Mind If I Order the Cheeseburger by Colb Sherry F

Author:Colb, Sherry F.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590563830
Publisher: Lantern Books

Human Exceptionalism

We begin our exploration of religion and animal rights by considering the simple idea of human exceptionalism. Human exceptionalism holds that human beings are unique among the animals and that our uniqueness carries various moral implications. If being vegan meant believing that humans are equal to or exactly like other animals, then veganism would appear to clash with notions of human exceptionalism common to many religious traditions. We can usefully ask, then, whether a commitment to veganism and animal rights conflicts with human exceptionalism.

A common stereotype has animal rights activists believing that there are no important differences between humans and other animals, but I have never met any ethical vegan who feels this way. Of greatest relevance to our discussion, humans are plainly distinct in many respects from most of the animals whom people consume. Due to our particular capacity for symbolic communication, we humans can enact legislation, collect taxes, and act communally with deliberation and in a manner that appears to be unavailable to other species.

We are also capable of “progress” from one generation to the next, because we can record our discoveries, in writing and otherwise, and thereby leave behind us a legacy that saves us from having to “reinvent the wheel.” In virtue of our apparently singular linguistic endowments, humans are capable of intentionally cooperating with millions and even billions of other humans in communal projects. No one could deny either these human abilities or the immense power that they vest in our species.

As Voltaire and others have said, however, “with great power comes great responsibility,”311 and virtually all religions offer moral guidance for humans in an effort to harness our immense power for good rather than for evil. For Christians and Jews, the Ten Commandments direct people not to commit murder, while other religions likewise contain this prohibition.312 Though humans are certainly capable of murder, a capacity the realization of which becomes a recurring theme throughout the Bible, religious rules require that we instead exercise restraint and allow others to live, even when we have the motive and the means to kill.

Over time, human power has grown exponentially. Humans today can inflict greater violence than we could have inflicted in prior centuries, by virtue of technological advances and the skills, of warfare and communal self-sacrifice, that we have inherited from our forebears. We are also, at the same time, capable of stunning positive achievements. We can not only destroy more than any other species on earth can destroy, but we can also build more, in a shorter period of time, and save more lives as well.

To be part of a religious tradition is therefore to understand not only how special humans are but also how important it is for us, out of all of the species, to appreciate the great possibilities that we hold in our hands. Religion thus demands not only a celebration of humanity but also a humility that comes from appreciating how much easier it is to destroy than to build, a

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