You too
Animal rights, rights in general and bioethics morally generally, isn't exactly a trivial subject. Plenty of people have written 10s of 1000s of books on the subject, PhD dissertations. Its really hard to respond to really high level questions about the subject without making lots of generalizations in the space of a short post on the internet. Hopefully you can forgive that much.
I think concern for animals extends across species boundaries, all kingdoms, from bacteria to seaweed to cockroaches to the blue whale to all humans. I can't think of any good reason why taxonomic classification are of any use whatsoever in ethical discussions.
Obviously, I don't think all life is of equal concern, strictly speaking I don't think biological life has any relevance whatsoever. I like to take cues from the norms of ethical behavior regarding humans, and fall back on things which I believe have broad appeal to human rights activists and most people in general. Specifically, I find it fascinating why people value the lives of newborn infants in the first place. Newborns aren't much of anything in their mental facilities -- they can't talk, they aren't rational, they don't have a concept of social contracts let alone human rights, they can't demand their rights, they aren't moral agents, they aren't much of anything. So why should people value them? Religious explanations aside, the answer isn't as 'obvious' as it should be. They may be humans, but not
persons in a conventional sense. I take the perspective that newborns really don't have a whole lot going for them, except they can suffer, so they can be valued for that much alone. Its not a bad principle either, empathy for suffering seems to have fairly broad appeal to human rights advocates. Seeing that most animals aren't moral agents, but can suffer, I think their situation is comparable to the status of infants, no surprise that animal rights activists are so fond of using animal suffering as a starting point for their ethic.
Its understandable that you may wonder how we measure suffering in animals, let alone compare it to humans. No one has direct access to animals mental lives, no one of knowing how much they
really suffer, however, that psychologists have been designing
animal models of clinical depression,
psychologically disturbed animals with tendencies toward self-mutilation,
learned helplessness,
despair, and so on for decades. There are also 1000s of experiments documenting the visible behavioral responses of addiction and withdrawal which can be severe enough that animals maim themselves. There's a tremendous amount of literature on the topic of
stereotypy in animals, characterized by repetitive and often self-destructive behaviors in confined animals with little to no border-alleviating enrichment. They can suffer other psychopathologies
including obsessive compulsions and stress and anxiety disorders.
The latest scientific trend in behavioral psychology suggests many animals, particularly vertebrates with nerve endings and cephalapods, experience psychological states like suffering, pleasure, happiness, depression, boredom, despair
in a clinically significant manner comparable to adult humans. To the best of my knowledge, many invertebrates like insects, sponges, perhaps lobsters, oysters, plant life, bacteria, have little to no mental lives, very unlikely process pain as suffering -- I'm more than happy to be corrected on this point -- I'm not sure if there's a strong moral argument against eating them.
In other words, the bulk of scientific evidence is strongly in favor of many animals, including many of the ones of concern to vegans and animal rights activists like food animals and vertebrates used for experimentation, having mental lives substantially comparable to humans in the areas of
at least suffering, satisfaction, pain, and pleasure.
Whether I'm talking about human suffering or animal suffering, I can't really say "such and such is the amount of permissible suffering, anything beyond that is cruel". I prefer to leave a lot up to other's intuitions, to suggest that we not hurt animals any more than we'd feel comfortable hurting non-rational humans. This line of thought doesn't go very far when dealing with sociopaths; it seems to resonate most strongly with people who have genuine interest in human rights. I think a sincere concern for human rights is a gateway drug to a sincere concern for animal rights.
Hopefully you can understand where I'm coming from. Unless there's a
very good argument to the contrary, I think its as rational to empathize with infants who endure suffering as it is to empathize with
any suffering no matter the nature of the being who experiences it.
I understand that its not really possible to live without causing something or something to suffer, its not even possible to kill myself without causing others to suffer. I usually get by with the understanding that being a vegan and a conscientious objector to the way animals are currently treated is better than not giving a crap about who I harm. Lastly, I'm not overly concerned if I haven't justified why I should care about others' suffering in the first place, to date no one's ever criticized me for being too kind.
I'd probably be more inclined to forgive a person for buying animal-derived cat chow for their kittehs due to lack of immediate other options. I know for a fact vegan pet chows exist for cats and dogs, though I've never seen them in any grocery story or pet store in Nebraska, I imagine you'd have to order quite a bit of food in bulk from the internet.
I've heard anecdotally that its possible to raise happy, healthy kittehs and goggies on those diets, but I really don't know a lot about the subject. Speaking for myself, if I wasn't able to care for kittehs on a vegan diet, I'd probably not adopt a cat.
I seem to remember a similar attitude in response to US aid to Haiti and China, political commentators asked why should we bother helping them when parts are the US are hellholes of gang violence and poverty. To those commentators, I fail to even articulate a reply due to inability to construct a suitably snarky response.
For your question, I understand the whole vegan thing is a microminority point of view, I think its less likely to catch on due to cultural inertia rather than people being overly wrapped up promoting human rights in China. In any case, I don't think there's any reason why we should believe that societies must progress in lockstep with one another. Certainly the lack of universal rights in China never stopped me from being a vegan at home.
Thank you so much for your civil and interesting post.
