okay here are my major areas of interest in vegan philosophy, or vegan as an ′ism′.

a)is the phrase ′animal liberation′ an oxym oron? are rights and so on a part of human society, internal to human society, and not applicable to nonhuman animals? is it something akin to anthropocentrism to agrue for the application of human societal rights to the nonhuman world (as dubious as this dichotomy is). is there something inherently anthropcentric in the need to aply human values to nonhumans for us to treat them better? i suppose to some extent we can only work with human values, however this still begs the question of their relevance to nonhuman animals...? any thoughts?

b) (this is just a current arguement i′m having) how do we get around the inevitable utilitarianism when discussing the use of animals in medical research? the opposite arguement is that using animals to further human ends is justified in the relative suffering of nonhuman animals to humans. yet this feels intuitively wrong. a human that i have never met is still part of my moral community. they still deserve inclusion in my decision making to the degree my decicions affect their outcomes. yet with animal experimentation in medicine, do we argue that human need suffer when nonhuman animal research could provide solutions to human physical pathologies? what are peoples thoughts?

c) what is a good argument for the negation of human caused suffering in nonhuman sentient life that does not require us to include animals in our moral community? to apply rights to them?

i hope i haven′t broken the forum rule already, these are questions a wrangle with all the time and i hope they are not pointless.

guy montag.

Hello Guy. My thoughts are:
a) I would say that to the full extent we can only work with human values. Animal liberation is not an oxymoron. We aim to liberate them from unnecessary human interference. Animals are held captive in farms, in cages, in transport, in pens, in slaughterhouses, in laboratories. Do the animals want to liberated from the cages, the pens, the killing, the filthy stench etc to be able to live the lives that God/nature (depending on your view) designed them for - you bet they do! Animals are similar to us in that they eat, sleep, mate and defend just like we do - they have similar organs, neurons and biochemistry. Humans need to realise that we are also animals and the best of human values can be used to liberate all of us animals from exploitation and unnecessary suffering.

b)I would say that the human you have never met is part of your kmoral community and so ois the animal you have never met. Why do we think it is alright to force another animal to live in a cage without any relationship to his/her mother or family and be deliberately given a disease and/or cut up to possibly give a cure for a disease that a human is suffering from? Is it because they are less intelligent than humans? If so why not do some testing on people with intellectual disabilities? I believe humans need to focus on getting back to a whole foods diet and cutting down on pollution to decrease our susceptability to disease. For those of us who succumb to disease we should be happy that our treatments did not require the torture or other animals and if we do have to die let us do it with dignity, wisdom and courage.
c) why do you not want to include animals in our moral community? whether one is an atheist or a theist, non-human animals have a very close connection to humans.

Ah, Peter Milne, you said all of that so much better than I could.  I kept wanting to come back and respond to Guy, but felt I was a wee bit out of my intellectual depth, but strangely enough, had decided to have a go today or tomorrow, depending on the time I had.

And as for testing on animals, as is common knowledge, we would have far fewer drugs today (and maybe that would be to the good) if we had tested certain drugs on certain animals because of the adverse effects.  

But quite apart from that, what sort of person could continually and cold bloodedly torture, maim, blind, cripple and terrify other living, feeling creatures?  There is not another animal on earth that does this, and we consider ourselves superior?  Come now, please!  I can′t think of another animal that is so coldbloodedly cruel (and I have my doubts as to any altruistic reasons for this - profit being the more likely reason) and so destructive of its own environment.

Maybe what I have said isn′t relevant to what Guy was asking, but I′m afraid a person loses something, in my book, when he/she cannot afford the same consideration to non-human animals as would apply to him/herself.

I had to finish my earlier post in a hurry, sorry about the number of typos. I did want to comment further on point c).
I actually find it outrageous that human animals want to exclude non-human animals from their moral community. What is the philosophy behind this? Do some people say that it has no moral significance if I go out with a baseball bat and smash in the heads of cats or dogs? Would this not affect my life and emotions? Do these animals not feel fear and pain? Does it not affect other people or non human animals watching? I could go on with stuff about slaughterhouses etc but I would really like to hear what the philosophy behind Guy′s original question is.

I admit that my position is a bit fuzzy as I′m not a philosopher by trade and I go as much by empathy, intuition and emotion as I do by highly reasoned arguments.   However, I′ll put on my left-brained cap and give a brief stab at A:  It seems like a bit of diversionary philosophical tactic to suggest that wanting to respect non-human life is somehow anthropocentric.  Its an argument that is possibly being used because the reverse argument,  not valuing or respecting other forms of life in favor of valuing humans as having more rights or inherent value, is a much more anthropocentric position.  While it is understandable that many value beings that are like us over beings that differ from us, it seems short sighted.  What is the basis for valuing humans over other forms of life?  Does the ability to communicate suffering in verbal terms somehow grant value and grant a privileged position?  Should words always provide more ontological relevance to suffering?   Suggesting that it should seems like a much more anthropocentric position than the opposite regardless of what your position on post-structuralist thought or ontological relativity is.   It also begs the idea that the closer a living being is to us cognitively and emotionally the more value we should place on them.  That type of reasoning, if applied equally to humans, is catastrophic in its implications.  It might as well be a racist argument in favor of eugenics.  Should the strong always have dominion over the weak?  Arguing that those attributes that make humans able to dominate other animals give humans more value is like Athens arguing that might makes right in the Melian debate.  What should the prerequisites for kindness be?  Of course, if the people you are arguing with are theists who believe that only humans have souls and that only beings with souls can have rights, that′s an argument based on belief rather than reason and there is little hope of convincing them in my experience.  It′s very frustrating that I live in the US where religious fundamentalist, who often pose such claims, currently run the country.  

Here′s my amateur stab at B:  The utilitarian argument values human suffering over non-human suffering.  It′s easier to empathies with someone that is like us than different so there is a bias toward that approach when coming up with reasons for valuing humans over non-humans.  The bias is present even in the languages we use to debate the issue, which makes arguing difficult at times.   First off, there are many research options that don′t involve animal experimentation.  Many of these options are as effective as or more effective than animal research.  Much of the animal research currently being done is the result of out-dated government regulations regarding the safety of drugs and treatments.  A lot of times, animal research leads scientists down the wrong paths anyway because of differences in physiology.   Second, what epistemological evidence do people offer that suggests that a non-human animal suffers more than a human animal?  Again, we get back to the dubious dichotomy you mention.  Is the difference based on the ability to communicate suffering?  Is it based on the size of the brain experiencing the suffering?  The idea is ridiculous.  One might as well make an argument for measuring skulls in order to decide how human a human is or to justify experimenting on people that are regarded as less-human.   It′s the same line of reasoning that has led to some of the most horrific human acts in history.   We′ll never have a chance at universal human rights without getting at the core of the reasoning that underpins the arguments against universal human rights.  To get at the core of those arguments, you have to include non-humans in the struggle or you run the risk of justifying oppressing people.  

I think I′ve also answered C.  

Now I have to get back to my more right brained self and work on editing a short film about a homeless duck living in the desert looking for love in all the wrong places.  Thanks for the fun opportunity to debate.  Please post counter arguments.  It′s fun.  Sorry about my typos and gramatical errors too.   

Sorry... I just have to add:  Chickens of the world unite!

BTW- I just saw your many articles on convicing Christians. Good stuff. Thanks. Also, I am fully aware of the irony of arguing that kindness to more than humans isn′t a anthropocentric view while editing a short film about an anthropomorphized duck. I′m an absurdist. What can I say?

As for point a). Is it really unique that we place human values on another species? What about those children found over the centuries and particularly last century who have been brought up by wolves, gorillas and gazelles. Are those animals placing their societal values onto a human? Is this more a universal trait than a human one? Doesn′t a pet cat set up a hierarchy in which you have an assumed ordinal position and an agreed territory?

Is animal liberation an oxy-moron? Isn′t the point of animal liberation that we liberate animals from our behaviour and human made environments that cause them distress and pain?

It′s been a while since I have practiced philosoply myself and I′ll avoid some of Greytoad′s more Wittengensteinian arguments but will apply some of his ideas of empathy. When you are out with a pet dog and lightning strikes close by and you both quickly look at each other, I can almost guarantee what is going through the dog′s mind, you can see and feel it. I don′t believe we are too dissimilar in our outlook and thoughts, after all we pretty much follow the same physical form as one another with a few exceptions. Treating animals as second class citizens relies on a continuous reflection upon our differences whereas treating them as equals is based upon reflection of our similarities.

I′m rambling now because my wife is nagging me about eating dinner. I must admit though that since Greytoad has pulled some philosophical arguments out of his hat it is encouraging me to follow through with my decision to go get a degree in Philosophy. Hmmm.

What is your background Greytoad?

I don′t know if my hat is where I pulled them from. ;)

I was thinking more of Quine then Wittengenstein, but it doesn′t matter.   I don′t have a background in Philosophy and am not an expert.   I was an engineer at a certain computer company that took over a particular Australian computer company and promptly left the Australian market.   I quit my job partly for ethical reasons and partly because I wanted to pursue making extremely low budget films with a group of very talented friends in Tucson Arizona.  I′m quickly running out of money and not getting anywhere so I’ve started to look for another job to pay for my real interests.  I’ll have to cut back on the amount of time I spend on them.   I was a triple major for awhile back in school with Computer Science, film, and general humanities as my three centers of focus.  I′ve also considered going back and getting a degree in Philosophy, but it′s a bit technical and I′ve already done something too technical for my tastes.  A lot of the humanities have developed technical jargons that really only serve to justify tenure rather than actually accomplish anything.   I also find it difficult to justify spending a lot of money in order for someone to tell me what to do and what to think.  It′s amazing to me that I′m supposed to be living in a democratic society but there are almost no democratically run institutions in which I can participate more than one or two days out of the year.  I think I′d rather have someone pay me in order that they can tell me what to do and what to think.  It′s a little better.   Good luck with the degree.  

All of that exchange made fascinating reading, but, boy! did I get left at the bakehouse!!

Greytoad,
Interesting how you ended up with short film. I started out a computer programmer in 1988 and after a few years left and pursued clowning, drama and God knows what else. Messing around finding myself sort of thing. I got into Printmaking and went and got my degree in that and ended up creating digital art (the thing I was trying to avoid, computers). Not wanting to be the starving artist stereotype and envisioning myself talking eruditely about post-modernism and various manifestos whilst actually being able to afford the coffee I was drinking, I went back to programming. I do both now and I am slowly building my second only exhibition.

It′s like Michael Franti sings If you stray from the doctrine, you′ll see hard times.

Anyhow, I′d prefer to fund my own art projects that way I don′t have to compromise what I do because I seem to go against the grain in art too and like any institution, 80% of the people involved in arts are just politicing about and acting like ill-behaved monkeys because they can′t do anything useful with themselves in any other form of endeavour. Do I sound bitter and twisted about it! Hahaha :-D

Democratic societies are to benevolent dictatorships as Socialist societies are to communist regimes. Go figure!

I have many friends who are printmakers.  Interesting.  I′ve been to many parties where the conversations seem to center around postmodernism being dead and new futurism and the like.  It gets really old at times. However, some of the nicest people I know are printmakers.  One of my friends is currently getting her masters in printmaking.  She had a show in Chicago this summer and is currently in London.  She′s a meat eater, but very considerate.  I went to a party at her house one time and she had some vegan veggie burgers there for me and actually purchased a separate BBQ so I wouldn′t feel like I had to use the one that had been used for meat out of politeness.  (I wouldn′t have and it would have been awkward.)  She even had it setup far away from the one they were using for meat so I wouldn′t have to smell it.   Her roommate, whom I′d never met before, provided vegan snacks.   My ex-girlfriend′s family has never been that considerate to her and never provides her with vegan food at holidays.  We always had to bring our own food.  None of my close friends are vegan, but it′s nice that most of them respect my choice and offer me consideration like that.  

It′s interesting that you′re bitter about all the academic politicking in the art world.  I agree that postmodern theory is a waste of time.  What can postmodern theory′s like Jean Baudrillard′s accomplish?  How do simulations of simulations accomplish anything?  (Talk about an anthropocentric view of things!) How can art that doesn′t use any form of oppositional thinking ever make a statement the helps or changes the world?  Mostly it only serves to provide a gray mushy critical framework filled with big words with loose definitions that elitists can throw around to help with their academic tenure and make it look like they are really smart and doing something important.  Most film schools have a similar problem.  While most schools of art have moved past postmodern thinking, film schools really haven′t.  I tend to agree with Seijin Suzuki′s philosophy of film making.  His films look like art films but the elements of his films that make them look that way are there only to make the films more entertaining and to hide bad scripts he was forced to use because of his contract.   I′m also sometimes tempted to make films that I absolutely hate but have all the elements that postmodern critics like.  The people who walk out of those films are the ones I′d like to hang out with.  (I′m a bit bitter too.)  Conversely, I also sometimes make completely sincere heartfelt films, but do so by carrying an absurdity to the extreme and make it as entertaining as possible by subverting the subversive, using exploitation and perceived perversity to make a statement about what I find to be really perverse.   The film I′m doing about the duck is one of those.  It′s about a homeless transsexual alcoholic duck living in the desert, looking for love in all the wrong places.  It stars a foam hunting duck decoy that was signed by the University of South Dakota women′s basketball team.  (One of them ran out of money in a bar and traded the duck for a drink.)  People I′ve shown some early production cuts to either laugh constantly or cry or both.  A friend of mine is actually planning a shot by shot remake, but having it star a Panasonic DVX100a camera instead of a foam duck decoy.  I think that blunts the vegan message a bit, but he′s not a vegan.

One of my favorite film makers is a relative unknown named Damon Packard.  He′s an online friend.  He did a film called Reflections of Evil that is one of the most brilliant things I′ve ever seen.  It′s rare to see an experimental film that′s immensely entertaining.  Rather than pull a Tarantino and make some sort of messageless pastiche of simulations of films he loves, he steals directly from the films he loves and uses them to further his message.   Reflections of evil uses many film techniques of 70s horror and exploitation films, but uses them to expose the dangers of a society overwhelmed by fear.   His message is one of peace.  If you decide to pick up a copy, don′t purchase it retail in Australia.  You′ll get a chopped down 90min edit that doesn′t really work.   Purchase it directly from Damon at http://www.reflectionsofevil.com.   He′s a really nice guy who gave away over 20,000 copies of his DVD in order to get his message out and to possibly get funding for his next project.  It didn′t really work. Now he’s broke. He loves to hear what people think of his films, so drop him a line.   His film isn′t for everyone.  It′s a bit offensive, but he uses the offensive content to further a peaceful positive message.  If you watch it expecting an entertainment film with experimental elements you’ll be disappointed.  If you watch it expecting an experimental film with many highly entertaining elements, you’ll be very entertained.  

Greytoad,
I bet you just loved "Irma Vep" (hint of sarcasm there.) I saw that film all the way through, I was determined to bear the irritation to find out the ending even though two thirds of the audience had walked out. The ending was hilarious!

I must admit to being a Baudrillard fan only because I work with computers and simulacra all of the time. I′m currently applying the early findings of Saussure′s signs to my computer coding (anything to make the code cutting more meaningful!). Even though Baudrillard, Adorno, Christian Metz etc etc are philosophies for those who make money and gain prestige from social and cinematic theorising, it can make living in a city more exciting and interesting when sitting there and applying their ideas to your experience of the moment. Seeing a building and knowing it is bauhaus or has corinthian volutes on it′s pillars or working out the semiotic message in advertising is more interesting than viewing a cold grey exterior of a building and viewing ad′s that mean nothing.

I agree, post-modernism ends up imploding upon itself (to paraphrase Baudrillard) and is basically meaningless babble, talk about talk generally. I found it to be the field of study for those who couldn′t philosophise and so made up new words and worlds to sound intellectual. Like my lecturer in Art Theory I had, I studied philosophy at the same time in a separate class and after a few months of philosophising, the post-modern attempt at theorising about art sounded like a load of unproductive waffle that wasn′t going anywhere. I guess Jiddhu Krishnamurti would call them nice entertainment. They are.

A post-futurism, that′s good. The only good thing to come out of futurism was the fact that they nearly all killed themselves in a war they promoted as the great cleanser. Sense the Irony.

For me postmodern theory takes away meaning and our ability to mount effective arguments against the perils of modernity. Where do animals and nature fit into an incomprehensible digital world of simulation of simulations? What is the ontological relevance of an ant in a world where ontological relevance is based on semantics? How do you mount an argument for change when all you’re left with is cognitive mapping? While it may be an interesting intellectual exercise to understand and deconstruct the cultural messages around us and to understand their relation in reference to our personal subject positions, postmodern theory only really serves to reward the creators of mediocre meaningless copies of copies of long dead things as geniuses. It takes away more meaning than it provides. I think artists like it because it’s easier. It’s been done. It’s over. Artists should move on to more productive tasks. It only makes it harder to change the status quo and makes sincerity seem naive. When the ontological relevance of kindness is relative only in language and only to our subject positions, where does that leave veganism? What makes postmodern theorists think they can prevent atrocity by not saying anything and deconstructing all truth? Atrocity shouldn’t mean abandoning meaning and rationality. Atrocity should make people more careful about what they mean and more careful about rationality. It should make people temper rationality with kindness not abandon meaning all together. I don’t want a digital body. I guess I don’t see postmodern art as nice entertainment. I see it as a waste. Look at all of Tarantino′s films. He’s not doing anything new or unique. He’s removed the meaning from the original forms he’s copied. He’s destroying culture, not reinterpreting it. Postmodernism as a movement doesn′t make Hitler less likely, it makes it harder to keep people like George Bush from launching Orwellian attacks on populations. The smart people who would normally see through his lies and cry out about his atrocities are too busy deconstructing truth. The smart people who should be thinking about new more equitable and just economic models are too busy arguing that the global economy is incomprehensible. The smart people who should be thinking about the ethics involved in the mass killing of animals on the alter of capitalism and it’s relation to dehumanization and war, are too busy thinking that without truth people wont be able to justify domination. Postmodern art only makes it harder to argue for justice and kindness. Why care about the perils of modernity and technology if we′ve transcended them into a new incomprehensible age where "the chain of meaning" has broken down. How do you build a movement if you believe everyone is isolated into their own unique subject positions and all have their own discrete semantic ontology with no relation to anything real? Even if someone believed that, why would they use it as an excuse for non-action?

I just don’t get it. If you look at all the animals getting killed or all the bombs being made and dropped on children because of rational arguments devoid of kindness, why would anyone think that putting up roadblocks in the way of our ability to argue against these acts would help?

Simulation doesn′t include animals until they enter the hyper-reality of the digital world as a sign, but the saving grace is that hyper-reality is a closed system and you cannot actually exist without the real world backing it up. You don′t really need Post-Modernism to launch Orwellian attacks, just look at the Egyptian Government bombing of  it′s own people for decades and blaming others, that′s 1984 all the way. So is the European Union.

My artwork digitizes Australian animals and tries to capture their spirituality and significance in today′s world. I′m desperate to put the Koala back on the map of social consciousness as a meaningful character and not a caricature as so often has been the case. I′ve been relatively successful with this project so far and the computer is a great tool for providing happy accidents and revealing the hidden. This though I see as a more positive play on simulation.

As for preventing atrocity, there are some elements of Simulation that enlighten us to the way we behave and why. Most of people′s reactions are based upon learned responses from media. Continual violence on the television to situations presented on American TV transport themselves into our culture and now we have total overreactions to things on the street because people who are passively drugged on the Methodone Metronome can′t distinguish reality from hyperreality. Those around 18 years of age that I talk to are consumed with video games, Web interfacing and a media that distorts and exaggerates the truth; where white trash are rewarded for behaving like idiots with cars and millions of dollars and the mediocre become stars overnight far superceding any person with real talent. There is no ontological significance in any of this side of simulation except in relation to our immersing ourselves in a world of simulacra.

I personally don′t believe that these theories are too much to blame for what can be attributed to human arrogance and rapacious greed though. The first world is a small minority on this planet and in most of the world the arguments are settled by the gun, not by philosophical discourse. I hate to bring it up but 911 brought that point home and punctured the world the media would have us lose ourselves in. Typically though even this symbolic act was quickly consumed by mass media and talked about to the point of exhaustion where I was personally sick of hearing about it. That is the bad side of these sorts of theory.

Still, having lost our language of symbolism and any motivation for manifestoes of social change, what would you propose be the next step for art carrying a message of equality for all species upon our planet? I know its not a post-futurist outlook. Could it be that you are pushing an art movement that provides an emotive response as opposed to an intellectual drivelling response. I could understand that as that is the purpose of my art, to promote an emotive response that releases feelings of spirituality, that religious feeling you can get when viewing a panorama and then succumb to Maslow′s peak experience whilst incorporating our Flora and Fauna to bring that about.

Hi grey toad and duane. I only get on the net once a week and I wanted to comment on grey toad′s first post. I like your way of thinking but there is one point I′d like to debate. You say a that the idea that the closer a living being is to us cognitively
and emotionally the more value we should give it ...is  catastrophic in it′s implications. I disagree. This idea is not catastrophic if humans valued all life as sacred and magical. If this is the case we do not kill, cage or use animals unless it is absolutely necessary or unavoidable. For example there is nothing wrong with me valuing my friendship with other people or animals over my relationship with a poisonous snake. I admire, respect and defend the rights of snakes to have habitat but if one of them threatens the life of my friends or even the life of a stranger mammal I will do what i have to save the life of the higher order animal. People and non human animals have many friends/family who will miss them dearly. Snakes and insects don′t have these properties as far as I know and feel. Humans have so much capacity to love and help others, just look at the lives of people who dedicate themselves to helping others. I certainly don′t argue that attributes that make humans able to dominate other animals gives us more value, but I do argue that attributes that make humans more likely to help others, to give up their lives to help free the suffering make us more valuable. The problem is the consciousness that allows humans to cut off thier natural feelings of love and compassion in order to kill and destroy life for selfish purposes. I am a theist who believes that all animals have souls and I have massive problems with fundamentalists who have lost their feelings of compassion for, and solidarity with  the non-human creation. I think we have to acknowledge our differences and respect our human feelings. As I have said before, if there were no difference between the value and role of life forms we may as well kill a cow as kill a cauliflower for food. Plant life has a different value than animal life and insect life has a different value to mammal life. Interested to hear your thoughts.

Peter,
A hierarchical order of being seems to be a concomitant of Western Theism in general. Where does this hierarchy come from? Plato proposed that if cows believed in a God, then that God would more than likely be in the form of a cow: The premiss being that our view of a single Creator is Anthropocentric in origin and therefore the most exhalted creation is naturally ourselves (I’m excluding cherubim and other celestial beings from this argument).
For such a hierarchy to persist we must first presume that the attributes we chose to represent a Higher Order animal are absolutely correct.
The attributes we choose are love, compassion and the motivation to help others (I’ll assume by others we mean higher order animals).

Other animals have these abilities too. Fruit bats and Kookaburras all practice Altruism of a kind by sharing food and helping one another. Meerkats also practice helping others in societal roles where one meerkat which be a guardian who watches out for the rest from a post and calls to them when the one playing guardian sees danger. Meerkats will practice self-sacrifice to save a cub regardless of whose cub it is by huddling together and fending off foes to save the cub.  
Sparrows practice altruism also and when one sparrow for whatever reason is rendered unconscious upon the ground, often two other sparrows will land beside it and keep watch to ensure no harm comes to it until it is awake.
As we go smaller we find that ants farm aphids and caterpillars for their valuable excrements. Ants will often farm aphids through all stages of the aphid’s development, moving the aphids to various parts of a plant depending upon its stage of growth and its needs; this helps the Aphid with healthy development and helps the ants collect heir due and farm the offspring. A better example is how ants interact with caterpillars. Ants will continue to make use of the caterpillars waste until such time as it spins its cocoon. The ants will move these cocoons to another part of their gallery and upon emergence of the butterfly, the ants will guide the butterfly out of the gallery and onto the land where the butterfly dries out its wings and flies off. The ants could just kill the butterfly or caterpillar but they don’t. These animals and insects help other species. Do they have compassion? How could we measure this and with what yardstick? Maybe we are not the correct instrument to use for such a measurement.
I don’t believe that compassion, love and the motivation to help others is truly a congenital human trait for it seems pretty much taught at an early age. Jealousy, selfishness and lack of compassion seem very much the domain of a child before didactic lessons are meted out to adjust his/her attitude to conform with accepted societal norms.
When taught I have found that dogs, cats and birds can all behave compassionately to one another, especially when sick.
There are plenty of examples of different species working together to achieve their goals much like the human and canine relationship. There are animals that creatively make tools, from monkeys and lemurs to bluebirds and herons. There are animals that have well defined languages and social behaviour from meerkats and prairie dogs to whales and dolphins. We seem to have more similarities to other species than differences.
To say that all animals are sacred only some are higher on the totem pole than others is to imply that all animals are sacred, only some animals are more sacred than others.  We rely on bees to pollinate our flora, which we cannot do by ourselves half as efficiently. We rely on mammals, insects and worms to break down leaves and eco waste to fertilize our grounds. Our whole livelihood relies on a chain of animals from big to small, so how can I value any one less than another? In this world there is nothing so small as to be unimportant.
Then again if the qualities of compassion, love and altruism are of such high regard to a Creator, then being omniscient, a Creator would have imbued their entire creation with these qualities and being omniscient would have known the outcome of their decision had they not done so and have had the power to stop an undesirable result. Perhaps our measurement of the value of things is wrong, misguided or we have asked the wrong question. Perhaps the faces of the one Creator are many and different.
I must admit that I see the world almost opposite to your view. I see a majority of humans as a waste of time and a persistent collective hydra; whereas I find animals cannot help but be honest in expression and are less conniving (I will except the chimpanzee from this as they too are a cunning bunch).
I don’t believe that your viewpoint has catastrophic effects but I can see where a hierarchical point of view based upon difference can cause problems. It is not in a too distant past where a hierarchy based upon the colour of one’s skin and one’s gender proved other humans of less value as the white Anglo-Saxon male backed by the religious fervour of the time. We are not the only race to do this and genocide has been committed by races of various first world countries in the name of their own self-importance.
Where Greytoad comes from I guess he would still see these attitudes in the South which is why he has such a strong reaction to such a hierarchy.

Hi Duane. I appreciate your comments and I am aware of the points you make.  The non human animal world is amazing and I have spent a fair bit of time observing and reading about it. I agree that n-h animals are less conniving. we look after a dog who is just so beautiful and innocent, yet we have another one who is always trying to push the boundaries to sneak more food somehow. I don′t think I agree that humans have to be taught to be compassionate and loving. I have known a few people who made their money from animal farming who told me that when they were young they loved  a particular farm animal until they were forced to kill him/her by their parents. they told me they quickly learnt to bury their feelings of love for individual animals. Also the number of children who defy their parents/society and stop eating meat at a young age also add weight to my argument. I would say that humans are born with the capacity for most qualities in them, but that individuals differ in which qualities are stronger in them. In some children selfishness and cruelty may pedominate, others seem to be born with a gift for sharing and looking after others. Scientists say it is genetics I would say that it may be genetics but that it is also determined by the state of the soul of the being that is temporarily that body. In my view (and that of many great religious and spiritual traditions) this is most likely a result of previous lives.  Human parents have the role of helping to shape their children by encouraging the positive qualities in them and discouraging negative qualities of cruelty, selfishness, jealousy (this one is a hard one to deal with) etc. You rightly mention the many positive qaulities of animals but we must remember the negative qualities that they have in abundance. It can be seen in the extremes of wild dogs wantonly killing sheep, male lions etc killing the babies of other male lions,  predator animals capturing live baby animals for their offspring to toy with while the poor thing is in terror until they eventually kill it. We have a couple dogs we look after and they do tend to be very self centered, jealous and will kill small animals. we try to teach them better manners and they′re doing their best but they are still all these things. Maybe we are just lousy teachers, but we love ′em to death anyway. However my main point here is that I agree that as mammals we have many similarities however human beings have a much greater intellectual intelligence and therefore whether we like it or not we have incredible power. As humans we have the choice to cultivate the good qualities in us and make this earth a heaven to live on for all creatures. conversely we have the capacity let our negative qualities dominate, the result being to make this planet a hell to live on. Unfortunately with all our power, we seem to be using it to make it hell on earth at the moment. What I am saying is we should not let the fact that the majority of humans are going down the path of selfishness, greed and hard heartedness blind us to the fact that humans are capable of love, compassion and gentleness to an enormous degree. People like Jill Robertson of animals asia, devoting all her time and money to saving animals in a foreign land from ghastly suffering. people who give up their families to go to work among starving and suffering people. The hundreds who go to jail for opposing war machines, animal cruelty etc. the lesser known people who everyday do things for others, trying to make the world a better place. Our beautiful brother/sister n-h animals are unable to exert this influence over the planet.
On to the god thing, the question is; is it just an accident of nature that humans have this incredible intellectual intelligence or were we designed by some higher being or beings? Both ideas seem pretty incredulous to me but I′m going with the idea of a god because, apart from other things all my heros believed in god - Ghandi, martin luther King, Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Jesus Christ. I must admit the Buddha was a bit iffy on the subject. I can′t go along with the idea that we are all the result of some big bang that had no intellence behind it.
As for the heirachy thing, I don′t think it is fair to compare a hierachy based on race with a heirachy based on species. If we use our intelligence we can see that the difference between a black human and a white human is miniscule whereas the diffence between a human and an ant; or a dog and a flea; or a microbe and an elephant is massive. So we can categorically and absolutely say that heirachy based on race is wrong. However I do not believe that we can say the same about as heirachy based on species. I′m going out on a limb here and saying that an elephant is more sacred then a microbe. Sure the microbe may have an important job to do but I′m going to save elephants before I save microbes - ditto for dogs and fleas.
Well I think i′ve said enoiugh and I′m running outa time. Love to hear a response.

Some terrific points you made, Peter!

Hi Peter

Continuing our exploration of this concept of the value of things I start with animals’ negative attributes.
You mention that  animals have negative attributes in abundance citing the capers of wild dogs, lions and predatory animals behaviour as examples. I agree that these particular animals carry out some pretty distasteful acts but we are talking here of predators. Expecting a predatory animal to display a morally compassionate attitude to all and sundry could be likened to expecting a drunkard to behave in  a sober manner. This is a predator’s nature and I cannot hold that against them. Could we make a similar example if we were to choose whales, butterflies, rabbits and cows? Probably not so easily.

Lets examine the similarities between predators and our species. We have abundant negative attributes too; rape, murder, war, domestic violence (some where offspring are killed), women leaving children to fend for themselves for a preferred male, priests raping children and women travelling in groups to Asian countries to rape 12 year old boys. Then there is genocide. We are not so noble as a species we just don’t televise our negative attributes as much or in as much detail as we would n-h animals’ atrocities.

Early attachments to animals need not be an act of compassion. Chimpanzees also have pet animals. An article in NatureAustralia magazine (Thomas 2002 p.22) delineates on New Guinean chimpanzees that play with and groom an animal called a Hyrax as well as using baboons and monkeys as pets. Within us this could be a primeval compulsion instead of an act of free willing compassion, after all there is only a 2% difference in genes between chimpanzees and ourselves. The suppression of feelings is merely a Westernized response to a situation in which we have no control and are expected to maintain an emotionally controlled composure. The ideal of our striving in Western society is marvelously encapsulated in painter Fernand Leger’s “Three Women” of 1921 where the women painted show a sublimation of emotions and passion culminating in absolute harmonious social relations.
A response from a more emotive society, say any one country colonized by the Spanish, would be seen as an overreaction and out-of-control by citizens of a Western society. In an emotive society emotional displays encourage social participation and not the aloofness which our society prescribes to avoid the embarrassment of a “loss-of-control”. This is all built into the social structure of the society we live in.
Thus we have a number of plausible explanations for children’s seeming display of compassion and subsequent response to violent acts perpetrated upon objects of endearment.

On to the God thing. Whether we have a greater intellectual capacity because of design or creation is no more incredulous than every being having a Soul which temporarily resides within themselves, and these Souls having previous ephemeral incarnations. All these views are valid and are backed by anecdotal and-or empirical evidence. Putting aside God and Darwin lets investigate the concept of the individual Soul. There are many religions that believe in a Soul and Jainism is one from India that believes in an incarnating Soul. A Soul in the Janist system can be incarnated within any number of flora or fauna on our planet depending on how it leads its incarnated life. Less than ideal behaviour will lead to the next incarnation of a Soul being in that of a less complex organism or plant. Because of their belief that one can incarnate into pretty much anything, Jains practice extreme pacifism and harm none. To Jains all organisms and plants are equally sacred and shelter a Soul the same as their own. A Jain would prefer to be eaten alive than cause bad karma by an act of violence for any reason.
The concept of Soul in most institutionalised Western religions appeared as a tool of propaganda and oppression promising serfs a life of plenitude after death if they spent their life in servitude of landowners and the political aspirants of God. To save digression I’ll keep the latter to a brief comment.
Like the concept of God and the conjectures of historical events piloting our evolution, the concept of a Soul is an abstract concept and is given form by dint of our languages structure. The mere mention of the word Soul assumes its existence, yet we do not assume the existence of a unicorn or leprechaun when we mention their names. Our language treats the objects of everyday life and imagination as one and the same thing, the only difference being that a physical object remains unchanged despite out definition of it whereas an abstract concept necessarily changed by a change in its definition. Our waking reality is created by words that signify a relation to something supposedly real. Our language masquerades a reality in the form of sub-vocalisation based upon consensually validated references (see the semiotics of Saussure and his concept of langue).

I must disagree that humans have a greater intellectual capacity which produces power. Our advancement is based more upon the ingenuity and efforts of a small proportion of our population and our physiology being better designed for tool making. Take the New Caledonian Crow for example:

From (Holden 2003 p.19)

Recent research revealed that the New Caledonian Crow has a talent for tool-making that far surpasses the fiddle sticks Chimpanzees have mastered.

Their captive crow was presented with a small piece of wire, while her bucket of food was placed our of reach inside a pipe. After assessing the situation, Betty [the name of their crow] used her beak to fashion a hook out of the straight piece of wire and used this gadget to fish for her food. Betty’s cognitive abilities are all the more astonishing considering she had had little exposure to wire before the trials and no training with pliant material.

The complexity of their [New Caledonian Crows] tool kit proves these unassuming birds have perhaps the greatest cognitive capabilities of all non-human animals.

The same goes for Herons in Japan learning to catch fish by simulating humans throwing bread into ponds, using feathers, to bring fish to the surface after they had observed humans feeding fish. The Bonobo (Southern Pygmy Chimp) thatches a bed of twigs in a tree and lays on it quite like we do with out beds, they also use branches of leaves broken off of trees as umbrellas when it rains. Ten there are dolphins and on and on we could go. These animals only disadvantage is their physiological structure, given opposable thumbs who know what they could achieve.

Lastly, the hierarchy thing, the crux of our debate. A hierarchy based upon race and gender is comparable to a hierarchy based upon species because both hierarchies are the consequence of our ability to judge and place a value upon things. Judgment is a free-floating agent and applies itself quite readily to everything we experience.
At one point in our history it was of serious debate as to whether a black African or American Indian could copulate and produce offspring with women of [our species]. To us the answer and assumptions in such a question are obvious but historically this was not so obvious. In modern society a Brazilian male may murder his wife with impunity if he deems that act necessary because she has behaved in a way that “dishonoured” him. In Brazil women are judged to be of lower value to a man. Our society once viewed women inferior intellectually to men (and still do to some extent backed now by spurious empirical data). Does this mean that it would be preferable to kill a female over a male because we judge the male superior intellectually?

Again, where would you judge the value of a human who took it upon themselves to attack one of your dogs and possibly try to kill your dog. The dog being of lesser intellectual capacity surely is not worth killing its attacker for, or is the dog as family of more importance?

Your turn… :-)


Abbie Thomas, “Chimp’s Living Doll”, 2002 Spring, NatureAustralia, 22
Karina Holden, “Go Gadget Crow!”, 2003 Winter, NatureAustralia, 19

Okay Guy Montag - you started all this!!  Where are you?  This should be right up your alley and there hasn′t been a peep out of you!

Hi Duane
You′ve put some thought into that response! Firstly to the negative attributes that NH-animals exhibit. I pretty much agree with what yo say - I have seen a lot of grumpy, jealous and self centered herbivores though ( I grew up on a cattle and sheepo farm). As I see it different species have different tendencies to act in different ways and this obvious - if you are born a tiger the chances are you will be unable to resist killing for food. If you are born a pigeon you will be unable to resist pecking things off the ground. As species get more complex they exhibit a wider range of behaviour and emotions. Mammals and birds obviously have very sophisticated behaviours and emotions. individuals will display differnet behaviours and emotions, some good and some bad. By good i mean helpful to others by bad I mean painful to others. I would put predators killing for food as neutral because the killing helps their group and they cannot help it. Humans on the other hand can help it - they do have a choice. In this day and age nearly all people know about vegetarianism and they can choose what to do. nearly all Nh animals don′t have this choice, they act on instinct and this one differentiation between humans and n-h animals, although there may be exceptions ( exceptions only prove the rule). I am well aware of all the * (hey they don′t let you swear on this forum!)things that humans do and I think we are quite well exposed to it through media coverage of crime. Genocide, war crimes and farm animal abuse tend to be hidden away. As I observe the world I see humans capable of the best and the worst behaviour of any species.
This gets on to your next point as to whether compassion is in built or not. I take your points and would say ′whatever′. I do think it is ′in us′ but the bottom line is that we must either foster or teach our children about compassion and any other positive attribute. On a paersonal note I can think of many attributes that I have taught myself to have more of - courage, patience, generosity, friendliness etc - and I must admit i didn′t have much of some of these things when I was a kid. The bottom line is that people can change and we have to work for that change in ourselves and in others if we can.

On the God thing. I think the Jains have some great ideas but I simply disagree with their attempt to treat all species the same for reasons I have already mentioned. If they really practised this belief then they would need to be fruitarians as they would see no difference between the life of a carrot and that of a pig. Maybe they are fruitarians and good on them if they are, I think that is highly commendable. your thoughts on the idea of the soul were a bit abstract for me. Two points, it is a bit of an abstact idea and it means different things to different people. To me it has something to do with the ′life force′ and it is a magical quality that all life possesses and that I experience by interacting with life. I have no time for any stupid ideas based on ridiculous doctrines about souls that are used by people in power to Lord it over other human beings.

Your disagreement with my assertion that human′s greater intellectual intellegence gives us the power we obviosly have is valid. The story of the crow is amazing, I think I had heard it on the radio at some stage. I still think it is a combination of our greater intellectual capacity and our physiology but who knows. The bottom line is that we do have this power which we have used to kill, destroy and manipulate the earth and all it′s inhabitants for our own ends or more correctly for the short term ends of a minoirity of humans. We even use this power to kill each other and fight destructive wars. I actually think we will destroy most of the planet and life on it if we don′t wake up soon. However i stand by my belief that humans have the ability to be great and loving stewards of the planet and that one day we will do this. Our power to manipulate the rest of creation is not going to go away, so we must all learn to become loving beings or we will destroy the planet. I′m holding on to the hope that we can change because I have seen individuals change.

To finish off with the racism/speciesism debate. I disagree with the fact that they are comparable. Yes they both come about because of our abilty to judge and place value on things. The question is whether that judgement or value is fair. In the case of discrimination against women and racism both science and reason tell us it is unfair. The inconsistencies are obvious in a society that puts men in a superior position because of strength while at the same time putting down negroes who themselves are not inferior in strength. However I believe there are many good reasons for discriminating against a tick that may kill a dog or a human. when it comes to discriminating between humans and other mammals the reasons are less obvious. You only mention intellect in the heirachy that I proposed but there are other criterion such as emotional intelligence (ability to form signifigant bonds with others etc) and the ability to feel pain. So in this criteria there is no reason to hold a male as being superior to a woman in value. In my thought it is a prerequisite to be a vegan if one wants to be a truly moral human being (again there may be exceptions to this rule) so there is never a reason to kill another creature for food. The question gets harder when someone wants to clear some land to grow food. If other animals have equal rights we could never do this. My brain is starting to fry so I will leave this argument and wait for your response.

As to your question about a person attacking and killing my dog. If I was around I would try to stop him/her and may use force if I thought it would help. If they had already killed my dog (or my child for that matter) I wouldn′t want to kill them, I would want to help them. The same if a dog killed my child, I wouldn′t want the dog killed, I would want to help him/her. It may mean that the killer is locked up for the safety of others but I would see it as my resposibility to try to help that person feel and express regret for what they have done, or in the dogs case to help him/her change his disposition. If it were not possible then the creature at least deserves to leave a life free from harm to themselves or others - prison or a cage for life I guess (as much as I hate both those things). I try to practice the teachings of Jesus in loving your enemies and doing good to those who hurt you.

Anyway I′ve gotta go Duane, I′ll have to talk more about vegan speciesism next time.

I fear Peter that two more posts on this subject and it will wear pretty thin :-)

So, I′ve been examining our different views on practicing veganism, mine being a deductive point of view and your′s possibly inductive in origin(?). This whole debate prompted me to investigate some philosophers who might shed some light on what Vegan could be beyond general guidelines and consensus.

Anyhow I′m gathering info and exploring a Greek philosopher′s ideas at present as his philosophy seems akin to my own (except he ate meat most likely). I′m preparing an article for one of our magazines based upon my exploration of Aristotle′s philosophy of ′essences and potentials′. (This may change depending upon the outcome and if there is another philosopher who better fits the bill).

Do you think there is a Vegan philosophy as such or would you say it seems to be a myriad of eclectic personal philosophies glued together with vegan principles and nomenclature?

Just deleted the question I wrote? I had one and thought better of it :-) Bit too controversial and emotive. Back to other posts.

Hi Duane
I′ve been away for a couple of weeks.
It seems to me that vegans are a group of people with many different philosophies but we all hold in common the belief that it is wrong to kill or abuse animals unnecessarily. We band together because we are such a minority in a society that kills and tortures animals by the billion each day. I am a theist and I mix with mostly athiests in the animal rights movement. I feel much more comfortable with an athiest vegan than an inflexible, naive, hard-hearted christian/muslim/hindu etc ′robot′.
As for vegetarian greek philosophers I only know pythagorus and Plutarch (and not very well at that).
Long live compassionate diversity!