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God must love dogs
Q: Expensive and time-consuming efforts are being made to rescue and rehabilitate animals threatened by the Gulf oil spill. Do animals have rights? Do animals have souls? What does your faith say about animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice and stewardship? Dr. Paul Waldau, a lecturer in animal law at Harvard Law School, says, "Religion is a major player in the way humans think about other living beings." What does that mean to you?
I hope animals have souls. They must have spirits because the spirit is the breath. I hope that animals have soul/spirit that survives this life because I look forward to seeing my dog again after death, just as I look forward to seeing relatives and friends who have passed from this earthly life.
For 14 years, my 80-pound fawn shepherd was one of my best friends in this life. He was a gift to my children. They grew up, moved away, moved back, and through it all it was the dog and me. When I moved from Philadelphia, Pa., to Dayton, Ohio, it was the dog and me. When he was a puppy he slept under my chair while I studied. When I did yard work, he would dig along with me. When I danced to music in my kitchen while cooking or washing dishes, he would dance too.
He was a peacemaker. One day when my son and I were having a parent teenager fight, he got between us, put his forepaws on my son's shoulder and stared to lick his face as if to tell him to stop talking. It was so funny, that my son, my daughter and I started laughing. We resolved our differences more peacefully after his intervention. The dog literally saved my life. I was napping on the sofa in the living room when he nudged me awake. When I woke, I smelled gas. An unlit eye on the stove was turned on. I turned it off, opened the windows and he and I sat outside until the air was free of the gas.
We walked together every day, rain or snow or sunshine through the hottest hot days and the coldest cold days, early mornings and sometimes at midnight. When his hips went bad and it was clear that it was time to euthanize him, I cried for two weeks before and for a week after. That was in 2001, and I still miss him. The dog was smart, faithful, protective and able to sense when I needed him to come and lay next to me. I never, ever call an unfaithful man a dog because it is an insult to the canine.
Whether or not my dog had rights, whether or not animals have rights, is another question. At this point in my thinking on this subject, I agree with those who say that rights come with responsibilities. Moral duties attach to rights. To have a moral duty means that an individual ought to have the capabilities to think about the consequences of actions. One must have a reflexive capacity. This requirement applies to individuals and to species. Thus, human beings who are not able to reason -infants, people with brain disabilities or comatose individuals--still are Homo sapiens with rights.
When we think of rights, we think of entitlements to act or entitlements that will restrain the actions of others. Rights confer freedom to do something and freedom from having something done to us. Philosophers have made the case for animal rights by classifying them as morally considerable. This means that animals ought to enjoy our moral consideration not because they are rational but because they are sentient beings. They are aware, perceptive, and responsive. They deserve moral consideration because the suffer pain.
I am not a vegetarian and I use leather products, but I agree with the notion that it is morally wrong to cause another creature to suffer. Thus, we humans have a moral obligation to attend to the suffering of the wildlife hurt because of the disaster in the gulf. We have a larger obligation to think about how the animals we eat and use live and die. This means regulations on factory farming and on methods of slaughtering animals. This may be costly and make meat and leather goods more expensive. However, that may be beneficial to humanity since the problem of obesity and overweight threatens human health and life in the United States. Virtue ethics argues that we ought to give moral consideration to animals because such will make us more excellent human beings.
Moreover, we ought to give moral consideration to the welfare of animals not only because it is a benefit to humanity, but because animals have intrinsic worth. They are creatures of a Creator who loves them no less than God loves us. Animals are a part of the unfolding logic of creation. According to one of the Biblical creation stories, humanity was created to be vegetarian. Genesis 1:29 said: "And God said, See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food." Animal use for food and for clothing comes after human disobedience and after the fall.
The language of rights is language that is meaningful within the context of morality, law and government. When there are rights, there is also someone to name the rights and to protest or to file suit when rights have been violated. However, the governance of law is not the only way that human beings rule their lives. We exercise discretion and regulate our behavior according to that which makes sense to us. We often act according to the dictates of love as well of the obligations and prohibitions of the law.
The importance of religion in the discussion surrounding animal rights is the lens it gives us through which to see the question. Religion gives us a sense of our relationship with the Divine that is mediated through our righteous relationships with each other, including the non-human Other and with all of creation. Religion is the understanding that our lives ought to be governed not only by the ethics and the laws we craft, but by the governance of love that does not want to see any sentient being suffer. And my love for my dog tells me that we will meet again.
By
Valerie Elverton Dixon
|
June 16, 2010; 2:11 PM ET
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Posted by: junimooni22 | June 23, 2010 10:12 AM
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Valerie Dixon:
I now habitually make your essays among the first I read. I like the way you write and apparently think. However, I often disagree with or want to rewrite somedthing you have said. That makes it fun.
This week's question is about animal rights, and this has led to many comments about rights in a larger context. In a sentence, I think we and other animals have rights to the extent someone or something grants them to us. They are neither innate not inallienable (unallianable?)
You posited a connection between rights and responsibilities, and I certainly agree that humans have many responsibilities, but whence they come and what they are could be a grand topic for another discussion.
Posted by: cecil4 | June 19, 2010 5:34 PM
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The personal account of your (nameless ?) dog is beautiful! Thanks for sharing that...
I disagree though that animals should be denied the right to not be treated as property based on their inability to grasp "responsibility". You did mention the infant and the infirm, and by default of their "species" gave them rights... This sets man up to play "gOd" with the lives of Others. These "others" value their lives as much as we do... I don't know what justification there can be to use their bodies at our whim? If you truly believe that it is "morally wrong to cause another creature to suffer", if there is no "necessity" to do so - How do you square that up with your ethics?
Even if we did not recognize an animal's life as his/her rightful possession - What in your system of "fairness", short of "medical science", can possibly grant authority to use/take a life when the "need" isn't warranted?
Thanks for inviting comment and for a reply to my questions.
Posted by: beaelliott | June 18, 2010 6:28 PM
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Although this author is not alone in her approach, I find it a little off-putting to see the common portrayal of animals as gentle and lovey-dovey.
It's true that domesticated animals have been selected in part for their ability to form bonds with humans. Wild animals display care and concern toward their kin and social groups in the wild, but it goes too far when humans anthropomorphize animals to the extent that occurs in our culture. The natural world is not composed of teddy bears and kitten calendars, but of predators and prey.
Animals kill each other for food, fight for mates, for resources, and for territory, as humans often do. We humans are still struggling to find ways to resolve our differences without resorting to the violence modeled in nature. We should refrain from trying to understand and relate to nature by projecting our characteristics and motivations onto other animals. Instead, we should approach nature with an understanding of how it works and attempt to mitigate the unnecessary suffering caused by our influence.
Posted by: cianwn | June 16, 2010 4:47 PM
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My priest was once asked this question by a 12-year female member of our church after her dog died. "Father, they say animals have no souls...does that mean I won't see my dog in heaven?"
My priest did not skip a beat, but promptly answered, "Megan, I think that whatever is necessary for your happiness in heaven will be there." I really loved that response!