Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
or dogs, all of these creatures can easily exist in the wild in large numbers, and by
turning them into vehicles for therapy, both their freedom and their social needs are
radically curtailed. Counter to my hypothetical critic's claims, AAT that uses these
creatures is exploitative and is to be eradicated, even if no abuse takes place.
TWO OBJECTIONS
Before examining whether exploiting animals can be defended as such, I need to
respond to two counterarguments to what I have just said. The first is that I am
downplaying the significance of the price horses and dogs pay for their existence in
the company of humans. Watching a horse struggle with the bit in its mouth is a dif-
ficult sight. “Breaking” horses or the prolonged training periods that service dogs un-
dergo can boil down to painful activities and deprivation, especially when the training
system is not (or is not only) reward based. Moreover, the import of thwarting the
procreative potential of these animals by sterilizing them cannot be ignored. The
second objection has to do with the argument from nonexistence that I relied on
when claiming that dogs and horses gain from their relations with humans since this
relationship means that they exist. I have referred to my previous defense of the
metaphysical plausibility of such an argument. (In a nutshell, I argued that a nonexist-
ent entity cannot be harmed by not bringing “it” into existence, yet it—now without
the quotes—can benefit from a decision to bring it into existence. There is nothing
contradictory about an entity having both these properties.) But there is a non-meta-
physically based objection to this move having to do with species as opposed to par-
ticular entities. I said that in most countries, horses and dogs are not likely to exist
outside of use-based human relations and that abrogating all such relations will in any
case imply a radical reduction in the number of such beings. But an AAT therapist
can choose to breed particular rodents for the purpose of using them in therapeutic
sessions, claiming that like horses or dogs, these
particular
animals gain their existen-
ce from entering this exchange. Why, then, am I legitimating the former relations and
opposing the latter?
Beginning with the substantial price that horses and dogs pay for living their lives
with humans, here a liberationist is compelled to factor in moral, political, and stra-
tegic considerations. The previous chapter's comparison between vegan and vegetarian
utopia holds here too: the vegetarian ideal, which allows for some use-based relations
with animals, is overall better for animals than the vegan ideal. Many more animals
would exist (millions more would exist), the lives they would lead would be qualitat-
ively good ones, and this would not exemplify a perverse perception of animal lives
being merely means for producing this or that. And it is such a world that liberation-
