Protozoa and Pumas: Distinguishing Life
When discussing animals, there’s often an implication that we should not think about them in hierarchical terms. To do so is fall into the trap of anthropocentrism. The presence of hierarchy, ipso facto, implies value judgments that humans have no right, much less ability, to make. Thus we’re advised to avoid imbuing animals with externally imposed qualitative differences that might lead to them being “ranked” according to a human-determined scale of meaning. This advice, on the surface, seems sensible enough.
However, while I agree that there’s always the danger of imposing warped meaning onto the animal world, I’m stuck on two things when it comes to the hierarchy-avoidance mode of thinking. First, I cannot imagine, even remotely, not making even the most basic judgements about animals thorough anything but a human lens. As a human, it’s the only perspective I know. Second, as much as I would like to avoid the establishment of hierarchies, I think they’re unavoidable. Humans are categorizers; we rank. The key is to categorize and rank in a just, equitable, non-dogmatic way, and in a way that honors as much as possible the holistic nature of biological life.
The task of establishing hierarchies in the animal world is ultimately instigated by the need for some guide as to how we should treat animals. Why is it that I would, in good conscience, swerve to miss hitting a deer while driving (and potentially endanger myself and other humans) but would not do the same for a beetle? Assuming that there’s nothing profoundly unethical in making this distinction (which my gut tells me there isn’t), I therefore need a rubric (read: hierarchy) to explain my behavior and exonerate my squishing of the beetle to minimize the risk to humans.
It is for this reason, I think, that so many discussions of animals and our relationships with them center on questions and evaluations of sentience. To say that some animals are sentient and others are not is, in a way, to rank them. Of course, sentience demands that we project onto animals qualities that they appear to have but, in fact, may not at all have. We must make evaluations about sentience. But we must do so with caution and humility—qualities that, regrettably, might be inherently impossible to achieve given that, again, we are the ones making the judgments.
So, what do we do when it comes to understanding sentience? Philosophers have written endlessly about this question. For me, relying on the presence or absence of a nervous system is vaguely useful, but by no means determinative. Recognizing that an animal appears to situate himself in historical time—that is, she sees experience as somehow cumulative—is important. To grasp that an animal experiences and has at least some basic understanding of pleasure and pain—and makes equally basic choices accordingly—must have some bearing. And I also seek to acknowledge intentionality. That’s a short list, but it gives the gist.
I make these evaluations with tremendous trepidation because, in a way, I know that from a Darwinian perspective every species is, well, perfect. The hard thing for me to admit is that, at the end of the day, I’m most comfortable making evaluations about sentience and, in turn, granting moral consideration based more on my proximity and familiarity with certain animals than any objectively measured and commonly agreed upon standard of measurement. That’s uncomfortable.
There is no question that a plant, a protozoa, and a puma are radically different forms of life. There is also no question that pinpointing why they are radically different, and how those differences bear on our relationship with these forms of life, are daunting intellectual challenges. When faced with them, I always take solace in the simple and undeniable imperative that it’s wrong to exploit animals for food we do not need. Easy. But that solace, I believe, requires us to dig deeper for an explanation as to why that basic moral truth is what it is.
Your post resonate to a paper I have written of this subject last year in which I try to analyze the phenomenological basis of our distinction between higher and lower animals.
Many people working in animal ethics think of insects as unconscious beings. They laugh at Descartes’s theory of “animal machine”, but they do not reject it insofar as they think it is possible that animals with sense organs, able to perceive and move by themselves, endowed with memory, able learn and to have a complex social life are not sentient.
I think the distinction between higher and lower animals corresponds less to an “objective” divide between primitive and evolved animals, or between conscious and unconscious animals, than to a phenomenological distinction between familiar and unfamiliar animals.
There are animals in which we spontaneously perceive meaningful expressions of lived experiences and other animals, like beetles, who live in a temporality which is so estranged from our own that we cannot immediately understand them.
Speaking of “familiar” and “unfamiliar” animals rather than “lower” and “higher” ones may help us acknowledge the fact that our understanding of others is grounded on our being-with them and therefore is not an objective or rigid distinction.
http://christianebailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/KINDS-OF-LIFE_ANIMAL_PHENOMENOLOGY_BAILEY.pdf
Since I began to learn about farming a few years back, I’ve taken an interest in all the creatures that play a role in transitioning the dead back to the living soil. Though large creatures can play a role, this is largely the work of the “lower” animals, the beetles and earthworms and other under-appreciated creatures. I make more of an effort now to avoid harming these citizens of the netherworld, overriding any *ick* impulse to leave them in peace.
And yet my consideration only goes so far. Though I go out of my way to avoid causing them harm, it doesn’t bother me to watch chickens do them harm. When I watch a chicken eat a beetle or an earthworm, catch a bee or attack a snail, I feel something like pride– a happiness that comes from seeing the chickens be fully themselves, to fully express who they are.
I still feel obligations to groups, or to the system as a whole. I feel obliged to make sure the chickens don’t make a real dent in the number of beetles or worms, obliged to make sure there are still sufficient numbers to go about their daily work. But I feel no pain for the individual insect who lived a good life in a good place, dying to feed an animal who is evolved to feed on them.
Maybe the distinction comes down to waste. If a worm feeds a chicken, its death has not been in vain– it has fed an animal who plays in important role in the ecosystem. If, on the other and, the worm were to die because I was putting chemicals into the soil, or thoughtlessly turning the soil & leaving the worm to die in the sun, its death would have been for nothing.
My apologies if this has been rambling… but I’m trying to understand where I draw my distinction. To me, the important line isn’t between plants & animals or between higher animals & lower animals– it’s between wasteful actions (intentional or otherwise) & actions that improve the world. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.
To answer these thoughtful posts, I will rapidly say that I have a relationship with cats in our home that I don’t enjoy with spiders, yet I respect the spider’s will to live and to accomplish his/her destiny. If I find a spider in our home, I will take pains to catch him/her gently and put her/him outside. Should I see a beetle on the road, I will take pains not to crush him/her. Beetles are of course less visible on the road than a deer and I no doubt crush them often without meaning to. I also feel a personal preference for beetles over spiders, but that is irrelevant in terms of their purpose and will to live. (I just purchased a bumper sticker warning drivers that I brake for squirrels and other wildlife, which I am careful to do in a responsible way, without endangering other drivers.)
I was raised to feel reverence for earth worms, knowing how beneficial they are for the soil. If I were to see a chicken eating a worm, I would accept this as a fact of life, but I wouldn’t rejoice since pain is involved, just as I cannot rejoice when one of our wonderful feline companions catches and kills a mouse.
As for hierarchy, I prefer to think, as does Christiane Bailey, in terms of familiarity and unfamiliarity. I will never forget my encounter with a yellow jacket in our kitchen a few years ago. This yellow jacket had probably just awakened from a winter sleep and appeared to be a little groggy as she stood on the counter. Then she saw me and became alert. She braced herself and followed me with her eyes as I came closer to her, with intent to kill (my old self at work then), and I could just see in her eyes (anthropomorphically) that she knew I was after her life. Indeed, I killed her, but I did not feel comfortable doing so, for the first time ever, because I thought I had seen consciousness in that insect’s eyes and therefore had developed a recognition of her being, which meant I had a relationship with her. I have remained impressed by her to this day, and even if I do not care for yellow jackets, to say the least, I now respect their will to live. This year, also for the first time ever, I didn’t try to eradicate a nest close to the house. And we were not bothered by these neighbors. It was a tough decision but one I am glad I made. I keep on learning and I welcome these conversations.
A happy and peaceful New Year to all.
A very thought-provoking post that opens up a lot of questions. however, I found it especially interesting that you stated: “I always take solace in the simple and undeniable imperative that it’s wrong to exploit animals for food we do not need”, as opposed to the “it’s wrong to kill animals” etc.
I would have expected you to say “kill” since you stand, not only against factory farms, but “ethical” means of raising animals for food as well; your statement using “it’s wrong to exploit” opens up the question of the subjective measurement of what it means to exploit when, in the end, slaughter (for food) is slaughter.
Christiane Bailey, thank you for the link to your most interesting paper.
I have reviewed a couple of books dealing with the issue of a hierarchy of moral status, one book by philosophers and another by a non-philosopher.
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2016&context=bts
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1117&context=bts
I think it’s true that as we acquaint ourselves with a wider variety of creatures, our need to rank them in relation to humans and in relation to one another fades out.
In the past two years, as I’ve laid aside mistaken notions about human superiority, I’ve encountered — and befriended — a plethora of individuals who belong to species previously unfamiliar to me.
These spontaneous meetings, which have sometimes resulted in days-long (if-not-months-long) relationships, have been eye-opening. I’m not referring to the animals’ material bodies or physical movements being newly recognizable, but rather to the inner life of these creatures — the invisible substance that makes each being a unique, identifiable individual — becoming apprehensible to me.
This noticeable ramp-up in my familiarity with a wider variety of nonhumans started two summers ago, when I made the acquaintance of a yellow-crowned night heron in my front yard. Simultaneously, I got to know a fat female toad who sat most evenings atop a sewer cover on another part of the property. I sat and talked with them — separately — in what you might call extended visits. I believe they both sensed that I couldn’t bear to see them eat my insect friends, so they always waited for me to leave before they caught and devoured their respective dinners.
The same summer I was also introduced to an unusual number of lizards, roaches, wasps, flies, mosquitoes, spiders, songbirds, squirrels, and other outdoor neighbors. Sometimes we hung out comfortably for a while before parting ways; other times they allowed me to gently move them from inappropriate to appropriate places.
Little did I realize that these opportunities to overcome prejudices and appreciate the fine qualities every sentient being possesses were preparing me for a rare adventure that would take place a few months later.
It happened on a cold late-November night, when I found a nearly-frozen monarch butterfly sitting on the ground in a friend’s enclosed porch. I brought him home, fed him vegan sugar water, and learned, by observation, exactly what he needed from moment to moment. Over the next 30 days, I got so I could tell when he wanted to eat, when he wanted to go outside, when he wanted to sleep (sometimes he slept for two or three days straight), and when he wanted to test out his wings by doing loops and dives around the room (he trembled in anticipation of a trial flight).
For his part, Marcus the Monarch learned as much about me as I did about him. He recognized my forefinger and hopped aboard, familiarized himself with my face and clothing, knew when I was preparing his meals, and trusted me to care for him wherever we roamed. If during our daily walks he flew a short distance to a bush and got stuck, he waited patiently for me to reach over or under the branches to rescue him. Once he landed on a neighbor’s screen window, another time in the middle of the street (no cars were in sight, thank goodness!).
Our relationship couldn’t have ended more perfectly. Three days after Christmas, we were sitting on the sunny porch, where I was silently declaring his natural right, his normal desire, and his innate capacity to do what a butterfly is made to do: float and flit — settle on stamens and soar through the sky. Over the next few minutes, Marcus circled the porch three times, each time rising higher and staying up longer. The third time, to my surprise, he kept going over the porch fence and headed into the wild blue yonder! I panicked, not fully convinced he was ready to be on his own.
But the next afternoon on my walk, as soon as I made peace with the idea that he was safe somewhere and functioning fine, he flew from out of nowhere right in front of me, alighted on the upper branch of a tall leafless tree, then winged his way joyfully over some rooftops — FREE!
We’re each entitled to the same freedom — the liberty to let go of the belief that we operate in a separate sphere from other species, the belief that we and other creatures will forever remain enigmas to or even enemies of one another, and the belief that life consists primarily, if not exclusively, of a bunch of biological beings designed to kill one another to sustain themselves.
There’s got to be a grander purpose for each of us than to feed off another’s dead body. Maybe it’s to learn to love all alike. To be one family. A familiar family.
A lovely story!
I’m glad you’ve broached this topic. Saying that individuals of all animal species have equal inherent worth looks all right on paper; however, it seems to fall rather flat when I consider difficult questions such as, “Can I give anti-parasite medication to my dog?” and “If killing a wolf saves ten deer, is killing the wolf okay?” All life has value, and I don’t mean to downplay the fact that even animals we consider “low,” e.g. insects, are more remarkable than they at first appear. But dealing with dilemmas like these seems to require some method of “ranking” animals.