is extended to other creatures across species it is
resisted as "anthropomorphism." But this is not cogent. If I can deny that
the whimper and limp of a dog are signs that the animal is in pain, why can
I not deny that your telling me that you are in pain is a good sign that you
are? If it is anthropomorphic to read the natural sign as pain, why is it not,
to coin a phrase, ego-morphic to assume that what you feel is similar to
what I feel? Indeed, although veracity is a presupposition of discourse, as
Thomas Reid pointed out, and we should always assume that a person is
telling the truth unless we have reason to believe otherwise, people do
frequently lie. Linguistic communication is always suspect in this regard.
Animals on the other hand typically do not, though dogs, as we saw, have
been known to feign a limp for sympathy or to avoid punishment, and
certain mother birds, killdeers, will feign a broken wing to lead predators
away from their nest. Recent research has shown that primates, too, will
engage in deliberate deception.

The point of all this is clear. We allow linguistic or conventional signs to

serve as evidence of human need and interest. We allow natural signs to
serve as evidence of human need and interest. Why then are we skeptical
that natural signs can serve as evidence of animal need and interest? Surely
the more we study animals and their behavior, the more sensitive we are to
signs of their needs. Perhaps one might argue that natural signs among
human beings can always be checked against linguistic vehicles of
communication, which are somehow a higher order of things. For example,
if your expression indicates to me that you are depressed, I can always ask
you, "Are you depressed?" But such an argument is essentially ill-grounded,
for it rests upon a dogma as old as human thought itself, to which we
alluded earlier, the dogma that there is some mysterious, ultimate,
metaphysical schism or gulf between natural and conventional signs or
vehicles of communication.

For as long as philosophers have thought about humans and about

communication, they have attempted to separate humans from the rest of
nature by the assertion that linguistic or conventional signs are somehow
unbridgeably set apart from the signs that are to be found in nature: clouds
signifying rain, smoke signifying fire, the cry of an animal signifying pain.
In fact, as I indicated, it was an examination of this alleged dualism that led
me to an interest in the moral status of animals. For try as I might, I could
find no clear-cut line between linguistic or conventional signs and the
natural signs that fill the natural and animal world. In my book Natural and
Conventional Meaning: An Examination of the Distinction, I tried to show
that the perennial attempt to draw such a line is ungrounded and doubtless
stems from an attempt to hold humans apart from nature in a nontheological
way. Be that as it may, few of us upon reflection are prepared to deny that
we can recognize, at least in the case of the higher animals, the presence of
needs, wants, desires, goals, and even perhaps intentions, which qualify
them for admittance into the moral arena. And undoubtedly, as philosophers
like Singer and Bentham suggest, the most compelling and undeniable signs
that inform us of these characteristics in animals are those of pain and
suffering. We are prepared to assert that the hungry animal has a want and
need for food because in the absence of food it exhibits signs of discomfort,
with which we can empathize and identify. But it would be a mistake,
though a tempting one, as we indicated earlier, to identify needs and
interests solely with pleasure and pain, and thus to restrict the scope of
moral concern to the scope of pleasure and pain.
Pleasure and pain are, in the final analysis, tools: tools by which a living
thing capable of experiencing them can ensure its survival and the
fulfillment of its needs. But it is the interests that it has in virtue of its being
a living being and our ability to nurture or impede fulfillment of these
interests, not the pleasure and pain, that make it enter the moral arena. In
fact, seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain are themselves interests! We
can easily imagine human beings evolving to a point where they do not feel
pleasure and pain, or perhaps some humans being affected by a strange
malady that renders it impossible to feel pleasure and pain. Under these
circumstances, these humans would still have interests and needs and would
still be objects of moral concern, even if they no longer experienced pain and
pleasure. And it is this that broadens the scope of moral concern beyond
pleasure and pain to the essential characteristics of conscious life itself. This
is far from clear and far from obvious, and it is to the defense of this claim
we must now turn.

Let us consider three categories of things: a rock, a machine, and an

animal. For the sake of simplicity, let us look to a living thing-say, a spider-
whose pleasure and pain many people feel is at least highly questionable for
us to discuss, but who possibly has some rudimentary awareness. (If the
reader is uncomfortable with this assumption, let him or her choose an
animal which he or she believes to have at least rudimentary awareness.)
Clearly, in the case of the rock, it is senseless to speak of any real intrinsic
unity to its being or any needs. If the rock is split or eroded, it remains a
rock. If it is ground into sand, it is perhaps no longer a rock, but there is
nothing to tell us that it has jumped a metaphysical barrier and become a
totally different sort of thing, nor would we say that something undesirable
has happened to the rock. There is nothing about a rock that resists the
change to sand; the change is from dead matter in one form to dead matter in
another form.
 In contrast, consider the spider. It has an intrinsic nature connected with
being a spider, one that requires that it be alive. When it ceases to be alive, it
is like the rock, and there is little difference between a crushed dead spider
and a dried-up dead spider. The change from living to dead is far more
profound than the change from rock to sand, and it is sensible to call it
undesirable from the point of view of the spider. But when the spider is
alive, it has what Aristotle called a telos, a nature, a function, a set of
activities intrinsic to it, evolutionarily determined and genetically imprinted,
that constitute its "living spiderness." Furthermore, its life consists precisely
in a struggle to perform these functions, to actualize this nature, to fulfill
these needs, to maintain this life, what Hobbes and Spinoza referred to as the
conatus or drive to preserve its integrity and unity. This is not of course to
suggest that the spider or any animal need be conscious of its nature and of
all of these needs, any more than a man need be conscious of his need for
oxygen or calcium. It surely makes sense to speak of nonconscious needs.
(Even wants and intentions perhaps need not necessarily be conscious-many
analytical psychologists speak of unconscious wants and intentions, though
whether or not this is sensible is the subject of much philosophical debate.) It
is enough that we as moral agents can sensibly assert that the spider has
interests, which are conditions without which the creature, first of all, cannot
live or, second of all, cannot live its life as a spider nor fulfill its telos. Third
and most important, as we shall shortly discuss, it is necessary that we can
say sensibly of the animal that it is aware of its struggle to live its life, that
the fulfilling or thwarting of its needs matter to it. (Once again, we must
stress that a man may not be conscious of his need for oxygen, but thwarting
that need certainly matters to him. This sort of talk is senseless vis-a-vis a
rock.) Further, we are aware that it is in our power to nurture or impede these
needs and even to destroy the entire nexus of needs and activities that
constitute its life. And once this is recognized, it is difficult to see why the
entire machinery of moral concern is not relevant here, for it is the
awareness of interest in living (human) beings that we have argued is
constitutive of morality in the first place. We may of course decide that the
interests of the spider are insignificant compared with our desire for a spider-
free living room, but the key point is that such a decision logically must be
considered a moral decision, quite unlike sweeping up a pebble one finds in
the living room. (We are of course not considering the actual details of the
moral decision, but simply pointing out that as a living creature with
interests, the spider enters the arena of moral concern.)

Contrast this with a machine. Someone might argue, cleverly, that

machines also have a telos or functional nature and, correlatively, have
needs. The telos of a thermostat is to regulate the temperature in a room; the
telos of a car is to run. Connected with this telos are needs; the car needs oil,
gas, antifreeze, air in its tires, and so forth. Must we assert then that cars fall
within the scope of moral concern? If so, the entire theory must collapse
under its own weight for it violates our basic moral intuitions to consider a
car in itself an object of moral concern.

There is, happily, a difference between an animal and a machine, between

spider and car. The telos of the spider is its own, imposed upon it by nature,
encoded in its genetic blueprint, and protected by a thousand activities that
evidence a struggle to actualize that telos and preserve its life. The telos of
the car is extrinsic to it, imposed by the mind and hand of man. The car is a
tool of man, invented and built by man to be used by man, to be, as
Heidegger says, "ready-at-hand." There is no more intrinsic unity in the car
than there is in the glove box or wheel. When removed from the human
point of view and use, any part of the car is as much or as little a unity as is
the car itself. In itself, there is as much conatus in a piece of the fender as
there is in the car as a whole, and in a real sense more, for the car is held
together by our ministrations. Each organ and cell of the spider, while indeed
evidencing a function of its own, does so as an organic component of the life
of the spider as a whole. When the spider dies, so do its cells. When the car
is abandoned, the nuts and bolts endure. And, most crucially, there is not
even an iota of suspicion that what we do to care for it matters to it.
But even more important than having an intrinsic versus an extrinsic telos is
that the needs of the animal fall into that special category of needs we call
interests. We have thus far tended to be somewhat imprecise in our
tendency to use "needs" and "interests" synonymously. There is a major
difference between these notions, one that is clear even in ordinary
language. As stated earlier, it makes perfect sense to talk of cars as having
needsneeds for gas, oil, and so on. But it does not make sense to say that a
car has an interest in being gassed or oiled. Similarly, in the case of a lawn,
it would not make sense to say that it had an interest in being watered,
though it is of course perfectly correct to refer to it as needing water.

What is the difference marked by these terms? Very simply, "interest"

indicates that the need in question matters to the animal. In some sense, the
animal must be capable of being aware that the thwarting of the need is a
state to be avoided, something undesirable. As suggested earlier, any
animal, even man, is not explicitly conscious of all or probably even most
of its needs. But what makes these needs interests is our ability to impute
some conscious or mental life, however rudimentary, to the animal,
wherein, to put it crudely, it seems to care when certain needs are not
fulfilled. Few of us humans can consciously articulate all of our needs, but
we can certainly know when these needs are thwarted or met. Pain and
pleasure are the obvious ways these facts come to consciousness, but they
are not the only ones. Frustration, anxiety, malaise, listlessness, boredom,
and anger are among the multitude of indicators of unmet needs, needs that
become interests in virtue of these states of consciousness. Thus, to say that
a living thing has interests is to suggest that it has some sort of conscious
awareness, however rudimentary.

What sort of evidence counts for the existence of such a consciousness?

Obviously, as we discussed earlier, there is evidence from a variety of
sources. First, neurophysiological evidence-the presence of a nervous
system in an animal-certainly suggests that these structures perform a
function similar to that performed in humans. Second, biochemical
evidence-we have already discussed the presence of endorphins and
enkephalins in earthworms. The presence in an animal of a biochemical
mechanism that is similar to a mechanism in man that regulates some
conscious state is evidence for something like that state in the animal.
Third, behavioral evidence-when an animal yelps or thrashes or shows
avoidance behavior in the presence of a stimulus known to be harmful to
the animal or unpleasant to men-that is, evidence for awareness in the
animal. Fourth, the presence of sense organs-finding eyes, organs for
hearing, and organs for touch, taste, etc., in an animal-certainly suggests
that the animal enjoys some kind of consciousness. Finally, we may cite all
of the above in the context of evolutionary theory. Given that evolutionary
theory is at the cornerstone of all modern biology and that evolutionary
theory postulates continuity of all life, it is even more implausible to
suggest that a creature with a nervous system, which displays biochemical
processes that regulate consciousness in us, or with sense organs, which cue
withdrawal from the same noxious stimuli and dangers as they do in us,
does not enjoy a mental life. In fact, evolutionary theory suggests that we
need not be so strict as to demand all of the above at all levels in order to
project some form of consciousness. Thus, protozoa will approach noxious
substances and swim away from them, and some protozoa also possess
rudimentary sense organs, such as an eyespot. While it is possible to say
that everything that happens to such a creature is simply mechanical, it is
perhaps just as plausible to suggest a continuum of consciousness. If a
creature has a sense organ, would not evolutionary continuity suggest that
the animal senses, not only reacts?

Some evolutionary theorists, including Darwin's friend Lloyd Morgan,

have argued that it is implausible to suggest that consciousness simply
emerged with humans, but instead pervades the phylogenic scale. Indeed,
Lloyd Morgan went so far as to affirm that if consciousness exists
associated with any matter, it must coexist with all matter, thereby
advancing what has been called panpsychism, the view that all of nature is
imbued with consciousness. How ironic that Morgan has been depicted as a
precursor of the behaviorist notion that consciousness is not real because he
enunciated "Morgan's Canon"-"Never explain a piece of animal behavior by
invoking a higher mental state when a lower one can provide an
explanation." By this he meant don't explain what is instinctive-e.g., dam
building in a beaver-as rational planning. He did not mean to say that we
could eliminate talk of consciousness altogether, since he believed
consciousness was pervasively linked with matter!

For a long time, as we have just discussed, an emphasis on

psychological behaviorism led us to ignore human and animal
consciousness and concentrate on behavior. This was supposed to make
psychology more "scientific," since it would deal only with observables.
The crude view of science upon which this theory is based is no longer
tenable. Even physics, the master science, deals with entities and processes
that are beyond observation. As psychology realizes the sterility of
behaviorism, it must return to the proper study of mind in humans and
animals, rejecting the bias against talking about consciousness. Happily,
this movement has already begun, and increasing numbers of biologists,
psychologists, and philosophers are willing to talk about consciousness in
animals. (This is discussed at length in my Unheeded Cry.) In his excellent
book The Question of Animal Awareness, for example, ethologist Donald
Griffin explores the questions of animal consciousness we have touched
upon and projects a future science of cognitive ethology, what he calls a
possible "window on the minds of animals." Such a science has obvious
implications for our moral awareness of animals and can facilitate the moral
gestalt shift we will discuss in the next section.

For the moment, the question of when an animal can be said to have an
interest, i.e., to have sufficient awareness that its needs matter to it, cannot
be given a precise answer. In each case, the evidence must be looked at in
terms of reasonableness. For example, no reasonable person would deny
that dogs or monkeys are aware in the sense we are discussing. The
presence of pain in an animal obviously would be a sufficient condition for
asserting that it has interests, though a creature could have interests without
the ability to feel pain as long as it had some needs that mattered to it. (Pain
is, of course, only biologically useful if a creature can be aware of it and
bothered by it.) The presence of a nervous system, pain behavior, and
endorphins in a creature are useful evidence for the presence of pain. This
would take us down, as we saw earlier, at least to insects, worms, and
perhaps planaria as animals with interests. There are obviously many cases
where we cannot even begin to say whether the animals have interests. But
hopefully these cases will be illuminated by future research, especially
research, such as Griffin suggests, that is guided by an open mind and that
does not reject the possibility of consciousness in advance at any level of
the animal kingdom.

We can thus provide an answer to the question often asked of theorists

who argue for animal rights: "What of plants? What of bacteria?" The
answer is simple. Although plants, bacteria, viruses, and cells in cultures are
alive and may be said to have needs, there is no reason to believe that they
have interests. That is, there is not a shred of evidence that these things
have any awareness or consciousness, and consequently we cannot say that
the fulfillment and thwarting of these needs "matters" to them anymore than
getting oil matters to a car. There has of course been a good deal of lurid,
popular misinformation concerning the ability of plants to feel pain,
communicate with their owners, or respond to "friendly and hostile vibes."
This research is not reproducible and also does not prove what it claims to.
(Just because the mechanical effects of cutting a rose off a bush can be
translated into noises that sound like screams does not mean that the rose is
screaming.) But if someone were to come up with good evidence for plant
awareness-though it is difficult to know what that would be like-it would of
course put the matter in quite a different light.
Thus, we have tried to argue that any living thing, insofar as it evidences
interests with or without the ability to suffer, is worthy of being an object of
moral concern. Insofar as we can inform ourselves of the interests of a
creature, we must at least look at that creature with moral categories.
Certainly, from a psychological point of view, those creatures whose
interests are most readily understood by us and that are most like ours will
be most readily granted moral status. On the other hand, we must recall that
this is also the case in ordinary human morality-we are powerfully inclined
to favor people we are related to or know, who live in our neighborhood or
state or country, or who dress and look as we do. And though rational
reflection can provide no defense for these inclinations, we persist in them.

Certainly, visible signs of the ability to suffer, which betoken in the

creature conscious negative correlates of thwarted needs, will always most
readily seize our imagination and empathy. This leads to an important point:
the limits of what we are psychologically capable of being concerned about
must serve as a curb on the pretensions of any moral theory, else our
arguments degenerate into merely scholastic exercises or intellectual
oddities, much like McTaggart's proof that there is no such thing as time.
Few philosophers have made this point, since our psychological abilities are
changeable and variable, and philosophers seek eternal verities. The one
exception is perhaps Hume, who stressed the importance of sympathy and
fellow-feeling for moral theory. And it is certainly difficult for a person of
our era to have much fellow-feeling with a spider. Yet it is precisely
because human empathy can change that we must stress the vast range of
creatures that must enter within the scope of moral concern, for only in this
way can we hope to effect changes in what human psychology can accept as
morally palatable.

The much-used notion of gestalt shift, drawn from gestalt perceptual

psychology, is of great relevance here. A gestalt shift is a change in
perspective on the same data, as when we suddenly see a person in a new
light or realize we have a crush on the girl next door. This can be illus trated
with a familiar example. I propose to show you a figure that illustrates one
cube perched upon two:

You examine it, and realize what I am showing you:

I then point out to you that it also depicts two cubes perched upon one:
You are puzzled at first but suddenly make the perceptual or gestalt shift
and realize that both perspectives were there, even though you failed to
notice them.

A remarkably similar thing happens with considering animals as objects

of moral concern, as many people can verify from their own experience or
from the experiences of friends. We all know people who have stopped
hunting when they suddenly realized that they are killing a living thing for
amusement, rather than merely innocently participating in a sport. Or
people who have stopped hunting when they first hear a wounded animal's
exclamation as a cry. It is not that they have discovered some new fact,
unavailable to them before. Rather, they have suddenly seen the same data
in a new way, much as I suddenly realize that the girl next door is
incredibly desirable, though I have seen her a thousand times. I can recall
one of my own gestalt shifts in this regard. After moving to Colorado, I
immensely enjoyed hiking into the mountains and trout fishing. I found the
fight that the trout gave me exhilarating and therapeutic, a test of my skill
and an outlet for tension, much like negotiating a motocross course on a
motorcycle. One day, for no obvious reason, I suddenly realized that the
good fight that the fifteen-inch rainbow trout was giving me was its struggle
to survive, born of pain and fear. My perception shifted; I could no longer
fish for fun.

I also recall a conversation I had with a well-known parasitologist, who

does much research on protozoa. We were discussing my ideas on the moral
status of animals when he turned to me and somewhat hesitatingly, as if he
were somehow ashamed, confessed that the more he worked on protozoa,
the more he understood their telos and their life, the more he could
empathize with them, and the more loath he was to destroy them. This
embarrassed him because, as we shall discuss later, such empathetic
understanding is foreign to current scientific practice. But the fact is he had
undergone a gestalt shift and was seeing the protozoa as objects of moral
concern, not merely as things in test tubes.

Another interesting example concerns the scientist mentioned earlier

who works with planaria, or flatworms. As he became more and more
aware of their behavior, and studied them in greater detail, he began to see
them, in his words, as "little men in worm suits." This example illustrates an
important point. Perhaps this sort of anthropomorphism is in some cases
psychologically necessary as a stage in developing moral consciousness, for
it provides us with a fulcrum for our gestalt shifts. Eventually, one can put
the human connection aside and value the creature in its own right, but
before this can take place, it is possible that we must move them from the
realm of things to the realm of people. It is for this reason that
anthropomorphic depictions of animals, as in Disney movies and cartoons,
are not necessarily bad as a first step in education. They are pernicious only
if a child does not transcend them and appreciate the creature in terms of its
telos. For eventually, he or she will see through the anthropomorphism and
realize that dogs do not understand English and write messages with their
paws, and that woodpeckers do not converse with hunters. If he has not
learned to value the creature for what it is, he may move in the opposite
direction, dismissing any concern for the animal as "childish" since it has,
after all, turned out to be totally unlike a person.

This, then, is one task of a moral philosophy, whether it argues for

extension of rights to people who are enslaved or whether it argues for
extending the scope of moral concern to other creatures. It serves not to
effect changes in behavior overnight; such hopes would be utopian. But it
does serve to prepare thinking people for the moral gestalt shift that is a
necessary prerequisite to any genuine and enduring change in conduct. No
one can be argued into morality, any more than one can be argued into
religion. But argument can prepare the ground and plant the seeds that may
grow into new moral viewpoints and show anomalies in one's ordinary
perspective that ready us for the possibility of a new, revolutionary shift in
attitude. Any thoughtful individual must either refute our arguments or else,
however hesitatingly, begin at least to think about applying his or her moral
discourse to nonhuman beings.
Does this mean, then, that animals have "moral rights"? As philosophers
know from trying to deal with the question of human rights for thousands of
years, the notion of rights is extremely complex and extremely elusive, so
much so that some philosophers have suggested that we abandon all talk of
rights altogether. I do not endorse this extreme position, partly because, as I
shall try to show in later discussion, the notion of legal rights, which is
much easier to define, is intimately connected with the notion of moral
rights. And I shall stress very strongly the need for legal rights for animals.
But even more important, I think that we all do have some fairly clear sense
of what we are talking about when we speak of moral rights, as when we
claim that humans have a right to be free, a right to worship (or not
worship) as they please, a right to express themselves, and so on. So we
must now come to grips with the question of what our argument has shown
about "animal rights" from a moral point of view.
It is important to make a basic distinction here about what our argument has
been designed to do. So far, we have not been asking any specific moral
questions about animals such as, "Is it wrong to experiment on animals for
human benefit?" or "Is it wrong to kill animals for food?" We have been
addressing an issue far more basic and fundamental than any such specific
problems. For it has been our concern to raise the problem of whether it
makes any sense to raise moral questions about animals at all. This
question, it will readily be seen, requires an answer before one can sensibly
begin to deal with particular problems. If someone denies that animals are
objects of moral concern, one cannot debate with him or her about the
moral evaluation of how we treat animals, except perhaps by showing him
or her that he or she has intuitions that belie his or her general position, for
example, a reluctance to torture his or her own dog. Our primary concern
has not been a question in moral theorizing; it has been a question about
moral theorizing and what it applies to, a question in what Kant called the
"metaphysics of morals," or the basic notions of morality and their range of
application.

We have attempted to answer this question by arguing that there are no

defensible grounds for excluding animals from moral concern and the
treatment of animals from moral discussion if we grant, as do most people,
that people are legitimate objects of moral concern. We have tried to show
that there is no difference between people and animals relevant to excluding
animals from moral discussion. In our presentation, we have argued that
entrance into the moral arena is determined by something's being alive and
having interests in virtue of that life, interests and needs that can be helped
or harmed by a being who can act morally. It is important to stress that our
argument does not depend so far on any specific moral theory about what
specific sorts of things are right or wrong when done to people or to
animals. We have attempted to show that regardless of what moral theories
one holds, regardless of one's principles of right and wrong, one is logically
compelled to apply these theories and principles to animals.
 Just as Kant's theory attempted to define the scope of moral concern and
concluded, as we saw, that only rational beings enter into the realm, so our
refutation of Kant and subsequent arguments have tried to show that all
living creatures must be considered as subjects of moral discourse,
whatever moral "language" one happens to speak. Thus, to put our
conclusion in the language of "rights," we have established that animals
have a very basic right, a right that is on a higher level than any particular
right, namely, the right to be dealt with or considered as moral objects by
any person who has moral principles, regardless of what those moral
principles may be! In philosopher's terminology, we may call this a "meta-
right." It is another way of saying that animals are objects of moral concern,
with a legitimate claim to such concern. As we shall see, it is the only
absolute, invariable, and inalienable right.

We have also argued that getting people to recognize this right involves,
in many cases, getting them to change their gestalt. It necessitates, for
example, ceasing to see one's pets merely as property or one's experimental
animals as tools, analogous to test tubes or laboratory equipment, whose
only value is economic. In a real sense, this is the major purpose of this
book: getting people to shift their intellectual and emotional gestalts on
animals.
Can we go any further on the basis of our arguments? I believe we can. If
we have been successful in our account of the features that make up an
object of moral concern, namely, the possession of life and interests that are
associated with that life, we can draw some further conclusions. If being
alive is the basis for being a moral object and if all other interests and needs
are predicated upon life, then the most basic, morally relevant aspect of a
creature is its life. We may correlatively suggest that any animal, therefore,
has a right to life. This is not necessarily to suggest, as philosophers put it,
that this right to life is absolute. An absolute right would be one that would
always be wrong to violate, regardless of the situation. Many moral theories
suggest that rights are not absolute; that is, they can be violated on occasion
for morally relevant reasons. For example, most of us feel (and the US
Constitution and Declaration of Independence officially assert) that humans
have a right to freedom. But few of us feel that this is absolute. Few of us
feel the right to freedom means that we ought to be morally allowed to
drive on any side of the road that we choose or to spit in someone's face.
Thus, we feel that the right to freedom is limited by such moral
considerations as the general welfare, other people's right to freedom, and
so on. In fact, one of the key problems in political theory and practice is
balancing these competing moral factors.

When we look at moral theory and practice, as applied to humans, we

find that the right to life is considered the most basic. Typically, it is not
considered absolute. Most of us (and most moral theories) recognize some
situations in which it is not wrong to take a human life: in war, in stopping a
homicidal maniac or a terrorist, in self-defense. Indeed in such cases we
often feel that it is wrong not to take the life. Clearly, the right to life is
considered violable only for the gravest of reasons. Even those of us who
deny that the right to life is absolute would not be prepared to say that it is
morally defensible to take a human life because we do not like a person's
body contours, or because it would make many people happy or enrich the
public coffers. On the other hand, some people have argued that the human
right to life is absolute and that it is always wrong to take a life for any
reason. Some Christians and some pacifists have historically taken this tack.

What of animals' right to life? The point seems clear. If one takes the
position that human right to life is absolute, then one must show a morally
relevant difference between human and animal life that justifies denying
that an animal's right to life is absolute. Interestingly enough, this point has
often been historically recognized, for many people who have argued that
humans have an absolute right to life have extended this claim to animals as
well. Among such groups were certain of the Pythagoreans in Greece, the
Jainists in India, and certain Tibetan Buddhists. (A colleague of mine, who
is an expert in Indian culture, informed me that on one occasion an
American AID expert was completely devastated by the unwillingness of an
Indian Buddhist community to drain a swamp because of the resulting death
for millions of mosquitoes!) On the other hand, if one takes the position that
the right to life is not absolute in the case of humans, but that strong moral
reasons must be given in defense of any violation of that right, one must
hold a similar position vis-a-vis animals. I personally do not take the right
to life to be absolute but require careful dialectical analysis and justification
whenever it is abrogated. Thus, for example, we might argue that killing a
terrorist who is holding hostages with a bomb is justifiable because failure
to kill him would result in extensive loss of innocent life. Similarly, it seems
that our argument thus far forces us to that point with regard to animals.
Thus, the traditional vegetarian argument presents itself quite powerfully,
namely, that humans can live and live well without taking animal life;
therefore, the taking of animal life for food is unnecessary and correlatively
unjustifiable, and our mere gustatory predilection for meat does not serve as
sufficient grounds for violating the basic right to life. If one wishes to refute
that argument, one need supply strong morally relevant grounds that
outweigh the presumptive right.

It is not morally relevant to say, for example, as some have argued, that
since oftentimes an animal would have had no life at all were it not for us
(as, for example, in the case of dogs or cows, because we have bred them),
we can kill the creature as we see fit. By parity of reasoning, parents could
always take the life of their children! Or suppose I discover a woman who
is about to have an abortion. I pay her a large sum of money to bear the
child and turn it over to me. I then raise the child, house it, feed it, educate
it, cap its teeth, give it tennis lessons. When it turns sixteen, I decide that I
am going to cook it and eat it, or use it to study the effects of asbestos
inhalation on the lungs. After all, without me it would have no life at all.
Obviously, this is a silly position when applied to people or to animals.

On the other hand, many thoughtful, compassionate philosophers

concerned about the treatment of animals do feel that there is a morally
relevant difference between humans and animals that militates against
ascribing the right to life to most animals. This difference grows out of the
idea that since animals (unlike humans) have no concept of life or death,
termination of an animal's life (if done without causing pain or fear) does
not matter to the animal. An animal can be concerned about being hurt,
confined, or deprived of food or water, but lacks the ability to be concerned
about dying or living. To the claim that animals seem to struggle mightily to
survive, such a philosopher would respond by affirming that what matters to
the animal is to eat or drink or escape the traps, all of which are indeed
essential to continuing its life, but that the animal aims at alleviating pain or
hunger or thirst, not at life or avoidance of death, for it lacks such notions.
In short, while an animal's actions may ultimately be aimed at survival, it
does not understand this, and thus survival in and of itself does not matter to
it. A person who takes such a position is still likely to oppose meat eating,
not on right-to-life grounds, but on the grounds that current confinement
animal agriculture produces great amounts of animal suffering.

On the other side, one can argue that even if an animal does not
understand the notions of life and death, killing it is still morally
problematic, for by killing it one closes the door on its current and future
positive experiences. This is certainly buttressed by ordinary intuitions,
which find euthanasia of suffering pet animals morally acceptable, but
which are not comfortable with euthanasia of healthy pet animals for
frivolous reasons, even if painless. (We shall discuss euthanasia of pets in
detail later.)
 I find myself unable to directly respond to the argument about animals
having no concept of death. If indeed most animals do not understand the
concept of death, that would seem prima facie to be a morally relevant
difference between humans and animals regarding their right to life.
(Empirical study is certainly relevant to this claim, for example, the reports
of elephant behavior pertaining to death, which suggest that elephants may
have some notion of death.) On the other hand, I do not think that it allows
us to conclude that killing animals is not morally problematic. After all,
many marginal humans and small children have no concept of death either,
and we would not accept painless killing of them. Also, since we cannot be
sure whether or not life and death in themselves matter to animals, perhaps
we should give them the benefit of the doubt, and not be cavalier about
animal life, even when the life is taken "painlessly." It does appear,
however, that killing an animal is not the worst thing one can do to it;
keeping an animal alive under conditions that violate its telos in significant
ways appears to me far more problematic. And certainly from the political
point of view of social change, it is far more important that we focus on the
harm and suffering we perpetrate on ani mals while they are alive and
aware than on painless killing. In any case, relatively little killing of
animals is truly painless; most killing involves stress, pain, and fear.
How does one decide whether one has given a good, morally relevant
reason for violating a right? This is indeed a profound and difficult problem
but one that is, in the final analysis, no more problematic for animal rights
than for human rights! Upon a moment's reflection, we realize that we all
engage in this sort of moral weighing and deliberating, without being aware
of it, as a regular part of life. For example, parents feel that children have a
right to express themselves but must constantly limit that right for a variety
of reasons. Admitting that animals have rights would simply extend that
dialectical activity into an area from which it has been withheld, but no
fundamental changes in our conceptual apparatus would be required.

Consider, for example, taking seriously the animal's right to life. This
would not mean that one could not justifiably shoot a rat about to bite one's
child. But perhaps it would mean that it is wrong to poison the rabbits
eating one's garden lettuce when one could trap them without harm and
deposit them elsewhere (conceivably, in someone else's garden!). It would
certainly mean reconsidering the moral acceptability of shooting animals
solely for fun, as is done in pigeon shoots around the country. The key point
is that the moral reasoning involved in making such a decision utilizes
exactly the same weighing of principles and consequences that our moral
deliberation about human rights does. Many people who have already
experienced a gestalt shift on animals do precisely this sort of weighing as a
matter of course. One of my colleagues, for example, who does organic
gardening, tells me that she will kill insects but only when they pose a
danger to the ecosystem. As a result, she has killed only six grasshoppers
during one growing season that was literally infested with them.
Incidentally, she enjoys as good a crop yield as do people who make
massive use of pesticides, without the expense or the danger. This illustrates
that adopting the moral point of view toward animals does not necessarily
entail making great sacrifices-sometimes the moral gestalt shift and rational
self-interest go hand in hand, as we shall see later in discussing research. As
another similar example, we may cite the use of nonlethal insect control as
against poisoning. One of these methods involves releasing sterile male
insects into the population, who then compete with fertile males for the
favors of the female. This is demonstrably effective: it cuts down on insect
birthrate, it eliminates the vast dangers that insecticides pose to the
ecosystem and to human life, and it respects the animal's right to life. As
humans have learned to their detriment, many if not most animal problems
are not solved by wholesale extermination, for we cannot project the
ecological consequences of such monumental action. (We all learn as
children that killing spiders causes us more harm than good, since spiders
keep down the number of flies and mosquitoes.)

Other relevant examples of adopting the moral gestalt are easily found.
Many people will chase a stinging insect, such as a bee or wasp, out of the
house rather than kill it. In this case, the person clearly sees the animal's
right to life as trumping their own danger of being stung. On the other hand,
such an act would scarcely be obligatory for a person who is violently
allergic to bee stings. Or again, seeing animals as moral objects rather than
merely as valueless pests does not mean that one lets the coyote eat the
sheep indiscriminately. It does, however, mean one seeks some method of
discouraging the coyote short of explosive traps or poisons. One of my
colleagues, Dr. Phil Lehner, has had some success using large Komondor
dogs to guard sheep flocks.

The point is now hopefully clear. Respecting an animal's rights does not
mean subordinating one's own interests to those of animals, any more than
respecting human rights means letting other people take advantage of one.
It does mean looking for ways of resolving conflicts of interests that
consider the animal's interests, especially the interests essential to its nature.
Sometimes it may perhaps mean subordinating or sacrificing some of one's
own interests, if reflective analysis tells one that they do not outweigh the
interests of the animal, as again many people feel to be the case in the
instance of meat eating. In such cases, extra-moral (i.e., pragmatic)
incentives are often necessary to buttress the moral gestalt shift, as, for
example, reflection on the price of meat, or on the dangers of cholesterol, or
on the ecological consequences of confinement agriculture.
The general point we have been trying to make can be put in terms of
notions that arose in our discussion of Kant's ethics. It will be recalled that
Kant argued that only rational beings are "ends in themselves"; that is, only
rational beings, and therefore human beings, have intrinsic value or ultimate
worth. This meant for Kant that we must always treat human beings as
"ends in themselves," not merely as means. As we saw, that meant we
should value human beings simply for their function as rational beings and
respect that function for its own sake, independently of their usefulness for
us. We should never treat a person solely as a means or instrument to some
end we happen to have. That is not, of course, to suggest that according to
Kant we can't ever think of a person as a means. Obviously, when I go to
the dentist, I see him primarily as a means to alleviate my pain. Kant's point
is that I must never treat him solely as a means but must always realize that,
as a rational being, his end (or function) is of value independently of what
instrumental value he happens to have for me on that occasion. I should
thus do nothing that will infringe on the dignity and worth he has simply by
being rational. All this, of course, followed from the fact that, for Kant,
rationality and intelligence were the only criteria for admittance into the
sphere of moral concern.

We have been arguing that it is not rationality that makes something an

object of moral concern but rather conscious life itself, and the interests and
needs that are associated with life. As such, if we wish to use Kantian
terminology, we must say that any living thing with interests is an end in
itself, worthy of moral consideration merely in virtue of its being alive.
That in turn means that even if we use another living creature as a means, it
must never be merely as a means, but we should always keep in mind a
respect for its end; that is, its life, and the interests and needs associated
with that life, which matter to it. Just as we use the dentist as a means to
some end, provided we don't consider him only as a means; just as we may
have sexual relations to alleviate our biological needs, as long as we do not
treat the other person simply as an outlet; so if we use animals as means, we
must never forget that they are also intrinsically valuable, and that they and
their ends (life and its interests) are objects of moral concern that must
always be kept in mind. For something to be and end in itself, then, what
we do to it must matter to it, whether or not it is rational.

A perfect example of this perspective is provided by the Old Testament.

It will be recalled that the Bible was written primarily for an agrarian
culture, for people who did use animals for such purposes as plowing.
Clearly, the Bible recognizes that animals are used as means. But the Bible
also recognizes that they are ends in themselves, with value and function of
their own, independent of the uses to which we put them. It is for this
reason that in the Sabbath regulations promulgated in the Ten
Commandments it is required that animals be granted a day of rest along
with humans. Correlatively, the Bible forbids "plowing with an ox and an
ass together" (Deut. 22: 10-11). According to the rabbinical tradition, this
prohibition stems from the hardship that an ass would suffer by being
compelled to keep up with an ox, which is, of course, far more powerful.
Similarly, one finds the prohibition against "muzzling an ox when it treads
out the grain" (Deut. 25: 4-5), and even an environmental prohibition
against destroying trees when besieging a city (Deut. 20: 19-20). These
ancient regulations, virtually forgotten, bespeak an eloquent awareness of
the status of animals as ends in themselves. How ironic, indeed, in the face
of such passages, that the Bible has most often been used as a justification
for man's using animals and nature as he chooses, in virtue of the
"dominion" passage in Genesis. Clearly, "dominion" does not entail or
allow abuse any more than does the dominion a parent enjoys over a child.
This has recently been powerfully argued by conservative thinker Matthew
Scully in his book Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals,
and the Call to Mercy.
We can now return to our main question, the rights of animals. We have
thus far argued that animals have a right to enter into the scope of moral
concern and to be morally considered by any person who weighs his or her
actions morally. We have further discussed the question of a right to life,
stemming from the fact that it is life and the interests associated with life
that make something an object of moral concern. Now we may proceed
further and argue for the identification of more specific rights.

We have tried to show that any living thing with interests is an end in
itself and should never be looked at simply as a means. Now, as we have
been stressing, any such life has associated with it a set of interests, needs,
desires, wants, proclivities, aversions, and so forth. Indeed, in a real sense,
one can see the entire set of needs and wants a creature has as constitutive
and definitive of life itself. To live is to function in certain ways, and
associated with these functions are needs and interests. With Aristotle, we
may speak of a particular telos for each sort of living thing, a nature that
sets it apart from other things. This nature is defined by the functions and
aims (not necessarily conscious aims) of the creature in question. So, in a
real sense, a thing is what it does. (Aristotle puts this in his philosophical
terminology by saying that the formal cause [essence] of a living thing is its
final cause [end, what it does].) If the life of an animal has intrinsic value
and should be weighed in our moral deliberations, so, too, should its
interests, which is to say its nature or telos. Indeed, it is the existence of
interests that makes something a moral object in the first place. So I am
now explicitly suggesting that the essence of our substantive moral
obligations to animals is that any animal has a right to the kind of life that
its nature dictates. In short, I am arguing that an animal has the right to have
the unique interests that characterize it morally considered in our treatment
of it. As we shall show later, in a deep sense its telos is its life.

As a very simple example to which most people would agree, we might

point out that a captive giraffe has a right to a cage in which it can stand
straight up. (Assume for the moment that we have a right to keep animals
captive at all.) Or a bird surely has a right to fly, and keeping a bird captive
in a small cage that prevents this is immoral in much the same way as is not
allowing a person to express himself or herself verbally (humans being
linguistic beings by their nature).

As we said before, such a position, of course, does not require that a

right be absolute. Obviously, there are conditions for which the giraffe
could morally be kept cramped: for example, if this were required for
treatment of an illness. But nonetheless, what we are suggesting is in many
ways quite radical, for it has implications for our "use" of animals in
research, in agriculture, in teaching, in zoos, as food, and even as pets. We
are suggesting that such use must always take cognizance of the animal's
nature into account. Thus, it would be immoral to raise a social animal in
isolation or to keep an active animal under conditions where it could not
exercise. Later we shall discuss some specific problem areas in more detail.
But for the moment, it is enough to be aware that our theory commits us to
animals having certain rights based on their nature. Taking these rights
seriously could be costly in terms of our comfort, convenience, and
lifestyle, but this is always the price to be paid for acknowledging rights, be
they the rights of blacks, children, women, or animals. Since the first
edition of the book was written in the late 1970s, society has grown
considerably in its appreciation of the need to respect animal telos and has
even codified such respect in law. Zoos as prisons, once state of the art in
my youth, are a thing of the past; the attempt to accommodate zoo animal
telos by environmental enrichment has become a recognized field. As we
shall see, laboratory animal laws and regulations now acknowledge to some
extent the need to respect animal telos, and as we shall see in a chapter on
agriculture, the failure to meet animal telos is probably the major social-
ethical criticism of industrialized animal agriculture.

In the early 1980s, I did a full-day seminar for the Canadian federal
ministries, whose legal mandate dealt with animals and the emerging social
ethics for animals. The people attending the seminar wisely affirmed that
something like a "Bill of Rights" for animals would eventually be necessary
to guide policy on respecting animal telos. Some years later an anonymous
person at the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans sent me a copy of a memo
from the minister to the Vancouver Aquarium, along with a note that said,
"Just to let you know that your work has had an effect." The memo was a
response to the aquarium's request to take some additional killer whales
from Canadian waters to put into the aquarium. The request was refused
until the aquarium had built a facility that could accommodate these
animals' nature, or telos!

It is worth noting that the notion of telos or essence or nature has often
historically been used to justify various forms of oppression-"It is the nature
of blacks to be servants and slaves"; "It is the nature of women to raise
families and keep house"; "It is the nature of Jews to make money." But just
because the concept of telos may be or has been abused does not make it
illegitimate! It is true that people have seen the nature of women as
domestic and thus have seen women as totally unsuited for any other
activities. But this was a prejudice based on tradition and superstitious
encrustations rather than upon sound empirical evidence or even upon
sympathetic observation. Maintaining this prejudice required active
filtration from one's experience with women of the multitude of evidence
militating against it. The notion of telos is testable and compatible with
modern biology and ought always be open to revision. Clearly, slave
owners would see only behavior of black people that fit their prior
conception of black "nature," in much the same way that bigots do today.
But this is a criticism of those who misuse the concept of "nature," not of
the concept itself. I recall working in a warehouse, loading trucks and
boxcars, where the employees were essentially dyed-in-the-wool bigots,
much given to analyzing the "nature" of various minorities. "All blacks are
lazy by nature," I was told. As it happened, one of our most popular
coworkers was a black man (the only black man in the warehouse), beloved
by all. "What about Joe?" I asked. "He's black, and he's not lazy." With nary
a moment's hesitation, I was informed that that was because he "hung
around with us"! This anecdote well illustrates the dangers of talking about
"nature," but also illustrates that the dangers are in principle avoidable by
rational individuals.
But how does one know, it might be asked, what the nature of an animal is?
Is not such a concept, with its Aristotelian roots, an outmoded, mystical,
metaphysical category? After all, we don't even know what human nature
is-the discussion of that question fills libraries. Indeed, some thinkers have
denied that humans even have a nature.

This is not an objection to be lightly dismissed. But it can, I think, be

answered. Perhaps the sort of essence or nature that Aristotle envisioned,
one that could be neatly expressed in a pat formula, is not readily
forthcoming. Clearly, the classic Aristotelian approach cannot be taken
literally by anyone who accepts modern biology. Whereas Aristotle sees
species as fixed, immutable, eternal, and unchanging, and hence sees their
essences as at least in principle fully graspable, we post-Darwinians see a
world far more dynamic, with species being mere momentary stages along
the ever-changing route taken by developing life. All this may be granted,
for it amounts to little more than the realization that biological knowledge
does not have the certainty mathematical knowledge does and that living
things are not numbers. But most of our knowledge is subject to correction
and revision; that does not mean it is not knowledge. On the other hand,
biology gives us a powerful incentive to accept the idea of a nature. The
genetic code of a given species provides us with a clear, scientific, testable,
physicalistic locus for telos. And it is clear that this code determines
behavioral, psychological, and social aspects of a creature's nature as well
as physical ones-this is the message of sociobiology. To understand the
nature of an animal in a way that is relevant to ethics is not a great or
profound epistemological problem; it involves only sympathetic
observations of the animal's life and activities. Those of us raised on farms-
family farms, not factory farms-or in other contexts that bring us in close
touch with nature come by such knowledge as easily as we breathe, as did
the American Indians. Indeed, few cultures have understood animals better
or have had more respect for them as ends in themselves than some hunting
cultures, for whom the hunted animal is often an object of moral concern
(but not always-witness the Indians who ran buffaloes off cliffs), and often
even an object of reverence. This illustrates our earlier point that having a
moral gestalt on animals must not necessarily entail always refusing to kill
them.

Those of us not fortunate enough to have been brought up with an

understanding of the natural world can gain this sort of awareness simply
through a sympathetic observation of creatures around us: dogs, cats, ants,
and even flies and spiders. Far too little natural history is included in our
formal educational systems; we are too busy studying the creature's body to
know the creatures-as Tennyson said, "we murder to dissect." Those who
cannot observe for themselves can read and be enlightened by the
marvelous, captivating accounts of Jane Goodall, Loren Eiseley, Konrad
Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, Farley Mowat, Wolfgang Kohler, Karl von Frisch,
Michael Fox, Jakob von Uexkull, and myriad others. Animal nature is
simpler than human, and though we may despair of knowing human nature,
animal nature seems in principle more accessible. In point of fact, as we
shall see, despite the notorious difficulties involved in getting clear about
human nature, we have in Western democracy built a system of legal
safeguards to protect the rights that we wish to extrapolate from what
concepts of human nature we do have-freedom of speech based on the idea
that man is a talking, thinking being; freedom of assembly based on the idea
that man is a social being, and so forth.

There are, of course, additional problems that are initially puzzling.

What of the domestic dog or cat or the farm animal whose nature has been
(and continues to be) molded by human beings? It is easy to raise apparent
paradoxes here: Is the "true" nature of the dog to be feral and to kill caribou
along with a pack of other dogs? Common sense prevails here and shows us
that we have selected artificially over thousands of years against such traits.
Can we imagine a ravening pack of Chihuahuas savaging a caribou? (Or
lest we think that size is the relevant factor in my example, substitute
English sheepdogs!) Similarly, we have drastically modified the nature of
the domestic bovine as against her wild cousins. But that does not mean that
the domestic animals do not themselves have a telos, genetically encoded
and deserving of moral concern. Again, we need the guidance of those
ethologists and biologists who study the behavior of domestic animals. As
we shall see, this is especially poignant regarding the pet animal.

As a simple example, consider the sexual urge relative to the domestic

dog. Whatever we have done to the dog in the course of our symbiotic
development, we have not bred the sex urge out of its nature. On the other
hand, our needs militate strongly against allowing the dog to breed freely.
We have responded to this by spaying and neutering. Clearly, given the
technological capability that we in fact now possess, it would be much less
of an infringement upon the animal's nature to sterilize it and allow it the
pleasure of copulation. We are still tampering with its reproductive nature,
of course, but that at least can be morally justified, in terms of advantage to
the dog gained from living under human guardianship, the impossibility of
its living among humans if allowed to reproduce freely, and the fact that no
specific pleasures are aborted.

We may thus conclude that there exists a dual moral imperative that
militates in favor of the study of ethology in addition to the study of biology
and its inclusion in science curricula. (Indeed, we shall see later that such
study can provide a much needed counterforce to pernicious elements
currently dominant in the training of scientists.) For those who recognize
animals as objects of moral concern, the study of ethology essentially
teaches the proper way to actualize that concern in keeping with the
animals' natures. For those who do not see animals as part of the moral
sphere, the study of ethology, especially field work, which of necessity
brings a person into close contact with an animal and its needs, can serve to
effect the gestalt shift we spoke of earlier. As we saw in the case of my
friend the parasitologist, familiarity and understanding can breed concern.
Unfortunately, as ethology becomes more "scientific," i.e., quantitative and
"dispassionate," the empathetic dimension tends to disappear. It is
sometimes rewarding to look at the books of the nineteenth-century writers
on natural history who did not hesitate to punctuate their descriptions of
animal behavior with original poetry. One can find this even in books on
insects; witness William Kirby and William Spence's classic Entomology.
Happily, this tradition is kept alive by the ethologists mentioned above.
Michael Fox, for example, in one of his books intersperses his scholarly
discussions of wolf-pack behavior with lyrical poems that sing of his sheer
joy at the wonders these creatures display.

With such knowledge, such empathetic understanding, and such

willingness to see can come this gestalt shift. It is easy for most of us to step
on a spider when it is seen simply as a foreign body on the floor, to be
thrown away like tracked-in mud. We do not look, nor listen, nor see. But I
recall being ill one day and watching a little spider spin its web and catch its
prey. And suddenly it became difficult for me to snuff out that life,
terminate those functions, for no good reason. I also recall a funny yet
profound incident that occurred when I was a graduate student. One of my
fellow graduate students lived in a small, airless, cheerless basement room.
The pressure of a demanding doctoral program in philosophy at an Ivy
League university was felt by all of us and left its mark on us in different
ways. In my friend's case, he had become reclusive, reading and writing
furiously, but rarely leaving his little room. One evening I visited him to
study together for an examination. As we pored over the texts, I saw that a
cockroach had fallen into his teacup, and he was too engrossed to notice.
Horrified and disgusted, I yelled at him that there was a roach in his tea,
expecting him to pour the whole mess into the sink or toilet. Gently, with
infinite patience, he removed the little struggling creature from the teacup,
wiped it off on his sleeve, deposited it tenderly on his carpet, and drained
the tea. As I reddened and sputtered, he smiled at me and gently said, "They
are my friends." In this case, loneliness was the road to empathy.

In the final analysis, we can understand the wants, needs, desires, and
interests of other creatures. Perhaps in a deep sense we can understand these
better than we can understand the needs of other humans despite language
because there are apparently so few layers of deception in animals. Perhaps
we can understand them even better than we can understand our own ever-
changing needs. Human needs, after all, are socially, culturally, and
historically determined and thus subject to far greater variation than those
of animals. This empathetic understanding should be nurtured in ourselves
and taught to our children, not only for the moral reasons we have
discussed, but also because of the infinite richness and texture it brings to
our own lives and to the world that we see. But in any case, given the
argument we have developed, we are morally bound to understand the lives
upon whom our actions have profound and considerable effect, for only
through such understanding can come a respect for their rights.

Incidentally, the perceptive reader may feel that there is a tension

between my denial of a clear-cut line between the natural and the
conventional, and my insistence on the concept of telos or nature as basic to
morality. I do not believe that this is the case. Nothing I have said precludes
my using the concept of nature-I have only said that there is no clear-cut
line between the natural and the conventional. And, in point of fact, I
believe, as I implied earlier in this section, that what we consider the nature
of a given animal (or for that matter, of man) will depend, in part, on the
scientific theories and conceptual schemes (biological, ethological, genetic)
current at a certain time and place, which involve elements of what is
traditionally called conventional.
Over the past two decades, the concept of animal nature or telos has
become a subject of public interest not only because of animal ethics, but
also in virtue of the advent of genetic engineering and its resultant ability to
change telos. Obviously, by use of transgenic technology we can
incorporate traits into an animal's genome and their phenotypic expression,
which would not arise naturally in the world. In other words, our current
view of telos differs markedly from its Aristotelian roots. First of all, for
Aristotle, telos were "natural kinds," fixed and unchanging, and, since the
advent of evolutionary theory, we now see such kinds as subject to constant
flux and realize what we called telos is a snapshot of a dynamic process.
Second, with the advent of transgenic technology, we can, in principle,
actively manipulate telos in dramatic ways that are unlikely to occur
spontaneously in nature. In the light of this new ability, my view of telos
has been interpreted by critics of genetic engineering (and sometimes by its
supporters) as meaning that my position asserts that an animal's telos cannot
be altered without violation and that, according to my account, all genetic
engineering is wrong. I did not, of course, make that claim. What I did
assert was that given an animal's telos, and the interests that are constitutive
thereof, one should not violate those interests. I never argued that the telos
itself could not be changed. If the animals could be made happier by
changing their natures, I see no moral problem in doing so (unless, of
course, the changes harm or endanger other animals, humans, or the
environment). Telos is not sacred; what is sacred are the interests that
follow from it.

Consider a case, relevant to our later discussion of agriculture, where

one might indeed be tempted to change the telos of an animal-chickens kept
in battery cages for efficient, high-yield egg production. It is now
recognized that such a production system frustrates numerous significant
aspects of chicken behavior under natural conditions, including nesting
behavior, and that frustration of this basic need or drive results in a mode of
suffering for the animals. Let us suppose that we have identified the gene or
genes that code for the drive to nest. In addition, suppose we can ablate the
gene or substitute a gene (probably per impossibile) that creates a new kind
of chicken, one that achieves satisfaction by laying an egg in a cage. Would
that be wrong in terms of the ethic I have described?

If we identify an animal's telos as being genetically based and

environmentally expressed, we have now changed the chicken's telos so that
the animal that is forced by us to live in a battery cage is satisfying more of
its nature than is the animal that still has the gene coding for nesting. Have
we done something morally wrong?

I would argue that we have not. Recall that a key feature, perhaps the
key feature of the new ethic for animals I have described, is concern for
preventing animal suffering and augmenting animal happiness, which I
have argued involves satisfaction of telos. I have also argued that the
primary, pressing concern is the former, the mitigating of suffering at
human hands, given the proliferation of suffering that has occurred in the
twentieth century. I have also argued that suffering can be occasioned in
many ways, from infliction of physical pain to prevention of satisfying
basic drives. So when we engineer the new kind of chicken that prefers
laying in a cage and we eliminate the nesting urge, we have removed a
source of suffering. Given the animal's changed telos, the new chicken is
now suffering less than its predecessor and is thus closer to being happy;
that is, satisfying the dictates of its nature.

This account may appear to be open to a possible objection that is well-

known in human ethics. As John Stuart Mill queried in his Utilitarianism,
"Is it better to be a satisfied pig or a dissatisfied Socrates?" His response,
famously inconsistent with his emphasis on pleasure and pain as the only
morally relevant dimensions of human life, is that it is better to be a
dissatisfied Socrates. In other words, we intuitively consider the solution to
human suffering offered, for example, in Brave New World, where people
do not suffer under bad conditions because they are high on drugs, to be
morally reprehensible, even though people feel happy and do not
experience suffering. Why then would we consider genetic manipulation of
animals to eliminate the need that is being violated by the conditions under
which we keep them to be morally acceptable?

This is an interesting and important objection, amenable to a number of

different responses. Let us begin with the Brave New World case. Our
immediate response to that situation is that the repressive society should be
changed to fit humans, rather than our doctoring humans (chemically or
genetically) to fit the repressive society. It is, after all, more sensible to alter
clothes that do not fit than to perform surgery on the body to make it fit the
clothes. And it is certainly possible and plausible to do this. So we blame
the Brave New World situation for not attacking the problem.

This is similarly the case with the chickens. We know that for millennia
laying chickens lived happily and produced eggs under conditions where
they could nest. It is our greed that has forced them into an unnatural
situation and made them suffer-why should we change them rather than
succumb to greed? This seems to be a simple point of fairness.

A disanalogy between the two cases arises at this point. We do not

accept any claim that asserts that human society must be structured so that
people are totally miserable unless they are radically altered or their
consciousness distorted. Given our historical moral emphasis on reason and
autonomy as nonnegotiable ultimate goods for humans, we believe in
holding on to them, come what may. Efficiency, productivity, wealth-none
of these trump reason and autonomy, and thus, the Brave New World
scenario is deemed unacceptable. On the other hand, if Mill was not a
product of the same historical values but was rather truly consistent in his
concern only for pleasure and pain, the Brave New World approach, or
changing people to make them feel good, would be a perfectly reasonable
solution.

In the case of animals, however, there are no ur-values, or higher-priority

values, like freedom and reason lurking in the background. Furthermore, we
have a historical tradition as old as domestication for changing (primarily
agricultural) animal telos (through artificial selection) to fit animals into
human society to serve human needs. We selected for nonaggressive
animals, animals that depend on us and not only on themselves, animals
disinclined or unable to leave our protection, and so on. Our operative
concern has always been to fit animals to us with as little friction as
possible-this assured both success for farmers and good lives for animals.

If we now consider it essential to raise animals under conditions like

battery cages, it is not morally jarring to consider changing their telos to fit
those conditions in the way that it j ars us to consider changing humans.

Why then does it appear to some people to be prima facie somewhat

morally problematic to suggest tampering with the animal's telos to remove
suffering? In large part, I believe it's because people are not convinced that
we can't change the conditions rather than the animal. (Most people are not
even aware how far confinement agriculture has moved from traditional
agriculture. A large East Coast chicken producer for many years ran
television ads showing chickens in a barnyard and alleging that he raised
"happy chickens.") If people in general do become aware of how animals
are raised, as occurred in Sweden and as animal activists are working to
accomplish here, they will doubtless demand, just as the Swedes did, first of
all a change in the raising conditions, not a change in the animal.

On the other hand, suppose the industry manages to convince the public
that we cannot possibly change the conditions under which the animals are
raised or that such changes would be outrageously costly to the consumer.
And let us further suppose that people still want animal products rather than
choosing a vegetarian lifestyle. There is no reason to believe that people
will ignore the suffering of the animals. If changing the animals by genetic
engineering is the only way to assure that they do not suffer (the chief
concern of the new ethic), people will surely accept that strategy, though
doubtless with some reluctance.

From where would stem such reluctance, and would it be a morally

justified reluctance? Some of the reluctance would probably stem from
slippery slope concerns-what next? Is the world changing too quickly,
slipping out of our grasp? This is a normal human reflexive response to
change-people reacted that way to the automobile. The relevant moral
dimension is consequentialist; might not such change have results that will
cause problems later? Might this not signal other major changes we are not
expecting?

Closely related to that is a queasiness that is at its root aesthetic. The

chicken sitting in a nest is a powerful aesthetic image, analogous to cows
grazing in green fields. A chicken without that urge jars us. But when
people realize that the choice is between a new variety of chicken, one
without the urge to nest and denied the opportunity to build a nest by how it
is raised, and a traditional chicken with the urge to nest that is denied the
opportunity to build a nest, and the latter is suffering while the former is
not, they will accept the removal of the urge. Although, they are likelier to
be reinforced in their demand for changing the system of rearing and,
perhaps, in their willingness to pay for reform of battery cages. This leads
directly to my final point.

The most significant justified moral reluctance would probably come

from ethical considerations relevant to virtue ethics, i.e., to the sorts of
ethics that deal with the kind of people we ideally try to be. Genetically
engineering chickens to no longer want to nest could well evoke the
following sort of musings: "Is this the sort of solution we are nurturing in
society in our emphasis on economic growth, productivity, and efficiency?"
"Are we so unwilling to pay more for things that we do not hesitate to
change animals that we have successfully been in a contractual relationship
with since the dawn of civilization?" "Do we really want to encourage a
mind-set willing to change venerable and tested aspects of a nature at the
drop of a hat for the sake of a few pennies?" "Is tradition of no value?" In
the face of this sort of component to moral thought, I suspect that society
might well resist the changing of telos. But at the same time, people will be
forced to take welfare concerns more seriously and to decide whether they
are willing to pay for tradition and amelioration of the animals' suffering or
whether they will accept the "quick fix" of telos alteration. Again, I suspect
that such musings will lead to changes in husbandry, rather than changes in
chickens.
 It has sometimes been asserted that changing the chickens' telos in the
manner described harms the telos itself, even though the individual animals
instantiating the telos may be (experientially) better off. I do not subscribe
to such a view, as we shall shortly see when I discuss species; one can only
harm sentient individuals. Species (or telos, or ecosystems) are abstract
entities that in themselves are not capable of feeling and thus, what we do to
them doesn't matter to them. We can certainly harm individuals comprising
a species or ecosystem by defiling the ecosystem or causing the extinction
of individuals, but it is at most metaphorical to say we harm the species or
system. It is morally wrong to pollute a river or forest, but only because we
thereby harm the sentient individuals within the river or forest that depend
on it for their well-being. It makes perfect sense to say that it is wrong to
trash a habitat because of the effect such trashing has on the direct objects
of moral concern that dwell therein, without making that forest a direct
object of moral concern and without affirming, as have some environmental
ethicists, that the forest is a more morally important "super-individual" than
the sentient beings that depend on it. It similarly makes no sense to say that
we have wronged a telos by changing its components (e.g., the desire to
nest) so the individuals instantiating that telos do not live miserable lives.
This theoretical account of the moral status of animals and of their rights is
open to a number of obvious and serious objections that will doubtless have
arisen in the mind of the reader and that must now be considered. The first
objection that invariably materializes in a discussion of animal rights may
be termed the "where do you draw the line?" problem. "If your claim is
correct," goes the argument, "where do you draw the line? Are you
suggesting that we not swat flies, that we worry about stepping on
cockroaches, that we give up mouthwash because we are killing germs?
Must we worry about plants? If you are suggesting that, the argument is
absurd. If you are not suggesting that, what criteria do you use to make a
division?"

This objection, in fact, is ambiguous since it really contains two

questions. In the first place, the objector is inquiring about whether one can
give some grounds for distinguishing what is an object of moral concern
from what isn't. In the second place, the objector is asking whether my
position entails that one cannot swat flies or kill germs.

With regard to the first question, I believe that the answer is clear. We
have argued quite unambiguously that if something is alive and has
interests, i.e., needs whose thwarting of fulfillment matter to it, it falls
within the scope of moral concern, i.e., is worthy of moral consideration.
Now there may indeed be a problem here, in the sense that we cannot draw
a very clear-cut division between what does and does not have interests, i.e.,
needs it is in some sense aware of or the thwarting of which matters to it.
But such a problem is relatively trivial. Consider: One cannot draw a clear-
cut line between what feels warm and what feels cool. There are certain
borderline cases we can always debate about, but we are certainly aware of
the extremes. Insofar as we are clearly aware of some things that are alive
and have interests, those things fall within the scope of moral concern. In
fact, for practical purposes, I would be quite happy to set aside all cases
where the slightest question exists and concentrate only on things that
everyone clearly judges to be alive and to have interests.
 What of the other related question? Am I seriously saying that one ought
not swat flies or kill germs? No, I am not suggesting that, unless the reader
wishes to hold to the belief that the right to life is absolute. What I am
suggesting is that harming anything-perhaps even an insect-does involve
making a moral decision and does demand moral justifications and the
giving of moral reasons. It is not difficult to come up with a moral
justification for killing parasitic organisms that make us ill. I would be
prepared to argue that harming anything for absolutely no defensible reason
is always wrong, even crushing an insect. Most of us who swat flies, for
example, would be prepared to argue for that on morally relevant grounds.
One swats flies because they carry disease, or bite, or something of the sort.
By the same token, it is significant to notice our ordinary characterization of
sadists and paradigmatically cruel people as "those who pull the wings off
flies."
A closely related objection is also invariably forthcoming and goes like this:
"Life involves, by its very nature, conflict: conflict of interests, competition
for survival, nature red in tooth and claw. How are you going to decide
between the interests of two creatures, say, a dog and his fleas, or between
human interests and animal interests? Are you going to stop snakes from
eating mice, predators from devouring prey?" Again, this objection is
ambiguous. First of all, it is raising the question of how we decide when we
encounter competing interests. Second, it is asking whether our theory
requires that we morally police all of creation.

The question of competing interests is indeed a profound one but, in point

of fact, no more of a logical problem when we broaden the scope of moral
concern to include animals than when we are dealing exclusively with
people. We do (or implicitly should) face these sorts of questions daily:
Ought I give charity to cancer research or to an orphanage? Ought I deny
myself a Twinkie so that a starving child can eat? There are familiar patterns
of argumentation we employ in such cases: Which contribution will do the
most good? Will the child die anyway? and so on. Doubtless there are
additional problems when deciding between competing animal interests. For
example, I think that all of us would share the following intuition. In doing
research, it would be better to perform an experiment on a living thing that
does not feel pain than on one that does. What is the principle behind this
intuition? Presumably something like an awareness from our own
experience, as well as from commonsense observation, that pain matters to
us more than interests not associated with pain. Perhaps this is better put by
saying the more painful something is, the more it matters to us. So one could
adopt as a general principle that in cases where we must choose between
competing animal interests, say, between the dog and his fleas or between
experimenting on a frog and experimenting on a cat, we choose the
alternative that results in minimizing pain, even though both alternatives
involve thwarting some interest or taking life. I would not adopt as a
universal principle always favoring the "higher" animal-for example, if the
choice came down to a quick death for the higher animal versus a slow,
lingering death for a lower animal, one should presumably choose the death
of the higher animal. This makes us realize that we cannot simply resolve
conflicts by adding interests. It might be tempting to say that if we must
choose between the lives of two creatures, one with interests a, b, c, d, and
the otherwith interests a, b, c, d, and e, we always favor the latter since, after
all, our morally relevant swing point is interests. But this is too simple, for
clearly we need to consider not only number of interests but also quality and
intensity of their satisfaction and frustration. Here, as elsewhere in ethics,
moral problems do not admit simple accounting solutions.

This latter case, incidentally, indicates that a presumptive right to life can
be qualified by circumstances that render the quality of life distinctly
undesirable. Hence our willingness to euthanize even the most beloved of
animals when we feel their life has become sufficiently unpleasant to
exclude positive satisfaction of those functions constitutive of life. Thus, the
basic right to life may seem in principle to conflict with the demand of the
telos. But this is not the case, for real life is functioning in accordance with
the telos. It is performing those functions and satisfying those interests that
in a real sense form the essence of life. Hence our reluctance to keep a
creature "alive" on a respirator when it has effectively ceased to have any
hope of really actualizing that life. We do not wish to prolong a life without
awareness for then the creature in question has no interests. We also do not
wish to prolong a life that is in gross and hideous violation of the creature's
telos, even if the creature is conscious and not suffering. (Consider the
totally paralyzed person who does not want to live, even though he may not
be in physical pain.)

Incidentally, this point is an instructive example of how the study of the

moral status of animals can illuminate dark areas of human ethics. Most
people would consider it monstrous not to provide euthanasia for a horribly
suffering, terminally ill, or totally dysfunctional dog. On the other hand,
many of us who hold that position would also deem it monstrous to provide
euthanasia for a suffering, terminally ill human, even if the person has
requested it. A realization that there is no clear-cut defensible gap between
humans and animals from a moral point of view might help us deal with this
basic incoherence. It is indeed ironic that we make more subtle distinctions
between mere life and quality of life in terms of function in the case of dogs
than we do in the case of humans. Many people would euthanize a cat
simply because it lost a leg or a dog simply because it was getting old. In the
case of humans, doubtless for reasons provided by the Judeo-Christian
tradition, we treat life as if its value is totally independent of function or
even of awareness, as if its value endures after the cessation of all function
and awareness. In the case of animals, we seem to recognize that life
artificially sustained or totally dominated by suffering is not an object of
value; we seem loath to accept this point vis-a-vis humans. Realization that
animals are not separated by ontological chasms from people might well
help us to come up with a more rational, less tradition-bound approach to
such human problems.

In any case, this discussion reflects back on our earlier discussion of the
right to life. We need to stress that the upshot of our analysis is this: the right
to life must be cashed out in terms of the interests and functions constitutive
of that sort of being. We do not respect the right to life of a gazelle by
keeping it alive and even conscious by machinery in a laboratory while its
life as a gazelle-a running creature-has been essentially and irrevocably
terminated. We must be careful to distinguish always (whether dealing with
animals or with people) between life as function, satisfaction of interests and
telos, and protoplasmic existence. A human body on a respirator in an
irreversible coma is not a human person since it has no awareness and thus
no interests; a canine body on a respirator is not a dog; a human body totally
consumed by pain is not a human person; a canine body totally consumed by
pain is not a dog. In the latter cases, the only end or interest that remains is
the cessation of pain.

On the basis of our earlier discussion, it would seem that the degree of
awareness of the animal in question is more basic than its number of
interests and as important as the quality of its satisfaction. We have argued
that it is awareness, or "mattering to the animal," that transforms a need into
an interest. In the case of an intestinal parasite, we do not have good
evidence that things matter to them, even pain. In the case of the dog, we
have much better evidence. So if we are faced with this choice, the answer is
clear. This accords with our commonsense intuition that the more
complicated the mind of the animal, the more intense its awareness, and the
more valuable it is. On the other hand, we must be careful with this principle
as well, for it is extremely difficult to apply. We argued earlier that even
though humans have more complicated lives than animals, it does not follow
that their pain is more intense; in fact, more complex awareness may
actually mitigate pain through hope, self-control, and so on. Furthermore, the
principle does not tell us how, if animals have a right to life, to weigh the
choice of killing a creature with low awareness against thwarting some
interest of a creature with higher awareness. For example, if the flea is
mildly debilitating to the dog, why ought we kill it? Is the life of a rabbit
worth more or less than the lives of three frogs? Ultimately, it appears that
these cases must be decided dialectically, on a case-by-case basis.

As far as the problem of human interests competing with animal interests

is concerned, the answer is also far from clear. I know that our official,
publicly articulated morality would unhesitatingly assert that human interests
should predominate. But I'm not at all sure that this is something we really
believe; nor am I sure that it is even defensible. All of us who have pets and
spend money on pets that could be spent for human welfare have implicitly
made the decision that the interests of certain animals at least supersede the
interests of certain humans. And I believe that many and probably most
people, if specifically confronted with having to choose between the life of
the family dog and the life of a nomad in Central Asia, would choose the
dog. This does not of course entail that such a decision is morally correct,
but it at least helps to show that we are not always committed to humanity
above all else. It seems to me further that there are cases-including the one
just mentionedwhere it is quite meaningful and cogent to argue that animal
interests ought to predominate. Consider the following: imagine a newly
discovered drug that could possibly check a raging epidemic. Suppose, for
esoteric reasons, that it could be tested with equal validity either on members
of a species of higher primate or on humans. Testing it on the primates
would require the risk of slow, agonizing death for hundreds of primates,
whereas it could be adequately tested on only a few humans, who would
endure quicker deaths. Barring legal constraints, I would submit that it
would be more defensible morally to test it on child-murderers awaiting
execution, whose right to life has already been preempted by society, than it
would be to test it on the innocent primates. Such a claim sounds monstrous,
mostly because of the sanctimonious hypocrisy of our official morality. Yet I
believe that a strong case can be made in its favor. The strongest case against
it, I think, would be an argument from the danger of setting a precedent of
using people against their will, not from the greater intrinsic worth and
moral value of the individual men in this case. In fact, prisoners often wish
to serve as volunteers in experiments in a desire to atone but are not
permitted to do so. At least we could give them the choice. It is ironic that no
one ever raises the question of the animal's will or wishes! As Steve
Sapontzis once remarked, we can determine if animals give informed
consent to research on them by opening the cages!

In general, without an argument that shows that humans are always of

more value than animals, each potential situation of conflict cannot be
decided in advance, any more than we can decide in advance the rules
governing a "lifeboat situation" concerning humans, where there is only
room on the lifeboat for ten people and there are twelve survivors. As
another example, it was certainly not clear that the economic interests of
Newfoundland seal hunters were to be preferred to the baby seals' right to
life; the Newfoundlanders could survive without killing (and we could
survive without seal coats), whereas the cost to the seals would have been
significant. Indeed, society determined that the animals' interests outweigh
the humans' and banned the hunt.
After first weighing the matter of competing interests, the answer to the
second part of the objection, "Must we stop predators from killing prey or is
such killing wrong?" seems to be this: Certainly it is not "wrong" for the
predator to kill prey, since animals acting in this way are not ordinarily seen
as moral agents, any more than it is "wrong" for an avalanche to kill things
in any sense of "wrong" other than the trivial one that it would be a better
universe if nothing killed anything. Perhaps the dog who has been taught
not to steal food from the table but sneaks over to do so is an object of
blame. Perhaps the elephants, porpoises, and the other cases mentioned
earlier qualify as cases of animal moral agency. But certainly when an
animal kills for food or defense, we have no reason to believe that it has any
concept of right or wrong. Is it our duty to stop predators from killing prey?
That is more difficult. It is in the animal's nature to kill by predation; it does
so to survive. So, though it would be a better universe if this were not the
case, it is not clearly within the scope of our moral duties to correct what
has been called natural evil. (On occasion, of course, we do check natural
evil, as when we try to prevent impending avalanches in areas frequented
by skiers. This raises interesting questions about the moral obligations of
governments to citizens, since it is not at all obvious to me that a
government that failed to do this would be immoral, as long as the skiers
were cognizant of the risk.) On the other hand, it seems plausible to suggest
that we have a duty to stop a well-fed house cat from killing a bird, in the
same sense that we have a duty not to drive our car over a bird's nest for no
reason. (True, the cat may have an interest in killing because killing
behavior is natural to it; on the other hand, this doesn't seem to trump the
bird's more basic right to life.)
In this context, it is worth dealing with another related objection to the
suggestion that animals have moral status and rights. It is often said that
animals kill each other as a routine part of nature and, therefore, why
shouldn't we kill animals? In a related argument, meat eaters often respond
to vegetarian arguments by pointing out that we have evolved for meat
eating. This objection, in addition to being false, ignores the fact that as
moral agents, we make moral choices according to principles of right and
wrong and need not operate simply by instinct in our eating behavior. To
justify meat eating by such an appeal is to ignore totally our moral natures.
We can shape our natures according to right and wrong and, in any case, do
not require meat either to live or to live well.
Another possible, currently popular objection to our arguments is that we
have talked only of individual living beings and have made no mention of
the inanimate environment as an object of moral concern. To this, I would
simply respond by agreeing. I do not believe that nonliving things have
rights. If we have duties to the environment, it is because of its instrumental
value to living things. In and of itself, the physical environment has no
interests and is therefore not a direct object of moral concern.

This is not, of course, to denigrate the importance of environmental

issues or to suggest that preservation of tropical rainforests, endangered
plant species, wetlands, rivers, wilderness areas, clean air and water, habitat
for animals, and so on is not of paramount concern. Rather, I am arguing
that one cannot found an environmental ethic on the same basis as we have
founded our ethic for sentient creatures, namely, by logically extending our
consensus social ethic to beings who cannot be excluded from the
application of that ethic for any morally relevant reason. But inanimate
nonsentient entities such as plants or rivers, or abstract entities such as
species, are not the sort of things our ethic can logically encompass. To
suggest that "rocks have rights" is to trivialize the notion of rights, since
what we do to rocks does not matter to them.

Many leading environmental ethicists have attempted to do for non

sentient natural objects and abstract objects the same sort of thing I have
tried to do for animals-namely, attempted to elevate their status to direct
objects of intrinsic value, ends in themselves, which are morally valuable
not only because of their relations and utility to sentient beings, but also in
and of themselves. To my knowledge, none of these theorists has attempted
to claim, as I do for animals, that the locus of such value lies in the fact that
what we do to these entities matters to them. No one has argued that we can
harm rivers, species, or ecosystems in ways that matter to them. Wherein
then do these theorists locate the intrinsic value of these entities? This is not
at all clear in the writings, but seems to come down to one of the following
doubtful moves:
1. Going from the fact that environmental factors are absolutely
essential to the well-being or survival of beings, that are loci of
intrinsic value, these theorists conclude that environmental factors
therefore enjoy a similar or even higher moral status. Such a move is
clearly fallacious. Just because I cannot survive without insulin, and I
am an object of intrinsic value, it does not follow that insulin is, too.
In fact, the insulin is a paradigmatic example of something having
instrumental value.

2. Going from the fact that the environment "creates" all sentient
creatures to the fact that its welfare is more important than theirs. This
is really a variation on (1) and succumbs to the same sort of criticism,
namely, that this reasoning represents a genetic fallacy. The cause of
something valuable need not itself be valuable and certainly not
necessarily more valuable than its effect-its value must be established
independently of its result. The Holocaust may have caused the state
of Israel; that does not make the Holocaust more valuable than the
state of Israel.

3. Confusing aesthetic or instrumental value for sentient creatures,

notably humans, with intrinsic value and underestimating aesthetic
value as a category. We shall return to this shortly, for I suspect it is
the root confusion in those attempting to give nonsentient nature
intrinsic value.

4. Substituting rhetoric for logic at crucial points in the discussions and

using a poetic rhetoric (descriptions of natural objects in terms such as
"grandeur," "majesty," "novelty," "variety") as an unexplained basis
for according them "intrinsic value."

5. Going from the metaphor that infringement on natural objects

"matters" to them in the sense that disturbance evokes an adjustment
by their self-regulating properties, to the erroneous conclusion that
such self-regulation, being analogous to conscious coping in animals,
entitles them to direct moral status.
 In short, traditional morality and its theory do not offer a viable way to
raise the moral status of nonsentient natural objects and abstract objects so
that they are direct objects of moral concern on a par with or even higher
than sentient creatures. Ordinary morality and moral concern take as their
focus the effects of actions on beings who can be helped or harmed in ways
that matter to them, either directly or by implication. If it is immoral to
wreck someone's property, it is because it is someone's; if it is immoral to
promote the extinction of species, it is because such extinction causes
aesthetic or practical harm to humans or to animals or because a species is,
in the final analysis, a group of harmable individuals.

There is nothing, of course, to stop environmental ethicists from making

a recommendation for a substantial revision of common and traditional
morality. But such recommendations are likely to be dismissed or whittled
away by a moral version of Occam's razor: Why grant animals rights and
acknowledge in animals intrinsic value? Because they are conscious and
what we do to them matters to them! Why grant rocks, trees, species, or
ecosystems rights? Because these objects have great aesthetic value, are
essential to us, or are basic for survival. But these are paradigmatic
examples of objects with instrumental value. A conceptual confusion for a
noble purpose is still a conceptual confusion.

There is nothing to be gained by attempting to elevate the moral status of

nonsentient natural objects to that of sentient ones. One can develop a rich
environmental ethic by locating the value of nonsentient natural objects in
their relation to sentient ones. One can argue for the preservation of habitats
because their destruction harms animals; one can argue for preserving
ecosystems on the grounds of unforseen pernicious consequences resulting
from their destruction, a claim for which much empirical evidence exists.
One can argue for the preservation of animal species as the sum of a group
of individuals who would be harmed by its extinction. One can argue for
preserving mountains, snail darters, streams, and cockroaches on aesthetic
grounds. Too many philosophers forget the moral power of aes thetic claims
and tend to see aesthetic reasons as a weak basis for preserving natural
objects. Yet the moral imperative not to destroy unique aesthetic objects and
even ones that are not unique is an onerous one that is well ingrained into
common practice-witness the worldwide establishment of national parks,
preserves, forests, and wildlife areas.

Rather than attempting to transcend all views of natural objects as

instrumental by grafting onto nature a mystical intrinsic value that can be
buttressed only by poetic rhetoric, it would be far better to nurture public
appreciation of subtle instrumental values, especially aesthetic value.
People can learn to appreciate the unique beauty of a desert, or of a fragile
ecosystem, or even of a noxious creature like a tick when they understand
the complexity and history therein and can read the story each life-form
contains.

It is important to note that the attribution of value to nonsentient natural

objects arising simply out of their significance (recognized or not) for
sentient beings does not denigrate the value of natural objects. Indeed, this
attribution does not even imply that the interests or desires of individual
sentient beings always override concern for nonsentient ones. Our legal
system has, for example, valuable and irreplaceable property laws that
forbid owners of aesthetic objects, for example, a collection of Vincent van
Gogh paintings, from destroying them at will, say, by adding them to one's
funeral pyre. To be sure, this restriction on people's right to dispose of their
own property arises out of a recognition of the value of these objects to
other humans, but this is surely quite sensible. How else would one justify
such a restriction? Nor, as we said earlier, need one limit the value of
natural objects to their relationship to humans. Philosophically, one could,
for example, sensibly (and commonsensically) argue for preservation of
acreage from the golf-course developer because failure to do so would
mean the destruction of thousands of sentient creatures' habitats-a major
infringement of their interests-while building the golf course would fulfill
the rarefied and inessential interests of a few.

Thus, in my view, one would accord moral concern to natural objects in

a variety of ways, depending on the sort of object being considered. Moral
status for individual animals would arise from their sentience. Moral status
of species and their protection from humans would arise from the fact that a
species is a collection of morally relevant individuals; moral status also
would arise from the fact that humans have an aesthetic concern in not
letting a unique and irreplaceable aesthetic object (or group of objects)
disappear forever from our Umwelt (environment), in addition to a
prudential concern for the benefits these objects might carry (obscure plants
may be a source of cancer-fighting drugs). Concern for wilderness areas,
mountains, deserts, and so on would arise from their survival value for
sentient animals as well as from their aesthetic value for humans. (Some
writers have suggested that this aesthetic value is so great as to be essential
to human mental/physical health, a point perfectly compatible with my
position.)

Nothing in what I have said as yet tells us how to weigh conflicting

interests, whether between humans and other sentient creatures or between
human desires and environmental protection. How does one weigh the
aesthetic concern of those who oppose blasting away part of a cliff against
the pragmatic concern of those who wish to build on a cliffside? But the
problem of weighing is equally thorny in traditional ethics-witness lifeboat
questions or questions concerning the allocation of scarce medical
resources. Nor does the intrinsic-value approach help in adjudicating such
issues. How does one weigh the alleged intrinsic value of a cliffside against
the interests of the (intrinsic-value-bearing) homebuilders?

Furthermore, the intrinsic-value view can lead to results that are

repugnant to common sense and ordinary moral consciousness. Thus, for
example, it follows from what has been suggested by one intrinsic-value
theorist that if a migratory herd of plentiful elk were passing through an
area containing an endangered species of moss, it would be not only
permissible but also obligatory to kill the elk in order to protect the moss
because in one case we would lose a species, in another, "merely"
individuals. In my view, such a case has a less paradoxical solution.
Destruction of the moss does not matter to the moss, whereas elk
presumably care about being injured or perhaps about living. Therefore, one
would give prima facie priority to the elk. This might presumably be
overridden if, for example, the moss were a substratum from which was
extracted an ingredient necessary to stop a raging, lethal epidemic in
humans or animals. But such cases-and indeed most cases of conflicting
interestsmust be decided on the actual occasion. These cases are decided by
a careful examination of the facts of the situation. Thus, our suggestion of a
basis for environmental ethics does not qualitatively change the situation
from that of current ethical deliberation, whereas granting intrinsic value to
natural objects would leave us with a "whole new ball game"one where we
do not know the rules.

Although it is nonsensical to attribute intrinsic value or direct moral

value to nonsentient natural objects, they nonetheless must become (and are
indeed becoming) central to our social moral deliberations. This centrality
derives from our increasing recognition of the far-reaching and sometimes
subtle instrumental value these objects have for humans and animals.
Knowing that contamination of remote desert areas by pollutants can
destroy unique panoplies of natural beauty, or that dumping wastes into the
ocean can destroy a potential source of antibiotics, or that building a
pipeline can have undreamed-of harmful effects goes a long way toward
making us think twice about these activities-a far longer way than endowing
them with quasi-mystical rhetorical status subject to (and begging for)
positivistic torpedoing.
Finally, we may mention a very common set of pragmatic arguments
against animal rights. It might be said that we have more than enough
problems with managing moral theory and practice when we consider only
humans; to admit animals into the scope of moral concern is to stir up
already troubled waters. To this I would respond by saying that this is quite
true but morally irrelevant. It is a safe guess that our moral deliberations
and decisions would be a good deal simpler if we excluded from the scope
of moral concern women, children, and nonwhite people, but this does not
make it right to do so. We have hopefully given strong arguments for saying
that animals do have rights and ought to be morally considered; it is a non
sequitur to protest that this is a difficult thing to do.
Second of the pragmatic arguments, and in a deep sense most important, is
the claim that all our theorizing is utopian. People will not consider animals
morally, theory will not change practice, and none of this will make any
practical difference. In the first place, this sort of cynicism is unfounded.
Moral theory has made incalculable practical differences; witness the
teachings of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Marx, Hitler (who was a moralist, albeit
an evil one), Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., to name but a few salient
examples. True, theorizing about animal rights will not change things
overnight. But it will make people think just a little differently, perhaps
change their gestalts, bring these issues to public airing and dialectic, and
make them ordinary topics of conversation. Plato, in the Republic,
considers the objection that his ideal state will never come to pass. Quite
probably, he replies, but it gives us a measure for evaluating actual states
and for suggesting improvements. The same point can be made with regard
to theorizing about animal rights; it provides us with grounds for criticizing
current practice, and most important, it provides a wedge for making a very
immediate and direct impact on social and individual conduct through
legislation and education that have, in turn, direct and practical
ramifications on our treatment of animals and our attitudes toward them. It
is the connection between morality and law, and the implications that this
has for animals that we must now consider, and to which we shall turn in
the next chapter. For it is here that we will realize the full implications of
"rights" talk and of our argument that animals must be included in such talk.
If it is the case that animals ought to enjoy a place within the scope of moral
concern as we have argued, while many of our institutions, practices, and
habits are firmly entrenched in their disregard for the rights of animals, then
these rights must be safeguarded, publicized, and pressed through the law.
Moral rights must be translated into legal rights for, in a deep sense, the two
are organically connected.

Later on in this book we shall examine in great detail with regard to

animals used in research how one tries to tie the moral theory we have
developed to the demands of our real, sociocultural situation. We shall see
that the theory must indeed serve as an ideal in Plato's sense. But we shall
also see that we must be prepared to accept less than the ideal when seeking
the intersection between pure theory and the pressures of reality in order to
achieve anything at all.
 'hat, precisely, is the connection between law and morality? In his
classic treatise on legal theory, Professor Wolfgang Friedmann wrote,
"There cannot be-and there never has been-a complete separation of law
and morality." But this insight is ambiguous. Does it mean that law and
morality are what philosophers call logically inseparable, such that one
cannot understand one without necessarily referring to the other? For
example, the concept of parent is logically inseparable from the concept of
child-if one is to understand what it is to be a parent, one must make
reference to the notion of child. Is it the case, then, that we cannot
understand what law and legal rights are without bringing in concepts of
morality and moral rights? Or, on the contrary, are the two in principle
separable, so that one can fully explicate, analyze, and define the concept of
law without bringing in moral concepts? Is the connection between the two
simply one of causal influence, with laws affecting morality and morality
affecting laws, but with no conceptual connection between the two?

Quite obviously, laws often do affect public morality, and public

morality determines laws. This is very clear when we think of our laws
governing prostitution, pornography, obscenity, drugs, wet T-shirt contests,
and so forth. For example, if everyone (or most people) in a given society
holds a strong moral position against prostitution, it is quite likely that the
laws will reflect that moral position and will also serve to reinforce that
position in subsequent generations. Sometimes laws are designed to effect a
change in widespread public morality, as was the case with Prohibition
laws, the laws concerning the fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, the civil
rights laws, or the sexual harassment laws. On the other hand, public
morality often forces changes in laws that have ceased either to reflect or
influence that public morality-Sunday "blue" laws, those laws which
required that all shops be closed on Sunday, are a good case in point. But
this sort of connection between law and morality is ultimately causal, and it
does not tell us whether the two concepts are logically inseparable in the
sense discussed above.
There is a very old tradition that asserts that morality and law are logically
inseparable, that moral notions and ideals are part and parcel of law, that
law in society must ultimately embody and be based on certain absolute,
unchanging, and presuppositional notions of right and wrong, or else it is
not really law. This is called natural law theory and goes back to the ancient
Greeks-it can be found in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. It is probably
most closely associated historically with the Roman Catholic tradition.
According to the standard natural law position, certain principles of right
and wrong are absolutely true and do not change from place to place or time
to time. For the Catholic tradition, of course, these moral principles
ultimately find their source in the commands of God or in the Bible, and
much (but not all) of natural law theory in the West has customarily been
theologically based. According to natural law theorists, law of any society
must embody these moral truths-if it fails to do so, it is not really law!
Obviously, on this view, law and morality are inseparable. In the view of
natural law theorists, laws passed in Nazi Germany were not true laws.
Although they were written down in law books, passed by legislatures,
adopted by parliaments and so forth, they were not genuine, binding laws
because they contradicted the basic moral law, and thus people were not
morally obligated to obey them (even though they could, of course, have
been forced to obey them). Such "laws" were not legitimate, and one was
morally obligated to disobey them because they flew in the face of the
moral law.
Closely connected with the natural law theory is the notion of natural rights,
the idea that human beings have by nature (however that is interpreted,
most usually by appeal to God) certain rights that governments cannot
legitimately violate and that political law must respect. Any government
that does not respect these rights loses its legitimacy and is not morally
entitled to obedience, though, of course, it may force obedience on citizens.
It will be recalled that this notion of natural rights was one of the key
theoretical concepts behind the American Revolution and, later, the French
Revolution. It was claimed that the ruling governments had lost any claim
to legitimacy, any entitlement to be obeyed, by their failure to respect these
fundamental and absolute rights that flowed from the natural law. This sort
of view is what underlies conscientious civil disobedience-freedom rides,
nuclear facility sit-ins, and so on. Though such concepts sound terribly
mystical to many of us today, their historical importance cannot be
underestimated. This theory provides, of course, the conceptual basis for the
US Constitution and is clearly heralded in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,
that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

A related statement of natural rights and law can be found in the Virginia
Declaration of Rights of 1776:

All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain
inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they
cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity [italics mine].
Obviously, on this view, these rights are logically independent of any social
contract. Once again, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
Citizens of 1789, adopted by the French Assembly of 1789 and prefixed to
the French Constitution of 1791, makes the same point:
 The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural
and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty,
prosperity, security, and resistance of oppression [italics mine].

And even in the twenty-first century, this idea remains very much alive and
is implicit in the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of
1948.

But despite the undisputed historical importance of the theory of natural

law and of natural rights, there are many obvious problems associated with
it. How do we prove that there really are natural rights and that there really
is a natural law? How do we know what this law and these rights are?
Clearly, in a highly theologically oriented setting, such as obtained in
medieval Catholic Europe, these questions do not present fundamental
difficulties, for the source of natural law is held to be God and its content is
defined through revelation. Even in the passages quoted above, God often
provides the ultimate justification for claims about natural rights. But as
belief in God and certainty about our knowledge of His Law waned in all
areas of life and thought, including political theory, some thinkers began to
deny the existence of natural rights and natural law altogether, and to talk
about them as just so much mystical nonsense. These thinkers felt that such
ideas simply clouded the real issues in political and legal theory and
attempted to abandon all reference to natural rights. Thus, Jeremy Bentham,
in commenting on the French Declaration of Rights in his Anarchical
Fallacies, declared resoundingly that "Natural rights is simple nonsense;
natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense-nonsense upon
stilts."
The Bentham idea that talk about natural rights and natural law was lofty
"nonsense upon stilts" grew into an important movement in legal theory that
has dominated British and American legal thinking for well over one
hundred years, the position called legal positivism, eloquently developed by
men like Bentham and John Austin. According to the legal positivists, we
can know nothing of natural law or rights; the only laws and rights that
exist are those specifically adopted by legislatures and found in statutes.
Legal positivism, as we shall see, does not deny the notion that law is
causally influenced by moral considerations, as we discussed earlier. In fact,
none of the positivists mentioned above denies that the law is and ought to
be motivated and assessed by moral criteria. In point of fact, these
positivists have been highly articulate utilitarians, arguing that the ultimate
purpose of the law is the advancement of the general welfare, or the
"greatest good or happiness for the greatest number." What positivism does
deny is that talk about law and legal rights is logically inseparable from
notions of moral law and moral rights. The grounds for positivism are
empiricistic-we can clearly discover what the positive law is while the
content of moral law is endlessly debatable. The content of positive or
actual law is fully and exhaustively specified by the explicit set of rules that
are adopted by a community or society according to a certain procedure
(such as a vote of an assembly or a decree of a king). Thus, moral rules are
clearly distinguishable from legal rules by some test of origin that provides
us with, in H. L. A. Hart's term, a "rule of recognition" for the latter, a clear-
cut, empirically verifiable test that will tell us whether or not something is a
law simply by looking at how it was adopted. It is correlatively
meaningless, on this view, to speak of rights that antedate their explicit
enunciation according to the explicit procedures by which legal rules are
created.
This neat separation of law and morality, while still dominant, of late has
been challenged by a variety of thinkers seeking to revive the notion of
natural rights and natural law, the notion that basic moral principles are the
skeletons of all proper laws and that these principles do not change even
though public attitudes change. Such thinkers are trying to show that what
is legal and what is moral are logically inseparable. Not surprisingly, some
of these theorists have attempted to revive the natural law tradition without
appeal to God, so as to avoid charges of mysticism and nonsense. One of
the most interesting of these thinkers is Professor Ronald Dworkin, once the
holder of the Chair of Jurisprudence at Oxford, who has brilliantly argued
for the unity of law and morality in the series of papers published as the
book Taking Rights Seriously. Dworkin's attack on legal positivism has
been two-pronged. First of all, contrary to positivist doctrine, he has
demonstrated that no rule of recognition, no test of origin, can provide a
criterion for demarcating the positive law from moral rules, and thus no
clear-cut line can be justifiably drawn between the legal and the moral.
Second, Dworkin has attacked the positivist claim that utilitarian moral
concerns, considerations of what produces the greatest good or happiness
for the greatest number, are the only moral notions relevant to the law. He
does this by showing that once it is recognized that moral notions are
inseparable from positive law, it becomes clear that among these moral
notions falls the extremely important concept of individual rights, which
essentially serves as a moral check against utilitarian considerations.

Let us see how Dworkin argues for these points. According to Dworkin,
any attempt to specify a procedure that will explicitly demarcate the law by
demarcating legal rules is doomed to failure. In addition to explicit rules,
the reading of almost any case shows us that laws contain principles, moral
notions that are invoked regularly by judges in resolving cases for which no
explicit rules or statutes exist. We all know, of course, that much of the law
is made by judges when they interpret statutes and decide their application
to hard cases. No statute can possibly cover all possible cases; this is why
we need judges and not computers to apply and interpret the law. In
deciding hard cases, judges appeal to principles that are not arbitrary
commands whimsically chosen by the judges, but are normative moral
standards, notions of right and wrong that are consulted in order to apply
the law to new cases. A principle, according to Dworkin, is a standard to be
observed "because it is a requirement of justice or fairness or some other
dimension of morality." These principles were never adopted by
legislatures; yet they form implicit parts of our legal system. In fact judges
often use such moral principles to overturn certain rules that were explicitly
adopted by law-making bodies or government agencies. Consider, for
example, the use by the Supreme Court of the moral principle that "separate
is inherently not equal" in the land mark school desegregation case Brown
v. Board of Education. Or consider the principle cited by the court in Riggs
v. Palmer, in which the court was compelled to decide whether a man
named in his grandfather's will could inherit after he murdered his
grandfather. The court appealed to the moral principle that "no one shall be
permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong,
or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his
own crime." In other cases, judges have appealed to the principle that
"courts will not permit themselves to be used as instruments of iniquity and
injustice." Directly germane to the topic we are discussing is the principle
enunciated by the court in the United States v. Sisson, a case dealing with a
nonreligious conscientious objector. The judge declared that "when the state
through its laws seeks to override reasonable moral commitments, it makes
a dangerously uncharacteristic choice. The law grows from the deposits of
morality.... When the law treats a reasonable, conscientious act as a crime it
subverts its own power."

It is precisely these principles that prevent judges from being totally

arbitrary and making capricious decisions in unprecedented cases, i.e., in
cases not explicitly covered by existing statutes or precedents. Even more
dramatically, as we indicated, appeal to principles often serves as grounds
for the overthrow of legal rules that have been explicitly adopted, as in the
Brown v. Board school desegregation case. Rights that are granted to
individuals on the basis of these principles (for example, the right to
conscientious objection to military service on moral grounds) are as much a
part of the legal system as are those whose origin results from the usual
explicit manner of adoption of legal rules and rights. Once a case is decided
using principles, of course, the resolution may then stand as an explicit rule
of law, but this does not vitiate the important role of principles in deciding
the next hard case. Dworkin's conclusion is compelling and yet quite
shocking to those schooled in legal positivism:

It is wrong to suppose ... that in every legal system there will be some
commonly recognized fundamental test for determining which
standards count as law and which do not. No such fundamental test
can be found in complicated legal systems like those in force in the
United States and Britain. In these countries no ultimate distinction
can be made between legal and moral standards [italics mine].

Thus, the important point to note is that our legal system is inextricably tied
to a set of moral principles that guide, limit, constrain, and influence the
explicit laws that are adopted. So it follows that moral principles can and do
serve as grounds of legal rights and obligations in the same way that
explicit legal rules do.

Most important, perhaps, among the moral principles that stand at the
base of the legal system is the notion of moral rights possessed by persons.
These moral rights follow directly from our recognition of persons as direct
objects of moral concern, as entities worthy of moral consideration, as loci
of intrinsic value, or, in Kant's terminology, as ends in themselves. Once we
become aware that individual persons are ends in themselves, we feel that
we must publicly acknowledge that certain aspects of their nature or telos
must be shielded and protected from possible abuse, even when such abuse
could be in the general interest. We say then that human beings have moral
rights in virtue of being moral objects, that these rights follow from their
nature, and that from these rights flow claims by individuals against the
state that ought and do enter into judicial and legal reckoning. In Dworkin's
words:

A man has a moral right against the state if for some reason the state
would do wrong to treat him a certain way, even if it would be in the
general interest to do so.
A right is a safeguard of the moral status of the individual and his or her
human nature or telos against the pressures of social convenience or general
welfare that might otherwise tend to submerge his or her individuality and
crucial interests. As the legal positivists pointed out, most of our public
decision-making morality is utilitarian; that is, the decisions that are
considered desirable are those that will produce the greatest benefit for the
greatest number of people. This is not surprising, and in many ways it is a
fair way of setting policy. The basic assumptions behind utilitarianism are
the same assumptions that underlie much democratic theory, free enterprise,
egalitarianism, and individualism, namely, that each person counts as one,
that for purposes of public policy all citizens are equal, and that the fairest
decision procedure is one that yields the highest net benefits across the sum
of these individuals. If all people are equal, no particular individual or
group should have his, her, or its interests favored; each person's interests
count equally, and conclusions are drawn by simple addition.

In a sense, of course, this is very fair-everyone has had a chance to

express his preferences and to have his interests considered. But in another
sense, it can be very dangerous because the interests, preferences, and
concerns of any given individual often become submerged under the
crushing weight of the common good. For example, if the majority would
benefit by preventing an unpopular speaker from expressing himself, strict
utilitarian considerations make it easy to allow his being silenced, since not
letting him speak would benefit most people and letting him speak could
lead to disturbance, friction, and expense.

It is here that the notion of rights becomes significant. For the notion of
rights builds protective fences around the individual and declares that there
are certain things that cannot be done to him even for the general benefit,
even when he stands alone. Even if he has no power to resist the majority,
even if his activity leads to general inconvenience, there are certain areas
where he ought not be touched or stifled despite the cost to the majority,
simply because he is a moral object and those areas are essential to him.
Such a right, to take a salient example, is freedom of speech. This freedom
is held to be sacred because it is at the heart of a person's status as a human
being and, correlatively, as an object of moral concern. It is an essential
feature of the human essence or telos. (The Greek word for reason, in fact,
was logos, which means "word.") Our system protects the right of the
holder of unpopular views to air them even if he or she offends,
antagonizes, and upsets everyone else. As we all know, taxpayers pay a
great deal of money for police to protect unpopular speakers, even if
everyone in the community would like to see them silenced. The same
holds true, of course, for freedom of religion and assembly (rights that
again reflect features we take to be essential to the human telos). The notion
of rights is based on the basic moral idea that ultimately the individual is
the fundamental object of moral concern and attention, that the individual
has intrinsic value, and that there are certain interests that are inseparable
from his or her being and, hence, themselves have intrinsic value. It is the
solution to the basic problem of democracy, reconciling majority rule with
the inescapable value of the individual. Rights protect the individual moral
being from what has been called "the tyranny of the majority." They set the
ground rules that utilitarian social policies can violate only for the gravest
of reasons, such as the survival of the society as a whole. (The fact that they
can be violated under some conditions shows that rights are not absolute,
but are presumptive.) So, in summary, a right is a morally based notion that
serves a major political, legal, and social function-the function of protecting
the individual object of moral concern. It allows individuals to demand
certain kinds of treatment, not as a gratuity based on benevolence, but as
their due as moral objects, possessing a certain nature. Rights mean we
don't have to depend on the unreliable goodwill of others.
The US Constitution lists some of the major and most obvious rights that
belong to human beings in the Bill of Rights, but this is not meant to be a
complete list of all rights or even to state fully the content of the rights
listed. Let us recall the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be

construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

But if that is the case, how do we establish other rights, or define the
content of the rights that are enumerated? The answer is simple. In order to
establish a right in legal cases, as was done in civil rights cases,
desegregation cases, conscientious objector cases, and so forth, one must
use moral arguments and present moral reasons and discussion. According
to Dworkin, this possibility is built into the Bill of Rights. Rather than
attempt to cover every possible sort of case that could come up that is
relevant to the enumerated rights, the Bill of Rights was instead designed to
provide broad moral schemata that can be interpreted and applied to
particular cases through a dialectical process of moral argument and
discussion. Thus, for example, the "separate is not equal" argument
advanced for school integration in the 1950s represented an application
through moral argumentation of the equal protection clause of the Bill of
Rights. Says Dworkin, summarizing this view:

The difficult clauses of the Bill of Rights, like the due process and
equal protection clauses, must be understood as an appeal to moral
concepts rather than laying down particular conceptions. Therefore, a
court that undertakes the burden of applying these clauses fully as
law must be prepared to frame and answer questions of political
morality.

So, to establish a right, one must utilize moral arguments, oftentimes to

flesh out and interpret constitutional locutions and oftentimes to extend
them. Constitutional law, and for that matter, all law, is thus in a real sense
logically inseparable from moral philosophy. What this in turn means, as
our legal history clearly shows, is that one cannot separate questions of law
from questions of right and wrong, that is, from morality. (Incidentally, it is
clear that violating a right for grave reasons, like survival of the society or
health and safety of a large number of persons, also requires a moral
argument.)

If Dworkin is correct, the legal positivists are wrong on two counts. In

the first place, they are wrong to suggest that law is logically and clearly
separable from morality. In the second place, they are wrong in suggesting
that even though law and morality are two distinct things, the morality by
which law is to be constructed and assessed is exclusively utilitarian. We
have seen clearly that this is not the case, that, in fact, the key notion of
rights is designed to serve as a check against the extremes of utilitarianism,
which might submerge the individual object of moral concern and his or her
nature.
What is the connection between all this and animals? We have just shown
that fundamental legal/moral rights, which override utilitarian
considerations, follow from our recognition that a person is a legitimate
object of moral concern or an end in itself. We have further shown that
those rights follow from the nature or telos of the human person. Freedom
of speech, for example, is a direct consequence of the fact that humans are
by nature rational, social beings with opinions they wish to express. But
now let us recall the entire force of our previous argument. We showed in
the first place that there is no morally relevant difference between humans
and animals. Second, we showed by independent argument that being an
object of moral concern, being an end in itself, and having rights follow
from being alive and having interests that are essentially constitutive of that
life and its telos. In any case, the conclusion of both of these arguments is
that animals are objects of moral concern, just as humans are, and are ends
in themselves. But we have just seen that enjoying legal rights follows and
is indeed inseparable from enjoying moral status. So it also follows that
animals ought to be considered as recipients of legal rights. Furthermore, it
will not do to cite utilitarian arguments against granting legal rights to
animals, because the entire point of rights considered from a social point of
view is anti-utilitarian. If rights are designed to protect objects of moral
concern from the excesses of utilitarianism, it certainly won't do to launch
utilitarian arguments against rights! In fact, one can muster a compelling
argument to the effect that animals are, in one sense, even more deserving
of such legal rights than humans. We have argued that purely utilitarian
laws and decisions are morally inadequate even when the interests of all of
the individuals who will be hurt by those decisions have been counted in
calculating the net benefit. In other words, even if your interest has been
considered in utilitarian calculation and your interest has been outweighed
by the majority, the notion of rights insures that certain aspects of your
individual interests, fundamental to your telos, cannot be violated. If
utilitarian laws and policies are inadequate when the interests of all human
beings have been weighed, what are we to say of such laws and policies
when they do not weigh the interests of all objects of moral concern? And
we certainly do not weigh the interests and benefits of animals when
passing laws and policies. Their interests do not enter into our utilitarian
calculations. How exigent then that their intrinsic value and interests
stemming from their being legitimate candidates for moral concern be
protected by legal rights! We are arguing then that we are morally
compelled to grant legal rights to animals, to protect essential features of
their telos.
Whenever I lecture on this subject, be it before humane groups,
philosophers, scientists, veterinarians, or college students, I invariably
encounter the same objection. "Surely," it is asserted, "animals do have
legal rights. They are protected by laws-anticruelty laws have been in
existence for many years. Why proliferate legislation unnecessarily in a
society that already has far too many laws?" This is a serious and cogent
objection and must be carefully considered.

In the first place, in and of themselves, animals do not have legal rights.
They are not "legal persons" in the eyes of the law in the way adults,
children, ships, municipalities, and corporations are. Rather, animals are
property. Domestic animals-dogs, cats, cattle, and so on-are personal
property, much like automobiles or television sets. If someone kills your
dog, he has committed a crime against you, not against your dog. Until very
recently, in fact, such a person was only liable for the actual value of the
dog. (Recently, courts have begun to hear suits that raise the question of the
sentimental value of the animal and of the pain and anguish suffered at its
loss, but this does not change the animal's status as property.) By the same
token, so-called wild or stray animals are the property of the public, or the
state. (Note, by the way, how naturally we fall into language like "wild" and
"stray," language that defines the animal's status in a way that is relative to
and dependent upon human beings.) In any case, property has no rights, as
the consideration of even well-treated slaves makes clear.

In Colorado, as in many states, a farmer can shoot a dog that crosses his
property line as a potential threat to livestock. Ironically, in most states, a
householder may not shoot a burglar or robber unless he has reasonable
grounds for believing that his life is threatened.
But perhaps animals do not need rights; don't the animal protection or
anticruelty laws suffice? Sadly, no. An examination of these laws will make
our point quite clear. We must note, in the first place, that these laws take
the people who own or use animals as primary objects of moral con cern,
rather than the animals themselves. Consider, for example, the legislative
declaration introducing the Colorado Nongame and Endangered Species
Conservation Act in my home state:

The general assembly finds and declares that it is the policy of this
state to manage all nongame wildlife for human enjoyment and
welfare, for scientific purposes, and to insure their perpetuation as
members of ecosystems [italics mine].

It ought to be quite clear that moral concern toward the animal is not even
mentioned. Rather, it is directed toward humans, knowledge, and the
environment. Things are much worse when we examine the anticruelty
laws. Again, let us look at the Colorado statute, which at one time had the
harshest penalties of any such law in the United States associated with it.
The law says:

A person commits cruelty to animals if, except as authorized by law,

he overdrives, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary
sustenance, unnecessarily or cruelly beats, needlessly mutilates,
needlessly kills, carries in or upon any vehicles in a cruel manner, or
otherwise mistreats or neglects an animal.

At first blush, this law may seem to be quite adequate since it addresses
itself to all sorts of abuse. But a moment's reflection leads us to the
conclusion that it is self-emasculating. The problem is, of course, the use of
words like "needlessly" or "unnecessarily," and through this loophole, the
interests of humans pour on and submerge the moral status of animals. One
discovers that it takes very little to blunt the edge of this law. Subsequent
cases that tested this law made this point quite clear and resulted in a ruling
that asserts that:

Not every act that causes pain and suffering to animals is

prohibited.... Where the end or object is reasonable and adequate, the
act resulting in pain is necessary or justifiable, [as where] the act is
done to protect life or property or to minister to some of the
necessities of man.

So human interests always come first. It is also worth noting that the
extensive catalogue of prohibitions cited in the act takes no cognizance of
behavioral or psychological cruelty. Animal protection laws are typically
Cartesian, seeing animals merely as bodies and failing to take account of
their psychological needs and interests.

One of the most telling examples of the failure of the anticruelty laws to
protect animals in virtue of their flawed conceptual base occurred in 1985
in New York State. A group of animal advocate attorneys, the Animal Legal
Defense Fund, brought suit against the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, the agency in charge of public land use, on
the grounds that the department permitted the use of steel-jawed traps on
these lands. The use of these traps resulted in cruelty to animals; for
example, the trapped animals were deprived of food and water.

The judge was clearly a compassionate and sensitive individual. In his

decision, he asserted that:

If this court could substitute its own personal feelings and emotions
in place of legal precedent, we could end this opinion here with a
decision favoring the protection of animals. However, courts must
follow legal precedent and leave to the other branches of government
the decision as to which of the competing interests will prevail. The
issues here are important ones, but the plaintiffs, if they are to
prevail, must convince the legislative and executive branches of
government of the rightness of the cause (Animal Legal Defense
Fund v. Department of Environmental Conservation).
 The judge, in essence, based his decision on the fact that the way the
anticruelty laws are written does not prohibit the use of the steel jawed
leghold trap. This trap is routinely used and has not been legislatively
prohibited; therefore, its use cannot be seen as falling under the statute that
enjoins a person from "unjustifiably" injuring, maiming, or killing an
animal.

In other words, the traditional ethic embodied in the anticruelty laws

does not suffice to justify legal action against the steel-jawed leghold trap.
Any such action, the judge concluded, required the action of the legislature
and, in short, required the codification of a new ethic for animals that would
go beyond cruelty into new laws by legislative bodies.

The crucial philosophical point that emerges from our discussion thus far
must be stressed. For almost two hundred years, the traditional legal
category for dealing with animal abuses was "cruelty." This was mirrored
by the traditional humane society categorization of the treatment of animals
as evidencing either "cruelty" or "kindness," and the related injunc tion to
"love animals." It is for this reason that those concerned with animal
welfare tended to describe those who caused any animal suffering as "cruel
individuals," and to lump into that class both individuals holding dog fights
and biomedical researchers.

A major component of the new ethic we have been developing in this

book is the realization that kindness and cruelty are inadequate concepts for
discussing our moral obligations to animals. In the first place, most animal
suffering is not a result of intentional cruelty. Most researchers are not
cruel, most animal agriculturalists are not cruel, most rodeo people are not
cruel, and even most trappers are not cruel. They are not trying to hurt
animals and are not deriving pleasure from animal suffering; they are trying
to advance knowledge, cure diseases, make a profit, keep food prices down,
supply fur coats, and so on. Nonetheless, their activities produce
immeasurably more suffering to animals than the actions of the (thankfully)
very small number of sadists who do fit the cruelty rubric.
 Second, kindness, good intentions, and love for animals does not assure
moral treatment of animals, as we will evidence clearly in our discussion of
pet animals. Pet owners may feel much love for their animals, yet cause
them much suffering through ignorance or thoughtlessness.

Third, if our theoretical discussion in chapter 1 has been correct, such

concepts as "kindness"-and even "humaneness"-do not capture the
conceptual basis of our moral obligation to animals; they are far too
patronizing and too suggestive of an overflowing of benevolence on the part
of special individuals. Just as those who are concerned with fair and moral
treatment of women in society would be quick to reject "kindness to
women" as a basis for such treatment, so too ought animal advocates. The
issue of proper treatment of animals, as of women, is a matter of justice and
moral obligation to which one is forced by the logic of one's own morality,
not something nourished by one's happening to have an overflowing of
good will.

Not only can the anticruelty laws easily be set aside for human utilitarian
considerations, but also their very raison d'etre is often as much a concern
for human welfare as for the animals, for the rationale behind such laws
often follows the logic of St. Thomas Aquinas or Kant: that cruelty to
animals ought to be prevented because of the potential danger to the human
population if any sort of cruelty is not nipped in the bud. In Waters v. the
People, a case testing the Colorado anticruelty law, this point is made clear
when it is asserted that:

The aim of this section is not only to protect these animals, but to
conserve public morals [italics mine].

As was the case in nineteenth-century slave protection rulings, the object of

moral concern is not the slave or the animal, but the general welfare of the
"real" objects of moral concern, humans. Humans may be brutalized by
cruelty to nonhumans, be they blacks or animals; therefore, such cruelty
must be prohibited!
 The anthropocentric basis of such laws is made manifest in still another
way. In many states, the already weak anticruelty laws are further diluted by
stipulations that make the acts of cruelty violations of the law only when
they are performed "willfully," "maliciously," "intentionally," and so on. In
short, the measure of criminality is not the effect on the health and welfare
of the animal but, rather, the intentions of the human perpetrator. Clearly,
the laws are designed to deal not so much with animal suffering as with
human sadists, who can presumably represent a grave danger to public
welfare. These laws exempt from cruelty by definition any activity done in
a research establishment in the name of science. Even the most extreme
examples of confinement agriculture, such as the raising of crated white
veal calves, are exempt from prosecution under these laws, so long as they
are commonly practiced. Virtually all of these laws do not include under
cruelty deprivation the following: shelter, shade, ventilation, space,
exercise, or sanitary living conditions.

Not surprisingly in light of the above, cases of cruelty are rarely

prosecuted. Witnesses are hard to find, intentionality and malice are hard to
prove, police officials are overworked and/or do not care. An attorney told
me during the late 1970s that the district attorney of one of America's
largest cities could not remember when the last anticruelty case had been
prosecuted and won. In his filing system, there was an entry for cases of
"unnatural copulation," but none for "cruelty to animals." In Denver during
1978 not a single case was prosecuted under the state law. But even if a case
was prosecuted and a conviction won, the culprit was unlikely to suffer in
any significant way. Typical maximum penalties stipulated were "up to
$500-$1000 fine and/or up to six months or one year in jail," and these are
rarely fully invoked. Often the law said "up to $100 or up to thirty days."

During the last twenty or so years, society has been taking animal
cruelty more seriously because it has become known that such behavior
betokens in perpetrators sentinel behavior for spousal and child abuse.

We now know that the majority of violent offenders in Leavenworth

Federal Prison have early histories of animal abuse, as do many serial
killers and many of the children who in recent years have shot up their
schools and classmates. This, together with growing societal concern about
animal treatment in all areas of animal use, has resulted by 2006 in forty-
two states elevating animal cruelty from a misdemeanor to a felony offense,
twenty-eight of the states in the last decade. In some well-publicized cases,
perpetrators of cruelty have been sentenced to prison terms of over a year.
Some state statutes allow prison terms of five years or more and fines up to
$150,000, but, in reality, these harsher punishments are rarely applied,
given that police forces are often understaffed and courts and prisons are
hugely overcrowded. But the fact that people care enough to try to
strengthen the laws attests to the social strength of animal concern.
Nontheless, the cruelty laws still apply almost exclusively to deviant and
sadistic behavior, not "normal, accepted animal use."

I unfortunately experienced the limitations of the cruelty laws very

dramatically in 1987. Two of my veterinary students had acquired a kitten
in violation of their apartment lease, which prohibited animals. The
landlord found out, let himself into the apartment, and beat the kitten to
death with a hammer. He then left a note to the students telling them what
he had done and reminding them that they were not to have animals. They
filed charges of cruelty against him, and he was eventually convicted and
fined $25. As he left the courtroom, he leaned over to the students, who
were sitting in the gallery, smiled, and said, "For $25, I'd do it again."

Federal laws promulgated for the welfare of animals were also

historically severely inadequate. Consider the pioneering Animal Welfare
Acts of 1966 and 1970. In the first place, a primary purpose of the act was
human utility-it licensed dealers in animals sold to research laboratories in
order to allay the fear of concerned pet owners that their dogs and cats
might be kidnapped and sold to experimenters. In fact, what motivated this
act was a rash of highly publicized kidnappings of pet dogs that were stolen
and sold to research facilities. Included under provisions of the act were
dogs, cats, monkeys, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits. Excluded,
amazingly enough, were rats, mice, all nonwarm-blooded animals, poultry,
horses, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, donkeys, and all other farm ani mals.
Among other things, the act authorizes the secretary of the Department of
Agriculture "to promulgate standards to govern the humane handling, care,
treatment, and transportation of animals by dealers, research facilities and
exhibitors." According to the act:

Such standards shall include minimum requirements with respect to

handling, housing, feeding, watering, sanitation, ventilation, shelter
from extremes of weather and temperatures, adequate veterinary care,
including the appropriate use of anesthetic, analgesic or tranquilizing
drugs, when such use would be proper in the opinion of the attending
veterinarian of such research facilities, and separation by species
when the Secretary finds such separation necessary for the humane
handling, care, or treatment of animals. The Secretary shall also
promulgate standards to govern the transportation in commerce, and
the handling, care, and treatment in connection therewith, by
intermediate handlers, air carriers, or other carriers, of animals
consigned by any dealer, research facility, exhibitor, operator of an
auction sale, or other person, or any department agency, or
instrumentality of the United States or of any state or local
government, for transportation in commerce. The Secretary shall
have authority to promulgate such rules and regulations as he
determines necessary to assure the humane treatment of animals in
the course of their transportation in commerce including
requirements such as those with respect to containers, feed, water,
rest, ventilation, temperature, and handling.

Much as this act represented an undeniable step forward in favor of

animal welfare, it was greatly deficient, not only in its failure to cover all
animals but also in its failure to license individual experimenters (it still
licenses only research institutions). Even more important was its failure to
place any constraints whatsoever on what can be done to research or test
animals in the course of actual experimentation and testing. It puts one in
mind of a sex manual that deals only with foreplay, leaving the sex act itself
undiscussed. The preliminaries are dealt with, but the main event is
untouched:

Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the Secretary to

promulgate rules, regulations, or orders with regard to design,
 outlines, guidelines or performance of actual research or
experimentation by a research facility as determined by such research
facility.

Once again, the experimental animal was hardly being treated as an object
of moral concern in this act when it specifically disavowed any control over
what happened to the animal in the course of experimentation! The only
feeble exception to this resounding abrogation of responsibilities for dealing
with the essential core of the research process was a requirement that
research institutions issue annual reports that

show that professionally acceptable standards governing the care,

treatment, and use of animals, including appropriate use of
anesthetic, and analgesic, and tranquilizing drugs during
experimentation are being followed by the research facility during
actual research experimentation.

Note that this stipulation was essentially vacuous and toothless. It merely
required that research institutions report on their appropriate use of
anesthetics and analgesics. No definition of appropriate use was provided;
institutions can (and did) comply with this provision simply by stating that
in the course of their research the use of such drugs was deemed
inappropriate!

In the next chapter, we shall discuss what constituted a major step

toward meaningful legislation governing animal experimentation. But
before we can do this, we must provide a theoretical legal framework for
the ideal legal status of animals. We have just seen that animals do not
enjoy a legal status commensurate with the fact that they are legitimate
objects of moral concern. Historically, extant legislation has primarily been
oriented toward protecting human interests and property, preventing human
brutalization, and protecting animals only as far as human emotions or
sentimentality are stirred by dramatic atrocities. This is clearly inadequate.
If animals are moral objects, if they enter into the scope of moral concern,
or if they enjoy moral rights, then they must be granted legal rights as well
to protect that moral status. Our legal gestalt on animals must change, along
with our moral gestalt. And in part, changing the legal gestalt will lead to
new moral perceptions.
What would it mean to grant legal rights to animals? Very simply, it would
mean that the law would recognize animals as enjoying legal standing in
themselves, not as property. As such, they could institute legal action, or
more accurately, have legal action instituted on their behalf (rather than on
behalf of their owner), have injuries to them legally considered (rather than
to their owner), and have legal relief directly to their benefit. The relevant
legal analogy here is the case of children. Although children cannot press
legal claims on their own behalf, they still enjoy legal rights. They are not
the property of their parents. Their rights can be pressed by others, such as
social welfare agencies, police, courts, or guardians. Granting rights to
entities that cannot themselves speak for those rights is far from
unprecedented. It is not difficult to imagine those who might serve to press
claims for the animals; the most plausible candidates are members of
humane societies and veterinarians.

There are two major ways, conceptually, in which rights could be

established for animals. In the first place, we can speak of extending
existing rights to animals, just as constitutional rights were extended by
arguments stressing the absence of relevant moral differences from
nativeborn, white, adult, male, property owners to corporations, naturalized
citizens, nonproperty owners, blacks, Asians, children, and women. A
brilliant and accessible analysis of the logic of rights extension has been
presented by Professor Christopher Stone in his book Should Trees Have
Standing? Although Stone's argument does not deal with animals, the points
he makes are directly relevant to our problem. Stone's argument was
originally submitted as a brief to the Supreme Court in the DisneyMineral
King Ski Resort case. In this case, the US Forest Service had granted a
permit to the Walt Disney Corporation to Disney-ize the Mineral King
Valley Wilderness Area in California. The Sierra Club sought to stop this
action. However, both the lower courts and the Supreme Court ruled that
the Sierra Club was not a directly injured party and could not sue. As laws
are written, one can sue only for injuries one directly sustains. For example,
if you pollute a stream running through my property, I can only sue to
recover direct damages-such as loss of income from sale of fishing rights or
loss of property value from despoliation of beach. I cannot sue because the
stream has been ruined, even if it would cost a good deal to restore the
stream to its original state. Thus, if the stream runs through the property of
five people who collectively sustain $15,000 in damages, the polluter can
only be sued for $15,000, even if it would cost $100,000 to restore the
stream. For this reason, Stone argued that natural objects streams,
wilderness areas, forests-should be granted legal standing, with guardians
like the Sierra Club able to press claims on their behalf. As Stone points
out, the argument that only human persons can have such rights is easily
trumped by the fact that corporations have enjoyed such legal standing
since the early nineteenth century, as have ships, trusts, cities, and states.
Obviously, it is far more difficult to defend legal rights for such nonliving
things than for animals, given our earlier argument connecting legal and
moral rights. It is hard to defend the notion that a ship or corporation is a
direct object of moral concern, yet corporations have legal rights. It is, as
we have seen, essentially impossible to rationally deny that animals are
direct objects of moral concern, so it is quite easy in this light to demand
legal standing for them.

How might such an extension be accomplished? Let us imagine a bold,

daring test case that would force these issues to the forefront of legal
discussion. Let us recall that we have shown in detail that rationality and
capacity for language are, strictly speaking, irrelevant to something being a
direct object of moral concern. Nonetheless, the intuitions of ordinary
people and historical precedent both militate against ready acceptance of
this position. Most people are still committed to the idea that speech is
somehow of pivotal moral significance. One of my colleagues, for example,
who has no interest whatever in animal rights, concedes that he would be
greatly interested in these questions if we found an animal that could speak.
Very well, let us milk this essentially indefensible intuition. Most of the
public is at least somewhat familiar with recent work done on teaching
language (or something seen as language by most people) to higher
primates. Though many theoretical linguists, most notably Noam Chomsky,
would decline to speak of these animals as linguistic beings for a number of
technical reasons, our intuitions push in the other direction. After all, these
animals do put signs together in new ways, even to the point of insulting the
researchers. Since language is, philosophically speaking, morally irrelevant
anyway, what counts is not whether or not this is language, but that many
people who think language is morally relevant see these animals as having
language.

Now consider an ape who has learned to communicate with humans

using some system seen by most people as linguistic. The experiment is
terminated, and the animal is no longer of use. What can be done with it?
The animal, as has actually happened, is turned over to a zoo or worse, to a
toxicology laboratory. Could we not press the claim that the animal is
suffering cruel and unusual punishment and has been denied due process?
By current standards, the animal has measurable intelligence; in fact, one
such animal scored an 85 on a standard IQ test. Many humans score a good
deal lower. In fact, the animal lies, swears, and equivocates-sure marks of
intelligence. In any case, could one not press a plausible case on the
grounds that the animal's civil rights had been violated? I am envisioning a
new "monkey trial" at least as spectacular in its implications as the Scopes
trial, which tested the Tennessee law against the teaching of evolution. Such
a trial would be extraordinarily salubrious in just the same sense. The
Scopes trial forced a public airing of our scientific, conceptual, and
educational commitments as well as a dialectical examination of the roles of
science and religion. This trial would force an examination of our moral
commitments and illuminate areas too long left in the dark. Eventually, and
incrementally, by a process of legal and moral argument stressing the
absence of relevant differences, one can envision the judicial extension of
some rights to all animals.

The second way of establishing legal rights for animals involves not
judicial extension but rather legislative conferral. Laws governing the
treatment of animals must be written in the language of rights, with animals
seen as objects of moral concern, and with human utilitarian interests
relegated to the background. This, as we have argued, is the force of all talk
of "rights." In the long run, this route is probably more plausible than
judicial extension. But the question remains as to what rights need to be
legally established, by whatever means employed. There are innumerable
areas in which this question ramifies-animal experimentation, factory or
intensive farming, horse and dog racing, pet ownership, and zoos. In our
next chapter, we shall discuss in depth the role of such laws in animal
experimentation. In the following chapter, we shall discuss pet animals,
perhaps the most psychologically acceptable candidates for legal standing
in the minds of most people, who can and do compare these animals to
children. Suffice it to say that the basic content of such laws has already
been established in our earlier discussion of the moral status of animals and
of the rights that accrue to them in virtue of that status. Fundamentally,
some version of the right to life, the right to be protected from suffering,
and the right to live life according to their telos or nature are basic rights
that should be legally codified for animals. Indeed, when I ran a full-day
seminar for Canadian government officials charged with making decisions
relevant to animal use, many felt that a Bill of Rights for animals would be
a desirable basis for encapsulating emerging social change.
Clearly, it is utopian to expect these rights to be established immediately in
our current socioeconomic and cultural context. People are not prepared to
give up meat or the benefits that come from biomedical research. And in a
real sense, it is absurd to expect them to at this stage. After all,
consciousness that animals are moral entities at all is only just beginning to
develop. But what one can expect is that as the consciousness does awaken,
as the gestalt shift prevails, people will be more and more willing to make
sacrifices for moral reasons. The process is, of course, dialectical.
Awakening moral awareness leads to codifications of this awareness in law
but, even more important, codification in law serves as a spur to further
awaken moral awareness. We are, happily, a people who respect the law
and, correlatively, to a certain significant extent one can use law to further
morality. In the mid-1950s, in the wake of many monumental civil rights
decisions, one heard plaintive wails from those who argued that one could
not "legislate morality." Integration had to evolve, it was declared. It could
not be accomplished by laws and regulations; one first had to change hearts
and minds. Today, we can see just how wrong these people were. Much
remains to be done, but it is demonstrable that integration has worked in the
United States, and most dramatically in the South, politically, economically,
educationally, and socially. Slowly but surely attitudes changed, and
children now grow up with tolerance, not hatred, inculcated and sanctified
by laws and institutions. For this reason, we shall shortly be discussing laws
that, while falling short of the full rights model, can move society in that
direction.

It is not utopian to describe laws that provide significant regulation of

the use of animals in research, as we shall shortly see. Nor is it utopian to
suggest laws governing intensive farming that take as fundamental the
animal's right to live its life in accordance with its nature.

Such a law was passed in Sweden in 1989, and the European Com
munity (formerly the European Economic Community) is moving in the
same direction. Related laws have been passed in Germany, Switzerland,
and Scandinavia, and were recommended as long ago as the 1960s by the
Brambell Committee in Britain, based on a philosophy not unlike what we
have developed. I am quite certain that, having demanded laws for animals
used in research, society will next demand laws providing at least limited
rights for farm animals. Unfortunately, the quest for efficiency and
productivity in twentieth-century agriculture did not benefit agricultural
animals, and continues not to. Whereas traditional agriculture had to fit
animal and environment, telos and husbandry, else the animals would get
sick and die, technology has allowed the development of a confinement
agriculture that puts square pegs into round holes, meaning putting animals
into conditions that they are not suited for by their telos and that keep them
alive by use of "technological sanders" like vaccines and antibiotics. This
sort of agriculture has also accelerated agribusiness and has helped drive
out small family farmers who cannot afford to compete. Ominously, in most
universities, departments of animal husbandry are now called "animal
science."

Laws assuring some rights for farm animals would go a long way toward
eliminating major atrocities, such as the raising of veal calveskept in tiny
boxes where they cannot turn around, and where they are fed on diets that
keep them anemic and in constant distress from diarrheaall in order to keep
the meat pale. Such laws might plausibly specify, on the basis of ethological
knowledge, the form that feed lots would have to take. They might limit the
number of egg-laying chickens that are kept in cages or mandate alternative
systems. As many as nine chickens are put into 19" x 24" cages. They might
require ethologically sound husbandry for swine. Hopefully, laws requiring
moral husbandry would not be too economically disruptive. A good deal of
data, currently available in animal science research sources, indicates that
moral husbandry is economically profitable, as we shall see in our
discussion of agriculture. As early as the 1980s, Quantock Veal, a division
of the largest veal retailer in Great Britain, abandoned the use of the tiny
boxes for raising veal calves, partially in response to public pressure but
also for economic reasons. Writing in the Veterinary Record in 1980, a
Quantock executive stated that
 the calves are contented and healthier, the culling rate has halved.
The system is less costly for the farmer, less capital need be tied up in
buildings which need not have been expensively built for a controlled
environment.

It turns out that it is actually 50 percent cheaper to raise the calves in this
new way, in groups of thirty in straw-filled pens with natural light and
ventilation where they can move about, ruminate, and groom themselves.
There is also evidence that indicates that milk yield from dairy cows is a
function of the care and attention the cows receive from the herdsman. In
fact, research indicates that this variable is very important to productivity.
Paul Hemsworth has elegantly demonstrated the importance of
human/animal interaction to productivity. If proper care is not economically
feasible, perhaps we need to turn our attention to breeding food animals that
are essentially devoid of interests, incapable of physical or behavioral
suffering, and basically enjoy a mere protoplasmic existence. Perhaps we
might breed microcephalic animals, or clone sides of beef, or produce meat
protein in fermentation vats through biotechnology.

We can also envision laws that regulate adoption of pets as strictly as the
adoption of children and that provide harsh penalties for abandoning
animals or letting them run loose. We shall discuss the law in relation to pet
animals in a later chapter. Other areas sorely in need of legislation to protect
the rights of animals include zoos, animals in entertainment, and wildlife
management.

It is important to stress that legislation alone is not enough. As we shall

see in the next chapter, for example, it does not suffice simply to pass laws
governing what can and cannot be done to experimental animals. Scientists
must be made to understand the rationale behind such laws, and they have
to be made aware that such regulations are not simply another set of
bureaucratic hoops they must jump through, another set of obstacles to
freedom of thought and inquiry. But such awareness can only be
accomplished through education, so education and legislation must go hand
in hand. And the sort of education that is required would in many ways
entail a complete rethinking of science education, an incorporation, as we
shall shortly see, of conceptual and moral questions into curricula hitherto
conceived of as unsullied by anything other than technical concerns.
Wherever one intends to legislate, one must also educate, be it in the field
of animal experimentation or in the area of responsible pet ownership.
It is quite easy to caricature everything we have suggested, to imagine a
case for "freedom of bark," or for giving turtles the right to vote. (In this
regard, we may cite a cartoon showing an animal control officer with a
morose dog in his truck. The officer is reading from a card, "You have the
right to remain silent.") But in the final analysis, we must recall that the
notion of extending rights to blacks and to women was similarly vilified
and ridiculed. One need only look at newspapers of the period to find these
concepts broadly and viciously lampooned. Even the courts found the
notion of slaves having rights an absurdity; witness the Virginia court's
opinion in Bailey v. Poindexter in an 1858 decision.

So far as civil rights and relations are concerned, the slave is not a
person, but a thing. The investiture of chattel with civil rights or legal
capacity is indeed a legal absurdity. The attribution of legal
personality to a chattelslave-legal conscience, legal intellect, legal
freedom or liberty and power of free choice and action ... implies a
palpable contradiction in terms.

It will not do to ignore a moral argument just because it has always been
ignored. Immorality sanctified by tradition is still immorality. Nor can
moral arguments be repudiated on the grounds of convenience. Each step in
moral progress exacts a cost in convenience and utility. Slavery was
economically useful. Seizing Jewish property was quite useful to the
German state and indeed to the majority of the German people. Breaking
treaties with American Indians was convenient. If animals are objects of
moral concern, then they have moral rights and, correlatively, they must
have legal rights. To be sure, they cannot be the rights of an adult human
being; but neither are the rights of children and corporations. That animals
have rights can be established a priori, by reason, as we have done. But
what these rights are-legal and moral-is only partly a matter of reason. As
we argued, answering this question requires a clear, empirical
understanding of an animal's telos or nature. This, in turn, requires that we
carefully study animal behavior and biology to establish clearly the needs
and interests of other creatures, though it does not take a Konrad Lorenz to
tell us that our treatment of veal calves, for example, is an obscene
perversion of the natural.

To grant legal rights to animals is to institutionalize their claim to moral

concern, to recognize this status in a way that is writ large, to force us to
pause and look at what we take for granted, and to confront the inexpedient
and bothersome consequences of being moral agents. Certainly, the
utilitarian costs are enormous, but so too were the opportunity costs of
abolishing slavery and child labor.
The first edition of this book was written over twenty-five years ago in an
attempt to articulate a social ethic for animals that went beyond cruelty
since, as we saw earlier, the overwhelming majority of animal suffering
does not arise from the sort of deliberate, deviant, sadistic cruelty
proscribed by the anticruelty laws. To illustrate this point graphically,
consider the fact that the United States produced almost nine billion broiler
chickens in 2004, many of which experienced musculoskeletal pain and
injury in virtue of having been bred for rapid growth so that they reached
the market weight that used to occur at twenty-eights weeks in only eight
weeks. If this led to pain, injury, or bruising in even half of the chickens
(the figure is probably considerably higher), over four billion animals
suffered in the broiler chicken industry alone. We can be morally certain
that the acts of deliberate cruelty committed in the United States in a year
do not approach four billion. Most of us have not even seen deliberate
cruelty in our lifetime. To get that many acts of cruelty every single human
being in the United States-every man, woman, and childwould need to
commit over ten acts of cruelty per year! So, I realized that society needed a
new ethic to assess animal treatment if it was to concern itself with animal
suffering that is not the result of cruelty.

I further realized that new ethics are not created out of whole cloth de
novo, but rather proceed from preexisting ethics whose implications have
not been fully understood. If one creates ethics de novo, how can one
expect society as a whole to buy into it? Instead, to use Plato's brilliant
concept, one must remind rather than teach, i.e., draw out the implications
of what is already there. I sometimes use a different metaphor drawn from
martial arts judo versus sumo. If one is fighting a vastly physically superior
opponent, it is stupid to meet force with force (sumo). It makes far more
sense to use one's opponent's force against him, which is the art of judo!
(This is similar to Abraham Lincoln's quip that the best way to defeat an
enemy is to make him a friend.)
 Thus, if one is attempting to change social ethics, it is unlikely that one
can force such a change (one cannot even force one's ethics on other
individuals!) Rather one must show that what one is attempting to establish
is already implicit in the society's accepted belief.

There are two cases in twentieth-century US history that beautifully

illustrate our point. The first is Prohibition, which one can fairly
characterize as an attempt by a minority (nondrinkers) to change the
morality of the imbibing majority. They did so by manipulating the political
process adroitly and getting a constitutional amendment against drinking.
Did people stop drinking? Of course not! They actually drank more;
Canadian vendors and bootleggers earned the liquor money instead of US
businessmen; organized crime got a foothold in business, which we have
never been able to shake; and ordinary citizens became scofflaws. Thus,
sumo, or teaching, did not work.

On the other hand, consider a case of reminding, or judo-Lyndon

Johnson's Civil Rights Act of 1964. Himself a Southern redneck, Johnson
realized that even Southern rednecks accepted the following two premises
as part of their social ethic: (1) All humans should be treated equally and
(2) black people are human. They just never bothered to draw the
conclusion! Johnson bet his career that if he "wrote this large" in law, in
Plato's felicitous phrase, people would be reminded of the unnoticed
implications of their own ethics and accept civil rights. Indeed, had Johnson
been wrong, civil rights legislation would have ended up being as irrelevant
and ignored as Prohibition!

My strategy for getting society to move beyond cruelty in animal ethics,

then, was twofold. The first step involved finding evidence that society was
indeed concerned with animal suffering that was not the result of cruelty.
Second, I believed that one could remind society that our ethic for humans
could be applied, appropriately modified, to the treatment of animals.
Specifically, I tried to remind society that the same conceptual machinery
we use to protect the individual from the general welfarelegal and moral
rights-could be deployed in the animal area as a check against forgetting the
individual animals' needs and natures when we use them. Thus, in the next
chapter, we will describe how, through writing new federal laws, we created
certain rights for laboratory animals, notably the right to incur pain as
subjects of controlled research, a nontrivial right if one is a laboratory
animal! Later, we will show how this same notion applies even more
naturally to agriculture, because agriculture implicitly respected animals'
rights throughout most of its history!

In the twenty-five years following the first edition of this book, three
social strategies have surfaced for establishing animals' rights or protections
as mainstream phenomena. One move has been, in essence, to deny the
concept we saw articulated in Baily v. Poindexter, namely, the idea that a
piece of property (be it a slave or an animal) can have rights is a logical
absurdity. In fact, in both ancient Rome and in the pre-Civil War South, one
could not dispose of slaves as one saw fit; to kill a slave could be
considered murder. Tellingly, slaves were referred to in Roman law as
property with a soul. In a brief written for the Canadian Law Reform
Commission, I argued that it was not absurd to both see animals as property
and build protective legal fences (rights) around them! Nonetheless,
increasing numbers of legal scholars are seeking innovative strategies for
raising animal legal status.

We argued earlier in this chapter that the most logical, straightforward

approach is to confer legal personhood on animals. This, however, is legally
without precedent and probably would require a constitutional amendment.
Not surprisingly, this is at best a long-term possibility and almost
impossible to conceptualize for animals that we kill for human benefit.
Consequently, the only area where this has even been abortively discussed
is with regard to companion animals, as we shall shortly discuss. As one
attorney said to me, law is so conservative that it would be an unimaginably
difficult task to turn animals into persons-so many legal questions would
need to be answered with no clear guide to answering them.

It is far easier, it turns out, to put restrictions on how people can use
animal property in ways that benefit and protect the animal because
restrictions on property use are well established in law. Such questions as
"Who speaks for a laboratory animal if they are granted personhood?" are
avoided by simply saying that while animals are researchers' property,
researchers are legally required to control animal pain occasioned by
research. And this has been the strategy for creating legally codified animal
rights! Indeed, the laboratory animal laws typify this strategy.

The only animals for whom human utilitarian uses do not make it absurd
to contemplate legal personhood for animals are the cases where we do not,
for the sake of our use, eat, kill, or consume them. This is, of course, the
case with companion animals and, not surprisingly, some movement has
occurred in that direction. The municipalities of Boulder, Colorado, San
Francisco, California, and the state of Rhode Island have ordinances
declaring owners to instead be "guardians." In Rhode Island, at least, this is
largely rhetorical since a guardian is defined as an owner. And, if such
ordinances were tested in the legal system, it is virtually certain that they
would be held to be unconstitutional!

The final strategy for raising the status of animals has been the recent
attempt to raise the economic value of animals beyond their market value.
We will discuss this concept in our chapter on companion animals. Here it
suffices to stress that the major way for affording rights to animals over the
last twenty-five years has been writing animal protection laws limiting what
one may do to them as personal or communal property, while not frontally
assaulting the property notion. In 2004, over two thousand bills were
offered in state legislatures aimed at animal welfare. Restricting what one
can do with animal property is much easier terrain than changing their legal
status. But moral and welfare progress has certainly been made and most
dramatically, perhaps, in science.
 hus far, we have allowed ourselves the luxury of theory, unsullied by
the pressures and constraints of realpolitik. We have arrived at the ideal, the
target in Aristotle's phrase, the yardstick against which we can measure
actual practice. Certainly, the significance of such an activity cannot be
underestimated; yet humans and society being what they are, we cannot
expect immediate reversal of habits and traditions entrenched by time and
nurtured by expediency. What then can be done? Despairing of foreseeable
total success, does one retire to polish and refine one's abstract theoretical
model? Here we may take a clue from David Hume, the great philosophical
skeptic, a thinker whose powerful arguments cast doubt on our grounds for
believing in minds (including our own), physical objects, causality, order in
nature, God, science, reason, and the difference between the subjective and
objective. Having done this, Hume does not reject his arguments but sets
them aside and uses practical ethics for, after all, one must live in the world.
"Be a philosopher," he tells us, "but be first a man."

In a similar vein, we must conclude that being a philosopher does not

allow us the luxury of escaping from the world, however attractive that may
be. Philosophers, especially moral philosophers, can no longer justify
disengagement from the mundane on the grounds that they are concerned
with what ought to be, not with what is. The crystalline purity of our
reasoned arguments must be sullied by an encounter with social reality. This
is especially pressing in the case of the moral status of animals. An arsenal
of well-wrought arguments proving conclusively that we all ought to be
vegetarians or that all animal experimentation is immoral is important, as
we have stressed, but will probably in and of itself make little direct
difference to the total amount of suffering in the universe. It is equally
important to make these arguments count in some real and efficacious way.
And to do this requires that we confront in detail the existential facts of our
moral situation and realistically assess the ways in which our arguments can
meaningfully intersect with practice.
 We must not expect our philosophical model to serve as a blueprint for
immediate social change, for this expectation is as realistic as Allen
Ginsberg's attempt to levitate the Pentagon in the 1960s. There has never
been a social revolution in the history of American democracy that did not
proceed incrementally. And this is a fortiori true in the area of animal
treatment, where society is only just beginning to think through its
obligations to animals, which was something essentially invisible even to
highly morally sensitive individuals throughout history. Our moral model
must provide us with a yardstick to measure our moral progress. Most
people who consider themselves Christians are not capable of turning the
other cheek; that does not make them hypocrites. To some, our willingness
to deviate from the ideal we have set up in the face of what is practically
possible may appear as hypocrisy, as "selling out," as prostitution of one's
ideals. But in the final analysis, the question that must always loom before
us is this: Are the animals any better off in virtue of our efforts? We must
avoid contenting ourselves with serving as moral kamikazes, going down in
a blaze of glory yet making little difference to the outcome of the battle.

So it is to the question of animal experimentation that we now turn,

where we shall attempt to adjust our theoretical model to the harsh
landscape of reality. It is here that we find a significant amount of animal
suffering, and correlatively, a great potential for diminution of that
suffering. We shall find in the course of our discussion that the problem is
enormously complex and not amenable to simple solutions. The traditional
rhetoric that has characterized the debate between proponents and
opponents of research is so simplistic as to be almost meaningless. Yet,
tragically, it has served as an insurmountable barrier to genuine dialogue
and, even worse, as a barrier to the determination of common ground. In
addition to the invective invariably hurled by both sides ("Sadistic
vivisectionist"; "Bleeding heart humaniac"; "You would stop us from curing
leukemia"; "You torture kittens for fun," to name a few), the situation has
been characterized by abysmal ignorance on both sides. Typically,
opponents of animal experimentation know little about research and often
discredit themselves by offering wholly implausible "alternatives" to the
use of animals. By the same token, researchers have rarely thought through
the moral questions associated with animal experimentation and discredit
themselves with absurd claims that animals have no awareness, or really
don't suffer, or that might makes right, or that science is value free. Our
problem then is to bridge these gaps of ignorance and to work toward a
realistic improvement in the lot of the experimental animals, keeping
always in view the ideal model we have constructed yet not hesitating to
deviate from it if the pressures of reality force us to do so. The problem of
the research animal serves as a dramatic exemplar and best case for our
ultimate purpose-unifying moral philosophy and current reality. Our society
is not yet ready to grant full legal and moral rights to animalswe must look
to the best approximation of these ideas that can be actualized in our current
sociocultural context.
Few of us realize the extent to which animals are employed in research and
testing of all sorts. In fact, the figures stagger the imagination. It has been
estimated that the total number of laboratory animals used throughout the
world annually is 200 to 225 million. The United States accounts for about
100 million of these animals as follows: 50 million mice, 20 million rats,
and about 30 million other animals, including 200,000 cats and 450,000
dogs. These statistics, incidentally, indicate the true absurdity of the original
Animal Welfare Act, growing out of its failure to provide any protection at
all for the vast majority of animals used, as rats and mice alone constitute
over 90 percent of the total.*

Most of us tend to think of laboratory animals in terms of cancer

research and the curing of diseases, major areas of activity that are clearly
of enormous significance in potentially bettering all of life, human and
animal. As a result, many people are not too terribly concerned with the
"plight" of laboratory animals and tend to see whatever suffering they do
undergo as major contributions to the common good. Indeed, scientists tend
to perpetuate this image of the use of research animals and when referring
to the killing of laboratory animals, even in scientific papers, tend to speak
of "sacrificing" the animal. (We shall return to a detailed discussion of such
language shortly.) It is revelatory for most people that most laboratory
animals are, in fact, employed in far less noble pursuits, although no clear
statistics are available to document this in any detailed way. Such activities
include using toxicity and irritation testing for teaching, extraction of
products, and development of drugs and consumer products, such as
foodstuffs and cosmetics. Thus, when speaking of the question of "research
on laboratory animals," we must take great care to realize the variegated
activities subsumed under that rubric. We must take care to distinguish a
number of distinct activities. For convenience, we may group them into the
following categories, recognizing that they represent gross
oversimplifications:
1. Basic biological research; that is, the formulation and testing of
hypotheses about fundamental theoretical questions, such as the
nature of DNA replication or mitochondrial activity, with little
concern for the practical effect of that research.

2. Applied basic biomedical research-the formulation and testing of

hypotheses about diseases, dysfunctions, and genetic defectsthat,
while not necessarily having immediate consequences for treatment of
disease, are at least seen as directly related to such consequences.
Included in this category is the testing of new therapies, such as
surgical, gene therapy, and radiation treatment. Clearly, the distinction
between category one and this category will constitute a spectrum
rather than a clear-cut cleavage.

3. The development of drugs and therapeutic chemicals and biologicals:

this differs from the earlier categories, again in degree (especially
category two), but is primarily distinguished by what might be called
a "shotgun" approach; that is, the research is guided not so much by
well-formulated theories that suggest that a certain compound might
have a certain effect but, rather, by hit-and-miss, exploratory,
inductive "shooting in the dark." The primary difference between this
category and the others is that here one is aiming at discovering
specific substances for specific purposes rather than at knowledge, per
se.

4. The testing of various consumer goods for safety, irritation, toxicity,

and degree of toxicity. Such testing includes the testing of cosmetics,
food additives, herbicides, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and so
forth, as well as the testing of drugs for toxicity, carcinogenesis
(production of cancer), mutagenesis (production of mutations in living
bodies), and teratogenesis (production of monsters and abnormalities
in embryo development). To some extent, obviously, this category
will overlap with category three, but should be distinguished in virtue
of the fact that three refers to the discovery of new drugs, and four to
their testing relative to human (and, in the case of veterinary drugs,
animal) safety.
 5. The use of animals in educational institutions and elsewhere for
demonstration, dissection, surgery practice, induction of disease for
demonstrative purposes, high school science projects, and so on.

6. The use of animals for the extraction of products, such as serum from
horses, or musk from civet cats. Strictly speaking, this is not research.

It is thus quite important to be clear about which activities one is

referring to when discussing "research on animals," since arguments
relevant to one area will clearly not fit one or more of the others. A failure
to do so on the part of many well-intentioned opponents of "animal
experimentation" has traditionally led to a breakdown in communication
with those who utilize animals in their activities. It is obviously necessary
to discuss each of these categories separately, taking cognizance of the
problems unique to each pursuit.
Before embarking on these discussions, it is worth clarifying some basic
moral presuppositions that follow from our previous discussion and that
will underlie our subsequent argument. We have argued that there is no
clear-cut line between humans and animals from a moral point of view, and
further, that animals have moral rights following from their nature, or telos,
as humans do. We have correlatively argued that since law rests on morality
and that a key moral notion encoded in the law is the notion of rights
possessed by human individuals, animals, too, ought to possess legal rights
that protect their fundamental natures. From a strictly philosophical point of
view, I think that we must draw a startling conclusion: If a certain sort of
research on human beings is considered to be immoral, a prima facie case
exists for saying that such research is immoral when conducted on animals.
Our reasons for saying that various kinds of research on humans is immoral
is that it causes pain or infringes on freedom or violates some basic interest
or right of man. Clearly then such reasoning should be carried over to
animals as well, unless one can cite a morally relevant difference that
characterizes the animal, and we have already argued that such a difference
is not likely to be forthcoming.

Such a criterion would not eliminate all research on animals, even as use
of that criterion has not vitiated all research on humans. After all, we still
do experiments on people that do not violate their right to dignity, equality,
choice, and freedom from suffering. But use of that criterion would
effectively curtail the vast majority of research in all of the above
categories. Clearly, such a position is utopian and socially and
psychologically impossible in our culture. And if, as I suggested earlier,
morality must deal with what is in some sense at least in part actualizable,
we cannot even adopt the abolition of animal experimentation as an
achievable moral goal in our sociopsychological milieu. As Kant said in
another context, "Ought implies can." That is, to suggest meaningfully that
we ought to abolish our animal experimentation, legislatively or otherwise,
is absurd unless this is something that can happen in our world, as it would
be absurd to believe in abolishing all war. That is not to suggest that it
cannot serve as a regulative ideal or yardstick against which to measure our
activities, but it is to suggest that it cannot currently be seen as a goal to be
achieved.

Why not? Primarily because most of society is not prepared to sacrifice

the benefits that research brings, especially in the area of disease control
and treatment. Nor is society prepared to give up faith in science as a
dominant mode of dealing with reality, and the abolition of animal
experimentation would essentially mean an end to much of science as we
know it. That is, our rejection of the moral status of animals in this context
grows out of utilitarian considerations, out of considerations that suggest
that more good than suffering comes out of experimentation. We have seen
in the previous chapter that such an approach typifies our societal approach
to decision making. We are not prepared to give up the chance to cure
cancer in order to limit the suffering of mice.

This is not to suggest that the human-benefit rationale provides a good,

philosophically defensible argument to justify invasive animal use to
achieve that benefit, though many researchers assume that it does. Thus, in
a statement typical of such arguments, Dr. Theodore Cooper, a medical
researcher defending the invasive use of animals in research, asserted that

The main purpose of ... research ... is to improve or protect the health
of people.... Scientists make a distinction between the value of human
life and the value of animal life.... Most modern societies (not all)
place a higher value on human life than on nonhuman animal life.
Therefore, in the absence of the perfect information or the currently
needed information, the scientist is willing to make progress.

Most defenses of invasive animal use make a similar argument.

But is this argument cogent? Let us assume without question both that a
great deal of human benefit has flowed from animal research and that
animal life is valued less than human life. That in itself, of course, would
not ipso facto morally justify the invasive use of animals. The last one
hundred years have witnessed a great deal of documented exploitation of
humans for research who were or are less valued-blacks, primitives,
criminal and political prisoners, women, retarded and insane persons,
indigents, derelicts, and the elderly. Even if great benefits flowed from these
activities, that would not make them right. (If we felt it did, we presumably
would do all of our research on humans of this sort for scientific reasons.)
What this argument comes down to, I think, is the assertion that given
perceived human need and self-interest, given the benefits that flow from
animal research, and given animal impotence, invasive research will
continue to be done. (Most scientists I know do not feel comfortable in
asserting that they have a right to hurt animals for our benefit, but they
nonetheless believe it will and should be done for the benefit it brings.)

This point was articulated well to me by members of the Australian

biomedical research community at a conference on ethics and animal
experimentation. Philosophers and others who have articulated the ideal for
animals, they explained, have indeed developed cogent and hitherto ignored
points. But, they continued, do you really expect us to immediately give up
our careers, our research activities, and the benefits to humans that flow
from animal experimentation? Such an expectation, they argued, is naive.
What they wanted from philosophers and others concerned with animal
rights was some program for improving the lot of animals, for
approximating to the ideal, short of abandoning the entire enterprise. And
their response was, it appeared, typical of how researchers react as they
begin to understand the moral dimensions we have outlined. (Some
researchers do, of course, abandon animal research when they understand
the moral issues at stake, but they are not a majority.) This, then, I think
circumscribes the arena upon which our discussion of animal research must
be played out if our arguments are to have any potential effect, point of
contact with the real world, or potential for ameliorating animal suffering.
For one to argue and work only for the total abolition of animal
experimentation is to act as a moral kamikaze, a suicide pilot, though the
analogy breaks down insofar as the kamikaze had some statistical chance of
making a dent in the opposition. Perhaps, as we said earlier, Allen
Ginsberg's attempt to levitate the Pentagon during the Vietnam War is a
better analogy. This is not, of course, to suggest that one must simply accept
the status quo; in fact, much of our subsequent discussion will be directed
precisely toward making significant changes in this monumental edifice.

One point emerges quite clearly here: If utilitarian considerations govern

our acceptance of animal experimentation, it is reasonable to ask, as
Bentham and Mill did, why all creatures capable of feeling pleasure and
pain are not included in the utilitarian reckoning. It is sometimes said that
they are; that research on animals benefits animals as well as humans, so
that the net benefit outweighs the net cost. This may be true for certain
areas of research, but a moment's reflection on our categories of research
makes it quite clear that this is far from usual.

Ignoring this inconsistency, and accepting as currently socially

inevitable the idea that human utility will always be paramount, at least in
the foreseeable future, one can at least reasonably make the following
demand of all our categories: that the benefit to humans (or to humans and
animals) clearly outweighs the pain and suffering experienced by the
experimental animals. Granted that the weighing of pleasure and pain is
notoriously difficult, still we all do so daily. I judge that I will cause more
total pain than pleasure by having an affair with one of my students. My
colleagues judge that we will engender more pleasure than pain by sharing
our meager raises equally than by rewarding one or two people at the
expense of the others, and so forth. Correlatively, as we shall see, there are
many cases of research in which the pain to the animals is clear and
extreme, whereas the benefit to humans or animals is questionable and
nebulous. Let us call this demand the utilitarian principle.

We may reasonably make another demand. If we are socially committed

to research on animals and are prepared to embrace the utilitarian principle,
we should also reasonably embrace the following dictum: In cases where
research is deemed justifiable by the utilitarian principle, it should be
conducted in such a way as to maximize the animal's potential for living its
life according to its nature or telos, and certain fundamental rights should be
preserved as far as possible, given the logic of the research, regardless of
considerations of cost. We can call this the rights principle. It essentially
suggests that certain aspects of the animal's nature are sacred and need to be
protected against total submersion by utilitarian considerations. This, in
turn, means that we cannot do as we see fit to a research animal, even if we
have determined that the animal's use is justified by the utilitarian principle.
We must avoid encroaching on the animal's fundamental interests and
nature, and this, in turn, means that it has rights such as the right to freedom
from pain, the right to being housed and fed in accordance with its nature,
the right to exercise, and the right to company if it is a social being; in
short, the right to being treated as an end in itself, regardless of the cost.
What this means in practice is this: We weigh a piece of research by the
utilitarian principle. If it meets this test, it may be performed. There may be
pain and/or discomfort associated with such an experiment that is
unavoidable, e.g., if we are infecting the animal with a disease. The point of
the rights principle is that even if the experiment is justified and does
involve infringing on some aspects of the animal's nature, we are still
obliged to protect the other aspects of its nature and other interests, and to
do so regardless of cost. Thus, if the disease is accompanied by pain, the
animal should be given analgesics. The animal should be housed so as to
respect its telos, and other areas of distress should be controlled.

Furthermore, I think that it is both morally required and pragmatically

feasible to envision these principles incorporated into a meaningful future
federal Animal Welfare Act, covering all animals in all categories. This is
the point of intersection between our previous chapters and our actual
sociocultural situation. Legislation must be written that ensures that
research be chosen (and funded) in accordance with the utilitarian principle
and conducted in accordance with the rights principle.

It may be thought that such a suggestion is as utopian as abolishing all

research altogether. Scientists will never consent to such a surrender of their
freedom, especially when the scientific community has historically tended
to resist all control and has tended to minimize the significance of animal
suffering. This is a major objection, and we shall return to it in what
follows. So now, let us review the various categories of research in greater
detail, keeping in mind our previous arguments and the two principles we
have distilled from them.
According to regulations promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration,
each new chemical or biological substance marketed for consumer use-
drugs, food and food additives, herbicides, and pesticides-must be subjected
to safety evaluation. Cosmetics, shampoos, and the like are also subject to
such testing, in part due to additional federal regulations and in part due to
manufacturers' desires to protect themselves from lawsuits in case a
substance should later prove to be detrimental to human health. With
increasing numbers of substances being marketed, more pressure mounting
from the consumer lobby, and greater litigiousness in society, more and more
testing is required. The primary vehicles for testing these substances are
animals (circa twenty million per year in the 1990s in the United States; the
European Union estimates that 25 percent of all ani mals used in research are
employed in regulatory testing), and the methods employed fall into a few
major categories.

Europe has been far more active in the alternatives area, recognizing that,
as the European Commissioner for Science and Research affirmed, "We
know from public opinion surveys that animal rights are very close to the
heart of Europeans." He went on to say, "We will continue to support
research, development, and evaluation of alternative methods through the
European Research Framework Program." There are currently twenty-three
alternative methods that have been validated in Europe, and thirty others are
under validation in the European Center for Validation of Alternative
Methods (ECVAM).

Some US companies have recognized the animal rights trend in social

ethics, disavowed animal testing for cosmetics, and benefited greatly
financially, most notably, perhaps, the Body Shop.

For an excellent and readable account of the current state of toxicological

alternatives, the reader should consult a January 2006 paper in Scientific
American magazine by Alan Goldberg, a pioneer in alternatives at John
Hopkins, and Thomas Hartung, titled "Protecting More than Animals." This
paper also points out that non-animal alternatives are often more precise than
animal testing.
The testing of these various substances first of all requires some standard
way of judging their toxicity, i.e., the extent to which they are poisonous.
One standard measure that has been adopted is called the LD50 test, short
for Lethal Dose 50 percent. The test was introduced in another context in
1927 by J. W. Trevan, who was concerned with providing a statistical
solution to the problem of biological variation; that is, given a group of rats
exposed to a given substance, not all the rats responded to the same dose in
the same way. The LD50 indicates the amount of a substance that, when
administered in a single dose to a group of animals, will result in the death
of 50 percent of the group within fourteen days. (The LD100 indicates the
minimum dosage that would kill all of the animals in the time period; the
LDO indicates the maximum dosages that would kill none of the animals.)

The LD50 test is thus a measure of acute toxicity, i.e., single dose or
fractional doses given over a short period, typically orally, though there are
also inhalant and dermal versions of the test. It is by far the most widely
used test for toxicity of drugs, chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, food
additives, and household substances; it is invariably the first study done in
toxicity evaluation and often the only test done. A high percentage (no
exact figure is available) of the animals used in product and drug testing are
used in LD50 tests. By the time the classical LD50 is determined, sixty to
one hundred animals have been poisoned. A variety of federal regulations
and agencies in the United States militate in favor of the use of the LD50,
and procedural methodology for the test has been standardized through the
Hazardous Substances Act, the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical
Substances (or Toxic Substances List), and the Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. For example, the most conspicuous value
listed in the Toxic Substances List is the LD50. The LD50 is also
effectively required by the Interstate Commerce Commission, since a
failure to supply LD50 data forces a manufacturer to treat the substance as
belonging to the most toxic category, and shipping requirements become
very stringent and expensive.
 Given the prevalence of the test and the number of animals who suffer in
virtue of its widespread use, it is worth considering its legitimacy as a
scientific device, ignoring moral considerations for the moment.
Extraordinarily, one finds a wide variety of stringent criticisms directed
against the test, considered as an indicator of safety evaluation for humans.
In a 1968 article in Modern Trends in Toxicology, "The Purpose and Value
of LD50 Determinations," Morrison, Quinton, and Reinert critically
reviewed the literature on LD50 testing. These authors, it must be
emphasized, were totally unconcerned with the moral problems surrounding
the test, or with the moral status of animals-their concern was simply
methodological and theoretical. The authors point out, first of all, that LD50
tests tell us only about the gross effect, all or nothing, of a given substance.
That is, all we learn is that a certain dosage either kills or does not.
Correlatively, LD50 results are totally unextrap- olatable to chronic
(prolonged) exposure to the substance in question. The effect in an animal
of massive acute doses tells us nothing about the long-term effects of small
doses. This is especially significant in light of the fact that the typical
danger to humans from these substances comes from repeated, low-level
doses. For example, if one is evaluating a new drug, one is typically not
concerned with the effects of massive doses, barring suicide attempts and
major industrial accidents. Rather, one is worried about the possible long-
term effect of a cumulative series of relatively small doses. One is also
concerned with the mechanisms of toxicity, the sites of toxic action, and the
metabolic processes affected by the drug, and so forth, none of which the
LD50 deals with at all. In fact, emphasis on LD50 figures tends to lead to a
de-emphasis upon qualitative data, such as clinical signs and autopsy
results. Nor do LD50 tests contribute much to design of further toxicity
trials, since they are purely quantitative and consider only mortality.

Most dramatically, cross-species variation, coupled with a total failure of

the LD50 to come to grips with the metabolic pathways taken by the
various toxins, renders the results of animal LD50s all but meaningless vis-
avis a justifiable extrapolation to human beings. Nor is this mitigated by
tests across different species. Morrison, Quinton, and Reinert flatly assert
that
 neither variations nor uniformity of LD50 figures in a number of
laboratory animals species can assist in estimating toxicity in man.

So without knowledge that the metabolic pathways of the substance are

identical in man and test animal, we cannot draw inferences to human
toxicity from LD50 studies on animals.

Furthermore, there are huge numbers of variables, typically not

controlled for, that can radically alter LD50 results on test animals. Among
these are species differences, genetic differences even in the same species.
(LD50 for thiourea, a substance analogous to urea, was 4mg/ kg in Hopkins
rats and 1340-1830 mg/kg in Norwegian rats, for instance.) Many variables
are also at work in these studies, such as crowding conditions, sex, age,
composition of diet, latent infection, caging conditions (in mice caged
alone, an increase of cage size has been shown to reduce toxicity of
amphetamine by 50 percent), temperature, humidity, and light. The LD50
for amphetamine in rats increases 700 percent when the rats are caged in
groups of twelve, compared to when they are caged singly.

Other articles echo these criticisms. For example, F. Sperling, in a 1976

article in Advances in Modern Toxicology: New Concepts in Safety
Evaluation, severely criticized the LD50 test. In Sperling's words,

It is no longer sufficient to count bodies and from such an account

develop an index of toxicity.... The LD50 is in fact only marginally
informative, toxicologically inadequate, and misleading.

Sperling argues that the LD50 pays no attention to morbidity (sickness)

arising out of exposure to toxic substances, nor to chronic exposure. He
points out that emphasis on the number of animals dead leads to the
ignoring of vital factors, such as length of time to die and recovery rate of
survivors, factors that could provide important information regarding site,
mechanisms, and duration of action of the toxic material. In writing up
LD50 results, scientists typically ignore important, qualitative, clinical data
that may or may not be reported in publications but are essentially
irrelevant to the LD50.
 Sperling concludes that

The numerical acute LD50 is not an indicator of toxicity, whatever

the route of administration.... It is an indicator of the end effect of
catastrophe-industrial, suicidal, or accidental as in children.

To be facetious, the LD50 typically tells what dose of a chemical rats need
in order to commit suicide effectively.

We have thus encountered doubts about the value of the LD50 test from
a variety of points of view. Most important, it is by no means clear whether
a measure of acute toxicity ought to be the fundamental tool of product
safety evaluation at all. But even supposing that there continues to be a
demand for some standard measure of acute toxicity, there are strong
arguments in favor of an alternative to LD50 testing. In a 1943 article,
Deichmann and Leblanc described a method for "Determination of the
Approximate Lethal Dose with About Six Animals," in the Journal of
Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology. The method employed involves
guessing at the lethal dose, administering it to an animal, then proceeding in
approximately 50 percent increments up or down until ascertaining the first
dose at which the animal dies. Since we have seen that an exact measure of
the lethal dose is not required or even coherent in the uses of the LD50, but
rather what is sought is some approximate, relative scale of toxicity, it is
hard to see why the Deichmann and Leblanc method does not present a
viable alternative to the LD50 with tremendous savings in suffering, lives,
and money, and little loss. In the words of Morrison and his colleagues:

We would like to see more use made of methods such as that of

Deichmann and Leblanc, who were able to derive an approximate
lethal dose with less than ten animals. This should be adequate for
most purposes.

It is interesting to note, as a result of our rather detailed study of the

LD50 test, that there is good reason to believe that from a strictly scientific
point of view, millions of animals are being wasted, merely to provide an
arbitrary measure of toxicity, with little carryover to real human dangers.
From a moral point of view, this is completely intolerable. Thus far, we
have encountered a kinship of scientific and moral factors. Unfortunately,
this is unlikely to be a full partnership. Those scientists critical of the LD50
test are not concerned with the moral status of animals, but rather with the
waste of animals as economic resources and with the potential danger to
human beings. It is not the use of animals for the testing of toxic substances
that is being criticized, but the specific methodology entrenched in federal
regulations and industrial practice. It is by no means clear that whatever
might replace the LD50, for example, long-term tests of chronic toxicity,
would not result in as much and perhaps more suffering and death to
laboratory animals.

The way to resolve this entire question of toxicity testing lies in

demonstrating and then reflecting in legislation the thesis that the interests
of experimental animals and the interests of human welfare do overlap.
Basically, it is in both our interests to diminish the number of potentially
toxic substances being introduced into the market and the environment! No
degree of toxicity testing can reliably predict long-term, chronic effects of
the incredible array of chemicals to which we are exposed at all times,
especially since we lack any method at all of evaluating the potential for
synergistic activity between substances. That is, we have no way at all of
knowing the potential toxicity of two or more substances acting in
combination in the environment. Enough has been written over the past
fifty years by ecologists to indicate that we are playing a bizarre Russian
roulette with the biosphere; witness the aerosol spray cans and the much-
discussed destruction of the ozone. Public consciousness of these dangers
has unquestionably been elevated, and people are demanding assurances of
the safety of products and chemicals.

One possible and easy avenue of response to this pressure is for

manufacturers and government to increase the number of animal tests. But
to depend on this is to rest on a bent reed, both because of species
differences and other methodological problems of the sort we have raised in
discussing LD50, and because they cannot detect synergy (substances
acting together), nor can they model subtle ecological catastrophes. It
would seem far better to make a social decision, expressed as legislation, to
limit the number of products being spewed forth into the environment and
into our bodies, at least until we have a purchase upon the possible
pernicious consequence of the estimated more than 500,000 toxic
substances that are or will shortly be in common use. (The 1978 Registry of
Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances, which listed only substances upon
which research had been done, listed 125,000 substances. Today that has
increased to over 150,000.) One clearly needs a calculator even to begin to
imagine the magnitude of possible synergistic effects! Even if all possible
synergistic reactions were exhausted by pairs of chemicals interacting,
which is surely not the case since there is no reason to believe that groups
of 5, 10, or 3,000 don't interact, 500,000 substances would give us
approximately 125,000,000,000 possible pair-wise combinations!
Obviously, in a deep sense, "safety testing" is impossible. It would seem
plausible, then, to put a curb on the number of chemicals being developed.
One might demand that each manufacturer of a new, potentially toxic
substance be required to show in great detail why the substance he proposes
to introduce represents a marked improvement over pre-existing substances
already tested and in use. And such claims ought to be assessed with great
care before still another food additive, for example, is permitted.
Promulgating such a policy, or law, could discourage the development of
chemicals that functionally duplicate products already in existence and
would reduce the ever-increasing risk of toxicity to humans, as well as
reduce markedly the number of animals made to suffer so that we can have
yet another food coloring or laxative. Our point is further underscored by
the recent tragedies and publicity surrounding toxic waste disposal, a
problem we as a society have not yet fully begun to deal with.
A similar point can be made about cosmetics, an industry that is primarily
associated with another test open to a good deal of serious criti cism-the
Draize test. Since cosmetics are capable of being highly irritating to skin
and eyes, various tests have been devised to determine the irritant qualities
of different substances. Tests of skin irritancy are also applied to various
household substances. The Draize test is most often singled out in
sensationalistic tabloid accounts of the abuse of laboratory animals. An
irritant substance is put into the eyes of rabbits, and the resultant irritation
or lesion formations are noted and evaluated according to standards for
scoring ocular lesions. This test has been criticized widely for decades for
its poor reproducibility and its poor ability to project results in human
beings (for example, by Buehler in the Toxicology Annual for 1974). It has
also been criticized for causing unnecessary suffering. The Draize test has
been criticized even by that stalwart defender of animal research, Dr. D. H.
Smyth, in his book Alternatives to Animal Experiments. Smyth, while not
wishing to abolish the Draize test, would severely mitigate its effects on
animals. In his words,

There is a case for testing for eye irritancy, but a mild eye reaction
would seem to be sufficient to establish the point. This is particularly
so, since in general the rabbit's eye seems to be less sensitive than the
human eye, so that anything causing a mild reaction in the rabbit
would appear to be highly undesirable in the human.... I cannot see
any justification for causing severe eye damage.

It is interesting to note that while Smyth claims that the rabbit eye is
"less sensitive" than the human eye, other "experts" claim the opposite and
thus argue that the test ends up identifying irritants that would not affect
human beings ! As many scientists have indicated, the whole notion of
greater or lesser sensitivity is obscure, since sensitivity is undefined.
Sensitivity to what, and as measured by what? And the fact that a substance
does or does not produce an observable lesion in a rabbit eye in a short
period of time tells us nothing about long-term effects of the substance in
the human eye. Once again, the problems evidenced in the LD50 test arise,
for here too we are interested not in acute effects, but in long-term chronic
effects. What happens in the person who uses the cosmetic daily for years?
How do we know that pernicious, unobservable biochemical changes are
not taking place? Clearly, the benefits of the Draize test do not outweigh the
suffering. In fact, the test may well give us false confidence where prudence
is more rational.

Given the plethora of cosmetics already available to consumers, it is

difficult to justify any animal suffering merely for the sake of marketing yet
another species of nail polish or shampoo. It is difficult to imagine any
justification for the claim that the cosmetics industry would suffer by a curb
on its ability to develop new products. The demand for cosmetics, after all,
is relatively inelastic. Competition could proceed in other ways, say, by
utilizing principles already known in new ways. The real competition in any
case, as manufacturers have admitted, lies in advertising and packaging. So
once again, we need to ask ourselves whether or not this is an appropriate
area for legislation or regulation.

It is probably utopian to expect such regulation, but it appears to me that

a viable alternative to skin and eye tests on animals does exist. Given that
these tests are not fatal and that courts have sometimes refused to accept
animal results as tests of product safety, it would seem plausible that the
industry make use of paid human volunteers. This is, in fact, already done
after animal testing. It is difficult to see why it could not replace animal
testing in this area altogether. It seems probable that public intuitions would
concur with this view, since it seems somehow "fairer" to use paid people;
animals can derive no possible benefits from cosmetics, which are a luxury
item, and the subjects would be paid.

Over the last three decades, public concern with animal testing has
steadily increased. As early as 1974, a British poll showed that the
overwhelming majority of respondents objected to cosmetic testing on
animals, a view that was later echoed, surprisingly, by the readership of
Glamour magazine when surveyed by the magazine and by a 1990 Gallup
Poll conducted for Advertising Age. Such sentiment has not been lost on
the cosmetics companies. In 1980 a coalition of animal activist groups
attacked Revlon in newspaper advertisements for using the Draize test. By
1981 Revlon had allocated $750,000 to Rockefeller University for the study
of alternatives to the Draize test. Shortly thereafter, the other cosmetics
companies, acting through their trade association, chartered a center for
alternatives to animal testing at the Johns Hopkins School for Public
Health. A number of promising alternatives to the Draize test have been
emerging from these research centers, the most promising being the use of a
fertilized chicken egg, whose membrane displays an inflammatory reaction
similar to what occurs in the conjunctiva of the human eye. The Body Shop
has emerged as a multibillion dollar company in no small measure because
of its disavowal of animal testing.

Some limited progress has also been made with regard to the LD50 in
the face of mounting public pressure. In 1985 and 1988 the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) discouraged the use of the classical LD50 and
suggested that it be replaced by other approaches, including the
approximate lethal dose we discussed above and the use of the socalled
limit test. In the "limit test," which is used for substances known to be
basically nontoxic, a small number of animals are given a single oral dose.
If no animals die and no major ill effects occur, no further testing is
initiated. The EPA has also urged the extrapolated use of data from
structurally related chemicals whose toxicity is known. Also, small numbers
of animals can be used to detect toxic effects at doses that are not lethal, and
animals can be euthanized before pain and suffering occur. The EPA also
said it would only accept classical LD50 data when there is a specific
reason alternatives cannot be used. Similarly, in 1985 and again in 1988, the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had ceased to
require the classical LD50 in the early 1980s. In contradistinction to the
EPA, however, it did not refuse to accept classical LD50 data without
special justification.

Most heartening, perhaps, has been the decision made in 1989 by the
Avon and Mary Kay cosmetics companies to discontinue the use of animals
for safety testing. Avon now uses alternative testing, human clinical testing,
and an extensive, computerized toxicity database. Most notable, perhaps, is
Avon's endorsement of the EYTEX system, an approach based on a
synthetic matrix of proteins that has been used as an alternative to the
Draize test. Responses of matrix proteins to irritants show high correlations
with eye irritation.

Though all of this bespeaks some progress, in my view it is too little and
too slow, given the serious moral and scientific criticisms that we have
raised against the LD50 and the Draize tests. Bureaucratic inertia, habit,
fear of lawsuits in an ever-increasingly litigious society, and the innate
conservatism of standard toxicological laboratories all militate in favor of
preserving the status quo. In my view, the only way to cut the Gordian Knot
is with a legislative sword. Legal prohibition of the Draize and LD50 tests
would accelerate the alternative approaches, to the benefit of science,
animals, and consumers. Such legislation has been recommended by an
Australian Senate Committee on the welfare of experimental animals, and it
has been proposed in various states in the United States.
There are numerous other areas in which animals are employed in testing,
most noteworthy being tests of cancer-causing substances (carcinogen
testing), mutation-causing substances (mutagen testing), and tests of the
effects of substances on embryo development and malformation
(teratogenesis or, literally, "monster-producing" testing). Historically, most
carcinogen testing has been done on animals. While the artificial use of
massive doses on animals whose metabolisms may or may not accurately
replicate human metabolism (as in the famed saccharine studies on rats) is
subject to skeptical doubts about its validity, it is clear that no one is
prepared to sacrifice any possible identification of carcinogens. There are
major drawbacks to animal tests, however. First of all, as just noted, many
scientists express doubts about whether results on animals can be
meaningfully extrapolated to humans, given the myriad differences in
physiology and metabolism. Tests on rats last two years; tests on dogs last
seven, as the animal must be exposed to the chemical for large portions of its
life. Thus, in addition to being methodologically suspect, these tests are
expensive and time-consuming. It costs about $20 million, in fact, to fully
test a substance. A carcinogen test on animals costs about $2 million.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to the use of animals, most noteworthy

being the Ames test, which is also a test for mutagens. In fact, the Ames test
as a test for carcinogens is predicated upon the assumption that many (if not
all) carcinogens are mutagens. It is known that carcinogens produce cancer
by engendering somatic mutations. The Ames test is ingenious, simple,
inexpensive (it costs about $500 and takes three weeks to test a substance),
and utilizes bacteria as the test group. In the test, a suspected carcinogen is
added to a nutrient medium (agar) in which a special strain of Salmonella is
growing. This strain, unlike its parent strain, requires that a chemical called
histidine be added to the nutrient medium for the bacteria to grow. In the
presence of a mutagen or carcinogen, the special strain of Salmonella reverts
to the properties of the parent strain and will grow in the absence of
histidine. Researchers then simply observe the growth of these colonies. A
quantitative measure of the mutagenic potential of a substance can be
constructed by use of different concentrations of the suspected substance.
Modifications of the Ames test exist for detecting carcinogens that require
metabolic activation. A homogenate of rat or human liver is added to the
nutrient, enabling researchers to detect such carcinogens. The validity of the
Ames test and its variants seems quite well established. A good many
substances that are known to be carcinogens through animal testing have
been subjected to the Ames test and 80 percent of them have been shown to
be mutagenic. Correlatively, a large number of noncarcinogens have been
subjected to the Ames test and under 10 percent have been found to be
mutagenic.

Here, clearly, is a happy case where human and animal welfare coincide.
It is in the human interest to use tests like the Ames test because they are
cheaper, quicker, and probably more reliable. It is obviously in the animals'
interest not to be used for cancer testing. In any case, the Ames test surely
ought to be done at least as a preliminary screening device, prior to large-
scale animal testing. Various other in vitro tests have continued to be
developed.

The final special case of toxicity testing is that of teratogens, substances

that act on embryonic tissue to produce pernicious changes in the developing
organism. Thalidomide is perhaps the best known of such substances and,
ironically, it had been extensively tested on animals. Because of our inability
to extrapolate across species, most obstetricians today urge pregnant women
to avoid drugs and chemicals altogether, even where there is no evidence
that the substance is teratogenic in animals. This seems a wise course,
especially in virtue of the possibilities of synergy discussed earlier. A
textbook of toxicology, Loomis's Essentials of Toxicology, cautions that

in general, tests on one species have limited value in predicting effects

on another species. This is seen in regard to the drug cortisone which
is teratogenic in mice but only in some strains of rats.

There currently exists no clear-cut, viable alternative to animal testing for

teratogenicity. Though enjoining pregnant women to avoid all chemicals
serves to alleviate much of the problem, the unenforceability of such
exhortations requires that teratogenic properties of substances be known.
Claims have been made for the use of developing chick embryos, but this is
generally considered unsatisfactory for two reasons. First of all, the
developing embryo test is highly sensitive to a wide variety of variables.
Second, and more important, concern with teratogenesis in humans requires
that it be known if, when, and how the substance in question can pass
through the placenta. Since chick embryos are nonpla- cental, clearly this
method can supply no information concerning this crucial question. Another
alternative is epidemiological studies-studies of the appearance of terata, or
malformations, in human populations and of the factors common to
members of that population. The disadvantage here, of course, is that one
must wait for large-scale appearances of the congenital malformations,
whereas what is desired is advance knowledge. (Computer-assisted
epidemiological studies of carcinogens, searching for common features in
the histories of cancer victims, are also being attempted.) Another suggestion
that has been advanced is the use of human embryos destined for abortion as
test subjects. Though from a strictly scientific point of view this would
clearly be preferable to animal studies, and though these fetuses would be
killed in any case (compare the argument for using impounded dogs for
experimentation), such an activity would be deemed monstrous and does not
seem to be acceptable to the vast majority of society. It thus appears that
teratogenicity testing can probably meet the utilitarian principle, and current
efforts at improving the lot of animals used for these purposes ought,
therefore, to be based upon the rights principle, ensuring that, as far as
possible, the animals live painless and natural existences while science
continues to seek alternatives to the use of animals.
In discussing this first category of research, namely, testing of substances
on animals, we have implicitly and explicitly come up against the
muchdiscussed question of "alternatives" to animal experimentation. An
alternative, following the classic discussion of Russell and Burch in their
Principles of Humane Experimental Technique, is a method that could
either (1) replace the use of laboratory animals altogether, (2) reduce the
number of animals used, or (3) refine a procedure so as to diminish the
amount and degree of pain, suffering, and stress experienced by the
animals. The Ames test is a good example of replacement; laboratory
animals are wholly eliminated in favor of bacteria. The Deichmann and
Leblanc method of estimating acute lethal toxicity is a good example of
reduction, since that method employs six animals, as against the sixty to
one hundred employed by the LD50 method. And finally, our whole
discussion of the utilitarian and rights principles are injunctions toward
refinement, especially the rights principle, since the utilitarian principle is
in effect a mandate for drastic reduction.

One major thrust of opponents of animal experimentation is the demand

for alternatives, though this demand is often not clearly defined. What is
usually meant, it seems, are methods like the Ames test that will replace
animals. However well-intentioned, an extremely heavy emphasis on
replacement is misdirected. In the first place, it ignores the very obvious
economic fact that the scientific and industrial community welcomes and
actively seeks replacements for animals because many animals are
expensive to obtain and expensive to care for, and because the use of
animals is increasingly controversial. For example, tissue and organ culture,
in which cells are grown in the laboratory and used in various experiments,
has extensively replaced the use of animals in a number of research areas.
Second, the demand for replacement tends to impeach the credentials of
those who offer utopian replacements for animals. For example, one often
hears opponents of animal experimentation demanding that "the computer"
be used to replace animals. "After all," it is said, "if a computer can send a
man to the moon, can it not model a mouse?" The answer, unfortunately, is
no. Any computer, however complex, is essentially an adding machine, a
calculator, a formal system, which can only spit out variations on what is
put into it. If we knew enough molecular biology, physiology, and
biochemistry to model a mouse on a computer, we probably would not need
to use animals! Attempts at modeling even tiny parts of the body have been
markedly unsuccessful. Finally, the heavy emphasis on replacement tends to
obscure the other two Rs, reduction and refinement, and especially the
latter. Those who try to mitigate the lot of the laboratory animal are seen as
sellouts, whores, acceptors of the status quo. And yet, as we shall see, the
most currently viable hope for diminishing the total amount of suffering is
by refinement of existing procedures, by the introduction of anesthetics and
analgesics, by the mitigation of stress and anxiety, and by improving living
conditions and husbandry, all of which attempt to deal with the current
realities of research.
When one talks of the use of research animals as teaching aids, one finds
ample opportunity for all three Rs-reduction, refinement, and replacement.
Let us recall that animals are used (and abused) in elementary schools,
secondary schools, colleges, universities, medical schools, and veterinary
schools. Many of these uses entail extraordinary degrees of suffering for the
animals. Consider, for example, high school science fairs and science
projects. These are often exercises in sadism and stupidity. I have heard of a
high school biology class spaying dogs and a junior high school student
surgically implanting cobalt-60 into a guinea pig! As another example, we
may cite the case of the dairymen's group that traveled from school to
school setting up the following absurd "experiments." Three rats are used:
one is fed nothing but water, one is fed nothing but glucose, and one is fed
nothing but milk. This is designed to show that milk is nutritious, by
showing that the other two rats die of malnutrition! One student in junior
high won an award for closing up the anus of a shrimp and watching what
happened.

There is no reason that high school and grade school children need to
experiment upon living creatures. We all recall dissecting frogs; we all
recall learning nothing. In any case, at the heart of awakening interest in
science is not carpentry and butchery-it is learning how to ask questions,
how to formulate hypotheses, and how to observe. There is value in youth
being exposed to animals, but let these observations be ethological and
ecological; let us teach them to see with the eye of the naturalist, for this
will enrich their lives in a permanent way that dissecting frogs will not.
There is no justification, not even a utilitarian one, for allowing children to
inflict pain upon animals or to violate their bodies. On the contrary, the old
Aquinas-Kant brutalization argument we discussed earlier is quite germane
here. Harking back to our earlier arguments, it seems plausible to imagine
legislation that simply forbids painful or surgical experiments on animals in
elementary and secondary schools; this has occurred in some jurisdictions.
 A variation on such legislation currently exists in California, where it
was, in fact, supported by many university scientists who do animal
research, and who realize that there is little value in invasive research done
at the precollege level and that a good deal of potential harm may be done
to both the animals and the psyches of the young students. The California
law, adopted in 1973, is generally considered to be the most effective of
such laws and a model for others of its kind. According to the law,

in the public elementary and high schools or in public elementary and

high school-sponsored activities and classes held elsewhere than on
school premises live vertebrate animals shall not, as part of a
scientific experiment or any purpose whatever (a) Be experimentally
medicated or drugged in a manner to cause painful reactions or
induce painful or lethal pathological conditions. (b) Be injured
through any other treatments, including, but not limited to,
anesthetization or electric shock. ... Live animals on the premises of a
public elementary or high school shall be housed and cared for in a
humane and safe manner.

Ideally, some version of these principles should be included in a

meaningful federal Animal Welfare Act since, as currently constituted, the
Animal Welfare Act excludes elementary and secondary schools from its
jurisdiction. Unfortunately, this has not occurred, though public sensitivity
has unquestionably constrained unbridled animal use on this pedagogical
level.

What of higher education? Surely, it might be argued, one cannot train

biologists, veterinarians, or physicians without using animals. This is
certainly a more difficult case than elementary and secondary education and
is endlessly debatable. In Great Britain, veterinarians were historically
trained without ever touching an animal, save for therapeutic purposes. In
the United States, it is considered necessary that prospective veterinarians
do a good deal of practice work with animals in order to develop technical
abilities, for example, surgical skills. Similarly, medical students
historically also learned surgical techniques on animals. It is utopian to
expect these practices to be abolished in their entirety, but there is a good
deal of room for amelioration of suffering, and such uses have been
significantly reduced as of today.

One of the most flagrant abuses in this regard, only abolished in the past
two decades, was the widespread practice of multiple recovery surgery.
Recovery surgery is practice surgery done on an animal where the animal,
most often a dog but sometimes a cat or other animal, is not euthanized
while under anesthesia but instead is permitted to recover. What makes this
practice abhorrent is the fact that recovery from surgery, as we all know,
involves shock, pain, distress, and suffering. Often, however, little care was
taken to keep the animal comfortable, and sometimes water, blankets, and
adequate heat were denied to these animals, who were seen merely as
teaching aids. Analgesics, however inexpensive, were rarely used. (In fact,
compared to other areas of knowledge, our knowledge of analgesics in
animals was, as we shall see, relatively limited.) In some institutions, the
animals were used as many as six or eight or more times in different,
unrelated surgical procedures in order to save money for additional animals.
Large animals, such as horses and cows, were sometimes used until they
literally dropped, and a wide variety of procedures were often performed in
the course of one session.

There was no educational justification for this proliferation of suffering.

It was often argued that veterinary and medical students needed to recover
the animals in order to learn about management of surgical patients, and
thus the utilitarian principle was satisfied. This is debatable, but it is a
serious argument. Unfortunately, the force of the argument was often lost in
schools where the animals were treated with cavalier disregard for their
recovery, and emphasis was placed only on the surgical technique. (This, of
course, violates the rights principle.) No one to whom I have spoken in
either the medical or veterinary profession could provide any pedagogical
or moral justification at all for multiple, unrelated recovery surgeries.

Such a practice, in fact, represented the worst sort of crass economic

opportunism. Unfortunately, with ever-increasing budgetary pressure upon
academic institutions, one could expect economic considerations to loom
large. Therefore, it seemed plausible to incorporate a blanket prohibition on
any unrelated multiple surgical procedures in the new amendments to the
federal Animal Welfare Act we shall discuss shortly. Such a prohibition, in
fact, already existed in the National Institutes of Health Guidelines for the
Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, a set of guidelines that was quite
enlightened and that incorporated some of the notions we have been
developing. Unfortunately, these guidelines were essentially unenforced. In
principle, it was possible for the federal government to freeze all federal
research funding to any institution violating these guidelines-in actual
practice, this was never done prior to 1982. And since these guidelines were
not enforced, they were all too often not observed. Even worse, many
research scientists did not even know the details of these guidelines and
were not aware that they were violating them.

It is also currently acknowledged by most medical, veterinary, and other

biomedical educators that a significant amount of the work done with live
animals can be supplanted by videotape, film, computers, and models. For
example, at one time anaphylactic shock was demonstrated each year in
veterinary school by inducing it in a rabbit in front of the freshman
veterinary class. The symptoms of strychnine poisoning were demonstrated
by actually poisoning dogs. It is cheaper, pedagogically sounder, more
defensible morally, and less brutalizing to put this on videotape. Once on
tape, the student can go over such demonstrations repeatedly, can be alerted
as to what to look for, and most important, can see what is taking place
much more clearly than in a lecture hall. A similar point holds for
witnessing surgical procedures, which are far easier to follow when one is
guided by narrative and by the eye of the camera. Furthermore, using
audiovisual devices, the student can watch surgery as performed by the top
practitioner in each respective area. Computers can be used to teach some
physiological information better and more predictably than animals, such as
the effects of drugs on the cardiovascular system. Suturing, bone fixation,
and other surgical skills can be learned on models prior to applying these
techniques to live animals. Lives are conserved, suffering is diminished,
and money is saved. As we shall see, such changes are taking place, under
the impetus of new laws and the rising social concern for animals.
Much of the abuse to which animals are subjected in scientific practice can
be traced directly to the nature of scientific education, or perhaps one ought
to say, scientific training. Contrary to what the layperson or humanist tends
to expect, the training of professional scientists, pure and applied, is not
designed to foster Newtons, Einsteins, or Darwins. Although the essence of
science in one sense consists of free thought and inquiry, the spirit of
wonder harnessed to relentless questioning, the actual molding of a
scientific career bears little resemblance to this ideal.

Beginning at the undergraduate level, the student is put through a series

of courses that emphasize techniques, manipulation of data, acquisition of
facts and spitting them back in machine-graded exams, and manual
dexterity, rather than thought or understanding. The tests given are typically
short answer, true or false, or multiple choice, geared to the regurgitation of
discrete bits of information. No emphasis is typically placed upon
conceptual understanding or upon ability to synthesize. Let me cite two
illustrative examples from my own experience. On numerous occasions, I
have asked senior physics students the following questions, drawn from the
Middle Ages: "If the Earth moves, why don't we feel it, and why aren't the
clouds left behind?" Many students cannot answer this question, though
they can plug data into formulae. Again, I often ask senior biology students
to indicate what set of beliefs stands at the cornerstone of contemporary
biology. Few can tell me that it is, of course, evolutionary theory, and even
fewer can discuss the relationship between evolutionary theory and the
various parts of modern biology. In fact, few can even discuss evolutionary
theory. Even worse, so abysmal is their ignorance that they feel no shame at
this state of affairs. After all, any one of them can rattle off the Krebs cycle!

But it is on the level of graduate education that one can really see the
pernicious nature of science education assert itself. One can do virtually
nothing but wash test tubes or become a lab technician with only a
bachelor's degree in science, so typically, students who genuinely wish to
pursue a scientific career must proceed to a master's and doctoral level.
Perhaps, one would expect, it is here that science as thinking is inculcated
into the student. This, unfortunately, is not the case-in fact, the situation is
even worse than on the undergraduate level. On the undergraduate level, the
option at least sometimes exists for students to take classes in a wide variety
of fields, to take humanities and social science classes, to enter into learning
experiences that are reflective upon the nature and activities of science.
Often, unfortunately, the option does not exist even there as the major
requirements are so stringent and restrictive. On the graduate level,
anything outside the immediate area of apprenticeship is viewed as frivolity
and is frowned upon. Undergraduate school is not serious-no one with a
bachelor's degree is really a scientist. Granting someone the doctorate-the
"union card," as it is often tellingly calledis quite another matter. To grant
someone a doctorate is to acknowledge him or her as a peer, as a fellow
guild member, as certified by you or your institution to instruct and conduct
research. To grant someone a PhD, MD, or DVM is to certify him or her as
a fellow professional, whose behavior reflects on you and on the profession.
As a result, doctoral education (or medical education or veterinary
education) involves total immersion of the student in the language,
practices, prejudices, procedures, predilections, biases, and concerns of his
or her particular field or, more accurately in the case of PhD's, of that
minute part of the field that the student or advisor has chosen as his other
area of expertise.

In a nutshell, graduate education is nonconceptual. It is not designed to

produce revolutions in a field, to turn out people who will upset the apple
cart. Science essentially resists changes in its bases, for such changes are
obviously threatening to those currently defining the field, who would find
themselves superseded and rendered superfluous by major conceptual
upheavals. The sociology of scientific conservatism is admirably defined in
Thomas Kuhn's influential book Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where
Kuhn defines the activity of "normal" (i.e., nonrevolutionary) science as
puzzle solving, the answering of questions that flow from the field as
currently defined and that are passed on from advisors to students and by
the textbooks.
 Thus, the graduate student is essentially handed a problem for research
by the advisor and even handed the ground rules for possible solutions. This
is his or her apprenticeship-if he or she succeeds, or makes headway, he or
she is certified as a member of the field and is entitled to pursue these
puzzles, seek funding, and replicate himself/herself through his/her
graduate students. The same sense of certification holds, in fact even more
strongly, in professional schools: medical, veterinary, and dental. There the
student is being certified as a clinician, as someone who will carry the
principles and practices of the profession before the public, whose behavior
can bring honor or discredit to all members of the guild; so these schools
often foster conformity and uniformity, not only in medical theory and
practice, but in dress (though this has declined in recent years), mode of
speech, professional etiquette, carriage, and deportment. Once again,
individual thought, ingenuity, and creativity are systematically de-
emphasized and pushed to the background. It is not so much that these traits
are considered dangerous; rather, they are viewed as irrelevant to the
fundamental task of training a uniform and predictable corps of individuals
with a dependable set of skills.

How does all this relate to the treatment of animals? In very direct and
dramatic ways, which are easily illustrated anecdotally. One of my good
friends, an experimental psychologist, recounted to me a telling incident. As
a young graduate student, he was running an experiment with rats. The
experiment was over, and he was faced with the problem of what to do with
the animals. He approached his advisor, who replied, "Sacrifice them." (We
shall discuss this locution in a moment.) "How?" asked my friend, assuming
that the professor would produce a hypodermic needle and barbiturates.
"Like this," replied the instructor, dashing the head of the rat on the side of
the workbench, breaking its neck. (While this is not in fact a painful way to
kill a rat if done correctly, since cervical dislocation causes instant death, it
is not easy to learn and is highly offensive to the uninitiated.) My friend, a
kind man, was horrified and said so. The professor fixed him in a cold gaze
and said, "What's the matter, Smith, are you soft? Maybe you're not cut out
to be a psychologist!"
 This is a wonderful story, for it illustrates so many aspects of the
problem: the disregard for normal sensibility, the cult of "objectivity," the
threat that failure to toe the mark elicits, the cavalier disregard for student
concern, the use of a phrase like "sacrifice." Let us examine some of these
points. My friend, like countless other embryonic scientists, physicians, and
veterinarians, was starting with a sense of moral concern for the animals,
with respect for them as ends in themselves, as living creatures. This,
however, is seen as sentimentality, squeamishness, lack of professionalism,
and so values are transvaluated, as Nietzsche says, and what are ordinarily
virtues-compassion and sensitivity-become vices. When I make this point to
some of my scientist friends, I am often told that prospective physicians and
veterinarians must "get used to the sight of blood and to death and to pain."
(One man actually attempted to justify a particularly brutalizing lab
exercise by saying that "it underscores to students that they are in vet school
now.") Yes, I reply, but must they get used to callously inflicting pain and
causing death? Must they be brutalized to be good physicians and
veterinarians? Surely sensitivity and good medicine are not mutually
exclusive-indeed, are they not complementary? As I travel and lecture
around the country, I am often asked the same question by educators
involved in human and veterinary medical education: "Why do students
come into medical (or veterinary medical) school sensitive, concerned,
idealistic, morally aware, and suffused with a desire to promote health and
alleviate illness and suffering, yet emerge four years later cynical, hardened,
brutalized, and rigid, their ideals and enthusiasm forgotten?" Clearly, the
educational system has a pernicious effect not restricted to the problem of
animals. But it is not at all clear that it must be that way, as we shall discuss
shortly.

Correlatively, it is utter nonsense to suggest that my friend's concern for

the animals might be good evidence that he is not cut out to be a
psychologist. Perhaps it will be harder for him to be a psychologist, in the
sense that he will think long and hard before doing certain things to living
creatures, but perhaps he will then be a better psychologist. He will surely
be more inclined to study what merits studying, to obey the utilitarian and
rights principles, than will be a person to whom the animals are merely
expendable laboratory accoutrements, like test tubes. And perhaps with his
sensitivity he will notice and see things in the animals' behavior that, to a
more callous person, would be invisible.

One of the major sources of educational brutalization harks back to the

scientific ideology that we discussed earlier and that pervades and
undergirds scientific education. As mentioned in our discussion, a mainstay
of this ideology is the idea that science is value free, that it ought to make
no valuational commitments, and thus, a fortiori, has no truck with ethics.
This notion, like many other components of scientific common sense, is
rooted in the logical positivism of the early twentieth century, which
stressed the need for objectivity, empiricism, and verification in science.
Since value claims in general, and ethical claims in particular, are not
subject to empirical test and verification, they have no place in science.
They are to scientific ideology, at best, emotional predilections and cannot
be dealt with objectively. (It is for this reason that otherwise cool and
rational scientists are often every bit as emotional on such ethical issues as
animal use as their opponents are-their training and ideology has led them
to the view that ethical issues are in fact nothing but emotional issues,
where rational thought has no place. Thus they believe that battles are won
by manipulating emotions and tugging at heartstrings.) The possibility of a
rational ethic on anything is instinctively seen as an oxymoron or solecism.

It is not difficult to determine that science education imparts this claim

to students. Keeton and Gould, for example, in their widely used freshman
biology text, remark that "science cannot make value judg ments ... and
cannot make moral judgments." In the same vein, Mader, in her basic
biology text, asserts that "science does not make ethical or moral
decisions." In 1989 James Wyngaarden, former director of the National
Institutes of Health, declared that all the flap about genetic engineering was
misdirected, for "science should not be hampered by ethical judgments." In
1988 Richard Marocco, a psychological researcher at the University of
Oregon, responded to critics of animal research by asserting that their
concern is "not an intellectual concern-it's an emotional, an ethical one, and
a moral one," as if ethical concerns were not suited for rational
adjudication.
 In our earlier discussion, we refuted the pervasive notion that science is
value free. And, as we shall see, social concern and the emerging social
ethic for animals have resulted in new legislation that forces scientists to
consider ethical questions. But in my view, the incorporation of moral
deliberation into science is best achieved by making revolutionary changes
in science education, something to which I have devoted thirty years, with
gratifying results. Before recounting these activities, we must deal with one
more component of scientific life that reinforces callousness toward
experimental animals.
Perhaps the callousness is a defense mechanism, an insulator for the
experimenter that stands between him or her and guilt and pain. Perhaps it
is a matter of convenience. But whatever its source, it is perpetuated by the
language scientists employ, in conversation and in formal writing,
concerning the animals they utilize. Scientists talk, for example, of the
animals being "models." The "model" locution suggests that the nature of
the animal, its telos, its raison d'etre, is to serve as a representation of
something else. It also de-emphasizes the fact that the object in question is
alive, possessed of its own needs. Again, consider the word "sacrificed,"
with its exalted religious, sacerdotal connotations. To sacrifice is to make
sacred. The animal is privileged to die, it ascends to rodent Valhalla, it
romps in the Elysian fields. It is privileged, lucky, fortunate to die for
SCIENCE. It has advanced the frontiers of knowledge. Oh felix rodentus!

The exaggeration is intentional. My comments are silly, but so is the

locution. An animal killed in an experiment is not sacrificed. To say that is
to debase language, to use language to conceal the morally questionable and
distasteful, to insulate ourselves and others from the questionable
consequences of what we do. In the early twentieth century, Karl Kraus
warned of the large-scale moral atrocities presaged by the debasement of
the German language. Language, argued Kraus, is a moral barometer, a
thesis that George Orwell was later to portray graphically in 1984. Kraus's
prescience was extraordinary, for his predictions were realized in the Nazi
state, the quintessence of evil in our time, and perhaps in all of human time:
"Work makes one free," emblazoned on the gates of Auschwitz; "submen,"
used in reference to Jews, gypsies, and Slavs; "super-race," "Aryan," "the
Jewish question," and so on.

Examples of this mentality applied to animals are easily proliferated. In

veterinary colleges there were and still are special names for the nonclient-
owned animals that are used for surgery practice, experimentation, and
demonstration. They were called "subanimals." Although etymologically
the "sub" is short for substitute, most students hear it as "sub" as in
"subhuman." In one school, the dogs employed for these purposes were
called "x-dogs"-when spoken, of course, it was heard as "ex-dogs." These
locutions are visible examples of the hardening process, the encapsulation
and ultimate exorcism of compassion, the "professionalization" of morality
and humanity. Fortunately, much of this has changed as socio-ethical
concern about animals in science has increased.

Such considerations, then, stand as an impediment to improving the lot

of animals in higher education. These are deep difficulties, woven into the
very fabric of science as it actually exists. As we shall see, the problems
that exist in science education ramify throughout research on animals,
serving as a major stumbling block to the implementation of moral concern.
The scientific gestalt on animals, which sees them as tools to be used, as
Cartesian machines, as implements ready at hand for human purposes, is
carried in the language of science and perpetuated and reproduced in its
educational processes. To improve the situation, then, requires not only
legislation and regulation, but also, and even more important, a revolution
in science education.
Perhaps that phrase sounds a bit too grandiose and is best tethered to Earth
with some concrete examples. About thirty years ago, I became seriously
concerned with the robotization, lack of thought, callousness, and ignorance
of philosophical and ethical questions that seemed to pervade science
education. Five years earlier, I had turned my attention to premedical
education and had developed a course of study in philosophy for premedical
students that would counter some of these pernicious trends and that had
enjoyed gratifying results. I then turned my attention to a number of
pioneering areas, all of which are relevant to discuss: veterinary medical
ethics; basic biological science; agricultural science, research, and training;
and more recently, graduate education in science.

My interest in animals, coupled with my interest in and knowledge of

medicine, made it plausible for me to consider working with the College of
Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University, widely acknowledged to
be one of the best veterinary schools in the United States. Rather brashly, I
approached the administrators of the school who, much to my surprise, were
quite sympathetic to my proposal to teach ethics to the veterinary students. I
was informed, however, that such a course was totally unprecedented, that
veterinary students had little or no interest or preparation in humanities, that
the course of study was quite technical and "applied," and that I would
probably encounter a fair amount of hostility, suspicion, and opposition from
students, faculty, and the veterinary profession at large.

Undaunted, I pressed the course, which was run for the first time in 1978
on an experimental basis. Team teaching it with me was an extraordinary
man, Dr. Harry Gorman, past president of the American Veterinary Medical
Association, sometime chief veterinarian for NASA, wellknown orthopedic
surgeon, and inventor of the artificial hip joint. To the astonishment of both
of us, we hit it off immediately despite our disparate backgrounds. Both of
us were deeply concerned with the same issues: too much emphasis on
technique and not enough on thought, the robotization and brutalization of
veterinary students, and the emphasis on professional etiquette rather than on
morality in discussions of "veterinary ethics." The course was scheduled to
run for ten weeks, with both of us in atten dance at all sessions, but I
assumed primary responsibility for the lectures and discussions. Eager to
develop dialogue with the students, I insisted on teaching them in three
groups of forty, so as to make discussion and interchange possible.

As the first lecture drew nearer and nearer, I became more and more
nervous. Could I really expect these students, with their totally practical and
technical orientation, to have any interest in or sympathy with philosophy?
Given their impossibly full schedule, could I really expect them to spend
time trying to master Kant and Mill? Could I earn the students' respect? The
task seemed impossible, the prospects hopeless; I began to entertain
Gauguin-like fantasies of fleeing to Tahiti. Nor was I reassured by the few
conversations I had with some members of the veterinary faculty. One man
asked me what I expected the students to get out of this class. "My goals are
modest," I replied. "I only want to show them that there are moral and
philosophical questions associated with veterinary medicine that cannot be
answered in a factual way."

"Are you going to give them answers?" he asked.

Guessing at his concern that I might poison the minds of the students
with my "radical philosopher" approach, I assured him that I would not give
answers, only present options.

"You must give them answers!" he thundered, to my astonishment. "You

must give them the answers of the professional veterinarian!"

"But I'm not a professional veterinarian," I protested. "And in any case, I

don't think that the answers given by the profession to moral questions are
complete or adequate. But since you are a professional veterinarian, perhaps
we can debate this before the students."

"No way," he said.

"Why not?" I asked. "Dialogue is the essence of thought."

 "Well," he said, "that's your mistake. You think we want them to think.
We're not producing thinking men; we're producing professional
veterinarians!"

The class began. At first the students saw it as one more hoop they were
required to jump through to get a DVM. If the vet school demanded
Sanskrit, they would learn Sanskrit; if philosophy, so be it. But by the fourth
week, the student attitude of suspicion, hostility, and resignation began to
change. They began to argue with me and with each other. They began to
stay after class and visit me in the office. They began to appre ciate the
opportunity to exercise their excellent minds on the sorts of questions we
have been dealing with in this book. (They were extremely bright-
competition for vet school admission was then more intense than for medical
school.) By the eighth week they requested that I run the class for the full
semester. They began coming to my office, going out with me for lunch.
And by the end of the semester, things began to happen.

At that time, the majority of veterinary students were from ranch

backgrounds, and the classes were 80 to 90 percent male. The macho,
cowboy ethos was pervasive, and, not surprisingly, there was a veterinary
student rodeo held every spring. This became a fertile topic for class
discussion, especially when I began a lecture by asserting that "for
veterinary students to participate in rodeo is equivalent to orthopedic
surgeons fighting in bars." Needless to say, we had no shortage of lively
interaction. Eventually, the students realized that there was tension between
their own (previously unarticulated) ethic for animals-don't harm an animal
for frivolous reasons-and their cherished cultural tradition. Since students
from farm and ranch backgrounds tend to take ethics very seriously, they
were disturbed. After a few weeks of discussion among themselves, they
informed me that they had reached a compromise, which modified the rodeo
to fit their ethic. "Clearly," they told me, "the most abusive part of the rodeo
is calf-roping, for the calf is jerked to a stop at twenty or more miles per
hour. So we will henceforth use breakaway ropes-ropes tied to a light string
that breaks after the calf is lassoed." It was only later that I realized the
enormous concession these macho cowboys had made; in their culture,
breakaway ropes are only used for women's events! The Socratic "judo" had
worked, even more so than I had ever dreamed. (To fully appreciate just how
revolutionary this whole affair was, the reader should recall that, in the West,
raising ethical questions about rodeos is as unacceptable as breaking wind in
church-perhaps more so!) A year later, one of the students, a professional
roper, came to my office. "You son of a bitch," he said, "you made me give
up roping."

"Care to explain that before you hit the floor?" I responded. "How can I
make you do anything?"

"You made me think about it," he said quietly.

Even more dramatically, the students became concerned about multiple

survival surgery in surgery classes. The concern increased until almost half
the class presented me with a petition asking for reform in this practice. We
began a series of long discussions involving students, surgical faculty,
administration, and myself, which lasted through the summer. At the end of
the discussions, the school adopted a policy of recovering an animal only
once and of treating each subject animal exactly like a client animal. The
students were to be graded not only on carpentry, but also on postoperative
care. Despite opposition from some old-line surgeons who felt that this
policy was an infringement on their God-given freedom to use animals as
they chose, and despite the increase in the cost to the school, the policy was
rigidly enforced. A major moral breakthrough in veterinary education had
occurred, one that spread to other veterinary schools across the United
States. No longer was the "science is value free" ideology unchallenged; a
wedge was opened, which has grown and expanded during the ensuing
years. Self-awareness, selfcriticism, and dialectical moral analysis have
become second nature to students and faculty alike, and the reputation of our
veterinary school as a pioneer and leader in moral concern for animals has
spread worldwide. Some members of the faculty sat in on the class and
participated in discussion. I, in turn, spent time virtually every day with
faculty members in the clinics and in laboratories. I have learned a great deal
from the students and faculty; they have been sparked to think by me.

In a sense, I have become a faculty ombudsman for animals. More

dramatically, the concept of such a function has been accepted and even
welcomed by many of the scientists working with the animals. "We need a
conscience," one major researcher on campus told me. And over the past
thirty years, I have been actively involved in many mundane, nuts and bolts
sorts of issues that directly affect the well-being of laboratory animals.
Through dialogue (sometimes heated, but mostly rational), I have worked
through solutions with teachers and investigators in areas I had never heard
of. We have improved laboratory classes, worked to ensure better use of
anesthesia and analgesia, and even worked to increase the number of cows
used to teach veterinary students rectal palpation for determining pregnancy,
so that the cows' rectums would not be damaged through overuse. (I'm
particularly proud of that one since I never dreamed, as a philosophy
graduate student at Columbia, that I would put my training to work for the
benefit of cows' rectums!)

The atmosphere of frank and open discussion of moral issues related to

animal use has continued to bear fruit. In 1983, after ongoing self-criticism,
the surgery faculty at the veterinary school took the unexpected step of
giving up all survival surgery. All practice surgery was now terminal; the
animals would never recover from anesthesia and the students would learn
the management of recovery on real client cases. Despite the increase in cost
to the school, this policy was adopted for moral reasons. A spokesman for
the faculty, world-renowned surgeon Dr. Donald Piermattei, announced the
policy as essentially a moral one, for now students would be taught surgery
without causing any pain or suffering! Because we arguably were the best
surgery faculty in the world (more board-certified surgeons than any other
school), such a policy again spread to other institutions.

This is not to say that every surgeon initially supported the changes with
equal enthusiasm. But rational ethics does work. When multiple survival
surgery was first abolished at CSU for moral reasons in 1978, one of the
major veterinary surgeons, whom I shall call Dr. X, was irate. As far as he
was concerned, what he did with his own animals was his own business.
Indeed, he was angry enough to threaten to resign over this issue. Our
relations were always strained, since he blamed me for the new policy
abolishing multiple survival surgery and curtailing what he felt was his
"right" to do as he saw fit with his animals. Some years later he moved to
another university, and I lost track of him. Then I was invited to lecture at
another veterinary college. The student who met me at the airport told me
that one of the faculty wished to meet with me. Puzzled, since I knew no one
there, I inquired who the man was.

"Dr. X, our new chief of surgery," he replied.

"Dr. X wants to see me?" I marveled. "But he hates me," and I told the
student the story of our previous interaction.

"Oh no," he said. "It can't be the same guy. Our Dr. X, as his first official
act, cut our multiple survival surgery program down to one surgery."

Not knowing what to think, I went to see Dr. X, who was indeed the same
gentleman. I thanked him profusely for abolishing multiple surgery at that
institution. "Oh, no big deal," he said, slapping me on the shoulder. "Same
thing we did at CSU!"

Despite the inherent risks to stability that open discussion and

questioning poses, the two deans of the veterinary college under whom I
initially worked, first, Dr. Robert Phemister, and subsequently, Dr. James
Voss, fully supported our efforts. My course was made a required part of the
curriculum and students must pass it as they would any other class. I have
been invited to speak to clinicians and have become friendly with many of
them. We do not, by any means, agree always or even often, but we all
respect one another and communicate. And the veterinary college has been
very supportive of my efforts in animal ethics activities. The school, in turn,
was acknowledged in the British journal Nature as the best in the United
States regarding the treatment of animals. The course has attracted
international attention, and I have been asked to visit many institutions to
lecture on these topics and to help set up similar programs, where I find both
students and faculty starved for dialogue on these and other questions.
Indeed, I now write a very popular monthly ethics column for the Canadian
Veterinary Journal.

Practitioners of veterinary medicine, like those of human medicine, are

beginning to realize that there is more involved in teaching and practicing
good medicine than merely knowing how to give lab tests, sew an incision,
or treat shock. As I have argued in other papers, and as its history
demonstrates, medicine is by its very nature fraught with valuational, social,
and conceptual questions. Medicine and philosophy have been intimately
intertwined since Hippocrates; it is only fairly recently, with the rise of
reductionistic medicine, which sees the body simply as a machine (and is
itself a highly questionable philosophical position!), that the relevance of
these questions to medicine has been ignored or denied. We shall shortly
discuss this point in greater detail. In any event, I am now employed on a
year-round basis by the university to work on moral problems associated
with biomedical science, not only the problems associated with the use of
animals, but also the questions involved in human research and in biohazard
control.

The lesson to be learned is this: Despite the extreme fragmentation of

knowledge, the robotization of science, and the aloofness of the humanities,
these obstacles can be surmounted by people of good will with a vision of
education as developing the students' minds and awareness, not simply as
training. This requires an enormous amount of work. The philosopher or
humanist like myself must be prepared to sully his or her mind with facts: to
read veterinary books and journals to ground himself or herself in science in
order to have some credibility, and perhaps even to get manure on his or her
boots. The scientists must resist the reflex response to see a humanist in their
midst as a threat.

Lest it be thought that I am too quick to draw Pollyanna-like conclu sions

from a single experience, it is worth citing another project that has occupied
my attention for twenty-five years. In 1978, along with the brilliant botanist
Dr. Murray Nabors, now a dean at the University of Mississippi, I began
teaching a one-year honors course in basic biology. What was revolutionary
about this course was that the relationship of the humanities component to
the science component was not like that of icing to cake. That is, it is not the
case that the students took a traditional science course for eight days in a
row, and then on the ninth day the philosopher did a little half-hour song and
dance. The philosophical, moral, and social questions connected to the
science were viewed as an integral part of the science, discussed along with
the science. When the course was initiated, both of us were present at all
class meetings, and we constantly interrupted each other, criticized each
other, and argued. The net result was that the students learned to see science
as full of and subject to questions; they learned to recognize problematic
areas, rather than gloss over them; they realized that the essence of the
enterprise is free thinking, not memorization. When we discussed DNA, we
discussed the moral and social questions surrounding recombinant DNA
research. When we discussed evolutionary theory, we raised in detail those
difficulties associated with the theory that are ignored by all but specialists
in the philosophy of science. We discussed the questions raised in this book
about the use of animals in science. We discussed the nature of science, the
certainty and uncertainty of scientific theories, the problem of fraud in
science, and the nature of scientific funding. We even discussed the issues
associated with scientific education we have just enumerated, warning the
students that they will typically not be encouraged to think for themselves as
they proceed through their education. The class enjoyed remarkable success-
the students covered about twice the scientific material dealt with in the
standard course, plus all of the conceptual material. The students gladly put
in a great deal of extra effort, welcomed the challenge, and did far better in
terms of grades than did students in standard courses. They also reported that
in the wake of their experience with us, they were unable to respond to other
courses the way their peers didthey felt compelled to ask questions and raise
objections. This has not been totally unthreatening to many scientists: when
my biologist colleague went on sabbatical, no one was willing to take his
place, despite the enormous success and popularity of the course. Enough
time has elapsed since the course started that we now receive feedback on
the course from former freshmen students who are now physicians,
veterinarians, and scientists. Gratifyingly, they report that the course gave
them a unique foundation that continued to serve them well into their
professional lives.

The success of these courses led to additional experiments. Twentythree

years ago, I began to teach a course for the animal agriculture, or animal
science, students on ethical issues in animal agriculture, the first such course
ever done. I anticipated a much greater challenge because, unlike veterinary
medicine, animal science has no "official" commitment to animal welfare,
being essentially the application of biological science and economics to
maximizing profit and productivity in the food and fiber animal industry. I
was delighted to discover that these students were, in fact, the best students I
had ever taught-the ranch background that many of them enjoy has given
them both a strong moral commitment to animals living primarily under
natural conditions and expressing their telos, and also to hard work. Because
I travel so much to lecture, I often make up my classes at night, an
imposition on the students. Nonetheless, my attendance is excellent, and I
consistently turn away more students than I have room for. My hope is to
help create a generation of scientists in animal agriculture who have been
sensitized to the moral issues inherent therein, who have been reinforced in
their tendency to see animals as something other than assembly line
products, and who will carry a moral vector into agriculture. Given that we
are not likely to stop using animals for food, it is far better to have a
generation of animal scientists for whom concern for animals is part and
parcel of their mind-set. In this way, we can perhaps blunt the tragic
tendency in twenty-first-century animal agriculture and animal science to
look only at profit and productivity, and concentrate again on the well-being,
happiness, and fulfillment of the animals' telos, which technological, "value-
free" agriculture has put aside. And increasing numbers of our students are
now thinking in terms of animal welfare as an integral part of agriculture.
Pursuant to this goal, the animal science department hired Dr. Temple
Grandin, worldfamous authority on livestock behavior and husbandry, to
help incorporate practical animal welfare considerations into agriculture.

As is the case in my work with the veterinarians and biomedical

researchers at CSU, I have established an excellent dialectical rapport with
the agricultural scientists-indeed, we worked together on ways to eliminate
the significant pain and suffering associated with traditional livestock
practices such as castrating and hot iron branding.

In conclusion, I certainly argue for regulatory action to constrain the uses

of animals in science education; as we have seen, this has already occurred
vis-a-vis multiple surgery in federal legislation. Videotaping and the use of
other such devices should be made mandatory wherever possible.
Correlatively, a real thrust must be inaugurated for liberalizing science
education, as I have illustrated. This will ramify not only in immediate
attention to animal suffering, but also in developing greater sensitivity to the
moral and social dimensions of science, both as these dimensions relate to
animals and as they relate to humans. Better science, too, is likely to result
when students are educated to question, not merely trained to perform.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to inaugurate meaningful changes into science
education. Funding is relatively scarce, university budgets are tight, and
meaningful interdisciplinary efforts are notoriously difficult to establish, as
people are threatened by making themselves vulnerable in an
interdisciplinary context. Further, because of the narrowly specialized
educational system we have been describing, which is specialized in the
humanities almost as much as in the sciences (a person may know late
nineteenth-century British poetry or medieval philosophy and little else), it is
extremely difficult to get people to plunge into teaching where they must
master material for which they have not been trained. Yet, in the final
analysis, such efforts are absolutely essential both to the sciences and the
humanities. The sciences require it, as we have seen, so as not to degenerate
into a mere set of technical skills, and so that we produce socially
responsible scientists who are morally concerned. The humanities and social
sciences require it, quite frankly, to survive in an era of increasing
vocationalism. It is well known that the supply of PhDs in the humanities
and social sciences typically far exceeds the demand. Further, students seem
to be more and more oriented toward "practical" courses of study that will
ensure the possibility of their earning a living. Fewer students will be
majoring in English, philosophy, or history, as the possibilities of academic
employment vanish. Such disciplines must thus insinuate themselves into the
very fabric of the more "marketable" disciplines-medicine, veterinary
medicine, engineering, law. As I have tried to show the members of my
profession, philosophy is especially well suited for such activity, partly
because it has served since Plato to keep people thinking clearly, and partly
because the moral questions associated with science are of such major social
import. Unfortunately, as I saw demonstrated at an international conference
on animal rights, philosophers are all too often unwilling to speak to anyone
but other philosophers and jealously guard the technical jargon that, in their
minds, makes them part of an abstruse and technical discipline in which not
just anyone can share.
 During the past decade and a half, I became involved in teaching science
and ethics to PhD candidates as a result of a National Institutes of Health
mandate, NIH having at last begun to realize that the ignoring of ethics has
been deleterious to science. As a result of this work, I have become
convinced that all science students need ethics education, both to undercut
scientific ideology and to allow science to engage true ethical concerns. It is
now clear that failure to do so has harmed science in society and really
damaged biotechnology. Interested readers should see my new book Science
and Ethics.
Basic research is, quite simply, what most of us think of when we think of
science at its best and at its worst. Unsullied by pressures of practicality, the
basic researcher is the person who worries about the age of the universe, or
about the strange properties of microparticles, or about the nature of gravity,
or black holes, or pulsars. The basic researcher is also the person who
worries about things that strike the average person as absurd or a waste of
money-the sort of person to whom Senator Proxmire regularly granted the
Golden Fleece Award for wasting federal money in trying to answer
questions about the songs of birds, the sex life of fleas, the conditions under
which people fall in love, the nature of planes in ten-dimensional space.
What typically characterizes the basic researcher is a remarkable lack of
concern for the practical effects or usable consequences of his or her
research. If the results do find real and pragmatic applications, all to the
good. If they do not, equally good. The concern is with the problem, the
puzzle, the joy of the chase. Researchers attack the question because it is
there or, as some researchers will admit if pressed, to advance the frontiers
of human knowledge. More cynically, in many cases the basic researcher
finds himself or herself having inherited some problems simply in virtue of
what he or she did his or her doctorate on, or who his or her advisor was, or
what is likely to get funded in his or her area of expertise. In any case, what
is important for our purposes is that such research in biology, physiology,
anatomy, psychology, and so forth sometimes involves the use of animals in
ways that cause pain and suffering.
The extreme positions regarding this sort of research are easily identified
and may serve to orient us toward the complexities inherent in this question.
On the one hand, it is argued by defenders of research that basic research is
the essence of human thought, the root of science, nothing less than the
quest for knowledge. Our entire civilization and all progress, it is argued,
rest upon allowing people to pursue those questions that ignite their
curiosity. As to the utilitarian principle, we may grant that basic research
does not always have built into it any clear-cut advances in human
happiness or welfare. On the other hand, one never knows what applications
a piece of research may have, however far removed from reality it may
seem to be. Crick and Watson surely did not think in terms of their work
providing a basis for altering human genetic patterns. My wife was quite
surprised when she was informed that her abstract mathematical research
into strange geometries that we cannot even visualize had direct application
to communicating with and controlling satellites. Any piece of knowledge
may have unprecedented potential for good and consequences undreamed
of by its discoverer. This, in fact, is the rationale behind the activities of
research facilities like Bell Laboratories, which essentially turns bright
scientists loose to follow their curiosity, without regard for immediate,
practical implications. It is immoral to close the door to the advancement of
knowledge; it is a rejection of our very humanity. As a civilization we have
fought long and hard to free ourselves from political, theological, and
superstitious constraints on rational inquiry; we should not sell that freedom
cheaply.

These arguments are powerful, and as a person who values intellectual

freedom and activity above all else, I can feel their appeal. But there are
compelling arguments on the other side as well. It is true that free inquiry is
integral to our humanity, but so too is morality. Few of us put knowledge
over right and wrong. If the quest for knowledge were our ultimate concern,
we would applaud those who callously experiment upon humans instead of
vilifying and loathing them. We could learn much by experimenting upon
unwanted children, upon the retarded, the brain damaged, the terminally ill.
Yet we shudder at the thought; we see the Nazi "experimenters" not as free
inquirers, but as perverted monsters. Knowledge must yield to compassion,
decency, and morality. In the more than fifty-five years since the Nazi
horrors were revealed, societies have labored long and hard to develop strict
ethical codes dealing with research on human subjects, often, unfortunately,
to the opposition of scientists. In major universities like mine, all such
research is rigidly scrutinized by watchdog groups, fully backed by federal
mandate and regulations. Even benign experiments on innocuous items like
learning word lists must be submitted for approval and certification.
(Having served for over thirty years on such a committee, I can attest to the
zeal with which its members protect all rights of the human subject.) Illicit
experimentation does, of course, go on, most notably in university hospitals
on the poor and ignorant, on derelicts, on those who cannot protect
themselves. But the point is that this is not socially condoned or supported,
and is clearly seen by most people as wrong.

So the quest for knowledge must be tempered by moral concern. And we

have seen throughout this book that animals have profound and legitimate
claim to moral concern, even as we do. For this reason alone, animals must
be protected from those whose thirst for knowledge outstrips their moral
sensibility. It is thoroughly utopian to expect basic research on animals to
cease altogether; as I have said before, society is not prepared to give up the
possible benefits that such research might bring. If there were suddenly no
animals, I strongly suspect that we would quietly begin experimenting upon
the defenseless humans mentioned earlier. Peter Singer, in his excellent
book Animal Liberation, suggests that we ask ourselves, in thinking about a
given piece of animal research, whether we would be prepared to do that
research on retarded humans. Unfortunately, I think the answer for too
many researchers would be "certainly!" (Recall the hepatitis experiments
done at New York City's Willowbrook State School on retarded children
during the 1960s and 1970s.) And if there were no animals, I think that
many researchers would not be inclined to restrict themselves to the
retarded if they were allowed free reign.
 But it is not utopian to expect researchers to accept constraints on what
can be done to animals for moral reasons, even as they have accepted
constraints on what can be done to humans. The right to inquire, like all
rights, is not absolute. Furthermore, only the most naive researcher would
think that he or she currently enjoys unrestricted freedom of inquiry. All
sorts of powerful forces currently serve as constraints upon that freedom.
Certain research, for example, is socially unacceptable, a clear example
being that of scientists like William Shockley whose thesis was that certain
racial groups are intellectually inferior. Such research is eschewed by major
universities and by funding agencies. Similarly, certain hypotheses and
theories have been ruled out a priori by the research community, often for
no good reason at all, simply because the hypothesis is "preposterous" and
"clearly absurd." This harks directly back to the points we made about the
insularity and unthinking nature of scientific education and, correlatively, of
the scientific "establishment." One is uncomfortably reminded of the
bishops confronting Galileo's unorthodox views. They refused to look
through the telescope because they already knew that the moon was perfect
and unflawed! Thirty years ago, one would have been thrown or laughed
out of a medical or veterinary school if one even suggested studying
acupuncture. More dramatic is the case of Immanuel Velikovsky, whose
radical ideas concerning the solar system were viciously and hysterically
attacked by prominent scientists who had not even read his books and
admitted it! Another powerful force puncturing the myth of free inquiry is
research funding. Given the incredible costs of research, salaries, overhead,
physical plants, equipment, supplies, and so on, virtually no one can do
research on their own without major sources of funding. The funding
agencies are capricious, often subject to vagaries of research fashion, social
pressure, "old-buddyism," and political influence. Any scientist will tell you
as a matter of course that the best scientists aren't necessarily the ones
funded. In fact, a physicist I know makes an eloquent and strong case that
Einstein would not be funded today-his work was too esoteric, abstract, and
counter to mainstream thought.

All of this shows that freedom of research is essentially in a deep sense

simply a slogan-one cannot simply choose to investigate whatever strikes
one's fancy. A complex nexus of social, cultural, and political factors forms
the arena on which research is played out. Why not, then, simply add one
more rational, moral vector to these constraints? Why not require that the
interests and nature of animals be considered by funding agencies and by
researchers?
One of the recent thrusts by those interested in the welfare of laboratory
animals has been a heavy emphasis upon alternatives to animals in
experimentation. Various pieces of legislation have been introduced,
designed to press the use of alternatives: one such bill would have
established a center for the study of alternatives, the other would have
allocated up to 50 percent of the current federal biomedical research budget
to the study of alternatives to the use of animals. To some extent, basic
biological research already utilizes replacements for live animals, for
example, tissue and organ culture, which involves growing living cells in the
laboratory and using these cells for various experiments that might in the
past have utilized animals. On the other hand, as Smyth has pointed out, the
development of these methods often spurs additional research on animals, to
extrapolate or test the results gained from the in vitro (literally, in glass, i.e.,
test tube) methods. In any case, the development of possible viable
alternatives to animals often requires a knowledge of biology and physiology
far in excess of what we currently have and would itself be unable to
proceed without research on animals ! Certainly, a meaningful Animal
Welfare Act would require the use of alternatives to animals when possible
and ought to further require justifications in each case where alternatives are
not used. But it is currently unrealistic to expect replacement to be the major
vehicle for ameliorating animal suffering in basic research.

There is, however, a good deal of room for refinement and reduction in
basic biological research. One of the simplest methods of reduction involves
tightening up of experimental and statistical design in biological research.
Biologists are notorious for being rather poorly trained in statistics. As a
result, they often do not prove what they think they are proving and also fail
to extract the maximum amount of information from a body of data.
Increased attention by funding agencies to the design of experiments and
ruthless criticism of experimental methodology would benefit both science
and animals by eliminating waste and unnecessary suffering. There is no
point in doing experiments if the experiments have no sound theoretical
grounding. This point, of course, applies across all of our research and
testing categories. A case that dramatically illustrates this point was reported
in Science in June of 1979. It was revealed that the National Cancer
Institute's program of testing possible carcinogens, long represented as one
of the best in the world, was extraordinarily deficient. Fifty-one long-term
programs were so deficient that they could not even be written up as
technical reports. At one laboratory under contract to NCI, 89,394 animals
had to be killed because of preventable infections at a cost of $320,000. At
another laboratory, 53,000 animals were wasted.
So one simple source of reduction is, paradoxically, a demand for better
science, science in which animals are not wasted, in which experiments are
well reasoned and well designed. And this harks back to our earlier point
about science education. Given the manner in which scientists are trained, it
is no surprise that there is so little theoretical, methodological, and
conceptual self-awareness and self-criticism in research. So long as
scientists are instructed to do rather than to think, to work within set
theoretical patterns rather than to criticize them, to get funded rather than to
reflect on the significance of the tasks before them, we will have sloppy
science. Surveying the contemporary research situation, I am often put in
mind of the reaction of the British Royal Society to Newton's revolutionary
works. Betraying a marked lack of understanding of Newton's achievement,
some members of the society became convinced that what distinguished
Newton from other thinkers was his empiricism, and that if they, too,
became more empirical, they could do Newton-like things. One can find in
their commonplace books (intellectual diaries) accounts of experiments that
they performed in the hope of shaking out another revolutionary discovery
("Today I mixed horse manure and Coca-Cola and nothing happened!").
They had no theoretical basis or imaginative insight to spark hypotheses; in
fact, they had few hypotheses. They equated science with trying things and
seeing what happens, much as children do. Unfortunately for science and
for the animals, there are still scientists who proceed in precisely this
manner, totally atheoretically.

Does this really happen? Unfortunately, yes. There are numerous

experiments conducted that have as little scientific value and credibility as
the high school demonstration involving feeding rats milk, water, and
glucose mentioned earlier. Take, for example, the experiment conducted
that involved starving a coyote for a couple of weeks, throwing a sheep in
with it, and concluding that a hungry coyote will eat a sheep. Following
this, the coyote was again starved, only this time two sheep were thrown in
with him, one ordinary sheep and one covered with hot pepper. Conclusion?
A hungry coyote would rather eat the plain sheep but, in a pinch, would eat
the seasoned one!

One can chronicle endless numbers of this sort of experiment, where it is

difficult to understand how any adult human being can devote serious time
and money (usually federal) to such a study. Oftentimes experiments
involve telling us what we already know from common sense. Other times
one has little idea what the significance of the results are, as the experiment
does not stem from any theoretical vision that will better help us understand
the world.

Almost thirty years ago, I debated the head of the National Society for
Medical Research, then the chief lobby group for the biomedical
establishment, before an audience of seven hundred people. In the course of
the debate, he remarked that any attempt to constrain what can be done to
animals would stifle science, since science is, after all, nothing but "the
gathering of facts" and a process of "trial and error." The fact that such a
major figure could blatantly espouse such a simplistic view of science is
shocking but illustrative of our thesis. As I pointed out to him, science is
not just or even basically the gathering of facts. Scientific theories do not
typically emerge from random data collection. The main importance of data
is in the verification of hypotheses, not in the discovery. After all, when one
considers any major scientific theory, be it the theory of gravitation,
relativity, quantum mechanics, or genes, one makes reference to entities and
processes that are unobservable, and whose discovery required imaginative
leaps. Newton was cer tainly not the first man to be hit by a falling apple;
yet it took Newton's theoretical vision to postulate gravitation!

The most superficial look at the history of science reveals that virtually
no major advances were made simply by gathering data. The great scientists
were guided by theory and vision, indeed, sometimes by erroneous vision,
as in the case of Kepler, who sought to prove that the orbits of the planets
could be related mathematically as the notes of the musical scale, thereby
establishing the music of the spheres postulated by the Pythagoreans. Or let
us recall Galileo, who is often said to have shown that the acceleration of
falling bodies is independent of their mass and is uniform by dropping a
heavy and a light object from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In actual fact, as
seen in his Dialogues Concerning the Two Great Systems of the World,
Galileo was a good deal more ingenious than that and employed reason to
establish his point. Take two five-pound weights, said Galileo, and drop
them from the same height. Surely they will hit the ground at the same time.
Join them by a weightless rod-surely they will still hit the ground at the
same time when dropped. Shrink the rod until the two weights are stuck
together. Surely they will still hit the ground at the same time. But now we
have a ten-pound weight, showing that rate of fall is independent of mass.

As another example of where theory precedes data and predominates

over it, consider Einstein. His world-shattering critique of Newton was not
based on data or experiment unavailable to others, but rather on a
conceptual analysis of the concept of simultaneity. Correlatively, when
asked what he would have said if some astronomical predictions generated
by the general theory of relativity had not been supported by the data
gathered by Arthur Eddington, Einstein said, in essence, "So much the
worse for the data, the theory is correct!"

A similar account can be given about the father of genetics, Gregor

Mendel. Every schoolboy knows of Mendel's famous experiments with the
pea plants, which allegedly led him to the discovery of genetics. In fact,
statistical analysis of Mendel's studies indicate that the probability of
Mendel actually obtaining the experimental results he claimed was only
.00007, or 1 in 14,000! In short, Mendel knew the theory was correct and
chose the data that met his expectations.

We know too from the history of science that in the face of theoretical
commitment, recalcitrant data is easily dismissed or explained away, and
that theory determines what we see. Consider Galileo's bishops, who
refused to look through the telescope because they knew the moon was
perfect. Suppose they would have been forced to look-would they then have
been forced to admit that it was not perfect? Not at all-they simply would
have said that Galileo had created an instrument that made the perfect moon
look flawed! An even more dramatic example is told of Franz Anton
Mesmer, the discoverer of "animal magnetism," or hypnotism. In order to
illustrate the anesthetic effects of hypnotism, Mesmer hypnotized a patient
who was to undergo amputation, and the limb was removed with no visible
discomfort. "Have I not proved my point?" asked Mesmer triumphantly.
"Not at all," replied the physicians. "The man felt pain, he just failed to
show it."

The point, then, is this: Contrary to the way science is often taught and
contrary to the way many researchers proceed, science is not merely fact
gathering. To paraphrase the great philosopher Immanuel Kant, "Theories
without data are empty, data without theories are blind." Certainly we shall
make no progress without accumulating data and facts. But those facts must
not be gathered at random. They must be gathered in order to test
hypotheses and theories arrived at via the creative power of thought, reason,
and imagination, as the members of the Royal Society we discussed earlier
ruefully discovered following Newton's achievement.

Unfortunately, some science has always deployed thoughtless empirical

dabbling-much of twentieth-century behavioral psychology is guilty of
experimentation on animals to see "what happens if ... ?" As we shall
shortly discuss, much molecular biological research today involves adding
or ablating genes or sequences precisely to see what happens.

Robert Paul Wolff once remarked that what is most wrong with
contemporary science is that scientists totally lack perspective-each
individual researcher sees himself or herself as throwing a little piece of
dung onto the giant dung heap, and somehow, eventually, there will stand a
cathedral! I recall one of my students, a psychology graduate student, being
particularly shocked by a nasty piece of animal research and asking the
researcher what the significance of that experiment was. Without blinking
an eye, the psychologist replied, "That is for future researchers to decide."

When I first became interested in animal ethics, I often argued with

psychologists about the morality of what they are doing. When they are not
too defensive to engage in dialogue, I pose the following dilemma to them:
"A good deal of your research is on mice and rats, studying behavior and
learning, utilizing pleasure and pain to condition the animals. Clearly, you
are not interested in the mind of the rat for its own sake. You study these
animals because they are relevantly analogous to human beings, because rat
behavior is a good model for human behavior. The dilemma is this: Either
the rats are relevantly analogous to human beings in terms of their ability to
learn by positive and negative reinforcement (i.e., pleasure and pain), in
which case it is difficult to see what right you have to do things to rats that
you would not do to human beings, or the rats are not relevantly analogous
to human beings in these morally relevant ways, in which case it is difficult
to see the value in studying them!" I have never received an adequate
response to this question; in fact, I have rarely received any response at all.
The only semblance of an answer is something like "Well, we're stronger
than rats," or "We're not allowed to do it to people," both of which are
obviously morally irrelevant, as we saw in earlier discussions.

On one occasion, when a psychologist justified his behavior on the

grounds that he was "stronger" than the rats, I must confess to responding
with a most unphilosophical counterargument. Being a weightlifter, I picked
him up by his lapels and snarled, "Well, I'm stronger than you are-how
about I run you through a maze?" (I don't know whether he got the point,
but I certainly enjoyed it!)

Unfortunately, there has been much invasive research historically done

on animals where it is hard to see the point scientifically. These include
blinding animals to study the effect on territorial aggression; "learned
helplessness work" (exposing animals to inescapable negative
reinforcement), which is illegal in Britain but not in the United States; the
work of Harry Harlow, who forcibly removed baby monkeys from their
mothers and substituted barbed wire "mothers" that spiked, shocked, or
otherwise harmed the infant. (My friend John Gluck, a clinical and
experimental psychologist who experienced a major gestalt shift after
working with Harlow, can no longer understand how he could have done
so!) Other suspect areas of study include geophagia, the study of eating
nonnutritive substances, and addiction or alcoholism studies done on
animals to deal with what are, in essence, human, self-inflicted "diseases."
How is one to effect this sort of change in the work of researchers who
dabble in absurd areas? A fruitful approach was adopted by the Friends of
Animals organization. This group has approached a number of qualified
scientists and physicians and has asked that they review projects funded by
the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which funds most
psychological research in this country, for scientific validity, value of the
research, and treatment of animals. Although, in theory, the papers
describing the projects are public knowledge and ought to be made
available upon request to any interested citizen, in point of fact, the agency
consistently failed to turn over the documents and was sued by Friends of
Animals before they released them. The point is to look at these projects in
the cold light of day, to have them reviewed by people outside the circle of
mutual masturbation that sometimes tends to characterize "peer review" for
federal funding. The public and the legislators must be made aware of the
incredible amounts of public money being spent on research of questionable
validity that involves significant animal abuse. The researchers must be
forced both to justify their research according to the utilitarian principle,
i.e., according to what possible benefits could accrue to humans from such
research, which balances the animal suffering, and to justify their
investigations with animals according to the basic canons of scientific
methodology and logic. If they cannot do so (as I suspect in many cases
they cannot), if they cannot answer questions about what light this work
sheds, what theory is being tested, what aspect of the world is being
illuminated, or what truths are being unearthed, then they ought not be
funded, both for moral and for economic reasons. Ideally, federal legislation
governing appropriations should require that projects be assessed in this
way. If such a procedure was followed, a good deal of mindless activity
masquerading as research and responsible for incalculable amounts of
suffering would vanish.

But what of basic research that passes such tests, that does enjoy
scientific legitimacy, and that does carry great potential benefit in its wake?
Here we found some very simple and plausible solutions. The more I
studied animal research, beginning almost thirty years ago, the more I
realized that the laissez-faire situation regarding research animals that
researchers had traditionally enjoyed was both morally and scientifically
unacceptable. (As we saw, the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 had barely any
effect on how animals could be used.) And, despite researcher claims that
they could police their own house, they were not doing the right thing by
animals either in terms of science or proper treatment of animals. For one
thing, many researchers, especially human medical researchers, know
virtually nothing about the animals they use, save that the animals model a
particular disease syndrome. One could get an MD-PhD degree in an
animal-using area of biomedicine and never learn anything about the
animals one uses in terms of their needs and natures, physical and
psychological. Such ignorance alone assured that a significant amount of
animal abuse would attend the research process. Buttressed by scientific
ideology's denial of concern with ethics and with mental states in animals,
one had a situation that made such abuse inevitable (for example, by
absolving the research community of any knowledge of laboratory animal
analgesia).

Furthermore, such ignorance led to bad science, not only to bad animal
care. Much scientific research has been put in peril by a failure to see how
various forms of pain, suffering, disease, and unhappiness can skew
relevant physiological and metabolic variables. All of us are aware of the
metabolic and physiological changes that stress, tension, pain, fear, and
anxiety can cause in our bodies. The same is true of animals. Vernon Riley
showed that, not surprisingly, animals living under unpleasant conditions
experienced higher incidence of tumors; the implications of this for cancer
research are obvious, especially in light of numerous scandals mentioned
earlier that have come to light regarding the husbandry of laboratory
animals used in such research. And far too few researchers appreciated fully
just how vulnerable animals are to all sorts of variables that do arise.
Interestingly enough, cavalier disregard of animals as anything other than
(in most cases) cheap tools leads to compromised or even meaningless
research results. Researchers who would never dream of dragging a
microtome to work behind a pickup truck will treat animals in ways that
bespeak ignorance of or disregard for the extraordinary sensitivity of
animals to noxious experiences. Unimaginable amounts of data were
jeopardized by a failure to acknowledge, let alone control for, widely
overlooked variables. Few researchers worry about such things as noise
levels, technician personality and handling of the animals, restraint, housing
congenial to the animals' natures, opportunities for play and social
interaction for the animals; yet all of these have demonstrable physiological
and metabolic effects. To cite some eloquent examples: Barnett and his
colleagues studied the effects on pigs of being gently stroked versus being
slapped or shocked. The pigs that were handled unpleasantly showed
significantly lower growth performance, feed conversion, and reproductive
success. Boars unpleasantly handled developed smaller testicles at 160 days
of age and showed later attainment of behavioral puberty. Seabrook has
shown what successful dairymen always knew, namely, that how herdsmen
treat cows is a major factor in milk production. Ingram has shown that
variation in environmental conditions during the neonatal period can change
brain chemistry in piglets. Isaac has discussed the incredible range of
experiences that can serve as stressors for laboratory rats. In fact, he tells us
any stimulus can serve as a stressor.

Few scientists control for anything like this range of variables; in the
case of research on swine, an up-and-coming research animal, there aren't
even standards for housing, care, and husbandry. One can easily imagine
the incommensurability of data across laboratories. When I spoke before the
Shock Society, an international group of circulatory shock researchers, they
were bitterly divided on the legitimacy of using anesthetized animals in
traumatic, burn, or other shock research. Many wished to use anesthesia for
ethical reasons, yet others declared that anesthesia would skew results.
Interestingly enough, not a single researcher had heard of Gartner's
monumental results, which showed that having a familiar technician simply
move rats in a cage three feet was enough, one hundred seconds later, to
produce major changes in twenty-five plasma variables, all of which
demonstrated a microcirculatory shock profile and persisted for a
considerable period of time. I pointed out that until they controlled for such
morally neutral stress variables, they could hardly piously withhold
anesthesia on scientific grounds.
 An excellent example of researcher ignorance and its effect both on
research and on animal suffering may be found in an experiment conducted
some years ago. A researcher was studying the effect of starvation on the
digestive system of mule deer. (Many mule deer starve to death each winter
in the mountains.) To do so, the researcher starved the animals
systematically, withholding food until the animals died and could be
necropsied. Aside from the fact that deer in the wild do not starve
systematically with all food withheld, the experiment was ironically
rendered totally meaningless by the researcher's use of a basic scientific
tool, the control group; that is, a group of deer that was not starved, for
purposes of comparison. Amazingly, the experimenter kept the two groups
separated only by a wire mesh so that the starving deer were treated to the
spectacle of watching the control group eat! Aside from the extraordinary
insensitivity displayed here, the stupidity is obvious. The experiment is
totally skewed by the metabolic changes and correlative changes in the
rumen, which may be and very likely are wrought in the starving deer by
the visual and olfactory stimuli occasioned by the proximity of the food.

So proper treatment of animals and good research often go hand in hand,

but of course not always. And as illustrated, not all experimenters are smart
enough to see the connections even when they are there. Furthermore, it
was clear from my own experience that researchers did not typically do
everything they could, or indeed do anything, to mitigate pain and suffering
in experimental animals, even when it would not interfere with their
experiment to do so. Laziness, ignorance, habit, and ideological disregard
of animal suffering and of the questionable morality of animal use all
combined to assure that animals did not receive the best treatment possible
in research. The Animal Welfare Act did not require this; and, though the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) did promulgate, since 1962, excellent
guidelines for laboratory animal care, which every researcher and
institution receiving federal funding through NIH theoretically had to
adhere to, this was never enforced and thus, given human nature, was
cavalierly ignored. (One dean of a veterinary school told me he had never
heard of the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, the
publication containing the rules; another said he had helped write the rules,
but didn't mean them to apply to knowledgeable people like himself!) When
I phoned NIH in the late 1970s to complain about flagrant violations freely
acknowledged at institutions I visited, I was informed that they were not in
the enforcement business. Indeed, NIH did not seize any grants until forced
to do so in 1982 in the wake of the infamous Silver Spring monkeys case,
where the grossly immoral treatment by Dr. Edward Taub of some
experimental monkeys became an international scandal.

It thus became clear to me in the mid-1970s that animal research was

desperately in need of meaningful legislative regulation, something
traditionally anathema to researchers. (Indeed, it was only in the face of the
threat of congressional action in the mid-1960s that the research
community, through NIH, grudgingly accepted self-regulation of research
on human subjects!) Researchers tended to believe that science and free
inquiry should not be tainted by legislative regulation. The simple response
to this is that scientists are as human as everyone else. In society, we simply
do not trust others to do the right thing where objects of moral concern can
be harmed by a failure to do the right thing. We ensure that people will do
the right thing by formalizing the requirements. For example, we have laws
against driving on the wrong side of the road even though, presumably, only
a lunatic would do such a thing, since it is in one's serious interest not to
risk death. Scientists are indeed human and cut corners like everyone else,
under pressures of career advancement, budgets, time pressure, and so on,
as increasing numbers of reports of data falsification eloquently document.
The fact that the US government felt compelled to pass the Good
Laboratory Practices Act of 1978, an act that mandates practices like record
keeping and disease control, which are essential to science anyway, yet
which were found to be flagrantly ignored, eloquently demonstrated that
researchers, like everyone else, needed to be nudged to do what their calling
naturally demanded. And it is well known that animal care and treatment
did historically suffer from being unregulated, as the case of laboratory
animal analgesia alluded to earlier demonstrates.
In 1977 a group of people in Colorado joined together to draft model
legislation for the care and treatment of laboratory animals. The group was
headed by Robert Welborn, a prominent Denver attorney and longtime
animal advocate, and included myself (a philosopher), three veterinarians,
including two with extensive research and laboratory animal experience, a
physician, and two attorneys. After extensive discussion, we emerged with
some key concepts. First of all, we realized that research animals were
simply not protected and that the best step toward protection was
legislation. Second, we felt that laboratory animals were at least morally
entitled to having pain and suffering controlled during research, and also to
proper care, housing, and husbandry, ideally such as to accommodate their
natures. We also felt that multiple surgery (as described earlier) ought to be
banned and that all animals used in research, not just the cute and cuddly,
should be protected. At the same time, we did not wish to see "a cop in
every lab." Rather, we wanted the law to be an educational device as much
as a regulatory one, one which would force researchers to think about the
moral issues in animal use; to think about pain and suffering and to become
knowledgeable in their control and elimination; to think about the animals'
natures; and, in general, to break the conceptual shackles that tradition,
habit, and scientific ideology imposed on researchers by asserting that
animal research was value free, and that animal thought and feeling was
unknowable.

Two of us had enjoyed significant experience with institutional human

subjects committees, federally chartered in the 1970s to protect human
subjects in research, and we knew that they worked beautifully. These
committees, consisting of human researchers, other academics, and
laypeople from the community-ministers, physicians, attorneyswere created
in the wake of well-publicized examples in the 1960s of researchers taking
unfair advantage of subjects without informed consent, to the detriment of
the subject. Although suspicion immediately arose that such "enforced self-
regulation" was tantamount to setting the fox out to watch the chickens,
from our own experience we knew this was not the case. Once researchers
were appointed to the committee, they took their charge very seriously and,
instead of, as it were, wearing their researcher's hat, they wore their subject
protector's hat. Although researchers initially joined such committees quite
sure that all other researchers were wise, honorable, and not really in need
of oversight, it did not take long for them to be shocked out of their
dogmatic slumber.

This, we felt, was to be the backbone of feasible legislation-general

moral principles legislatively encoded, enforced self-regulation at the local
level, and auditing of that self-regulation by a central authority. Our hope
was to educate researchers so as to make concern for the animals' second
nature. We did not wish to create bureaucratic hoops and hurdles for
researchers to jump through and over but not take seriously-we wanted
them to internalize and appropriate moral concern for the animals.

Initially, we naively intended the law to govern research in Colorado.

Although we had the backing of leaders of the academic community in
Colorado, the bill was defeated in the state legislature. Shortly thereafter,
Representative Pat Schroeder of Colorado contacted us and, after extensive
discussion, offered to introduce the bill on the federal level as an
amendment to the Animal Welfare Act. Though the bill was defeated by
pressure from the medical research community, it did not die. It was
reintroduced again and again, and it was supported by increasing numbers
of legislators. By 1982, when I testified on behalf of the Walgren version of
the bill before Congress, public concern for experimental animals had
clearly increased, and certain elements of the research community had
begun to state publicly that they could live with the law. Indeed, in my
testimony I carried the endorsement of the American Physiological Society,
the traditional opponent of any intrusion into research. By 1985 public
concern was so intense that two related pieces of legislation were passed
based on our model, one an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act known
as the Dole-Brown Bill, the other a bill essentially turning NIH policy into
law, known as the Health Research Extension Act.
 Before discussing the strengths and limitations of each of these pieces of
legislation, it is essential that we summarize them. The major statutory
provisions of the 1985 Amendment to the Animal Welfare Act (PL 99-198)
are as follows:

1. Establishment of an institutional animal care committee to monitor

animal care and use and to inspect facilities. Members must include a
veterinarian and a person not affiliated with the research facility.

2. Standards for exercise of dogs are to be promulgated by the secretary

of agriculture.

3. Standards for a physical environment, which promotes "the

psychological well-being of primates," are to be promulgated.
(Provisions 2 and 3 show the influence of what I have called the
Rights Principle, but also show that the public still favors certain
animals.) Exercise for dogs is also required.

4. Standards for adequate veterinary care, including use of anesthetics,

analgesics, and tranquilizers, are to be promulgated. The control and
minimization of pain and suffering is emphasized.

5. No paralytics are to be used without anesthetics. (Amazingly,

physiological psychologists, who denied consciousness in animals,
historically did stereotaxic brain surgery on nonhuman primates
restrained by paralytic drugs alone, so that the animals would be
conscious!)

6. Alternatives to painful procedures must be considered by the

investigator.

7. Multiple surgery is prohibited except for "scientific necessity."

8. The Animal Care Committee must inspect all facilities semiannually,

review practices involving pain, review the conditions of animals,
and file an inspection report detailing violations and deficiencies.
Minority reports must also be filed.
 9. The secretary is directed to establish an information service at the
National Agricultural Library, which provides information aimed at
eliminating duplication of animal experiments, reducing or replacing
animal use, minimizing animal pain and suffering, and aiding in
training animal users.

10. The facility must provide for training for all animal users and
caretakers on humane practice and experimentation, research
methods that limit pain, use of the information service of the
National Agricultural Library, and methods of reporting deficiencies
in animal care and treatment.

11. A significant penalty is established for any animal care committee

member who reveals trade secrets discovered in the course of
research protocol review.

12. The secretary is directed to consult with the Department of Health

and Human Services (under which falls biomedical research funding
responsibility through the National Institutes of Health) in
establishing the standards described.

13. New civil penalties are provided for violation of the act.

Along with the statutory provisions of the amendment came the need for
detailed regulations interpreting these provisions. And since the new law
significantly broke with the tradition of laissez-faire research and did
propose to regulate certain aspects of the design and conduct of research,
most notably those relevant to the control of pain and suffering, the drafting
of these regulations involved considerable controversy. Although the law
passed in 1985, Parts 1 and 2 of the regulations were not finalized until late
1989, and the USDA received over 7,000 comments concerning the
proposed regulations. The controversy over Part 3, which defined the
requirement of exercise for dogs and environments for primates that
enhance their psychological well-being, continued to rage well into the
1990s, with major portions of the research community arguing that
psychological well-being was scientifically meaningless. As a result, the
regulations interpreting these provisions were not released until 1991 !

One major focus of the regulations is an attempt to harmonize the

requirements of the Animal Welfare Act with those of the NIH policy that,
as we mentioned, was made into law by the Health Research Extension Act
(PL 99-158). This act essentially puts the power of law behind the NIH
guide and applies to any institution receiving NIH money as well as to
NIH's own intramural laboratories. Each grantee must submit an assurance
statement to NIH that they will comply with NIH policy. Violation of such
policy entails seizure of funding. In addition, grantees must have an
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) that must meet
regularly and review research and teaching protocols involving animals
before they are funded; that must inspect facilities at least semiannually and
assure that all researchers, technicians, and other personnel involved with
animals are properly trained; and that may suspend any activity involving
animals not in compliance with policy. The committee must consist of at
least five members: one a veterinarian with laboratory animal medicine
background, one a scientist experienced in animal research, one member
whose primary expertise is in a nonscientific area, and one public member
not affiliated with the institution. In September 1986, NIH's Office of
Protection from Research Risks issued a detailed account of its regulations
interpreting the new law, entitled the Public Health Service Policy on
Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Among other provisions, the
new rules require that institutions designate clear lines of authority and
responsibility in animal care and use. Record-keeping requirements have
also been strengthened. In addition, the new guide strengthens the
requirements for adequate veterinary care, makes reference to the social
environment for laboratory animals, requires aseptic surgery for rodents,
and strengthens euthanasia requirements. Animals that experience pain that
cannot be alleviated must be euthanized at the end of or during an
experimental procedure, in accordance with the recommendations for the
American Veterinary Medical Association Panel. Recent editions of the
NIH Guide to the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals have stressed the
importance of environmental enrichment. The use of farm animals in
biomedical research is now under both USDA and NIH scrutiny.
One can see immediately that the new federal laws entail a significant
frontal attack on the aspect of scientific ideology that claims science is
value free and thus, has no truck with ethics. Both laws make quite clear
that animals enjoy a moral status beyond that of mere tools for research and
both ensure far greater protection than that encoded in traditional
prohibitions against cruelty. One can indeed argue that the new laws encode
some limited rights for animals in the sense we have discussed earlier.
Research animals are now entitled to the alleviation of pain and suffering
not essential to the research in question, even if such alleviation is
expensive or burdensome to the researcher. In other words, in a limited way,
the moral status of animals supersedes human utility. And insofar as the
amendment to the Animal Welfare Act requires exercise for dogs and
enriched environments for primates, it again codifies some rights for a
limited set of animals.

A second way in which the new laws erode science's distancing of ethics
is the requirement for review of protocols. One can hardly discuss and
evaluate protocols for animal use without coming up against a whole host
of moral and morally tinged questions: Can and ought the same ends be
achieved without inflicting pain and suffering? Has everything been done to
assure the animals' comfort? Does the knowledge gained always (or ever)
justify the animals' suffering? Should painless euthanasia be construed as
harming an animal? Does the fact that animals suffer in the wild have any
moral relevance to the fact that we inflict suffering on them for research?
Do we have a right to hurt animals for our benefit? For their benefit? Even
though some of these questions are legally mandated and others are not, all
of the above and more inevitably arise in open discussions. And even
though, theoretically, animal care committees are not mandated to look at
and weigh costs to benefits (i.e., suffering of the animals versus benefit to
humans, science, or other animals) the way human subjects committees do,
or to look at the scientific merit of proposals, but only at animal care and
alleviation of suffering, in practice the distinction is impossible to maintain.
Many times, members of committees will feel that a procedure, though state
of the art scientifically, should give way to something less invasive. Other
times, especially when looking at projects that are not funded by NIH or
other agencies and thus, are not peer-reviewed, committees may indeed use
a cost-benefit standard. This is, in fact, almost impossible to avoid when
looking at teaching uses of animals. Furthermore, insofar as the laws expect
committees to look at whether the researcher is using the proper species and
number of animals, the distinction between scientific and welfare
considerations is further eroded.

Thus, a major benefit of the new laws is to generate dialogue among

scientists on morally problematic aspects of animal research, thereby
eroding the indefensible ideology that in the past served to allow animal
research to be seen as a value-free activity. The way in which this operates
is fascinating. As one might expect, when scientists are initially asked to
serve on an animal care committee, many are suspicious and resentful about
looking over their colleagues' shoulders and perceive the whole enterprise
as yet another bureaucratic impediment. Almost invariably, in my
experience, this changes when they see that their colleagues aren't perfect;
that there are researchers whose protocols are stupid or badly reasoned, or
who are antiquated in their methodology; and that the result of such
stupidity or laziness is, indeed, unnecessary animal suffering. I recall one
scientist, who had tended to say very little at animal care committee
meetings, coming in one day quite agitated. "It's really interesting," he
exclaimed, "that all research projects using mice specify hundreds or
thousands of mice. Yet if a project asking exactly the same sort of question
is using horses, all of a sudden five animals is deemed an adequate number.
That doesn't reckon!" Other members of the committee agreed, and the
committee now pays greater attention to numbers of animals. Such
"breakthrough experiences" occur regularly on committees, and each one
changes the gestalt of the committee away from the prejudice that suggests,
"All scientists do the right thing and we are just wasting our time." This, I
suggest, is the real payoff attending review committees: leading researchers
to think in new ways about animal research and to see the animals as more
than tools.
 The Animal Care and Use Committees (ACUCs) are the conceptual
backbone of the legislation. In my view, they have become far more
effective tools for improving animal welfare than I had ever dared to hope.
As we predicted, when given the federal mandate to serve as protectors of
animals, most members took these charges very seriously. Though in the
early years people tended to tread lightly in criticizing colleagues, this soon
changed, by virtue of what I have just called "breakthrough experiences,"
which I shall now describe.

There was historically little precedent in science to criticize one's

colleagues in other fields of science. The typical mode of interaction was to
defer to the expertise of one's colleagues in fields, subfields, or whole
disciplines outside of one's own field. And within one's own field, one was
just as reluctant to criticize a colleague. For example, one of my
veterinarian colleagues on the committee was openly skeptical of the entire
protocol review process, deeming it a bureaucratic waste of time and yet
another example of encroachment on academic freedom. This individual
happened to be an equine/food animal veterinarian. One day we received a
protocol from one of his peers, an individual on the verge of retirement. The
euthanasia component involved killing the animals with magnesium sulfate,
a method that is explicitly disapproved by the American Veterinary Medical
Association's expert Panel on Euthanasia, which is the final arbiter of
acceptable euthanasia for the laboratory animal laws. Magnesium sulfate
acts, in essence, by causing respiratory paralysis, so the animal suffocates.
When my colleague realized that his senior colleague apparently did not
know or care that such euthanasia was inhumane, he visibly paled, and,
thereafter, never again expressed the view that "all researchers know what
they are doing." His entire gestalt changed by virtue of this "breakthrough
experience."

Another researcher on our ACUC had also tended to view the whole
protocol-review activity as a "waste of time" because researchers "know
what they are doing." However, when we reviewed a research proposal to
drown pigs in order to study refloat time for human drowning victims, he
was shocked out of his sanguine stance. Under his leadership, the
committee rejected the proposal, and he pointed out that a simple
alternative was available-to study gas formation in slaughterhouse gut. In
the wake of that event, he took protocol review very seriously.

On another occasion, a world famous veterinary surgeon walked into our

meeting late. We were deliberating about a steel-jawed trap protocol. At
that time, committee members were tiptoeing around criticizing other
scientists. The researcher was, in fact, very concerned about the suffering of
the animals he trapped and was, therefore, using a padded trap that
significantly reduced injury. The surgeon broke etiquette and asked, "My
God, are we still debating that protocol? As far as I am concerned, if we are
an animal care committee, we should reject anything having to do with a
steel-jawed trap!" A wildlife biology researcher on the committee took
strong exception to the surgeon. "You people hurt animals worse than we do
with some of your surgical experiments." From that point on, we were off to
the races, with criticisms thenceforth flowing freely!

I have been very impressed with the commitment ACUC members have
at our institutions and elsewhere. Members sometimes serve for twenty
years or more. One colleague of mine, notorious for his refusal to serve on
"bullshit university committees," served on an ACUC for fifteen years until
he retired. His reason? "This is the only committee that does real good!"

We have found it very effective to put people who complain about the
law on our committee so that they can see for themselves the need for it.
One biologist had written an angry letter when we first started in 1980,
affirming that we only cared about cute and cuddly animals. So extreme
was his memo that it was dubbed the "what is an animal" memo. We invited
him to serve, and he, in fact, served for twenty-four years, eight of those
years as chairman! On the twentieth anniversary of his joining the
committee, we presented him with a framed copy of his memo!

At a national conference on ACUCs, I polled the members present. The

vast majority saw involvement in the ACUCs as the most important service
they performed, and most had or would serve multiple terms.
 In sum, I would argue that ACUC members have been a major force in
transmitting society's ethical concerns to researchers, thereby helping them
to override ideological agnosticism about ethics in science and about the
knowability of subjective states in animals. In fact, I would further argue
that the ACUCs have helped preserve science in the face of diminishing
public confidence in it.

These committees are enforcing laws, and researchers have taken many
other positive steps to benefit animals.

1. More and more, control of care has moved into the hands of experts
(lab animal veterinarians and central staff). In the past, everyone was
an expert. As one prominent physiologist remarked to me, "MD-PhDs
used to say, `Hell, if we can take care of people, we can take care of
animals."' Even though one could get an MDPhD in an animal-using
area of science, begin a major animals research program, and never
learn anything about the animals used except that they model a
particular disease or syndrome, the researcher was accountable to no
one regarding animal care. Furthermore, care and husbandry was
often provided by minimumwage student employees, which in
practice meant erratic feeding and watering, failure to detect disease,
and failure to control other variables that led to bad animal care and
bad scientific results. More and more, committees demand central
care by trained personnel and demand that researchers demonstrate
some mastery of basic principles of research, for example, surgery.
Furthermore, courses are being mandated for nascent researchers in
various aspects of animal care and use, including ethics!

2. Even though the laws do not require it, many committees have
extended the law beyond its letter, for example, to concerns about
pain in invertebrates or about surgery and pain control in farm animals
used for agriculture research.

3. Committees have undertaken or forced the undertaking of research to

the benefit of animals. For example, at my own institution, the ACUC
mandated that a toxicology researcher who never used anesthesia for
 his toxicology regimens for fear of skewing his results in fact see if
such skewing actually occurred. (He ended up finding a regimen that
did not affect his data.) We also fund small research projects that aim
to benefit the animals.

4. Euthanasia protocols are tightly controlled. In the past, researchers

used (or tried to use) such methods as succinylcholine (a paralytic) or
magnesium sulfate. Now committees even worry about animals being
euthanized in front of other animals.

Yet another pernicious aspect of scientific ideology is eroded by the new

laws. As we discussed earlier, one component of scientific ideology has
been the claim that one cannot assert, legitimately, that animals are
conscious, in the sense of enjoying subjective experiences, feeling pain,
fear, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, joy, happiness, pleasure, and the other
noxious or positive mental states that figure so significantly in our moral
concern for humans. We also saw that this philosophy had untoward moral
consequences, leading to the outright denial of pain in animals or to
skepticism about its knowability. This, in turn, led to the ignoring of the
management of pain and suffering in laboratory animals.

As soon as the laws passed, scientists were forced to shed their ideo
logical skepticism about animal consciousness and "reappropriate common
sense." Not surprisingly, more papers on the recognition, control, and
alleviation of animal pain have been published since the passage of the new
laws than were published during the previous hundred years! Whereas,
prior to the laws, one could distance oneself from animal pain and suffering
behind ideological barriers, one must now meet it-and deal with it-head-on.
In sum, then, the new laws have begun to erode the entrenched scientific
ideology that asserts science has no truck with ethics (and with the ethical
issues raised by animal research), and that one cannot (and therefore need
not) deal with or even acknowledge the existence of animal pain, suffering,
and other modalities of consciousness (such as "psychological well-being")
in science. Thus, genuine and major efforts to control pain and suffering
and to develop less invasive alternatives to traditional practices have been
directly occasioned by the new laws, as has greater attention to animal
experimentation in general. This is discussed in great detail in my book,
The Unheeded Cry.
When we first drafted the federal laws, we were well aware that animals in
research could suffer negative experiences in a variety of modalities, all of
which were essentially being ignored by the research community, as
evidenced by the total absence of literature on mitigating such states. In
addition, common sense and experience with animals militate in favor of
attributing negative emotions to animals. Darwin himself had stressed the
point that if morphological and physiological traits were phylogenetically
continuous and evolved, so too were psychological ones, militating in favor
of attributing something resembling human emotions in animals, some
pleasurable but many causing forms of suffering we must assume are
unpleasant.

Let us consider some examples from our common experience. Consider

my horses, who are kept in a one-acre corral for most of the winter months.
When spring arrives, they gather at the gate to our fifteen-acre pasture and
may even paw or push at the gate when I come near. If I then let them out,
the resulting display cannot fail to be perceived by an unbiased observer as
joyful excitement. They gallop into the pasture, exuberantly kicking up
their heels, farting and snorting. Eventually, they calm down and nibble at
the fresh spring grass. If I attempt to put them back in the corral, they refuse
to go.

We certainly perceive fear in animals, as when a cat encounters a strange

dog or when we yell at a puppy for piddling on the carpet. Or boredom in a
confined sow who compulsively chews the bars of her cage. Or obsessive
lust in the eyes of a dog mounting a bitch during estruses. We encounter
anxiety, as when anxiolytic drugs diminish apprehensive behavior in
animals. We encounter hostility and angry frenzy in the behavior of the
guard dog straining to attack a stranger. Or hunger and thirst when we are
about to feed or water our animals.

Nor is this simply mindless anthropomorphism, as when we claim that

the dog knows his birthday is coming or attribute larceny to the pack rat.
For example, ethologist Francoise Wemelsfelder has exhaustively stated the
criteria for attributing boredom to animals in a detailed paper she wrote for
my book on proper care of laboratory animals.

In writing the laboratory animals laws, we were very much aware of all
such negative states and wished to see them controlled. Congress responded
by demanding control of pain and distress in animals used for research, but
without defining distress! It was left to the USDA's APHIS (Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service) to define these states in detail in
regulations interpreting the act. Though as ideologically committed to
agnosticism about animal consciousness as any part of the scientific or
veterinary community, the USDA pursued a remarkably effective (but
necessarily slow) strategy. In the 1980s the USDA ignored distress
completely for the sake of achieving progress in the control of pain. For
example, in one of the most important declarations initiated by the agency,
it was declared early in the process that if something hurt humans, it should
be presumed to hurt animals as well. This simple rule probably did more to
usher in the reappropriation of common sense by the scientific community
than anything else.

For almost twenty years after the law's passage, the USDA focused on
advancing the identification and control of the pain felt by animals. I
believe this was an extremely wise and prudent move. If the USDA had
attempted to press control of pain and distress in the mid-1980s, massive
skepticism stemming from scientific ideology would have collapsed the
entire effort under its own weight. Only now, when acceptance of animal
pain and reap propriation of common sense about its reality and knowability
have suffused the research community, is it wise to begin to engage distress.

The USDA has recently, as of 2004, announced that it would begin

looking at distress. In winter of 2004 I attended an invitation-only
conference on distress hosted by the Humane Society of the United States
(HSUS). Attendees included some of the world's most famous names in
animal welfare. At a dinner held the evening before the actual conference,
most of the participants expressed a recurrent theme: Pain was one thing-
tangible, concrete, open to empirical verification, unproblematic. But
distress was quite another thing-elusive, abstract, "soft," not verifiable and
observable. Could we collectively even begin to define it?

As it happened, I was the keynote speaker. That night I rewrote my talk

in the wake of these comments. I reminded my colleagues that twenty-five
years earlier, almost to the day, I had given the keynote speech at an HSUS-
sponsored conference on pain. Almost the identical comments now being
floated about distress were being floated at the time about pain! No one had
a clue as to how to define pain, and acknowledging the reality and
knowability of animal pain elicited the same discomfort on the part of
scientists that distress was having in the current context. In fact, my
arguments for the reality and knowability of animal pain had twenty-five
years earlier evoked significant anger in some attendees. Indeed, one NIH
official had then said nothing to me, but had phoned the dean of the CSU
veterinary school and had told him that I was a "viper in the bosom of
biomedicine and should be removed from any contact with veterinary
students!" This for simply arguing that animals felt pain and that it could be
known and controlled. I reminded my audience at the distress meeting that
we were encountering, using Yogi Berra's immortal phrase, "deja vu all
over again." In twenty-five years hence, I affirmed, identification of distress
would seem as prosaic and nonproblematic as pain does today, once
common sense was reapproriated.

Though the USDA is currently seeking a definition of distress, in my

view this is a wrongheaded approach. Though philosophers in the Platonic
tradition have long sought definitions of concepts stating necessary and
sufficient conditions for their application, such definitions have been highly
elusive. Invariably, when giving examples of such definitions, philosophers
have used trivial examples like "triangle" and "bachelor," not problematic
notions like "art" or "justice."

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once challenged his readers to

define "game," a simple concept familiar to all. (The reader should, in fact,
try this!) Any definition you attempt will be too broad, in that it will include
activities we do not call games, or too narrow, in that it will exclude some
activities we do call games. Though we cannot define "game," we all know
how to use the term in new contexts. Wittgenstein's point is that if one
knows how to use a concept appropriately, one does not need to be able to
provide a Platonic definition of it in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions. And thus, this would be, a fortiori, true in the case of concepts
like distress.

How, then, should the USDA proceed to define distress for operational,
regulatory purposes? In my view, the agency should begin with a clear list
of paradigm cases where common sense would recognize a negative
emotion in a person or animal. Fear provides a clear exemplar, as does
boredom. (Indeed, as mentioned earlier, boredom has been exhaustively
analyzed by Wemelsfelder). Loneliness, or social isolation in social
animals, seems to be another exemplar. Finding clear examples we all
acknowledge is what Wittgenstein called arguing from paradigm cases.
Given phylogenetic continuity, these clear exemplars should be common to
animals and humans, or at least provide the same sort of negative emotions
for animals that they do for us. A working "definition" of distress would
then indicate that distress is any emotion that creates the same negative
affect in animals' consciousness or awareness as do these clear-cut cases in
humans and animals. This allows for potential distress-creating situations
we may not be aware of in animals; perhaps animals experience some form
of distress unfamiliar to us in the presence of certain sounds we cannot hear
or in the absence of certain pheromones produced by conspecifics.

In any case, the way to approach distress is analogous to the way to

approach pain. We begin by assuming that what distresses a human could
distress an animal, and then seek confirming or disconfirming evidence. For
example, it appears that few species grieve for dead comrades (perhaps
elephants do.) On the other hand, the NIH has ordered that research animals
not be killed in the presence of members of the same species in case there
are distressing cries or pheromones being released. Judging distress can be
done just as judging pain is done by use of behavior, physiological states,
critical anthropomorphism, "asking the animals" through preference testing,
by giving the animals a choice, and so on.
 Another positive feature of the new laws is the emphasis placed on
training of researchers and other personnel in proper care and use of
animals and in such invasive techniques as surgery. As mentioned earlier,
such ignorance led not only to bad science resulting from failure to control
for relevant metabolic and physiological variables, but also, very obviously,
to animal pain and suffering.

Another area in which the laws have had a very positive effect is their
insistence on clear systems of authority, responsibility, and accountability in
animal care. In the past, care was all too often left in the hands of
investigators and graduate students and assumed a very low priority in the
face of weekends, holidays, deadlines, and money shortages. The
centralization of animal care, or at least of responsibility for animal care,
goes a long way toward eliminating suffering arising from neglect.

Finally, built into the Animal Welfare Act amendments is the seed of the
idea that animals need more than just food, water, bedding, and painkillers
to live morally acceptable lives. Other aspects of their telos must also be
respected. Indeed, one NIH official confided to me the opinion that more
animal suffering results from our housing and husbandry of animals under
conditions convenient to us and not congenial to their natures than arises
out of invasive manipulations. Whether or not this is the case, it is plain that
research animals would be better off if we acknowledged their telos in our
husbandry systems. The new law, in its requirement of exercise for dogs
and psychological well-being of primates, blazes a small but significant trail
into this hitherto uncharted area. In our original draft of the laws, we had
requested that all animals be housed as much as possible in accordance with
their telos. Congress refused to accept this suggestion except for dogs and
primates, but NIH has taken this concern very seriously, and NIH's 1996
Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals stressed the need for
environmental enrichment for all species. The research community has
responded splendidly, and trade journals like Lab Animal have responded
with many articles about enriching the environment for research animals.
Cages for mice now contain bedding, nest-making material, hidey-holes,
and toys. Both rabbits and cats are often group housed, with toys and places
to hide for the rabbits, and perches and toys for the cats. Interestingly
enough, such changes have such a major impact on the animals that the
baseline physiological and metabolic data, historically established in
impover ished cages, is now being made obsolete by the new data on these
parameters measured in enriched and certainly different environments!

The research community is very wise in focusing on enrichment and has

clearly learned from the lessons learned by zoos. Few things about animal
use are more upsetting to members of the public than seeing animals in
cold, austere, truncated, boring cages. If public assurance about proper
treatment of research animals is to continue, moving away from
impoverished environments is crucial to social acceptance of research. A
singly housed animal laying listlessly in a cage is a depressing sight!

There is, in sum, no question that the new laws have given rise to greater
researcher sensitivity to animal pain, suffering, and needs, and flagged the
need for implementation of the classical three Rs of alternatives to animal
use: reduction in the numbers of animals used, refinement in manipulative
techniques, and replacement of animals in research by other techniques.
They have also focused emphasis on much-needed training and have
spurred conferences and papers on animal analgesia, stress, pain, and so on.
They have also forced scientists to start thinking about ethical issues
associated with animal use. Hopefully, they will breed a generation of
scientists for whom these concerns are second nature and who have
transcended the ideology we discussed earlier. I believe they have already
effected changes in scientists' thinking. Of great importance to me was the
fact that two very high-ranking officials in NIH and USDA expressed to me
that these laws articulated some basic rights for animals.
Despite these salubrious developments, the new laws are by no means ideal
or even totally adequate. In the first place, not all animals used in research
are covered. Neither of the new laws apply to rats, mice, or birds used in
industry, or farm animals used in agricultural research, since the Animal
Welfare Act, as interpreted by the USDA, still doesn't consider these
creatures to be animals, and the NIH law only applies to federal grant
recipients or NIH's own labs. Clearly, an ideal Animal Welfare Act must be
extended to cover all animals; the decision by the secretary of agriculture
and recently by Congress to exclude rats, mice, birds, and farm animals used
in biomedicine actually seems to go against the legislative intent of the law.

In addition, these laws are currently restricted in their application either

to warm-blooded animals (Animal Welfare Act) or to vertebrates (NIH law).
These cut-off points are clearly arbitrary, and many committees have, to their
credit, extended their application to such higher invertebrates as squids,
where there are good scientific reasons to suspect the presence of thought
and feeling. The scope of these laws should be statutorily expanded to
include all animals where there are good reasons to infer the presence of
pain and/or consciousness.

Another marked inadequacy in these laws pertains to animals used in

agricultural research. The Animal Welfare Act specifically excludes from its
purview farm animals used in agricultural research; NIH policy, too, does
not apply to farm animals used in agricultural research. Yet millions of farm
animals are used in such research in ways that may be as invasive and
occasion as much pain and suffering as biomedical research. Such
agricultural projects may include surgery, deficient diets, food and water
deprivation, total confinement, and induced disease, yet these animals enjoy
no legal protection. Thus, suppose one has twin male lambs, one of which
goes to an NIH-funded biomedical research project, the second to an
agricultural research project. Both will be castrated. The NIH lamb will get
anesthesia, post-surgical analgesia, and will be castrated under aseptic
conditions. The agricultural lamb may have the testicles removed under field
conditions in standard ways, which include having them bitten off! To their
credit, many committees now apply NIH standards to all surgical procedures
done on their campuses-even for agricultural research. Nonetheless,
agricultural research animals clearly need to be included under standards as
rigorous as those governing the treatment of biomedical animals. The
agricultural research community has recently adopted voluntary guidelines
for their research animals; not surprisingly, these are far too weak and have
no enforcement structure to back them.

The major criticisms of these laws, however, can be made in terms of the
utilitarian and rights principles, which we earlier presented as viable moral
principles for constraining research. It will be recalled that the utilitarian
principle asserts that the only invasive research that ought to be permitted is
research where the benefit to humans and/or animals likely to emerge from
the research outweighs the cost in suffering to the ani mals. Recall, too, that
this principle follows from the researchers' own justification of invasive
research in terms of cost-benefit. To be sure, researchers sometimes respond
by invoking the serendipity argument. In this claim, it is argued that though
it may not appear that a particular piece of research will produce foreseeable
benefit, one never knows what will arise adventitiously. The response to that
is simple: by definition, one cannot plan for serendipity. Society does not
fund a great deal of research for a wide variety of reasons. Much research is
turned down by the granting agencies because it is perceived as poorly
designed, less important than other things, and so on. If the serendipity
argument were valid, one could not make such discriminations, and one
would be logically compelled to fund everything. In sum, the utilitarian
principle decrees that only patently beneficial invasive research ought to be
done. Admittedly, such a cost-benefit calculation as we suggest is fraught
with difficulties: how does one weigh one parameter against a disparate one?
But the crucial point to remember is that we do currently make such cost-
benefit decisions in a variety of areas, including research on humans. All that
need be done is that such calculations be exported to the area of animal use.
Certainly there will be hard cases, but at least extreme cases will be clear.
Invasive research aimed at developing a new weapon, a new nail polish, or
at discovering knowledge of no clear benefit to humans and/or animals-for
example, territorial aggression studies-would clearly not be permitted.
 Obviously then, some mechanism needs to be developed that will exclude
invasive research that produces no benefit, but simply advances knowledge
or careers. Some historic types of psychological research, for example, are
very vulnerable to this criticism. The current mechanism of peer review,
whereby experts in the field judge the value and fundability of research,
plainly does not address these concerns. Inevitably, this mechanism often
leads to mutual back-scratching and perpetuation of old approaches to
problems. Researchers who throughout their whole careers have taken a
particular sort of invasive animal use for granted in their field are not the
best source for eliminating such a use from the field. A better alternative,
perhaps, which should be encoded in law, would be to allow local
committees with greater representation from the citizenry at large to pass on
the value of a piece of animal research. Society pays for animal research;
researchers ought to be able to successfully defend their need to spend public
money to hurt animals to a set of citizens. Such an approach works for our
justice system; perhaps researchers need to convince something comparable
to a jury of their need to hurt animals for the sake of research.

Thus, I would argue that local committees should also be charged with
deciding whether a piece of research ought to be done, that such committees
be made up of a majority of nonscientists representing the public in general,
and that this should be legislatively mandated. I would thus increase the
number of nonscientists on animal care committees considerably and require
regular meetings of the whole to discuss research proposals. It will be
objected that nonscientists "can't understand" what the scientists are doing.
This is nonsense, if only because outside of their own field, scientists often
do not understand what other scientists are doing until it is explained in
terms that an intelligent layperson can understand. I served for three years on
a committee that awards biological research grants and have repeatedly
observed the ignorance that scientists display toward work outside their own
small area. Any decent researcher can outline his or her research to the
intelligent layperson in such a way as to justify the significance and
methodology, except perhaps in mathematics and physics-areas that don't use
animals. Such an exercise in translation is, in fact, quite salubrious, since it
forces the researcher to see his or her research as others who are
nonspecialists might. This, in turn, may well necessitate his or her use of a
new vocabulary and new patterns of thought, especially if he or she is
compelled to provide moral justification for the use of animals. Such
thinking would be a salubrious counterforce to the myth that science is value
neutral, or value free, and might ultimately lead to more awareness on the
part of researchers of the social and moral dimensions of their work. (In
dealing with scientists in my work on animals, I find that significant
dialogue on the moral status of animals often leads to additional discussions
of such topics as biohazards, recombinant DNA, genetic engineering, and so
forth.)

What of the rights principle, which, it will be recalled, is pivotal to our

ethic and asserts that in the context of research, all research should be
conducted in such a way as to maximize the animal's potential for living its
life according to its nature or telos, and certain fundamental rights should be
preserved regardless of considerations of cost? In other words, if we are
embarking on a piece of research that meets the utili tarian principle, we by
no means have carte blanche; we must attend to the animal's rights following
from its nature: the right to be free from pain, to be housed and fed in
accordance with its nature, to exercise, to companionship if it is a social
animal, and so on. The animal used in research should thus be treated, in
Kant's terminology, as an end in itself, not merely as a means or tool.

Plainly, the new laws do move in this direction when they mandate
control of pain and suffering, exercise for dogs, and enriched environments
for primates. However, they are only a beginning. I would therefore argue
that the laws must be augmented to mandate the creation of husbandry and
housing systems that allow all animals used in research to live lives
approximating that dictated by their telos, so as to assure as much as possible
their positive well-being, as well as the mitigation of their pain and
suffering. Precedent for this already exists in the work done by people like
Hal Markowitz on enriched environments for zoo animals. Laboratory
animals have traditionally been kept in husbandry conditions that are
convenient to researchers in terms of ease of cleaning and maintenance. The
standard stainless steel or polycarbonate rodent cage was developed for
human convenience and efficiency, not out of regard for the animals' natures.
Sophisticated laboratory animal scientists are increasingly coming to realize
that life under conditions that do not accommodate the animal's telos is a
major source of suffering for animals. We have already mentioned the
suggestion that being forced to live under conditions for which they are not
suited is a far greater source of suffering for laboratory animals than are the
experimental manipulations performed on them that have elicited the bulk of
social concern thus far.
As we have discussed, it follows from our theoretical ethical discussion of
the moral status of animals that we should not feel morally comfortable
about doing invasive research on innocent creatures that is not to their
direct benefit. It was, in fact, for this reason that we argued for federal laws
regulating animal research, for controlling pain and distress in these
animals, and for enriching the environments in which we keep them.

I would now like to draw a positive conclusion from these musings. Not
only is it morally incumbent on those who use animals invasively in
research (or elsewhere) to control the pain, suffering, fear, distress,
loneliness, boredom, anxiety, and all other negative subjective states we
inflict on them intentionally or unintentionally, but also they are under a
positive obligation to do more than eliminate negative experiences-they
must try to make the animals' lives happy. What does this mean for an
animal?

It is not difficult to mock the notion of animal happiness from a skeptical

perspective. After all, we can't know what an animal feels; we can't even
know what human happiness is. I would respond to such criticism in a
heretical way. I completely agree that it is extraordinarily difficult to know
when a given person is happy, let alone to try to define happiness for all
humans. This point is eloquently made in the poem "Richard Cory," by
Edward Arlington Robinson.
 But I would argue that it is far easier to recognize and create the
conditions for happiness in an animal than to do so for human beings for the
following reason. It is traditionally alleged that human consciousness is
qualitatively as well as quantitatively more complex than that of animals, as
we discussed earlier. Animals allegedly live in the now, or at least can only
anticipate the immediate future. Animals cannot universalize (at least to the
degree we do), cannot think universal negative judgments (e.g., "There are
no mice on the moon"), cannot formulate counterfactual judgments (e.g., "If
I weren't a cat, I might be a philosopher"). Furthermore, it is alleged human
consciousness is indefinitely reflexive, animal consciousness is at most, as I
have argued elsewhere, capable of being aware of being aware, not aware of
being aware of being aware of being aware indefinitely. (This is true if Kant
is correct that any mind that depends on external perceptions that it
"synthesizes" into connected experiences must be aware that it is the same
"I" that cognizes the beginning of an experience as the end.)

On a practical level, what does this mean for animal happiness versus
human happiness? Imagine a person who has what he or she wants at a
certain time t, enough to acknowledge that he or she is happy at t. A human
can destroy that happiness by asking himself or herself whether they
deserve to be happy, whether they are happy at being happy, whether the
fear of losing that happiness is self-fulfilling, whether they feel guilty being
happy, etc., in an incessant way. In the case of an animal, however, we have
no reason to suspect such a degree (or kind) of reflexive awareness. If an
animal's basic interests or needs and wants as determined by its telos are
being met, we have no reason to believe that it can reflexively worry about
or impede that happiness. Enduring happiness attendant on satisfaction of
needs seems to be one benefit of a simpler form of consciousness.

Certainly, one can create neuroses in animals, for example, by inducing

learned helplessness. But such neuroses do not, as it were, "come with the
turf," accompanying more complex awareness. For this reason, I consider it
a practicable moral obligation to aim for animal happiness by attempting to
actualize its telos, though this cannot in principle be fully accomplished in
captive animals.
I take great pride in having been associated with the creation of the laws we
have just discussed. In the first place, as mentioned earlier, they did codify
some rights for animals, albeit minimal ones. Nonetheless, I would much
rather be a research animal today than thirty years ago, now that pain must
be controlled. Second, though rarely acknowledged, these laws have done
much to subvert scientific ideology, i.e., the claims that science is value free
and that animal mental states cannot be meaningfully discussed. Third,
researcher attitudes have changed, and many scientists recognize that animal
research is and must be what in the eighteenth century used to be called a
"moral science."

There are, however, some potential areas of research that could well
destroy the system we have been discussing. These are two sorts of research
related to the "genetic turn" that biomedical research has taken. The first
problem comes from our newly found, theoretical ability to create animal
"models" for every human genetic disease, often diseases of great
symptomatic severity in which we cannot control the symptoms in humans
or in animals. The second problem emerges from the trial and error
methodology involved with gene ablation and insertion mentioned earlier
and the inherent unpredictability of phenotypic results. We will discuss these
problem areas sequentially.

First of all, let us consider the creation of animal models for human
diseases. In June of 1997, a team of researchers, working as part of a
concerted action by the European Commission and coordinated by George
Gaskell of the London School of Economics, released the results of a survey
of public attitudes toward biotechnology conducted in each of the sixteen
European Union countries. According to personal communication I had with
Gaskell, the results astonished the researchers, shattering both their
preconceptions and conventional scientific wisdom about social responses
toward biotechnology. Gaskell said the researchers found that "few [people]
approve of the use of transgenic animals for research." In addition, "there is
a striking mismatch between the traditional concern of regulators with issues
of risk and safety, and that of the public, which centers on questions of moral
acceptability." Although conventional wisdom suggests that the
overwhelming social concern about biotechnology is the risk involved, the
survey confuted that presupposition. Seventeen thousand people surveyed
were asked about the following six different aspects of biotechnology:

1. Genetic testing being used to detect heritable diseases

2. Medicine production, which uses human genes in bacteria to produce

medicines or vaccines, as has been done with insulin

3. Crop plant modification, for example, moving genes from plant

species into crops to produce resistance to insects

4. Food production, for example, to make foods higher in protein or to

have longer storage life

5. Transgenic research animals, who are genetically modified for

research, such as the onco-mouse

6. Xenotransplants, which introduce human genes into animals to render

their organs immunocompatible for human transplants

All were perceived as potentially useful, but the uses of transgenic animals
for research and transplantation were seen as morally unacceptable.

The pattern of results across the six applications suggests that

perceptions of usefulness, riskiness, and moral acceptability could be
combined to shape overall support (for biotechnology) in the
following way. First, usefulness is a precondition of support; second,
people seem prepared to accept some risk as long as there is a
perception of usefulness and no moral concern; but third, and
crucially, moral doubts act as a veto irrespective of people's views on
use and risk. The finding that risk is less significant than moral
acceptability in shaping public perceptions of biotechnology holds
true in each EU country and across all six specific applications.... This
has important implications for policy making. In general, policy
 debate about biotechnology has been couched in terms of potential
risks to the environment and/or human health. If, however, people are
more swayed by moral considerations, public concern is unlikely to be
alleviated by technically based reassurances and/or regulatory
initiatives that deal exclusively with the avoidance of harm.

Regrettably, the study does not enumerate or address the specific moral
concerns that rendered the creation of transgenic animals for research
morally unacceptable. I will attempt to provide a plausible, rational
reconstruction of justifiable, social moral concern about the production of
transgenic animals for biomedical research, and how this could be addressed.

As we mentioned, in the area of transgenic animals created for

biomedical research, Gaskell's report tell us that the creation of such animals
was unequivocally deemed morally unacceptable by the European public,
but does not tell us why. Thus, we have no way of knowing whether people
were expressing legitimate, morally articulable concerns, or were simply
reacting in uninformed, knee-jerk revulsion at what I have described in my
book on genetic engineering as the aspect of the Frankenstein myth, which
says, without further explanation or justification, that there are certain things
humans were not meant to do. (This phenomenon was recently vividly
illustrated in society's nonrational, unargued, spectacularly negative response
to the cloning of Dolly and to the possibility of cloning humans.) I have
argued at length that such a response does not represent a genuine issue, but
simply fills the lacuna created by the research community's silence on ethical
matters and consequent failure to separate ethical wheat from chaff. Even
more important, once such a reaction becomes solidified as an "ethical
issue," it cannot be answered, for what counts as an answer to the claim that
there are certain things humans were not meant to do? It is therefore
necessary that, if the research community wishes to preserve its autonomy, it
must forthrightly articulate the genuine ethical issues associated with the
production of transgenic animals for biomedical research and attempt to
respond to them, else it would be hamstrung for spurious ethical reasons, and
it would be unable to respond to unanswerable claims, such as transgenic
animal production "violates God's will."
 There are two legitimate categories of ethical concern that grow out of
the production of transgenic animals. The first set of issues is concerns of
safety and risk growing out of the creation of such animals-possible risks to
humans, other animals, and the environment. However, Gaskell's data
indicates clearly that the "moral unacceptability" of transgenic animal
production is logically separate from such risks. In fact, four of the
aforementioned biotechnologies-crop plants modification, food production,
transgenic research animals, and xenotransplantation-are believed to contain
risks, with food production perceived as harboring considerably more risks
than production of transgenic research animals, yet only the production of
transgenic animals and xenotransplantation is seen as morally unacceptable.
(Further, the production of transgenic research animals is seen as "more
useful" than the use of biotechnology in food production, yet is still deemed
morally unacceptable.) Thus, we may fairly conclude that while there are
certainly real and perceived risks associated with creating transgenic animals
for biomedical research, it is not the risks that drive people to consider it
morally unacceptable, and thus, the moral issues must be elsewhere.

Besides risk, there is only one legitimate-as opposed to spuriousmoral

issue associated with the production of transgenic animals, and that is the
question of the well-being of the animal so generated. Indeed, as a purely
moral issue, animal welfare is far more vexatious than safety. After all, even
a hypothetical researcher with no moral concern about safety would have a
prudential interest in assuring the safety of transgenic work, as researchers
themselves working with dangerous organisms are certainly, prima facie,
more at risk than are members of the general population. (Recall that the
world's last smallpox death occurred in the context of laboratory research,
and again, that the first European deaths from Marburg virus were also
laboratory workers.) In addition, any major breach of safety eventuating in
catastrophe will almost certainly ramify in truncation of transgenic research,
both by engendering restrictive regulation and by virtue of curtailment of
funding.

Animal welfare concerns, on the other hand, represent a far greater moral
challenge, for concern about animal welfare often does not coincide with
perceived self-interest and, indeed, can exact significant costs in the form of
money, time, extra personnel, delay in research, and so on. In other words,
many researchers have not traditionally equated concern for animal welfare
with self-interest and are thus unlikely to do the right thing for reasons of
prudence. Somewhat mitigating this blanket statement is the relatively recent
acknowledgment of the fact that failure to assure animal welfare can skew
variables relevant to research and actually compromise research-pain, for
example, is a significant physiological stressor-but, nonetheless, the
coincidence of the two is far from perfect. And, as we shall shortly see,
certain aspects of transgenic animal research do represent an area where
welfare could be ignored without obviously jeopardizing the work in
question. Thus, moral concern must take up the slack left after prudential
considerations are exhausted.

It is indubitable that the core of all recent legislation and regulation

pertaining to animal research in western Europe, North America, Australia,
and New Zealand is the control and minimization of pain and suffering, as
well as an ever-increasing tendency to press forward alternatives to painful
animal use. Thus, for example, a January 1998 article in Lab Animal
indicated that "increasing concern within and without the scientific
community over pain and distress in animals has made the production of
monoclonal antibodies [Mabs] highly controversial ... [with] some European
countries having gone as far as banning vivo production of Mabs using the
ascites method." In the United States, pain engendering in laboratory
animals must be controlled by anesthesia, analgesia, sedation, and early
experimental endpoints, for example, for tumor growth and disease
processes; the aim is minimizing suffering. In Great Britain, an animal
suffering uncontrollable pain and distress must be euthanized as soon as the
situation is understood. For reasons of controlling pain and suffering, US
journals are increasingly unlikely to publish papers using death as an
endpoint, even though the latest endpoint may well provide valuable
information. In other words, globally, there is a consensus emerging that not
every human benefit is worth any amount of animal suffering (for instance,
the public rejection of cosmetic companies utilizing safety testing on animals
and the spectacular growth of those companies disavowing such testing.)
 Everything we have said thus far is patent, undeniable, and clearly points
out the profound and worldwide socio-ethical concerns about invasive
animal use. The message to researchers is clear-minimize animal suffering;
the same message is ever increasingly being sent to animal agriculturists, as
evidenced in British and European regulations and most notably in the 1988
Swedish law abolishing confinement agriculture, which we will discuss later.

How does this apply to the use of transgenic animals in research? For
such uses, satisfaction of the demand for control of pain and suffering is
precisely analogous to what occurs in research with nontransgenic animals.

Consider, for example, the very first patented transgenic animal, the
Harvard mouse that was disposed to the development of tumors. In the
words of the patent, this is "an animal whose germ cells and somatic cells
contain an activated oncogene sequence introduced into the animal ... which
increases the probability of the development of neoplasms (particularly
malignant tumors) in the animal" (US Patent Number 4,873,191).
Minimizing pain and suffering for such an animal is in principle and in fact
no different from minimizing pain and suffering in nontransgenic animals in
whom tumors are induced by other means, such as the establishment of
endpoints for euthanasia in terms of tumor size, so that the animal does not
suffer; or the judicious use of anesthetics, analgesics, and tranquilizers in the
course of operative or other procedures.

By the same token, there is no reason not to apply the other major thrust
of the new social ethic to these transgenic animals, namely the provision of
enriched environments and husbandry systems for these animals congenial
to their natures, which allow them to actualize their behavioral and
biological natures. In the case of transgenic mice, one should look to the
recommendations in the general literature on care of mice; for example, a
British article described a caging system for rodents that is meant to
accommodate their behavioral needs. Thus, the vast majority of transgenic
animals developed thus far raise no additional welfare issues beyond those
concerning nontransgenic laboratory animals.

Indeed, those welfare issues that are raised dramatically about transgenic
animals are also continuous with analogous nontransgenic cases. I am
referring to the creation and maintenance of seriously genetically defective
animals developed and propagated to model some human genetic disease.
This was traditionally accomplished through identification of adventitious
mutations and selective breeding. Transgenic technology allows for
accomplishing the same goal far more quickly and in a far wider range of
areas. Thus, one can, in principle, essentially replicate any human genetic
disease in animals. And therein lies the major ethical concern growing out of
transgenic technology in the research area. It is a true dilemma, because
there are strong moral pulls on both sides of the issue.

A chapter by Evelyn Karson in a book devoted to transgenic animals

helps to focus the concern:

There are over 3,000 known genetic diseases. The medical costs as
well as the social and emotional costs of genetic disease are
enormous. Monogenic diseases account for 10% of all admissions to
pediatric hospitals in North America ... and 8.5% of all pediatric
deaths ... they affect 1% of all live born infants ... and they cause 7%
of stillbirths and neonatal deaths.... Those survivors with genetic
diseases frequently have significant physical, developmental or social
impairment. ... At present, medical intervention provides complete
relief in only about 12% of Mendelian single-gene diseases; in nearly
half of all cases, attempts at therapy provide no help at all.

This is the context in which one needs to think about the animal welfare
issues growing out of a dilemma associated with transgenic animals used in
biomedical research. On the one hand, it is clear that researchers will
embrace the creation of animal models of human genetic disease as soon as
it is technically feasible to do so. Such models, which introduce the defective
human genetic machinery into the animal genome, appear to researchers to
provide convenient, inexpensive, and most important, high-fidelity models
for the study of the gruesome panoply of human genetic diseases outlined in
the over three thousand pages of text that comprises the sixth edition of the
standard work on genetic disease, Metabolic Basis of Inherited Disease.
Such "high-fidelity models" may occasionally reduce the numbers of
animals used in research, a major consideration for animal welfare, but they
are more likely to increase the numbers as more researchers engage in
hitherto impossible animal research. On the other hand, the creation of such
animals can generate inestimable amounts of pain and suffering for these
animals, since genetic diseases, as mentioned above, often involve
symptoms of great severity. The obvious question then becomes the
following: Given that such animals will surely be developed wherever
possible for modeling the full range of human genetic disease, how can one
assure that vast numbers of these animals do not live lives of constant pain,
suffering, and distress? Further, given the emerging ethic we outline above,
control of pain and suffering is necessary for continued social acceptance of
animal research.

Merely citing the potential human benefit that can emerge from longterm
studies of suffering animals created to model human disease won't do. In
today's moral ethos, it is simply not the case that any possible human benefit
will outweigh any amount of animal suffering. If a genetic disease is rare,
affects only small numbers of people, and can be prevented by genetic
screening and what Kelley and Wyngaarden call in reference to Lesch-
Nyhan syndrome "therapeutic abortion," it is not clear that society will
accept the long-term suffering of vast numbers of animals as a price for
research on the disease. More and more, a cost-benefit mind-set is emerging
vis-a-vis animal use in science just as it is legally mandated for research on
humans, though it is by no means clear how one rationally weighs animal
cost against human benefit!

In order to flesh out our discussion with a real example, let us examine
the very first attempt to produce an animal "model" for human genetic
disease by transgenic means, i.e., the development by embryonic stem cell
technology, of a mouse which was to replicate Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, or
hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HRPT) deficiency. Lesch-
Nyhan's syndrome is a particularly horrible genetic disease, leading to a
"devastating and untreatable neurologic and behavioral disorder." Patients
rarely live beyond their third decade and suffer from spasticity, mental
retardation, and choreoathetosis, a condition involving involuntary body
movements. The most unforgettable and striking aspect of the disease,
however, is an irresistible compulsion to self-mutilate, usually manifesting
itself as biting fingers and lips. The following clinical description by Kelley
and Wyngaarden conveys the terrible nature of the disease:

The most striking neurologic feature of the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome is

compulsive self-destructive behavior. Between 2 and 16 years of age,
affected children begin to bite their fingers, lips, and buccal mucosa.
This compulsion for self-mutilation becomes so extreme that it may
be necessary to keep the elbows in extension with splints, or to wrap
the hand with gauze or restrain them in some other manner. In several
patients mutilation of lips could only be controlled by extraction of
teeth.

The compulsive urge to inflict painful wounds appears to grip the

patient irresistibly. Often he will be content until one begins to remove
an arm splint. At this point a communicative patient will plead that the
restraints be left alone. If one continues in freeing the arm, the patient
will become extremely agitated and upset. Finally, when completely
unrestrained, he will begin to put the fingers into his mouth. An older
patient will plead for help, and if one then takes hold of the arm that
has previously been freed, the patient will show obvious relief. The
apparent urge to bite fingers is often not symmetrical. In many
patients it is possible to leave one arm unrestrained without concern,
even though freeing the other would result in an immediate attempt at
self-mutilation.

These patients also attempt to injure themselves in other ways, by

hitting their heads against inanimate objects or by placing their
extremities in dangerous places, such as in between spokes of a
wheelchair. If the hands are unrestrained, their mutilation becomes the
patient's main concern, and effort to inflict injury in some other
manner seems to be sublimated.

At present, "there is no effective therapy for the neurological problems

created by Lesch-Nyhan syndrome." Thus, Kelley and Wyngaarden, in their
chapter on HPRT deficiency diseases, boldly suggest as alluded to earlier
that "the preferred form of therapy for complete HPRT deficiency [Lesch-
Nyhan's syndrome] at the present time is prevention," i.e. "therapeutic
abortion." This disease is so dramatic that I predicted in 1986 that it would
probably be the first disease for which genetic researchers would attempt to
create a model by genetic engineering. Researchers have, furthermore,
sought animal models for this syndrome for decades and have, in fact,
created rats and monkeys that will selfmutilate by administration of caffeine
and other drugs. It is thus not surprising that it was the first disease
genetically engineered by embryonic stem cell technology. But to the
surprise of the researchers, these animals were phenotypically normal and
displayed none of the metabolic or neurological symptoms characteristic of
the disease in humans. Though the asymptomatic mouse is still a useful
research animal, for example, to begin to test gene therapy, clearly a
symptomatic animal would, as a matter of logic, represent a higher-fidelity
model of human disease, assuming the relevant metabolic pathways have
been replicated. Presumably, too, it is simply a matter of time before
researchers succeed in producing symptomatic animals. I have been told in
confidence of one lab that seems to be close to doing so, albeit in a different
species of animal. Further, one may perhaps need to move up to monkeys to
achieve replication of the behavioral aberrations.

The practical moral question that arises then is clear: Given that
researchers will certainly generate such animals as quickly as they are able
to do so, how can one assure that the animals live lives that are not
characterized by the same pain and distress that they are created to model,
especially since such animals will surely be used for long-term studies of the
development of genetic diseases? Or should such animal creation be
forbidden by legislation, the way we forbid multiple use of animals in
unrelated surgical protocols in the United States, or the way the British
forbid learned-helplessness studies?

There is, admittedly, no absolute or direct proof that US society will

reject the creation of such animals. The proof, as stated above, is indirect,
based on Gaskell's survey in Europe and on the incompatibility of creating
such animals with the direction in which worldwide attitudes and laws
regarding animal research are moving. At the very least, however, it would
be prudentially unwise for the research community to forge ahead cavalierly
with the creation and long-term use of such animals. For if US attitudes are
analogous to European ones, such proliferation of suffering animals could
well evoke significant legislative restriction or even banning of any
transgenic animal work, including the sort of work where lifelong suffering
can be avoided by early endpoints, anesthesia, and so on.

In preparing this discussion, I felt the need to test common sense's

reaction to the dilemma we have described above with regard to LNS. What
I am about to report is by no means scientifically sound or statistically
significant. Nonetheless, I think it is at least an indicator of changing
attitudes researchers must reckon with, in the same way that talking to
friends and acquaintances about former president Clinton's sexual hijinks
give one an indication that while people didn't like it, they seemed to
separate that behavior from his ability to govern.

Specifically, I approached some forty students in an agricultural ethics

course I teach for the CSU College of Agriculture. Over 95 percent of the
students are involved in animal agriculture, generally cattle. Thus, if there is
a bias in this sample, it is surely toward animal use. I explained the dilemma
we are discussing to them in a straightforward way using Lesch-Nyhan's
syndrome as an example and asked them for their view of resolving it. Much
to my amazement, there was virtual unanimity in the group-against
producing such models! Some of the opinions expressed in support of their
position were as follows:

1. Nature makes mistakes; we should not try to fix them all.

2. If only a small number of people are affected, it would be wrong to

create a large number of suffering animals in order to study it.

3. Lesch-Nyhan's syndrome should be dealt with by genetic screening

and abortion.

4. Not every human benefit-even cure of disease justifies any amount of

animal suffering.

5. All acknowledged that they might feel differently if a close member of

their family was suffering from the disease.
 6. Few had problems with using large numbers of animals to study
anything, as long as the animals don't suffer.

7. Some felt that the results obtained from the Human Genome Project
might yield results obviating the need to create animal models of such
diseases.

At any rate, the issue of genetically engineering chronically suffering

animals is clearly a serious one, and one that any conscientious animal
researcher ought at least to perceive as a dilemma, with strong ethical pulls
in opposite directions.

Society does not wish to see the creation of chronically suffering animals.
Human medical researchers do not wish to abandon the potential vehicles for
study of human genetic disease that transgenic animal models provide. One
easy solution of course is to say, as some members of my audiences have
done, "Don't create such animals." But I doubt that researchers in the area
would buy such a response, both for reasons of principle concerning closing
down whole avenues of research and also because of the potential benefits
for human health. On the other hand, such researchers must (or should)
surely be aware that they are bound to respect socio-ethical concerns, since
public money pays for research, and also because public moral rejection of
their work could close them down. To adopt a stance saying that only by
being allowed to create lifelong suffering animals can we help humans is to
invite being shut down in that area of transgenic work, even as research into
cloning of humans has been shut down by virtue of public moral revulsion
(unfairly, I believe, growing out of bad ethics). Indeed, as we saw implied by
the European data we began with, a cavalier stance about pain and suffering
in genetically engineered animal models could seriously negatively affect all
transgenic animal research, even that not involving pain and suffering, for
the public could equate all transgenic animals created for research with
animals suffering uncontrollable, lifelong pain. Further, even if the European
public rejected genetically engineered animal models for some reason other
than suffering, i.e., some bad ethical reason, public knowledge of the
creation of animals experiencing lifelong suffering and pain could only
underscore and further solidify that rejection. So the issue must be dealt with
by the research community, both for ethical reasons and reasons of
preservation of autonomy. How can this be accomplished?

To answer this question, we must recall the nature of professional ethics.

Every society, to assure social order, must articulate a social consensus ethic
governing matters deemed essential. This is usually "written large," in
Plato's phrase, in the legal system. Thus, we morally and legally disallow
rape, bank robbery, murder, fraud, and so on. Matters with moral import not
affecting the social order are left, generally, to one's personal ethic, e.g., in
today's society what one believes religiously, to whom and whether one
gives charity, what one reads, and so on. Things move in and out of the
social ethic as society changes, and thus, control of nonviolent sexual
behavior was surrendered to the personal ethic from the social beginning of
the "sexual revolution" in the 1960s, yet at roughly the same time, hiring and
firing or selling and renting of property were appropriated by the social ethic
from the personal, because leaving it to the personal was perceived as
generating unfairness and injustice via discrimination. In general, the social
ethic appropriates matters when leaving them to personal ethics is perceived
as leading to morally unacceptable behavior. During the past twenty-five
years, increasing numbers of animal uses have been moved into the social
ethic for these reasons, e.g., laws regulating research, agriculture, and animal
shows.

Professional ethics stands midway between social and personal ethics,

and applies to subgroups of society engaged in important but highly
specialized activities not well understood by society in general and requiring
special expertise and special privileges. Thus, veterinary or human medicine
requires specialized knowledge and enjoys special privileges, e.g.,
dispensing pharmaceuticals or performing surgery. Society, in essence, says
to professions: "You regulate yourselves the way we would regulate you if
we understood what you were doing well enough to do so." Failure to meet
this demand can result in ill-formed people regulating the profession in
question without understanding, as when perceived abuse of drugs in food
animals by veterinarians led Congress to almost curtail extra-label drug use,
which would have dealt a deathblow to veterinary medicine.
 Animal researchers are, of course, such a professional subgroup. When
they failed to control pain and suffering or provide good animal care, US
society moved in 1985 to regulate animal research despite protestations that
such regulation would endanger human health. (In fact, it did no such thing,
and almost certainly led to better research.) If they fail to consider-and
implement-the socio-ethical requirement of not creating animals who suffer
greatly for long periods of time, society will almost certainly move to
regulate such activities, even if researchers again protest that such regulation
endangers human health.

I would therefore argue that the research community needs to press

forward, on its own, the following sort of regulatory requirement, to be
binding on all transgenic animal research and enforced by animal care and
use committees: No one may create a transgenic model of human genetic
disease until they have provided a method for assuring that the animals do
not suffer uncontrollable long-term or lifetime pain. (A precedent for this
already exists in animal care and use committees not allowing animals to be
used for disease research to progress to death as an endpoint.) Such a
principal would put the burden for the control and suffering where it should
be-on the researcher and the ACUCs. Just as current law requires the control
of postsurgical pain in animals used in research but does not specify how
this is to be done, so the above principle precludes the making of long-term
suffering transgenic animals and, rather than simply prohibiting the creation
of such animals, instead places the burden for controlling pain and suffering
on those who propose such "models."

It is possible, of course, that researchers may be unable-even as I was

unable-to come up with modalities that satisfy the above principle, thus in
effect making the principle essentially equivalent to a prohibition. The
difference is that the moral burden of social concern is placed on researchers,
rather than society simply setting the precedent of dictating by fiat on
matters it doesn't understand. There is a huge conceptual difference between
saying, "You may not pursue a line of research," and saying, "You may
pursue it if you control pain and suffering." The latter is an extension of
established social ethics; the former sets the precedent of significant social
intrusion into scientific autonomy without allowing science to demonstrate
that it can pursue the research in a manner acceptable to social ethics.

Were such a principle to be adopted in the United States, it would

certainly go beyond current law. At the moment, a researcher must control
pain and suffering, or provide a justification for not doing so. Our principle
eliminates the "escape hatch," in essence making control of pain and
suffering a nonnegotiable requirement. Why should researchers acquiesce to
this when, in fact, under current law they could probably convince at least
some animal care and use committees of the value of creating such animals,
even when one can't control the pain and suffering? The pragmatic answer I
would tender is twofold. First, I seriously doubt, as Gaskell's report
indicates, that society will tolerate the creation of such animals. Were news
media to inform the general public of the deliberate creation of lifelong
suffering animals, especially if photographs or video were forthcoming, few
can doubt the strong visceral reaction this would engender. Just as the
University of Pennsylvania head injury lab films, in essence, forced the
passage of the 1985 laboratory animal laws, such footage could very well be
what leads to strong regulatory action that could be more restrictive than the
principle we formulated. Second, failure to address this issue would surely
awaken and give succor to all the social, knee-jerk "Frankenstein Syndrome"
reactions to genetic engineering, and could further alienate the public from
biotechnology in general.

But, in the end, the deeper answer is a purely moral one. Twenty or more
years ago, when researchers were typically trained under an ideology
affirming that science was "value and ethics free," and that felt pain in
animals was not scientifically knowable, they could distance themselves
more easily from the suffering they created. As this ideology has crumbled
and been replaced by a more reasonable view, scientists have inevitably
developed closer kinship with social morality, since it is now more difficult
to distance one's role in science from one's ordinary common sense and
morality. And few things are harder for a morally reflective individual to
tolerate than dooming something sentient to a life of pain and suffering that
cannot be alleviated. Thus, the principle we have argued for is simply, in the
end, a corollary of common decency.
 Without some emendation to current policies on pain and suffering, the
assurance to the public of pain control in animal research provided by the
laws becomes meaningless with regard to transgenic research on animal
models of human disease. In short, it would be legally possible to create
hordes of animals in constant pain and distress.

The second inadequacy concerns the "Let's see what happens if ..." nature
of some genetic research. Researchers may ablate certain genes or
sequences, or add certain genes or sequences. At our current stage of
knowledge, we cannot even begin to predict the phenotypic effects of such
manipulations, i.e., the effects on whole, living animals. In one case, for
example, researchers manipulated gene coding for interferon and ended up
with legless animals!

The inability to foresee adverse consequences in effect subverts the entire

logic of the regulatory system. If we cannot anticipate negative
consequences because of their unpredictability, we cannot plan for their
management, and the animals may suffer for an extended period of time
before someone realizes they are in pain or distress.

This, of course, is socially and morally unacceptable. This issue was

called to my attention by Dr. Mel Dennis of the University of Washington.
That institution is in a unique position to address such issues because it has a
full department of comparative medicine with almost a dozen graduate
veterinarians being trained in the laboratory animal field. These veterinarians
are dispatched to observe the results of gene manipulation experiments and
to pick up early on pain and suffering.

But what are ordinary institutions to do when not equipped with such an
abundance of trained veterinarians? The answer, of course, must lie with the
technical staff-technicians who must be the early detectors of animal
suffering growing out of genetic manipulations, whose phenotypic results
are inherently unpredictable.

In my experience, technicians care a great deal about animal suffering

and pain, and are more attuned to detecting it than researchers. This inherent
concern must be augmented with state-of-the-art training in picking up the
early, subtle signs of pain, distress, and dysfunction. New tools must also be
made available to technicians along with the training to use them. For
example, as Paul Flecknell has shown, slow motion films of animal behavior
can help detect signs of pain otherwise undetectable. Similarly, filming dog
behavior in the absence of humans, when the animals are alone in a cage,
can reveal signs of pain the presence of humans can skew. Removing
animals from cages to detect abnormalities in activity levels can also help.

The point is that if the current regulatory system is to continue to reassure

the public of the minimization of pain and suffering in animal research,
technicians must be significantly better trained in detecting pain, suffering,
and disease, and must make detection of such states a key element of their
role. This should not only serve to protect the animals, but also be a major
and appreciated source of job satisfaction for technicians.
Among the most important members of animal care and use committees, it
seems to me, as far as bringing the moral gestalt to consciousness, are moral
philosophers and other humanists with some interest in science.* In a
pioneering effort, the late Dr. Bernard Schoenberg, Associate Dean of
Medicine at Columbia University, instituted a program whereby humanists
accompanied physicians on clinical rounds and later engaged in extensive
dialogue with the physicians on these cases. Both physicians and humanists
benefited from this interchange and, ultimately, patients benefited most.
Such officially supported interchanges are absolutely vital if there is to be
any hope of breaking down the conventionally created but eminently real
barriers between the different areas of knowledge. This is not merely an
artificial concern; we have already discussed the pernicious effects of the
insularity of science education. Unfortunately, the same sort of difficulty
obtains regarding humanities. Few humanists are grounded in the sciences,
and even fewer seek meaningful dialogue with scientists. The result has
been a devolution of the humanities, so that they have often become, in
effect, another narrow field of specialization, sometimes, ironically,
consciously seeking to emulate the sciences in insularity, isolation, and
technical aloofness. Most culpable have been the philosophers, who all too
often have forsaken their Socratic mission in the service of neoscholastic
logic chopping. Until very recently, philosophers felt little responsibility as
philosophers to deal with social and existentially relevant issues, being
content to dispute among themselves and to replicate themselves like DNA
molecules through their graduate students. Some years ago, however,
economic forces began to shake philosophers out of their dogmatic
slumbers. Suddenly there were no jobs for philosophers, and student
enrollment in philosophy classes declined as students became more
vocationally oriented; graduate programs dried up as potential philosophers
became aware that professional training represented a dead end.
Philosophers panicked and began to throw sops to "relevance": they began
to write on medical ethics, violence, reverse discrimination, animals, and
the like. Some of this was valuable, much was characterized by the same
rarefied pedantry endemic to more technical writing. I once lectured at a
significant international and multidisciplinary conference on animal rights
where both poles were well illustrated. Some philosophers adapted
beautifully, engaging in superb dialogue with scientists and audiences.
Others read, word for word, technical papers that almost caused them to be
lynched by the nonphilosophers in the audience.

In any case, the major point is that there is a place for nonscientists to
elucidate on the morality of science, and animal experimentation is an
excellent place to begin this rapprochement both for the sake of the animals
and for the sake of our culture! A system of the sort that we envision, where
funding of research is guided by legislative constraints governing the
morality of the research, according to the utilitarian and rights principles,
and where research is judged and preliminarily screened and monitored
primarily by local committees that represent a broad range of opinion,
seems to me eminently rational for a variety of reasons. Not only will the
animals benefit, not only will the barriers between disciplines begin to
crumble with incalculable fringe benefits arising, but also the dangers of
federal, bureaucratic overcentralization will be blunted. If it is feared that
such committees would be too inbred and in-house, members could easily
be chosen from neighboring institutions.

The pattern of argumentation we have followed in the discussion of

basic research is long and intricate, but that is because the question of basic
research is complex and intricate. We have tried to indicate that there is a
drastic need for radical changes in science education, as well as for
regulatory action in this area, and that the two approaches are in fact
complementary as far as improving the lot of research animals is concerned.
As we indicated earlier in this chapter, applied medical research differs only
in degree from basic research. The most significant difference is that such
research seems to have more direct implications for curing or preventing
disease. But the patterns of argument we developed while discussing basic
research hold equally well here, mutatis mutandis. First of all, such research
ought to be evaluated according to the utilitarian principle and conducted in
accordance with the rights principle. These requirements ought to be
codified by law and applied by funding agencies. If anything, applied
research may well be easier to evaluate than basic research because the
possible benefits are more easily calculated. Once again, such research
ought to be evaluated, both by funding agencies and by the sort of review
system just discussed, in terms of experimental design, logical coherence,
and theoretical groundedness. A theoretical, "scatter-gun" empiricism of the
"Let's see what happens if we try this" sort, without any reason to believe
that something will happen, is not defensible when the suffering of objects
of moral concern is the inevitable result. The one controversial exception to
this statement is drug research, which we shall be discussing shortly.

There is no question that a great number of slipshod and morally

questionable experiments and projects occur under the rubric of medical
research, as in the cancer research scandals involving falsification of data
and the perennial reports of subrosa, illicit experimentation done on humans
in medical centers. It is not difficult to understand the rationale behind this,
both from the point of view of researchers and from the point of view of
public tolerance. All of us need to believe that a large army of dedicated,
brilliant scientists are in a daily battle with the malevolent and
incomprehensible forces that for us have assumed almost mythic
proportions, that have replaced ghosts, demons, and werewolves as loci of
fear: heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and especially cancer in all of its
protean, exquisitely horrible forms. Just as we overlook behavior in a
frontline soldier that we would consider inexcusable in a bank teller, we are
prepared to tolerate much from medical research (as indeed, from
physicians, but that is another story). We need our dragon killers, actually
and psychologically, so we overlook their peccadilloes and defeats and
continue to support them. "They may not be perfect, but they are all we
have."

Given this mentality, and given the unquestionable importance of a great

deal of medical research, it becomes all the more exigent that we force
ourselves to look more carefully at the logic of the medical research we
fund. How much of it is simply legitimized by myth, with little theoretical
coherence or defensibility? Because of our tendency to accept medical
research uncritically, we should look with an even more critical eye on what
we fund. Could the money be better spent in other ways? Are we supporting
research that can really lead to curing disease, or are we simply
perpetuating an industry that has assumed a life of its own? D. H. Smyth, in
his defense of animal experimentation, remarks that "for the amount of
money and effort spent, cancer research is probably the field of medical
endeavor with least to show."

In the case of medical research, the discrepancy between human interests

and animal interests is most dramatically evidenced. But in another sense,
often overlooked, the interests coincide. Both benefit from eliminating
unnecessary and wasteful research, and both benefit from ensuring quality
research. And insofar as good research is predicated upon good treatment of
experimental animals, if only to control stress and anxiety variables that can
and do make physiological differences and that, when ignored, can vitiate a
piece of research or render it nonduplic- able, it behooves experimenters to
treat animals well. It is for these reasons as well as for moral reasons that
many biomedical researchers supported our legislation. The higher the
quality of research, the more secure the researchers can be against the
vagaries of fashion that could, in a time of economic difficulty, turn the
public against its dragon slayers.

There is no question that money should be spent on studying

"alternatives" to the use of animals in medical research. The Ames test
discussed earlier is a shining example of such in vitro techniques, but as
Smyth points out in his book Alternatives to Animal Experiments, one can
never be certain that something that, in the short run, may seem to reduce or
replace animals may not, in the long run, lead to increased uses of animals
in procedures branching out of the new avenues opened up by the in vitro
advances. On the other hand, there are many places where the development
of alternatives would seem to be unequivocally beneficial, for example,
replacement of animals in disease diagnosis by tissue culture techniques. As
in most cases of alternatives, there is an economic imperative militating in
favor of the development of alternatives to animals, so happily there is no
conflict here between those concerned with the welfare of animals on the
one hand and researchers on the other.

The most viable hope for animals in applied medical research comes
from legislation and regulation that would respect the utilitarian and rights
principles, that would require the sort of review we indicated, and that
would make funding of research responsible to animal welfare concerns. It
is here that one is likeliest to encounter the greatest opposition from the
biomedical establishment. For this reason, it is incumbent upon those who
would better the lot of animals to adopt a responsible dialectical position,
which eschews the traditional kamikaze antivivisectionism of the past, and
which involves regular exchange of ideas with working research scientists.
It is also incumbent upon those who would better the lot of animals to work
toward better education of scientists. The animal welfare movement
achieves little by depicting all scientists as kitten-torturing madmen. It
merely diminishes its own credibility and effectiveness.
There are a number of points bearing on medical research and, correlatively,
on medical practice that are relevant here, even though they do not prima
facie pertain to the use of animals. It is obvious that medical research is
designed to provide methods for preventing, curing, and managing illness.
Yet few physicians, and even fewer philosophers, have bothered to ask the
deep question, "What is illness?" One reason the question has not been
raised is that all of us, laymen and scientists, have internalized an implicit
answer to it. If pressed, most people would probably describe illness as some
sort of foul-up in the complex machine that is the body, some structural,
functional, metabolic breakdown. As biochemistry and molecular biology
have become more sophisticated, an increasing amount of medical attention
in theory, practice, and research has shifted to the molecular level. In the
jargon of philosophers, medicine has become increasingly mechanistic and
reductionistic; more and more of its concern has shifted from the person, or
even the whole body, to its components.

Much of this shift has been extremely valuable, since it has provided us
with a way of approaching the physical conditions for illness and treatment
in an extraordinarily precise way. But the price of this precision has been a
high one: a narrowing of the concept of illness to include only those things
that can be dealt with by the tools and language of physico- chemistry. The
valuational and social dimensions of illness have been neglected, ignored,
and reduced to the status of inconsequential and peripheral shadows,
unworthy of attention by the serious scientist. There is no room for values
and social forces in a universe whose real essence is captured in
physicochemistry.

What has been forgotten, in essence, is this: "Illness" and "health" are
obviously correlative concepts, and both of these concepts rest upon
complex valuational notions. This is easy to see when we focus upon health
and attempt to define it. The World Health Organization, which presumably
should know whereof it speaks, defines health as "a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely an absence of
disease." Obviously, this definition is fraught with value notions-what, for
example, is "complete well-being"? We cannot simply look at a person as a
mechanical body and decide if he or she enjoys "complete well-being." 1 am
not suggesting that the above definition is a good one, but I do believe it
points us in the right direction, the direction of realizing that one cannot
simply decide if a person is ill or well simply by looking at the functioning
of his or her body-machine. The point is that a set of physical symptoms or
biochemical facts about a person does not tell us that the person is ill or
healthy, for what counts as ill or healthy will vary from culture to culture,
subculture to subculture, and age to age. Mere variability, of course, does not
itself determine that all differing opinions are equally legitimate. Some
cultures, for example, believe that the sun is a small object, others believe
that it is alive, others that it is only a few thousand years old. Clearly, they
are wrong and can be shown to be wrong empirically. On the other hand,
when one culture says that obesity is an illness and another says that it is
something to be prized aesthetically, how do we decide between them in an
empirical way? The difference is not a factual difference, but a statement of
cultural values. (Current medical textbooks and the government actually
speak of obesity as an illness, rather than as a state that can lead to illness.)
Again, alcoholism has been considered at different times to be both a moral
weakness and a physical illness. If one believes that it is a moral weakness
or character failing, one is not dissuaded by empirical data showing the
pernicious effects of alcoholism on the liver and brain. One may well
respond by saying that promiscuity often leads to syphilis; that does not
mean that promiscuity is an illness. On the other hand, alcoholism is
currently viewed as a physical illness. Once again, the issue cannot be
decided empirically. What counts as illness is a matter of social, valuational
choice.

We thus discover that there are alternatives to the biochemicalmachine

view of illness and health. (In fact, there are even alternatives within that
view. It is obviously a matter of valuational choice to call this particular
body-state healthy or ill as opposed to this one. Think of a machine such as
an automobile: what will count as running well or needing repair will
obviously vary with the values and attitudes of the car owner, depending on
whether the car is viewed as an aesthetic object, a status symbol, or a way of
getting from place to place.) And once we realize this, we are in a position to
criticize the valuational presuppositions of contemporary medicine's view of
illness. A nice example concerns hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. During
the 1970s and the 1980s, many people were diagnosed as hypoglycemic, and
thus ill, simply on the basis of a highly artificial blood test called the glucose
tolerance test. These people may have had no symptoms, felt perfectly fine,
functioned beautifully, yet on the basis of this test were declared
hypoglycemic. If they listened to their physician, they were to significantly
alter their lives in terms of what they ate, how often they ate, and so on.
Before the diagnosis, the worst that happened to them was to realize that if
they went too long without eating they became nauseated and dizzy. Many
such people never experienced even this. Yet after the diagnosis, they were
people whose whole personhood was affected; they were now
hypoglycemic, entitled to assume what sociologists call the sick role, and
licensed to enjoy special and preferential treatment. (I once saw a woman go
into a restaurant and ask the hostess how long a wait there was to be seated
for lunch. "About an hour," replied the hostess. "Impossible," thundered the
woman. "I cannot wait. I am hypoglycemic and must be fed!") A life had
been changed, almost certainly to the person's detriment, on the basis of an
uncritical acceptance of a mechanical model of illness.

The proper response to such a diagnosis is this: "What does the reading
on a glucose tolerance test have to do with me as a person? I feel fine and
function beautifully. I am not sick." When I first began to develop the theory
of illness sketched above, a theory that I discussed in detail in an article
called "On the Nature of Illness" in Man and Medicine (1979), I encountered
a good deal of criticism from many physicians. Ironically, in April of 1980
Time magazine reported that the medical community itself had become
greatly concerned about the excessive diagnosis of hypoglycemia by
physicians in people devoid of symptoms!

In essence, the current medical emphasis on reductionism leads to a

large-scale emphasis upon illness as a biological fact, rather than as a
biological state with socio-valuational components. This, in turn, tends to
minimize the acceptability of criticisms of current views of illness, health,
and treatment. (If we are dealing with scientific facts, how can we criticize
them?) But our views of illness, health, and treatment are subject to
criticism, as we have just indicated. Perhaps the reductionistic model
"works" in its own terms-keeps the body alive-but perhaps those terms are
undesirable. Is the person who lives as a hypoglycemic healthier than the
one who refuses to recognize such a state? Does the cancer victim whose
biological life is prolonged by 1.2 years at the expense of familial strain,
financial ruin, and nightmarish life as a cancer patient, poisoned by
chemotherapy, enjoy a higher state of well-being than the person whose
cancer took him swiftly? These questions must be addressed, yet are eclipsed
when we see illness as concrete scientific fact.

The relevance of all this to animals is clear. Medical research is currently

founded on a wholly reductionistic approach to health and illness.
Alternative views exist and ought to be explored. The social movement
toward holism in medicine is a clear public protest against excessive
mechanism. Medical research that concentrates on the physicochemical will
tend to ignore those factors that are not easily reduced, yet that play an
important role in what most of us-and even most reductionists-see as health.
Such factors are, for example, love, touch, and companionship. Recent
studies, for example, indicate that having a pet may be a major factor in
preventing recurrence of heart attacks.

I am not of course suggesting an abolition of medical research. I am

suggesting a turning away from excessive emphasis on the reductionistic
approach, performed on the basis of the simple idea that the body is a
machine and that the animal body models human health and illness. I am
also suggesting that understanding the nature of illness and health can lead to
less emphasis on drug therapy, which can, in turn, lead to less iatrogenic
illness, that is, less illness inadvertently caused by treatment, a major
problem in contemporary medicine. In the course of understanding ourselves
as bodies, we have moved away from understanding ourselves as persons.
Many of the important aspects of health and illness can be studied in ways
other than through the use of animals, and the reliance on animal models in
fact deflects our attention away from the social, cultural, and valuational
factors that are of inestimable importance in health and illness. These factors
may well be as important as purely biological ones and cannot be studied in
laboratory animals. If we become clearer in our own minds about health; if
we stop seeing health as something we must worry about only when
something goes wrong; if we stop calling everything that affects the body,
alcoholism, for example, an illness, and stop studying it reductionistically; if
we stop poisoning our bodies through air, water, and chemical pollutants,
and then trying to find medicines and treatments that reverse those
poisonings; if we stop pouring cortisone into "allergics" and treating the
resulting ulcers with Cimetidine, which then lowers the sperm count ... etc.,
etc., we would benefit not only countless numbers of laboratory animals, but
also ourselves.

The key point is that we have become convinced that medical research as
currently constituted is the only way to understand illness and health. I have
tried to show that illness and health are far more complicated, since they
involve social and valuational factors. The more we look for mechanistic
explanations of illness, the more we will find, which is both good and bad. It
is good because our knowledge is increased; it is bad because we ignore the
fact that other things enter into illness: that our biological problems are often
a result of industrial and economic decisions; that we are more than
physiological processes; that we are not necessarily caught in a vicious cycle
of illness, treatment, iatrogenic illness; that "side effects" are major effects to
a patient; that each living, diseased individual is unique, biologically as well
as valuationally. In this sense, then, the cheap and plentiful supply of overly
simplistic "animal models" for the study of illness, which has been a major
factor in medical research, may also be a source of the blinders that the
medical community wears and that stop it from seeing the more subtle
factors involved in health and illness. Worse, the overemphasis upon animal
research may well be a major source of a stunted and dwarfed concept of
illness and health, which results in profound suffering for those who live in
its shadow. In this sense, then, concern for the welfare of laboratory animals
can force us to reexamine our approach to health and illness, with great
benefit to society as a whole.
The use of animals in the development of pharmaceuticals represents one of
the most interesting problems for the animal welfare theorist. As Smyth
indicates, "probably by far the largest use of animals in medical research is
by the pharmaceutical industry." In the course of development of new
drugs, animals are used in a variety of ways-for screening of substances for
possible therapeutic value, for toxicity testing, and for efficacy testing.

In the first place, it is worth noting that it is impossible to speak

accurately in general terms of "the use of animals in drug development," for
the uses will vary considerably depending on the sort of therapeutic agent
being sought. The substance being developed may be an antibiotic, an
antiprotozoal agent, an antiviral drug, a psychoactive drug, an
antihelminthic, a vasodilator, an antacid, an antihypertensive, an analgesic,
a cough medicine, and so on. As we shall shortly indicate, the development
of different sorts of drugs requires use of living animals in varying degrees.
There are, however, certain basic steps that are typically followed, and that
may provide us with guidelines for our discussion.

The first stage in the development of any therapeutic agent involves

preliminary screening of some substance for its possible effects. The
candidate substance is decided upon in a variety of ways. Traditionally, for
example, in antibiotic development, the basic method has been to take a
substance with known therapeutic effects and to effect slight modifications
in its chemical structure. The other method for coming up with a putative
candidate is the use of natural substances, for example, taking soil samples,
extracting chemicals from them, and seeing if they have any effect on
microorganisms. Anticancer drugs are sought in this way, for example, by
grinding up plants and seeing if they have any effect on tumors in animals.
Most of the major drug advances have been made using this "shotgun"
approach. This sort of research is clearly "Let's see what happens"
empiricism. It cannot be criticized in terms of theory or even in terms of
experimental logic because it is strictly nontheoretical.

What implications does this have for the use of animals? In some cases,
the preliminary screening of these substances does not involve animals; test
tube or in vitro methods are used. For example, the screening of potential
antibiotics is done almost exclusively in terms of bacterial cultures. Such
screening is not of course definitive-some substances will work as
antibiotics in a living body but not in a test tube, for example, Prontosil, the
sulfanomide-but for economic reasons alone, most screening of antibiotics
is done in vitro. Very sophisticated methods for in vitro testing of antivirals,
antiprotozoals, and antihelminthics currently exist. And, again, for
economic reasons, drug researchers have a vested interest in developing as
many in vitro screening methods as possible. On the other hand, not all
drugs can be screened in this way. One clearly cannot screen a psychoactive
drug or a painkiller by in vitro methods, so rats and mice are typically used.
Obviously, this involves a good many wasted lives, as well as a good deal
of wasted money. Here is a case in which animal and human interests
coincide; it is in the interest of both drug companies and animals to find
alternative methods.

Recently, some positive advances have been made in this area. As

biochemistry and molecular biology have become more sophisticated, it has
become possible to make drug research more theoretical and less a matter
of blind empiricism. If, for example, we know in detail what biochemical
activity is causally responsible for excess stomach acid secretion in ulcers,
it becomes possible actually to design a drug-to design its chemical
structure-to interfere with that activity. This sophisticated approach clearly
decreases the number of animals used not only for screening, but also for
toxicity testing. The reason is this: once one has abandoned the shotgun
approach and has designed the drug to work at a specific site in a specific
way, one has considerably reduced the risk of systemic, unknown toxicity,
and one can imagine more sophisticated tests of toxicity coming in the
wake of the development of substances whose structure and function is
understood.
 This point leads directly into the next stage in the development of a
drug. Once the substance has been screened for possible effectiveness, it is
typically subjected to various forms of toxicity and carcinogenicity testing,
including the Ames test and the LD50. The federal requirements for toxicity
testing are very demanding and are subject to all of the criticisms we
leveled against toxicity testing earlier in this chapter. Strangely enough,
there is a natural alliance possible here between the drug companies and
those concerned with the welfare of animals, at least as far as abolishing
LD50 determination and replacing it with determinations of approximate
lethal dose is concerned. (The drug companies, of course, are interested in
cutting expenses and requirements, not in animal welfare.) Another way to
mitigate animal suffering in this area naturally suggests itself here.
Currently, federal requirements for drug safety do not accept safety
evaluation as performed in other countries. Thus, for example, drugs
exhaustively tested in Great Britain must still undergo all tests in this
country that an untested drug is subjected to. The result is a huge waste of
money, animal lives and suffering, and time. American patients must often
suffer for six to ten years before a drug in common use in Great Britain is
put on the market in the United States. One such case is cromyl sodium, or
disodium cromoglycate, a drug that prevents asthma attacks in 80 percent of
patients. It was ten years from its appearance in Britain before this very
effective drug was allowed in the United States. Thus, it would seem
plausible to suggest that the US regulations governing toxicity testing of
drugs be changed so as to allow results achieved in other countries to count
here. Certain branches of the federal government, most notably the
veterinary division of the Food and Drug Administration, have begun to
move in that direction.

Once a drug has been screened and tested for toxicity, it must be tested
for efficacy in a living body. The drugs are tested on all sorts of animals,
including primates. Here is where a real problem for the animal welfare
theorists arises. There is currently and foreseeably no substitute for drug
tests on animals. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of
substances tested turn out to be nonmarketable for one reason or another.
No precise figures exist for this, but I have heard estimates from a variety of
quarters as to how many beneficial compounds are found relative to the
substances tested. A medical school toxicologist informed me that one in
every ten thousand substances screened turns out to be valuable; a major
pharmaceutical company executive said that the ratio was closer to one out
of one hundred thousand. At any rate, even if we very conservatively allow
for a considerable number of substances being rejected purely by in vitro
means and suggest that only one out of every five thousand substances
tested on animals turns out to be useful, we are clearly confronting a good
deal of wasted lives and useless suffering. But it is difficult to know what to
suggest. It is impossible to use our utilitarian principle here, for we have no
way at all of knowing when a given chemical is likely or unlikely to prove
to be of therapeutic value. And it is correlatively hard to rule out a drug as
"unnecessary" as we did with chemicals, with the obvious exception of still
another new laxative. Any drug could prove to be a major therapeutic
breakthrough. Consider, for example, antibiotics, which have been
developed in just this way. Given the indiscriminate social use of antibiotics
both in human medicine and in animal agriculture, we are in effect breeding
strains of microorganisms that are resistant to the antibiotics in our arsenal,
so we are in constant need of new antibiotics.

It is thus extraordinarily difficult to assess meaningfully the extent of

animal suffering against the possible benefits growing out of drug research.
Few people would advocate that we curtail the search for new drugs. It has
been asserted, in fact, that what most differentiates modern medicine from
earlier medicine are precisely the drugs available to the modern physician
(though we have argued that perhaps iatrogenic prob lems would be
lessened if drugs were used with greater circumspection). But the amount of
wasted suffering and lives of research animals is enormous. It is true, as has
been suggested, that a point of diminishing returns is rapidly being reached
in this sort of research. Fewer and fewer drugs are resulting from greater
and greater expenditure of animals and money. But again, failing some
other method of finding beneficial drugs, there seems to be no alternative.
At best, one can make sure that the animals are well cared for, but one
cannot always expect to diminish significantly the suffering growing out of
drug research by using analgesics and anesthetics, because of the possibility
of skewing metabolic variables and thus jeopardizing the drug research.
Clearly, the best hope for animals in this area comes from increasing
sophistication in in vitro methods and in theory-based drug design, which
would hopefully cut down on the number of animals used, and in refining
the toxicity testing of drugs, for example, by eliminating the LD50 test. It is
extremely doubtful that we are socially prepared to sacrifice any drug
benefits for the sake of animal welfare.
The final category of laboratory use of animals we shall consider does not,
strictly speaking, involve research. It concerns the use of animals for the
extraction of various substances that are then used in research or in human
or animal medicine. Examples of this sort of activity are readily apparent.
Most people are aware that animals are used for extraction of vaccines and
antisera. Vaccines are substances that are used to stimulate a person or
animal to produce its own antibodies. Antisera, most commonly antitoxins,
are antibodies produced in an animal and used to help an animal or person
fight infection. Vaccines work by infecting a person or animal with the
organisms that cause a disease and then allowing its immune system to
produce antibodies. The infective agents administered may be dead or
weakened, resulting respectively in dead or attenuated (live) vaccines. In
the past few decades, however, vaccines have regularly been prepared in
tissue culture. This, of course, greatly decreases the use of animals. The
Salk (dead) polio vaccine was extracted from primary tissue culture derived
from the kidneys of rhesus monkeys. (Primary tissue culture involves
growing the original cells taken from a living body.) This, however,
involved using many monkeys. The Sabin (live) polio vaccine was
developed using what is called cell-line tissue culture, i.e., cells grown and
cultured from primary cells. This significantly reduced the use of animals.
Most vaccines against viruses are in fact developed using tissue culture, not
so much out of concern for animal interests as for economy and quality
control. Bacterial vaccines also are produced in vitro.

The situation with antitoxins is rather different. Some microorganisms

produce illness by virtue of the toxins that they secrete and that circulate in
the blood of the infected animal or person. Among the diseases so caused
are tetanus, botulism, and gas gangrene. Because of the extremely virulent
nature of these toxins, the immunological system of an infected person or
animal may, by itself, be too slow to produce sufficient antitoxins to
neutralize the toxin. In order to aid the immunological system, antitoxins
that have been prepared in another animal are administered. The animal is
injected with a weakened version of the toxin, called a toxoid, which
stimulates its immunological system to produce antitoxin. Blood serum is
then collected from the animal, and from this the antitoxin is extracted to be
used in fighting disease. Most of us have had antitetanus injections of this
sort. The animals most widely used for extracting this antisera are horses,
and it is not currently possible to use in vitro techniques to replace the
animals.

Application of the utilitarian principle would seem to justify the

extraction of antitoxins. The procedure, if properly done, causes virtually no
pain to the animal and does not kill it or make it ill or cause it to suffer. The
advantages to humans and other animals are clear and direct. On the other
hand, there are few legal constraints on the manner in which such activities
are conducted. While veterinary medicine dictates certain basic procedures
that should be followed, for example, frequency of bleeding horses and
amount bled, unscrupulous serum companies, motivated solely by profit,
bleed animals excessively and with outrageous frequency. Furthermore-and
this is a problem endemic to virtually all facilities using animals-many of
the people employed in menial capacities lack sensitivity, education,
concern for animals, or even basic training in the tasks they are expected to
perform. The result is invariably unfortunate for the animals, and
sometimes tragic, as when sadistic individuals vent their frustration on the
creatures in their charge. During the hearings pertaining to the first version
of our bill, the Colorado legislature heard testimony from an employee at a
Denver serum company concerning the atrocities allegedly perpetrated on
animals at the facility, not only by individual employees, but also as policy
for maximizing profit. The only possible protection for these animals is
provided by the Animal Welfare Act but, as we saw, horses are excluded
from its provisions, and horses are the major source of blood for these
companies. Once again we see the need for adequate legislation, for an
Animal Welfare Act embodying the utilitarian principle and the rights
principle. Such an act should also include provisions requiring education
and certification of all employees who perform any potentially painful
activities on animals. Even if, as a society, we are not prepared to give up
the benefits of products extracted from animals, we ought to at least be
prepared to ensure that such extraction is done with respect for these
animals as ends in themselves. And, with profit at stake, we cannot expect
morality and decency to triumph on their own.

It is important to realize that many other "biologicals" are extracted from

animals, products of which the average person is not aware, yet which form
important components of current biomedical activity. In addition to serum
extracted from horses for use in antitoxins, serum extracted from the blood
of sheep, goats, and rabbits is widely used for diagnostic purposes. Rabbit
brain thromboplastin is used in testing blood coagulation. Hormones are
extracted from the urine of pregnant horses. Rabbits are used to produce
monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, which are in turn used in research
and diagnostics. Various animal cells are used in order to start primary
tissue cultures. Gammaglobulin-free horse, calf, and pig serum are used for
tissue culture. Sheep blood is used as a bacterial culture medium. Once
again, it is totally unconscionable that virtually no laws exist to protect
many of these animals. If these practices are judged to meet the utilitarian
principle, specific protocols for these procedures should be written and
enforced as conditions for licensure of the individuals and firms involved in
these activities.
We have surveyed a wide variety of uses to which animals are put in
research, testing, safety evaluation, pedagogy, and product extraction and
have seen that in each area major improvements to ameliorate the lot of
these animals obviously suggest themselves. In many cases, these
improvements lead to benefits to humans as well as animals, as in
substitution of the Ames test for animal studies. Whereas animal studies of
carcinogens take six years and cost $1.5 to $2 million for each substance
tested, the Ames test can be done in a few weeks for $500. We have also
seen that the LD50 test is a bent reed, being essentially valueless and easily
replaced, the only barrier being bureaucratic inertia. Elimination of funding
for absurd experiments would not only stop immeasurable suffering, but
would also save millions of dollars in tax money.

In other cases, we have seen that the amelioration of animal suffering

requires greater effort-new legislation, sacrifice of new products, major
changes in science education. Nothing we have delineated, however, is
unreasonable, pie-in-the-sky, or utopian. The use of the utilitarian and rights
principles as guidelines for regulatory legislation governing the use of
animals seems to be a minimal step consonant with our earlier argument
demonstrating the status of animals as objects of moral concern. And even
the use of these principles, it must be stressed, falls far short of a genuine
total recognition of the full moral status of animals. Nonetheless, given our
contemporary social context, these notions seem to be a likely and
reasonable meeting place for those who have hitherto shown little concern
for the moral status of animals and those who have been too tied to utopian
ideals to make any meaningful differences. In our next chapter, we turn to
the question of pet animals a question of more direct relevance to most
people than the problem of research animals.
 e have examined in detail the intersection of moral theory and
actual practice in an area that to most people represents foreign territory.
Since the vast majority of us enjoy little direct familiarity with the activities
of biomedical research beyond the occasional frog that we may have hacked
up in a biology class, the problem of the research animal, as well as the
suggested solutions, may yet lack gut-level relevance. David Hume pointed
out long ago that reason is and ought to be a slave of the passions. By this
he did not mean that we should simply follow our irrational emotions in
some bizarre Dionysian way, but rather, he was pointing out the fact that
arguments alone do not move people; one must have an emotional pull
toward actualizing the results of one's reasoning. For Hume, the ultimate
basis of morality was feeling: we act on our moral positions because we are
born with a psychological predisposition toward empathy or fellow feeling
with other persons, because we are made uncomfortable by their suffering.
When a feeling of concern is absent, moral theorizing becomes an abstract
calculation, an intellectual game, something that one can turn on and off,
analogous to mastering theology in the absence of religious feeling.

We read of the suffering of three million starving people, or five hundred

thousand people left homeless in the aftermath of an earthquake, or a tribe
of people subjected to genocidal persecution. We know intellectually that
this is intolerable. We know that we are morally obligated to help, yet we
are at the same time strangely unmoved. The numbers are too large. The
event is unconnected with our experience. The situation is beyond
comprehension, beyond empathy, save for saints. But let us run across a
single starving child, or see the story of one homeless family on local
television, and we are moved to tears and action. Here is something we can
grasp, empathize with, understand, ameliorate. Here is something we can
relate to as an individual case, one to one, not as an abstraction, but as
something we can grasp and call by a proper name. We cannot live sanely
in a world where millions of children starve, for such is a world in which
we are impotent. We can deal with individuals and, as Aristotle said in
another context, only through direct awareness of individuals ascend to an
empathetic grasp of generalities.

It is for these reasons that our task is not complete until we have tied our
theoretical machinery not only to an actual situation, as we did with
laboratory animals, but also to an actual situation with which virtually
everyone can find a point of existential and empathetic contact. Here we
stand the best chance of engendering the moral gestalt shift with regard to
animals that we spoke of in earlier chapters.
Sometimes, as in the case of laboratory animals, moral blindness stems
from lack of familiarity. But other times, as in the case of pet animals, it
stems from excessive familiarity. Those of us who grow up in cities are not
aware of the noise, not, that is, until we move to the country and can't sleep
because it is too quiet. In antiquity, the Pythagoreans argued that we could
not hear the music of the heavenly spheres because we had heard it from
birth. By the same token, most of us have become excessively familiar with
the atrocities perpetrated on pet animals, so much so that we take them to be
not only necessary, but desirable too. One amusing anecdote illustrates this
beautifully. Some years ago, I was exercising my Great Dane in New York's
Riverside Park when an elderly woman with a very strong German accent
accosted me.

"That dog is a Great Dane," she snapped, pointing her umbrella at me. I
agreed. "You did not crop her ears," she said accusingly.

"That's right," I said, a bit smugly. "I don't believe in performing

unnecessary mutilation on an animal."

"Ridiculous!" she shouted. "It belongs to the nature of the Great Dane
that it be cropped!"

Less amusingly, most of us are dimly aware that millions of animals,

primarily dogs and cats, are killed annually in pounds. Most of us, for many
years myself included, take this to be inevitable, albeit sad. Yet we
rationalize, hiding behind abstractions like "the pet problem" or using
anesthetic language like "animal shelters," "putting to sleep," "homeless,"
"strays." So if we are to try to effect our gestalt shift, if we are to see
animals in the moral light that we have argued is their due, this is an
excellent place to begin, for here we have all the additional ingredients for
moral awakening. All of us have or have known pets and probably loved
them. Unlike the case of laboratory animals, all of us have the relevant
information and experience as part of our life's progress-it needs only to be
called to our attention and moved from background to figure, "recollected"
in Plato's terms. When we have examined the problem, we shall have
provided all the ingredients we can for promoting recognition of the moral
status of animals. In chapters 1 and 2 of this book we provided a moral
theory. In chapter 3 we attempted to find the point at which this theory, as
an ideal, can intersect with actual practice in our social context to effect real
moral progress. Now, we combine theory and practice with empathy and
individuality of the moral object. Perhaps few of us can easily empathize
with the laboratory rat, primarily because we have not known any (but
recall the story related earlier of my friend the parasitologist). On the other
hand, few of us can fail to empathize with the dogs and cats who are the
actual cast of characters in this humanly created tragedy. Again, the
intended result is the creation of an intellectual, emotional, and moral
gestalt shift on animals.

To provide an existential basis for our preceding and subsequent

discussion, and to drive home our points about individuality and empathy,
the reader is invited to consider the following story told to me by my former
colleague, Dr. David Neil. Dr. Neil is the man from whom I have learned
much about laboratory animals, and who taught me to ask the question that
has been most important to me in my work on animal wel fare: "When all is
said and done, are the animals any better off in virtue of your efforts?" In
addition, he is a sensitive man, greatly concerned about animal welfare. He
is a laboratory animal veterinarian who was a principal architect of the
federal legislation described earlier. In addition to being a scientist, he was
president of the local humane society. I have described him in detail to
stress that he is a man for whom the welfare of animals is the central part of
his daily life. Yet even he had accepted the inevitability of euthanasia until
one day he impulsively adopted a little black bitch slated for euthanasia at
the humane society, whom he named "Maggie," and who thus became an
individual for him. The important point to emphasize is that he was not
looking for a black bitch; he was not looking for a dog at all. He just
happened on a whim to take this dog home, more or less at random. In any
event, he found himself extolling the virtues of this dog to all who would
listen: she is bright, she adjusted immediately to his children and other
animals, she is a good watchdog, she is loving. Suddenly, he was overcome
with a realization: but for his whim, she would have been dead. Each dog
being killed in the decompression chamber (the standard euthanasia method
at the time) was not just an unfortunate statistic, but an individual in its own
right too, with its own personality, potential, and life arbitrarily choked off.
From that moment on, the abstract "dog problem" had become concretized
for him, and never again could he accept the inevitability of killing. The
abstract concept of the animals' right to life had become for him the
question of killing innocent dogs like Maggie. His moral gestalt shift was
complete.

Based upon this experience, I should like to propose an experiment for

the reader. Set aside a couple of hours and visit the pound in your
community. Choose a dog from among those scheduled for euthanasia.
Don't choose a puppy, or a particularly cute or affectionate or vivacious
animal. In fact, choose a homely, scruffy, nondescript creature. Remove the
animal from the cage, and spend half an hour with it. Play with it, pet it,
talk to it. Let the animal respond to you. Watch the communication begin to
flow back and forth, the affection, the rapport, the bonding that has an
evolutionary history of thousands of years. At the end of the half hour,
return the animal to its cage, if you have the heart to do so. Whether you do
or not, the related concepts of an animal's right to life and the moral
question of our responsibility for pet animals will never again be mere
abstractions for you. And once the problem has assumed existential
relevance for you, return to an examination of the theoretical and practical
questions involved in what has come to be called "the pet problem."
In actuality, talking about the "pet problem" is another piece of verbal
lubrication, legerdemain that serves to suggest that there is something
intrinsically problematic about these creatures, as when the Germans spoke
of the "Jewish question." The problem is not with the dogs and cats, of
course; it is with human beings. Earlier in this book we discussed the social
contract theory. If one chooses to talk in these terms, it is difficult to find a
more clear example of this sort of "contract" than that of man's relationship
to the dog. Yet, as we shall see, we are systematically violating the contract
and the fundamental rights of the animals who are party to it-the right to life
of the animals and the actualization of their telos.

Let us elaborate upon this claim. One may choose to see the human
relationship to the dog as involving something like a social contract, in
which the animals gave up their free, wild, pack nature to live in human
society in return for care, leadership, and food, which people "agreed" to
provide in return for the dog's role as a sentinel, guardian, hunting
companion, and friend. Alternatively, one may simply talk of the natural,
evolutionary development of the man-dog relationship. As one who does
not put much stock in the nature-convention dichotomy, I do not see much
difference in how we put it. It is clear that the dog has played a unique and
important role in the development of humans, having been with us since the
birth of humanity. (Evidence in China indicates that tame wolves were
associated with Peking Man society about five hundred thousand years
ago.) The dog evidences in countless ways its fulfillment of the contract
with humans. The dog has been, and still is, a guardian of the home, a
warrior and messenger, a sentry, a playmate for and protector of children, a
guardian of sheep and cattle, a beast of burden, a rescuer of lost people, a
puller of carts and sleds, a friend, a hunter, a companion, a constant
assistant to the deaf and blind and other handicapped persons, an exercise
mate, a contact with nature for urban people, an invaluable source of
friendship and company and solace for the old and the lonely, a vehicle for
penetrating the frightful shell surrounding the disturbed child, a creature
that can provide the comfort of touch even to the most asocial person, and
an inexhaustible source of pure, unqualified, and total love. And humans
have shaped the dog into all sorts of physical and personality forms that are
literally incapable of survival outside of human society. (Consider the
bulldog, or the Chihuahua.) According to some ethologists, notably Konrad
Lorenz, humans have actually developed the dog into a creature whose
natural pack structure has been integrated into human society, with the
human master playing the traditional role of pack leader. It is hard to
imagine a more vivid and pervasive example of a social contract, an
agreement in nature and action, than that obtaining between humans and
dogs. (Similar arguments hold, though not as neatly, for other pet animals,
mutatis mutandis.)

The dog in its current form is essentially dependent upon humans for its
physical existence, for behavioral needs, and for fulfillment of its social
nature. Man, in turn, is dependent on the dog and on other pets in the ways
described above and more, some only recently discovered or rediscovered
and that are quite remarkable. This has long been recognized in many
cultures. One of the most eloquent statements of this awareness may be
found in ancient Eskimo practice. These Eskimos would lay the head of a
deceased dog in a child's grave so that the soul of the dog, which is
everywhere at home, would guide the helpless infant to the land of souls.
Let us look for a moment at some of the more surprising ways that the pet
animal, especially the dog, is integral to human life.

Quite recently, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have

begun to study the psychological role of pets in society. It has been found
that severely disturbed children, autistic children, and adults who are
unresponsive to other forms of therapy can be reached by giving them an
animal, especially a dog. Children who will not speak will express
themselves to animals. Evidence indicates that the loneliness, despair, and
descent into senescence endemic to inhabitants of geriatric institutions and
nursing homes can be dramatically alleviated by allowing these people to
keep pets. There is all sorts of anecdotal evidence indicating that lonely and
sick people can enjoy immeasurable improvement in their quality of life
when they have a living creature for which to live; something that needs
them, something to give and receive love. When something needs you, you
don't allow yourself to be sick. In a tragic case, an old woman in a public
housing project was forced by authorities to give up her dog and, according
to her friends, died shortly thereafter from a "broken heart." There is reason
to believe that the presence of an animal can speed healing and catalyze
recovery. Aaron Katcher, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania,
has shown that people who suffer heart attacks and who have pets suffer
significantly fewer recurrences than people who don't have pets. Pets can be
invaluable in easing the pain of separation from home or the trauma of
sudden divorce. There is also good evidence that human beings require
physical touch with other living things in order to function properly. Once
again, animals provide this. Michael Fox has suggested that the purring of a
cat can serve as a tranquilizer, a benign relaxant for alleviating tension.
People are beginning to realize that the loss of a pet can be as traumatic as
the loss of a beloved relative.

Animals, primarily cats, serve to keep down the population of animals

that are injurious to human health and welfare-rats and mice, for example,
and other disease-carrying rodents. Where pet animals are banned, or where
animal control programs are overly effective, or where human beings for
one reason or another have fewer cats, such as the inner city, rats run out of
control. (Such a situation was covered on national television, describing a
luxury island where pets are banned.)

Each reader can supplement this list from his or her own experiences. As
soon as we reflect on this question, we realize the countless ways in which
pet animals are profoundly involved in our lives, ways that are invisible
because they are taken for granted. My son's first intelligible sound was a
meow of greeting to our cat, a cat who had been with us for twelve years
and who had consistently ignored or attacked every friend and visitor we
ever had, and yet who instantly adopted the baby and tolerated abuse at his
hands with infinite patience. I cannot forget the silent commiseration I
received from my Great Dane during periods of depression, and the shared
exuberance during periods of elation. I shall remain always grateful for the
companionship and protection she gave me during the years when I was
working on my doctorate at Columbia and was anxious and sick and living
in a jungle of a neighborhood, my only release the nightly walks we took
together. It was through her that I became part of the strange subculture of
"dog people" in New York's parks: the only strangers in New York who talk
to one another are people with dogs or children. It was through her that I
met some of the city's lost souls, who were attracted by her great size and
great gentleness and who stayed to talk to me. And it was through her that I
became aware of the mystical bond that can unite humans and animals and
came to know intuitively what it has taken me years to put into words.

I recall receiving a phone call one night in the fall of 1968 from my
brother, who was a first-year graduate student at Cornell, beginning his first
semester. He was uncharacteristically lonely, depressed, alienated from his
new environment. It was his first time living away from New York, and he
had not yet had time to make friends. In his depression, he talked of
dropping out, of transferring to a school in New York City. As soon as we
got off the phone, I went immediately to the animal shelter, found a kitten,
and drove six hours to Cornell, presenting him with the animal. That was a
Friday. By Sunday, he was back to his usual feisty and ebullient self. The
depression never returned, and the cat shared his life for sixteen years.
Let us elaborate on our previous discussion. In the twenty-five years since I
wrote the first edition of this book, it has become clear that companion
animals, and particularly dogs, have started to play a new role in society
that was only hinted at in our earlier discussion, what author Jon Katz has
called, in the title of his recent book, The New Work of Dogs.

It is now known that the US divorce rate is 40 percent. In addition, we

are an aging society. In fact, the global population increasingly consists of
people sixty-five or older. Lifespan is also increasing. Rural population has
significantly decreased.

All of this means, among other things, increasing loneliness for

significant portions of society. We now have a significant population of
lonely divorced people, children with one parent, and solitary elderly.

Inevitably, in the past fifty or so years, dogs (and to a lesser extent, cats
and other species) have become valued not only for pragmatic,
economically quantifiable purposes, but for deep emotional reasons as well.
These animals are viewed as members of the family, as friends, as "givers
and receivers of love" as one judge put it; and the bond based in pragmatic
symbiosis has turned into a bond based in love. This new basis for the bond
imposes high expectations on those party to such a bond on the analogy of
how we feel we should relate to humans we are bound to by love and
family. If a purely working dog is crippled and can no longer tend to the
sheep, it violates no moral canon (except perhaps loyalty) to affirm that he
needs to be replaced by another healthy animal, and like livestock, may be
euthanized if the owner needs a functioning animal. (In practice, of course,
people often kept the old animals around for supererogatory or
"sentimental" reasons, but, conceptually, keeping them alive and cared for
when they no longer could fulfill their function was not morally required
any more than was keeping a cow alive that could no longer give milk.)
 But insofar as an animal is truly perceived as an object of love or
friendship, or a member of the family, a different set of moral obligations
are incurred. We do not euthanize or adopt out (let alone relinquish) a
crippled child or sick spouse or aged parent -at most we may institutionalize
them if we are unable to provide the requisite care. A love-based bond
imposes a higher and more stringent set of moral obligations than does one
based solely in mutual pragmatic benefit.

The rise of deep love-based relationships with animals as a regular and

increasingly accepted social phenomenon came from a variety of
converging and mutually reinforcing social conditions. In the first place,
probably beginning with the widespread use of the automobile, extended
nuclear families with multigenerations living in one location or under one
roof began to vanish. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when
roughly half of the public produced food for themselves and for the other
half of the public, significant numbers of large extended families lived
together, manning farms. The safety net for older people was their family,
rather than society as a whole. The concept of easy mobility made
preserving the nuclear family less of a necessity, as did the rise of the new
idea that society as a whole rather than the family was responsible for
assuring retirement, medical attention, and facilities for elderly people.

With the concentration of agriculture in fewer and fewer hands, the rise
of industrialization, and as the post-Depression Dust Bowl and World War
II introduced migration into cities, the nuclear family notion was further
eroded. The tendency of urban life to erode community, to create what the
Germans called gesellschaft rather than gemeinschaft, mixtures rather than
compounds, as it were, further created solitude and loneliness as
widespread modes of being. Correlatively, as selfishness and self-
actualization were established as positive values beginning in highly
individualistic 1960s, the divorce rate began to climb, and the traditional
stigma attached to divorce was erased. As biomedicine prolonged our
lifespans, more and more people outlived their spouses, and were thrown
into a loneliness mode of existence, with the loss of the extended family
removing a possible remedy.
 Thus, as mentioned, we have lonely old people, lonely divorced people,
and, most tragically, lonely children whose single parent often works. With
the best jobs being urban, or quasi-urban, many people live in cities or
peripherally urban developments such as condos. In New York City, for
example, where I lived for twenty-six years, one can be lonelier than in
rural Wyoming. The cowboy craving camaraderie can find a neighbor from
whom he is separated only by physical distance; the urban person may
know no one and have no one in striking distance who cares. Shorn of
physical space, people create psychic distances between themselves and
others. People may (and usually do) for years live six inches away from
neighbors in an apartment building and never exchange a sentence. Watch
New Yorkers on an elevator; the rule is stand as far away from others as you
can and study the ceiling. Making eye contact on a street can be taken as a
challenge or a sexual invitation, so people do not. One minds one's own
business, one steps over and around drunks on the street. "Don't get
involved" is a mantra for survival.

Yet humans need love, companionship, emotional support, and to be

needed. In such a world, a companion animal can be one's psychic and
spiritual salvation. Divorce lawyers repeatedly tell me that custody of the
dog can be a greater source of conflict in a divorce than custody of the
children! An animal is someone to hug who hugs you back; someone to
play with, to laugh with; to exercise with; to walk with; to share beautiful
days; to cry with. For a child, the dog is a playmate, a friend, someone to
talk to. The dog is a protector; one of the most unforgettable photos I have
ever seen shows a child of six in an apartment answering the door at night,
clutching the collar of a two-hundred-pound Great Dane, the child
protected.

But a dog is more than that. In New York, and other big, cold, tough
cities, it is a social lubricant. One does not talk to strangers in cities, unless
he or she-or preferably both-are walking a dog. Then the barriers crumble.
One of the most extraordinary social phenomena I have ever participated in
was with the "dog people" in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. These
were people who walked their dogs at roughly the same time, morning and
evening, in Riverside Park. United by a common and legitimate purpose,
having dogs in common and thereby being above suspicion, conversations
would begin spontaneously. To be sure, we usually did not know one
another's names-we were "Red's owner," "Helga's person," "Fluffy's
mistress." But names didn't matter. What mattered was that we began to
care for each other through the magic of sharing a bond with animals, and
the animals ignored New York etiquette and played with one another. And
we cared for one another's animals.

Red was a huge German Shepherd owned by Phil (I don't know his last
name), a former British commando. Though aggressive with male dogs
(Phil put him in a pen alone to run or let him run with females), he was an
obedient angel with people. When Phil had surgery, we all took turns
walking Red for the two weeks Phil was in the hospital. We had a key we
passed around; though Phil did not know our last names or addresses, he
seemed to assume we were worthy of trust. Through the animals,
gesellschaft was replaced by gemeinshaft.

Perhaps two years after Phil's operation, I was suffering from chronic
asthma, experiencing attacks every night and sometimes multiply in a night.
My physician was preparing to hospitalize me indefinitely until the cycle
was broken. I mentioned this to Phil one evening. He nodded and said
nothing. The next evening he handed me an envelope. "What is this?" I
asked.

"The key to my cabin in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and a map. Stay there
until you can breathe. The air is clean and there is no stress. It beats a
hospital."

For more old people than I care to recall, the dog (or cat) was a reason to
get up in the morning, to go out, to bundle up and go to the park ("Fluffy
misses her friends, you know!"), to shop, to fuss, to feel responsible for a
life, and to feel needed.

I used to walk my Great Dane very late at night feeling safe and,
incidentally, other people spoke to me: A black woman had gotten off at the
wrong subway station while heading for Harlem and was terrified. With no
hesitation, she asked me to walk with her a mile to Harlem, where she felt
safe. "I'm okay with you and that big dog," she said, never even
conjecturing that I could be a monster with a dog!

Most memorably, I recall walking miles to the theater district at 4 AM.

At one all-night cafeteria, the prostitutes used to assemble after a night's
work. "Helga!" they would shout with delight when my dog approached. I
was simply attached to the leash and was addressed only when they asked
permission to buy her a doughnut. These guarded, cynical women would
get on their knees and hug and kiss the dog, with a genuine warmth and
pleasure, letting the child in them show through in these rare and priceless
moments. I cannot recall these incidents without emotion.

These companion animals then, in today's world, provide us with love

and someone to love, and do so unfailingly, with loyalty, grace, and
boundless devotion. There is a large body of literature showing that pets
contribute significantly to human health. In a book that should be required
reading for all who work with animals, author Jon Katz has chronicled what
he calls The New Work of Dogs, all based on his personal experiences in a
New Jersey suburban community. Here we read of the dog whom a woman
credits with shepherding her through a losing battle with cancer, as her
emotional bedrock. Katz tells of the "Divorced Women's Dog Club," a
group of divorced women united only by divorce and reliance on their dogs.
He tells the tale of a dog who provides an outlet for a ghetto youth's
insecurity and rage, and who is beaten daily. He relates the story of a
successful executive with family and friends, who in the end deals with
stress in his life only by long walks with his Labrador, totaling many hours
in a day. While raising the question of whether we are entitled to expect this
of our animals, Katz explains that we are, and that they perform heroically
in fulfilling our expectations.
Thus, we can see from our own experiences that humans profit immensely
from dogs and cats. The animals do not fare nearly as well at our hands,
even though billions of dollars are spent-and misspent-each year on these
animals; to be exact, $17 billion each year. Much of this money is expended
on useless luxury items that appeal to the animal owner rather than the
animal-pet food that is appetizing or aesthetically appealing to us, pet food
that has been promoted by giant advertising budgets (well over $100
million a year), dog biscuits in the shape of people, Christmas stockings for
cats, jeweled collars, nail polish, and so on. Although I cannot support this
speculation with any hard evidence, I am morally certain that much of this
money is spent to assuage the guilty consciences of animal owners who
deny the animals something far more precious: time, love, and personal
interaction. "Doggie daycare" centers are a growth industry. (This is, of
course, one standard explanation for the enormous amount of money that
people spend on toys for children. As a culture, we find it far easier to
expend money than time, and for this we pay a price in terms of the mental
health of our children and our animals.)

In any event, let us examine the ways in which humans do not live up to
the "social contract" with pet animals. We saw earlier, in the theoretical
portion of our argument, that the basic rights of animals involve a prima
facie right to life and the right to live their lives in accordance with their
nature, or telos. In the case of pet animals, both of these are systematically
violated in obvious and enormously widespread ways. Let us focus on the
dog for the moment. As indicated earlier, humans are responsible for the
shape the dog has taken: physically, psychologically, and behaviorally. The
dog is our creation. And just as God is alleged in the Catholic tradition to be
not only the initial creator of the universe, but also its sustaining cause at
each moment of time, so too are humans to the dog. If dogs were suddenly
turned loose into a world devoid of people, they would be decimated. Aside
from the obvious case of Chihuahuas, bulldogs, and others who could
simply not withstand the elements or who are too small, slow, or clumsy to
be successful predators, the vast majority of dogs of any sort would not do
well. We know from cases of dogs who have gone feral that they still live
primarily on the periphery of human society, existing on handouts, garbage,
and vulnerable livestock such as poultry and lambs. Without vaccination,
overwhelming numbers would succumb to disease. The dog, in short, has
been developed to be dependent on us; that is at the basis of our social
contract metaphor.
Yet in one year we kill millions (about ten million, other estimates range
from six to fourteen million) of perfectly healthy dogs and close to that
many cats. About 12 percent of the total number of dogs born in the United
States are killed by animal control people: by shooting, injection, anesthetic
overdose, and even electrocution. Millions more die in automobile
accidents or by starvation after they have been turned loose by owners. And
the overwhelming majority of the animals killed are not purely feral
animals who have never had a home-this population would be reduced to
insignificance after a few years of efficient animal control-but animals who
have at one point been owned by a person.

For many years, I have enjoyed a good relationship with many people
who run the humane societies in my home city and across the United States.
Highly conscientious people, they have attempted to catalogue the reasons
why people bring animals in to be euthanized. (Bringing an animal into a
humane society or pound is often tantamount to bringing them in to be
killed; very few will in fact be adopted.) Their results are echoed by
veterinarians, who are also asked to "put animals to sleep" for extramedical
reasons. People bring animals in to be killed because they are moving and
do not want the trouble of traveling with a pet. People kill animals because
they are moving to a place where it will be difficult to keep an animal or
where animals are not allowed. People kill animals because they are going
on vacation and do not want to pay for boarding and, anyway, can always
get another one. People kill animals because their son or daughter is going
away to college and can't take care of it. People kill animals because they
are getting divorced or separated and cannot agree on who will keep the
animal. People kill animals, rather than attempt to place them in other
homes, because "the animal could not bear to live without me." People kill
animals because they cannot housebreak them, or train them not to jump up
on the furniture, or not to chew on it, or not to bark. People kill animals
because they have moved or redecorated and the animals no longer match
the color scheme. People kill animals because the animals are not mean
enough or are too mean. People kill animals because they bark at strangers
or don't bark at strangers. People kill animals because the animal is getting
old and can no longer jog with them. People kill animals because they feel
themselves getting old and are afraid of dying before the animal. People kill
animals because the semester is over and Mom and Dad would not
appreciate a new dog. People kill animals because they only wanted their
children to witness the "miracle of birth" and have no use for the puppies or
kittens. People kill animals because they have heard that when Doberman
pinschers get old, their brains get too big for their skulls and they go crazy.
People kill animals because they have heard that when Great Danes get old,
they get mean. People kill animals because they are tired of them or
because they want a new one. People kill animals because they are no
longer puppies and kittens and are no longer cute, or are too big. People kill
animals because they cannot run fast enough to win a race, or because their
color is wrong for winning a dog show.

The foregoing catalogue sounds grossly exaggerated and overly

dramatic. Once again, let the reader visit a pound or a veterinarian and find
out for himself or herself. And the animals who are killed represent pets of
people who are at least willing to handle the matter forthrightly, or who
delude themselves into thinking that the animal will be adopted. Countless
others simply abandon the animal, leaving the animals in an apartment or
turning them loose on public roads. A favorite place to abandon them is on
country roads. I know this personally because I live on one. I have ended up
with three dogs and twelve cats who were abandoned at my place. Any
farmer will confirm this. On one occasion, I saw a car stop, a German
shepherd thrown out, and it sped away. I will always remember watching
the dog chase the car down the road until it could run no more.
As a result of all these senseless animal tragedies, an ironic human tragedy
unfolds. Too often, the animal welfare workers, the volunteers, the people
who care most for the animals, find themselves in the grotesque, macabre
position of doing the dirty work, of killing these creatures in a humane
fashion so that they do not starve to death or die in car accidents. Not only
is this tragic in that those who care the most must do society's dirty work,
but also because the enormous amount of moral commitment and empathy
and energy that these people have and want to put into the service of
animals is channeled nonproductively into killing and into battles about
ensuring proper methods of euthanasia. Thus, for example, humane groups
around the country have fought and won fierce battles in state legislatures
to allow them to use barbiturates for euthanasia rather than the barbaric
hypobaric decompression chamber, which can cause incredible suffering to
the animals.

Let me stress that I applauded and supported these battles and urged the
abolition of the chamber. My point is that these dedicated people are forced
by society into the bitter job of making sure that society's mess, the
unwanted animals, are not made to suffer along with being deprived of their
right to life. And since doing this is such a herculean task, energy that could
be deployed toward other ends, much more beneficial to the animals, is
diffused. Furthermore, these people quite literally pay with their lives. It is
well known that many people who are involved with euthanasia of animals
for nonmedical reasons end up divorced, alcoholic, drug-dependent,
alienated from friends, and afflicted with a variety of stress-related
illnesses.

I have given major or keynote addresses to almost every national

humane organization in the United States and Canada and have made the
same point. Though I expected to encounter defensive hostility, the opposite
was the case. Shelter workers and directors, humane workers, and animal
control people all endorsed my remarks, often with tears in their eyes. To be
forced to kill something you love in order to ensure that it not suffer is an
awesome burden-a burden society has no right to expect dedicated people to
shoulder. Those of us who have been forced to have an animal euthanized
because it was suffering or paralyzed or unable to take nutrition know that
this experience is one that one never forgets. Many people are so
traumatized by it that they never again acquire a pet. Only when we as a
society have taken our proper responsibility for eliminating the problem of
unwanted animals can the animal welfare workers be free to pursue their
fundamental raison d'etre, working to improve the lot of animals in less
tragic ways, by serving as educators of society and guardians of animal
rights. We shall shortly return to this point.
While the mass extermination of pet animals is the most obvious problem
illustrating our abrogation of the social contract with these creatures, there
is another area that is less spectacular but just as reprehensible: the
wholesale violation of the pet animals' nature in innumerable ways by those
who own pet animals and even attempt to care for them. Earlier in the book,
we argued that animals had a right to live their lives in accordance with the
physical, behavioral, and psychological interests that have been
programmed into them in the course of their evolutionary development and
that constitute their telos. This is, of course, a fortiori true in the case of
those animals whose telos we have shaped. We also argued that to be
responsible guardians of animals, we must look to biology and ethology to
help us arrive at an understanding of these needs. Much is known about the
behavior and biology of dogs and cats, especially the latter, from a
physiological and anatomical point of view. (In fact, if research were not
dominated by ideology much more would be known about the behavior of
dogs, cats, rats, and mice, the favorite subjects of psychological
experimentation. Unfortunately, psychologists were traditionally too busy
studying these creatures in artificial situations, under restraint or with
implanted electrodes, or under bizarre conditions of blinding or learned
helplessness, to bother to understand the animal. In any event, through the
work of more responsible scientists, we do know a great deal.) Yet the
average person who buys or adopts a dog or cat is worse than ignorant-I say
worse because they are invariably infused with outrageously false
information.

Consider some of the "common knowledge" about the natures of dogs

and cats: Doberman pinschers' brains get too big for their skulls and they go
crazy. Cats suffocate babies. Dogs of the same sex will always fight if put
together. A cat will always survive a fall. Big dogs should not be kept in
city apartments. Purebred dogs are "better" than mongrels. The way to
make a dog mean is to feed him gunpowder. Cats can't swim. Dogs and cats
can't get along. The way to housebreak a dog is to hit him when he
defecates in the house or to rub his nose in the excrement. When a dog
wags his tail, he is friendly and won't bite. Slapping a dog on the nose is a
good method of correction. Slapping a rolled up newspaper and startling the
dog is a good method of correction. Cats cannot be trained. Castrating or
spaying an animal removes aggression. And, of course, that time-honored
piece of folk wisdom, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." The above
"truisms" are, of course, false. To put it bluntly, the average person is either
ignorant or misinformed about dog and cat behavior, training, biology,
nutrition, in short, about the animal's nature.

In some contexts, this ignorance or misinformation is laughable, as when

one man informed me that his dog is part bear, or a student informed me
that Dobermans were mean because we had cropped their ears for
generations and that this resulted in hereditary ill tempers. "After all, how
would you feel if someone cropped your ears? Pretty mean." But most
often, the net result of this ignorance is a life for the animal where its basic
nature is mocked, thwarted, or ignored. Walk into a parking lot on a hot
summer day and attend to the number of dogs left in closed cars without
water or ventilation. ("He's just a small dog; there's plenty of air.") In point
of fact, if the temperature inside the car reaches 105 degrees, not at all
unlikely given the greenhouse effect, the dog will suffer permanent brain
damage within fifteen minutes.

Or consider the claim mentioned above that one ought not keep a large
dog in a city apartment, one of the few things that "everyone knows" when
they go out to get a dog. Cognizant of that "fact," a family may decide to
purchase a small poodle, with unfortunate consequences. The poodle,
typically a frenetic, high-strung creature, will be miserable without constant
exercise. They would very likely have been better off with a Great Dane, a
phlegmatic dog that, despite its size or perhaps because of it, tends to spend
most of its time in a semicataleptic state. (In the case of my Dane, my wife
and I would call her periodically just to make sure she was still breathing.
Generally, we were lucky to exact one tail-thump in response.)

Veterinarians are an excellent source of information about the animal

suffering that is engendered by human ignorance. All too often, a
veterinarian is asked to kill a dog, sometimes a puppy, but more often an
older dog, that is tearing up the house or urinating on the bed. The owners
have tried beating, yelling, caging; nothing has worked. They are shocked
to learn that the dog, as a social animal, is lonely. Often the older dog has
been played with every day for years by children who have now gone to
college. Often the dog has been accustomed to extraordinary attention from
his mistress, a divorcee, who suddenly has a new boyfriend and has
forgotten the dog's needs. Often the dog has been a child substitute for a
young couple who now have a new baby, and the dog is being ignored and
is jealous.

Veterinarians are called upon almost daily to modify an animal's nature

to suit an owner. Consider the case of the house-proud woman who bought
a cute kitten on a whim, oblivious to the fact that kittens climb, scratch
things, exercise, or "sharpen" their claws on furniture. The "solution":
declaw the animal and throw it outside. Unfortunately, the declawed animal
is now devoid of natural defenses and is likely to come home maimed, if at
all. The animal cannot fight and cannot climb trees to escape. Or consider
the case of the suburban couple who buys a dog, leaves him outside at
night, and then fields complaints from neighbors that the dog barks. The
solution: surgically remove the vocal chords, a mutilation called
"debarking" that generally won't work and only serves to leave the animal
with a very audible and grotesque honking noise. The American Kennel
Club and similar organizations of dog and cat breed fanciers are the major
culprits in perpetuating mutilations and distortions of the animals' telos
through the "breed standards" they promulgate and perpetuate in dog and
cat shows. If one wishes to win in these shows, one must have a Doberman
with cropped ears and docked tail; a Great Dane, boxer, Boston bull terrier
with cropped ears; a cocker spaniel, old English sheepdog, poodle, with a
docked tail.

In a related area, mindless concern with standards that are purely

aesthetic or morphological results in perpetuation of genetic defects that
cause suffering in the dog. Concern with a certain shaped face and eyes in
the collie and Shetland sheepdog has led to a disease called "collie eye" or
"sheltie eye," which can result in blindness. The breathing difficulties and
heart problems of bulldogs are genetically and physiologically linked to the
selection for foreshortened faces. There is some evidence that German
shepherd aggressiveness, much prized by trainers and the military, is
genetically linked to hip dysplasia. The Irish setter has been bred with an
exclusive concern for aesthetics to the point of imbecility. (It is sometimes
said of these dogs that "they cannot find themselves at the end of a leash.")
Manx cats, bred for taillessness, suffer from severe spinal defects.
Dachshunds suffer from genetically based spinal diseases that result in
paralysis and tend to have diabetes and Cushing's syndrome. Dalmatians get
bladder stones, apparently as a result of genetic linkage with coat color. In
Dalmatians and Australian shepherds, coat and eye color is linked with
hereditary deafness. Siamese cats are bred for crosseyes. Silver-colored
collies suffer from Grey collie syndrome, a situation in which their white
blood cell count cyclically falls, and they are susceptible to infection. They
are also susceptible to digestive, reproductive, skeletal, and ocular
problems. Boxers have by far the greatest incidence of every sort of cancer
of all dog breeds. Congenital cardiovascular defects are three times more
common in purebred dogs. Large breeds are subject to osteosarcoma and
heart problems. In fact, more than five hun dred diseases of dogs are of
genetic origin and have been perpetuated by irresponsible breeding. In
short, not only do we ignore relevant aspects of our animals' natures, but we
also systematically destroy these natures through breeding for traits that
appeal to us, without regard for the effect of these traits on the animals'
lives.

Other examples of how we violate the animals' nature are manifest.

Through our own failure to understand and respect the dog, train him
properly, and understand his psychology, we tranquilize our pets, cage them
in tiny cages for hours, chain them, muzzle them, beat them, use shock
collars. Instead of using the dog's natural protectiveness for home and
master, we create instant attack dogs through brutal training methods, dogs
that bite anything that moves, including the owner. Many of these dogs are
hair-trigger weapons, primed by stimulus and response and sold to people
who know nothing about dogs and who think that by spending two
thousand dollars they have bought respect and loyalty. Many of these dogs,
especially those male dogs trained by men and sold to women, are
subsequently destroyed for being "uncontrollable." (Then we direct mass
hysteria and pogroms at these animals, most recently pit bulls, in a frenzy of
what my late friend Frank Loew called "canine racism.") Our failure to
know anything at all about the dog's biology or behavior results in people
buying any dog as long as it is "cute," which, in turn, results in
unscrupulous puppy mills that turn out inferior animals under appalling
conditions for profit. Pet stores often neglect and abuse their animals, and
misinform customers. Our lack of understanding of the animals' nutritional
and biological needs results in myriad medical problems that arise out of
bad diet, overfeeding, and lack of exercise. Our use of animals as
extensions of ourselves rather than ends in themselves results in the
encouragement of behavior that is unnatural or neurotic-begging, limping
for sympathy, chronic whining for attention. Our inability to understand the
animal results in an inability to train it, which in turn leads to dogs who
chase cars and are killed or maimed in traffic accidents (or engender
accidents that harm humans), dogs who chase joggers and are maced, and
dogs who are euthanized because they nip children. Our failure to confine
our animals results in dogs being shot by farmers, run over, becoming
pregnant indiscriminately or at an age that stunts their development,
overproduction of unwanted animals, problems of damage to lawns and
gardens, danger of disease through wholesale deposit of excrement, and
worst of all, pack formation.

All evidence indicates that it is packs of owned dogs rather than feral
animals that are most dangerous to people and, most tragically, to children,
who are often severely maimed or even killed in unprovoked dog attacks.
(Seventy-five percent of those bitten are under age twenty, fortyone percent
under age ten.) These packs of owned dogs are often responsible for savage
attacks on livestock in which the dogs pathologically, and unlike any wild
canids, kill for no reason. I have seen dozens of baby lambs left piteously
mutilated by such packs. I have seen a kitten killed by a pack of nice family
dogs, each of which was totally benign on its own. A pack of pet dogs can
be very much like a mob of ordinary citizens: totally benign when taken
singly, but literally possessed by mindless destructiveness when formed into
a group. In domesticating the dog, man has assumed the role of pack leader;
to allow the formation of random packs is an abdication of biological as
well as moral responsibility.

We have already mentioned the abuses that arise out of ignorance or

false information. One version of the latter is worthy of being singled out
for special attention. This is what we might call the "Easy Rider" view of
the dog, popularized in the 1960s by many countercultural types. In this
view, the dog is indeed seen as having a telos: free, wild, roaming,
untrammeled. In some circles, it was considered a political act to let the dog
live "naturally"; to fornicate, wander, fight, raid garbage cans as it saw fit,
the owner living out his or her fantasies through the dog. In that, such
people have at least gotten to the point of realizing that the animal has a
nature that should be respected; this view is an improvement over apathetic
inattention. And it is further valuable in that it urges the maximization of
the pleasures growing out of the animal's nature. (Thus, for example, we
should not forget that animals probably enjoy sexual congress as much as
we do, and it is for this reason that I support vasectomies for male pet
animals, rather than castration, and the development of effective
contraceptives.) Where this view goes wrong is, first, in its failure to recall
the major modifications that the forces of artificial selection have imposed
on the dog in the course of its socialization for human society. Second, and
perhaps more basically, the ideal life envisioned for the dog has never been
part of its nature. No wild canids live this picaresque existence. And among
wild canids, there is little indiscriminate fighting and breeding. Wolves
rarely fight among themselves and mate for life.
The latest example of social stupidity in this area is the recent epidemic of
what my late friend Frank Loew called "canine racism." This "breedism" is
indeed analogous to racism, in that all dogs of a certain breed are tarred
with the same brush, that of "killers." Just as racists see all members of a
given race as instantiating the same negative traits, canine racism sees all
dogs of a given breed as identically a menace to society, despite the fact that
people who study animal behavior know full well that a given dog may well
differ markedly from the stereotype. This has become abundantly clear in
work done to meet the laboratory animal laws' requirement for "enhancing
psychological well-being." Some primates cannot get enough of a Simon
game, others of the same species will repeatedly reject that game as boring.

Yet, in response to these stereotypes, increasing numbers of

municipalities have been passing laws banning or forbidding Rottweilers,
Dobermans, and pit bulls. Housing developments may also ban them, and
insurance companies often refuse to insure owners of such animals.

The key point is that dogs, like people, need to be looked at as

individuals. Every fancier of the breeds mentioned above has known many
instances of such dogs that were totally devoid of aggression. (In owning
two Dobermans, one pit bull cross, and a Rottweiler, I never encountered
any of them as mean animals!)

On the other hand, any dog can be made mean by bad owners. In 2000 a
baby was killed by a Pomeranian! The most aggressive dog I have ever
known was a Chihuahua crossed with a dachshund. Experts admit that "the
statistics don't show that any breeds are inherently more dangerous than
others." While pit bulls were indeed bred for hundreds of years for fighting,
they were specifically bred to be aggressive to animals, not people, so
people who fought them could intervene in a fight without getting mauled.
The ten breeds most often involved in fatal attacks are large, have a macho
image, and are popular with people with ego problems-people who could
probably make a lamb vicious! (Records do not exist for nonfatal attacks.)
Golden retrievers, cocker spaniels, and Yorkshire terriers have all been
involved in fatal attacks. Chihuahuas, even if off the scale in meanness, are
unlikely to be involved in fatal attacks because of their small size.

People should worry more about the owner than about the breed. And
municipalities and insurance companies should look at individual animals,
not at breeds. This is certainly more time-consuming than promulgating
canine racism, but it is also far more likely to be successful in cutting down
on dog attacks!
The individual insensitivity to the social contract with pet animals
chronicled in the previous sections is both mirrored in and buttressed by a
number of social institutions. Most notable among these, perhaps, are the
laws concerning pet animals. As indicated earlier, pet animals are property,
the personal property of the people who own them. Given the special place
of these animals in our society, one would expect that they would enjoy
some different status or greater legal protection than food animals,
laboratory animals, or "wild" animals. In fact, this is not the case. The
major laws protecting these animals are the often impotent anticruelty laws
we have already discussed. Pets are property. In essence, a dog is like an
automobile, even down to the licensing fee, except that one needs to pass a
test to drive an automobile. Just as one may junk an automobile for
whatever reason one chooses, so one may destroy one's own pets, provided
one does not do it at high noon in the public square by whipping the animal
to death. Often, local or state ordinances are promulgated that make the lot
of pet animals even worse. In Colorado, for example, any person who owns
livestock may shoot any dog as soon as the dog sets foot on his property. In
many places, unreasonable noise ordinances lead people to either debark or
destroy barking animals. At various times, ordinances have been passed to
prevent cats from roaming. In a number of states, any cat killing a bird or
mammal protected by law, or in some places, any game bird or mammal, is
to be destroyed. One such law that has become famous was promulgated in
Illinois and was passed by the general assembly. Entitled "An Act to
Provide Protection to Insectivorous Birds by Restraining Cats," the bill
would have permitted any citizen to trap a free-roaming cat and would have
required impounding and destruction of such an animal. The bill was vetoed
by then governor Adlai Stevenson who made the following points in his
message to the assembly:

To escort a cat abroad on a leash is against the nature of the cat....

Moreover, cats perform useful service, particularly in rural areas, in
 combatting rodents-work they necessarily perform alone and without
regard for property lines.

We are all interested in protecting certain varieties of birds. That

cats destroy some birds, I well know, but I believe this legislation
would further but little (this) worthy cause.... The problem of cat
versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation
who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in
the age-old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird
versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local
governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control
feline delinquency.

Finally, we may cite a recent attempt by a small town to pass a law allowing
any police officer to shoot any "vicious dog." In the law, a "vicious dog"
was defined as one that was "vicious"!

By 1990 some interesting steps had been taken that attempted to utilize
the existing laws to the benefit of pet animals and to take some legal
cognizance of their value to human beings. As we shall see, these efforts
fall far short of granting legal rights or legal standing to the animal, or even
of providing significant protection for them. What they do achieve is a
recognition that their value cannot be measured simply in terms of
replacement value. For example, until very recently, if your dog was killed
by someone, you could sue only for the animal's market value. As a result
of some recent cases, notably in Florida, courts have declared that the
animal has significant sentimental value, much like a family heirloom, in
which case the value far transcends the replacement cost. In a very
interesting case, the court cited the love and affection that the animal
provides as justification for placing a high monetary value on a pet. In
another case, the director of the San Francisco humane society sued
successfully to contest the will of a dog owner that decreed that his dog be
killed after he, the owner, had died. The humane society director made
brilliant and successful use of a little-known area of the law that prevents
people from destroying valuable property, for example, a priceless painting.
And in an extremely interesting case, the Michigan Humane Society
obtained a court order to prevent an owner from putting an injured pet to
sleep because he did not wish to pay for surgery on the dog's diaphragm,
surgery that was needed not to save the dog's life but to allow the animal to
live a "healthy and happy life."

Such cases are clearly a step in the right direction. They might, for
example, serve to make someone think twice before they shoot a dog, since
the owner could well sue for great sums of money. They obviously
recognize that the death of an animal means something more than the
denting of a fender. But such cases still approach the animal primarily as
property and are still primarily concerned with the human animal owner, or
with the value of the animal for people, rather than with any intrinsic value
of the animal itself. To date, no court has been prepared to extend legal
rights to pet animals. And no legislative body has been prepared to confer
them. It does not seem that such rights will be forthcoming in the
immediate future, at least until more people have shifted their gestalts on
animals. This will only take place with increasing educational, legislative,
and judicial efforts on the part of those who are the natural guardians of
animal rights-the humane societies and the veterinarians. These groups,
whom we shall be discussing shortly, must aggressively work toward
education of the public on the welfare of animals, especially pet animals,
which are obviously the natural target for arousing public concern and
empathy. Furthermore, aggressive use must be made of existing laws on
behalf of pet animals, as the director did in San Francisco, and the
inadequacy of these laws relentlessly pointed out. Finally, new legislative
efforts must be forthcoming that address themselves to the complex issues
termed the "pet problem."

Inevitably, during the 1990s, as self-awareness about the value of pets

grew in society, attempts were made to increase the legal system's
recognition of the value of companion animals. These efforts took two
forms: one mentioned earlier was the attempt to establish that those who
have pets are not property owners but, rather, are guardians, a move we
discussed in our chapter on law. Thus far, Boulder, Colorado, Berkeley,
California, and Rhode Island have adopted ordinances or laws specifying
that pet owners are guardians. These laws, however, are largely symbolic,
amounting to little more than a change in nomenclature. As explained
earlier, given the legal tradition, it is not easy to elevate the status of
animals beyond property, and would require herculean efforts and huge
conceptual changes in the law.

Nonetheless, such efforts tell us much about the role of companion

animals. Though they are indeed symbolic, such symbolism would never
have been accepted even twenty years ago. And in at least one instance the
impact is significantly beyond symbolism. That is the 1998 California law
forbidding the shipping of horses for slaughter for food, or knowingly
selling a horse to someone who intends to ship it for slaughter. In talking to
the person who drafted the law, I was told that the express purpose was to
stop the killing of horses for food (euthanasia by a veterinarian is still
permitted) and thereby serve notice that "at least in California, horses are
not livestock, but rather companion animals."

One major impediment that must be overcome to make guardian status

even conceptually viable was pointed out to me by Dwayne Flemming, a
veterinarian and attorney. Flemming argues that presuppositional to the
guardian/ward relationship for humans in law is the absolute requirement
that a guardian act always "in the best interest" of the ward. With animals,
we often don't know what counts as being in the best interest of the animal.
Is it in the best interest of the horse to be ridden? Is it in the best interest of
the dog to run with a human while the latter is training for a marathon? Is it
in the best interest of a dog to go through the stringent demands of the show
ring? Until we can answer these and similar questions, we are blocked from
moving toward guardianship for companion animals.

The more viable move toward raising animals' status has been through
creating laws recognizing that animals are worth more than market value by
allowing awards for wrongful killings of an animals, recognizing owners'
emotional damages, loss of love, and so on. Illinois already has such a law
aimed at owners being able to collect damages from those who have killed
an animal via an act of cruelty, as well as receive money for therapy.
Tennessee has such a law that covers not only death that results from
cruelty but also from veterinary malpractice as well, but caps awards at
$4,000. Given the large number of pet owners, such changes in the law are
inevitable.

Will they do the job? Some critics say that such laws benefit owners, not
animals, and will help accelerate a whole new class of frivolous legal
proceedings, something we don't need in an era of people who spill hot
coffee into their laps and sue the restaurant! And there is something to this
objection, particularly since no direct good accrues to the animals. On the
other hand, there is something to serving notice in a manner "writ large"
that animals are more than wheelbarrows or trinkets, and that such value is
codified in the law.
As we have seen in our foregoing discussion, the "pet problem" is
essentially the result of thoughtless actions on the part of a specific group of
people, the irresponsible animal owners. Specifically, the violations of right
to life and telos, and the abrogation of the social contract with pet animals
are a result of ignorance, stupidity, and indifference on the part of those
people who cannot respect the responsibilities involved in "owning"-I
would prefer to say "adopting"-an animal. Let us present the case for
nonrevolutionary legislation, i.e., legislation that would not require the
radical (but rationally justified) step of granting legal rights to animals, but
that instead protects the animals by controlling, educating, and punishing
the people involved. In philosophical terms, the case is obvious. We have
seen that all animals enjoy a moral status, and thus have moral rights,
including the right to life and the right to telos. We have further seen that
having moral rights entails (ideally) having legal rights. We have also
argued that all this is especially easy to understand in the case of pet
animals, who stand in something like a social contract relationship with us.
Now, since the social system is not yet ready to grant these animals the
legal rights to which they are rationally entitled, we must attempt to protect
these moral rights as far as possible by other legal means. The most obvious
way of doing this is by constraining and punishing the violators of these
moral rights. And this leads us to conclude that we need strong legislation
dealing with the irresponsible pet owner.

The argument can also be put pragmatically. The "pet problem"

represents a major social problem. The cost of animal control programs are
enormous and are borne by all citizens. There is, furthermore, no sign that
these measures are addressing the root of the problem, since the number of
unwanted animals remains unacceptably high. The dangers to all members
of society are manifest: bites, disease, widespread deposit of excrement,
traffic hazards, danger to livestock. These problems are directly attributable
to the actions of a body of irresponsible individuals in society, who are
apparently unable or unwilling to see the consequences of their actions for
others. There is no reason that all of us should pay, economically and in the
other mentioned ways, for the actions of those who fail to meet their
responsibilities. Therefore, society should protect itself from the actions of
these individuals and, at the same time, shift the cost of their irresponsible
actions back to them.

Both of these arguments point to the same answer-stronger constraints

on ownership and harsh punitive measures for those who violate their
responsibilities. Philosophically, it follows from what we have argued
throughout this book that one cannot rationally own an animal the way one
owns a wheelbarrow, if ownership means that one can do with one's
property whatever one sees fit to do. In short, acquiring an animal is
morally more like adopting a child than it is like buying a wheelbarrow. If
this is the case, society certainly has the right to demand from the person
who acquires the animal, as from the person who adopts the child, proof of
one's fitness to do so. Furthermore, society has the right to demand that the
individual live up to what is required of one who adopts an animal, just as it
demands this of those who adopt children, and further, has the right to
punish those who fail to do so. Finally, just as society has the right to
disallow the person who adopts a child simply to give the child back or to
kill it if he or she decides they no longer want it, society has the same right
vis-a-vis animals.

Pragmatically, we can also construct a strong case for such legislation.

While automobiles are indeed property, they are property that, if not used
properly, can cause enormous danger and expense to other members of
society. For this reason, society deems it wise, and indeed obligatory, to set
constraints on those who would use an automobile, both constraints on
eligibility and on conduct. One must have a license to drive an automobile,
one must register the automobile and buy license plates for it, one must
drive the automobile in accordance with certain rules; violation of these
rules can be punished by forfeiture of the privilege of driving, fine, and
imprisonment. A parallel case can be made for animal "ownership." Pet
overpopulation and animals running loose represent a danger and expense
to society as a whole. For this reason, society should set constraints on
eligibility for and conduct of pet ownership. Pet ownership should be seen
as a privilege, not a right. The pet owner must be prepared to follow certain
rules. Violations of these rules should be punished by meaningful penalties.

What would legislation growing out of these philosophical and

pragmatic arguments actually look like? In the first place, it would not
allow any individual who feels like it to own as many animals as he or she
pleases. Animals are objects of moral concern and are also potentially
problematic to society. For both of these reasons, potential owners should
be required to demonstrate fitness to have an animal, just as one must show
fitness to adopt a child and fitness to drive a car. In response to the moral
reasons, potential animal owners should demonstrate that they have both
time and space to devote to the animal. In response to both moral and
practical reasons, they should be required to demonstrate that they have the
knowledge and ability to care for an animal in a responsible fashion. We
can thus envision a screening procedure for all potential animal owners, as
well as a requirement that they pass an examination testing their
comprehension of all aspects of responsible pet ownership. Minimum
standards of pet care should figure prominently on the test. Strict
constraints should be placed on when an owner can euthanize an animal.
Each animal should be licensed and permanently identified in a manner
linking the animal with the owner. This would serve a number of purposes:
first, irresponsible owners of stray dogs could be readily found and could no
longer simply fail to pick up their dogs; second, responsible owners would
find it much easier to locate lost or stolen animals; third, if an animal is
killed or injured, owners could be reached quickly. (A tattooing program of
this sort has in fact been introduced in Vancouver, British Columbia. The
results are gratifying. The number of owners claiming lost dogs has
increased. Impoundments have decreased, as have complaints about
animals. Far fewer animals have been killed. The incidence of dog bites has
been greatly reduced.) Microchip identification makes this even easier, and
retinal identification, which is totally foolproof and noninvasive, is easier
than that! (Some colleagues and I have developed the technology for retinal
identification of pets and livestock through a company called Optibrand.)

Owners should be made responsible for any puppies their dog has,
exactly as they are responsible for their dog. Incentives in terms of rebates
on license fees could be given for sterilizing an animal. And finally, heavy
and meaningful penalties should be assessed against irresponsible pet
owners. (Again in Vancouver, an aggressive program was instituted to
identify such owners, and these individuals were prosecuted vigorously.
Unsupervised dogs are now rare in Vancouver.) Pet owners should post a
bond that they would forfeit if they elect convenience euthanasia.

The suffering and death of companion animals is profoundly troubling,

morally. Essentially no benefit emerges from it, save for the emotional
satisfaction of the owner; there is no claim comparable to that of the
morally conscientious scientist who affirms that though there is ultimately
no moral justification for harming innocent animals for human benefit, he
or she will continue to uneasily do so for the tangible benefit it provides.
Our injustice-for such as it is-to companion animals cannot even be seen as
constituting a moral dilemma, for what is the upside of our behavior?
Indeed, there is a demonstrable downside-we treat the irresponsibility of
others as acceptable, the sidestepping of moral responsibility as inevitable,
and the bond to others who depend on us as revocable for convenience. If
failing to check cruelty to animals inexorably leads to cruelty to humans,
does something similar result from failing to honor our responsibilities to
animals? People already see marriage vows as trivial; my students go
impulsively into marriage, telling me that if it doesn't work, they'll get
divorced. Similarly, with obligations to children of divorced parents, now,
we rationalize, they'll have two Christmases, eight grandmas, and lots of
birthday presents. As everyone knows, we are an aging society. How
comfortable can we be trusting our fate in our declining years to those who
kill something that has loved them unequivocally and without reservation
because they are "too much hassle." Older people too, perhaps, are "too
much hassle."

The only solution, then, is to shine our new social ethic on ourselves, to
illuminate our own backyards. If the agricultural community were openly
creating genetically diseased animals for profit (such as the genetically
engineered but defective "super-pig"), society would shut it down. Is doing
it to our companion animals anymore justifiable, morally? (Dozens of new
genetic diseases in companion animals have been identified since I first
wrote of the issue in 1980.)

Recent work by M. D. Salman and his colleagues provides solid

empirical grounding for what most shelter workers have known
anecdotally-people relinquish animals to be trashed because they are cheap,
they have no major investment in them, and they think they can always get
another one. People relinquish animals because they have "personal
problems," because they are allergic to them, because they cannot deal with
their behavior, because they have no knowledge or have false knowledge of
what it takes to own and care for an animal and, above all, as Salman does
not tell us but common sense does, because there are no consequences
resulting from being irresponsible-not even social opprobrium or censure.
Companion animals-easy come, easy go.

What can be done via the social ethic? Obviously, one cannot legislate
responsibility as a character trait. But one can legislate responsible
behavior, even as we can and do legislate morality-our whole social ethic
embodied in law is, in fact, legislated morality!

Before discussing strategy, however, let me make a personal disclaimer.

Philosophically, I tend to be an anarchist and loathe regulation. I will not,
for example, ride my Harley-Davidson in states with mandatory helmet
laws. And I am very uncomfortable, in general, with being required to do
things "for my own good." But just because we are overregulated in some
areas in a paternalistic way does not mean we are sufficiently regulated in
others. In general, I believe that we are too paternalistic in dealing with
rational adults, yet too lax in dealing with infractions against innocent
objects of moral concern-infants, children, animals. I see great moral
incongruity in people who batter babies and children to death, or who batter
people with blindness or are in a permanent vegetative state getting their
wrists slapped while those who swindle wealthy (and greedy) professionals
go to jail for a decade.

The only solution to our widespread, systematic, and unnoticed moral

irresponsibility toward animals is to regulate-i.e., encode in the social ethic-
the acquisition, management, and relinquishment of companion animals.
One cannot get a driver's license or a hunting license without (at least
officially) becoming educated about the nature and rules of driving or
hunting. One cannot own a car without permanently identifying it so that it
is always traceable. And one cannot simply abandon a car or even simply
park it on the street indefinitely. Creating a similar situation for companion
animals seems to me a reasonable way to address the ignorance from
whence flows our current irresponsibilities. Animals' "overpopulation" is
not a birth control problem to be solved by high-tech gonad hunting. It is a
moral problem, a problem of human behavior and abrogation of
responsibility. In fact, I believe that excessive gonad hunting has probably
harmed the canine gene pool, with responsible people who acquire the best
animals assuring that these animals' genes are not passed on, while clueless
people happily breed disasters.

Currently, an animal is often an impulse-buy item. I see the Disney film

101 Dalmatians; I want a Dalmatian. I see the film Turner & Hooch; I want
a Tibetan Mastiff. Kittens are cute; I want a kitten. I want one, I get one. As
Salman's study indicates, most pet owners know very little about their
animals. Philosophically, I cannot have a rational desire for a dog if I have
no idea what owning a dog entails.

I would therefore argue that people wishing to acquire an animal should

at least be compelled to demonstrate that they know what they are getting
into. Licensing of owners should be a precondition of acquiring an animal;
demonstrated knowledge should be a precondition of licensure. How one
best acquires the knowledge is an empirical question. Perhaps a mandatory
course in pet husbandry and responsibility (ethics) could become a staple of
junior high or high school curricula. There was a precedent set here in the
unparalleled growth of environmental awareness among young people in
the late 1960s.

Alternatively, one could provide adult education and counseling for

prospective pet owners. Although Americans resist jumping through
bureaucratic hoops, they respect education. Many people seeking concealed
weapons permits do not oppose mandatory shooting and safety courses-
indeed, they welcome them-realizing that acquiring a gun is a major
responsibility. So too is acquiring an animal. If one can't have an animal
because of allergies, it would be good to know this before one gets an
animal !

Such education could be undertaken, as I suggested years ago, by

veterinarians, or by other trained animal behavior counselors. They ought to
be paid, perhaps from the license fees, and would benefit by being exposed
to members of the public they would not otherwise meet. My friend Dr. Jim
Wilson, when practicing in California, had clients one evening a week who
did not have animals. People gladly paid to be advised that though they
were contemplating purchasing a Rottweiler, a guppy was far more
congenial to their lifestyle. I can still remember my fear and bewilderment
when I got my first dog: What do I feed her? What sort of bed does she
need? How do I housebreak her? I would gladly have taken the course I
described, were it available.

Obviously, one cannot force such a policy upon society without risking
absurdity the likes of Prohibition. Plato said that when dealing with ethics
and adults, one must not teach, one must remind. In other words, one must
show them that what one is trying to get them to do is implicit in what they
already believe, only they don't yet realize it. So any law must be preceded
by public education, analogous to what convinced the public that the
research community was not meeting its obligations to the animals it used
or that our environmental despoliation was intolerable. The public must be
made to realize that "they" is "us," that often our treatment of companion
animals is as egregious, shocking, immoral, and unacceptable-indeed more
so-than any other animal use in society. And this means telling the truth. A
California humane society once ran a newspaper ad with a foldout showing
barrels full of dead puppies and kittens, under the words "This is a hell of a
job, and we couldn't do it without you."

I do not propose legislation lightly, nor am I clear about what form it

should take. This must evolve through public discussion informed by an
awareness of the moral unacceptability-by society's own lights-of our
current treatment of companion animals. As principal architects of the 1985
federal law for laboratory animals, my colleagues and I faced a similar
challenge: how does one legislate moral use of animals when the
community using the animals sees no moral issues therein, and, in fact,
further affirms that one must be agnostic about animal pain and that science
is "ethics free"? By legislating moral deliberation in animal care and use
committees and mandating the control of pain and suffering, we were able
to elevate the thinking of scientists beyond their ideological denial of the
meaningfulness of these issues. Many believe that this has worked, as we
raise a generation of young scientists to whom moral discussion and pain
control are second nature. A good law, in the end, becomes an educational
device, which, if it works properly, eventually vitiates the need for its own
existence by creating a new culture in the regulated population.

I would very much like to believe that the society that has developed a
new ethic for animals would have the moral courage to turn that ethic on
itself. We who advocate for animals must therefore begin an educational
campaign to force that dramatic turn. That, in turn, means not allowing
people to escape the visible consequences of their own irresponsibility. We
must cease to worry about offending the guilty; we must cease to be their
sin eaters; we must cease battering the souls of those who care most. If we
fail, we risk the moral revulsion of society as a whole, which could
conceivably react by eliminating companion animal ownership altogether,
as some societies have done. And this would be a great pity, for we would
be irretrievably and mortally diminished if we would have to live without
animals.

This, in outline, is the form that viable legislation could take. There are
obviously details to be worked out and problems to be solved, and
assumptions made that may be unwarranted. For example, it is assumed that
most people are ignorant and apathetic, rather than vicious. It is also
assumed that meaningful tests could be devised and that people could be
educated in these areas with relative ease. The solutions offered may appear
drastic. On the other hand, the problem is a drastic one, both morally and
practically. Over 60 percent (60.6 percent) of the mayors polled in Nation's
Cities magazine rated animal control the number one problem in US cities.
The United States spends about $1.5 billion on animal control. The public
health dangers are great. But most important, we must recall that millions of
innocent animals are euthanized each year, and countless others die of
starvation and neglect. And despite animal control and spay and neuter
clinics, the problem is untouched. Major legislation is needed but in itself
will not suffice. What is also needed, as our entire discussion has implied, is
effective and meaningful education.
As we indicated in our discussion of laboratory animals, it is not enough to
legislate, although legislation is certainly an effective lever for raising
public consciousness. People must be made to understand the underlying
basis for legislation, so that they do not see it merely as one more attempt to
place a straitjacket upon individual freedom. (Most untutored people would
probably resent a leash law more than a law that limits freedom of the
press.) The public must be made to feel as well as to understand the need
for a change in the status quo as it concerns pet animals. To shift people's
gestalt, one must strike both at reason and at the passions, as mentioned
earlier. People must be made aware of the philosophical principles, the
moral theory underlying moral concern for animals. And further, they must
be made aware of the factual consequences of the pet problem: the animal
suffering, the wasted lives, the dangers to their children. And finally, people
must be made more knowledgeable concerning the telos of the animals who
share their lives and homes.

If it is thought that this seems idealistic, abstract, and utopian, let us

recall again the civil rights legislation of the past. In addition to the actual
legislation and its implementation, major steps were taken to popularize the
philosophical and empirical bases of the civil rights issues: articles
appeared in magazines and newspapers; courses were given in universities;
the issues were raised in elementary and secondary schools; textbooks were
rewritten to include these problems; popular novels and nonfiction works
illuminating these questions appeared; black people began to appear in
television commercials; television dramas and films began to depict blacks
in untraditional, nonstereotypical roles, and later began to illuminate the
problems experienced by blacks living in a white society. Many
intellectuals sneered at this often heavy-handed blitzkrieg upon public
awareness but it worked. Black people who had hitherto been invisible, in
Ralph Ellison's admirable locution, suddenly were noticed and taken more
seriously. Let the reader who is over fifty recall the picture of blacks he or
she grew up with. For that generation, blacks were stereotyped as tap-
dancing, eye-rolling, Pullman porters who, though often terrified or drunk,
loyally followed, served, cooked for, and entertained the real, white people.
Now compare the picture of blacks that today's children have incorporated
in the course of their education. For them there is nothing odd about a black
doctor, politician, policeman, or hero. A similar educational assault
intended to effect a gestalt shift on women has, of course, also been in
progress for a number of decades, again designed to teach people to see in a
new way.

Such an educational revolution, like the legislative effort, must begin

with a nucleus of people for whom the issue in question is of paramount
concern, both for moral and for practical reasons. Happily, in the case of
animals, and especially pet animals, such interest groups exist. As
mentioned earlier, the natural advocates of animal rights, educators of the
public, and promulgators of thoughtful legislative innovation in this area are
members of humane organizations and veterinarians.
The humane movement is, of course, the traditional champion of animal
welfare and has been the source of most of the progress made in animal
welfare in the past hundred years in this country. Humane organizations
have been active at the local, state, and federal levels. In the past twentyfive
years, these organizations have been augmented by animal rights groups,
generally more radical than traditional humane societies. The traditional
weakness of the movement has been one endemic to many social reform
movements, whose members feel strongly about a moral issuean
overemphasis on emotion rather than reason. Consequently, the public has
formed an image of the animal welfare advocate as a "bleeding heart," a
"little old lady in tennis shoes" who speaks with heart, not head. And it is
again true that many animal advocates have attempted to change people's
gestalts simply by chronicling atrocities and by appealing primarily to
emotion. Unfortunately, the chronicling of atrocities alone has a tendency to
turn people off and to sometimes provoke a reflex denial: "That can't really
be happening. What I am being told or seeing is being taken out of context.
Scientists wouldn't do that." Furthermore, the real issues often get buried
beneath emotional rhetoric. In response to the humane worker who angrily
displays a lurid picture of an experimental animal, the scientist who wishes
to manipulate contrary emotions has only to display a picture of a dying
child and ask, "Would you stop us from curing cancer?" What is forgotten is
that there is plenty of room between keeping the status quo and abolishing
research altogether.

Emotion is, as I have stressed, a necessary component of morality and

moral action; it is also invaluable in motivating changes in gestalt. But
reason must be placed in the service of the emotions, or else the emotional
response wears off. By all means, the humane movement must graphically
demonstrate the horrors resulting from irresponsible pet ownership. As far
as I am concerned, I think that every person who brings an animal in to be
euthanized for the absurd reasons cited earlier should be forced to witness
the killing. In fact, I believe that television advertisements showing the
animals killed on a single day in a pound-before and after and even during
the killing-would serve to make people graphically aware of the
consequences of their actions. But the emotional response engendered
should be tied down and secured by rational arguments demonstrating our
moral responsibility to animals, their rights, our debt to animals, the cost of
irresponsibility, and so forth.

The animal movement has, in recent years, moved significantly in the

direction of providing a rational basis for its activities. The Animal Legal
Defense Fund has effectively initiated litigation and legislation germane to
raising the moral and legal status of animals. Another salient example of
this was the creation of the Institute for the Study of Animal Problems by
the Humane Society of the United States. This institute, which
unfortunately no longer functions, was headed by ethologist and
veterinarian Michael Fox, and was invaluable in providing hard scientific
and empirical data relevant to animal welfare issues. Its members studied
such issues as alternatives to the use of animals in research, ways of
improving the lot of farm animals, the abuse of animals in horse racing, and
so on. The results of these studies were disseminated widely through
journals and publications. In addition, the institute sponsored symposia
dealing with all aspects of animal welfare, in which all sides of an issue are
examined. I was privileged to speak at a symposium on stress and pain in
animals, where the participants included animal scientists, philosophers,
and physiologists. The institute provided excellent opportunities for genuine
interdisciplinary cooperation, and its journal, the International Journal for
the Study of Animal Problems, published a wide variety of relevant articles
ranging from research results to moral philosophy. Most important, perhaps,
has been the articulation of a powerful and rational ethic for animals by
philosophers like Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Steve Sapontzis, Dale
Jamieson, Stephen Clark, myself, and others.

Nonetheless, there is much to be done. The animal movement has begun

to do a good job in utilizing the mass media to argue its case but has yet to
educate the general public on the moral basis for animal concern. In
addition, more funding needs to be sought by the movement for scientific
research related to animal welfare: research on, for example, stress and
suffering in farm animals, alternatives to intensive methods of raising
animals, or analgesia for laboratory animals. Also, more public dialogue
must be sought with those who use animals without concern for their moral
status. In the past, there has been very little public interchange between
those who use and abuse animals in research, farming, rodeos, and so forth,
and those who champion their welfare. Yet such dialogue is salubrious. As I
mentioned, I debated the head of the major US organization that lobbies
against animal welfare legislation. His position was, naturally, that
everything was fine in biomedical research. Needless to say, such a position
was indefensible, and the arguments that can be mustered in its behalf are
less than cogent. The result is that the neutral public and even the partisan
public-sees clearly where the truth lies. At the end of my debate, numerous
scientists approached me and indicated that while they had come to the
debate on his side, they had left on mine. Conversely, I have learned much
from arguing with all sorts of adversaries, and this has resulted, I hope, in
strengthening my position. Another benefit of open dialogue is, of course,
the discovery of common ground where none was suspected. Historically,
the humane movement has been very successful in developing educational
programs for children, and some states even legislatively mandate such
education in primary schools. On the other hand, virtually nothing has been
done at the college, university, and professional school levels. Yet as we
have seen in our earlier chapters, this is the most problematic area and the
time of greatest brutalization. It is, after all, fairly easy to influence
children, especially about animals. On the other hand, college, graduate,
and professional school students are subjected to enormous pressures, not
the least of which is the queer combination of machismo and
"professionalism" we detailed earlier. And it is the medical students, the
veterinary students, and the doctoral candidates in the sciences who will be
doing the research on animals. It is the law students and liberal arts
graduates who will be working in government and setting policies. It is
clearly vital that courses of study covering the moral status of animals, the
social dimensions of human-animal interactions-the sort of material we
have tried to introduce in this book-be introduced into liberal arts and
professional curricula. Ideally, for example, a course in the moral and social
problems of biomedical research should also be developed, dealing perhaps
not only with animals, but also with the ethics of human research and
biohazard as well. And it certainly behooves the humane movement to press
for such courses, help design them, and offer fellowships or other incentives
for teachers interested in developing such courses.

In addition, it is vital that humane societies become involved with adult

and community education programs in an innovative, intellectually sound
way that will attract and influence the public. The courses that many
societies offer in obedience training represent an excellent beginning, but
there is much more to be done. Just as some states require that prospective
hunters pass a hunter safety course before they can be issued a license, one
can envision all prospective animal owners being allowed to pass a course
dealing with significant areas relevant to pet ownership in lieu of passing
the test mentioned earlier. And the natural place in which such a program
would be housed is obviously the local humane organization. But whether
or not such a requirement ever becomes a reality, it is clear that the humane
movement must take aggressive action toward educating the citizenry about
all aspects of the "pet problem." Most important, some basic knowledge of
canine and feline anatomy, physiology, behavior, and disease must be
imparted. Spaying and neutering programs alone will at best perpetuate the
status quo and only attack the symptoms of the disease whose cause is
ignorance. In all of these educational activities, the natural ally of the
animal welfare group is the veterinarian.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the humane movement has remained wedded

to their seventy-five-year old mantra-spay and neuter, early spay and neuter,
harvest gonads, or seek high-tech equivalents. Adopt, foster, euthanize.
These are so entrenched that I once wrote a critical paper about them clearly
entitled "Dogmatisms and Catechisms."

Yet while spay and neuter has reduced our killing of puppies and kittens,
so much so that some humane societies must import litters, it has not
stopped the killing of dogs and cats. If stray animals were the issue, the
problem would have been resolved a generation ago through efficient
animal control. The typical animal trashed is not a stray, but a young adult
male dog or cat killed for behavioral problems. Meanwhile, as a
veterinarian friend once bitterly remarked, we kill them so nothing bad will
happen to them, even though Alan Beck and others have shown that at least
some unowned dogs, even urban ones, would survive and thrive, while it is
evident that large numbers of feral cats do as well or better. Indeed, it can
be argued that feral dogs and particularly cats can be viewed as urban
wildlife and left alone, as Dr. Steve Frantz of the New York State Health
Department has asserted to me in conversation. There is some evidence that
aggressive destruction of feral cats leads to rodent outbreaks that are far
more dangerous to human health than leaving the cats alone.
It is hard to imagine anyone more suited for active involvement in solving
the pet problem than the veterinarian. In the first place, simple self-interest
dictates that veterinarians, at least the pet animal veterinarians, ought to be
concerned with a social situation that threatens the very basis of their
livelihood. After all, there is always the danger, as has happened in parts of
Europe, that pet animals will be banned altogether, especially in urban
areas. It would really take only one zoonotic epidemic, traceable to the dog,
in a place like New York City where the feelings about dog feces already
run high, for a strong anti-pet reaction. If pets were banned or if the
conditions for keeping pets became too restrictive, the veterinarian would
be out of a job. For this reason alone, it would behoove the veterinarian to
take the initiative in solving the pet problem.

But the reasons for veterinarians' participating in dealing with this issue
run far deeper. The essential raison d'etre for the veterinarian is the health
and welfare of animals. I often pose two models to my veterinary students
and to the audiences of veterinarians whom I address and ask them which
model is closest to their ideal of their profession. One model compares the
veterinarian to an auto mechanic and the animal to a car. Consider a car
owner who brings an automobile into a garage. The mechanic informs him
that it will cost X number of dollars to fix the car. The car owner decides it
is not worth it, tells the mechanic to junk the car, and the mechanic shrugs.
In this view, a veterinarian ought to be simply the agent or tool of the
owner, a simple extension of the owner's concern or lack of it. This is, of
course, the model that society and the law forces upon the veterinarian: the
property model. But we are concerned with what ought to be, and most
veterinarians find it abhorrent to destroy or not treat an animal that can be
restored to health, simply because the owner doesn't wish to spend the
money. In the other model, the veterinarian is like a pediatrician. Though
the parents pay the bills, they cannot tell the pediatrician not to cure the
child because they don't wish to spend the money or don't have it. (It is their
acceptance of this model that leads many veterinarians to do a good deal of
unpaid work.)

This, incidentally, illustrates a possible impact of animal rights as far as

veterinary medicine is concerned. In the view we have expounded, an
animal ought not simply be a piece of property, and no animal should be
denied life and health because of the owner's whim or unwillingness to pay.
On the other hand, the veterinarian should not be forced to bear the
financial burden either. For this reason, the concept of companion animal
health insurance, which was successfully pioneered in California, seems to
provide an excellent solution. As public moral concern for animals
increases and as costs rise, some such program is probably inevitable.

In any case, the point is that veterinarians, at least pet animal

veterinarians, for the most part do hold a view closer to the one we have
developed in this book than to the one codified in our law and practice.
Furthermore, veterinarians are (or ought to be) more knowledgeable
concerning animal welfare, physical and psychological, than any other
group of citizens. Thus, they ought to be pioneers in developing rational
legislation aimed at solving the pet problem and, even more important, they
ought to be educating their clients and the general public regarding animals
and responsible pet ownership. (Such educational efforts, if conducted in
public forums such as lectures or courses offered through the humane
societies, could also provide invaluable public exposure and advertisement
for the veterinarian, which, in turn, would be likely to result in a much
enhanced practice.) Given these moral and pragmatic reasons for
veterinarian involvement in the pet problem, why has there been, relatively
speaking, so little of it? And why, when there has been veterinarian
involvement, has it tended to come only as a reaction to some truly
oppressive or idiotic ordinance or policy that directly threatens their earning
capacity?

There are many reasons for this. In the first place, the animal welfare
movement has often tended to see low-cost spay and neuter clinics as the
major step in solving the pet problem, and veterinarians are concerned
about the effects of such clinics on their income, an income that, on the
average, is not terribly high. But this does not seem to be the major reason,
for veterinarians have learned to live with and sometimes even support
these clinics. The deeper reasons for lack of massive veterinarian
involvement in animal welfare work must be sought elsewhere. Perhaps the
most important reason can be traced to issues that we discussed earlier
pertaining to veterinary and human medical education, and to science
education in general. As we saw, the main thrust seems to be the mastery of
techniques and facts. Until very recently, virtually no emphasis has been
placed in veterinary curricula on the moral and social dimensions of
veterinary medicine. The educational process is far too reductionistic and
mechanistic. The practice of veterinary medicine is taught as if it were
value neutral, and it is assumed that students will simply pick up the moral
and social implications of what they do when they are in practice.
Unfortunately, this very often doesn't happen, any more than physicians just
pick up expertise in evaluating moral and social problems in human
medicine. What in fact happens is that these problems are ignored.

Yet in point of fact, these problems are central to the practice of

veterinary medicine, as more and more practitioners and educators are
realizing. They are important not only for economic reasons, but for
medical reasons as well, for, as we saw earlier, all medicine is played out in
a social arena. (One veterinarian I know contends that he doesn't treat
animals alone; he treats people and is more a mental health professional
than an animal doctor.) A veterinarian cannot merely be technically
competent. Even to be a good diagnostician, he or she must be able to
communicate on a variety of levels and must understand that the symptoms
being described by the owner are being filtered through personal and
cultural biases. Technical competence is only one necessary condition for
being a good veterinarian. Veterinarians must realize that many malpractice
suits arise out of failure on the part of a veterinarian to communicate with a
client, not out of incompetence. I once heard a good example of this. A
veterinarian had spayed a bitch and, as is customary, left her in the hospital
overnight. During the night, her stitches, as sometimes happens, had torn,
and she had compulsively chewed her intestines and died. The veterinarian
had done nothing wrong. He could probably have explained the situation to
the client, commiserated with him, and avoided hard feelings. What the
veterinarian in fact did was greet the client the next morning with a curt,
"Yer dog's dead. Ate her guts out." The client hastened to find a lawyer.

As we saw earlier, a major part of the social problems with pet animals
stems from ignorance of the animals' telos. Veterinarians are usually good
sources of information concerning the physical nature, requirements,
interests, and needs of the animal. Yet when it comes to the mind of the
animal, the psychological and behavioral aspects of the animal's telos, the
veterinarian too often is as ignorant as the client. It is very likely that the
veterinarian has had at most a single course in animal behavior, behavioral
pathology, or training, yet the lives of pet animals often depend upon the
veterinarian's being able to deal with problems like a dog who urinates on
the bed or howls at night.

In short, it appears that veterinarians have not taken a more active role in
dealing with the enormously complex cluster of issues involved in the "pet
problem" primarily because they are not trained to worry about these
questions. Organized veterinary medicine must also share the blame. Out
side of occasional letters to the editor, veterinary journals have published
very little on the moral and social dimensions of veterinary medicine,
though this is beginning to change. For a long time, for example, to most
practitioners veterinary medical ethics (like human medical ethics to
physicians) meant the sort of issues dealt with in the American Veterinary
Medical Association's code of ethics, which is really a code of professional
etiquette dealing with such issues as advertising (historically),
disseminating medical information to the public, and maintaining a
"professional" image. Happily, things are beginning to change. Conferences
are being held on the social and moral aspects of veterinary medicine; more
and more articles have appeared, including some papers of mine, in the
AVMA Journal. (The Journal devoted an entire issue to the pet
overpopulation problem.) Veterinary colleges are beginning to develop
courses such as the one done at my institution. The Canadian Veterinary
Journal in 1991 instituted a monthly column devoted to ethics, which I
write. I now edit a column on ethics for the Veterinary Forum. And the
pressure brought on by public concern with all aspects of the pet problem,
be it methods of euthanasia or attempts to limit the number of dogs a person
can own or raising the economic value of pets, is certain to further stimulate
veterinarians to involve themselves with these issues.

This is all to the good. Veterinarians are naturally committed to animal

welfare; in my experience, concern for animals is the main reason people go
into veterinary medicine. They are trained scientists. As a group, they are
highly intelligent. Their work puts them in daily and dramatic contact with
the tragic consequences of irresponsible pet ownership. If anyone can speak
knowledgeably for the rights of pet animals, it is veterinarians. And most
important, their work provides them with a natural forum for educating a
significant portion of the pet-owning public. Let us hope that we can
anticipate and work toward the time when animal advocates and
veterinarians have forged a solid bond of cooperation and work effectively
together as spokespersons for the moral and legal rights of animals.
 here is no question that animal agriculture as practiced in Western
industrialized countries is responsible for far more animal suffering than all
other uses of animals combined. This is ironic, for traditional agriculture
(before the mid-twentieth century) provided a conceptual template for
reasonable, morally sound animal use.

I must confess that when I first wrote this book in the late 1970s, I had
little to no understanding of animal agriculture, or, more accurately, had the
typical New Yorker's understanding, which confuses hay and straw, foals
and ponies. This understanding also allowed paradigmatically industrialized
agriculturalists like Frank Perdue, the confinement poultry producer, to
declare in over a decade of advertising that "at Perdue we raise happy
chickens," while showing the sun rising over a barnyard peopled with pigs,
chickens, horses, and cows.

Beginning in the early 1980s, I became increasingly called upon to

explain the emerging social ethic for animals to people in agriculture and
was compelled to learn a great deal. Since the early 1980s, I have probably
spoken to approximately twenty thousand cattle ranchers, ten thou sand
dairy producers, two thousand swine producers, and many social scientists.
To be credible, I have been required to learn far more about agriculture than
I ever intended, and I indeed now have an appointment in an animal science
department and have even given the keynote address to the Animal Science
Association's annual meeting.
Let us begin by speaking about traditional animal agriculture, as
represented by US producers before 1940. Animal agriculture was typically
extensive, i.e., animals spent a good deal of their time on pasture and none
were confined all the time. Individual animals were possessed of significant
economic value and, in many societies, wealth was measured by the number
of animals one owned. Fifty years ago, a dairy producer in Wisconsin could
send his children to college on the profits garnered from a herd of fifty
animals. A very large swine producer might have a hundred pigs.

The key to success in such traditional, small, family-owned extensive

units was good husbandry. Husbandry, I am told, derives from the old Norse
hus for house, and bond for tied to, or bonded to the household. One's
animals were bonded to one's household in a symbiotic contract. If this is
not the true origin historically, it should be, because the word certainly
came to mean "good care" associated with mutual self-interest, what my
colleague Temple Grandin calls the "ancient contract" between humans and
agricultural animals. Tangible evidence for this notion still exists in parts of
Switzerland, where the farmer lives above the barn. He benefits from the
heat the animals produce; they benefit from his close proximity.

In husbandry, we put the animals into the environment best suited for
them to survive and thrive in accordance with their telos and then augment
their natural ability to function with provisions of food during famine, water
during drought, help in birthing, protection from predators, medical
attention, and so on. We are both better off than we would have been
without the "contract." Consider a lamb in ancient Israel, where predators
abounded. Without a shepherd, the animal's life would be, as Hobbes says,
"Nasty, miserable, brutish, and short." With the shepherd, the animal
thrives, and so does the shepherd. In return for his attention, the animals
supply their work, or wool, or milk, or meat, but while they live, they have
good lives.
 This concept is in fact the much-ignored animal ethic taught in the Bible.
As mentioned earlier, the Bible teaches the avoidance of deliberate, sadistic,
purposeless cruelty. But even more important, the Bible teaches good
husbandry. So powerful, in fact, is the notion of husbandry, that when the
Psalmist sought a metaphor for God's ideal relationship to humans, he
seized on the shepherd. Consider the Twenty-third Psalm:

In other words, we want no more from God than what the good shepherd
(i.e., good husbandry person) provides for his animals.

The power of this metaphor cannot be overstated. Throughout the

history of Christianity, Christ is depicted as the Good Shepherd tending to
his flock. Interestingly, he is also depicted as the Lamb of God, thereby
stressing both sides of this contract. Medieval art is replete with these
images, and animal husbandry became a significant part of educating
agriculturalists in Christian Europe. One of my graduate students has
diligently looked at training books for farmers from the nineteenth century,
and this same theme recurs with regularity.

The concept of animal husbandry represented a very powerful ethic that

was sanctioned by prudence and self-interest. If one wished to be
agriculturally successful, one practiced good husbandry; if one did not,
one's animals did not produce. This is most likely why no one thought there
was need for animal ethics (or law) beyond cruelty, since self-interest is a
stronger sanction than law. Since the overwhelming majority of animal use
was agricultural and since agricultural success required good husbandry, the
contract was solid. (The ASPCA was founded by Henry Bergh, and its logo
shows Bergh staying the hand of a carter beating his horse, not opposing the
proper use of horses to pull carts.) Husbandry, then, was about putting
square pegs in square holes, round pegs in round holes, and creating as little
friction as possible while doing so!

For thousands of years, animal husbandry was regnant, and animal

welfare was pretty well assured. Furthermore, if an animal gave milk,
reproduced, gained weight, and so on, that was reasonable evidence that the
animals were well off from a welfare point of view. It is well known, for
example, that rough or mean handling of animals slows weight gain,
impedes milk production, and negatively affects reproductive success.
The husbandry approach reigned supreme and was unquestioned until the
mid-twentieth century. At that time, roughly around World War II, a series
of circumstances converged to threaten and ultimately undercut the
longstanding contract with animals.

In the first place, by the 1930s and 1940s, Americans were intoxicated
with technology and industry. The example of the efficiency achieved by
Henry Ford beckoned like a beacon in all areas conceivably subject to such
a model. The land-grant universities, which, ironically were specifically
chartered to advance small family-based husbandry agriculture, became a
major force in creating a new, industrialized agriculture. This led to
corporate domination of agriculture.

In essence, at the time of World War II, animal husbandry became

transmuted into animal science, defined not as care, but as "the application
of industrial methods to the production of animals" so as to increase
efficiency and productivity, values that supplanted husbandry and the way
of life as the ur-values undergirding agriculture. One of my colleagues in
animal science, a beef production specialist (as we shall shortly see, sectors
of the beef industry are the only remaining bulwarks of husbandry), has
repeatedly affirmed that "the worst thing that ever happened to my
department is betokened in the name change!" Recall that we have
characterized animal husbandry as being about putting square pegs into
square holes, round pegs in round holes, and creating as little friction as
possible while doing so. In the new technological agriculture, with the help
of "technological sanders"-hormones, vaccines, antibiotics, air-handling
systems, mechanization-we are able to force square pegs into round holes
and round pegs into square holes, and to place animals into environments
where they suffer, but in ways irrelevant to productivity. If a nineteenth-
century agriculturalist had, for example, tried to raise a hundred thousand
egg-laying hens in cages in one building, they all would have died of
disease in a month; today, however, such systems dominate animal
agriculture, as we shall detail.
 We must stress at the outset that the new approach to animal agriculture
was not the result of cruelty, bad character, or even insensitivity. It
developed, rather, out of perfectly decent, prima facie plausible motives that
were a product of dramatic, significant historical and social upheavals that
occurred after World War II. At that point in time, agricultural scientists and
government officials became extremely concerned about supplying the
public with cheap and plentiful food for a variety of reasons. In the first
place, after the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, many people in the
United States had soured on farming. Second, reasonable predictions of
urban and suburban encroachment on agricultural land were being made,
with a resultant diminution of land for food production. Third, many farm
people had been sent to both foreign and domestic urban centers during the
war, thereby creating a reluctance to return to rural areas that lacked
excitement; recall the post-World War I song that goes "How are you gonna
keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" Fourth, having
experienced the specter of literal starvation during the Great Depression, the
American consumer was, for the first time in history, fearful of an
insufficient food supply.

When the above considerations of loss of land and diminution of

agricultural labor are coupled with the rapid development of a variety of
technological modalities relevant to agriculture during and after World War
II, and with the burgeoning belief in technologically-based economics of
scale, it was probably inevitable that animal agriculture would become
subject to industrialization. As we said, this was a major departure from
traditional agriculture and a fundamental change in agricultural core values;
industrial values of efficiency and productivity replaced and eclipsed the
traditional values of way of life and husbandry.

Between World War II and the mid-1970s, agricultural productivity -

including animal products-increased dramatically. In the hundred years
between 1820 and 1920, agricultural productivity doubled. After that,
productivity continued to double in much shorter and everdecreasing time
periods. The next doubling took thirty years (between 1920 and 1950); the
subsequent doubling took fifteen years (between 1950 and 1965); the next
one took only ten years (1965 to 1975). As R. E. Taylor points out, the most
dramatic change took place after World War II, when productivity increased
more than fivefold in thirty years. Fewer workers were producing far more
food. Just before World War II, 24 percent of the US population was
involved in production agriculture; today, the figure is well under 2 percent
(1.7 percent, in fact). Whereas in 1940 each farm worker supplied food for
eleven persons in the general population, by 1990 each farm worker was
supplying eighty persons. At the same time, the proportion of disposable
income spent on food dropped significantly from 30 percent in 1950 to 11.8
percent in 1990.

Thus, there is no question that industrialized agriculture, including

animal agriculture, is responsible for greatly increased productivity. It is
equally clear that the husbandry associated with traditional agriculture has
been radically truncated as a result of industrialization. No husbandry
person would ever dream of feeding sheep meal, poultry waste, or cement
dust to cattle, but such "innovations" are entailed by an industrial/efficiency
mind-set.

For our purposes, several aspects of technological agriculture must be

noted. In the first place, as just mentioned, the number of workers has
declined significantly, yet the number of animals produced has increased.
This has been possible because of mechanization, technological
advancement, and the consequent capability of confining large numbers of
animals in highly capitalized facilities. Of necessity, less attention is paid to
individual animals. Second, technological innovations have allowed us to
alter the environments in which animals are kept. Whereas in traditional
agriculture animals had to be kept in environments for which they had
evolved, we can now keep them in environments that are contrary to their
natures but congenial to increased productivity.

When I first began to think about these issues, I was troubled by a

vexatious question. When people developed these confinement systems,
and assuming that they were normal people with normal concern for the
wellbeing of their animals, why did they not see the now obvious
consequences of this approach for animal welfare? Did they not care? We
can only speculate, but I think with reasonable accuracy. Recall that the
only model the originators of confinement agriculture had to base their
thinking on was traditional agriculture. In traditional agriculture, as our
discussion has thus far implied, productivity of the individual and welfare
of the individual animal are closely connected, indeed, inextricably
connected. I believe that the early confinement agriculturalists illegitimately
extrapolated this connection to industrialized agriculture. Only now they
mistakenly assume that productivity of the entire confinement operation
assures the welfare of the animals in it. The logical error, of course, is that
productivity is now being deployed as an economic measure of the entire
operation, whereas welfare needs to be predicated on individual animals.

In confinement egg production, for example, it is well known that

crowding hens results in fewer eggs laid per hen. But there is still high
productivity for the whole operation, since hens are cheap and cages are
expensive. Thus, productivity per cage is no measure of the welfare of the
animals therein!
Let us approach this point in a different way. Consider creating a definition
of animal welfare. In the 1981 CAST report (an animal agriculture industry
document by the Council on Agricultural Science and Technology), welfare
was described as follows:

The principle [sic] criteria used thus far as indexes of the welfare of
animals in production systems have been rate of growth or
production, efficiency of feed use, efficiency of reproduction,
mortality and morbidity.

In other words, the welfare of an animal was to be determined by how well

it fulfills the human purposes to which it is put, not by how it feels. So, in
this view, an animal has positive welfare if it is productive.

The most charitable interpretation one can give to such a view is, as
mentioned, that it is implicitly rooted in husbandry. Under husbandry, if an
animal was productive, it was well off, because both productivity and well-
being depended on satisfying the animal's telos. But, in industrialized
agriculture, this close connection was severed, for an animal could be
productive without being well off. There are a whole host of errors at work
here. First of all, there is a huge logical error: One cannot logically go from
"All A is B" to "All B is A," i.e., it does not follow from all dogs are
animals that all animals are dogs. Similarly, it does not follow that if all
well-off animals are productive, all productive animals are well off.

The reason it doesn't follow involves another logical error: When animal
scientists look at productivity, they look at the aggregate economic return
across an entire operation. When we look at the welfare, we are looking, of
fundamental import, at an individual animal's subjective experiences. So we
come to an apples-and-oranges objection. To return to the egg-laying
chicken example, just because we produce a lot of eggs per cage doesn't
mean that the chickens in each cage are doing well. Furthermore, some
forms of production can actually occur when animals are not well off.
Today's cow is bred to produce tremendous amounts of milk, but is
metabolically burned out in a few years. Thus, its productivity is no
assurance of its well-being. Or consider a production operation that makes
pate de foie gras, a process that involves force-feeding geese whose feet are
sometimes nailed to a floor. No one could argue that however productive
each animal is in developing a fatty liver or however productive
(economically) the operation is, the animals' welfare is assured.

Or let us take a fanciful example. Many people eat a great deal when
depressed and unhappy. Imagine cannibals raising people for food, and
selecting for people who put on the most weight. Let us suppose that the
best weight-gainers are the depressed and miserable. Surely no one would
argue that because the people farm was productive, the people were well
off.
The concept of welfare is far more sophisticated than all this, and we shall
shortly discuss it in detail. For now, however, let us return to the issue at
hand, namely, why industrialized confinement agriculture is worse for
animals than the agriculture of husbandry.

The basic approach of confinement agriculture is, as mentioned, to treat

animal production as an industry, with the industrial values of efficiency
and productivity reigning supreme. In the first place, this means raising vast
numbers of animals, limiting the space needed to raise these animals,
moving them indoors into "controlled environments," and replacing labor
with lower costs, i.e., humans with mechanized systems. One can tell a
priori that this is inimical to husbandry, for husbandry required naturalistic
environments, relatively few animals, and a workforce that was
knowledgeable about the animals, i.e., the good shepherds.

Confinement agriculture is responsible for generating animal suffering

on at least four fronts that were not a significant part of husbandry
agriculture:

1. Veterinarians acknowledge the existence of so-called "production

diseases," i.e., diseases that would not be a problem or at worst would
be a minor problem if animals were raised traditionally. One example
is liver abscesses in feedlot cattle. Beef cattle are typically raised on
pastures and are finished by being fed grain in feedlots, where a large
number of animals are crowded into relatively small spaces for the
last few months of their lives. That much grain is not a natural diet for
cattle-it is too high in concentrate (calories) and too low in roughage.
Although a certain percentage of feedlot cattle get sick and may die,
the overall economic efficiency of feedlots is maximized by the
provision of such a diet. The idea of using a method of production that
creates diseases that are "acceptable" would be anathema to a
husbandry agriculturalist.
 Indeed, the issue of diet causes other problems. In husbandry
agriculture, animals ate natural forage. In industrialized agriculture,
the quest for "efficiency" has led to feeding cattle poultry waste,
newspaper, cement dust, and, most egregiously, bone or meat meal,
which is something herbivores would not naturally eat. Mad cow
disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) resulted as a
human health problem because cattle were fed in this way.

2. The huge scale of industrialized agricultural operations-and the small

profit margin per animal-militates against the sort of individual attention
that typified much of traditional agriculture. As mentioned, in traditional
dairies fifty years ago, one could make a living with a heard of fifty
cows. Today, one needs literally thousands. In the United States, dairies
may have six thousand cows. People run sow swine operations with
thousands of pigs that employ only a handful of unskilled workers. A
case that speaks to this point was sent to me by a veterinarian for
commentary in the column that I write for the Canadian Veterinary
Journal:

You (as a veterinarian) are called to a 500-sow farrow-to-finish

swine operation to examine a problem with vaginal discharge in
sows. There are three full-time employees and one manager
overseeing approximately five thousand animals. As you examine
several sows in the created gestation unit, you notice one with a
hind leg at an unusual angle and inquire about their status. You are
told, "She broke her leg yesterday and she's due to farrow next
week. We'll let her farrow in here and then we'll shoot her and
foster off her pigs." Is it ethically correct to leave the sow with a
broken leg for one week while you await her farrowing?

Before commenting on the case, I spoke to the veterinarian who had

experienced this incident, a swine practitioner. He explained that such
operations run on tiny profit margins and minimal labor. Thus, even
when he offered to splint the leg at no cost, he was told that the operation
could not afford the manpower entailed by separating this sow and caring
for her! At this point, he said, he realized that confinement agriculture
 had gone too far. He had been brought up on a family hog farm where the
animals had names and were provided individual husbandry, and the
injured animal would have been treated or, if not, euthanized
immediately. "If it is not feasible to do this in a confinement operation,"
he said, "there is something wrong with confinement operations!"

3. Another new source of suffering in industrialized agriculture results from

physical and psychological deprivation of animals in confinement: lack
of space, lack of companionship for social animals, inability to move
freely, boredom, austerity of environment, and so on. Since the animals
evolved for adaptation to extensive environments but are now placed in
truncated environments, such deprivation is inevitable. This was not a
problem in traditional, extensive agriculture.

From a public point of view, this is the most notable gap in

confinement agriculture. Paul Thompson has pointed out that the average
American still sees farms as Old McDonald's farm. (I have already
mentioned the way in which Perdue Poultry shamelessly exploited this
notion.) Cows, in the public mind, should be in pastures; lambs
gamboling in fields; pigs happily cooling themselves in a mud wallow.

We shall discuss the fourth source of suffering in the next section.

When the average person encounters a high-confinement operation, the
reaction is memorable. To understand this, let us examine confinement
production of swine. Such operations are usually described in terms of the
number of sows in the facility. For example, one operation I visited had
three hundred thousand sows spread out over a number of buildings. Each
sow lives her entire productive life indoors, regardless of weather, in what
is called a gestation crate. A gestation crate is essentially a small pen made
of concrete slatted flooring, surrounded by heavy bars on each side and at
the top. According to the official recommendations of the National Pork
Producers Council, the spokesmen for the industry, the "crate" should
measure two and a half feet wide, by seven feet long, by three feet high. In
order to get more crates into a building, in actual practice these enclosures
tend to be two feet wide.

Each sow can weigh up to six hundred pounds and, in some cases, a sow
may be literally longer or wider than the enclosure, so she must lie bowed
or uncomfortably. The slats on the floor are covered in excrement; her feet
and legs, which are evolutionarily adapted to soft loam, are ruined in the
crate. She cannot stand up, turn around, or make significant postural
adjustments. Though possessed of bones and muscles, she cannot exercise
them. It is generally accepted that swine are far and away the most
intelligent of farm animals-miniature swine raised as pets have consistently
triumphed over dogs in obedience contests. Faced with the truncated,
sterile, solitary environment, the sow goes mad, compulsively chewing the
cage bars and exhibiting stereotypical behaviors the industry absurdly calls
"vices." Such a locution is misleading and downright inaccurate, for it
suggests that the pigs are somehow to blame for the aberrant behavior they
display under confinement conditions that violate their behavioral natures,
or telos. R. Kilgour and C. Dalton note in their Livestock Behavior: A
Practical Guide that "pigs are easily bored and housing and management
should be planned to provide for their inquisitive nature. This will prevent
most vices, which are the result of boredom."
 In general, the behavior of domestic swine is not far removed from that
of their wild counterparts. Many cases are known in the United States of
groups of domestic pigs that became feral populations and displayed the
entire behavioral repertoire shown by wild swine that were never
domesticated. Moreover, controlled studies show that pigs born and reared
in confinement, descended from generations of other confinementborn and -
reared animals, will display "natural" pig behavior when placed in extensive
conditions; for example, they will head directly for a mud hole and wallow.
The most exhaustive study in this area was performed at Edinburgh
University in the early 1980s by Alex Stolba and D. G. M. Wood-Gush,
who placed domestic pigs in a "pig park," essentially a large enclosure
replicating conditions under which wild swine live. On the basis of such
work and other research into swine preference, one can get a sense of the
full range of pig behavior and begin to understand the most serious areas of
deprivation in confinement.

A summary of "natural" swine behavior and preferences can serve as a

guide to identifying problematic areas in the agricultural confinement
rearing of swine. As mentioned, Stolba and Wood-Gush studied pig
behavior under open conditions in a "pig park" consisting of a pine copse,
gorse bushes, a stream, and a swampy wallow. Small populations of pigs
consisting of a boar, four adult females, a subadult male and female, and
younger pigs of about thirteen weeks of age were studied over three years.
The researchers observed not only the behavior patterns of the animals but
also how the pigs used the environment in carrying out their behavior.

It was found that pigs built a series of communal nests in a cooperative

way. These nests displayed certain common features, including walls to
protect the animals against prevailing winds and a wide view that allowed
the pigs to see what was approaching. These nests were far from the feeding
sites. Before retiring to the nest, the animals brought additional nesting
material for the walls and rearranged the nest.

On arising in the morning, the animals walked at least seven meters

before urinating and defecating. Defecation occurred on paths so that
excreta ran between bushes. Pigs learned to mark trees in allelomimetic
fashion. The pigs formed complex social bonds between one another, and
new animals introduced to the area took a long time to be assimilated. Some
formed special relationships. For example, a pair of sows would join
together for several days after farrowing and forage and sleep together.
Members of a litter of the same sex tended to stay together and to pay
attention to one another's exploratory behavior. Young males also attended
to the behavior of older males. Juveniles of both sexes exhibited
manipulative play. In autumn, 51 percent of the day was devoted to rooting.

Pregnant sows would choose a nest site several hours before giving
birth, a significant distance from the communal nest (six kilometers in one
case). Nests were built, sometimes even with log walls. The sow would not
allow other pigs to intrude for several days but might eventually allow
another sow with a litter, with whom she had previously established a bond,
to share the nest, though no cross-suckling was ever noted. Piglets began
exploring the environment at about five days of age and weaned themselves
at somewhere between twelve and fifteen weeks. Sows came to estrus and
conceived while lactating.

One of Wood-Gush's comments is telling: "Generally the behavior of ...

pigs, born and reared in an intensive system, once they had the appropriate
environment, resembled that of the European wild boar." In other words,
there is good reason to believe that domestic swine are not far removed
from their nondomestic counterparts. Thus, comparison of behavioral
possibilities of those in confinement with those in the rich, open
environment that pigs have evolved to cope with seems a reasonable way to
at least begin to assess the welfare adequacy of confinement systems. If
confined environments generate behavioral disorders in the animals, this
represents additional reason to believe that there are problems with these
environments. We are thus in a good position to measure current systems
against all aspects of the swine telos, physical and behavioral.

Virtually every expert with whom I have discussed the swine industry
sees the confinement of dry sows as its major welfare problem. This view is
echoed in books and articles dealing with swine welfare. These experts
perceive the confinement of sows as problematic in two ways. First of all, it
is truly a welfare problem. Plainly, many of the needs of the animals are not
met in austere confinement systems. To be sure, as Colin Whittemore points
out, confinement is not the only issue: "We are not suggesting excessively
restrained pigs are happy-undue restraint is an important loss of welfare.
But [our] work shows that restraint is not the only thing. By all means, let
the pigs out, but don't think that solves all the welfare problems."
Whittemore is certainly correct; we shall shortly detail numerous other
welfare problems in the swine industry, some of which are synergistically
connected with sow confinement. But the second sense in which sow stalls
are highly problematic is equally important. The emerging social ethic for
animals and the attitudes connected with that ethic will simply not accept
sow stalling, regardless of scientific evidence. Joseph Stookey, in personal
communication, has stated this point beautifully:

Such issues as sow stalls are destined to be resolved by moving in the

direction towards systems which the public finds acceptable.
Obviously the public is concerned about restricting the freedom of
movement of animals and the public would prefer that such systems
(such as tethers and sow stalls) be abolished. This is a response that
has nothing to do with "welfare" from the pig's perspective (though
they would argue that is the very essence of their concern)-they
simply find stalls offensive from their own personal perspective and
would like to see them abolished. No amount of scientific evidence
would ever convince the public that such systems are not cruel.

This statement is exceptionable in two ways. First, we have argued that

"cruelty" is not the issue. Second, I believe the notion that the public
response has "nothing to do with `welfare' from the pig's perspective" is
overstated. Nonetheless, Stookey points out the indisputable fact that public
perception should be of fundamental momentum to the future of the
industry. As agriculturalists often remark, "perception is reality." Stookey
continues:

If ... sow stalls continue to ... [be] an acceptable practice in the swine
industry, I believe the days are still numbered before the public
outcry will take over the legislation and force the government to ban
 the stalls. In the long run, the industry could be worse off and may
lose credibility by not moving in a direction that satisfies the public.

Sow confinement has been banned in Sweden since 1988, and the European
Union has affirmed that the practice must be phased out within a decade.

It is hard to overestimate the horror with which ordinary people view

sow stalls. Many people immediately respond by saying with indignation, "I
wouldn't ever keep my dogs this way!" One former confinement producer
publicly tells the story of taking his eight-year-old daughter to see his sow
barn for the first time. Much to his amazement, the little girl began to cry!
When he asked her why, she replied that "this is not the way God meant us
to keep animals !" To his great credit, he completely redid his operation to
make it welfare friendly.

This is why, ironically, I am so amused when some people in the

confinement swine industry affirm that "we gotta show the public where
their food comes from!" I invariably point out that if you showed the
average person where bacon comes from, he or she probably wouldn't eat it!

During my career, I have encountered two other swine producers who

were led to "recollect" the tradition of husbandry and voluntarily changed
their systems to open ones. In one case, the producer told me that he could
not look the animals in the eyes, keeping them in crates. He moved to open
outdoor pens with mud wallows for the sows and made the same income he
made before. His secret? He has hired three generations of an Iowa
husbandry family to make the system work. Unlike workers in confinement
systems, they are, as he says, "pig smart." This leads us to the fourth major
problem created by industrialized agriculture. In confinement systems, the
intelligence is in the mechanized system. The workers are often illiterate
migratory workers, with no animal background and no inherent husbandry-
based concern for the animals.

The second story is quite dramatic. I was scheduled to give a keynote

speech on ethics and animal welfare to the swine producers of Ontario. Tim
Blackwell, the chief swine veterinarian for Ontario, had asked me to speak,
and I could not say no to him. Not only was he the editor of my ethics
column in the Canadian Veterinary Journal, a column that he had built into
a stunning success, he was also a tireless fighter for animal well-being.
Fifteen years earlier he had led a large campaign to produce "humane" pork.
He was also a cherished friend and, at six foot six, a charismatic and benign
Cuchulain.

Though I had then given over three hundred lectures to all kinds of
audiences, I had never spoken to pig producers. I had known similar fear
the first time I spoke to western cattle ranchers, but that fear vanished when
I realized that virtually all of them were solid believers in the ethic of
animal husbandry and care. To them, ranching was as much a way of life as
a way of making a living. Consequently, they cared deeply about how they
managed an animal, even if it meant losing money or sleep treating a sick
creature. "If I had to raise animals the way the pig people do, I'd get the hell
out of the business," the president of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association
told an agricultural audience. (We will discuss rancher ethics later in this
chapter.)

But the group I was about to address were the pig people. They had
converted to high-confinement, highly intensive, highly capitalized, highly
industrialized production methods that replaced husbandry with industry,
and traditional agricultural values with an emphasis on efficiency and
productivity. This had occurred in the 1970s, so it seemed that a whole
generation of swine farmers had failed to absorb the ancient biblical
agricultural values of animal care and stewardship.

Most small pig producers had been relentlessly eliminated by

competition from large corporate entities (up to sixty thousand or more
sows per operation) that were run by accountants and executives who
viewed their primary obligation as being to investors, not to animals. The
few small producers who remained, including those I was going to address,
had converted to confinement.

What could I say to these producers? What could I touch here? I had
always operated according to Plato's dictum that when dealing with ethics
and adults, one could not "teach," only "remind." Or, to use my own
metaphor, when confronting a more powerful adversary, one needs to
employ judo instead of sumo. With cowboys, I could appeal to the
husbandry ethic. What could I use here? I finally decided that the only
choice I had was to try the same tactic and hope that an ember of the
husbandry ethic still burned in these producers, even after a generation of
industrialization.

Tim woke me up from my neurotic musings. I had gone over this a

hundred times. It was too late to think of a different strategy; in any case,
there were two hundred people waiting for me. The meeting was being held
at a fairground. People were seated outdoors at picnic tables and would eat
lunch at the end of the morning session.

As always, my fear began to dissipate as I started speaking and was

replaced by a rhythm generated by content and form. Because I am
nearsighted, I removed my glasses. In this venue, I could not see the facial
expressions of those in the audience, a crucial requirement for gauging their
reactions and making adjustments in my talk. But given the picnic table
setup, people were spread out. I was more or less tethered to the podium
with my wired microphone.

As I recall, I had an hour and a half for my speech, with a half hour for
questions and discussion. I began in my usual fashion, with a few jokes, a
few anecdotes, some autobiographical comments about being a Brooklyn
kid lecturing to farmers and ranchers. People laughed in the right places. So
far so good.

I continued as I had planned, discussing the differences between social

ethics, personal ethics, and professional ethics. Professional ethics, I said, is
the responsibility of important subgroups of society to govern themselves in
a way that accords with social concerns, so that they are not regulated by
others who do not understand the pressures of their profession. I said that
the society was becoming increasingly concerned about animal treatment-in
research, in zoos and circuses, and in agriculture. This was due to many
factors: urbanization, media attention to animals, the relentless ethical
searchlight illuminating hitherto disenfranchised elements of society. But
most of all it was due to the supplanting of an agriculture of husbandry-the
practice of reciprocity and symbiosis between animals and people-by an
exploitative agriculture in which animals do not benefit from being
domesticated by humans.

I reminded them that biblical injunctions to care for animals and respect
their natures had served us well until the 1950s. I also reminded them of the
Twenty-third Psalm and of the metaphor that the Psalmist used when he
wished to create a conceit for God's ideal relationship to man, the shepherd.
The things we wish for from God are the same things that the good
shepherd provides to his animals. I beseeched them to look into themselves,
to examine what they were doing, and to see if it accorded with their own
ethics. Then I quit.

At first there was no applause. Oh-oh, I thought. Silence-my perennial

nightmare. But then the applause began, and grew. I still could not see their
faces, but Tim moved toward me, grabbing my hand. "You've done it, you
son of a bitch, you've done it."

"Done what?" I asked.

"Touched their hearts! Can't you see the tears in their eyes?" Stupidly, I
replaced my glasses and saw that he was right.

Suddenly, one man climbed atop a picnic table and began to speak. "This
was it!" he shouted. "This was the straw that broke the camel's back! I have
been feeling lousy for fifteen years about how I raise these animals and so,
in front of my peers, so I can't back out later, I am pledging to tear down my
confinement barn and build a barn I don't have to be ashamed of! I am a
good enough husbandman that I can do it right, make a living, and be able
to look myself in the mirror!" This was Dave Linton. Tim whispered to me,
"If Linton says it, he means it!"

A year and a half went by. Periodically I received progress reports from
Tim. Linton had broken ground. Linton was building. Then Tim called. "Do
you have time to visit Dave Linton's new barn? He would like you to-it's
attracting a lot of attention. The Canadian Broadcasting Company has done
a story on it."

"Of course I will," I said. Tim took me to the Linton's. With eyes
dancing, Dave and his wife spoke of the new barn while serving us what is
arguably the best strawberry-rhubarb pie in the universe. Finally his wife
said, "Enough talk, Dave-let the man see for himself."

We walked to the barn and opened the door. We went in. Mirabile dictu!
There was sunshine! "The roof is hydraulic," Dave explained. "On nice
days, we retract it so the animals are, in essence, outdoors. And look! No
stalls, no crates!" Indeed, in place of the crates were huge pens, lavishly
supplied with straw, with fifteen or so animals to each pen. The sows lay
around on beds of straw chewing it as a cowboy chews tobacco. "They look
... they look," I groped for words. "Non-neurotic. Happy! That's it! Happy!"

Tim said, "I've been a pig vet for twenty years, and this is the first time
I've seen sows smile."

"And," I marveled, "the air is sweet; at least as sweet as it could be!"

The three of us shook hands. Linton was effusive. "I'm a religious man,"
he said. "And God has already paid me back for doing the right thing!"

"How so?" I asked.

"It's my boy," he said. "My son." He went on to explain, "When we had

the old barn, my son dropped out of school and did nothing but play video
games. I couldn't interest him in the business or even get him to set foot in
the barn. Since I built this one, I can't get him out!"

The key point is that there are alternatives to sow stalls. After all, we
raised pigs for thousands of years without stalls! In fact, Tim Blackwell and
I recently made a film entitled Alternative Housing for Gestating Sows,
where we portrayed a number of different loose housing (i.e., noncrate) pen
systems. What was notable was our discovery that not only do these
systems work well, but they also cost half as much to build as full
confinement systems, giving the producers a clear financial benefit.
Although sow stalls are far and away the most dramatic and obvious
problem in confinement swine production, there are many other welfare
problems. One of these is farrowing crates.

Farrowing crates were devised to prevent sows from crushing piglets, a

common phenomenon under extensive conditions. Generally, a sow spends
about a month in a farrow crate, from directly before parturition until
weaning of the piglets. Since the point of farrowing crates is to restrict the
movement of sows so they cannot turn around, and since the farrowing
crates are about the same size as gestation stalls, the same welfare problems
relating to restricted movement we have discussed vis-avis gestation stalls
arise here. Farrowing crates have also been correlated with some pig
diseases, including dystocia (difficult labor), agalactia (faulty secretion of
milk following birth), and wasting disease.

The farrowing crate raises other welfare problems beside restricted

movement. Most important, perhaps, is the frustration of normal maternal
behavior, an extremely powerful instinct. Sows will continue to try to make
nests, even in farrowing crates. Kilgour comments: "By frustrating and
stressing the sow and disallowing her maternal responses, overall
productivity may not show an improvement. More research is needed."
Stookey echoes this sentiment: "The fact that nest building is so innate and
that the sow continues to build the nest even in the absence of any material,
suggests that the behavior has tremendous biological significance. No doubt
survival of wild pigs is dependent upon a nest at farrowing."

Thus, in my view, the primary research issue concerning farrowing

crates is the development of a system that protects the piglets yet is also
animal friendly to the sow. Such a system is needed for both intensive and
extensive pig rearing.
 Stookey recommends a system developed in Scotland by Michael Baxter
and his colleagues, based on behavioral research. This so-called Freedom
Farrowing System allows the sow to come and go freely, but incorporates
features that are attractive enough to the sow that she prefers to build her
nest within the enclosure. It also includes a threshold that she can easily
step over but is nearly impossible for the piglets to negotiate until they
almost reach weaning. An angled false wall facilitates lying down but is
designed so the piglets can escape without being crushed or trapped. In
addition, special creep areas within the enclosure attract the newborn piglets
away from the center of the nest. The Freedom Farrowing System also
includes a protective bar that can be lowered to lock the sow within the pad
during processing of the litter. This system appears very promising and
should be researched in terms of economic viability and producer
acceptance.

Other alternatives have been suggested. For example, the circular crate,
investigated by Frank Hurnik, could both protect the piglets and allow the
sow to turn around. This seems, indeed, to be an elegant solution, and
further research should be given top priority.

Provision of straw or other bedding remains a problem in today's

confinement systems, as mentioned earlier. Andrew Fraser argues that straw
in farrowing crates would create a better situation for both mother and
piglets. He also maintains that the inability of the mother to move toward
the piglets in farrowing crates is frustrating for the mother, though the
presence of piglets greatly reduces confinement boredom.

Confinement rearing of sows leads to additional welfare problems

beyond those growing out of boredom, frustration, isolation, and inability to
move.

Sows kept in confinement appear to have more reproductive problems,

such as delay of estrus and failure of the animals to become pregnant after
mating. Confinement sows are more subject than unconfined sows to foot
and leg problems, including fracturing. Pig farmers who have experience
with both free and confined sow operations have told me that fracturing is
far less common in sows that are allowed to move. Since activity is known
to increase bone strength, it may well be that the immobility of confined
sows renders them susceptible to leg breakage. Generally, slatted floors lead
to more injuries than unslatted floors. Fraser remarks, "Good slats cause
fewer problems than poor slats, but the inci dence of sow lameness [on
slats] is still very high." Obviously, research into such injuries should
include a search for optimum flooring.

Urinary tract disease appears to be more common in confined sows,

probably because the animals lie on their excrement and because they drink
less and urinate less, so that urine is more concentrated and bacteria are
allowed to act longer in the urinary tract. It is reasonable to attribute these
problems to lack of activity.

Finally, we saw in the case of the sow with a broken leg, the
combination of total confinement, automation, and the large scale of swine
operations makes for minimal inspection of individual animals, sows or
finishers. Thus, diseases and injuries may be undetected until they are quite
advanced, especially in sows. Further, as we saw, the minimal labor force in
many operations makes treatment difficult or impossible. Unquestionably,
automation tends to be inimical to stockmanship or careful husbandry.
Research into modifying confinement systems to facilitate care for
individual animals is necessary so that cases such as the sow with the
broken leg can be handled in a humane fashion. Kilgour echoes this point
when he asserts that "good stockmanship ... is especially important in large
intensive units where through automation people are replaced by
mechanical devices."
A number of significant welfare problems are associated with piglets in
swine production. Between days one and ten after birth, piglets are
subjected to a battery of invasive procedures: vaccination, ear-notching or
tattooing for identification (in some cases), teeth clipping, tail docking, and
castration of males. It is usual for producers to argue for the minimal
invasiveness of these procedures, but common sense says otherwise,
especially when all of them are taken together. Even if the producers are
correct, public opinion is not likely to be on their side. Thus, research into
alternatives to these procedures is highly desirable.

Teeth clipping and tail docking are management procedures. Incisor, or

"needle," teeth are clipped in order to prevent lacerations of sows' udders
and abrasion of the faces of piglets during competition for teats. The
Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) handbook,
Management and Welfare of Farm Animals, argues, reasonably, that teeth
clipping should not be a routine procedure but, rather, should be done on an
"as needed" basis; that is, where there is early evidence of damage from the
teeth. Given the lack of surveillance of individual animals in large intensive
operations, however, the degree of scrutiny demanded by this alternative is
implausible; it is simply more economical to clip routinely. Clearly, this
issue should be investigated.

Docking of tails, a procedure that grew out of intensive systems, is done

to prevent tail biting, which generally increases once begun and spreads to
biting of other parts of the body. A victim of tail biting gradually ceases to
be reactive to being bitten, a kind of learned helplessness. Infection often
ensues and can become systemic.

Pigs have always had a tendency to tail bite. Under extensive conditions
pigs have the space to get away from one another-it is only in confinement
that tail biting becomes a serious problem. The response of the producer has
been to amputate the distal half of the tail, a surgical solution to a humanly
induced problem arising from keeping the animals in a pathogenic
environment. As mentioned earlier, tail biting is referred to as a vice, as if
the pig is bad for tail biting.

I do not consider surgical solutions to humanly caused animal problems

morally acceptable. One ought to change the environment to a healthier
one, not mutilate the animal. Fraser, following M. J. Bryant, argues that tail
biting can be prevented by changes in husbandry. Animals that tend to tail
bite can be grouped together, as they do not generally show this behavior
when they are so grouped. Uncomfortable atmospheric factors need to be
eliminated, such as high levels of ammonia, carbon dioxide, or humidity or
low barometric pressure. Stocking density should be kept down. Better
husbandry, provision of straw, and the opportunity to root all decrease tail
biting, according to Fraser and Broom. It thus appears that boredom is
relevant to tail biting. Like other stereotypes, then, tail biting provides a
clue to conditions that need improvement.

Castration of piglets is clearly painful. As in beef cattle, castration is

performed to diminish aggression and to prevent the development of adult
male sexual pheromones, which give pork the "boar taint" most pork
consumers dislike. Most producers agree that intact males grow better,
faster, and more efficiently, and produce learner meat and more meat. It can
be argued that, given the age (five to six months) at which most males attain
market weight (about 250 pounds), few of the animals have reached sexual
maturity. Thus, the need for castration, which is expensive and painful, is
obviated, especially since a pheromone test is available to detect boar-
tainted carcasses. In Europe, uncastrated males are the rule. The main
obstacle to eliminating castration seems to be packer resistance, based on
fear of consumer rejection of boar meat and lack of packer confidence in
the pheromone test. This issue is a good candidate for research that can
benefit both animals and producers.

A major issue in piglet welfare arises out of early weaning. Although

pigs left to their own devices will wean at twelve to fifteen weeks of age,
industry practice weans piglets at three to four weeks of age. As Fraser and
Broom remark, "Such early weaning must have considerable effects on the
piglets, leading to poor welfare, but only a few have been assessed."
Certainly, this represents a prime research issue. We know now that early
weaning leads to aberrant behavior, including compulsive belly nosing and
sucking, which is presumably an attempt to suck and find milk. Anal
massage is a similar deviant behavior. Piglets showing this behavior chase
and inflict injuries on other piglets. Other aberrant oral behavior, such as
sucking on walls and bars, may also be a result of early weaning. A recent
study showed that relocation of piglets to a nursery may be a major stressor
in augmenting early weaning. The study suggests that mixing groups of
early-weaned piglets in the farrowing crate (a familiar environment) is less
stressful than relocating them to a nursery.
Increasing numbers of swine producers are operating with an "all in-all out"
approach to avoid mixing of pigs, since mixing leads to stress and
aggression. When pigs leave the nursery (at about six weeks of age), they
go into a grower-finisher pen in groups of fifteen to twenty. One facility I
visited placed them in a eight-by-twenty-five-foot pen They remained
together for the next five or so months until reaching market weight.
Groups of fifteen to twenty allow the pigs to establish a stable hierarchy. At
the early stages of finishing, the pen seems to provide adequate space, but
by the time the pigs attain market weight, they appear to be quite crowded.
Given the ethic we have discussed, I believe the public would consider the
pigs too crowded.

Austere environments in grower-finisher pens represent another welfare

problem that may augment tail biting. It is true, as producers argue, that the
pigs have one another to interact with as a check against boredom, and they
do play a great deal. Typically, though, the animals are not given toys (such
as bowling balls) as an additional deterrent to boredom, because such
devices can damage pens. This lack may well lead to boredom-based tail
biting and aggression. Research should be undertaken to enrich the
environment in ways that do not work against the system. Provision of
straw would be a step toward an enriched environment. Access to the
outdoors and to dirt, as discussed with regard to sows, might also represent
an enriched environment for finishers kept indoors.

Access to the outdoors raises feed costs. On the other hand, such access
might counter some of the untoward effects of indoor finishing, such as
high humidity, poor ventilation, and problems with respiratory disease. In
numerous pig facilities, workers must wear respirators; obviously, such a
situation is harmful to human and animal welfare.

Another problem appears to be lighting, which is both short in duration

and low in intensity. Pigs are kept in limited lighting to avoid aggression,
yet will work to obtain light. Research into optimal lighting should be
undertaken and systems should be devised to meet those needs. Light cycles
have major physiological consequences.

Amount of space per pig is important. Equally important is quality of

space. Space in grower-finisher pens should take account of the need or
desire of pigs for separate dunging and lying facilities, for eating without
harassment by others, and for ways of avoiding attack. The provision of
"hidey-holes" for pigs has been shown to reduce untoward effects of
aggression.

Foot and leg problems associated with problematic flooring are another
area of concern. Slippery floors can cause lameness, abrasions, strains, and
foot injuries.
Being highly intelligent and sensitive animals, pigs are very responsive to
stressors. Handling is thus relevant to productivity. Indeed, in two sep arate
studies, Paul Hemsworth and H. W. Gonyou have shown that pigs receiving
positive handling and interaction are easier to manage, have faster growth
rates, and have better reproductive success than pigs receiving negative
handling.

In research and on farms, those handling pigs often rely on "macho

muscling" methods, which produce significant stress. It is far better, as the
National Pork Producers Council Swine Care Handbook states, to employ
knowledge of pig behavior for handling. Hotshot use should be minimal-
most pigs can be handled and moved without these methods by "pig smart"
people. The establishment of seminars in handling of the sort done by
Temple Grandin would benefit both animals and producers.

Transportation is a major stressor for an animal who is kept in

confinement all its life and then is suddenly moved outside, loaded, and
transported. Grandin has shown that pigs raised in environments that have
some stimulation (suspended plastic tubing) move and load easier than
those raised in barren environments, presumably because they have learned
to deal with some variety. Grandin points out that restriction of sensory
input makes the nervous system more reactive to stimulation. This is
important, because loading has been shown to be a greater stressor than
transport. Mixing of pigs during transport is also a significant stressor, as is
poor, rough driving and heat.

Ignoring the stresses of loading, handling, and transport can lead to

bruising, carcass blemishes, PSE (Pale Soft Exudative) syndrome, and
malignant hyperthermia syndrome, all of which harm both producers and
animals. Research into "idiot-proof' systems of loading, handling, and
transport would therefore be of great value.
Continued, sophisticated research into swine behavior and cognition should
be supported. I believe that the better we understand the "mind of the pig,"
the more we will be able to grasp the subtleties of making production
systems animal friendly. Good research may be expensive, but we need a
research scalpel, as it were, not a bludgeon. The sort of work done by
Stolba and Wood-Gush could be refined considerably. It would be
reasonable for the USDA to hire a full-time swine behaviorist to work on
understanding the animal well enough to put that knowledge to practical
use.

We have gone into great detail on the swine industry, particularly sow
stalls, to clearly illustrate the welfare problems occasioned by the
dominance of industrialized agriculture. But the swine industry is only one
example of the problems that occur in all areas of confinement agriculture-
egg production, poultry production, veal production, dairy, and some
aspects of beef. The reader who is interested in an in-depth understanding
of the wide range of issues in these other areas of confinement agriculture
should consult my Farm Animal Welfare: Social, Bioethical and Research
Issues, or the book I coedited with G. John Benson, titled The Well-Being
of Farm Animals: Problems and Solutions. Here it will suffice to point out
some of the most egregious problems in other areas of confinement
agriculture and to contrast industrialized agriculture with the cow-calf part
of the beef industry, the last vestige of husbandry still operating on a
significant scale.
The first full confinement systems were developed for egg production in the
1930s and, largely through the efforts of People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals's (PETA) negotiations with chain restaurants, have recently
become an object of concern on the part of the public. Today's chicken
produces 275 eggs per year, as compared to the chicken of 1933, who
produced 70 eggs per year.

As many as six or even more hens can be forced into a small cage, with
chickens standing on top of chickens. As noted earlier, this increases
productivity per cage. Crowding leads to increased aggression and absence
of escape, so the industry "debeaks" the animals with a hot blade, in turn
producing neuromas that create chronic pain. The hens are unable to display
virtually all of their natural behavioral repertoiresocial behavior, nesting
behavior, dust bathing, being able to stretch and flap wings, exercise,
pecking. Unwanted male chicks are sometimes killed by suffocation.

In addition, the industry routinely practices "forced molting." Egg laying

is cyclical. The ovary becomes less active, and the diminution of sex
hormones leads to new feather growth, which forces out the old feathers. At
the end of this rest period, when feather regrowth is complete, the laying
cycle resumes. But waiting for the cycle to proceed naturally is not cost
effective, since quantity and quality of eggs diminish, so producers have
learned to induce molting. This requires subjecting the animals to sufficient
stressors to inhibit ovulation. (Stress can inhibit reproductive capacity in all
animals.) Producers accomplish this by withholding food and water, which
is a significant stressor for the birds, since it is known that the demand for
food and water is "inelastic," or fundamental.

The standard forced molting protocol involves removal of food for up to

twelve days and water deprivation for up to three days. Obviously, such an
intentional stressor is quite traumatic for the animals, given the strength of
the need for food and especially for water. In addition, the protocol usually
involves withdrawal of daylight, another stressor to which the animals are
unaccustomed. Indeed, so significantly adverse to welfare is this approach
to artificial manipulation of the egg cycle that the British codes of practice,
since 1987, have categorically recommend against using it.
Broilers (i.e., meat chickens) are not raised in cages, but ten to twenty
thousand are raised in one building, leading to extreme crowding where it is
impossible to monitor individual animals. Whereas broilers used to reach
market weight in five months, genetics and nutrition allow them to reach
the same weight in seven weeks. But in breeding for fast growth, no
attention was paid to musculoskeletal considerations, leading to a host of
injuries and diseases. Weak animals sit in soiled litter, which again produces
disease and sores. Because these animals have been selected for voracious
appetites, breeder broilers must be kept under severe food restrictions.
Capture and transportation to slaughter are highly stressful.
As intensification of agriculture grew, the old image of a dairy as a small
herd of contented cows lounging in idyllic green pastures has come to be
less and less typical of the industry. Some cows never see pasture; today's
dairies can contain six thousand cows. Whereas husbandry and individual
attention was the key to success in traditional dairies, diminished labor has
tended to make this degree of attention impossible. Today's cow is
genetically derived to produce, on average, nineteen thousand pounds of
milk per year; in the 1950s the number was five thousand. Unless one is a
superb manager, the metabolic demands of very high production can lead to
"burnout" as well as to high degrees of mastitis, particularly when the cows
are given exogenous BST (a growth hormone) to further increase
production. Foot and leg problems-lameness-are a huge problem in today's
dairies for reasons of flooring, diet, sanitation, and waste disposal.
"Downer" animals resulting from hypocalcemia when such animals are
shipped for slaughter is a problem that has garnered media coverage.
Despite empirical evidence showing that mastitis is not improved by tail
docking (the theory is that the tail flings manure leading to infection), many
dairymen still dock tails without anesthesia and leave the cow unable to
chase flies. In some dairies, branding and dehorning may be performed
without anesthesia. Calf welfare, particularly early separation from mother,
is another welfare issue.

A recent concern about "cow comfort" in the industry may signal an

attempt to restore husbandry, though it is hard to see how a limited labor
force can do justice to six thousand animals per dairy!
Even when the US public knew nothing whatever about agriculture, it was
widely known that eating veal was ethically problematic. News reports
promulgated the scandal of "white veal." People who otherwise didn't worry
about the ethics of what they ate foreswore veal. When I lectured before the
USDA in the 1990s, a significant part of my audience (over half) affirmed
that they would not eat veal.

The so-called white veal industry is an offshoot of dairy. It provided a

way of turning unwanted bull calves into money. The calves are isolated,
placed in small pens called crates, and fed an iron-deficient diet to keep the
meat pale. Lack of exercise assures that muscles don't develop so the meat
is tender. When removed from the crate, the animals have trouble standing.
No play or social behavior is possible; many normal behaviors are thwarted.

The vast majority of the twenty thousand western ranchers I have

addressed over the last twenty years will not eat veal for ethical reasons.

Some years ago, I had a striking experience that underscores this point. I
had been asked by the Colorado commissioner of agriculture to participate
in a seminar on the issue of animal rights and animal welfare for the leaders
of Colorado agriculture. Among the speakers was a drug company
executive representing the Animal Industry Foundation, a group devoted to
opposing the animal rights movement. He began his presentation by
showing a short video called The Other Side of the Fence, produced by the
ASPCA. The video is highly critical of white veal production, arguing that
just as human babies have needs, so do calves. Though we try to meet the
needs of babies, we do not do so in the case of calves used for veal. His
stated purpose in showing the tape was to demonstrate the sophisticated
level of propaganda directed by animal groups against animal agriculture in
order to galvanize the audience into opposing such activity. A few hours
later, I sat at lunch with the head of the Colorado Farm Bureau and the
president of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association. I asked them for their
reaction to the film. The Cattlemen's Association president replied as
follows: "Well, it brought tears to my eyes. There is no cause to raise
animals that way. If people want veal, we can kill some calves. We don't
have to torture them. If I had to raise animals that way, I'd get the hell out of
the business." The others at the table concurred.

This was not an isolated incident. I have yet to address a group of cattle
ranchers who find the production of white veal acceptable. Indeed, if I were
to transcribe the remarks generally made by the ranchers about veal into a
typescript, one would probably assume from the text that one was reading
opinions of extreme animal rights advocates! (I actually have such a
transcript, based on a seminar I gave in Worland, Wyoming.)

One could argue that the strong antipathy toward white veal production
in the general public is a function of emotionalism, sentimentality, the
"Bambi syndrome," the fact that calves have "big soulful eyes," and the
like. But such a claim can surely not be made about ranchers. In their case,
the distaste for veal production is a result of their understanding of the cattle
telos and their belief that nothing could be further from accommodating that
telos than the raising of white veal.
When I speak to audiences of animal advocates, they are astonished at my
depiction of cowboys as concerned about animals. Before explaining this in
detail, it would be valuable to present two contrasting incidents that
occurred within a few months of each other and that clearly crystallized the
difference between industry and husbandry as approaches to agriculture.

About five years ago, I had occasion to visit some of my cattle rancher
friends and acquaintances in Colorado and Wyoming. I was aware of the
fact that there was a good deal of scours that year-a devastating and
potentially lethal diarrhea in calves, prevalent among calves under one
month of age, and caused by bacteria, viruses, stress, protozoa, improper
nutrition. I asked these ranchers, "How many of you have spent more on
treating scours than the animal is worth?" Every single person I queried
responded in the affirmative. For that matter, every ranch wife had on
innumerable occasions stayed up all night ministering to a marginal calf of
little economic value, losing many nights of sleep.

"What's wrong with that?" I was asked.

"Nothing in my book," I replied. "But if I were an agricultural

economist, I would say its absurd to spend $10 manufacturing widgets, only
to sell them for $5." One rancher grew quite angry: "Oh, but we're not
producing widgets; we're producing animals-animals with whom we have a
contract!" Others said much the same thing. In other words, I was getting a
healthy dose of what I have called the husbandry ethic.

For most ranchers, what they value most is not money, but way of life.
The average Colorado Front Range rancher nets probably $30,000 per year,
or $60 a head per animal, with an average herd size of eighty. The emphasis
on values and on how they live has led some USDA bureaucrats to decry
ranchers as being a "bunch of goddamn romantics, not real agriculturalists."
Ironic indeed, because only in these people is the ancient husbandry
contract preserved in the age of confinement, since husbandry is an
essential feature of their worldview. Walk into any group or community of
ranchers and say, "We take care of the animals," and they will chorus "and
they take care of us." Ask any of my cowboy students if they have ever
been in major trouble with their dad, and they will invariably tell you of an
incident where they went to a football game or a dance without first taking
care of the animals.

In 1990 Parents magazine did a professional survey of their readership.

Among the queries was "Do animals have rights?" Eighty percent of the
largely middle-class readership responded in the affirmative, and 84 percent
said it was permissible to use animals for food. Since 1982 I have addressed
about twenty thousand ranchers all over the West, from Northern Alberta to
the Mexican border. After explaining my view of rights as laid out in this
book, I find that over 90 percent of the ranchers will affirm that animals
have rights. This is not surprising, since one way to look at rights flowing
from animals' natures is to invoke husbandry!

In any event, let us contrast the story about spending more money than
the animal is worth with the following story related to me by a colleague in
animal science. His son-in-law was an employee in a large, total
confinement swine operation. As a young man he had raised and shown
pigs, keeping them semi-extensively. One day he detected a disease among
the feeder pigs in the confinement facility where he worked, which
necessitated killing them with a blow to the head. These operations do not
treat animals individually, since their profit margin is allegedly too low. Out
of his long-established husbandry ethic, he came in on his own time with
his own medicine to treat the animals. He cured them! Management's
response was to fire him on the spot for violating company policy! He kept
his job and escaped with a reprimand only when he was able to prove that
he had expended his own-not the company's-resources. He continued to
work for them, but felt that his health suffered in virtue of what I have
called the "moral stress" he experienced every day, the stress growing out of
the conflict between what he is told to do and how he morally believed he
should be treating the animals. Eventually, he left agriculture altogether,
telling his father-in-law, "Dad, this ain't agriculture!" The above detailed
contrasting incidents, better than anything else I know, eloquently illustrates
the large gap between the ethics of husbandry and industry.
There are two distinct parts of the beef industry, cow-calf production and
feedlots. The cow-calf component, peopled by the individuals we have been
discussing, has essentially remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and
is not industrialized. Most famously associated with the West, there are
husbandry-based cow-calf producers in the Southeast and Midwest as well.
All have in common an ethic of husbandry for the animals and stewardship
for grazing land. (If they do not preserve the land they lose their
livelihood!)

In principle, beef cattle could be raised strictly on rangeland as they

were for most of the history of beef production. This practice is now being
done in South America, resulting in animals whose entire lives are spent in
pastures, yielding "grass-fed beef." The practice of feeding grain to cattle to
finish them over roughly the last few months of their lives developed after
World War II, when the United States encountered a grain surplus due to
greater efficiency in grain production. It was the realization that, in effect,
converting grain to beef was more profitable than selling it as grain that led
to the rise of feedlots. There is a movement in the United States to return to
more sustainable, grass-fed beef cattle.

The major welfare problems associated with cow-calf producers are

management practices that are sanctified by tradition-hot-iron branding,
castration without anesthesia, dehorning without anesthesia. Branding is a
cultural event-a big party-and people take pride in their brands. One rancher
told me that his two sons, a surgeon and an attorney, will come home to
help at branding but not at Christmas. Nonetheless, cowboys know
branding is morally questionable, since they are too commonsensical to
embrace scientific ideology's audacious agnosticism about animal pain.
They also, on some level, know that all of these practices are not essential
to ranching. All agree with me when I ask, "If God came down and said you
can no longer use painful management practices, would you go out of
business?" They always say, "Hell no!" Most rationalize these practices by
saying they only cause short-term pain that is outweighed by the animals
living lives dictated by their telos.

There are viable alternatives to these practices anyway, and the

interested reader should see my Farm Animal Welfare. Not castrating is an
alternative to castrating-animals grow better with testes! Identification can
be done by using retinal images (Optibrand is a technology I and my
associates devoted many years to perfecting), which also helps assure the
safety of the food supply via tracing animals; breeding for hornless cattle
could replace dehorning.

In the mid-1990s, I found myself in the middle of a battle with the

USDA that graphically illustrates the inherent decency and concern for
animals of ranchers. In late 1993 the USDA announced that it would be hot-
iron face branding an M on the jaws of all cattle entering the United States
from Mexico. Such cattle importation had increased significantly with the
advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the USDA was
concerned with clearly identifying Mexican cattle in case they were carriers
of tuberculosis or brucellosis. Although the concern was legitimate, many
people, myself included, were appalled by face branding. After all, the face
is highly innervated, for, from an evolutionary point of view, an animal
would want to protect its facial region above all else, since the sense organs
are located there. Thus, the pain and fear associated with face branding
must be significantly worse than that of rump branding. Imagine for a
person how much more a slap on the face hurts and distresses than a similar
slap on the rump.

On learning of the announcement, I protested to some USDA officials

and wrote a letter of concern along with A. P. Knight, a prominent cattle
veterinarian and head of the Department of Clinical Sciences at the
Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine. In the letter,
Knight suggested ear punching as a viable alternative to face branding.
Despite the fact that the USDA had been convicted of violating animal
cruelty laws in New York State by mandating face branding in 1985, our
protests were ignored. Some of my colleagues attempted to get the National
Cattlemen's Association (NCA) to oppose the USDA policy, but it did not
take a position. I then began calling individual ranchers whom I know
personally, and all were appalled. Shortly thereafter, I was invited to a
meeting of the board of directors of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association-
all working ranchers, none bureaucrats-to discuss the problem. Within a
half hour of hearing the case, the board gave me an unequivocal statement:
"As ranchers, we take pride in our long tradition of care and husbandry of
our animals. While we realize that imported cattle may pose a health hazard
to the domestic herd and must be permanently identified, we encourage
USDA to adopt viable alternatives to jaw branding."

Taking this position was a courageous act, given the fact that the NCA
opposed any action. As I left the meeting, I asked the board what I could do
with the statement: Did they wish me to use it quietly with the USDA?
Could I publicize it? Could I share it with animal advocates fighting the
USDA policy? I shall never forget the reply one man unhesitatingly offered:
"Doc-we talked the talk; you walk the walk. It's your document, use it
however you think best."

To my knowledge, this was the first time an animal industry had taken a
position for the strict benefit of animal welfare.
Feedlots are generally acknowledged to be the most animal-friendly
confinement units. A lot is a large dirt pen filled with animals. There is
plenty of room to move, exercise, and socialize. The welfare problems with
feedlots also represent productivity problems, since feedlots do not rely on
high technology. These include poor drainage, lack of shelter from wind
and shade from sun, and limited behavioral opportunities. Thus, fixing them
has some economic incentive. This point notwithstanding, the industry has
been slow to change. In my experience, most feeders have cow-calf
background and are still very much possessed of the ethic of husbandry.

I have given numerous talks to feeder groups and have confirmed this
for myself. On one occasion, the head of the National Cattlemen's
Association spoke before I did and gave a speech covering good and bad
news for the industry. Under positives, he stressed that "a really good sign is
that more and more cattlemen are seeing cattle as a business rather than a
way of life." My talk followed his, and when I remarked that "far be it from
me to contradict you, but in my experience it is just as much a way of life as
a business," I received a standing ovation!
In 2003 I gave the keynote speech for the international annual meeting of
the Animal Science Association. In that speech, I stressed the social
demand for a return to husbandry and explained the ethic developed in this
book as the emerging societal ethic for animals. My talk garnered a very
positive response, particularly since the activist group PETA had pressed
many of the chain restaurants into demanding changes of their suppliers to
benefit animal welfare. So I did not encounter the hostility I did twenty
years earlier, though, to be fair, many of my animal science audiences even
then were listening thoughtfully and sympathetically, not having lost the
respect for husbandry. The Europeans, of course, had a long history of
backing off from total confinement; the Swedish law of 1988 pretty much
banned full-confinement agriculture, as European Union policy has done
more recently.

How can all of this help transform US agriculture? There is a growing

public awareness that confinement agriculture has not only hurt the animals
but also has led to many other problems. In general, our society is plagued
by a business management mind-set that tends to define activities in
quantitative terms of efficiency and productivity; aspects of a problem that
do not lend themselves to such redefinition are ignored or discounted. The
same cancer has eaten away at our institutions of higher learning.
Universities are governed by "professional administrators"bean counters,
not scholars-who count numbers of articles for tenure and promotion and
numbers of students taught, and for whom qualitative notions are irrelevant
if not incomprehensible.

In a personal vein, I recall one administrator approaching me and asking

permission to videotape my courses and circulate the tapes around the state
because "you are such a good teacher." "In this way," he continued, "you
can reach thousands more people." He was amazed when I categorically
refused. "Why?" he asked in astonishment.
 "Because I am such a good teacher," I replied. I encountered the same
insensitivity from another administrator, who argued that I should double
the enrollment in one of my classes. "You are doing such a great job with
fifty," he warbled, "I'm sure you can do twice as well with a hundred!"
Multimillion-dollar "media centers" have proliferated, designed to replace
teachers. "Distance learning" is the buzzword for administrators. (One older
dean mused, "Isn't that an oxymoron?") Yet, no one thinks our students are
better educated than they were a half century ago!

I am fearful of an approach to agriculture that uses only a "bottomline"

yardstick. First of all, qualitative distinctions are invisible to it. Second,
intimately related and equally important, it tends to ignore costs (and
benefits) that do not show up on a balance sheet. Yet the industrialization of
agriculture has produced numerous hidden costs that mitigate its much-
touted efficiency. One of those costs is animal suffering. Thus, it is true that
chicken stayed at virtually the same low price for twenty years, but at the
expense of the animals' well-being. But there are others worth reflecting on.

Another such cost is environmental. Industrialized animal agriculture, it

is well known, is totally dependent on high inputs, specifically, on fossil
fuel, a resource we now realize is limited. It also requires significant
amounts of water. At the same time, disposal of enormous amounts of
animal agricultural wastes concentrated in a small area is a major problem,
often resulting in groundwater contamination.

Yet another hidden cost of industrialized agriculture is the effect on rural

communities and on the agrarian way of life. Too few farmers realize that
the same forces that put animals in boxes have put farmers in financial
boxes. With capital inexorably replacing labor, smaller independent
producers are simply not in a position to compete with large corporate
entities that have unlimited resources. This, in turn, means that farmers go
out of business, become mortgaged to the hilt, or become, in essence,
contractual serfs to large corporations, as has occurred in the poultry
business and in some portions of the swine industry. None of these
alternatives is good for the agricultural way of life. Obviously, going out of
business means the loss of one more family farm. Chronic indebtedness
leads to a highly stressful way of life and to farmers becoming forced to do
anything required to survive-witness the case of the sow with a broken leg.
Thus, people who may strongly believe in the husbandry ethic are
sometimes forced to violate it in order to survive. And finally, working for a
large corporate operation erodes the independence historically characteristic
of the agricultural way of life and must inevitably create a deep sense of
instability.

Ironically, increasing numbers of urban and suburban citizens look to

rural agricultural communities as an escape from urban blight, and thereby
often further destroy the character of these communities, since the emigres
do not fit the traditional rural values but, rather, bring their urban values
with them. They cannot in any case go into farming except in a hobby
fashion unless they are independently wealthy; it is well known that young
people simply cannot afford to become farmers. Many ranchers, even those
who have inherited their operations, must work multiple jobs to keep the
ranch afloat, often because urban people have moved into the area,
demanding services that raise land values and taxes. The excesses of
industrial agriculture have lead to the emergence of new diseases as health
problems-E. coli and mad cow disease are the obvious examples. No
husbandry person would ever think of feeding bone meal to herbivores!

We can thus see that our apparently cheap food supply has a variety of
interrelated hidden costs. A move toward less intensiveness wherever
possible in animal agriculture may go some of the way toward addressing
these unstated costs.

Consider the case of swine. Semi-extensive swine operations require less

capitalization, less initial investment, and thus less overhead and input. By
the same token, waste disposal is less of a problem, as the wastes are
dispersed over a larger area. (In traditional extensive agriculture, animal
wastes served to enhance pasture, and pasture served to sustain animals.) If
the hog market is depressed, one can quickly convert the land to cash crops
with minimal loss. Since little capitalization is required, it is possible for
people without vast resources to enter the business.
 For such an operation to be successful, however, one needs "pig smart"
labor and probably a proportionally larger labor force. Although this is a
problem, it is also an opportunity. With more and more people looking for a
healthier environment than the cities where they can live and raise a family,
why not train people to own and/or work in such operations? Why not
provide tax subsidies or incentives to people who are willing to enter into
such a business and lure such employees? One of the standard justifications
for intensification is the lack of a farm labor force and the high cost of
labor. With people fleeing urban life and seeking a more "natural," rural
existence, could not social subsidization of such semi-extensive agriculture,
as occurs in Europe, solve a great many social problems? In a single stroke,
there would be a revitalization of rural communities with people who would
be a part of those communities, not merely urban exiles hanging their hats.
They could create a more sustainable and environmentally sound
agriculture, and resurrect an agriculture of husbandry more closely allied to
the ancient contract. Though there are, to my knowledge, no similar
examples extant in the poultry industry, perhaps such systems could be
developed there also, provided that society is willing to commit to that kind
of change.

Obviously my suggestion depends on society's providing a helping hand

to such operations. But why not? Society has essentially paid for the
development of industrialized agriculture through research at land-grant
colleges and universities. In addition, if we are indeed concerned about
rural communities, sustainability, environmental preservation, and fair
treatment of animals, we should be prepared to pay for it. The percentage of
disposable income we spend in the United States on food is the lowest in
the world. Ought we not be prepared to put some of that bounty back to
preserve the other values we have neglected or eroded in our rush to
achieve that status? At the very least, the feasibility of this idea should be
researched.

What of legislation, which we saw to be very effective in regard to

research? According to a Gallup Poll from May 19, 2003, fully 75 percent
of the US public would like legislative assurance that farm animals are well
cared for. It is possible, moreover, that only a serious threat of legislation
can get the industry off ground zero! While agricultural legislation is
feasible in a small country like Sweden, it is not as easy to legislate for
agriculture in the United States, as diverse and vast as US agriculture is.
Research, in Sweden, was largely done in a university framework adapted
for regulation. How, for example, would one enforce "no cattle castration
without anesthesia" on a Montana ranch considerably bigger than Rhode
Island? How can we avoid creating a huge bureaucracy with enormous
expenditures, inefficiencies, and waste?

A different approach is consumer demand for change and a willingness

to pay more for food if necessary. To some extent this has already been
demonstrated by the rapid growth in specialty supermarkets like Wild Oats
or Whole Foods, and the willingness of consumers to buy grass-fed beef
and organic food, though these represent quintessential niche markets. For
example, the restaurant chain Chipotle has been very successful by stressing
"eating with conscience." Perhaps increasing consumer knowledge would
lead to social demand for industry-wide change. Maybe the Farm Bureau
mantra about "showing consumers where their food comes from" is the way
to go, albeit in a very different way than the Farm Bureau intended: for if
people tracked bacon from sow to plate, I am morally certain many would
not buy it. Still another option, of course, is vegetarianism, though if people
won't foreswear meat for their own health when ordered to by physicians,
we can doubt that they will do so for ethical reasons.

Animal agriculture is as old as civilization, and our ancient contract with

animals, for all its flaws, has been a model of natural justice and fairness.
We have, in most cases, coexisted with our domestic animals better than we
have with one another. Their presence has been a manifest and positive one,
reflected and extolled in our arts, crafts, literature, mythology, song, and
story. Our children still sing of Old MacDonald's farm. No one sings of Old
MacDonald's factory. We must do what needs to be done to preserve that
ancient contract, else we diminish not only the animals but ourselves as
well.
 o much has happened in the past decade regarding the moral status of
animals-both socially and in my own thinking and activitiesthat I actually
found it more difficult to prepare the second edition of this book than to
write the first! Had I added everything I wanted to say, I would still be
writing, and this book would be thousands of pages long. Thus, I have tried
hard to restrict myself to updating the original book and not writing a new
one.

This activity forced me to take, as it were, an aerial view of the last ten
years, to pause and reflect, something I have been far too busy to do
otherwise. And I am greatly heartened by the progress I perceive.
Meaningful legislation regarding the well-being of research animals has
come to pass, something I did not believe could happen before the twenty-
first century. Concern for elevating the moral status of animals and for
protecting their rights as determined by their natures has become a major
national and international issue. Society is examining and effecting major
changes in the treatment of animals in areas long taken for granted, from
agriculture to zoos.

Such social ferment regarding a major moral issue can, unfortunately,

never proceed without excesses of emotion and stupidity. Nonetheless, I
have great faith in common sense and common decency to muddle through
and to effect the compromise and resolution and moral progress that is the
hallmark of democratic societies. This faith has been buttressed by my own
experiences. I have watched such progress occur in my own institution, and
in the AVMA Journal. (The Journal recently devoted an entire issue to the
pet overpopulation problem.) Veterinary colleges are beginning to develop
courses such as the one done at my institution. The Canadian Veterinary
Journal has, in 1991, instituted a monthly column I write devoted to ethics.
And the pressure brought on by public concern with all aspects of the pet
problem, be it methods of euthanasia or attempts to limit the number of dogs
a person can own, is certain to further stimulate veterinarians to involve
themselves with these issues.
 pings have continued to develop during the past decade to the benefit
of animals and animal ethics. Many law schools now teach animal law, and
many lawyers are working to raise the legal status of animals. Europe has
acted decisively to restore husbandry to agriculture, and even the
conservative US American Veterinary Medical Association has begun to
take welfare seriously. Animal ethics is a serious educational discipline, and
a new generation of scholars in philosophy, animal behavior, and veterinary
medicine have emerged as animal advocates. My own activities have
branched out into areas I could never have imagined when I started in this
field in the mid 1970s. I have engaged issues I had never heard of then,
such as live animal transport, shipping of live aquatic animals, and
"mulesing" of sheep. I regularly lecture for fairs and rodeo associations, and
developed an Animal Care and Use Committee at the National Western
Stockshow and at Guide Dogs for the Blind. I have helped corporations
develop animal welfare-friendly policies. I have been a theologian in
residence for a Presbyterian synod. I see every reason to believe that animal
ethics will continue to flourish!
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 *In a 1992 decision, a federal judge ruled that exclusion of rats and mice
by the USDA, the federal agency charged with interpreting and enforcing
the act, violated congressional intent. Unfortunately, Congress reaffirmed
that exclusion, though much of the research community, now ethically
sensitized, opposed it.

*Humanist is used here in its first sense, i.e., a person who pursues the
study of the humanities.