Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
this chapter I consider the welfare-based defense of zoos: a defense that attempts to
morally vindicate zoos by arguing that the interests of animals kept in land or aquatic
zoos are promoted by good zoos. I follow the stages above: explicating the use/ex-
ploitation distinction, applying it to animals, and turning finally to examining the vari-
ant of the argument that harnesses this distinction to mobilize a moral defense of
zoos.
USE/EXPLOITATION AND JUSTIFYING PATERNALISM
To facilitate examining the moral status of zoos, here is a summary of my earlier
justification for using animals in general. Give-and-take relations among humans are
morally acceptable under various restrictions. This means that mutual use need not
constitute exploitation. Given informed consent, given the existence of actual choice
among genuine available alternatives, given that the transaction does not itself impose
some morally distorted objective onto the life of one of the parties, there is nothing
immoral in such exchanges. In the case of humans, consent, choice, and respect are
themselves derived from more overarching considerations pertaining to what may not
be done to human beings. Restrictions on human-related action are not a moral out-
cropping issuing out of elements external to them (e.g., their value to other human
beings). Such restrictions are implied by what humans themselves possess, by what
they are. Theories would here differ on whether possessing interests, or rights, some
intrinsic value, or the capacity to suffer, or to generate value judgments, are the deep-
er elements that we recognize and ascribe to humans that, in turn, give rise to these
restrictions.
Sometimes we ignore the desires of human beings and disregard the inability to ob-
tain their consent, yet feel that such practice is morally legitimate. Children, or vari-
ously incapacitated individuals, are sometimes treated in such ways. The justification
for ignoring their autonomy appeals to the action performed as being beneficial to
these people. Paternalism is thus morally exonerated by perceiving paternal relations
as increasing overall welfare, and/or eliminating impending harms that the person can-
not yet (or ever) fathom, because of either age or ailment. Paternalism to children in-
volves the expectation that they eventually grow out of such relationships and become
autonomous.
Our relations with nonhuman animals are many times modeled on a paternalistic
framework. Companion animals are the most obvious example. Being vaccinated,
spayed, or neutered, limited in movement, and trained are done without the consent
of such animals, but by calling the shots for them, deciding what is in their (and
our) best interest. Such relationships are paternalistic, and, unlike the case of children,
they remain paternalistic. When questioned, the source of the moral legitimacy of
