Says iowan2 in the comments to the post about using cats in medical experiments.
And I say:
Ah, but you're missing something: imparting human attributes to animals and slipping from reality are also purposes we have for animals. When we make the dog our baby or whatever, we are using it. That IS the use of pets. So I think you are mostly just disapproving of one of the uses. Is fantasy wrong? Children play with dolls and imagine them to be alive. We read books and identify with the characters described in the words. We take LSD and turn the world into a surreal fantasy land. It's one of the main things people do. You can say it's bad, but it is something we do, and we do it with animals a lot of the time.
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Anthropomorphizing is taking advantage of domestication. You don't have to go very far to meet a dog on common ground.
You have to go very far to meet a lion, but a good trainer can do it.
For the former, see Vicki Hearne's _Adam's Task_.
For the latter, Vicki Hearne's _Animal Happiness_.
"Is fantasy wrong?"
No. But granting "rights" to the tools or objects of fantasy is wrong. Placing them on par with human beings is absurd. Attempting to impose the absurdity on all human beings is evil.
If animals exist solely for the support of and use by humans, how to explain the thousands of species that do not benefit or that substantially harm human kind? Mosquitoes transferring malaria kill hundreds of thousands annually.
Do you also believe the Noah Ark tale?
On Friday I put a 15 year old cat to sleep that I hand raised from about seven days old. After dealing with a low-blood sugar crash on Tuesday he spent about 24 hours at the vet stabilizing. After that, it was clear that other underlying health issues were going to conspire to kill him within the next few days, so I brought him home to die.
Now, here's the thing. He had not eaten in 24 hours--and his conditions led him to be ravenously hungry most of the time. When we got home, I put him in front of the food dish and he refused to eat and kept coming to me. I took him into the bed and he aggressively snuggled against me for almost an hour. Only then did he want to eat. Maslow be damned.
I don't think it is "anthropomorphizing" to believe that was motivating that creature, in his last hours, was "love" in a very real sense. The notion that humans are separate from animals, that our motivations and actions are completely different, is nothing more than ignorant, naive Skinnerism. Whatever biological construct is at the core of what we call "love" can be demonstrated by a wider range of creatures than simply humans.
"Placing them on par with human beings is absurd."
Using an animal as a place to project your fantasy of having a person who loves and needs you is not putting them on the level of a human being.
We don't own and use human beings for our purposes like that, not ethically, anyway.
I think once you see the pet use as a use, it is not absurd.
Take someone who has no child or grandchild, perhaps for sad reasons. The pet cat or dog gives him someone to play parent/grandparent with. Take a person whose children don't want to be petted and adored or who have left home or don't want to spend time with mom/dad. The pet can help the person who indulges in that harmless, socially acceptable fantasy. There's no reason to be so harsh to these people. That said, I think people who take in pets should think about why they want the pet.
I'm more concerned with people who take in pets because they have a fantasy of saving or rescuing the animals (and if they take in problem animals).
We confronted someone down the street who threw his puppy out the back door and then kicked him in the air. He prob peed in the house as puppies are known to do on occasion.
His response -- "don't tell me what I can do with my property." Law has all the answers.
But granting "rights" to the tools or objects of fantasy is wrong.
We have an common frame of reference with domesticated dogs (we are both descended from animals that hunted in packs) but we do not share moral agency.
Until dolphin or chimpanzee (or dog) researchers prove otherwise, humans will have the responsibility of stewardship, not the discretion of granting "rights".
We don't own and use human beings for our purposes like that, not ethically, anyway.
Yes we do. Well. Some of us do. The left has been enslaving blacks for decades just to use as props. In reality they despise them.
“Using an animal as a place to project your fantasy of having a person who loves and needs you is not putting them on the level of a human being.”
Right, not necessarily. But my objection aims at the inferences made by animal rights activists like the ones referred to in the original post.
“Until dolphin or chimpanzee (or dog) researchers prove otherwise, humans will have the responsibility of stewardship, not the discretion of granting "rights".”
But certain activists do claim such “discretion” and attach a nasty ideological agenda to it.
Funny how screwed up it gets when protest movements get PR by demonising people who actually are doing good for humans.
The Yerkes Primate Center at Emory was a proud part of cutting edge Medical Research for many years until the activists discovered animal rights gets PR.
Hearne's classic What's Wrong with Animal Rights (pdf) from Harpers Magazine seems to be online.
Do animal rights activists also argue for animal responsibilities?
Steve Uhr said...
If animals exist solely for the support of and use by humans, how to explain the thousands of species that do not benefit or that substantially harm human kind?
If you're not making good use of mosquitoes, ticks, ants and sparrows, you're working too hard at transmitting diseases, sucking your own blood, making piles of sand with a hole in the center, and shitting on the sidewalk. I'm surprised you have time to post on the Insectnet.
Do you also believe the Noah Ark tale?
It's the Word O' God, so I really don't have any choice in the matter.
Mosquitoes, ticks, etc., are mean 'n' useless because they didn't get to ride the ark ... Noah was 500 years old and tended to forget a lot of things.
Sebastian wrote:
... But granting "rights" to the tools or objects of fantasy is wrong. Placing them on par with human beings is absurd.
Regarding higher animals as mere "tools" is also wrong. Does your toaster feel pain? Does your car care who drives it?
We need animal research. We don't need gratuitous cruelty. Figuring out where to draw the line between the two is the problem, and sane people can honestly disagree. But PETA's "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy" extremism isn't the answer, and "I have a right to torture my property" isn't the answer either.
eric wrote:
Do animal rights activists also argue for animal responsibilities?
Do fetal rights activists also argue for fetal responsibilities?
...imparting human attributes to animals and slipping from reality are also purposes we have for animals.
Unless you're a creationist, you believe that human attributes such as intelligence, perception, emotion, etc. evolved from animal attributes as much as our bodies evolved from theirs. The difference is in degree, not kind. To deny this is the true slippage from reality.
If you know someone with aids and they are on protease inhibitors and are alive today ask them would they be willing to not take said drug because animal research was used to develop it.
I seriously hope not too many aids activists are also PETA members.
Herp Mcderp wrote:
Do fetal rights activists also argue for fetal responsibilities?
The difference being that the fetus will grow up to be the person that has rights and responsibilities.
A mouse will never understand that he has rights let alone responsibilities.
Do animal rights activists also argue for animal responsibilities?
Absolutely. Don't pee on the couch.
Do animal rights activists also argue for animal responsibilities?
The more trained he is, the more rights the dog has.
It's almost as if there's a moral universe opened up.
Dogs notice that.
I don't disapprove the use of fantasy.
I disapprove basing decisions in the real world on factual premises which exist only in fantasy.
Steve Uhr,
I hope you told him "I just did."
You need any help kicking that guy's ass, just let us know.
When dealing with living property, there is such a thing as common decency. You offend it at your own risk. Even when slavery was legal, owners could be punished for inhumane treatment of their property. A woman in New Orleans was lynched by a mob because she had some of her slaves chained to a stove in her kitchen and they were burned to death in a kitchen fire.
Woo,Woo! I made an Althouse post. I'm honored.
While I find people that anthropormorphize animals strange, and depending on how it presents, creepy, thats their deal. My point is don't force those misplaced feelings on the rest of us. Dont claim some moral high ground when I expeditiously toss live male chicks, hours old, into the grinder with other dead chicks. don't try force me to share those misplaced, and yes creepy feelings and change my habits. And I won't try to stop people from dressing their pets and setting a place for them at the supper table.
"Woo,Woo! I made an Althouse post. I'm honored."
That made me realize that I'd forgotten to give you a tag.
Fixed.
Here is what happens when people go too far: Woman injured while trying to pet black bear. And, this was a semi-domesticated bear. Instapundit called this: Darwin Award, Honorable Mention.
I missed the original post.
PETA's position would eliminate all animal testing as we know it. This would be a terrible thing.
As I explain to people, all drugs are animal tested. The only choice we make is which animal we choose to test them on. If we bypass the currently required animal testing, then we either will have no new drugs or the de facto tested animal will be the human. People will die. For PETA members, this is OK. But, I don't think they mind using the drugs that were approved because of animal testing. I'm sure they will volunteer their babies for some human trials, while bypassing the animal testing.
The equivalence of non-human species to humans is tantamount to a religion. The God of the Bible and the Koran was quite clear about the order of the animal world.
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