Writing for the Weekly Standard, Wesley Smith speculates about the imminent legal recognition of nonhuman personhood:
For years, animal rights activists have been preparing the intellectual ground to overcome the “animals aren’t persons” legal impediment to their goal of allowing animals to sue their owners—a concept known as “animal standing”—by which they plan to destroy animal industries and eventually end all domestication of animals. They know that no legislature will pass laws elevating even the most intelligent animals to the status of persons. So they plan to file multitudinous lawsuits, hoping judges will bootstrap animals into the moral community.
But Charles Camosy at Catholic Moral Theology thinks Wesley is taking things too far:
Smith is worried that considering non-human animals to be persons may undermine the exceptionalism of human animals. He is correct to worry about this. But Christians know that human beings are not exceptional. Thomas Aquinas and many other Christian thinkers, for instance, argued that human beings had a rather modest place in the hierarchy of creation–especially when compared to angels. A “person” is a “substance of a rational and relational nature” and refers to a metaphysical category, not a biological one. Both angels and humans fit into this category, and it may very well be the case that non-human animals also count as persons.
Whether animals eventually acquire legal status as persons or not, or whether their doing so will do much against human exceptionalism, one wonders what Peter Singer might say about all this.
April 3rd, 2012 | 11:59 am
The disagreement between Wesley Smith and Charles Camosy seems to be at least partly explained because they are using different categories of thought.
Wesley is speaking about a legal category of “person” as used in legal documents such as the 14th amendment which guarantees equal protection and due process to legal “persons,” and which is used to determine whether a particular being has standing to sue.
The law certainly does not define a person as Charles does — Courts do not consider whether a being has the “substance of a rational and relational nature.” This is a philosophical and metaphysical definition (which in legal circles is often translated to mean “irrelevant and pointless trivia that egg-heads debate amongst themselves”).
Charles seems to think that Wesley is using a “biological” definition of personhood, but my reading suggests he is more concerned with the legal category of personhood, rather than biological.
There is in fact a concerted legal effort to have courts and legislatures include animals as persons for legal purposes, and there is another even more concerted effort to have certain kinds of human beings excluded from this legal category. Whether or not angels are persons, this is a very worrying set of trends, and I commend Wesley for calling attention to them.
April 3rd, 2012 | 12:28 pm
I don’t wonder what Peter Singer would think: I have no doubt he would argue that creatures who meet his understanding of what makes a person “human” (or “worthy” or whatever word he chooses to use) deserves protections and rights, and any creature who does not, is expendable.
The problem I have with this involves a conflict of interest question: if Peter is part of category A, then how can Peter be in a position to judge which members of category A deserve rewards (protections, benefits, rights) and which ones deserve penalties (exclusion, being deprived of rights, etc.)?
Perhaps I might think like Singer does, if I thought I would get to be the one at the center, deciding (and if I could realistically feel as entitled to judge such a question as Singer does). But I am more inclined to view myself as the one judged – but then that puts me in a position to wonder whether Singer might feel differently about his positions, if there were even the slightest question of him being included in the group that gets to be judged, instead of the group doing the judging.
Either way, I object to the entire project of trying to redefine “human rights” away from humanity as a group and toward some new group, to be defined by the value judgments of a tiny group of elites (and I do mean that word in the sense that aristocrats are “elites”, not the sense that people of superior intelligence or merit are “elite”).
April 3rd, 2012 | 12:59 pm
Why wouldn’t Camosy include even the briefest mention of the category “person” as it appears in the philosophy of the gift or the theology of the body? Perhaps there too is displayed an “odd focus on human exceptionalism” that even the “exceptionally smart” pig cannot surmount.
He also possesses a blissful ignorance of the motivations of the kind of activists Smith is talking about. They are not concerned with mere “acknowledgement” of additional sorts of personhood. They purpose is to work the slippery slope after the category change. See the comments there for speculation about how shifting categories of personhood can justify questions about the personhood of the “fertilized human egg.”
April 3rd, 2012 | 1:47 pm
You may find out what Peter Singer would think in Charles Camosy’s forthcoming book Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization.
April 3rd, 2012 | 3:35 pm
Until animals can advocate for themselves, they will simply be instruments in the hands of those who want to coerce their fellow human beings’ behavior when it touches basic activities like creating and eating food and clothing. No rational ecologist would advocate letting all domestic animals roam free (especially dogs), where they could crowd out wild animals in their natural ecosystems. The direct result of any “animal standing” will be that most of the animals who are “vindicated” will not be allowed to reproduce or live. Animals in the wild are a vast reservoir of deadly diseases like bubonic plague. Domestic animals who are loosed will become a new transmission vector for those diseases, but lacking any fear of mankind that keeps most of the illnesses in check most of the time. We will have to kill the feral domestics in self-defense.
Happy ending all around, eh?
April 3rd, 2012 | 4:00 pm
Raymond Takashi Swenson,
But we already have regulations and laws about the humane treatment of animals. Cruelty to animals can result in felony charges in all but a few states. If people do not advocate for animals, who will?
April 3rd, 2012 | 10:26 pm
David Nickol,
You misunderstand Raymond Takashi Swenson. He is talking of the future and you are describing now and how we should respond.
The animals are being used by one group of humans to begin to rule over another, because they have seen that equality without God is incoherent. They seek to be part of the future Egypt where they and the elders with information and correct belief can rule for a thousand years.
They see this as the natural way for humanity based on Will. Those who make law and those who obey law. The rule makers use it to subdue others and liberate themselves. Which is the opposite of even the Enlightenment, let alone most western thought, but since when recently has that mattered? We are beyond Good and Evil aren’t we.
There are “scientists” already planning to save the Earth by removing all but a tenth of humanity. If the freedom and decimation of domesticated animals as Raymond describes can be used for Elitist rule then it will. Why would they need all that meat anyway?
April 4th, 2012 | 8:57 am
No, it can’t be the case, because a person is “of a rational … nature.” It is not in the nature of animals to be rational. Humans possess a rational soul, animals don’t. Because humans possess a rational soul, they are persons even when their biological development hasn’t yet reached a point such that others can deduce their rationality from their behavior. Rationality is always inherent in their nature, its being comprised of a body and a rational soul as it is. A human is always a person who from its conception possessed a rational soul. Animals, on the other hand, do not have a rational nature because they possess no rational soul, so they can’t be persons according to the above definition.
Yes, there are many examples of animals having “personalities.” Animals do indeed exhibit limited intellectual capacity. But it is beyond the most complete development of their animal nature to ask “Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning and end of my existence?”
April 4th, 2012 | 10:53 am
harry,
Does it make sense to say that God (the Father) is rational or that the Holy Spirit is rational? They are persons, of course. But they do not have rational souls. And what does rationality mean for an omniscient being? It seems to me they (and perhaps angels) are not rational, although of course they are not irrational either. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what the meaning of rational is. Wikipedia says:
I don’t see why it is impossible, in principle, for animals to have a rudimentary kind of reason, and of course highly intelligent animals like dolphins might have a mental life beyond what we now understand.
I don’t think it gets us anywhere to say that humans possess rational souls and animals do not. That basically amounts to saying humans are rational and animals are not, which begs the question. Also, it may be a quibble, but I don’t think humans “possess” souls any more than humans “possess” bodies.
April 4th, 2012 | 11:14 am
As commenter Tony describes above, Camosy’s critique depends on a “blissful ignorance of the motivations of the kind of activists Smith is talking about.”
Whatever Camosy’s interpretation of the hierarchy via Aquinas, human beings are indeed “exceptional” in that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Compared to the angels, so what? Smith contra animal-animists compares human beings to beasts.
Mimicry of awareness is not awareness any more than parrots truly speak English. Camosy’s characterization of Smith’s critique as peculiar (“is it too strong to call it ‘obsession’?”) is simple condescension without basis. Smith is interested in drawing a bright line when Camosy and PETA (and is it too strong to say Peter Singer?) want to effect new modes and practices by citing gray areas. But upon contemplation the grays are not as gray as Camosy would hope for. The bright line for exceptionalism is the species, and it is positively weird that only in this century have we begun to seriously flirt with equality. An “obsessive” flirtation with bestiality, if you will.
Man has been given dominion over the earth. Either you accept that divine command or you do not. This means we are stewards and animals are chattel. Animals are chattel to be respected insofar as they imitate human characteristics, so as to preserve our respect for humanity, but not as ends in themselves, not by misapplying the infinite dignity of the person. It is this confusion of category that Smith is “obsess[ing]” against, and not without good reason: people like Camosy seem to have no comprehension of the consequences of their casual utterances.
Yes, animals are to be treated “humanely” (note the cognate). But this tiptoeing toward equality is serious indeed, not because we object to the raising up of God’s creatures but because, in the blurring of bright standards, we fear the quite predictable consequence of lowering man to beast, as “humane” pontificators like Peter Singer demonstrate we all are disposed to do.
It is possible to love animals and love one’s fellow man. The danger resides in the very attempt to compare an object of infinite worth — the human being — with one of finite worth. The comparison either saddles us with absurdities (prosecuting the wolf for murdering the sheep) or harrowing indignities (considering retarded children to be of less value than a dolphin).
To misunderstand the ends of the animal rights project is to misinterpret their ratcheting actions toward their goal. And to unite with them even in small ways is to continue the ratchet. Wesley Smith fights these seemingly innocuous steps toward indignity and absurdity. It is rich that his opponents characterize his defense of the human as an “obsession,” particularly when placed alongside the truly remarkable obsessions of those he opposes.
April 4th, 2012 | 11:24 am
As a 30+ years vegetarian I have always been bemused by the attempts to unite pro-lifers and animal rights people. I thought Mary Eberstadt did a fine piece last year in First Things. It is something I would love to see and I even had some ideas tried to initiate it. I have, therefore, learned much. One of the first things I’ve learned is that Catholic Moral Theologians are not the Church’s strong unit. They’re not usually in the game in the fourth quarter. They tend to not grasp the gravity of our current state in society, usually due to a naivete of the society not the Church. Yet another attempt to find common ground with a pestilential fog. My generation heard, when we were young, that Christianity and Marxism shared many of the same concerns, specifically about the poor. We needed to be more open to common ground with the very regimes that were chaining the poor to dungeon walls. This is the same thing. Wesley Smith has proven time and again that he GETS where we truly are. Every Catholic Theologian needs to so demonstrate. As a postscript I leave my opinion based on my experience with pro-lifers and animal rights activists. This is said with great sadness and prayers for healing. In the New York area, the animal rights movement is heavily populated with men and women who have been directly involved in an abortion, and they have not yet healed or grieved. Their grief is being worked out in attacks on pro-lifers, even those concerned with protecting animal also.
April 4th, 2012 | 11:36 am
King,
Is it morally acceptable to kill animals purely for sport?
Would it be morally acceptable to torture a chimp for scientific data about how a body holds up under extreme stress, so that this information could be used to treat those who had undergone torture or prepare those who might undergo torture?
Would it be morally acceptable to torture a cat just for the fun of it? Why or why not?
April 4th, 2012 | 4:17 pm
Whatever rationality is found in God’s creatures must be present in an even deeper way in their creator.
Rationality means what it means regardless of the being that possesses it, although one would attribute to God rationality to an infinite degree.
?
They have limited intellectual capacity, but nothing that approaches rationality, as in deciding not to do what one’s instincts are compelling one to do, or deciding to do what one’s instincts are compelling one not to do, based on the conclusions of a thought process or a thoughtful consideration of morality.
I read somewhere about the trillions of harmless and often helpful bacteria that possess every human being. Maybe we are just huge hotels for bacteria who consider themselves the masters of planet Earth. ;o)
The remarks of Charles Camosy at Catholic Moral Theology, one would think, assume the existence of rational souls, if his thought is more than in a remote way connected to Catholic theology. So, I felt free to discuss his remarks in terms of humans possessing rational souls, and animals not possessing them. I thought his remark contradicted itself as part of his definition of “person” is one with a “rational nature” and then he suggests non-human animals may be also be persons, when animals, although they probably possess some kind of a soul, do not possess a rational soul.
I am saying humans are rational and animals are not. This can be discussed without talking about “souls.” The human intellect can seize upon and be affected by immaterial abstract concepts. How does a strictly material brain do that? How can the immaterial have an effect upon the strictly material? How can the strictly material seize upon the immaterial? There must be an immaterial, rational component to the human intellect that is somehow integrated with the electrochemical functionality of our physical brains.
Animals do not grasp immaterial abstract concepts. A dog can be conditioned to stand by the back door when it feels the urge to relieve itself, but it doesn’t understand the concept that it has been so conditioned because its owner wants to avoid unpleasant work and finds it much easier to just let the dog out when it is time to do so rather than to clean up after it.
There is “somebody home” in a dog as it is obviously more than a machine that can feel no pain. That is why I said animals probably possess some kind of a soul – but not a rational soul.
Whatever. Humans are comprised of both body and rational soul. That is one reason why there must be a bodily resurrection – so we won’t spend eternity as incomplete beings.
April 7th, 2012 | 6:28 am
I agree with Sallyr
The law treats corporations as persons, distinct from the individuals who compose them and the German Pandektists of the 19th century embraced a “realist” doctrine of the personhood of associations, regarding them as having a real will, distinct from that of its individual memebers. In fact,some, like Ihring, Mommson and Gierke regarded them as “supra-personal” and the state as the “corporation of corporations.”
Civilians have long treated an inheritance as a kind of person and even some inanimate objects, such as a ship can sue and be sued.
Legal personhood is quite distinct from metaphysical questions, although some jurists will, inevitably, raise them.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact