Lee Hall has written an interesting new book, “On Their Own Terms”, and in it has proposed a new way of looking at animal-rights theory and practice. Briefly, Hall contends that the proper concern of animal-rights ought not to be all of those animals who are currently subjugated and domesticated; it is not possible for them to have rights as long as they remain our property – commodities exploited for our purposes. Hall does not neglect these unfortunate souls, but advocates for “peaceable meals” and vegan living to end that domination, and as a consequence, like every abolitionist, envisions a world where we no longer breed nonhumans as property, treat them as things and use them as resources. Since these domesticated animals are actually property now, and since property cannot have rights, and since the ideal future will not contain domesticated animals, which nonhuman animals ought we to be talking about when we talk about animal rights? Hall says that it ultimately only makes sense that we talk about “free-living” animals.
Hall’s notion of what ought to be the focus of animal-rights today and what the future for animal rights and veganism might hold are perhaps best encapsulated in these words:
How crucial it is to relay the message that animals, free animals, should exist, live, experience, thrive! How important it is for us to say not just what animals won’t be, but who they will be. Animal rights will be found, and should be sought, in the oceans and rivers; in the air, on the tundra, and in the forests. Animal rights will not be found in the shop, lab, factory or farm. To those institutions, the clearly appropriate, rights-based approach is simple conscientious objection.
Before making a case for an animal-rights approach that is forward focused, Hall considers the two major schools of thought thus far in the modern animal movement, as put forward by Peter Singer on the one hand, and Tom Regan and Gary Francione on the other. Singer is a utilitarian, and does not consider that anyone has rights at all, whether that anyone is a human animal or a nonhuman one. Regan and Francione do consider that some living beings have rights, although they differ on exactly who qualifies as a rights-holder. They are also both abolitionists, in that they believe in eradicating all exploitations of rights-holding nonhumans and they do not advocate, in contrast to Singer, for just improving their lives. Suffice it to say that Hall agrees in principle with Regan and Francione, and rejects the utilitarianism of Singer. There are differences, though, with both Regan and Francione and those differences inform the thesis of the book.
For example, Hall takes exception to Francione’s work in his book “Rain Without Thunder” where, in the seventh and final chapter of that book, Francione sets out five criteria that an animal rights advocate might apply when considering any proposed incremental reform of animal exploitation. Francione’s contention is that, as the world is currently constituted, incremental reforms of the various systems of institutionalized animal exploitation are bound to fail as measures which lead to the recognition of nonhumans as rights-holders and to the abolition of those systems of exploitation. Francione is clear that, even still, animal advocates acting today might want to try to find ways to affect changes in those systems which would be consistent with ending the property status of nonhumans. In 30 pages he lays out the specific and narrow criteria that might guide such action, but he only does so after cautioning that his thoughts on the topic can only be the beginning, not the end, of the discussion. Given the near impossibility that any proposed reform will ever meet all five of the criteria, it is more likely than not that every animal rights advocate would reject even the most carefully considered and constructed reform measures in favor of efforts aimed at educating the public about the need for abolition itself. Hall suggests that Francione believes otherwise.
Hall makes the case that Francione’s writing is unclear and that his work could be taken to actually endorse incremental regulatory reforms of exploitation which would further entrench and codify the property status of nonhuman animals. Given his voluminous work tirelessly advocating exactly the opposite, it is hard to understand why the book makes this case; it is not necessary its central argument. In the final analysis, Francione’s inability, which he acknowledges, to present any real and practical ways to incrementally abolish the property status of nonhumans through regulatory reforms actually supports Hall’s thesis. Domesticated nonhuman animals held in institutionalized systems of exploitation cannot ever, in the aggregate, be rights-holders, because they will always be property. The only solution to that problem is to stop the purposeful breeding of them in the first place. Once we do that, the only nonhuman animals left to include in the consideration animal rights will be the “free-living” ones, just as Hall suggests.
Hall also spends a number of pages exploring the solutions provided by both Regan and Francione to the infamous “lifeboat” dilemma. Briefly, the dilemma is that five individuals are in a lifeboat adrift at sea. Of the five, four are competent adult humans and one is a normal healthy dog. Only four can remain in the boat, one must be sacrificed overboard. Who gets tossed to the sea? Hall suggests that Regan and Francione would always save the humans and never the dog, because they accept notions of human supremacy and dominion. Regan and Francione would disagree with that suggestion. This dilemma and the solutions offered to it by Regan, Francione and others are beyond the scope of this essay, but Hall makes much of the differences between these positions and the one taken in the book. However, in the end, Hall acknowledges that since any solution would be suboptimal to what is, after all, a “no-win” scenario, the various solutions to this academic exercise amount, to a dispassionate viewer, to little more than distinctions without a difference.
Hall, it must be noted, goes on to recognize the important contribution to animal-rights theory that Francione has made with respect to thinking about animals as property. From the book:
Francione’s call for this moral imperative highlights a key aspect of the vegan position.
and:
Thus, Francione’s pinpointing of the need to end the animals-as-property model is aligned with the vegan platform.
Hall differs from Francione and explains that merely abolishing the property status of nonhumans is not enough:
As used in animal-rights theory, abolition means the end of treating other animals as our property. This is necessary, but not sufficient to ensure the respect for animals’ dignity that is the point of animal rights. Animals freed from human society – as individuals and communities – also need to be assured the opportunity to experience autonomy. Thus, animal rights, defined as living on one’s own terms, encompasses the interest in not being someone’s property, but it is more comprehensive.
Hall has a point. In the transcript of the online Q&A chat on ARZone.net on Saturday August 21, 2010, this point is explained:
Human non-citizens aren’t property, as we know. But are dominated — even to death. We need to challenge domination, the concept of nations, otherness of many kinds. People divide beings into groups and rank them constantly. This is a huge problem to unravel. The right not to be property isn’t all we need; that oversimplifies the matter.
We are going to need to release animals from the cage of property law, yes. But do we know how to let them be, to let them flourish? Anticipate not only the end of cages but also the beginning of humans as respectful people and all animals as fully alive, interacting with this world on their own terms.
This is an interesting idea, and one worth thinking about carefully. Considering the human case, Hall is certainly correct that even though most human beings are not considered property by anyone, they are nonetheless still dominated and exploited. Does this represent a failure of theory or a failure in practice? Does Tom Regan’s principle that no rights-holder ever be treated exclusively as a means to an end address Hall’s concern?
Hall doesn’t think so. For example, the argument is advanced that Regan and Francione both advocate for controlling the reproductive processes of free-living animals as a preferable alternative to more destructive methods of controlling the populations of the animals. Hall believes that such contraceptive measures violate the rights of those free-living animals and that if we truly respect their right to an “opportunity to experience autonomy” then we cannot intervene in those ways. If Regan and Francione wanted to be consistent, the book suggests their respect for the rights of nonhuman animals and their principle that no rights-holder should be treated only as a means to an end would preclude contraceptive measures. By endorsing the practice, they abandon the theory.
The problem is, the position which Hall advances has the effect of disrespecting the rights of other animals, rights which actually do exist, whether they are recognized by another or not. Let me explain.
Hall advocates for spay and neuter programs for all domesticated companion animals. Since the salient idea in “On Their Own Terms” is that purpose bred animals are not really within the purview of animal rights, because they ought not to be here in the first place, Hall invokes the “ethic of care” with respect to how we should deal with them. Spay and neuter programs, on this view, are not rights-violations. That’s fine, from that point of view, but that point of view isn’t entirely accurate. Those animals are living individuals who really do have interests in their lives, which Hall accepts, even as it is asserted that their status as property precludes us from protecting those interests with rights. But there is an important difference between legal rights and moral or natural rights. Imagine the case of human beings held as slaves. In slavery, those humans do not have recognized rights, that is legal rights, but they do actually possess moral rights, and those rights are violated by the institution of slavery. So domesticated nonhumans, in the aggregate do not have recognized rights, and in the aggregate it may not make sense to talk about them having rights at all, but considered as individuals, which is what they are, animal-rights theory holds that they do have at least some basic moral and natural rights. We have a duty to recognize and protect those rights where we can.
Does Hall recognize even the moral rights of domesticated other animals? It is difficult to know. From the ARZone chat:
Roger Yates: Do you believe in moral rights that could be used as the basis of political advocacy for securing future legal rights? Why or why not?
Hall: People sometimes bring up moral rights to claim domesticated animals, such as animals bred as pets, “are not our property; we are not their owners.” That leads to problematic views: for example, notions that domesticated animals have acquired or will be gaining rights through laws or simply through enough love and caring on the part of their caregivers. We can keep things simple through language on which most all of us would agree: Conscious animals have interests. Rather than speaking of something we might or might not believe in, I feel confident speaking of rights as socially created, enforceable protections for the interests we know animals have.
The ethic of care allows Hall to propose the imposition of contraceptive controls, even invasive ones, on the existing domesticated populations, irrespective of the what their interests may be in reproducing. A different question in the online Q&A elicited this response:
Surely it is not right to impose the role of giving birth on someone — that is taking over a person’s body. That’s one thing purpose-breeding has done to animals; it’s stepped up their reproductive cycles.
Hall views interceding in the reproductive processes of domesticated other animals as freeing them from forced pregnancy, which, in the case of “factory farmed” animals or those enslaved in “puppy mills” and the like, is understandable. But certainly it must be the case that at least some other animals who are currently being spayed and neutered are being prevented from doing what they would otherwise be doing naturally, which is propagating their species. Hall’s position on this issue seems to be that only free-living animals can have such an interest worth protecting.
So, the end Hall seeks is a world without the domesticated animals we’ve created, even if the means to achieve that world involve rights-violations against the individual nonhumans who are alive today. Most vegans who believe in abolition seek the same end, through the same means. Francione certainly does. He has said that his vision of the future does not include domesticated animals and that contraceptive controls are part of how we will see that vision come to fruition. But, he acknowledges and accepts that this involves a rights-violation against individual nonhumans who are alive today, even if the right being violated is a “non-basic” one.
The problem with domesticated nonhumans is a no-win situation. We have created beings who cannot live without our continued interference and intrusion in their lives. We have a choice, either we can respect their reproductive rights and deal with unending future generations of purpose bred beings – which will necessarily involve violating the rights of those unending future generations – or we can break the cycle and, in violating the reproductive rights of existing nonhumans, prevent the rights-violations of every future generation. The point is, domesticated nonhumans, whether they are dogs kept as “pets” or cows kept as “farm animals”, live in circumstances that even in the best of conditions amount to little more than a caged life of enslavement.
Hall is right, dogs are not natural creatures, and the wolves they were created from would not want to be in the same boat as us, no matter how big or comfortable that boat was. Any dog who is in the same boat with us, is in it because we force him to be, either by the use of chains, doors and locks, or by the genetic manipulation that has taken the very essence of his nature away from him. Domesticated animals are in a “lose-lose” situation. The only question left to ask is, can it be morally right to continue to bring more of them into existence, only to deny them their natures, and to continue violating their rights? The answer has to be no.
Hall is right, and is in agreement with Francione and many others. The ethic of care can inform how we deal with the ones who are alive; we must treat them as well as we can, in the impossibly bad situations we have placed them in.
In the case of free-living animals, maybe it will come to pass, as Hall believes, that a world in which humans adopt a vegan philosophy will see large expanses of farmland revert back to natural habitats in which the deer and the antelope play. But that world is a long way off, and there are nonhumans who are posing a danger to themselves and to the human communities they come into contact with right now. In yet another no-win scenario, what are we to do, right now, to deal with these kinds of situations? I know how the “animal control” people would prefer to do it. They would just as soon kill them. But, if we can resolve these kinds of situations now using contraceptive controls, then that seems better than killing. Hall disagrees and says that, in the case of free-living animals, our actions must be guided only by a decidedly different formulation of animal-rights theory. But why, if the ethic of care can be applied to individual nonhumans in the case of domesticated animals, can we not apply the ethic of care to deal with these situations? What is the relevant moral difference between the two sets of individuals involved which so obviously allows for contraceptive controls for one set but not for the other? Is it really the case that it is solely because we have purposefully bred certain other animals that we have the right to control their reproductive freedoms?
There is a principle of equal consideration of interests, and if one set of individuals have an interest in maintaining their reproductive freedoms, and let’s assume that they do, why can we ignore the interests of the other set of individuals and take those freedoms away from them, just because they happen to be domesticated? Is it just based on the accident of their births? Can it be true that it is morally right to perform a vasectomy on a former circus monkey but that it would be inexcusable to perform the same operation on a member of a troop in the wild that was becoming overpopulated to their own detriment?
There are difficult cases in the real world that involve competing sets of rights. In the case of free-living animals, their rights to autonomy may conflict with the rights of humans to live in peace. If we can minimize the harms to both communities by using contraceptive controls, we will be violating some of the rights of free-living animals, but if, in the end, we respect their basic moral right to live, is that not a trade worth considering? Hall seems to think it isn’t.
But what would the world look like if animals were left completely “On Their Own Terms”?
Here is what Hall thinks, and while this is again from the ARZone chat, it is an adapted excerpt from the book:
There is hardly an experience more joyful than lying down on a grassy hill in a park at dusk in summer, waiting for the bats to emerge and swoop and flutter overhead. There is hardly a more exhilarating feeling than camping quietly watching a group of deer walk past — the feeling of letting other animals pass through our lives in peace. The more we think about it, the more exciting the plan to respect animals’ freedom becomes. I think, yes! This is what animal right looks like. What do you think animal rights would look like?
I can appreciate this idyllic scene. Who couldn’t? But also in the chat, Lee Hall and I had this short exchange:
Gier: I am wondering about the hard cases, where, if left on their own predator species will attack human populations, or cases such as urban rats who carry diseases.
Hall: I think this is a fascinating point. What does it mean to relinquish human supremacy? Are we really prepared for that? That’s what’s behind a lot of these coyote- and wolf- killing schemes. We resent their power. How do we deal with that? We hear “don’t mention coyotes – people will flip out!” I want to live in a world in which I am at risk. I don’t think that’s absurd to say. Do you?
Gier: I don’t understand, are you suggesting that we ought to accept as natural when an elephant stampede destroys a village?
Hall: We’ve got to get a special page for ARZone for what Tim just asked!
Hall’s vision of letting of free-living animals ‘just be’ sounds great, but there are some extremely troublesome details to work out about these things. As Francione has said, once we have ended the vast majority of the exploitations of nonhumans which involve us using and killing them for food, clothing and experimentation, and once we recognize that nonhumans have the basic right to self-ownership and stop treating them exclusively as the means to our ends, we will be able to devote our considerable energies to reconciling their rights to live freely with our own rights.
But think about what Hall’s idea of “letting other animals pass through our lives in peace” really means. Does it mean that human beings have no choice but to live with colonies of peaceable sewer rats as they pass through our lives? Or that we ought not to worry about the integrity of our cities and towns, because of how “exciting the plan to respect animals’ freedom becomes” as deer, coyotes, mountain lions and others move back in? What does it mean when Hall says “I want to live in a world in which I am at risk”? Does it mean that respecting the rights of others means that we open ourselves up to attack?
“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and I don’t know why it should matter to me whether another human is swinging at me or if it is a wolf come a-prowlin’, I’m inclined to protect my nose, and the rest of me, either way. We do not have the right to exploit nonhumans, but neither do we have to deliberately put ourselves in harm’s way.
But Hall advocates for something in place of what most of the public understands about animal rights, and she departs significantly from other animal-rights theorists. What is suggested in “On Their Own Terms” is an animal-rights theory that proposes that we stop using other animals for our own purposes, but all animal-rights theories do that. What is proposed is a change in the relationship of humans with the rest of the world, grounded in environmentalism and informed by species extinction and climate change. That, in and of itself is also not revolutionary. But Hall’s proposal goes beyond our obligations to protect environments and ecosystems and to forestall extinctions; this new view really does mean “let them be” regardless of what may follow as a result of this hands-off approach. That is what is revolutionary – Hall asks us to stop interacting with free-living animals.
As Hall said in the Q&A:
In the long run it’s about communities of animals living right now just as they would and will if and when our culture really becomes a culture, and accepts their rights. Where will animal rights actually be found? In habitat. So defending habitat and intervening when it’s taken away is huge too. And hugely neglected. (…) communities of animals are being extinguished because of human entitlement and our expanding population. We have a responsibility to prevent harm to individuals and try to stop genocide of their communities.
What Hall is saying is that we must eliminate the dangers caused by “human entitlement” and then stop at that. It means non-intervention in every other sense. As we have seen, Hall believes that contraceptive controls are out of bounds, but aren’t there bound to be cases where nonhuman communities face some risk which, with minimal intervention, humans might ameliorate? I can imagine that there would be.
For instance, as I write this, massive flooding in Pakistan has displaced hundreds of thousands human beings, and, to be sure, uncounted nonhuman beings as well. What do we owe these beings? If we can help them, without serious detriment or cost to ourselves, and without causing some other greater harm, shouldn’t we do that? Wouldn’t it be wrong not to? Since we do help the human beings, shouldn’t we help the nonhuman ones too? And if we know of a community of nonhuman animals who are living free, but in dire straits, do we not owe them something as well? Hall says that we “have a responsibility to prevent harm to individuals and try to stop genocide of their communities” but that is said in the larger context of our ever expanding impact on the natural world, and as a result of what Hall calls our “entitlement”. In cases where animals are at risk, through no fault of humankind, would Hall have us intercede?
Or must we just let them live, and die, on their own terms?
In the essay “Speaking of Justice and Care” which reads very much like the first chapter of the book, Hall puts it this way:
In the Earth’s web of life, should any one group expect all others to conform to its desires — and then justify this by applying the governing group’s idea of care? Or, to put the point in slightly different terms, wouldn’t a truly caring ethic include consciously transcending dominance and fostering respect? Authentic care involves taking others’ interests seriously, and responding to others on their terms.
This speaks to the idea which Hall puts forward that nature knows what is best, and that the best we can do is let nature run its course. But is that the case? There is a difference between ending the violence committed against others and acting positively to either improve their lot or safeguard them. As a general rule, we ought to help others when we can, when doing so does not violate their basic rights or cause harm to others and especially when the costs or detriments to ourselves are slight. We generally accept that obligation towards other human beings, so why we shouldn’t accept it in the case of nonhumans as well? At least as importantly, don’t we know when other human beings want our help? Isn’t possible, at least in some cases, to know when other animals would want our help as well?
Animal-rights theory is based on a few basic concepts: Nonhuman animals are like human ones in morally relevant ways and because of that, they should not be treated exclusively as the means to an end. They should not be considered as the property of others, but should be respected as the owners of their own lives. Abolishing the exploitation of other rights-holders is a moral imperative – regulating or reforming current systems and methods of exploitation is unacceptable. Becoming vegan is the single most important action which any of us can undertake to respect the rights of others and to abolish exploitation.
“On Their Own Terms” is an important book. Hall has offered a fresh look at these basic principles of the rights-based approach to our relationships with other animals and has applied them in a novel way in the context of free-living animals. The idea that current thinking about ending the property status of nonhumans doesn’t go far enough is intriguing. Hall’s mention of Henry Salt, who wrote convincingly about animal rights in 1892, as well as the book’s examination highlighting the need for, and differences between, animal rights and the “ethic of care” are both valuable. In fact, the chapter “Victims In Pictures” on the imagery of cruelty and human sexuality used in animal advocacy is, by itself, reason enough to read the book. An excerpt:
When one animal-protection group applied for a permit to dump pig manure and urine in front of Ohio’s legislative buildings, while transmitting wounds of pigs screaming as they endured mutilations without painkillers and bringing “three hogs ‘in narrow crates’ to the statehouse as part of a factory farm protest,” an advocate commented, “Apparently, the message here is that it is okay to let [an animal-advocacy group] use the animals to teach the rest of us that it is wrong to use animals.
There is much more to like in the book as well. There is a challenge for us to think about what accepting animals on their own terms really means. We are asked to consider that our self-appointed position of dominion over nonhumans works to our own detriment as well as to theirs. Hall is right to challenge us and to question our assumptions. But in challenging our dominion, is Hall asking us to do that which we cannot do?
The epic struggle of humanity is to come to terms with the duality of our nature: We are all connected to the “Earth’s biocommunity” and, yet, in the quiet of our own minds, we are quite alone. One and not one, together and separate, animal and human, mind and matter. Denizens of the natural world, and bound to reshape it. How do we reconcile the two parts of who we are, respecting both the potential of our highest aspirations while curbing our basest instincts? Is this struggle any different from the one that beavers make as they builds their dams, controlling the river for their own purposes? Is it any different from the struggle of a seal who tries in vain to escape an Orca’s crushing jaws? These creatures are active in their own lives and in the struggles for their survival; our own place in nature cannot be one of resignation.
There is a flat-panel HDTV in my living room, and a cell phone in my pocket. They are the toys and the tools of this modern life. Our consumerism knows no limits. But, at the same time, we have harnessed the power of the atom, and we have the power to keep dying hearts beating apace with technologies that arise from the same place as the toys. Hall doesn’t mention those things in the idyllic and peaceful future without dominion, but surely we cannot go backwards. Just as a chimpanzee has the power and the right to fashion tools which he uses to dig for his food, surely we too have the right to live on our own terms.
In the end, that is what leaves me unsatisfied after considering Hall’s arguments. I agree that a thoughtful, fair and caring approach to the future of humanity’s interactions with all other beings who share the planet with us must be grounded in thinking of everyone on their own terms. But, insofar as animal-rights theory demands that we accept the self-ownership of all sentient beings, Hall is proposing nothing new. Because the concept self-ownership is incompatible with the reality of being the property of someone else, current animal-rights theory is adequate to the task of freeing nonhumans from domination. All sentient beings are owners of their own lives, and those lives matter to them, whether anyone recognizes that or not. The right of sentient beings to live their own lives, as best they are able, free from interference, as much as is possible in this imperfect world, is a right that is inherent in the nature of sentience. Where I differ with Hall, and where the difficulties ahead lie, is that this is an imperfect world, and it will always be thus.
Read what Hall says here, on page 108 of “On Their Own Terms”, and think about what it means to the future of human and nonhuman animals:
The point of animal rights is not treating other animals as more than the mere means to our ends. It’s not about refusing to treat them exclusively as means to our ends. Can we accept that they are here for ends of their own? If so, the issue isn’t about how we treat them; it’s about leaving them free from such interactions.
I can imagine enjoying song birds in the morning, and placing bird feeders in my yard to attract them. Certainly, in that interaction, I would be using those birds as a means to my end of a pleasant dawn. But they would still be free, and even though I would be manipulating them with the bribe of food, they would be benefiting from that food. Thus, I would be treating them as a means to my end, but not exclusively so, and they would be satisfying their own ends too. That seems perfectly acceptable to me, and if the birds didn’t think so, they could always just stay away. Hall appears to think even this benign interaction unacceptable. But even if one would reject my “use” of the songbirds in this instance, would everyone reject the idea that if I found a songbird near death from dehydration that I should refuse to offer her a drink of life saving water, all in the name of just letting her be? Refusing to interact in such a case sounds more cruel than right.
There will be cases where the inherent rights of nonhumans’ conflict with humans’. We will build cities, and they will try to take them back. No change in how we conceptualize animal rights will alter those facts. Lions will not lie down with the lambs, and while humans must certainly stop the war we have viciously waged for far too long against everything in the natural world, we will forever remain true to our own natures, and other animals will remain true to theirs. Birds and squirrels will live in our yards, and we will interact with them.
Human beings, in keeping with our nature, will remake the world around us, and we will continue to try to make it better. We have made mistakes along the way and we will certainly make more as times goes on, but we cannot go back to Eden, nor can we go forward walking towards that paradise, because it is not there. The best we can do is to respect the rights of all others, as we all, humans and nonhumans alike, try to live on our own terms. It sounds as though Lee Hall wants us to remove ourselves entirely from this world, to stay out of the habitats of other animals, to forsake our own modernity and, in “letting other animals pass through our lives“, to refuse to interact with other animals altogether. I cannot come to terms with that.
15 Comments
Thanks for this critical review of Lee Hall’s “On Their Own Terms.” While I have yet to read this book, I have read Hall’s first book and many of Hall’s essays and reached many of the same conclusions as you have here.
Each sentient individual has moral rights (a valid claim to respectful treatment) whether or not such rights are recognized and respected by law. Such basic rights include self-ownership, life, and liberty. Whether “domesticated” (read: captive bred over generations) or free-living (commonly called “wild”) nonhuman animals, each sentient individual deserves equal consideration and respect. It would be speciesist to think otherwise.
When the legal property status of other animals is abolished, it will henceforth be illegal to exploit other animals as our resources, whether those other animals are held captive (like chickens and pigs) or live freely (like fishes and deers). Ending legal property status would allow nonhuman animals become legal rights-holders, abolishing enslavement and allowing them to have the possibility for legal rights to their lives and liberty to be further protected from human harm. As Joan Dunayer argues in her book Speciesism, we also ought to accord nonhuman animals a legal right to property, to be regarded as any “undeveloped” habitats that they would own collectively. Such a right to their territory would prevent humans from further colonizing their habitats.
This philosophy of animal rights means extending basic rights beyond humans to other animals. The consequences of rights means the end of human supremacy; not human separatism but the beginning of true coexistence with other animals. Justice for all.
Here are two resources that helped my thinking on these issues:
Tom Regan’s “The Philosophy of Animal Rights” essay gives an overview of the philosophical basis of animal rights: http://www.cultureandanimals.org/pop1.html
Responsible Policies for Animals’ offers an excellent resource page on what animal rights means in moral and legal terms: http://www.rpaforall.org/rights.html
Do read the book, Brandon.
Reducing the human demand for domesticated animals, and sparing them the indignities and ordeals of being objects of welfare or husbandry decisions in the first place resonates with me. Lee Hall’s stimulating, profoundly intelligent new book advances a consistent animal rights
perspective — and I disagree with Tim’s assumption that Lee offers an argument against
offering a hypothetically thirsty bird a drink. Lee’s asking us to get our feet off their necks,
to stop encroaching on habitat and resources they need to survive. Let’s deal with that.
I have commented on your review in ARZone, Tim.
I’ve also commented on your review in ARZone, Tim
http://www.arzone.net/node/118
Where are these comments at? I don’t see anything at the link above other than an excerpt from this review.
Nevermind, I just now realized you have to login to ARZone to view comments. It would be helpful to post comments here, too, so that it can further discussion on these critical issues on movement theory and practice.
Hi, Tim.
Lots written here to respond to. I don’t have much time, but wanted to say, briefly -
Hall certainly wouldn’t say that a thirsty bird shouldn’t be given a drink.
Hall works with Friends of Animals, and Friends of Animals supports an organization called Marine Mammal Rescue. The Rescue helps animals in distress who may have been caught in nets, plastic, or other human-made objects that can cause bodily harm to sea life. Somewhere in FoA or Marine Mammal Rescue literature, I remember reading that they occasionally also find a seal or sea lion with a barb in its mouth – the barb being the result of an interaction with another wild animal, and not human harm. Though it is still technically ‘interference,’ the rescuers choose to remove the barb in order to help the animal on its way.
I would say that sort of interference – an altruistic gesture in a time of need, which is reciprocated, by the way, especially by dolphins who are found to help drowning swimmers – is of an entirely different nature than that proposed by using contraceptives on free-living communities of animals.
It sounds like the refusal to use contraceptives on free-living animals is one that irks you. You mention it as a help to animals who may have become ‘overpopulated.’ I think that’s something that Lee is trying to challenge – the idea that we humans impose on other animals that they are ‘over’ populated and that we should regulate their numbers. Several times you have mentioned that Hall suggests we let things ‘work out’ in nature, and that’s really what it boils down to. If animals ARE at a higher number than the habitat can support, natural controls will eventually catch up to them, since lack of food will lead to lower reproduction rates by the animals. They are self-regulating – and if that doesn’t work, they may be hit by famine, disease, or predators (if there are any left), and their numbers reduced to a workable population. And while I can see that this may appear cruel – to leave individual animals to suffer and die from famine, or disease – it’s really kind of arrogant to think that we could ever take the place of regulating natural communities in a way that makes sense in the long run. After all, if animals die from famine, it is the weakest who die first; but if we decide to administer contraceptives to *some* animals, how do we know who to choose to reproduce or not? Administer complicated DNA testing to find out the healthiest, strongest animals?
It’s a kind of arrogance, I think, that leads us to think that we could control and manage entire biocommunities – in ways that actually respect all individuals involved, AND promotes the health of the biocommunity. You can’t really say that an animal who has been preyed on by another animal, or who has fallen down a cliff by accident, has had its ‘rights’ disrespected; it merely lived and took risks and died in a manner that it has been heir to for thousands or millions of years. And while it really is sad and heartbreaking to see animals die of various ‘natural causes,’ it’s not kind to bring them under our control.
Also it is worth mentioning that the animals who have been administered contraceptives experience significant side effects. Lee linked to a resource at the beginning of the ARZone chat, which I clicked on, and it is a study on the health impacts of the contraceptive hormones.
As to human-animal conflict – something you also seem concerned about – I’m not sure what we’re aiming for is free-roaming communities of sewer rats. But part of the problem is that humans in industrial societies create conditions which are ideal for this sort of opportunistic animal to thrive, with ample food (our ‘waste’) and a lack of predators (since we kill the predators and take over their habitat with housing and pavement) causing exploding populations that do pose a threat to human health by spreading disease and parasites.
I thought that Hall’s book was pointing towards a comprehensive critique of these sorts of things … where we’ve created conditions that cause human-animal conflict, and then blame the animals for the conflicts that ensue. We’re a pretty smart species, as you have brought up, and I don’t understand why we can’t be smart enough to engineer better systems and ways of living that aren’t so inviting to ‘pests’ and destructive of habitat. For example … why the hell are we still flushing all our waste down sewers, anyways? How is it that we are pumping all our waste, which is in the end another form of fertilizer, into waterways? Is there seriously no way that we can process this waste and return it to the soil in a safe form? I mean – seriously – we’ve been to the Moon, and sent mobile robots to Mars. And we can’t take care of our own shit?
Well you have provoked a longer response from me after all.
Will end it here.
Thanks for a substantive reply to my review.
You say that Lee Hall wouldn’t say that a thirsty bird shouldn’t be given a drink, but you also say: “You can’t really say that an animal who has been preyed on by another animal, or who has fallen down a cliff by accident, has had its ‘rights’ disrespected; it merely lived and took risks and died in a manner that it has been heir to for thousands or millions of years. And while it really is sad and heartbreaking to see animals die of various ‘natural causes,’ it’s not kind to bring them under our control.” I don’t see a way to reconcile those two statements. What is the difference between falling down a cliff and dying of thirst? Why would one refuse to try to help in the former case but not refuse to help in the latter?
When it comes to helping animals in distress, I agree with you, and I believe that I make the point in the review that Hall accepts that humans ought to ameliorate the problems we cause such as the “nets, plastic, or other human-made objects that can cause bodily harm to sea life” you mention. My problem with the position Hall espouses and which you reiterate in the quote above is that we ought not to intervene unless the harm has been caused by us. Considering that we think it appropriate that we do intervene in the lives of other humans when natural disasters and diseases strike, I can see no good reason to always refuse to do the same only because others happen to be a different species that we are.
Hall’s stance on contraceptive measures applied on free-living animals does not irk me. I used the example to point out the failure of Hall’s argument to differentiate between recognized & legal rights as opposed to the actual moral rights of individuals, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. It is not a legitimate argument, it seems to me, to say that rights apply to one set of individual beings and not the other. Whether the particular form of contraception is the right one is a different question. The questions surrounding how to deal with the interactions of human and non-humans are quite difficult, and I don’t think that the only viable solution boils down to that we should “let things ‘work out’ in nature”
I am not alone in my concern about the “human-animal conflict” – it is the subject of Hall’s book – and while we may not be aiming for a free-roaming community of sewer rats, we have them and we have to find a way to live with them. What does concern me is that no-one seems to want to talk about those rats, or elephants who stampede. You are right, and I acknowledge in the review, that we build cities and other animals try to take them back. But we aren’t going to tear down Chicago or Boston anytime soon, so better now that we deal with the world as it is, rather than what we may hope it may eventually become.
Finally, I agree with you when you say “I thought that Hall’s book was pointing towards a comprehensive critique of these sorts of things … where we’ve created conditions that cause human-animal conflict, and then blame the animals for the conflicts that ensue.”
That’s why I wrote this:
“There is a challenge (in Hall’s book) for us to think about what accepting animals on their own terms really means. We are asked to consider that our self-appointed position of dominion over nonhumans works to our own detriment as well as to theirs. Hall is right to challenge us and to question our assumptions.”
I don’t accept all the answers Lee Hall has provided, that’s all.
I do appreciate your input,
Tim
Are you trying to catch me in something? If I were at the cliff, and within range, I would try to prevent the animal from falling off a cliff, as much as I would try to offer water to a bird dying of thirst. There’s an altruistic impulse that we all share.
“My problem with the position Hall espouses and which you reiterate in the quote above is that we ought not to intervene unless the harm has been caused by us. Considering that we think it appropriate that we do intervene in the lives of other humans when natural disasters and diseases strike, I can see no good reason to always refuse to do the same only because others happen to be a different species that we are.”
But that’s not what I’m saying, or Lee is saying either. I mentioned that help is offered where it is not a significant intervention into another animals’ life, as the example of the Marine Animal Rescue pulling barbs out of the animals’ mouth. As for natural disasters – I don’t know. What sort of help, exactly, would you envision in the wake of an earthquake or a tsunami for free-living animals, such as birds, iguanas, fish, lizards?
You seem to be accepting the idea that injecting contraceptives into free-living animals is the same as “offering help”. I would hope that you would think about that and challenge the assumption that we can wield control over their lives in that way. “Offering help” on an as-needed basis is a far cry from MANAGING species that we have deemed ‘out of control’ – often for specious reasons, such as raccoons who get in to our garbage (because we make garbage and leave it accessible), or deer who eat people’s gardens (because we have taken their land and modified the landscape).
And I have seen no argument which espouses contraceptives for free-living animals which is not made for the vested interests of humans, who want the land or resources that the animals are occupying. How is that a vegan value?
“The questions surrounding how to deal with the interactions of human and non-humans are quite difficult, and I don’t think that the only viable solution boils down to that we should “let things ‘work out’ in nature””
And yet what we CAN and SHOULD control is our own behaviour. Our own population, our taxes on resources, our city designs and urban sprawl. We have made a lot of problems, AND we can learn to be humble as a species and start to address solutions that aren’t merely self-interested. What this concretely means is to stop purpose-breeding animals, and to protect habitat for free-living animals and all the ecological communities which have evolved on this wonderful earth. We need to control ourselves, and stop taking every square inch of land for consumeristic purposes. What is hard to understand about that?
Does Lee talk about tearing down Boston? I don’t seem to recall that in the book.
I am not trying to catch you, although I would do my best to do so if you were falling and I could help. I appreciate that you would as well. My reading of what Lee Hall has written tells me that risk is a part of the natural world, and that harms come to other animals as a natural result of them being alive. According to what I have read in “On Their Own Terms” and elsewhere, Hall believes that we are obligated to help in those instances where harms have befallen other animals as the result of human activity, but I do not read where the book suggests that we should intervene in the natural world in any way at all other than that. If you believe that Hall does advocate that humans intervene in the lives of other animals, and interact with them to save them from natural conditions, I would appreciate you providing me with the direct quotes that support your belief. I do not condemn anyone for what they might believe, and I understand the argument Hall makes for non-intervention and non-interacting. I disagree with it. You are saying that I am mistaken in what I take to be Hall’s position on this. It should be easy then for you to provide the evidence which will make your case.
Rather asking me what sort of help on the behalf of nonhuman animals I envision in the case of natural disasters, you ought to ask Lee Hall that question. My postion is that there will be cases where human intervention and interaction can be helpful and where it would not lead to domination or other greater harms than the ones we are trying to mitigate. I do not believe that Hall accepts that proposition.
I have never said anything about injecting contraceptives into anyone, and I have not advocated for contraceptive measures for any free-living animals, although I do acknowledge that it is an idea worth considering when the choices available could be much worse. Moreover, what I have said is that Lee Hall accepts, as do most animal-rights advocates, that humans are justified in using contraceptive measures in the case of purpose-bred domesticated animals. Where I differ with Lee is in the recognition of rights with respect to those animals. My position is that those animals possess moral rights; Hall will not use that terminology. The position espoused in the book hinges on this distinction.
Hall believes that it is a violation of the rights of free-living animals to impose contraints on their reproductive freedoms while at the same time takes the postion that it is right to impose those constraints on purpose-bred domesticated animals. The methods of the contraception involved is not germane to this discussion, the relevant question is by what reasoning we can justify the disparate treatments of two groups of sentient individuals? Hall suggests the ethic of care applies to domesticated animals, but not to free-living ones. But as I read it, there is no convincing valid and sound argument made to support that suggestion.
If we want to have a discussion about the morality of contraception as applied to other animals, we first need to understand why one set of animals is excluded from the discussion. The assumption is that spay & neuter programs for “pets” is necessary and in thier best interests, but that similar measures (by whatever means) are completely unacceptable in the case of free-living ones. But, all other animals should be treated equally – either it is okay to use contraception against all of them or it not okay to use contraception against any of them. Hall has provided me with no reason to believe otherwise.
You say this: “And yet what we CAN and SHOULD control is our own behaviour. Our own population, our taxes on resources, our city designs and urban sprawl. We have made a lot of problems, AND we can learn to be humble as a species and start to address solutions that aren’t merely self-interested. What this concretely means is to stop purpose-breeding animals, and to protect habitat for free-living animals and all the ecological communities which have evolved on this wonderful earth. We need to control ourselves, and stop taking every square inch of land for consumeristic purposes. What is hard to understand about that?”
Where have I ever argued against any of those ideas? I’ve published 210 entries on this blog since January 1st of this year, if I have ever suggested that we ought not to do a better job of relating to the world, or that we ought not to lessen our impact on it, or that we ought not to do better towards every other living being and thing in this world, please show me where and with what words I have done so. As far as tearing down Boston, it was a rhetorical statement, meant to convey that while I appreciate the vision of a world where “There is hardly a more exhilarating feeling than camping quietly watching a group of deer walk past — the feeling of letting other animals pass through our lives in peace”, the reality is that most of humanity lives in the cities and the towns of the world and that is unlikely to change.
Tim,
Here you go – this is what I was thinking of. Written by Hall in 2009 -
“Occasionally, one of the stranded seal pups Peter reaches during the course of this work turns out to be suffering from a natural peril: A stingray’s barb in a seal pup’s face might, like a splinter, work itself out, but it can also can kill a pup, by boring up through the roof of the mouth and moving out through the eye or up into the head. Peter will remove a barb. Brief as it is, this is control over the animal, but only so the animal might flourish.”
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/actionline/spring-2009/Animal_Rights.php
I’m just very puzzled about your take on Hall’s writing. It seems to me as if you perceive Hall as a very rigid theorist, a one-sided argument. I took Hall’s book to be very wide-reaching, and very human: I thought it left room for discussion of the sorts of problems you are outlining, like what we should do (if anything) about assisting animals in natural disasters. By the way, I asked for specific examples from you because I’m finding it hard to picture what sort of intervention you might think would be helpful, adequate, or reasonable in terms of helping free-living animals in natural disasters. And yes, maybe I will ask Hall!
Yes – I got that you were trying to be rhetorical. I was poking fun! But really, again, you don’t think that Hall’s writing acknowledges the complex reality that we live in, and that most people now live in cities, and have to deal with human-animal conflicts like we have been talking about? Hall points towards a future, a co-existant future, yes, but I don’t think that Hall’s in-the-meantime strategy is a primitivist one – that we should tear down cities for example, or refuse to acknowledge the problems that human settlement and human industrialization have caused/are causing.
I think the distinction between domesticated animals and free-living animals, in terms of contraception, is not so much a moral one as a practical one. If we “let alone” the wild animals, they are able to self-regulate; naturally, their oestrus cycles and fertility respond to factors such as drought and food shortage. In contrast, animals who are domesticated are, in my understanding, kind of super-fertile – they come into season more often, younger, and without response to external factors. So if we “let alone” the domesticated animals, we are not doing them any favours: they keep producing kittens and pups which eventually become ‘unwanted’, and are killed, disposed of, abandoned …
I understand your argument that we are violating the domestic animals by subjecting them to surgeries. It’s true. It’s a risk that they may or may not choose for themselves, if they were at all capable of such choosing. I think that Hall’s point is that their mere existence as domestic dependents is such a violation of their rights already, that all we are able to do in the meantime is make the best, most reasonable decisions on their behalf. And, in the big picture, that includes spaying and neutering. Otherwise they run through cycles of pregnancy at a tremendous rate – again, far greater than what they would experience in the wild – and this surely is a stress on their bodies. And their children may or may not have a decent life, because they are born into a world where they are owned, used, and disposed of at will.
In terms of contraception on free-living animals, I found this an extremely useful read:
http://www.rpaforall.org/wildlife.html
It’s not arguing specifically against contraception so much as ‘management’ of wildlife as a whole, but I think you would find it very interesting.
Cheers.
J.
Thank you once more for your time and thoughtful reply.
Here’s the problem. When I want someone to know something about what I think, for instance that there will be situations involving free-living animals in which some individuals would benefit from human interactions, I say what I think, in plain language, in the first person. In the piece you have excerpted, Hall does not do what I would do. I am not saying that anyone has to do what I do, but I am noticing that Hall does not and then wondering, why is that? I believe it is because wording that piece as it is worded allows a reader to believe that Hall has taken a position which has neither been taken nor endorsed by the author. In fact, what has been said is that even this interaction with a seal pup amounts to “control” of the individual (but only so it will flourish). Does that sound like an endorsement of the practice to you? It doesn’t to me. What it sounds like is that Hall has mentioned a specific instance of interaction with nonhumans which another person is involved with, and yet which is still problematic. Lee Hall is an attorney, an accomplished published author, a public speaker and an outspoken advocate. The words chosen to express the thoughts in the piece you have referenced were not chosen lightly and the words Hall chose not to use were not omitted without reason. If Lee Hall did want to say that human interactions with other animals can sometimes work to the mutual benefit of both, the words used would have said just that.
You say Hall has written a very wide-reaching and very human book. I do not disagree with you. But taken as a whole, and considering the thesis of the book, it is call for human beings to accept a primacy of nature and a separation from all other animals. It asks us to “let them be” and to adopt a policy of non-intervention and non-interaction without exception. It assumes that every problem in the world of free-living animals which has not been caused by humankind is a problem that those free-living animals ought to live with. From the essay you’ve linked to, Hall says this (notice the parts I’ve underlined):
“Imagine a visit from some extraterrestrial tribe of beings who arrive on Earth. What if they acted to us as we act to others on this planet? Imagine if they, being more capable and advanced than ourselves (after all, that’s how they got that cool spaceship), but not having any way of hearing or understanding our words or cries, proceeded to debate whether to consume us, experiment on us, or wrap us up and carry us home to use as playthings. Not only would their decision to enlist us in fulfilling their interests in food, research and entertainment be a horrific nightmare,
but even doing it for our own good — the “stewardship” role — would be frightening, because we prefer to decide what’s good for ourselves
. How would we feel about our fearsome visitors? No doubt we’d try to tell them, ‘Please, let us alone. Don’t split up our families to try to introduce us into your more advanced culture; don’t talk about how well you should care for us before using us up. Don’t try to mimic our natural habitat so that we can live and reproduce when you display us.
Don’t do it even if you know we are going to blow ourselves up or go extinct under the melting ice caps. Just go in peace.
’”
Hall does not envision that a more capable and advanced extraterrestrial tribe could act to benefit us in ways that we would welcome – even when the alternative would be certain death. I have to ask again: Why is that? Is it an impossible scenario to imagine that one capable being could and would help another less capable being and do so without thoughts of domination and control? I can certainly imagine such a scenario, and I can imagine it happening right here and now.
Consider the myriad ways in which “cruel nature” exacts its toll on other animals every hour of every day. Aren’t there bound to be cases where humans could help? Suppose a community of other animals were facing drought and dehydration. Isn’t it imaginable that we might be able to deliver water to those dying in an effort to save them? Would such a simple act of kindness really be one of control? Can you imagine other cases where we might be able to act to save others, without undue and lasting impact upon their natural lives, and without causing some greater harm in the process? I can. When I know of others who at “risk”, my first impulse is not to just “Let them be” while I “just go in peace.” My first impulse is to do something to help.
When I think about cities, I acknowledge that Yes, Hall understands the complexity of modern life, of course. My point is though that the analysis put forth in the book does not speak to those complexities. Suppose we waved a magic wand today and tomorrow all the purpose-bred domesticated and otherwise captive nonhumans were gone from planet Earth. There would still be alligators in the city where I live. I am not exaggerating; the University of Florida is called the “Home of the Fightin’ Gators” for a good and real reason. I love the idea of watching deer walk peacefully through my life – there’s a place in Gainesville where that happens too – but I am not at all at peace with the idea of accepting the risk of an alligator attack on my neighbor’s small child.
You may “think the distinction between domesticated animals and free-living animals, in terms of contraception, is not so much a moral one as a practical one” but the domesticated animals would likely differ with you. It is their interest in reproducing that we are talking about. I do not disagree with the idea of spaying and neutering domesticated nonhumans, but in doing so, we disregard their interests, and we violate their “non-basic” rights. We should be honest about that. To suppose that one rights-violation is not problematic because we are already violating other more basic rights, is not a rationale we ought to adopt – that’s the rationale of exploitation itself. Violating the non-basic right to reproductive freedom in domesticated animals is a problem, but we can justify doing it because any course of action will result in future rights-violations, no matter what we do. That justification allows us to seek the prevention of greater future wrongs, through lesser rights-violations today. On the other hand, to say that ‘since we’ve denied them their basic rights in the first place it doesn’t matter that we also violate more of their rights’, is not at all the same thing, and it is not at all morally justifiable.
The specific of the methods of contraception do not matter to this argument. I will stipulate that ALL current methods of contraception of ALL nonhuman animals are reprehensible.
I understand that Hall does not consider domesticated animals to be under the purview of rights protection, because they do not, according to the argument, have rights in the first place. Lee Hall is wrong about that. They do have rights and we violate them in the interest of preventing greater future harms. Therefore, in the case of other animals who also have rights, there must be at least some situations where we would be equally justified in violating their rights in the interest of preventing greater future harms. Or we are not justified in using contraceptive measures against any nonhumans at all. We cannot have it both ways.
We cannot define away the rights of some nonhumans and then disregard their interests, while at the same time invoke the claim of rights for a different set of nonhumans when it suits our agenda. I can appreciate that Lee Hall wants to argue that we ought not to use contraceptive measures against free-living animals while at the same time we ought to use them against domesticated animals. The argument put forth, when fully considered, does not effectively reach that conclusion.
Thanks again,
Tim
Hi Tim!
I don’t know if you’ve been following the conversation on Twitter, but I’ve been discussing reproductive rights with Lee Hall there as they pertain to feral animals. I think this is a very tricky subject and not black and white. I certainly don’t profess to know all the answers.
But, since Lee does make such an issue of reproductive rights for wild animals, I think she should do a better job than she has (at least so far that I have seen) of showing at what point do animals obtain/deserve those rights. On the one hand, we do have domesticated animals that are reliant on us for their most basic needs and I have no wish that more of them be brought into this world, either. And on the other hand, we have wild animals that Lee says should not be sterilized because that would be a rights violation. And while I’m not sure exactly where I stand on that, I do feel that it should be a measure of last resort and that there usually are other options. And I do think that we should try to stand back and stop managing and especially micromanaging wild populations.
But, in the middle, there are feral populations. The exact definition varies and in practice stray domesticated animals often get lumped in, but feral populations are animals that have escaped domestication and are now living more like wild animals, sometimes even as wild animals. At some point people try to make the distinction between feral and simply wild populations, but there doesn’t seem to be good line that everyone agrees on. For example, in the U.S., people seem to talk about “feral cats” but “wild horses”, though I’ve seen “feral horses”, too. Perhaps someone can better define the difference here.
In any case, the issue as I see it, is if Lee is going to be so very against the sterilization of “free living” and “wild” animals, but still support it for “feral” populations, where is the line? Do we assume that any cats we see can’t fend for themselves without out help and therefore aren’t free-living enough to warrant reproductive rights? How well does a cat have to fend for his or herself? And if we point to reduced lifespan and problems with parasites and accidents, then why do those things not excuse treating other free living populations similarly because they are also subjected to those things? Why should we not manage those populations as well? Is it a generational thing? Can we somehow tell that such-and-such community of feral cats has been living in an area for twenty generations and therefore are now as wild as wild horses or wild sheep who once had domesticated ancestors, too?
Hi Meg!
I have not been following the Twitter conversation. You raise an excellent point though and it immediately brought Australian dingos (dingoes?) to my mind. Dingos are descended, as far as we know, from a line of once domesticated canines from a long, long time ago. Are they now feral or are they wild? To complicate matters, since the reintroduction of modern domesticated dogs, it seems that dingos have been interbreeding with them. When it comes to drawing lines between domesticated, feral and wild, the example of dingos might show that, in some cases at least, there isn’t even a line in the first place.
Thanks!
Tim
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