The Lives Of Animals: Personhood, Experiments, And Rights
Elizabeth Costello, an elderly author, has become disgusted with the exploitation of animals, and has decided to use her invitation to Appleton College as an opportunity to generate discussion about animal rights. In “The Lives of Animals”, J. M. Coetzee offers many perspectives on animal rights throughout Elizabeth’s lectures, dinner and a debate. She alludes to philosophers, poets and scientists throughout the discussions, which covered the consciousness of animals, the ability of scientific tests to determine it, the criteria of personhood and considering rights for animals. Elizabeth makes a provocative comparison of animal facilities and concentration camps to emphasize the importance of sympathy and dangers of ignorance.
Elizabeth disputes Rene Descartes’ claim that animals are automata, machines programmed to survive without language, reason or consciousness. She says that just the act of living in the world means having a soul, which is a biocentric concept. She blames Descartes’ view on the lack of scientific understanding of our genetic relationship to animals and close studying of mammals like apes and dolphins. Now that we have this information, humans are more likely to shift the paradigm on animal consciousness. One obstacle in creating this shift is testing and proving the intelligence of animals.
Professor O’Hearne, Elizabeth’s debate partner, mentioned that animals have had little success in proving strategic, conscious thinking in scientific behavioral studies (Coetzee, J. M. , et al. , 1999). Elizabeth explained that the tests to determine the animal’s mental capacity are anthropocentric and lack real-life complexity. She compares it to the success of a human dropped into a remote jungle. We are testing animals on their similarity to humans, rather than discovering their unique consciousness.
This is evident in the discussion about Wolfgang Kohler and his learning experiment with an ape named Sultan. The bananas fed to Sultan were put out of reach, and Sultan was required to solve the problem using his physical surroundings. Elizabeth emphasized that many types of thinking, like speculation, were not accepted in this test. Sultan could silently question, “why did the man put the food out of my reach? Why is he punishing me? What did I do?” but these would all be the “wrong question”, and would lead to his starvation (Coetzee, J. M. , et al. , 1999). The only right way of thinking to survive – and pass the test – is to ask “what can I do to solve the problem?” These tests show that the ape can use his surroundings to survive, but the results do not thoroughly measure his mental capacity.
Elizabeth proposes that the foremost question that animals in captivity like Sultan wonder is “where is home, and how do I get there?” (Coetzee et al. , 1999). This is a concept that Franz Kafka refers to in the fictional story “Report to an Academy” about an educated ape, Red Peter. The ape was shot twice and captured, then named after his scar. He was held in a cage that he could neither sit nor stand in, which was considered beneficial in his training. Eventually he was as educated as the average English man. In his report, Red Peter says “One learns when one has to. One learns when one wants a way out. ” (Kafka, F. , 1917). The “way out” motivated Red Peter, as it did Sultan. Red Peter was given rights when he began to act like a human: “education created the way out for me- the way out of human beings” (Kafka, F. , 1917). Sultan was not granted rights, as real apes cannot learn to become just like humans. However, they can display language and reason, which brings up the question- what rights should we give animals with qualities of personhood?
In 2008, the Spanish parliament passed legislation to give apes “human rights”- the right to life and freedom (Glendinning, L. , 2008). This would protect them from exploitation in circuses, experimentation, commercials, and movies (Glendinning, L. , 2008). The law complies with the Great Apes Project, started by moral philosopher Peter Singer, who puts all animals on the same standing as humans.
The criteria of personhood are flawed and should not inform who we give rights to. American philosopher Mary Ann Warren’s five criteria of personhood are consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity to communicate, and self awareness. However, human babies do not have self awareness, but we do not treat them like animals. “Babies have no self-consciousness, yet we think it a more heinous crime to kill a baby than an adult,” a man named Wunderlich at the dinner says, “We protect our own kind. ” (Coetzee, J. M. , et al. , 1999). Humans with mental and physical disabilities also may not follow all five criteria, but we acknowledge their intrinsic rights. If we followed the criteria for humans in the way we do for animals, we would have to retract human rights of victims of brain damage or degenerative disorders like dementia. Of course, we do not follow these criteria to decide on our human rights. We accept that a human has inherent rights regardless of the criteria. This contradiction of personhood displays our anthropocentrism, as we are reluctant to take away human rights if they do not follow the criteria, and hesitant to give animals rights if they do follow the criteria. Since these criteria fail to apply personhood to many humans, it would be nonsensical to apply the criteria to animals to determine their rights.
Professor O’Hearne claimed that though they fear death, animals do not understand death, therefore it is ethical to morally kill them (Coetzee, J. M. , et al. , 1999). Elizabeth refutes this, saying that it is not their nature to have elaborate imaginings of the future as we do, but rather live in the present. The abstract idea of life and death may not be understood by animals, but this does not mean that they don’t have consciousness or purpose. Why are some so certain that all animals do not understand death and loss? Murders of crows gather around a dead crow and caw to each other, warning that the location is dangerous (National Geographic, 2018). They know death when they see it, and actively communicate to avoid it. At Seaworld in San Diego, an orca calf Takara was taken away from it’s mother Kasatka, who began making continuous vocalizations that she’d never made before (Hargrove, J. , & Chua-Eoan, H. , 2016). The senior research scientist concluded that they were long-range calls that she was making to find her daughter (Hargrove, J. , & Chua-Eoan, H. , 2016). These actions display emotion and an understanding of loss.
Thomas Nagel philosophizes that consciousness is subjective in his review “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”. He accepts that many organisms have consciousness, but we cannot imagine what their consciousness is like. Even though we can know their objective physiology, our understanding of their experiences are “limited by the resources of our own minds. ” (Nagel, T. , 1974). We could imagine what it would feel for ourselves to be a bat but not for a bat to be a bat (Coetzee, J. M. , et al. , 1999). Elizabeth argues that there is no limit to our ability to imagine ourselves as another, to have sympathy.
“The question to ask should not be: Do we have something in common – reason, self-consciousness, a soul- with other animals?”, Elizabeth said, because that gives us permission to confine, use, harm and kill them. Instead, she suggests respecting animals regardless of their similarities to humans.
Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that animals should not be assigned value in themselves but are only valuable if they are someone else's property. Abolitionist Gary Francione would argue that not only do all animals have rights regardless of ownership, but also that animals should not be treated as property at all. Saint Thomas also stated that humans should not be cruel to animals only to ensure we don’t become cruel to other humans. With this idea, one could suggest that our cruelty to animals in factory farming will eventually carry over to cruelty to humans in similar institutions. Although Saint Thomas’ argument is anthropocentric, it compares, but not equates, animal cruelty with human cruelty. Elizabeth equates human and animal abuse in the Holocaust comparison.
Elizabeth brings up the necessity for sympathy when we think about animal exploitation. She did this when comparing factory farming with concentration camps in the Holocaust. This comparison offends because many humans value our kind more than other animals and so do not think the horror is on the same scale. The goal of the Holocaust was to destroy all humans the Nazis believed were inferior, such as Jewish people, Gypsies, disabled people and homosexuals. The purpose of animal slaughterhouses is producing food from other species for the human population to eat. The Holocaust involved intraspecies killing while factory farming involves killing of other species. Though there are species of animal, like meerkats, monkeys, and sea lions, that murder within their species, it is more common to see interspecies murder, especially for a source of food. The other difference is the intention of the institutions, with the Holocaust created to destroy and the farms created to feed. The abolishment of all meat industries could cause malnutrition and starvation for humans that cannot afford or do not have access to protein alternatives.
This comparison can provoke strong emotions. However, there are many similarities between animal slaughterhouses and concentration camps. First, Elizabeth explains that, “[the Germans] lost their humanity, because of a certain willed ignorance on their part. ” Similarly, our purposeful ignorance to the cruelty of the meat industry allows it to continue. Animal slaughter vocabulary is often used to describe the crimes in the Holocaust, however some people, such as guest to Elizabeth’s lecture, Abraham Stern, disagree with the use of the Holocaust to describe animal slaughter. In Abraham’s letter, he wrote, “If Jews were treated like cattle, it does not follow that cattle are treated like Jews. The inversion insults the memory of the dead.”
Like Nazi Germany, we are surrounded by the exploiting institutions, but they are hard to locate and recognize. Nazis believed that the abuse and murders were a means to an end, which is how many of us think about the meat industry. Both institutions used a consequentialist approach: if the action is right or wrong depends on the consequence.
J. M. Coetzee’s narration about Elizabeth Costello’s experience at Appleton College outline the history and complexity of the concept of animal consciousness, personhood and rights. While they can be tense, thought-provoking discussions about these topics are essential in creating the paradigm shift the Elizabeth hopes for.
