In particular, I extend here our developing realization of the limitations of patriarchal metaethics, a framework that structures many of the works written in support of animal liberation. By a patriarchal metaethic I mean a perspective that sees social control as the purpose of ethics and that incorporates elements of the ideology of male supremacy. The presumption of social control as the point of ethics fits into a pattern Sarah Hoagland has discerned:
The focus and direction of traditional ethics, indeed its function, has not been individual integrity and agency (ability to make choices and act) but rather social organization and social control. (Hoagland 1988, 12)
The application of patriarchal metaethics to animal liberation takes the following form: a tacit acceptance of sexist derogations of female animal liberationists as overly sentimental or hysterical, leading to a distrust of emotion and an overemphasis on cold reason as the source of animal liberationism. The goal of animal liberationist ethics is then to delineate rational principles of conduct that control our putatively uncaring dispositions toward animals.
After highlighting the patriarchal elements of animal rights theory in the first section of this essay, I challenge a key belief motivating this metaethical perspective, namely the notion that humans ’ compassionate feelings for animals are undependable. Animal liberationists are not so much using reason to override some innate indifference to animals as we are overcoming institutionalized barriers to the expression of our deep connections with animals. This suggests an alternative metaethic, emphasizing not social control but the freeing of caring agency, a perspective that I sketch in the last section, “ Going Feral. ” I see animal liberation as creative, not restrictive. It extends possibilities for action — in particular, possibilities for acting on our compassion for animals.
Patriarchal Animal Liberation
In this section I use the works of Tom Regan (author of The Case for Animal Rights ) and Peter Singer (author of Animal Liberation ) to exemplify elements of the patriarchal metaethics of animal liberation. 1 Within traditional nonfeminist ethics, utilitarianism and rights theory are often seen as the two primary moral alternatives. So with Singer ’ s use of utilitarianism and Regan ’ s adoption of a rights-based approach, it is understandable that the theories of Singer and Regan would often be viewed as the two opposing poles of philosophical support for animal liberation. 2 From a nonpatriarchal metaethical standpoint, however, Singer ’ s and Regan ’ s theoretical similarities are as significant as their differences. In particular, both Singer ’ s utilitarian theory and Regan ’ s rights approach are developed within a framework of patriarchal norms, which includes the subordination of emotion to reason, the privileging of abstract principles of conduct, the perception of ethical discussion as a battle between adversaries, and the presumption that ethics should function as a means of social control.
Reason
Both Regan and Singer characterize emotion as an unreliable basis for ethical decisions, and claim to have made no appeal to emotion in their arguments for animal liberation. Their emphatic subordination of emotion to reason has been much noted and criticized by feminist animal liberationists. For example, Deborah Slicer, among others, rejects the general privileging of reason over emotion, stating that “ there is no pat formula for deciding when our affective responses have a place, or how much weight they should have ” (Slicer 1991, 115). Regarding women ’ s identification with animals, Andr é e Collard writes that “ we react to them in every fibre of our being. We can be moved to outrage without feeling a need to justify our emotions ” (Collard, 1989, 96). And I have elsewhere described the primacy of direct sympathetic responsiveness in the motivations of many animal liberationists (Luke 1992, 102 – 4).
The point of such critiques is not to invert the traditional hierarchy — to instead place emotion over reason — but rather to suggest that in ethics reason and emotion work together, so that attempts to expunge emotion from theoretical ethics are artificial and self-defeating. Josephine Donovan has noticed that “ despite his accent on rigorously rational inquiry, Regan throughout uses the term counterintuitive as a kind of escape clause whenever deductive reason per se proves inadequate ” (Donovan 1990, 353). Even the most “ rigorous ” argument must use some initial, unproven premises. At such points, Marti Kheel argues, the writers are implicitly relying on readers ’ common feelings to gain assent (Kheel 1985, 143). 3
Since a dualism of reason over emotion makes so little sense theoretically, we might well wonder why academic defenders of animal liberation so often retain the rationalistic paradigm. Regan at times recognizes the motivational primacy of emotion, stating that “ philosophy can lead the mind to water but only emotion can make it drink ” (Regan 1986b, 40). His own experience confirms this, as he recounts in an autobiographical piece:
Reason demanded that I become a vegetarian. But it was the death of our dog that awakened my heart. It was the sense of irrecoverable loss that added the power of feeling to the requirements of logic. (Regan 1986a, 93)
Given this, it is all the more puzzling that Regan ’ s primary exposition of animal rights theory, The Case for Animal Rights, is totally devoid of concrete references to feelings or experiences, and in fact is structured as an extended exposition on logical consistency.
The key to resolving this puzzle is recognizing that Regan and Singer have taken as one of their primary goals the establishment of the academic respectability of animal rights theory. 4 Certainly academic respectability conventionally requires the adoption of the reason-over-emotion paradigm, as Singer recognizes:
The portrayal of those who protest against cruelty to animals as sentimental, emotional “ animal-lovers ” has had the effect of excluding the entire issue of our treatment of nonhumans from serious political and moral discussion. (Singer 1990, iii)
But what this statement crucially obscures is the gendered nature of the derogation of emotion. A central patriarchal ideology is the elevation of the “ rational/cultural ” male over the “ emotional/biological ” female. Women ’ s rage (labeled “ sentiment, ” “ hysteria, ” etc.) is thus divested of political significance by interpreting any female reaction against the established order not as a moral challenge to that order, but as a biosexual phenomenon to be ignored or subdued.
This is critical to understanding reactions against animal liberation; since animal liberationists have always been predominantly female, sexist stereotypes have been a favored technique for dismissing the movement. 5 So this may be the subtext to Singer ’ s attempt to gain respectability through denial of emotion. Josephine Donovan suggests that his underlying concern is that “ to associate the animal rights cause with ‘ womanish ’ sentiment is to trivialize it ” (Donovan 1990, 351). 6 We male animal liberationists are additionally liable to respond to charges of sentimentality with hyperrationality; animal liberation implies vegetarianism, for many of us, but meat eating is strongly associated with masculinity (see Adams 1990, chap. 1), so the expunging of “ female ” emotion may be attractive as compensation for the loss of manly carnivorism.
In this context we can place the extreme sensitivity some male animal rights theorists have shown over the picture of animal liberationists as “ little old ladies in tennis shoes. ” Regan, Singer, and Andrew Linzey all earnestly argue that by virtue of their rational discussions we may “ safely put to rest ” that stereotype. 7 The strategy is evidently designed to gain respectability for animal liberation by using formalistic male theorizing to distance the movement from the female objects of contempt. By seeing women/emotion as a public relations problem for animal liberation, this strategy tacitly accepts the patriarchal ideology behind the charges of “ hysteria ” and “ sentiment, ” misrepresents animal liberationist morality by erasing its emotional elements, and disrespects the work of female animal liberationists (who are not only the majority of activists but comprise most of the movement ’ s founders and leaders).
I do not know how those who defend vegeta
rianism on principle would respond to the above, whether they (or even Walker herself today) would see the situational factors that Walker describes as sufficient justification for eating flesh. But my point is that complexities based on our specific identities, histories, and relationships frequently arise to challenge preset formulas for behavior, and that often these complexities are more compelling than the formulas. In such cases, ethical theorists tend to qualify their formulas to allow for each “ special case ” as it arises. This suggests that universal principles are not primary in ethics, that the primary basis is ourselves in all our complex identities and relations to other people, other animals, and nature.
Of course, increasing the respectability of animal liberation is a worthwhile goal, but in pursuing this goal we need not defer to patriarchally constructed notions of respectability. Instead, we might directly rebut the sexism of the charges of female hysteria, as, for example, Carol Adams does by commending the women who were the first to perceive the injustice of animal exploitation, and by affirming that she aspires someday to be one such radical little old lady (Adams 1994, 199)! And, like nineteenth-century animal liberationist Anna Kingsford, we may reject the notion that emotion invalidates morality:
They speak sneeringly of “ sentiment ” . The outcry against vivisection is mere “ sentiment ” . Why, in God ’ s name, what is so great, so noble, as human sentiment! What is religion, what is morality, but sentiment? On what divine feeling are based the laws which bid men to respect the lives, the property, the feelings of their fellow men? Sentiment is but another name for that moral feeling which alone has made man the best that he is now, and which alone can make him better and purer in the future. (quoted in Vyvyan 1988, 121)
Principle
Within the dualistic paradigm of reason over emotion, “ reason ” typically means this: the derivation of highly abstract first principles which are then used to support more specific (but still quite general) rules of conduct. It is expected that one might have emotions and dispositions that contradict the rules of conduct, but that such unruly passions will be brought under control, overridden by one ’ s commitment to the “ rationally ” established principles and rules. To be “ rational, ” the rules of conduct must follow from the first principles through logical deduction, and the first principles must be established without reference to feelings or to traditions. Ideally, the principles are universal (binding all people) and general (applying in all situations). Regan and Singer both follow this model, with Regan basing his case for animal rights on a principle of respect (do not treat subjects as resources or as mere receptacles of good and bad experiences) and Singer grounding animal liberation in a principle of equal consideration (weigh the interests of all sentient beings equally). And both writers conclude their treatments with general rules of conduct, advocating universal vegetarianism and qualified antivivisectionism.
Feminist animal liberationists have questioned the wisdom of placing such general principles at the center of ethics. There are two points of abstraction that may be questioned: abstracting from the features of the moral agents, and abstracting from the features of those affected by our actions. In the latter case, the exclusive focus on the subjectivity and sentience of animals leaves out many morally relevant features (such as personal relationships and individual histories), thus “ oversimplify[ing] our actual and potential relationships with and responses to animals, depriving us of opportunities to respond to and make responsible choices about ” what we eat, the products we use, etc. (Slicer 1991, 114). There is also something artificial about reducing animal liberation to a principle of respect for sentience (or subjecthood), since we do not in fact respond to oppressed animals as cases of sentience or subjecthood, but as individuals who are in one way or another communicating their needs to us.
Deriving rules that apply to all agents in all situations also oversimplifies. Vegetarianism, to give one example, certainly carries quite different meanings and implications depending on one ’ s class, gender, race, religion, culture, physiology, etc. For instance, Alice Walker, who in general aligns herself with those who feel that “ eating meat is cannibalism ” (Walker 1988, 172), still at times defers to cultural and situational factors:
Since Bali, nearly a year ago, I have eaten several large pieces of Georgia ham (a cherished delicacy from my childhood, as is fried chicken; it is hard to consider oneself Southern without it!) and several pieces of chicken prepared by a long-lost African friend from twenty years ago who, while visiting, tired of my incessant chopping of vegetables to stir-fry and eat over rice and therefore cooked a chicken and served it in protest. (Walker 1988, 172)
So we do not act as bare agents but as embodied individuals with personal histories, enmeshed in networks of gender, race, class, and familial relations. But abstracting from every feature but one (viz., rational agency) facilitates control a point to which I return below.
Adversarial Relations
Academic ethicists see themselves as establishing their first principles against and above the principles of other theorists. Moral investigations are structured as battles between rivals:
In academia, the Ethics Game is sometimes played to one-up the opposition. The goals include proving oneself right (about what is morally right) and proving the “ opposition ” wrong. Moral theories and arguments are used as weapons. Philosophical reputations are at stake: who can poke holes in the opponent ’ s position and defend an alternative position against all objections — for all to see? (Warren 1989, 83 – 84)
This adversarial/territorial conception of ethical investigation is exemplified by the following passage, in which Regan indicates that his purpose in writing includes establishing the rationality of animal defenders in contradistinction to the irrationality of certain of our “ opponents ” :
The Case for Animal Rights was conceived by me to be, and I continue to hope that it will function as, an intellectual weapon to be used in the cause of animal rights. I wanted to give the lie, once and for all, to all those opponents of animal rights who picture everyone in the movement as strange, silly, overly emotional, irrational, uninformed, and illogical. The Case for Animal Rights is my attempt to ram these accusations down the throats of the uninformed, illogical, careless, irrational, strange, silly, and overly emotional people who make them. (Regan 1986a, 94)
Singer also at times describes his arguments as weapons. For example, in a very ironic choice of metaphors for an animal liberationist, he characterizes his defense of his principle of equal consideration against a “ competing ” moral principle as using “ heavy artillery to swat a fly ” (Singer 1981, 107).
To a certain extent, this sense of competition is entailed once one has placed universal, general principles at the center of ethics. Different principles prescribe different behaviors, so when they are expected to apply to all people in all situations they cannot all be correct. But this is only a competition between principles, not people. We might still expect to discover the “ one, true ” principle through a cooperative, rather than mutually antagonistic investigation. The academic emphasis on doing battle presumes that truth emerges through conflict: “ what truth (if any) this book contains can only be decided by how well it stands up under the heat of informed efforts to refute its claims ” (Regan 1983, xii, emphasis added). But in an essay discussing feminist directions in medical ethics, Virginia Warren questions this presumption:
It might be objected that the best way to get to the truth is for others to try their mightiest to slay one ’ s arguments; an idea ’ s survival is purported to be evidence of its truth. . . . Though schooled to accept the Gladiator Theory of Truth, I have never found it to be the only way to get to the truth. Moreover, I have often found it to distort truth and to crush creativity. (Warren 1989, 86)
Insofar as adversarial relations are not always truth-promoting, they are likely to be furthering some other end, such as the establishment of the victor ’ s identity as rational, moral, or “ pure. ”
As many feminist theorists have noted, this type of identity formation — establishing the value of one ’ s self through the devaluation of others — is particularly characteristic of masculine development under patriarchy. Ethical discussion, including serious disagreement, need not be structured competitively, with one side achieving rationality only by proving the irrationality of the other. Alternatively, we may expect ethical discussion between those who disagree to further intellectual and moral development mutually, through a shared presumption of each others ’ rationality and goodness. So in response to those who defend animal exploitation, our focus shifts from salvaging our rationality by proving their irrationality, to asking how different people, all of whom are rational and good, can disagree about this issue. In the second section of this essay, “ The Maintenance of Animal Exploitation, ” I present some results of applying this nonadversarial approach to the understanding of animal exploitation.
Social Control
The three structural elements of animal rights theory discussed above — reason/emotion dualism, adversarial approach, privileging of principles — are well suited for developing programs of social control: reason/emotion dualism includes the notion that reason should strive to control emotion, while the adversarial approach seeks to define a class of irrational others (the emotional ones needing to be controlled). And if one ’ s object is to control the behavior of many people in many situations, then the use of general, universal principles of conduct immediately recommends itself. By abstracting from all but a few features of the people and the situations, the legislator is able to exert control (assuming the efficacy of the moral or legal hierarchy) over an indefinite number of people and situations through a very limited number of legislative acts. 8
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