Animals and Women Feminist The
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The tendency for animal rights theorists to structure their work in ways well suited to programs for social control becomes all the more significant given the institutional context of academic ethics. As academics, our theorizing takes place within an institution that is itself hierarchical and that often functions to further the economic and political hierarchies governing this society — for example, by developing authoritative legitimations for the suppression of dissent. Some recognize the power struggles between disputing academics, but suggest that this has no significant social implications:
Though philosophy is carried on as a coercive activity, the penalty philosophers wield is, after all, rather weak. If the other person is willing to bear the label of “ irrational ” or “ having the worse arguments ” , he can skip away happily maintaining his previous belief. (Nozick 1981, 4)
The possibility of skipping happily away from charges of irrationality holds, at best, only between equals. But academic attributions of irrationality are made in a society of unequals, in which, as Kathryn Pyne Addelson puts it, “ because of our social locations as researchers, educators, and policy advisors, we have, as a matter of fact, institutional warrant for making and dispersing knowledge ” (Addelson 1991, 109 – 10). Addelson discusses the structural hierarchies that allow elite groups of leaders in government, the media, higher education, etc., to define “ official points of view, ” which set the terms of debates, limit the range of acceptable positions, and determine the qualifications for participation in public discussions. The academic class exercises direct power over students, and influences the rest of society through access to publishers, the media, and government. The terms “ rational ” and “ irrational ” distinguish between positions worthy and unworthy of debate, and between people worthy and unworthy of being heard. Making and enforcing these distinctions is a substantial form of social control.
At stake in the struggle to define rationality is admission to or exclusion from the realm of public discourse, as well as access to professional credentials. For example, there are a multitude of cases, both past and ongoing, of biology departments, veterinary schools, wildlife management programs, and medical schools seeking to exclude those with an animal liberationist perspective. It is important to struggle against such exclusion, but on what terms do we engage this struggle? If we accept the present terms, then the task for animal liberationists is to establish our rationality by proving the irrationality of those who directly exploit animals, so that ultimately we become the authoritative gatekeepers. Before pursuing such a course it is worth examining the underpinnings of this system.
The nominal legitimation of the adversarial approach to ethics, including its exclusion of the “ irrational, ” is this supposition: if the participants in the battle follow the rules and exhibit certain predetermined qualities, then truth will emerge. Addelson calls this the “ enlightenment approach ” to the problem of legitimating the educational hierarchy:
Ideologically, an academic ’ s differential power to determine knowledge is legitimate since the academy only promotes those whose methods reveal truth. This approach risks circularity, however, insofar as the political authority of the group is justified through its adherence to “ truth-discovering ” methods, while the list of methods that qualify as “ truth-discovering ” (such as the adversarial approach) is developed by the group itself and enforced by use of its political authority.
So the enlightenment pursuit of objective truth through disputation ultimately instantiates itself as a struggle for relative status within hierarchical power structures. To uncritically develop animal rights theories within this framework, especially when those theories are structurally well suited to programs of social control, is to move, intentionally or not, toward a situation in which animal liberationist goals are hierarchically imposed. 9 This raises the critical question of whether animal liberation requires or is even well served by programs of social control.
Taming Ourselves
The patriarchal elements of animal rights theory — including the hierarchy of reason over emotion, the delineation of “ irrational ” classes, the perception of ethical discussion as a battle, and the willingness to impose controls — all fit perfectly well within the conventional norms of academic ethics. But as I indicated above, these elements also work together to constitute the ideological underpinnings for programs of social control. Hierarchical social control is never neutral, it demands legitimation. Prototypically, this legitimation comes from the supposition that people need to be controlled, that we are fundamentally antisocial (as in Thomas Hobbes ’ s theory, in which our supposed innate antisocial tendencies legitimate the erection of an all-powerful sovereign). The patriarchal aspects of animal rights theory can be similarly legitimated (or at least made coherent and superficially sensible) by holding that people are naturally antisocial toward animals: if we are motivationally disposed to support animal exploitation, then we need to be prodded toward animal liberation by a rational elite.
Within animal rights theories, the antisociality needed to legitimate the patriarchal approach takes the form of a denial of any reliable human capacity to sympathize with animals. For Regan, human sympathies in general are “ chancy, ” but especially so with respect to animals: “ The plain fact is, most people do not care very much about what happens to [nonhuman animals], or, if they do care, their care seems to be highly selective ” (Regan 1991, 95 – 96). Singer insists his argument makes no “ appeal to the reader ’ s emotions where they cannot be supported by reason, ” because “ reason is more universal and more compelling in its appeal ” than “ kind feelings and sentiments ” (Singer 1990, iii, 243).
Singer goes beyond Regan ’ s brief statement that humans lack concern for animals, devoting a whole book to explaining our supposed sympathetic deficiency. In The Expanding Circle, Singer argues that kin, reciprocal, and “ possibly a little ” group altruism are biologically based, by showing how tendencies to assist close relatives, those who assist us, and members of our group are adaptive and thus would be selected over time. Singer calls these dispositions to help those close to us our “ genetically-based ” social “ impulses ” or “ instincts. ” This sociobiological theory does not account for consideration shown to those outside relations of kinship, reciprocation, and group membership. To explain altruistic behavior toward these “ outsiders ” (including most animals and many people), Singer argues that reason, in particular the practice of defending one ’ s behavior to others, is intrinsically impartial, ultimately possessing “ a logic of its own which leads to its extension beyond the bounds of the group ” (Singer 1981, 114). Thus even though our genetically based altruistic dispositions apply only to a narrow circle, reason inexorably impels expansion of our consideration, ultimately to encompass all sentient beings.
The enlightenment orientation, with its ideal of objectivity and the unity of mankind, gives a metaphysical and epistemological basis for [the warrant to make and disperse knowledge], not a political and institutional one: If we develop our methods properly, we will discover neutral fact and make neutral theory. On the enlightenment approach, the methods and metaphysics that we develop internally justify the authority that we exercise externally. The social, political, and moral questions about our cognitive authority in the society become moot. (Addelson 1991, 110)
While Singer admits, on the one hand, that all altruistic behaviors result from environmental as well as genetic factors, and on the other hand, that reasoning behavior is biologically as well as culturally supported, he retains throughout The Expanding Circle an extreme hierarchical dualism of reason over biology. At the level of individual motivation, Singer takes the relation between impartial reason and partial social instincts to be a struggle between “ the desire to avoid inconsistency ” and “ our self-centered desires (including our desires for our kin and close friends) ” (144 – 46). Theoretical pictures of noble reason valiantly struggling to control base instinct lend themselves to t
he support of programs of social control — the group seeking control over others simply associates itself with reason and the others with instinct. This connection between theory and politics is highlighted by Singer ’ s consistent use of the rhetoric of control, domination, and warfare in his sociobiological theorizing. Singer feels that we have hitherto been “ slaves ” (173) under the “ unchallenged control of our genes ” (94), but that as reasoning beings we can “ rebel ” (169), since “ reason can master our genes ” (131), reasoning being “ inherently expansionistic, ” continually acquiring “ territory ” until “ crushed by countervailing forces ” (99).
The idea that our sympathies for animals are fundamentally unreliable, even genetically preempted, supports the view that the extensive cruelty of institutionalized animal exploitation — in vivisection, factory farming, and sport hunting — is a mere expression of an instinctively exploitative creature at the core of all or many of us. Animal liberation is thus seen as a process of taming ourselves and others (indeed, “ Tame Yourself ” is the title of the second animal rights record album produced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA]). So long as we remain committed to animal liberation, yet also see the direct sympathetic responsiveness of individual humans to animal suffering as undependable, we will be drawn toward authoritarian structures that promise this taming, through the domination of emotion by reason, selfishness by patriarchal ethics, and people by political authorities and their philosophical advisors. Before committing ourselves in this direction it is crucial to fully examine the premise supporting social control. In the following section, I suggest that the supposition of human antisociality toward animals is very dubious. In fact, institutionalized animal exploitation does not so much result from a lack of human sympathies for animals, as it continues in opposition to and despite these sympathies.
The Maintenance of Animal Exploitation
Suppose, as do James Serpell and Andr é e Collard, that compassion for animals is a natural, normal, and healthy part of human life (Serpell 1986, 170; Collard 1989, 70). We would then expect institutions of animal exploitation to protect themselves from compassionate human opposition through an array of unnatural, abnormal, and unhealthy mechanisms. This is exactly what we find. In the following section, focusing particularly on animal farming and animal vivisection, I detail both highly developed mechanisms for forestalling the development of sympathies for exploited animals as well as powerful mechanisms for overriding (i.e., preventing us from acting on) any sympathies that might remain.
Forestalling Sympathetic Opposition to Animal Exploitation
The awareness I am causing harm to an animal is normally accompanied by hesitation, uneasiness, guilt, even anguish. Potential opposition to animal exploitation arising from such inhibitions can be forestalled by blocking one or more of the three parts of this awareness: personal responsibility ( I am causing ), damage due to hurting or killing ( harm ), and the presence of another subject ( to an animal ). 10
Denying personal responsibility.
One tactic for expiating the guilt of animal exploitation is discussed by James Serpell under the heading of “ blame-shifting ” :
It was ultimately the gods who were to blame [for ancient animal sacrifice], since it was they who demanded the sacrifice in the first place. This is not merely speculation. According to an ancient Babylonian text, the head priest actually bent down to the ear of the slaughtered victim and whispered, “ this deed was done by all the gods; I did not do it. ” (Serpell 1986, 167 – 68)
Following ancient precedent, the human responsibility for eating flesh is also deferred in our culture by reference to biblical myths of divine permission such as God ’ s covenant with Noah: “ Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything ” (Genesis 9:3). More broadly, all forms of animal exploitation can be and often are excused in this culture by insisting on certain interpretations of biblical stories such as the following:
Then God said, “ Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. ” (Genesis 1:26)
This theological blame-shifting has secular counterparts. Today farmers shift responsibility for their exploitation of animals to the general public, by speaking of “ consumer demand ” for meat as if this technical term referred to an inexorable mass insistence rather than the conditional fact that under present circumstances people will buy a certain amount of meat at a given price. 11 The individual meat-eater, conversely, may defer personal responsibility for animal slaughter by reasoning that a national market is insensitive to one individual ’ s choices, so my becoming vegetarian will not in fact affect production levels — that is, the number of animals killed. 12 While the farmer is “ only giving the people what they want, ” the meat-eater figures “ they ’ ll be slaughtered anyway, ” so no one is responsible.
Denying the harm done.
Our economic system renders production processes invisible at the point of consumption. This distance between people and production may be self-consciously sustained and increased by an industry when general awareness of that industry ’ s production processes decreases demand for its products. Both the animal farming and the animal vivisection industries (as well as other animal exploitation industries not discussed here, such as fur production, pet sales, circuses, etc.) attempt to minimize awareness of the animal suffering behind their products.
Laboratories that experiment on animals are generally closed to the public, even when they are publicly funded. Tours of research facilities typically are restricted to the holding facilities, omitting observation of any ongoing experiments. It is not uncommon for vivisectors using dogs to remove their vocal chords, thereby preventing tortured howling, which might arouse sympathies among outsiders or the vivisectors themselves. Verbal cover-ups of the harms inflicted on laboratory animals are universal: “ sacrifice ” instead of “ kill, ” “ aversive behavior ” instead of “ pain ” or “ fear, ” etc. I have noticed that scientists always stick to the term “ animal experimentation, ” even (or especially) when discussing the ethics of their profession — “ vivisection ” has connotations of harm being done to the experimental subject, while “ animal experimentation ” does not.
The attempts to conceal the insides of animal labs are organized and thorough. For example, a planned episode of the television show Quantum Leap dealing with experiments on primates was opposed by pro-vivisection lobby groups (Aldhous 1991). The fact that this opposition was registered prior to production, without having seen a script, and despite the producer ’ s reassurances ( “ I ’ ve asked [the writer] to show the necessity of using animals for medical research [ sic ] . . . We like to lay out both sides and let our audience decide what to think ” [Beck 1991]), reveals that the concern was not with how animal vivisection would be treated, positively or negatively, but simply with the fact that experiments on primates would be recreated for television. A similar attitude against laying out both sides is exemplified in National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Bernadine Healy ’ s public “ worrying ” over “ the success of [animal] rights groups in getting their films and magazines into public libraries and schools ” (NIH is a major funder of animal vivisection; see Culliton 1991).
And there are false assurances, as when Thomas Langfitt, who for years made a living smashing the heads of baboons, claimed, after his research program came under scrutiny, that he and the vivisectors under his supervision “ treat the baboon the way we would treat humans ” ( Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 May 1984). (We might hope that this is a lie, for the sake of the people around Langfitt.)
Animal farmers also lie about the harms they inflict. Frank Perdue, who keeps tens of thousands of unhealthy, overstressed, debeaked chickens in a single 150-yard-long building, and whose mass destruction system kil
ls 6.8 million birds a week, states that these chickens “ lead such a soft life ” (Singer 1990, 105). This falsehood is just one element of an industrywide effort to dim our awareness of the suffering behind animal farming. Advertisements consistently show animals perfectly content to be confined, striving to be hooked, happy to become commodities. The meat, egg, and dairy industries distribute bogus “ educational ” materials to thousands of schools. One pamphlet shows a grinning steer transported to the “ meat packing company. ” Slaughter is not shown, and the text merely states that “ at the packing plant, the ‘ beef crew ’ turned beef on the hoof into meat for the store ” (Robbins 1987, 128). Killing and dismembering are never mentioned. A coloring book labeled a “ factual story approved by The American Egg Board ” erases the reality of laying chickens crowded into filthy battery cages by showing a hen standing proudly on a large straw bed with two chicks (Robbins 1987, 127).