AU's promotion of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has inadvertently hit on what may be the most important ethical issue of our time. This claim rests on a simple but earth-shattering argument: All concepts of ethics, from liberal ideologies to conservative ones, from the ethical theories of John Rawls to Immanuel Kant, share one common thread - causing harm is bad. This is the "harm principle," arguably the most basic principle in ethics. Since many other species are capable of being harmed - physically and psychologically - to the same level of intensity as humans, proponents of the position called "animal rights" point out that our unthinking assumption that the suffering of those animals cannot be taken seriously is a form of prejudice, which philosophers call "speciesism" by analogy with racism and sexism.
Our common ancestors with chimpanzees lived only 500,000 generations ago, and it is by the sheerest evolutionary coincidence that other species with comparable intellect to humans are not alive today. Yet, even the most educated and intelligent among us find it difficult to shake off the world-view that all other animals somehow just exist for human use. It may even seem laughable to suggest otherwise, just like it was once laughable to suggest that women do not exist for men's use, or that blacks do not exist for whites' use. This is because speciesism has been drilled into us since we were too young to think for ourselves.
Such a conclusion is so world-transforming that one immediately thinks there must be something to justify the status quo - perhaps religion? On the contrary, Christian scholar C. S. Lewis, always ahead of his time, recognized and stated this very same argument decades before it was widely placed in secular terms.
And all it takes is a glance at a well-sourced Web site like MeetYourMeat.com to see that the suffering we cause other species for our most trivial benefits such as keeping 250 million hens in cages so small that we must slice off their beaks to prevent them from pecking each other to death under the stress, and castrating newborn pigs by slicing open their scrotums with a razor before tearing out each testicle by hand, is easily comparable with the amount of suffering we have caused members of our own species in what we now consider the darkest periods of human history. The animal rights movement has thus far been remarkably successful, as most recently exemplified by the historic passage of California's Proposition 2, which will ban the worst cruelties of modern farming by 2015. But there is still much to be done, and PETA is leading the way.
There is also nothing politically leftist about the recognition that something is horribly wrong with our treatment of other species. In fact, Will Haun's objection that our "choice" overrides what might upon reflection be unethical echoes the arguments for abortion that conservatives criticize. I'd be happy to formally debate all this.
So I ask, in my deepest sincerity, that Will, Rich and others on the right do not get sucked into taking a default position against animal rights. Find out more and decide for yourself, check out the book "Dominion" by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, the movie "Earthlings" or just ask me for anything. I hope that when I take part in electing Will to office, he'll have concern for other species on his platform and in his conscience.
Mark Devries Senior, College of Arts and Sciences
