World Animal Day

I forwent contributing to my blog last week because I was––classically––“too busy.” I will surely make up for that post by doubling up on posts in the coming weeks, but for now let’s focus on the topic at hand. Today (October 4th) is World Animal Day. I am normally critical of days like these (National Son Day, National Girlfriend Day, &c) and am generally resentful of the Hallmarkization of the mundane. But, I think a day like World Animal Day is at the very least, on its surface, a nice thing to have. It gives people a reason to take time out of their days to think about the ways that they appreciate, interact with, and (most regrettably) overlook nonhuman animals daily. This morning, I was fortunate enough to have come across this quote by late novelist, Brigid Brophy: 

“The person who kills for fun is announcing that, could he get away with it, he'd kill you for fun. Your life may be of no consequence to anyone else but is invaluable to you because it's the only one you've got. Exactly the same is true of each individual deer, hare, rabbit, fox, fish, pheasant and butterfly. Humans should enjoy their own lives, not taking others’.” 

This reasoning is forceful and compelling. Regardless of whether we take it to be valuable or not, life is a thing that is indispensable to its subjects as without it they could not even begin to question its value. Even if I were the stupidest human being on the face of the earth with no friends, no family, nobody who perceived or acknowledged my worth, the taking of my life would still be unspeakably wrong to me. Why couldn’t we imagine this to be the case for the nonhuman animal’s life that we carelessly take? As Christine Korsgaard would say, there is a sense in which a nonhuman animal’s being alive is good for it though it may not be good to it in the way it would be for a human being. 

The skeptical anthropocentrist may say that this is what makes all the difference! A human being is capable of knowing that life is good for them in a way that nonhuman animals simply cannot! There is something unique, something exceptional even about the human subject. 

Those who show the most trepidation toward admitting that animals ought to be afforded moral consideration often do so because they believe that there is something special about human beings. Humans are certainly capable of employing rational thought, contemplation, deliberation, and creativity in a manner that is obviously distinct from other nonhuman animals. Can a deer, hare, rabbit, fox, fish, pheasant, or butterfly build a structure as stunning as the Notre Dâme de Paris, or compose a symphony as spellbinding as Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique? So surely, humans must matter more…no? 

There are good reasons to offer pushback here, but I will resist. Because Brophy herself committed to the humane and compassionate treatment of animals not in spite of the fact that she believed human beings were special and unique but because she believed this. In her Don’t Never Forget: Collected Views and Reviews, Brophy argues: 

“I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice––and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.” 

I have heard too often the justification for eating meat that goes something like this: “Other animals in the Kingdom Animalia constantly prey on those creatures more vulnerable than they. Why should we be an exception?” These are the same people who insist that human beings are exceptional. That they are special and capable of doing things no other kind of animal is capable of. And for that reason, the question ought not be, “Why should we be an exception?” but “Why shouldn’t we be an exception?” We are capable of moral agency, of producing technology that enables us to forgo the use of unsustainable and unethical animal agriculture, of understanding the gravity of instantiated suffering in this world. We can hear the whimpers of a dog and know that the sound indicates suffering, and we can know better than to continue to cause that pain. 

Yet we turn the other cheek when it comes to the mass slaughter of cows, chickens, sheep, and goats in factory farms. And all for what? Gustatory pleasure? 

I hope that I got at least one person who is indifferent to the plight of nonhuman animals to stop and consider for one moment the power they have, as a creature as special as they are, to make a difference in the world for the welfare of nonhuman animals. Happy World Animal Day, today and every day.