The rational creature is a very intriguing being true. Why do humans ‘murder’ fellow animals without the slightest twitch of remorse? Of course, they don’t call it murder: it sounds too heinous and very incriminating. Instead, they rationalize it with softer and more agreeable euphemisms such as slaughter and butcher. So we have slaughterhouses instead of murder-houses, and a butcher as opposed to a ‘murderer’. Very agreeable indeed!
What makes the difference when both cases presuppose termination of life? The application of double standards in describing the conscious termination of human life on the one hand and animal life on the other bares the subjectivity of man’s rationalization to justify crimes against animality.
Consequently, when the need arises to make the termination of human life appear grievous, it acquires the term butcher, so that the judge’s human instincts are rattled when the prosecution accuses the defendant of ‘mercilessly butchering’ his victim. Unwittingly, it is implied that to ‘butcher,’ the fate that animals suffer, is the highest form of brutality. At the same time, it hints at the crude way in which animals are treated in the hands of butchers, such that to call it killing would be an understatement.
So much is the casualness with which man regards the life of animals, to the extent that some incidences of animal deaths caused by man have no relevant expression at all. Is it appropriate, for instance, to say that ‘he killed the housefly?’ It sounds sort of exaggerated, because a housefly’s life is too insignificant in the wider scheme of things that properly speaking, the term ‘kill’ is overly misused. What term can we possibly give to the act of ending a housefly’s life, such that it gets the dignity it deserves, if any, without causing any ambiguities? There is none. Accordingly then, a housefly can only be ‘swathed,’ as in smashing it against a wall, for such is the description its dignity deserves.
But there seems to be a pattern of discrimination that elevates the respect accorded animals as one moves from lower to higher animals. That is why a giraffe is properly described as having been ‘killed.’ A giraffe’s life makes some sense, huh? Nonetheless, it will never be accorded the distinct, lofty, and dignified term ‘murder,’ which is applicable only where human life is involved. Regardless, even where human life is in question, another criterion emerges to distinguish important deaths from insignificant ones.
Thus, the death of a village madman has brushed aside with the casualness with which a ‘swathed fly’ is dismissed. Nobody will go into the trouble of investigating the circumstances of a madman’s death, as it would happen, say, in the event the local tycoon meets his death in a very untimely manner. But an even important death is that of a politician, in which case suspicions give birth to ‘assassination.’ Only important people get assassinated, right? Thus, if the local lunatic dies by the same bullet that felled a politician, it will by lunacy to call it an assassination. But on the other hand, the dignity of a politician demands that the death be called an assassination.
And there I catch the culprit: rationality!
Rationality has over time separated man from other animals; and when it was done on that line, took upon the differentiation of mankind into sub-Sapien species. However, this paper focuses on the impact of rationality in justifying human brutality against animals, and concludes that the justification itself is unjustified.
Throughout the history of mankind’s evolution, the progression towards an exhibition of advanced mental capabilities has been the hallmark of distinguishing man from other primates. From the Homo habilis to the Homo erectus and presently, Homo sapiens, man’s mental faculties have developed significantly. During the evolutionary period when earlier beings like the Zinjanthropus and later on the Australopithecus moved a pace closer to civilization, a distinction started to emerge that gradually weakened the primate cord he shared with other animals, drifting him further asunder towards hominoid status. As Homo habilis, he could employ simple implements to kill and devour for food and as Homo erectus, gained an upright posture as we exhibit it today.
Nonetheless, it was the transition to Homo sapiens status, the thinking animal, which eventually made man human, and distinguished him clearly from apes and chimpanzees with whom he shared most habilis and Erectus features (they both use hands to grasp things and chimpanzees can walk upright). But the human capacity to reason things out, to engage the mind in intellectual deliberations, to make mental speculations, and draw intelligent conclusions is an endowment to which no other creature can make claim.
This unique nature of man has been used to justify his domination over and exploitation of other creatures for his benefit. In an article by John Coetzee, the fictitious character Elisabeth Costello challenges this justification on the mere basis of reason. Her argument against the violation of animal rights (right to life, freedom, etc) based on their lack of reasoning is framed on the historical injustices men perpetuated against fellow men, and on scientific experimentation on the mental capabilities of animals.
The annihilation of millions of Jews by Hitler in Germany portrays the cruelty of man that transcends all reason. They were tortured and slaughtered like animals neither because they were incapable of reason nor because their killers had a logical basis. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is another testimony to human cruelty that has nothing to do with differences in reasoning abilities. For three years, the ruling elite worked on an ethnic cleansing campaign to redefine the population of Rwanda into “Rwandans,” meaning those who backed the president, and the ‘accomplices of the enemy,’ meaning the Tutsi minority and Hutu opposed to him (Human Rights Watch, 2004).
During the campaign to sow ethnic hatred directed at the Tutsi, the government spread propaganda based upon memories of previous domination by the Tutsi, and the revolution that toppled their rule and exiled many in 1959. Because the victims had been killed because they had ‘reason’ to oppose, it could be argued that the ability to reason could be used against victims of violence, instead of protecting them. Thus, animals and men are not threatened by lack or possession of it.
Man has suffered most in the hands of fellow men when his reasoning capacity was at its best. In 1947, reflecting on the course that mankind had taken since the Enlightenment era of the 18th century, Theodor Adorno concluded the enlightened man was a danger to himself. It was an era marked by turmoil and oppression: a time of wars, colonialism, and general international animosity that marked WW2 and its aftermath- the Versailles Treaty which pitied Germany against France. He observed that far from liberating men from fears and establishing their sovereignty, “the fully enlightened world radiated disaster triumphant.”
He lamented that the technology which characterized the era of enlightenment did not work by concepts and images, “the fortunate insight”, but refers to methods, exploitation of others’ work, and capital. What men seek to learn from nature are the enlightenment to “dominate it and other men: it has extinguished any trace of its self-consciousness” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1997, 4). Mental superiority, therefore, is not good enough reason to violate animal rights, since men have done worse to other men with whom they share the reason.
Frank Kafka and Wolfang Kuhler studied the ability of animals to reason and learn. Their experiments, which involved making the chimps ‘reason out’ how to get food into their den, demonstrated that animals, including man, develop their reasoning capacities when forced to do so by circumstances (Searle, 2003). Because of hunger, the chimp named Sultan learned how to stack empty crates one atop another to get a bunch of bananas hung overhead. It is the same with human beings, who have been forced to reason their way out of difficulties.
Immanuel Kant said that difficulties were the catalysts that provoked men to ‘dare to think.’ A developing philosophy during the Enlightenment period, it calls for man’s reasoning capacity as a tool to solve problems and free himself from intellectual, economic, and political dominance. During the Dark Ages, the Reformists dared to think, discerned the errors of Rome, and achieved spiritual freedom. Man would no longer bow down and pay homage to a mortal.
The slave man dared to think, and deciphered the greed, brutality, and cruelty of his master. He defied the status quo, pursued freedom and justice, and freedom was achieved. From the mines of Africa to the Americas, North and South, the colonized and the enslaved broke the chains of bondage…because the freedom fighters “dared to think.” We have to rely on ourselves: we become our “own author….our own authority, and we have to use and appeal to our capacity to reason and think” (Kant, 2001 139). Similarly, Sultan, the chimp dared to think to get food when the need arose. Then the difference between human beings and animals is not limited to reason alone, for each one of them has the potential to reason about their respective needs.
The case of a real human being, Srinivasa Ramanujan, is another pointer to the undiscovered potential of animals to reason. The Indian captive had worked out mathematical formulae that his masters could not figure out, until much later. The fact that they could not figure out and describe his rationale in terms they could grasp made them assume that he couldn’t reason at all. When they later discovered their inabilities to penetrate his ideas, they realized that Ramanujan was intellectually superior to they had thought initially. If they had not interacted with him, nobody would have ever known of his genius in arithmetic.
Likewise, we presume all animals to be irrational simply because we have never had a chance to learn about their reasoning patterns if they have any. Their reasoning, however irrational it may be, is only ‘personal’ and beyond our speculations (Gert, 2005). It could be that their rationale is so complex that we can’t figure it out, just as Ramanujan’s captors could not understand him. Similarly, the reasoning potential of the chimps would never have seen the light of day if they had not been given a chance to prove it. It was not what was good for them and they’re kindred, but a response to circumstances that demanded a humanistic behavior.
In any case, the questions that Sultan was asking himself: like why the man was behaving the way he was behaving by hanging the bananas instead of throwing them on the floor, is more complex than the practical stacking of crates to get the bunch. The nature of their existence, which is limited to simple survival skills, is satisfied by what their brains are capable of. Even in their irrational nature, they actually “act towards an end to meet their needs” (Aquinas and Pegis, 1997). Man, on the other hand, is pressured by a variety of wants and needs (animals don’t have wants) which motivates him to reason accordingly.
The ideas of John Locke echo the same sentiments as those of Elisabeth Costello. Locke observes that all ideas are initiated by sensation or reflection. There must be a catalyst in the environment to sensitize men and animals to think (Fuller, Stecker, and Wright, 2000). This is exhibited by the response of men to problems and difficult situations, like the existence of oppression and exploitation which spark revolutionary ideologies. In this category, we find Karl Marx and Hegel with their communist ideology that inspired a revolution in Russia. Similarly, animals respond to situations, such as Sultan to satisfy hunger.
His other contention that the soul/mind starts to have ideas when it starts to perceive reflects Costello’s suggestion that reasoning is preceded by some probing into the state of affairs and being aware of circumstances. This is demonstrated by Red Peter when he asks: “Now that I’m here, what is there for me to do…..if I do not subject my discourse to reason….what is left to me, but gibber and emote and knock over my water glass, and generally make a monkey of myself” (Coetzee, 2003, 31).
In conclusion, the marginalization and oppression of animals should not rest on our perceived differences of intellect. Men have time and again oppressed their kind. Their reasoning capacity is facilitated by the need to adapt to circumstances, and animals respond equally to survive. Similarly, animals have demonstrated the capacity to learn, and therefore they are not lacking in mental capabilities. Until we get the chance to figure it out, we will never fully understand the mental processes of animals, just as Ramanujan’s ability was hidden from his captors.
To maim and kill animals based on reason is to contradict reason itself.
References
Adorno T., Horkheimer M. (1997). Dialectic of Enlightenment Volume 15. New York: Verso.
Aquinas, T. S., Pegis, C. A. (1997). Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Man and the conduct of life. New York: Hackett Publishing.
Coetzee, J. (2003). Elizabeth Costello. New York: Viking.
Fuller, G., Stecker, R., Wright, J. (2000). John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding in focus. New York: Routledge.
Gert, B. (2005). Morality: its nature and justification. New York: Oxford University Press, US.
Human Rights Watch. (2004). Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. Web.
Kant, I. (2001). Lectures on ethics. London: Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. (2003). Rationality in action. New York: MIT Press.