Expert: Lee Meyer - 12/8/2007

Question
What do you think of Peter Markie's justification of exploitation of non-human animals?

Markie writes that "some of the ways, we use nonhuman animals to promote our own welfare in research and agriculture are morally permissible" unlike human infants and severely disabled people who "are not in their fully developed moral state. Insofar as we do not honor the duties essential to the claim rights they would have in that state, we take improper advantage of that fact."
"Even animals cognitively equivalent to human infants and severely disabled people are in their fully developed moral state."

"This difference inmoral status is not due to amere differencein species, however. On the one hand, human infants and severely disabled people have not fully developed their moral potential."
"We have a duty to respect their immaturity or disability by protecting those interests they would otherwise be able to assert against us. On the other hand, animals that are cognitively equivalent to human infants or severely disabled people are fully developed."

Peter Markie "Respect for People and Animals" (published in The Journal of Value Inquiry 38: 33–47, 2004.)

Answer
Hi,

I guess I may not be the best person to ask this, I don't approach this issue from the same viewpoint.  It sounds like Markie uses secular morals/reasoning to justify his viewpoint.  The problem is that other people use secular arguments to justify the opposite.

If you read my profile I come from a biblical stewardship, animal welfare view.  God has given man dominion over animals.  That dominion is not unlimited in scope, meaning that we can't just do whatever we want to them.  We need to respect nature as all animals are part of God's overall creation.  We are not to be unnecessarily cruel to them or abusive to them.  We have been given permission by God to use them for food and other ways we see fit (for example certain medical experiments for the benefits of mankind).  It is also clear that animals often do best and live the longest, safest lives when they are the property (thus the responsibility) of people.  

I guess his explanation doesn't really impress me much.  I know why we can have animals as pets, or worker animals, or guide dogs, or certain ones, for food.  Are we to purposely mistreat and be mean to them?  No.  But we have the authority to do so not because any one man thinks it's okay because they have a different moral status, it's because God says we are able to.  

One may say people left to their own judgments will be cruel and abusive and not kill animals in humane fashions.  That is true, but people ignore God's laws dealing with other people too, it should not come to surprise that people will do evil things.  They need to be punished by the laws that exist for those that break animal cruelty laws.  And if the laws do not exist or are vague, they should be made or made clearer.