The natural and the normative

Lori Gruen, <Ethics and Animals> 2장

Introductory part of this section main points: 

-Normativity sometimes means what is normal, and it sometimes means what is good; it can also be a combination of the two.

-We are in ethical relation with other animals, and our attitudes and actions have ethical consequences for both humans and non-humans.

“Doing what comes naturally” section main points: 

-Environmentalists historically frame the natural as distinct from the cultural. 

-The natural is wild, untamed, free from human concepts, including human ethics.

-However, if we recall the examples of chimpanzees using tools in Ch. 1, primatologists actually say that these behaviors are cultural. Certain practices of types of animals are not explicable in terms of ecological variations in their habitat ranges. 

-The natural is often conflated with “instinctual” behavior, or “innate” behavior. But these concepts are vague. 

-In evolutionary developmental biology, there are traits that cannot be explained by instinct or innateness. According to Oyama, “biological” refers to something physical, preprogrammed, while “learning” is an accident of personal history, a product of the mind.

-We should recognize species-typical behaviors in order to understand other animals. 

-Gruen asks “is it justified to have preference for our own species?” Therefore, “does the natural justify the normative?”

“Species and speciesism” section main points:

-Our understanding of species is constructed by us to understand the natural world. “Species” and “species-typical behaviors” are not simply biologically or naturally given, though they are based generally on biological properties. 

-So “speciesism,” or preferences for one’s own species, is not a product of evolution.

-In many species, members of the species do not necessarily protect their own. They may even kill their own members.

-Most individuals are concerned with their own survival and possibly the survival of their offspring or members of their immediate group, not with the survival of their species as a whole. Ex. Human history is filled with mass murders, wars, genocides. Humans are adept at identifying in-groups and out-groups which they treat with either respect and protection or contempt and disregard.

-Animals may struggle against each other, but they may also cooperate against obstacles and hardships with each other.

-Humans and other animals have the ability to make decisions about what behavior to engage in.

-There are many human behaviors that feel natural, such as discrimination against out-groups, racism, xenophobia, and sexism. In all of these cases, humans separate among their own species those whom they want to respect and protect, from those they want to treat with contempt or disregard.

-Thus, species membership, according to Gruen, is not the basis for moral judgments (at least on its own). 

-My critique: Gruen seems to be arguing here that, because humans already discriminate within the human population, members of one species treating other members with contempt is a given and therefore somehow justifiable. Obviously, the premise that discrimination is a given or justifiable simply because it happens is not ethically or morally right. How does a movement like the introduction of the anti-discrimination law in Korea, or universal social welfare in the Nordic countries, which attempts to eliminate discrimination by supporting all humans equally, square with Gruen’s statement that humans automatically treat certain out-groups with contempt? I am concerned that Gruen here might be avoiding making explicit ethical and moral judgments about inter-human discrimination because she instead prioritizes justifying her argument that non-human persons outside of the human species (animals) should be treated with moral responsibility.

- If species membership is not a requirement for treating another being ethically, then Gruen argues that ethical treatment can be extended beyond the species. For example, for humans, chimpanzees’ interests in living well should also be morally important. 

“Humans and persons” section main points: 

-Reproductive links distinguish humans from other animals and species.

-“Human” identifies a descriptive feature of that type of being. “Personhood” is used to identify the value or worth of someone, as a being with rights, and who is the subject of ethical duties and obligations. Gruen argues that not all humans have rights or duties, and some other than humans may have worth.

-A Lockean “person” is someone with the psychological capacities of cognition, self-awareness, and episodic memory.

-For Kant, “non-persons” are non-rational beings that do not have self-conception. Ex.: fetuses, newborns, toddlers, humans in vegetative state would be “non-persons” according to Kant’s definition.

-According to Gruen, some humans may not be persons. Some non-humans may be persons. Ex. Jays can remember if someone was present, so they might count as persons.

“Moral agents and moral patients” section main points: 

-Some philosophers mark the distinction between persons and non-persons by indicating that persons are “moral agents” and non-persons are “moral patients.”

-“Moral agents” as persons have the ability to make certain reflective choices and attend to others not able to do so.

-“Moral patients” as non-persons are the recipients of moral attention and concern but don’t have moral responsibilities as moral agents/persons do. Because moral patients lack certain capacities, certain actions may be done to them that would be wrong to do to persons. 

-For Locke, moral agents have a sense of themselves as existing over time. Non-persons or moral patients do not.

-Persons are autonomous so it would be ethically problematic to deny them freedom. But for moral patients, denying their freedom could be the right thing to do ethically.

-According to the definition of moral agents of Locke, Gruen says that any being whose life can get better or worse should be the object of moral attention.

-Moral agents can forms intentions about their actions, are responsible for them, can make moral judgments, and construct and follow moral principles. 

-Moral patients are those to whom moral actions are directed, but who may not be moral agents themselves. Non-persons are always moral patients. But some persons can be moral patients, when they are acted on by moral agents, or when they lose their capacities for reason and reflection.

-Singer is interested in sentient beings who have interests in avoiding pain and experiencing pleasure, as well as have desires projected into the future.  Thus, there are two classes of beings: those who project their desires into the future and those who cannot.

-Our reflective capacities allow us not to act directly on our mere impulses, but to decide whether to act on them.

-Gruen says that what moral agents construct as normatively binding is not only our rational or autonomous capacities, but the needs and desires we have as living beings. If these needs and desires are valuable for agents, they should also be valuable for patients. Thus, moral agents have a duty to moral patients. The moral claims of both agents and patients are of value, but moral agents have a responsibility and duty as persons to moral patients.

“The argument from marginal cases” (AMC) section main points: 

-Some humans lack intentionality, self-awareness, memory, imagination, a sense of existing over time. They are non-persons, according to Gruen.

-Many other animals lack these characteristics and are also non-persons.

-However, our general ethical attitudes toward human non-persons and non-human non-persons are very different and inconsistent. We should be treating both consistently.

-As Kittay notes, personhood has in the past been used to create human out-groups, such as women, slaves, Jews, certain races, the disabled, claiming that such groups are unworthy or incapable of governing themselves. There is also the controversial question of fetuses (during abortion), which many argue do not have personhood. 

-My critical question: if Gruen is critical of humans creating out-groups through the capability of personhood, how do we deal with the right to abortion? Is the right to abortion then morally wrong according to Gruen’s argument because fetuses should not be considered to be lacking in personhood?

-Gruen says that in order to be fully consistent in our treatment toward human non-persons and non-human non-persons, there are two options: either grant ethical consideration to all beings outside the human species, and whom are also non-persons, or deny ethical consideration to all non-persons (Kant’s conclusion). 

“Social relations” section main points: 

-Some philosophers have challenged the AMC because it is focused on intrinsic properties rather than relational ones. They argue social relations need to be taken into account. Individual capacities are embedded in social relations. 

“How might the proponent of AMC respond?” section main points:

-Humans with severe Alzheimer’s for example, human moral patients, should not have a higher status than non-human moral patients, according to Gruen, simply based on species.

-Also, we don’t necessarily have more moral justification to care for our family members and children over other people such as neighbors or colleagues. Favoring one’s family and how we understand who counts as a family member are contingent artifacts of our cultural practices. Families come in many forms, and they can also include more than humans. Ex.: Donna Haraway’s “companion species” are not just pets but other beings with whom we are in significant, life-altering relationships. Bonds of kinship can extend beyond our own culture. If non-human animals can be part of families, the family does not serve as a model for making moral distinctions between species.

-My critical question: if family members are not determined by blood relations as humans, or even being in the same species, what kind of families do we want to create? What kind of moral characteristics, social relations of care should be the basis of understandings of families today? There are many discussions of “alternative forms of family” in the Korean media, not to mention the discourse complaining about the “problem” of 1-person households. Clearly, the patriarchally oriented nuclear family of the past is breaking down, but what should replace it? Surely non-human persons can be part of these alternative forms of family according to Gruen, but I worry that Gruen could border on giving up hope in human persons to a certain extent, particularly in her earlier discussion of inter-human contempt, out-group making, and discrimination as givens.

My critical comment: It’s certainly possible for humans as moral agents to include non-human persons in their families, according to Gruen’s argument, treating them as moral patients, subject to moral responsibility. However, to what extent can and should non-human living beings and organisms be included in non-human personhood? For example, can viruses such as the coronavirus be included as non-human persons? What about mosquitoes carrying dengue fever or malaria, or ticks carrying Lyme disease? Can climactic phenomena such as typhoons be considered to have non-human personhood? What about invasive species, for example, or plant varieties that eliminate plant diversity when not managed by humans, or that take over certain areas when in urbanized conditions? Gruen’s unidirectional moral agent acting with moral responsibility towards a moral patient seems to fit humans treating animal companions and other animals as potential alternative family members, but for other organisms, moral and ethical relations are going to be more complex, not necessarily unidirectional, and perhaps not even possible to practice in some instances.

“Taking offense” section main points:

-We are all animals. There is no reason for species prejudice. All moral patients, human or non-human, cognitively able or impaired, have interests that deserve our moral attention.

-The normative is not something that can be determined based on species, biology, or what is “natural.” The basis for our normative judgments can be based on individual properties or relations, or both, but persons have certain ethical and epistemological responsibilities.

참고문헌:

Lori Gruen, 2011, Ethics and Animals: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press.