Abstract
The grounds of moral obligations concerning well-being are theoretically distinct from those of obligations concerning the continuation of life. This philosophical distinction has an important ideological consequence within the animal defence movement: it separates the Animal Welfarist/Reformist approach, on one hand, from the Abolitionist/Animal Rightist approach, on the other, with the former taking the view that premature (painless) death does not harm the animal that dies. The goal of this chapter is to challenge this position by asking is it morally wrong when, for instance, a free-range pig is kill unexpectedly and instantaneously by, for example, a single shot to the head while it is sleeping? We will see some possible answers to that question, and each of these answers will correspond to different moral reasons why an animal may be harmed by death, even if it does not involve suffering.
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Notes
- 1.
We must bear in mind the distinction between the notion of death, or being dead, on one hand and the notion of dying on the other. The focus of this chapter is the event of death itself, not the process of dying, a process that is frequently a source of pain and suffering for the victim.
- 2.
P. Singer presented his position on the morality of killing animals in the article “Killing Humans and Killing Animals,” Inquiry 22 (1979): 145–56 (later revisiting the topic in the book Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)). Like many other philosophers, he believes that death does not counteract animals’ desire to live because they presumably lack both self-awareness and a concept of the future (possibly with the exception of some mammals with higher mental faculties). But Singer follows the utilitarian tradition—that is, he believes it is wrong to kill any creature whose life probably contains, or that we can cause to contain, more pleasure than suffering. However, according to Singer, such an error can be repaired by replacing the slaughtered animal with another with a pleasant life—the so-called replaceability argument: “given that an animal belongs to a species incapable of self-consciousness, it follows that it is not wrong to rear and kill it for food, provided that it lives a pleasant life and, after being killed, will be replaced by another animal which will lead a similarly pleasant life and would not have existed if the first animal had not been killed” (153). For a critique of this argument, see G. Frey, Rights, Killing, and Suffering: Moral Vegetarianism and Applied Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), Chap. 15.
- 3.
Even a philosopher very much in favor of animals’ right to life, Bernard Rollin, confesses, “I find myself unable to directly respond to the argument about animals having no concept of death. If, indeed, most animals do not understand the concept of death, that would seem prima facie to be a morally relevant difference between humans and animals regarding their right to life.” B. E. Rollin, Animals Rights and Human Morality (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1992), 86, emphasis in the original.
- 4.
Jonathan Glover formulates the following principle: “Except in the most extreme circumstances, it is directly wrong to kill someone who wants to go on living, even if there is reason to think this desire not in his own interests.” J. Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (London: Penguin Books, 1977), 83.
- 5.
According to Aaron Simmons, animals do not need to conceive or be aware of desires toward the future for death to be detrimental to them: it is sufficient for there to be innate desires for various pleasures, tastes, and predilections that emerge over the course of the animal’s life—that is, dispositional desires. A dispositional desire is one that would probably be experienced by the individual given the appropriate circumstances. I have a permanent (dispositional) desire to remain alive, even if I do not have such a desire at this exact moment. But if you were to point a loaded gun at my head, I would immediately form this desire to survive. So what is the moral wrongness of killing animals? The answer, according to this approach, is that it involves the destruction of their dispositions. The death of the pig consists of a wrongdoing because it means denying the animal the ability to repeatedly seek and take part in activities that he or she finds pleasant and that, as sought and pursued states, are of value to him or her. A. Simmons, “Do Animals Have an Interest in Continued Life? In Defense of a Desire-Based Approach,” Environmental Ethics 31 (2009): 375–92.
- 6.
This is the position of Singer, who nonetheless, recognizing the difficulty in establishing that an animal does not have the desire to live, recommends applying the benefit of the doubt to the animal in question, in this case the chicken. Singer, “Killing Humans and Killing Animals,” 156.
- 7.
R. Cigman, “Death, Misfortune and Species Inequality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10, no. 1 (1981): 47–64.
- 8.
R. Godlovitch, “Animals and Morals,” in Animals, Men and Morals: An Enquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-Humans, ed. S. Godlovitch, R. Godlovitch, and J. Harris (London: Victor Gollancz, 1971), 168, emphasis in the original.
- 9.
E. Johnson, “Life, Death, and Animals,” in Ethics and Animals, ed. H. B. Miller and W. H. Williams (Clifton, NJ: Humana Press, 1983), 128–29. Note that the interest in avoiding pain does not legitimate interest in not dying, as cases of euthanasia and suicide clearly illustrate. Indeed, if what awaits a pig is the assurance of a life of uninterrupted misery and continuous suffering, it would be in the animal’s interest to be slaughtered immediately (even if his or her slaughter were to bring intense yet fleeting pain and suffering).
- 10.
S. F. Sapontzis, Morals, Reason, and Animals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 167.
- 11.
L. E. Johnson, A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance and Environmental Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
- 12.
Rollin, in Animals Rights and Human Morality, also presents an ethical conception based on teleologically founded interests. What is morally good for an animal, in Rollin’s opinion, is the promotion and the realization of the (genetically coded) nature of animals—their telos. It is in the pig’s interest (1) to live his or her life and (2) to live it as a pig—that is, according to his or her telos.
- 13.
H. Rolston III, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 100.
- 14.
According to Regan, the harm that death causes is by deprivation, by loss: it forecloses all possibilities of finding satisfaction in some activity in a future situation, even if it is admitted that animals do not have a preference in remaining alive or avoiding death. T. Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 99–103.
- 15.
Sapontzis says that “death is a misfortune for S, because it is S’s possibility of future enjoyment and fulfillment that is destroyed by S’s death. This is true whether S is human or an animal.” Sapontzis, Morals, Reason, and Animals, 172.
- 16.
According to DeGrazia, “death is an instrumental harm in so far as it forecloses the valuable opportunities that continued life would afford.” D. DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 61.
- 17.
Rachels declares, “If there was anything bad about the death, it is because we are able to view a life as in principle open-ended, as always having further possibilities that still might be realized, if only it could go on.” J. Rachels, The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 51.
- 18.
Here, the good that consists of staying alive could be outweighed by a greater harm, as in cases where euthanasia or suicide would be justified. In other words, from the idea of the badness of killing, it does not follow that there are no worse events than death.
- 19.
For a highlight of the state of the art in that field, see R. W. Lurz, ed., The Philosophy of Animal Minds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
- 20.
D. DeGrazia, “Self-Awareness in Animals,” in The Philosophy of Animal Minds, ed. R. W. Lurz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 201–17.
- 21.
D. R. Griffin, Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), Chap. 1.
- 22.
The principle of respect for life is associated with the figure of Albert Schweitzer. According to Schweitzer, “it is good to maintain and to promote life; it is bad to destroy life or to obstruct it.” The person who is guided by such a principle destroys life only out of inevitable necessity and never based on irreflection, says Schweitzer, admitting that, because of the way human life takes place on Earth, we are morally guilty most of the time, even if we do our best. This view challenges us with a proliferation of moral dilemmas, since it is practically impossible to live in this world without destroying life at the same time. A. Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics (London: A. and C. Black, 1929).
- 23.
T. Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 2.
Bibliography
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———. Practical Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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Naconecy, C. (2018). What Is Morally Wrong with Killing Animals (if This Does not Involve Suffering)?. In: Linzey, A., Linzey, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36671-9_18
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