Abstract
The paper is concerned with whether the reductio of the natural-harm-argument can be avoided by disvaluing non-human suffering and death. According to the natural-harm-argument, alleviating the suffering of non-human animals is not a moral obligation for human beings because such an obligation would also morally prescribe human intervention in nature for the protection of non-human animal interests which, it claims, is absurd. It is possible to avoid the reductio by formulating the moral obligation to alleviate non-human suffering and death with two constraints: The first concerns the practicability of intervention and establishes a moral obligation to intervene only in cases where this is humanly possible. The other constraint acknowledges that lack of competence in humans can risk producing more harm than good by intervening. A third way of avoiding the problematic version of the natural-harm-argument considers whether human and non-human suffering and death are sufficiently different to allow different types of responses. I argue that the attempt to avoid the reductio of the natural-harm-argument by disvaluing non-human death can only work with an anthropocentric bias, which accords to non-human suffering and death a fundamentally different value and that it fails to dismiss the moral obligation created by the harm that non-human animals face in the wild.
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Notes
In this paper I shall remain neutral about whether the concepts of rights or that of interests is best suited to capture the moral demand emanating from non-human animals.
Intervention in nature for the sake of ecosystems, biodiversity or against the extinction of species under threat by captive breeding programmes and the reintroduction of animals into the wild enjoys relatively wide appeal already.
A prominent example of the moral agency argument appeared in Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights. Based on his postulation that animals have a valid claim to respectful treatment, Regan argues that human beings have “a prima facie duty to assist them [animals] when others treat them in ways that violate their rights” (Regan 1983, 282). However, a predator’s attack of a prey does not create in (human) moral agents the obligation to assist the prey because the predator, not being a moral agent, cannot violate any rights. “Only moral agents can have duties, and this because only these individuals have the cognitive and other abilities necessary for being held morally accountable for what they do or fail to do. Wolves are not moral agents. They cannot bring impartial reasons to bear on their decision making – cannot, that is, apply the formal principle of justice or any of its interpretations. That being so, wolves in particular and moral patients generally cannot themselves meaningfully be said to have duties to anyone, nor, therefore, the particular duty to respect the rights possessed by other animals. In claiming that we have a prima facie duty to assist those animals whose rights are violated, therefore, we are not claiming that we have a duty to assist the sheep against the attack of the wolf, since the wolf neither can nor does violate anyone’s rights” (Regan 1983, 285).
In his attempt to establish that lamenting predation does not obligate intervention, Raterman makes an analogy between the respect for an adult child’s autonomy and “something like my respect for nature’s autonomy” and argues that this respect might create “a strong and legitimate reluctance in me to meddle in ‘nature’s affairs’ – or, if that is too vague a notion, in any individual predator’s affairs” (Raterman 2008, 23). Donaldson and Kymlicka argue for recognising wild animals sovereignty and take this recognition to draw limits to “our obligations in terms of positive assistance to wild animals” (Donalds and Kymlicka 2011, 167)
If we would adapt the moral agency argument to the human case it would result in highly counter-intuitive prescriptions of not being obligated to intervene when a child is under threat by a tiger as opposed to an adult human. Since the adult human can be considered as a moral agent but the tiger cannot, the moral obligation would exist in the former case but not in the latter.
In response to a question as to whether it is “man’s duty to impose a peace throughout the animal kingdom”, Singer adds: “If, in some way, we could be reasonably certain that interfering with wildlife in a particular way would, in the long run, greatly reduce the amount of killing and suffering in the animal world, it would, I think, be right to interfere” (Singer 1973)
Singer responds in this vein to the question of suffering in the wild: „[…] once we give up our claim to ‚dominion‘over the other species we should stop interfering with them at all. We should leave them alone as much as we possibly can. Having given up the role of tyrant, we should not try to play God either“(Singer 2002, 226).
Another possible charge of hubris against a moral obligation to intervene in nature for the sake of non-human animals is independent of whether or not intervention is or can with a high degree of certainty expected to be successful. However, to refrain from intervention in such a case out of a desire not to play God would be to reject the moral obligation under debate outright and would involve a rejection of much of what we believe constitutes moral agency.
Whether entirely or possibly with the exception of some of the sturdiest species like waterbears or bacteria, the prospect is alarming for intervention-sceptics.
A proponent of this position is Charles Fink: “As a general policy we do more good for animals by protecting them from human encroachment than by protecting them from natural predators” (Fink 2005, 15)
As they do in two of the most influential approaches; in the utilitarian framework of Peter Singer and the deontological framework of Tom Regan (Singer 1987).
Charles Fink, who also considers the move of “arguing that human life (ordinarily) has greater value than animal life” (Fink 2005, 12) to explain away the inconsistency in postulating a moral obligation to protect human beings, but not non-human animals from natural harm, counters with a thought experiment: “Suppose the earth was invaded by carnivorous aliens who could satisfy their nutritional needs only by consuming human flesh. Suppose further that these aliens far surpassed human beings in intelligence, rationality, and so on, so that alien life was judged to have greater value than human life. Would we, for this reason, have no obligation to protect human beings from these alien predators?” (ibid.)
Nevertheless, the capacities of a moral patient remain primary in establishing what state of affairs is preferable for its life to go better rather than worse, even if we may not always be in the position to find moral agents whom we could call to duty. Relations are part of a moral situation but they are not constitutive of it in the sense that a moral demand exists only if there is an agent with a relationship that it can latch onto. Taking relations as the starting point of a description of a situation with a moral demand puts not the patient who is the object of possible harm or benefice in the centre of the moral situation but the moral agent. But the demand on the moral agent and therefore the real obligation she has emanates from the situation in general and the patient in particular. In a moral situation with a recognisable moral demand therefore, the moral obligation of the agent cannot be argued away by recourse to (special) relations. Rather relations add to morally relevant factors, as e.g. in an extreme life-boat situation, where a choice between a companion animal and a hitherto unknown wild animal is required.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Cátia Faria for her inspiration and contribution. I would also like two anonymous reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments.
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Sözmen, B.İ. Harm in the Wild: Facing Non-Human Suffering in Nature. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 16, 1075–1088 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-013-9416-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-013-9416-5