Dear Class:
First, thanks to Thom for thinking about the issue of animal rights in relationship to the themes of the course and for following through on my suggestion to look into the ideas and writings of philosopher Peter Singer.
I have two responses that I feel need to be highlighted as postings rather than comments.
First, please dig a bit more into the writings of Singer. His views on animal rights are not presented quite accurately in the previous posting. While this link is to an editorial, it may be helpful. Peter Singer's own primary source writings on animal rights can be found on his website.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3926371,00.html
Also, the reason that animal rights are not discussed in a history seminar on genocide is that we are looking at a specific legal definition (1948 UN convention) for our terminology as well as the other statues of international law. We are looking at the implications of what can be known about HUMAN identity, obligation, justice, etc. I believe that the conversation about animal rights/philosophy on the topic is interesting and compelling. Yet, I do not think that the topic falls within the scope and sequence of the course.
What do you think? (Please answer after review the scope and sequence that is presented in the syllabus).
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4 comments:
Signer seems to have two controversial sections of his argument here, the part about animals beign treated in the same way as humans and the part that states that it is more morally legitimate to test on an infant or a mentally disabled person than a healthy animal. The last part of this I find very untrue, because once you are distinguishing between people in that way so as not to be "speciesist" then you are becoming another type of "ist"...in other words, discrimination is still happening, and then what is the point of making htis argument against animal discrimination?
However, I do think that the standards for animal treatment should be higher. I am not against the killing of animals for food, because even in nature this happens and keeps a natural equilibrium between species. However, not only have we far surpassed the equilibrium, but animals are treated horribly before their deaths. I think animals should be allowed to have a good life if they are to be used for food. So its not so much the genocide aspect that bothers me, because the animals are actually used for food (as opposed to a genocide which is killing for the sake of killing) but more the fact that many humans seem to have no respect for animal life.
In terms of whether or not the topic falls within the scope or sequence of the course, I agree that we are working with a specific definition that involves humans and the way that the act thus defined affects/is affected by humans. A context in which this conversation could be appropriate would be a discussion of that defintion and why or why not animals were included. However, I think this is primarily a human-based course.
I agree with Katie that my primary motivation for supporting animal rights is the treatment of animals, not the fact that they are killed, which has been a part of human society since hunter-gatherers. Other food issues unrelated to this discussion like the environmental impact of mass-produced meat also factor into my views. Treatment of animals is also an interesting lens of cultural relativism. While many from the United States find it horrifying that other countries may eat animals like dogs which we personify and sympathize with as pets, people from other cultures may find aspects of how we treat animals similarly cruel. One example I thought of was what someone practicing the Hindu religion in India which considers cows to be holy would think of our routine consumption of beef and treatment in slaughterhouses.
Another interesting aspect of the relationship of Singer's ideas to our course on genocide is that one of the large themes we saw in the Powers' reading on the Armenian genocide and heard about in other cases was "dehumanization" of the victims of genocide, a theme which also has surfaced in my book about Cambodia. Perpetrators of genocide often thought of victims as having animal-like qualities to make it morally acceptable to kill them. I also remember hearing the Nazi process of genocide being compared to the slaughtering of cattle. So in that way, how we think of animals in relation to humans certainly is a part of this course.
i think diego raises a really good idea. If part of genocide is dehumanizing the enemy... does that mean that human society overall views the killing of animals on a mass scale morally acceptable? I realize that many individuals (including myself) would agree that the murder of animals for no reason is wrong but then why has the tactic of dehumanizing the enemy been so effective? If people feel that killing animals is wrong as well why does considering human life as valuable as that of an animal allow people to feel less guilt when perpetrating a genocide?
i believe that this does not fall directly under the topics of the course and so is probably not a topic that will be discussed a great deal in class - but it does roughly fall under some of the overarching themes. the directed murder of a specific race (or species) can correlate to animals as well... because of this I believe that the blog is the perfect place to discuss this because it does not detract from class time but it does raise an interesting question.
just another question... do you think that in the future animal rights activists may push for a similar genocide resolution for animals?
In response to Tal, I think that the human race will feel less guilt in killing an animal over a human because we cannot directly relate to animals like we can humans. Humans have the ability to communicate with each other and show emotions, while in animals, emotions and communication are somewhat indecipherable.
Also, in response to Tal's last question, I think that animal activists might push for a genocide resolution concerning animals, but I don't think that it would get very far. Like Katie and Diego stated earlier, the killing of animals is (somewhat) a natural cycle because humans obtain food from them. However, the killing of humans has no purpose whatsoever, so this would be a hard point for animal activists to refute. I personally think that genocide committed against humans is WAY WORSE than "genocide" against animals.
Also, I agree with the rest of you that the topic of animal rights do not directly tie into the course themes- we're talking about humans, VERY different from animals. If we did discuss animal rights, I think it would be really hard to relate them to the course themes. How would this topic concern identity, membership, obligation, judgement, and participation ? I certainly don't see a connection. Do you?
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