I took ethics last semester, and it was one of my favorite classes. I really enjoyed the mental exercises and it led me to think about a lot of things in a new way. For the last two weeks of the class, we talked about animal ethics. It was a fascinating topic, and after absorbing several different viewpoints it was hard to decide which I agreed with the most. While I'm still not so sure how we should approach the ethical status of animals, I now understand how we actually do approach this in real life.
This revelation came thanks to reading the feminism-inspired ethics of care arguments. The gist of it is that moral status really comes down to relationships. That we do and should value our family and friends more than strangers, even if the strangers have more to offer to society as a whole. I came out of ethics more or less agreeing with this fully -- when applied to people. When it's applied to animals it makes a lot of sense too.
We have a higher responsibility to animals in our lives. Pets, for instance. We have taken on the responsibility to care for them and most people truly love their pets. So, if someone was cruel to their pet or neglected it, this would be seen as a moral failing. But perhaps if you saw a stray dog on the street, clearly starving and suffering, and left it alone, well... You don't have the same obligation to that animal. It still might not be a good thing to do, but it's not a moral failing whereas allowing your own pet to starve might be.
The theory also explains how we place animals into different categories. For instance, in America we would never eat a dog. In other countries, they do. There's no rational reason, such as that dogs are smarter than food animals or have a greater ability to suffer. Pigs are very intelligent and it's clear that food animals do suffer. But we have been socialized to think of pigs and chickens as food, and dogs and cats as pets-- even family. It's arbitrary, but it makes all the difference. The relationships we have with particular animals and with categories of animals matter.
Now I want to get on to my main idea of this post, and apply an ethics of care mentality to inanimate objects.
Inanimate objects were often used in thought experiments in class to emphasize why and how living things matter. One example: If you hurt a dog, would that a moral failing to the dog itself or to its owner or both? If you broke a chair, is that a moral failing to the chair itself or to the owner? Well, I would say both in the first example, and only to the owner in the second.
But this isn't always the case. Just like we have different categories for animals, we have different categories for inanimate objects.
Breaking an ordinary chair is immoral because of the monetary value lost to the owner of the chair, primarily. Breaking something that is not so ordinary is a bigger loss. The word "priceless" comes to mind. It's hard to put my finger on what exactly the loss is. Is the object itself wronged, as the dog may have been? I don't think that's it.
If you vandalize a famous work of art, I think it is a moral failing, but to whom? The artist is one possible answer, but they might be long dead. The current owner of the painting is another candidate. But I think the most obvious answer is that you are harming everyone. If it's a famous work of art, many people all around the world have enjoyed it and might even have a type of relationship to it.
It seems that everywhere we look in morality, relationships increase something's moral status. A human has intrinsic moral status, but their status is always increased if they have relationships. Think on this: if you have to kill one of two people, might it influence your decision to think that one of them is a hermit with no friends or family and the other is a beloved wife and mother? It would influence mine.
This outlook can also explain why many (myself included) don't see abortion as particularly unethical. Yes, a fetus has some amount of valuable as a pre-human, but if it is unplanned/unwanted it's moral status is not as great. It is not loved, nor does it love anyone: it is not part of any relationships.
For animals, we see the same thing at work. We value pets, and animals who are mothers or babies especially. Relationships are of utmost importance to humans, so - for better or for worse - we use this as a measure of other animals' worth.
The moral worth we give to some inanimate objects isn't intrinsic. A piece of art that is not owned, or loved, made by an artist who is long dead is pretty much worthless. It is not the fact that it is art that gives it value. Even something not created by a human can be seen as art and have a lot of moral worth. For instance, the rock structure that was destroyed by a bunch of Cub Scout leaders. Many people were rightly outraged that they destroyed this beautiful landmark for a thrill. If it were a random boulder, no one would care; but since people know this place and love this place, then it is a moral failing.
I don't know whether or not this kind of moral code is the best one to practice, but it is the one we use most of the time. It's intuitive to humans who are very social creatures. We think about what makes other people happy, and we think about the people who we are close to.
Obviously this has some failings: It makes it all too easy to ignore people who are suffering far away from us (the people who make our clothes, for instance) and animals that we never see until they are on our dinner plate.
However, it doesn't have to be this close-minded. People are able to feel sympathy for strangers, but it all depends on awareness-- consistent awareness. We all know the horrors of sweat shops and factory farms, but we are never confronted with this moral dilemma when we shop. All we see then is a plethora of choices at an affordable price.
To change this, we need to understand how people actually make ethical decisions. And, honestly, appealing to rational Kantian or Utilitarian models isn't going to work. Instead of being told to reduce the suffering, show us the suffering. Humanize it, (or... animalize it?) -- put a face on it. Consistently. Even if we naturally favor those we are close to, this doesn't mean we lack sympathy for strangers. Emotion motivates people to action a lot better than reason.
Whether or not we should all follow the ethics of care, I think this is the moral code we have. We can work within this system, within our natural morals, to improve the world -- even in a Utilitarian/greater good kind of way.
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