For example, I know that when men claim to be feminists there immediately exists the danger that, because of the inherent power and privilege that accompanies being a male (particularly a white male) in Western society, men will tend to assume authority over feminism and the feminist movement. An example of such danger would be when a white male, who holds a position of some stature and respect within the academic community, proclaims who is or is not a feminist, according to standards he himself has articulated, when such standards conform only to his own peculiar ideology. Obviously, women may rightfully take exception to such a man’s proclamations, wondering exactly what in his experience gives him the authority to tell them who and what they are.

What in any man’s experience can prepare him to be a feminist? I don’t know that either. But I do know that no man can understand what it’s like to be a woman in Western society, just as no human can know what it’s like to be a bat. It’s simply not the case that any man can understand “from the inside” what the experience of being female is like, and what the experience of living as a woman in patriarchal society is like.

R. W. Connell has written extensively about “hegemonic masculinity” and how males in Western societies must always measure themselves against the image of the quintessential male – think “Marlboro Man” plus “James Bond” plus the Brady Bunch’s “Mike Brady” and you’ll be on the right track. Men of color, men with disabilities, gay men, and other men who don’t fit the stereotypical image of a “real man” navigate life constantly aware of how they aren’t what society has determined that they ought to be. But no matter what, men are still men, and all men, even those who deviate most from the “hegemonic” ideal, still benefit from the power and privilege of patriarchy. A man, in the Western world, is still a man, after all.

Whatever men may think of themselves, whether they call themselves feminists, or think of themselves as “profeminist”, or simply as supportive of women who are feminists, men can never escape the fact that, however much they may empathize with the women’s movement they can never truly walk in a women’s shoes. Perhaps one doesn’t have to be a women in order to be a feminist, but how can anyone who hasn’t felt the sting of prejudice understand what it is to be discriminated against? How can men know what it’s like to a woman?

As I said, I don’t know. But I do know that any man who claims to be a feminist would do well to know that he can only make that claim humbly and with deference to those who have lived with and struggled against an oppression that he can only think about. He will not pretend to know more than women know, he will not use the very power and privilege of patriarchy to perpetuate that which he claims to be against.

Who decides who is a feminist? Perhaps no one does, and we only know one when we see one.

Or not.

A quick search on Wikipedia yields this:

In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus published his treatise De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), which presented a heliocentric model view of the universe. It took about 200 years for a heliocentric model to replace the Ptolemaic model.

Oops!! It took about 200 years to change the old system.

It seems that even when facts and data exist to demonstrate the inadequacy of the old ways of thinking and of doing things, we humans are slow to change. It appears that we often have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the light of a new understanding. It’s been said, hasn’t it, that those who don’t understand the lessons of history are bound to repeat its mistakes. The animal rights movement may want to pay closer attention to history. Or maybe it should pay less attention to it’s so-called “leading thinkers”?

(If you’re interested in a detailed but easy to read summary of the events of the 200 year “revolution” in cosmology, I recommend The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman.)

When someone has a right not to be killed then killing them can be excused or justified only when there are clear, compelling, convincing and relevant reasons for why killing them is the only acceptable course of action (and such cases must be rare). Rights have another function, and that is to treat as equals *all* those who have the same right. So, if humans and microscopic animals all have the right not to be killed by others, then humans and microscopic animals have that right in the same way and to the same degree. That means that in cases where microscopic animals will be killed by human actions, human beings who kill microscopic animals will be as guilty of wrongdoing as would be a man who kills his wife. It also means that, just as we would sanction the use of lethal force if necessary to prevent a man from killing his wife, we would have to sanction the use of lethal force when necessary to prevent the killing of microscopic animals.

I hope that anyone reading this can see that it is not possible for us to treat microscopic animals as if they have a right not to be killed – it would be absurd to think that people have the authority to kill other people simply because the actions of other people cause the deaths of microscopic animals. It is not possible to live as human beings without causing the deaths of microscopic animals. Therefore, it is not the case that *all* animals have rights.

Dogs are very clever animals too, as are chimpanzees, dolphins, crows, and many others. But what’s different about humans isn’t our degree of cleverness as compared to other animals. It’s not just that we’re smarter than they are (though we are smarter, about many things). No, what’s different about humans is how we are in the world. That is to say, what’s different about us is the sort of consciousness we exhibit.

It takes a special sort of being in the world – as special sort of conception of self, other, concrete, abstract, space, time, and so on – for a creature to first discover the phenomenon of electricity and then to imagine and create all the various uses for it. Chimpanzees haven’t the sort of conscious experience of the world that would allow them to ponder what forces become evident as lightning. Dogs don’t hear thunder and then wonder about it’s ultimate cause. To think “What was that?”, if we grant to dogs and chimps that ability to think, is not the same thing as it is to think “What is the essence of lightning or thunder?” It’s not because chimps and dogs aren’t smart. It’s because they aren’t conscious of lightning and thunder as things which can be explained.

Dogs, chimps and other animals aren’t capable of thinking about what’s below the surface, as it were, or about what would happen if they could put electricity inside a box. Dogs and chimps are plenty smart – as dogs and chimps – and they’re smarter about being the sort of creatures they are than we can ever hope to be. We can imagine what sorts of things a dog needs to think about in order to be a good dog, but we can’t actually think like a dog thinks. Dogs are smarter dogs than we ever could be. But we are conscious of the world in ways that no other creature on this planet is or could be. All the proof of that one needs is in a cup of coffee.

It’s easy to want something, it’s as easy as a dream. You may want a mansion, I may want a Ferrari, she may want Prince Charming, he may want to kiss Sleeping Beauty. We can want all sorts of things and most of us do. To be free from want isn’t easy, neither for those who suffer from wanting basic necessities such as clean drinkable water, nutritious food and adequate safety, nor for those who want luxuries and frivolities. It’s said that to be happy one will stop wanting and accept the world as it is unfolding before them. Be happy with what you’ve got, it’s also said. To want is to be dissatisfied, but is it always bad to want?

You may want a world without childhood hunger and disease, I may want a world without the endless slaughter of nonhuman animals as food, she may want an end to global warming, he may want a world without pollution and waste. These sorts of wanting, these sorts of dissatisfaction, can be the fires that burn in the breasts of those who seek to change the world. It’s hard to imagine how progress (if you think that these sorts of wants would lead to progress) can happen without someone being dissatisfied with how things are now. When we want something other than what we have, we get set to work satisfying our wants. Wanting isn’t always bad. But the title of this blog entry is “Wanting vs. Expecting”. What’s that about?

You may want a world without childhood hunger and disease, but you will know, if you think clearly about what you want, that you can’t expect to get it. For as long as there are living beings, living beings will suffer from wanting for food and adequate medical care. You know this. We will never live in Paradise. But this knowledge and your acceptance of it will not deter you from working to make the world less bad for those children whose lives you can improve. That you will never reach the mountaintop will not prevent you from climbing. You do not expect to ever reach the summit, but you will still want to get there.

I want a world in which other animals are left to live their lives as only they can determine, according to the wants or needs they have, as free from human interference as far as is possible. Do I expect that world to ever be realized? Of course not. For as long as there are scarce resources and living beings who have diverse and competing sets of interests, there will be struggles and suffering as some exploit others, and as others fight to protect and feed their young. I don’t expect that what I want will ever happen, so I think about ways that may get the world closer to that dream. The world will never live that dream, I don’t expect it that dream to come alive, but I still want it.

Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child’s?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from you own mind
and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.

~Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, Verse 10

To think critically about animal rights one will first acknowledge that there is nothing about the subject matter that is “off the table”. That is to say, one can’t think critically about the rights of other animals when one assumes from the outset that such rights exist. One may certainly insist that such rights exist, and further assert that all animals possess “equal inherent value”, and then do nothing more, but in so insisting and asserting, one will have abandoned the project of critical thinking with respect to the rights of other animals.

There are people who claim to think critically about the rights of other animals who nonetheless also insist without argument that animals “have rights”. Confused as they are over the nature of rights and what it means to have them, they do little more than repeat their claims as mantras, in the hope that should they make the same claims often enough, others will have no choice but to acquiesce. I wish them all the luck in the world. Many people, as we know, are like lemmings to the sea and I suppose that some people will accept that animals have rights when they’ve heard often enough the claims that they do. It can’t be helped that most people aren’t critical thinkers. Perhaps that will redound to the benefit of animals; I doubt it.

In any case, these people who drone on about animals as “persons” who are “rights-bearers”, who think of themselves as making an argument when all they’re doing is trying to coerce the gullible, whatever else they may be doing, they aren’t thinking critically about animal rights. I suppose that such people feel good about themselves, and about their dogmatic, anti-intellectual and faith-based certainty about “moral imperatives” and other dubious notions, and I am happy for them if they do feel good. Ignorance is bliss, after all, and who am I to deny anyone their bliss?

I don’t eat honey but I think that bees don’t care one way or the other whether I eat honey. Bees, as far as everything I’ve read and understand about bees tells me, don’t care about anything, at least not in the sense that you and I care about things. Bees are fascinating little creatures, to be sure, but I think bees haven’t any appreciation of life, as life, or of what they are as “selves”. Bees aren’t sentient, or so I would argue.

But, I don’t eat honey. Why not?

Well, to be completely honest about it, I don’t like honey all that much. Not only does the flavor not do very much for me, it’s too sticky and messy to bother with. Besides, I know where honey comes from – bees produce it by regurgitating what they’ve eaten – and I don’t particularly care for the idea of eating bee vomit. So there’s all that.

However, there’s another reason, and it’s just as important, if not more so.

As I understand them, the methods we use to harvest honey typically involve doing things that are quite bad for the bees. I like to avoid doing what’s bad for others. Now, it may seem odd, I admit, that I’d care about avoiding doing what’s bad for bees, since I think that bees don’t have experiences in life. But, I care about what happens to the house I live in, and it doesn’t have any experiences either. It’s not necessary, for a person to care about what’s good and bad for something, for that something to be an experiencing subject-of-a-life or sentient. I care about what’s good for and bad for lots of things. So, even though I think bees haven’t any of the sort subjective experiences that sentient beings have, I still care about what’s good and bad for them. How much do I care? Well, quite frankly, not a lot. Let me explain.

Because it just so happens that I don’t like honey, there’s not much good for me that I give up by not eating honey and by not doing what’s bad for bees. There’s nothing very great at stake for me in giving up honey. But I do care about what’s bad for bees, at least enough to go to some lengths to avoid eating honey. If I didn’t care at all about what’s bad for bees, I wouldn’t read the labels of everything I consume to verify that there’s no honey in any of it. But I don’t take every possible precaution to avoid doing what’s bad for bees. What’s bad for bees matters, but only to a point.

Humans use bees in ways other than for their honey. Bees are vital in the production of food crops. Without bees to pollinate plants, the supply of food would be in peril. However, it’s hard for me to imagine that the bees used by humans for their pollinating ability are better off than those used for their honey producing ability. I accept that what we do to the bees we use as pollinators is as bad for those bees as is what we do to the bees we get honey from. But, it’s very good for me and all other people to have something to eat. So, I can justify us doing what’s bad for bees in the case of using them as pollinators while at the same time I can’t justify us doing what’s bad for bees in the case of using them as honey producers. Other people will come to a different conclusion, I am sure.

Some people will think that even if using bees to get honey is bad for bees, the good we get from using the honey is worth the bad we do to bees (just as the good we get from having so many of our food and ornamental crops pollinated is worth it). Some people will think that even though using bees to get honey is bad for bees, it’s not so bad that they will read every label of every product they consume in order to avoid the possibility of using some trace amount of honey (those people might think me extreme!). Some people will go to even greater lengths than will I, and they will grow their own food in order to avoid even more of what’s bad for bees. Of course, there will be some people (perhaps most) who will think that what we do to bees isn’t bad for bees at all. But they would be mistaken.

What we do to bees (at least typically in commercial settings) is bad for bees, just as setting fire to a house would be bad for it, and there’s really no denying it. Most of what we do to bees is bad for bees. Since I wouldn’t get much of what’s good for me from eating honey, I don’t eat honey.

Do I have a moral obligation to not eat honey? No, I don’t. I don’t have any moral obligations to do anything at all. I could eat honey if I wanted to. I don’t want to, so I don’t. Of course, by this reasoning I could steal my neighbor’s car if I wanted to. As bad for her as it would be to have her car stolen, if I decided that stealing her car was good enough for me, I would steal it. However, I’d risk being arrested and going to jail if I did steal her car. We’ve decided (where I live) that stealing someone else’s property is so bad for that someone that anyone who steals will be punished if caught. Whether everyone agrees that stealing is so bad (for the one being stolen from, or for the general order of society) doesn’t matter. Stealing will be punished; thieves deserve what they get. This isn’t a question about “morality”, it’s about how we collectively agree to regulate our behavior in society.

Is it possible that we could agree collectively that harvesting honey is so bad for bees that we will disallow the practice and punish anyone who keeps bees for the purpose of honey production? Well, it’s not impossible, but I think the prospects for getting such an agreement are very dim indeed. I could be wrong, but I think that most people just don’t care very much about what’s bad for bees.

It would be better for the bees if most people did care, but I don’t know how to make people care. Do you?

(I think the prospects much better for changing the industrialized, mechanized, brutal and uncaring way in which most animals are turned into food. The so-called “factory farm” system is so egregiously bad for the animals who live and are killed in it that I find it hard to believe that a civilized people will not come to their senses eventually and end it.)

Sociologically speaking, if a person wants others to accept the dubious notion of moral rights for all nonhuman animals, then that person (and you know who I’m talking about, don’t you Rog?) would have a better chance getting others to accept that notion by actually stating a sound and valid argument for it rather than spitting and sputtering and whining and crying about how others aren’t showing the proper respect for his ideas.

Seriously. Respect for his ideas, a person demands.

As if ideas are something that deserve respect. As if “philosophical animal rights” are something that could be respected.  What the hell does that even mean? Are we to believe that there’s only one formulation of rights for other animals, or are we supposed to respect equally all the competing and mutually exclusive accounts of rights for animals? Silly isn’t strong enough  a word, this is just plain stupid. Mention the word “rights” and your ideas demand respect. Don’t accept that animals have moral rights and you must be an enemy of animals and of ‘the movement’.

Forget about the concern for the lives and well-being of  other animals, folks, this social justice movement is about respect for ideas and honoring the notion of “rights” that is so dear to silly old fools. Good to know it. And people wonder why real sociologists recognize animal rights as a functional religion.

I say that claims about moral rights for other animals are dubious. What do I mean? I mean, simply, that about all the accounts I’ve read that purport to establish a case for animals’ moral rights, I have doubts. Not one of those accounts is entirely convincing. Either because an account presents little in the way of argument, or because an account requires that one accept a postulate that can’t be proved, or because an account moves without foundation from a claim about how animals are to how humans must act towards them, or because of another reason, no work of any philosopher or theorist has established beyond doubt in my mind that nonhuman animals have moral rights.

Is the standard “beyond doubt” too stringent? Perhaps it is, but to say that the standard is too stringent doesn’t mean that the arguments I’m referring to would no longer be dubious. It would only be to say that, even though those arguments are dubious, I would do well to accept them nonetheless. I might be able to live with that. If people want to say, even though no one has established that other animals have moral rights, the world would be a better place if we all acted as if someone had established that animals do have moral rights, then that might be a convenient fiction that we’d be better off adopting. I think we can make the world a better place without resorting to convenient fictions based on dubious claims, but perhaps it would be easier to resort to them.

Does any of this mean that I am an enemy of the animal rights movement? To those who think that the only people who belong in the animal rights movement are those people who believe that other animals have moral rights, perhaps I am an enemy.

But, of course, it’s silly to think that the only people who belong in the animal rights movement are the people who believe in moral rights for other animals.

Most people who consider themselves part of the animal rights movement are unlikely to have any views about moral rights carefully worked out. Arguments meant to establish the existence of moral rights are not easy things to work out. That is to say, most people are likely to think of the phrase “animal rights” as a generic term that means “care and concern for the lives of animals” or “animals shouldn’t be needlessly killed” or some such. It’s unlikely that most people think that “animal rights” means what philosophers and theorists think it means. If my doubts about the moral rights of other animals makes me an enemy of the animal rights movement, then the movement has lots of enemies within its ranks. (I will leave aside the question of who it is that gets to decide which people can claim membership in the animal rights movement. – as far as I know, there’s no application process or selection committee.)

If other people think the case for the rights of other animals is beyond doubt, I think they’re either mistaken or confused. Even Tom Regan, who wrote the book on animal rights, accepts that well-informed and intelligent people of good will may doubt the case he argues for. If Tom Regan can accept that the case for animal rights is dubious, then it can’t be too much of a problem that a person such as myself has doubts about it too.

Although the case for animals’ moral rights was once convincing  to me, it no longer is. However, though I doubt the arguments about moral rights, I don’t doubt that lives and well-being of other animals matter.  It’s for the lives and well-being of animals that the animal rights movement will be concerned, whether or not all the people within the movement are convinced by dubious claims about moral rights.

Let’s suppose that you believe that a fish can’t feel pain and that I do believe that a fish can feel pain. If we both believe that our moral obligations to others depends on whether or not those others can experience pleasure and pain, then you will believe that you have no moral obligations to that fish. However, if we both believe of ourselves that we don’t want to do what’s bad for others, then since it is clearly bad for all fish to kill them, we both would have a reason not to kill a fish. In that case, what I would need to do, in order to convince you not to kill a fish, is show you how killing fish is bad for them. That seems easy enough to do – a fish can’t be a fish when it’s dead, so killing a fish would be quite bad for a fish as a fish.

Of course, you may think that as bad for a fish as it would be to kill it, there are other things in life that are good for others and that killing a fish provides enough of those goods for others that killing the fish would be something you’d still be willing to do. I’d argue that most of the time we overestimate the good for others that can come from killing fish and that most people don’t understand how bad it would be for a fish, as a fish, to be killed, but those are empirical matters and not moral ones.

As long as the ‘animal question’ is phrased in terms of morality, the question will remain unresolved.