Cannibalism & Animal Relations
On the thirteenth of October 1972, an airplane carrying 45 people crashed into the Andes Mountains killing 12 instantly. Fernando Parrado, aged 22 at the time, was taking the flight from Uruguay with his rugby team to attend a tournament in Chile. By day two, the death toll was 17 with another five succumbing to injuries. His best friend, younger sister, and mother were all on the flight – none of them survived.
The team were short of equipment, warm clothes, and most importantly, food. To drink, they made an ice-melting contraption from foil inside the plane’s seats. To eat, they resorted to consuming the flesh of their dead friends. Despite their desperation, it took ten days until cannibalism was even discussed. By then the team recognised that their only chance of survival would be to replenish their bodies, so they could scale the mountain to find help.
The remaining 27 made a pact: if one were to die, the rest would eat them. The hope being that at least one would survive to tell families of the deceased how much they were loved. On day 61, Parrado and one other survivor boldly climbed over the Andes Mountains. Ten days later, they stumbled across a Chilean farmer who took them in and called emergency services. Helicopters were sent to rescue the remaining passengers – only 16 men survived the 72 days of hardship.
Imagine you were in Fernando Parrado’s position, stranded on the Andes Mountains after a near death experience. In this instance, however, some of your teammates brought their pets onto the flight. Let’s image there are three animals on board: a chicken, a rabbit, and a dog. Now consider the following: (i) why might it be wrong to eat the animals? (ii) which of these pet animals would you eat first, and why? (iii) why not eat the human corpses first?
In answering these questions, and through use of reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity), we will subject the animal welfare arguments proposed by Peter Singer and Thomas Reagan to criticism. And we will see how expanding our love for animals will do more to improve the way we treat them, than an appeal to their interests or rights.
Why might it be wrong to eat the pet animals?
Peter Singer popularised the term “speciesism” to describe our unjust treatment of animals, despite there being no “morally relevant characteristics” to distinguish all of us from all of them. Humans are more rational than animals, in general – but what about babies or those severely disabled? Surely, these humans are not more rational than a fully grown chimpanzee. According to Singer, there are few traits which all humans possess, and all animals do not. For this reason, he holds that eating animals is a form of discrimination akin to racism or sexism.
Thomas Reagan considered animals to be “subjects-of-a-life” and not “mere things”. By this, he means animals possess a range of morally relevant characteristics – beliefs, desires, and memories to name a few – which make them worthy of rights-status. This is grounded in Immanuel Kant’s deontological framework, presupposing that animals have an inherent dignity which ought not to be compromised in the interest of humans. Even in cases of extreme hunger, eating an animal is on par with eating a human.
Reagan was explicit in his use of the phrase ‘animal rights’. Singer took issue with using the language of rights, because it implies that when human and animal rights are in conflict, there is little reason, in theory, for prioritising the former over the latter. Building on the work of Jeremy Bentham, Singer called his theory ‘preference utilitarianism’ – he allows for the interests of humans to take priority in some cases but feels we ought to give greater consideration to the interests of animals, especially those who share a capacity to suffer and experience pain.
According to these theories, there seems little reason why the pet chicken, rabbit, or dog should be first on the menu. But before examining what advise Singer and Reagan might give, let’s first consider which of these animals you would eat first, and why?
Which animal would you eat first?
Many in the West would say the chicken first, then the rabbit, followed by the dog. Of course, in other parts of the world the answer might be the dog, the rabbit, then the chicken. These intuitions are derived from cultural norms which we entrench through language: chickens are poultry, rabbits are game, and dogs are pets. Our favouring of some animals over others is not based on biological facts about certain animals; rather, it is due to the way we are socially conditioned to perceive of certain animals. Both chickens and dogs can suffer and feel pain; but we only hold funerals for dogs, and only pet dogs we have named for that matter.
In a similar fashion, it is not biological differences between humans that cause us to treat them differently. Our siblings have the same genetic coding as strangers; but we do not buy strangers birthday presents. We do not judge our disabled relatives to be of less moral worth than able-bodied strangers, merely because they are less rational. And, following this reasoning, we do not rear people for food, nor do we eat the bodies of those already dead. This isn’t because they lack nutritional value; it isn’t based on their interests or rights either. It is based on our relationship with other humans and the ways we learn to perceive of them.
Cora Diamond has drawn on these inconsistencies to critique Singer and Reagan. They start by finding commonalities between humans and animals, then use these to argue that we must apply our morality onto them in the same way we would apply it to other people: animals can suffer like humans can, therefore making animals suffer is as morally reprehensible as making humans suffer. But this explanation is lacking empirically and fails explain why humans consistently favour some animals over others despite their being no morally relevant differences between a chicken, rabbit, and dog.
Our intuitions aren’t the best guide for moral decision-making here – the choice between eating a chicken, rabbit, or dog seems insignificant. This is not the case when it comes to eating people though! Our intuitions offer better guidance for moral decision-making when it comes to cannibalism. But why are we so confident that eating the chicken, rabbit, or dog is preferable to eating other people? What is it about cannibalism that makes us go ‘yuk’?
Why not eat human corpses first?
Let’s imagine we are in Parrado’s shoes now. The plane has crashed, hunger is setting in, and we must decide whether to (a) starve to death, (b) eat one of the pets, (c) eat one of the human corpses.
Thomas Reagan might say that eating your teammates is the morally preferable option, because at least they gave consent to being eaten, while the pet animals did (or could) not. These pet animals have rights, and it is questionable whether the dead can even lay claim to rights – they are no longer rational and autonomous after all.
Singer might be more lenient here. Yes, the interests of the animals must be considered, though they can be outweighed by the interests of the hungry humans who need sustenance to survive. But this might not be the case if other survivors were severely impaired during the crash, however, losing morally relevant faculties like rationality. In this case, their interests would lose value, and your comatose teammates might end up with the same moral status as the chicken, rabbit, or dog.
Through use of reductio ad absurdum, it becomes clear here that Reagan’s and Singer’s arguments are dubious – if we follow the logic of their premises to their endpoint, we end up with absurd conclusions that no reasonable person would accept. They might have valid reasoning, but their arguments fly in the face of common sense. Any sane person would choose to eat one of the pets first. Which pet might be down to personal preferences; but they would choose a pet over a human, nonetheless.
The only survivors who might bat an eyelid at having to eat the chicken, rabbit, or dog first are the pet’s owners. And this wouldn’t be because of the interests or rights they presumed the animals to have. It would be because of the love they have for their pets, which has allowed them to extend human conceptions of morality onto animals.
Animals share a capacity for love – understood broadly as an emotional response to a relationship which makes us less selfish. This is why pets often grieve the loss of their owner. Love cuts across species-lines: we love our pets, and they love us back. This love we have for pets makes us treat them better than other animals – it is not through an appeal to their interests or rights.
When asked if he would change anything about the incident, Parrado was clear: “I wouldn’t change anything at all because changing the past would mean not having the family I now have”. The best hope for improving our treatment of animals, is to learn to look at them as teammates whose fates are intertwined with ours. We must learn to extend the love we have for some animals, to all animals. A love that is similar, though not the same, as the love which drove Parrado’s teammates to consent to being eaten.