Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
therapeutic purposes? In this section I will discuss (and reject) two such possible jus-
tifications: Cartesianism and Kantianism. Later I address utilitarianism and speciesism.
Cartesians claim that animals lack moral considerability. For a Cartesian, it is
senseless to draw a morally relevant distinction between animals and objects (for Des-
cartes this also involved a denial of animal pain). Since moral considerations do not
apply to animals, any action done to them—AAT included—is morally permissible.
Kantians are fig-leaf Cartesians. They agree with Cartesians that animals are not the
kind of beings that can be morally maltreated by virtue of what they are. But they
also claim that some actions with respect to animals are morally reprehensible. This
stems not from anything having to do with the animal itself, but from how such ac-
tions define the agents that performed them: from what these actions say about them
or about humanity in general. Cartesians would have no problem with any form of
AAT since, for them, animals are no more than means to an end. Kantians would
concur with this, adding the restriction that no abuse or cruelty should take place as
part of AAT. (Consistent Cartesians would have no problem with “cruelty” to therapy
animals—they would object to the use of term as well, “cruelty” exemplifying a cat-
egory mistake in this context—if it is shown to be therapeutically beneficial to human
patients).
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The more general issue of the moral considerability of animals was presented in
the first part of this topic and need not be rehashed now. In our context, both
Cartesians and Kantians constitute a theoretical, not a practical, opposition. By this I
mean that judging by the literature they produce and by their concern with animal
welfare, people involved in offering AAT appear to be both sensitive and concerned
about the well-being of the animals they rely on. They would find it odd to think
that one may do anything one likes to an animal (Cartesianism), or that torturing a
dog is wrong not because of the dog, but only because of what this says about the
torturer (Kantianism).
Short of categorically ostracizing animals from the pale of moral concern, AAT ad-
vocates may try to defend the idea that using animals is permissible, even when det-
rimental to their welfare, so long as no abuse takes place. They will argue that such
use does not constitute exploitation. This move can succeed only partially in light of
the use/exploitation distinction offered in chapter 5. The gist of the distinction was
that you use an entity if your actions in relation to it are calculated to promote your
own interests. You exploit an entity if such self-serving actions are severely detri-
mental to the well-being of the entity. Use is legitimate; exploitation is not. Applied
to AAT, this means that service dogs are used, though not exploited, since their wel-
fare is promoted by the relationship. Horses too gain much from their relations with
humans. The same cannot be said for rodents, snakes, birds, aquarium-kept dolphins,
