Temple Grandin’s Dilemma
Print This Post
Temple Grandin’s reply to those who have identified the inherent contradiction in the statement “I design slaughter houses and I love animals,” is: “some people think death is the most terrible thing that can happen to an animal.” It follows according to Ms. Grandin that “the most important thing for an animal is the quality of its life.”
Ms. Grandin’s argument is derived from an underlying ontological worldview that assumes a dualism between “human” and “animal.” This is a factual inaccuracy. Biological “animality” exists on a continuum: a human animal is a member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Hominidae – “higher primates.” It is from this invalid assumption that Ms. Grandin’s argument tries to follow. Her claim, then, is baseless and open to the challenge of blatant selective reasoning.
If it is wrong to do A to X, then it is wrong to do A to Y if Y is similar to X in the relevant ways. For example, if causing me pain for “sport” is wrong because of the pain then the wrongness of the action is intrinsically tied to my capacity to suffer. Therefore, if A, B, and C can also suffer, and it’s wrong to cause me pain for “sport” because I can suffer, then it is wrong to cause A, B, and C pain for “sport.” This argument follows from collapsing the false duality so fundamental to Ms. Grandin’s unfounded conclusion.
On the issue of death, the following moral form takes shape: If it is wrong to kill me for a triviality such as “taste,” regardless of the “quality of my life,” then it is wrong to kill a cow for a similar reason, regardless of the “quality of his life,” if the cow is like me in the ways relevant to the situation.
Some philosophers argue that death is experientially neutral – it is neither “good” nor “bad.” Therefore, the death experience is not the worst thing that can happen; it just is. Others’ believe that death is “bad” – it is the absolute harm – because one’s opportunities for future “good” experiences are irrevocably ended. Many regard death as a harm if the being in question has certain cognitive capacities that allow for the planning of future “good” experiences. On this view, for some animals, human and nonhuman, death isn’t harmful. (This list is not exhaustive.) However one chooses to view death, a categorical dichotomy between “human” and “animal” doesn’t follow because they each assume as a necessary condition the beings’ sentience. As some animals other than human are the kinds of beings who care about what happens to them (i.e., they have interests and a welfare), the harm of death may be relevant to them.
If death is neutral for Ms. Grandin, then her logic should be extended to human animals, which would, I suppose, go to justify painlessly killing me in my sleep tonight. If death is a harm because it ends one’s chances for future “good” experiences, then Ms. Grandin has arbitrarily and self-servingly excluded a class of beings who necessarily ought to be included because they can and will experience these future “goods.” Finally, if the harm that death is relies on a cognitive function, then Ms. Grandin must include human animals in the group of beings who are only concerned with the “quality of its life,” versus death qua death. This group of humans would include, but is not limited to, every human baby ever born, some mentally handicapped individuals, and the severely senile.
Ms. Grandin’s cognitive dissonance, then, is not rectified by her reply.
Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl
“This group of humans would include, but is not limited to, every human baby ever born, some mentally handicapped individuals, and the severely senile.”
The list might include some autistic people too…
“If death is neutral for Ms. Grandin, then her logic should be extended to human animals,”
She might extend her logic that far. Plenty of people I talk to willingly accept that idea. They say murder is a social construct and they don’t think it’s necessarily morally wrong to murder. They just don’t murder. They rationalize their lack of murder by saying it’s illegal, it’s socially unacceptable, they have no motive, etc.
Basically, we can’t take for granted ‘human rights’ because virtually no knows what they are. Philosophers debate about them, the average person has some vague notion of what constitutes a human right, but there’s really no consensus. Example: death penalty, torture, human trafficking, human slavery, war, genocide ALL exist. And there are plenty of people willing to defend each and every one of those human rights violations.
Personally, I think it’s all about behavior. The majority of people don’t commit murder. They don’t give the same reasons. They don’t have the same values. They don’t even respect one another, but they behave as if they believe in some basic human rights.
I think we have to find a way to get people to behave as vegans. They don’t have to adopt the vegan philosophy or label, they just have to not eat animals (or animal products). Because once there’s a critical mass with the vegan habit, it doesn’t much matter the reason. If the habit is there, the killing will end.
It is just as absurd to argue that people don’t murder because it’s against the law as it is to contend that people don’t murder because the bible says so. Obviously we would no longer exist if it took laws or bibles to keep us from killing each other. It comes from inside us and clearly is an evolutionary advantage, this sense that killing is wrong. I am sure that cave people were just as reluctant to kill each other as we are (except when threatened, same as we again).
How do you turn that switch so the same kind of feeling of wrongness spares animals? Many of us have simply let our core instincts into the daylight. I think, in other words, that sense of moral wrong is already there, but it has been tamped down from years of training in schools and at home. Perhaps that’s reason for hope.
Yes, I too tend to believe that compassion and empathy is part of our core instincts. I know that we’re born as blank slates -but there is a physical “hardwire” in our brains that is responsible for feelings of sympathy.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/07/10/brain.html
And there’s further research that shows teens and young adults learn to supress this emotion:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14738243&csid=0
So as we get older we push empathy into non-accessible areas of our thinking.
Of course culture encourages this, in schools and at home – and also by the likes of Grandin. We learn that it is more socially acceptable, easy, neat-fast-and tidy to not feel anything… It’s very sad… an emotional suicide of sorts.
~ Recent blog post: A Vegan’s Voice on Animal Agriculture ~
Interesting links, Bea. I certainly agree that empathy is fairly “natural” in human beings. The classic example is: give a child an apple and a bunny and see which thing the child eats and which thing the child plays with.
Interesting to re-visit this post a year later, as it applies more now so than it ever did… 365+ days and we still have the same war(s), poverty, injustice, human and nonhuman slavery, crime, ecological issue, ill health and the same “tributes” to slaughterhouse designers…
But on the brighter side, I think there’s a lot more people forced to be made aware. I think there are more people who realize the issues all stem the same causes: apathy and lack of respect for Others, and GREED.
I know the future will be better, I’m sure there is reason for hope…. (I hope).
Bea Elliott´s last blog ..IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING, YOU DON’T KILL IT.
Here’s a Zen-like koan for you: Temple Grandin has done more than any other single human being in world history to reduce the suffering of actual animals.
As a human rights advocate, I always find it a bit disturbing when people deny that there are any relevant differences between human beings and animals. There are many situations in which people are justifiably angry precisely because they are being treated like animals. For example, most people think it’s a good thing to sterilize dogs and cats, but it would be a major human rights violation to sterilize human beings against their will.
I don’t eat any meat or other animal products, but I do think that there are some differences between people and animals that result in different kinds of moral obligations to different species.
Besides, it’s kind of silly to complain that Dr. Grandin has “cognitive dissonance.” As has been extensively documented, her thought processes are very concrete and visual. She thinks that it’s wrong to make animals suffer, and she has dedicated her career to preventing animal suffering. There’s no dissonance there.
First, the claim, “don’t treat me like an animal,” seems to beg the question “Kermit’s mom”: How do you justify the treatment of nonhuman animals?
Second, in your attempt to answer this, you argue that “there are some differences between people and animals that result in different kinds of moral obligations.” I ask, again, again, and again: WHAT ARE THOSE DIFFERENCES?
What you’ve done is set-up a bit of a straw man. We aren’t arguing for the SAME treatment/obligations/etc. What “animal rights” does is show us that even WITHIN our own species; we don’t extend the SAME treatment to every human. Our claim is far simpler: making animals suffer because we gain from their exploitation isn’t justifiable?
Here is where Ms. Grandin’s dissonance becomes quite clear. She tries to justify this double-standard by appealing to characteristics that many, many humans don’t have; therefore, she is confronted with the painful reality that her argument in defense of killing and eating animals logically extends to humans. But she can’t admit this because it is uncomfortable, etc. That is the definition of dissonance.
Alex´s last blog ..The Scavenger: “freedom of choice” doesn’t justify eating animals.