I would like to focus on the portion at which Scanlon
mentions animals. I myself have a long history of relationships to animals and
it is an interesting point that Scanlon mentions in his piece. Scanlon asserts
that it is possible to blame animals and the possibility to blame humans for
their actions toward animals.
Scanlon states that it is possible to blame animals if there
is a relationship that can be impaired by the animals’ conduct and that actions
humans make towards animal’s treatment is an impairment with other
humans/ourselves.
I tend to think a little differently than Scanlon. Animals
to me come off as synonymous to children –that they are somewhat limited to
learning social behaviors. Many dogs, for example, learn their behavior in the
first 2 months after their birth, in a way socializing them to act as a normal
dog. Every owner trains their dog in a certain way that reflects their own type
of “culture”. I think it is not the fact that we have a relationship with the dog;
it is more that I think blame of animals is connective to the blaming of
children. There is always this aspect of animals being unable to grasp the
entirety of social realities, like blame. I do believe that dogs are able to
feel shame – i.e. looking toward those videos when animals (being yelled at by
the owners) bow their heads.
Also, the actions human make towards the treatment of
animals is not just impairment with other humans. I think it contends to the
character of the person (perhaps a character flaw mentioned within another
portion of the book) and the action does embody both blame and blameworthiness.
Blame in the sense that via the self it is a horrible action
to mistreat animals. It is even more unethical to treat something that is
unable to comprehend, to the fullest degree, why it is being treated so badly so
poorly. The blameworthiness that exists within actions like these is pretty clear
– the actions that a person does to a being that cannot defend itself is inapprehensible.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your view Franqui however I do not think that Scanlon believes we can truly blame animals as they are not rational beings. He states that, “A large part of the point of having pets lies in the relations of mutual trust and affection…” (166). I do not doubt that these emotions exist between a human and a pet but it is much more of a primal emotion than the relations you find between two humans for example. We do have trust in our animals just like they have trust in us; if not I would not have been able to ride 1200lb horses around practically unscathed. However this trust could more appropriately be labeled as dependency or reliance on the animal’s part. To build on your example – a typical dog does not know why you are mad; they just know that this anger is directed towards them and that that emotion is bad/scary/etc – this makes you less reliable to them. Just like when they do something well and receive praise, they certainly know that is good but rarely know exactly why the praise is being given, just that you are not happy and are in turn more dependable to them. In this way they are very much like children. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule such as highly trained search and rescue dogs, disaster dogs or well trained horses. However these situations are not normal by any means and are also not easy to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteI certainly believe that we can blame other humans that are responsible for the mistreatment of animals and that any type of mistreatment should be seen as a fault and met with blame. Because of their synonymy with children in terms of social constructs, I believe any ill-treatment or harm brought upon an animal is punishable by the social laws already set in place for the mistreatment of children.
I would have to agree on your points that animals are pretty much synonymous to human children in regards to behavior and cognitive/intellectual abilities. I would also have to agree that for this reason, human adults should be to blame for the mistreatment of animals (as well as human children), since they cannot even come close to the same level as us in terms of thinking about complex ideas and thought processes. However, animals such as dogs are definitely capable of following "simple" social learning techniques and unspoken rules of dominance. For this, I would argue that animals can have very strong and very real relationships with human beings. These relationships have to allow for blameworthiness to occur because the two are able to learn from each other (blameworthiness in this case is more primal as Marissa put it before me).
ReplyDeleteFor example: if the dog does something it wasn't supposed to, as defined by the human's social rules, the dog knew in some way that it learned before what to do, but instead did not. The human can blame the dog for its actions because they both agreed to a socially acceptable behavior that they both understood on the same level of thought. If it was a more complex rule that was broken or something that took a higher level of understanding to think about why it was a bad action, then the dog may not be blameworthy because the human knows something more than the dog is capable of thinking about.
Frankqui, I think you that you bring up a logical point, but I feel that regarding animals as children seems to be decreasing the value of a human, which Scanlon holds in such high regard. When you are making the two synonomous, you are not acknowledging that human beings have specific characteristics that make them eventually able to participate and contribute to relationships. Pets and wild animals can absolutely bring much joy and loyalty to a relationship with human beings, but they will never have the capacity to engage in trust and affection, as Scanlon emphasizes is the foundation of friendships and relationships between people.
ReplyDeleteYes, we regard children as not yet having the ability to have rational agency, but I think there is still something innate about being humans that distinguish us from animals, even as children. Pets have different ways of communicating with us and being trained, but they lack the rational agency that will eventually develop into the ability to have deep relationships with others.
It is true that there is something innate about that which makes us human - but we cannot so easily make ourselves to be such human superiority-ists. Let's not forget that we once were deemed as savage and animalistic - we often act as the survival of the fittest, we play the same game as every other animal. That which makes us human does not give us an elevated status - we merely built ourselves up faster.
ReplyDeleteBy comparing animals to children, it does nothing but diversify the meaning of being an animal in its entirety. It does not take away what it means to be human, but merely embraces it. We define ourselves as possessing the higher cognitive functions capable of deep thought and reasoning. That is what makes us human - what makes us so damn special. But possession of reactive emotions such as shame, sadness, happiness and gratitude (as only examples) have nothing to make humans any special. Many animals experience the same types of emotions - dogs wagging their tails when you return home, cats purring as you rub their back. They all seem like innate primal emotions - but everything develops, everything evolves. When cubs are first learning, socializing shall we say, lions will often over dramatize their reactions to their young cubs' bites - in a way that encourages them to believe they are fiercer than they really are. Crows are able to identify faces and hold grudges. If they are just "animals", in its derogative form, why are they able to pretend? To play around with each other? To have fun? To be upset and be able to hold a grudge? Are those things that children do? They pretend, they play, they have fun - and yes, children don't kill, but human children do not live in a cut throat world where it is either eat or be eaten.
As humans we are so hip on studying other societies and judging others' customs and beliefs. We called the Indians savages. The Vikings were the epitome of savagery to some. The Romans were considered savage to their victims, just as any of Roman's opponents were considered uncivilized. This idea that animals are any different than people needs to be disregarded or at least doted on a little more. The animal world should be considered just like another, foreign society. In this world there are smaller civilizations, like the human society, the wolf pack, the hyena hierarchy, the lion pride, etc. For every civilization (in its reference I have given in the previous sentences) I can think of, the foundation of it is built with the embodiment of the strongest survive.
Many animals possess better senses of the world than that of any human- their intelligence can far surpass ours. Some animals can see different lights - like infrared for a python or into the UV spectrum for a rattle snake. We had to work diligently to figure those ones out. Some animals can even see in the dark. Bats use echo location to figure out where their prey is in the night and owls have spectacular hearing. Owls can even turn their heads around to look behind them. These are all things that humans never came equipped with. Thinking that we are any more special because we have a brain that thinks a little better is something we definitely need to reevaluate.
As Marissa has pointed out, there are exceptions to everything - trained horses or rescue dogs - and yes it is often difficult to do. What if we just considered animals to be the problem children, the slower beings that need more time to adjust to the social settings? There is room to allow for the possibility that other animals can do things that they aren't trained to do. For example a gorilla is able to save a young child after falling into its enclosure or a dog coming to the rescue of its owner when it sees or senses danger or an ape able to fully comprehend the loss of a trainer's child and feel sadness or a parrot understanding that he will die tells his owner, minutes before his death, "you be good, see you tomorrow. I love you". There are some things that make animals far greater than any of us. Perhaps what makes animals, other than humans, intrinsically good is because at most times, they are the deficient beings - but there are times when they surprise you, when they go above and beyond what you'd ever think they'd do. It doesn't demean the definition of being a human to say that many animals are like young children. They could be considered the psychopaths of the world- the beings that you don't blame as much - they're mentally deficient.
ReplyDeleteThere is much more to a pet than just some primal connection. My dog is like my child. I raised her from a puppy. I stay up with her when she pukes and play with her when she wants me to. My dog knows when I am upset and sits with me until everything passes. My dog knows when I am furious with her and she makes every attempt to make me smile. She may not know everything, or completely understand - but there are just as many people in the world who act in much the same way. They are the people who do not pick up the social cues or give a shit about how their actions affect others.
Perhaps this is just my opinion and coming from a very heavily focused background in animals, there is just something more than primal instincts and superficial, reliable relationships with animals. They are not just beings beneath humans.
(Apparently my response exceeded the limits.. sorry for the two part post.)