Day: January 25, 2002

Joan Dunayer Attacks Peter Singer, Says Chickens Live Worthier Lives than Humans

At the beginning of January I wrote about Karen Davis attacking Peter Singer over a review that Singer wrote of Joan Dunayer’s book, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation. Now, Dunayer herself has written a very strong response to Singer accusing him of being “speciesist” in his review.

In her book, as Dunayer writes in a letter to Vegan Voice, Dunayer argues that “Truthful, nonspeciesist language — especially nonspeciesist legal language — would end nonhuman oppression.”

Singer dismissed that argument, writing that, “It is not speciesist to think that this event [the 9/11 terrorist attacks] was a greater tragedy than the killing of several million chickens, which no doubt also occurred on September 11, as it occurs on every working day in the United States.” Singer argued that it was appropriate to use different language to describe the deaths of animals than that used to describe the deaths of human beings.

Dunayer completely disagrees. She writes,

“It is not speciesist” to consider the murder of several thousand humans “a greater tragedy than the killing of several million chickens,” Singer contends. It certainly is. . . . Also, Singer’s disrespect for chickens is inconsistent with his espoused philosophy, which values benign individuals more than those who, on balance, cause harm. By that measure, chickens are worthier than most humans, who needlessly cause much suffering and death (for example, by eating or wearing animal-derived products).

The people who died on 9/11 led lives that were morally inferior to chickens. What a lovely philosophy.

Dunayer criticizes Singer for limiting protection for animals to those species who are self-aware. As Dunayer notes, it is impossible to determine the extent to which non-human species are self-aware. So, she concludes, we should consider them all self-aware. She contends, for example, that jellyfish should be consider creatures possessing rights. After complaining that Singer unjustly refers to animals with the third person pronoun, ‘it,’ Dunayer writes,

Similarly, although he has advocated moral consideration for all sentient beings, he excludes some nonhuman animals from who, thereby dismissing them from consideration. “Am I just showing prejudice if I confess that I find it difficult to think of a jellyfish as a ‘who’?” he asks. Yes, he is. . . . “Let’s wage the winnable battles first, before we go to the barricades for dust mites,” Singer mocks. Language that shows respect for dust mites and jellyfishes doesn’t impede efforts to liberate monkeys or pigs. The main obstacle to such efforts is a human-centered, hierarchical view of animals. By requiring that nonhumans demonstrate human-like traits, and by ranking nonhumans accordingly, Singer perpetuates speciesism and endlessly postpones nonhuman emancipation.

Got that? In Dunayer’s schema, animals are not to be granted rights because they may be sentient or self-aware, but simply because they are alive. Anything that is classified as an animal is a creature possessing rights, all the way down to jellyfish and similar creatures.

Source:

Letter to the editor of Vegan Voice. Joan Dynayer, January 2002.

Do Animal Rights Activists Care More About Animals Than Human Beings?

Animal rights activists come in for a lot of criticism, but the one argument
that seems to really get under their skin is the claim that they care more about
animals than they do about human beings. Animal rights groups and individuals
will go to great lengths to show they value human life. They argue they simply
want humans to value the lives of animals.

Do animal rights activists care more about animals than human beings? Comments
made by prominent activists and groups after the September 11 terrorist attacks
speak volumes:

  • Alex Hershaft runs a group called Farm USA that manages a national animal
    rights convention. On September 23, Farm USA issued a press release quoting
    Hershaft saying, “Worldwide, every day, 125 million innocent, sentient animals
    are dreadfully abused and butchered for food. These tragedies are perpetrated
    by a worldwide animal agricultural terrorist network that is much more threatening
    to planetary survival than the Al Queda network, because it kills more people
    and animals, because it kills them unrelentingly every day, because it is
    pervasive and accepted. For every human being who dies of warfare, crime,
    or terrorism, 10,000 innocent, sentient animals die a violent death.”

  • The next day, Michael W. Fox of the Humane Society of the United States
    blamed the 9/11 attacks on humanity’s crimes against nature. In an essay distributed
    via e-mail, Fox wrote that, “Our collective violence against Nature and against
    human nature, from the plight of endangered cultures, wildlife and the environment,
    to the sufferings of indigenous peoples and of domestic animals, especially
    in factory farms and commercial laboratories around the world, needs to be
    acknowledged. Until we find atonement with Nature and all beings, human and
    non-human, how can human nature find peace and not annihilate all that our
    better natures embrace?”

  • In its October issue, the widely read animal rights magazine “Animal People”
    included an unsigned editorial linking Osama bin Laden’s fanaticism to meat
    eating. More disturbing, however, was the magazine’s comparison of farm animals
    to the victims who died onboard the hijacked planes. According to the magazine,
    “Many and perhaps most of the nine billion animals sent to slaughter in the
    U.S. each year, as well as the billions killed abroad, have at least as long
    to sense doom as did the September 11 victims. Neither are the animals’ last
    cries as unlike the cell phone calls made by some of the September 11 victims
    as the typical meat-eater would like to believe. Equally disturbing to meat-eaters
    might be awareness that doomed animals, too, often put up frantic resistance,
    like the passengers who tried to retake United Airlines flight 93…”

  • Lee Ryan, a member of the British boy band Blue, put the comparison in stark
    and crude language. Ryan, who styles himself an animal rights activist, asked
    the British tabloid The Sun, “What about whales? They are ignoring
    animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that’s more important
    . . . Who gives a f— about New York when elephants are being killed.”

  • To his credit, animal rights philosopher Peter Singer did criticize the
    idea of comparing the victims of the September 11 attacks to animals killed
    for food, but United Poultry Concerns’ Karen Davis vigorously denounced Singer
    for this. According to Davis, “For 35 million chickens in the United States
    alone, every single night is a terrorist attack.” Davis went on to suggest
    that since most of those who died in the terrorist attacks were likely meat
    eaters, the attacks may have actually resulted in a net reduction in suffering.

  • Finally, just a few days ago Farm USA announced the schedule for its upcoming
    Animal Rights 2002 National Conference. Describing the goal of this year’s
    conference, Farm USA’s press release said, “Animal Rights 2002 is our movement’s
    first national conference since the terrible tragedy of September 11 and its
    aftermath. It is dedicated to exposing and challenging the terror perpetrated
    every single day against billions of innocent, sentient nonhuman animals.”

Despite the frequent claims that animal rights activist do not care more about
animals than they do about human beings, in each of these cases human suffering
from the Sept. 11 attacks is minimized, ignored, and even celebrated. At best
human suffering is used simply as a segue to talk about the real issue, which
is always the alleged suffering of animals.

Do animal rights activists care more about animals than they do about human
beings? Of course they do.