The Lives of Animals

philosophy?”

“No. This is worse. Not the paper itself—that’s really interesting. But it’s a more serious problem for me.”

“Like?”

“You know how next month I’m going to Princeton to respond to that South African novelist, J. M. Coetzee, who’s giving a special lecture about philosophy and animals? This is his lecture. Except that it isn’t a lecture at all. It’s a fictional account of a female novelist called Costello giving a lecture at an American university.”

“You mean that he’s going to stand up there and give a lecture about someone giving a lecture? Tres post-moderne.”

“What’s postmodern about it?”

“Oh, Dad, where have you been for the past decade? You know, Baudrillard, and all that stuff about simulation, breaking down the distinction between reality and representation, and so on? And look at all the opportunities for playing with self-reference!”

“Call me old-fashioned, then, but I prefer to keep truth and fiction clearly separate. All I want to know is: how am I supposed to reply to this?”

“What does this fictional Costello say about animals, anyway?” “She’s on the right side, no doubt about that. She’s a vegetarian. She shows how limited and restrictive some famous scientific inquiries into the minds of apes have been. And there are some very strong passages comparing what we are doing to animals to the Holocaust.”

“Oooh, sensitive stuff! I wouldn’t equate what the Nazis did to your grandparents with what most people today do to animals.” “Nor would I. But a comparison is not necessarily an equation. Isaac Bashevis Singer has one of his characters compare human behavior toward animals with the Nazis’ behavior toward Jews. He’s not saying that the crimes are equally evil, but that both are based on the principle that might is right, and the strong can do what they please with those who are in their power.”

“That’s just a specific example of the parallel between racism and speciesism that you’re always making. Is that all Coetzee does with the Holocaust comparison?”

“Costello, you mean. No. She’s also saying something about the way in which so many people prefer not to think too much about what is being done to those outside the sphere of the favored group, how we avoid things that might disturb us and look the other way while evil is done. But I think she would go further than that. There’s a more radical egalitarianism about humans and animals running through her lecture than I would be prepared to defend.”

“A more radical egalitarianism?” Naomi raises an eyebrow, tops up her muesli, and continues, “Didn’t you write a book the first chapter of which was called ‘All Animals are Equal?’”

“I didn’t think you’d ever read it.”

“Why do I need to read it? I get it from you all the time anyway. Looks like I’m about to get another dose. But I did once get as far as the first page of the first chapter.”

“That figures. Anyway, when I say that all animals—all sentient creatures—are equal, I mean that they are entitled to equal consideration of their interests, whatever those interests may be. Pain is pain, no matter what the species of the being that feels it. But I don’t say that all animals have the same interests. Species membership may point to things that are morally significant. When it comes to the wrongness of taking life, for example, I’ve always said that different capacities are relevant to the wrongness of killing.”

“That’s a relief. When I was little I used to wonder who you would save if the house caught fire, me or Max.”

Max had seemed to be asleep on his rug; but at the sound of his name, he lifts his head and looks around expectantly.

Peter kneels by the dog and strokes his neck. “Sorry, Max, but you would have had to fend for yourself. You see, even when she was little, Naomi could wonder about whether I would save her or you. You never wondered about that, did you? And Naomi was always chattering about what she was going to be when she grew up. I’m sure that you don’t think about what you will be doing next summer, or even next week.”

“And that makes a difference?” It was Naomi, rather than Max, who responded. “What about before I was old enough to think about what I was going to be when I grew up? Would you have tossed a coin—heads I save Naomi, tails I save Max?”

“No, silly. I’m your father, of course I would have saved my lovely baby daughter. But the point is, normal humans have capacities that far exceed those of nonhuman animals, and some of these capacities are morally significant in particular contexts. Look at you. You were up late last night working on your research project, which you have to hand in next month. The topic ceased to excite you long ago, but you are finishing it so that you can get your degree and, if you are lucky, use it to find a job doing something environmentally friendly. Your whole life is future-oriented to a degree that is inconceivable for Max. That gives you much more to lose, and gives an objective reason for anyone—

not just your father—to save you rather than Max if the house catches fire.”

“Isn’t that still speciesist? Aren’t you saying that these characteristics—being self-aware, planning for the future, and so on— are the ones that humans have, and therefore they are more valuable than any that animals have? Max has a better sense of smell than I do. Why isn’t that an objective reason for saving him rather than me?”

“As long as Max is alive, the more happy sniffing he can do, the better. But ask yourself in what way killing —assume that it is painless, unanticipated killing, without any fear beforehand…” Naomi interrupts: “So you’re not talking about what really happens in slaughterhouses, then? You’ve just excluded the overwhelming majority of the deaths that humans inflict on animals.

This discussion is becoming purely theoretical.”

“Not purely. Let me finish. You tell me: in what way is painless, unanticipated killing wrong in itself?”

“It means the loss of everything. If Max were to be killed, there would be no more doggy-joy of welcoming me home, being taken for a walk, chewing his bone…”

“No more of that for Max, true. But there are plenty of dog breeders out there who breed dogs to meet the demand. So if we got another puppy from them, thus causing one more dog to come into existence, then there would be just as much of all those good aspects of dog-existence.”

“What are you saying—that we could painlessly kill Max, get another puppy to replace him, and everything would be fine? Really, Dad, sometimes you let philosophy carry you away. Too much reasoning, not enough feeling. That’s a horrible thought.”

Naomi is so distressed that Max, who has been listening attentively to the conversation, gets stiffly up from his rug, goes over to her, and starts consolingly licking her bare feet.

“You know very well that I care about Max, so lay off with the ‘You reason, so you don’t feel’ stuff, please. I feel, but I also think about what I feel. When people say we should only feel—and at times Costello comes close to that in her lecture—I’m reminded of Goring, who said, ‘I think with my blood.’ See where it led him. We can’t take our feelings as moral data, immune from rational criticism. But to get back to the point, I don’t mean that everything would be fine if Max were killed and replaced by a puppy. We love Max, and for us no puppy would replace him. But I asked you why painlessly killing is wrong in itself. Our distress is a side effect of the killing, not something that makes it wrong in itself. Let’s leave Max out of it, since mentioning his name seems to excite him and distress you. Someone once said that pigs have to be thankful that most people are not Jewish, because if all the world were Jewish, there would be no pigs at all…”

Naomi interrupts again: “Pigs on factory farms don’t need to thank anyone for their miserable existence, confined indoors on bare concrete for life. They’d be better off not existing at all.”

“You know very well that I’m not defending eating pork, just trying to get a philosophical point across. Let’s assume the pigs are leading a happy life and are then painlessly killed. For each happy pig killed, a new one is bred, who will lead an equally happy life. So killing the pig does not reduce the total amount of porcine happiness in the world. What’s wrong with it?”

Naomi pauses momentarily. “You’re still killing animals with wants of their own. Pigs are as smart as dogs. And I know when Max is looking forward to his walk. Even if he doesn’t plan what he’ll do next week, he can have