A Plea for the Animals by Matthieu Ricard

Author:Matthieu Ricard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

We should also consider here an argument of Peter Singer’s, the origin of which is to be found in Jeremy Bentham. This is a demonstration that has often been misinterpreted, violently criticized, and loudly pointed at by those who take a dim view of the animal liberation movement. Singer makes the following ad absurdum argument: If the lesser development in animals of certain human abilities—intelligence, a life plan, moral values (or the absence of certain abilities, such as philosophical and scientific genius)—justified our right to use them however it suits us, notably for scientific experimentation, what should prevent us from having recourse for the same purposes to human beings who are in a deep and irreversible vegetative state? Such people are indeed also marked by a total absence of abilities possessed by some animals. Some of the great apes have an IQ of 75, and the human average is 100.

Obviously we are horrified by the idea of instrumentalizing other human beings. Quite fortunately, we feel enough empathy and compassion toward them to be concerned by their condition, even though they might be incapable of even slightly manifesting the faculties that give human existence its unique quality. The fact that we are naturally inclined to feel sympathy toward our fellow human beings doubtless has a certain biological element in it as well as a philosophical one. But we have to acknowledge that this sympathy is partial, subjective, and deformed by our prejudices.

The idea of this argument ad absurdum is not to animalize humans or to humanize animals, nor is it to suggest that we begin to utilize humans in a vegetative state for scientific and medical experimentation, even in cases where doing so could make possible important discoveries that might be useful to humanity. On the contrary, the force of the argument is that we should cease instrumentalizing animals at our whim and without mercy. In essence, what we are talking about is not extending to humans the abuses that we wreak upon animals, but extending to animals the compassion that we feel toward human beings.

A Few Rays of Hope

A new European Union directive of 2010 states: “Animals have an intrinsic value that must be respected and . . . thus they should always be treated like sentient beings.” It adds: “The use of animals for scientific or educational ends should therefore be considered only when there is no alternative method that does not involve the use of animals.”31

The European directive stipulates in its preamble: “Though it is desirable to replace the use of living animals in procedures with other methods that do not involve their use, the use of living animals remains necessary to protect human and animal health as well as the environment.”32 Nonetheless, this directive stresses the necessity of improving the well-being of animals used in research procedures, taking into account new knowledge concerning animal well-being, including the capacity of animals to feel and express pain, suffering, and anxiety. Thanks to continuous lobbying on the part of associations for the protection of animals, the directive prohibits the use of animals in testing cosmetics.

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