Robbing PETA to Spay Paul: Do Animal Rights Include Reproductive Rights?

Abstract

Let me begin with a confession. My papers are often praised more for their titles than for their contents. At a job interview a few years ago, I was told that if I didn't have a future in philosophy (hardly the words one wants to hear during a job interview), the quality of my titles suggested that I could always pursue a career in advertising. What, I was asked, was my secret? I declined to reveal my secret at the time, for fear of appearing shallow (it didn't help; I didn't get the job). But I am going to go ahead and reveal my secret now: my approach to philosophical research has always been to start with a good title and then try to figure out what I would have to write about in order to use it. I have been planning for some time, for example, to write a paper on the phenomenology of insect abuse, just so that I could call it " What is it Like to Bat a Bee? " This paper is no exception. The title had been kicking around in the back of my head for some time, waiting for an appropriate topic to go with it, when inspiration arrived one day in the form of a letter from an animal welfare organization asking me for money. The letter made the following argument: two of the greatest sources of preventable animal suffering are factory farming and the overpopulation of cats and dogs. We could end the former by opposing the practice of meat eating, and we could end the latter by supporting the practice of spaying and neutering. But, the letter pointed out, there is tremendous and deeply-entrenched resistance to abolishing meat eating, both at the individual and the institutional level, while there is no such resistance to expanding the practice of spaying and neutering cats and dogs at either level. There is simply a lack of funding. So rather than use my somewhat meager means (since I did not, in the end, pursue a career in advertising) to oppose factory farming by supporting groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the letter concluded, I should instead send my money to them to promote spaying and neutering. From a strictly utilitarian point of view, of course, the letter's argument was irreproachable. My duty, on such a view, is to prevent as much suffering 1 as I can, and if my contributing to pro-spaying efforts prevents more suffering than does my contributing to anti-factory farming efforts, then that is just what I should do. But I am not a utilitarian. I do not oppose factory farming on the utilitarian grounds that it fails to promote the most overall happiness for humans and nonhumans, though surely it does fail to maximize such happiness. Rather, I oppose it on the deontological grounds that animals have certain rights which practices such as factory farming violate. And I suspect that this is true for many people who support such groups as PETA. PETA's slogan, after all, is not that animals should be used so as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of humans and nonhumans, but rather that " animals are not ours to eat, wear, or experiment on. " So the letter's argument did not convince me that I should use my limited resources to support spaying rather than to oppose factory farming, and I believe that it should not convince others whose support for such groups as PETA arises from reasoning that is similar to mine. But the letter did nonetheless prompt the following unsettling concern. I oppose factory farming and I support spaying and neutering dogs and cats. And it is easy to see how these two positions can be rendered consistent from a consequentialist point of view. But it is less easy to see how they can be rendered consistent on the deontological, rights-based view suggested by PETA's slogan. Indeed, I came to realize, it is downright difficult. After all, when we spay a cat we typically justify our act by saying that it is warranted because it will prevent others from suffering, not by claiming that it is in the cat's own interest to be spayed. A common bumper sticker advocating spaying and neutering reads simply: " There are not enough homes for all of them. Spay or neuter your pet, " and I have yet to see one that says " sterilize your pets: they'll be glad you did. " Yet justifying the imposition of costs on one animal by appealing to the Between the Species III August 2003 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 2 benefits that this imposition will provide to others seems to be paradigmatic of the sort of position that is ruled out by a rights-based approach, even when the others involved are other animals and not human beings. This suggests that a proponent of animal rights should be an opponent of spaying and neutering, that we can support such practices only by robbing groups like PETA not only of some of their financial support, but also of the theoretical support that underwrites their positions (hence the title of this paper). I should state clearly at the outset that I do not welcome this suggestion. But I believe that it cannot easily be defeated, and that it therefore demands more attention than it has thus far received in the literature on animal rights. I want here, then, to do three things. First, I will state the problem for the rights-based position more clearly, by putting it in the context of the best-known presentation of that view, that developed by Tom Regan in The Case for Animal Rights. Second, I will consider whether Regan's position provides any resources for justifying the practices of spaying and neutering. I will conclude, although not happily, that the claim that animals have rights, at least as that claim is understood and defended by writers such as Regan, does imply that spaying and neutering cats and dogs is, at least in general, morally impermissible. Finally, I will consider the question of how we should respond to the conclusion that Regan's position has this implication. I. Let me begin with a more explicit statement of the problem. On Regan's account, all individuals who satisfy what he calls the subject-of-a-life criterion have the right to respectful treatment (sec. 8.4). To be a subject-of-a-life is to have a certain kind of psychophysical identity over time (p. 243), and Regan argues that at least normal mammalian animals aged one or more are best understood as having this sort of identity (chaps. 1-3). To have the right to respectful treatment is to have the right that one's inherent value be respected (p. 277), and respecting an individual's inherent value requires that we not harm the individual just so that we can " bring about the best aggregate consequences for everyone " (p. 249). To say that an individual P has a right to respectful treatment, in short, is to say that the fact that harming P is likely to produce better consequences overall cannot count as a justification for harming P. And this, I take it, is representative of what most non-consequentialists mean when they maintain that at least some nonhuman animals have moral rights. But now consider what happens when, for example, we spay 2 a cat, say Fluffy. This act imposes a variety of harms on Fluffy. Fluffy must be confined and taken to the vet, placed in unfamiliar surroundings, exposed to a frightening environment. Most animals who go through such procedures will surely experience a great deal of anxiety if not outright fear and terror. In addition, Fluffy must either be given a general anesthesia, which can cause a variety of adverse reactions and in some cases even death, or suffer a tremendous amount of physical pain during the procedure. The procedure itself exposes Fluffy to non-negligible risks of various infections and of complications that can arise from incomplete removal of the organs or from excessive bleeding. And when the procedure is over, she will suffer from a general disorientation as well as nausea and physical discomfort, lasting in some cases for several days. So on the whole, the harm to Fluffy, while not as serious as many other harms we routinely impose on animals, is more than trivial. If precisely this kind and amount of harm were imposed on Fluffy in order to test the safety of some new shampoo or hair spray, there is no doubt that Regan's view would commit him to the conclusion that this would be a violation of Fluffy's right to respectful treatment. And there is no doubt that organizations such as PETA would oppose such a practice as well. Of course, the benefits we typically appeal to in justifying the spaying of Fluffy are not as trivial as the benefits of producing a new shampoo or hair spray. The benefits are quite substantial. But they are not benefits to Fluffy. The benefits we appeal to are simply those which follow from reducing the population of unwanted animals: less overall suffering. And if Fluffy has the right to respectful treatment, then these benefits cannot provide a moral warrant for our behavior. So if Regan's theory is right, then spaying Fluffy is wrong. As I have said, I do not welcome this result, and I do not believe that Regan would welcome it either. How, on Regan's account, might it be avoided? One possibility can quickly be dismissed: we could deny the claim that spaying Fluffy harms her by complaining that my account of Fluffy's mental life is naively anthropomorphic. Some behaviorists, for example, might deny that Fluffy is capable of experiencing the sorts of pains, anxieties, disorientations and discomforts I counted as the harms spaying inflicts on her. But Regan clearly cannot appeal to such considerations, since they would undermine the basis for his attributing rights to Fluffy in the first place. A second possible response to the problem I have identified is in a sense just the opposite of the first; for one could agree that spaying Fluffy harms her, and maintain that it benefits her as well. If it can Between the Species III August 2003 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/