INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

• PHILOSOPHY AND COMMON SENSE •

• THE ILLEGALITY OF DOMA •

• THE REAL AND THE IDEAL •
 
Pet-keeping and Reproductive Rights

Thomas Dean
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  The spaying and neutering of cats and dogs has long been a practice of human society.  The apparent motivation behind the practice is to alleviate animal suffering by reducing the number of unwanted pets, thereby increasing the percentage of pets who could be adequately cared for by humans.  On the surface this would appear to be one time when, with regard to the animal world, humans have managed to do the right thing.  However, the groundbreaking work in animal rights by people like Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Mary Midgley has led to a revolution in ethics which calls for nothing less than a reexamination of all our assumptions about animals and our obligations towards them.

In light of the movement for animal rights and the call for animal liberation, I think that the spaying and neutering of pets could be criticized in at least three ways.  First, it could be seen as a violation of the reproductive rights of cats and dogs.  Second, all questions of rights aside, it could be criticized as an exploitative practice intended to benefit humans alone.  Third, it could be argued that the procedure itself is cruel.  I will attempt to show that none of these arguments is sufficient to halt the practice of humans spaying and neutering their household pets.

To address the third argument I will refer to Tom Regan’s account of cruelty in his essay, “Animal Rights, Human Wrongs.”  Cruelty, Regan says, is something more than causing pain.  He writes:  “An individual action is cruel if one takes pleasure in making another suffer.  It is clear that someone’s being cruel is distinct from someone’s causing pain.”  It would be difficult to imagine either a pet-owner who initiates the sterilization procedure for some sadistic reason or a veterinarian who performs the operation with some kind of sadistic glee.  A pet-owner who wanted to inflict pain could certainly find less public ways to harm his or her pet, and any veterinarian who wantonly caused suffering to animals would certainly be an anomaly in the profession.  If  I were to broaden the definition of cruelty to include actions that cause pain even when malicious intent or perverse pleasure was not present, I don’t think that a medical procedure involving either local or general anesthesia could be called cruel.  As I see it, the trouble with using cruelty as a measure of the mistreatment of animals is that its focus is too narrow.  This would make the second argument a much more effective position to hold if it could be shown to be true, for it deals with a wider sense of mistreatment.

The second argument could admit that spaying and neutering are not cruel practices.  Instead, their insidiousness as human actions would stem from the way they institutionalize the exploitation of animals for the benefit of humans. These practices are exploitative because they are instances of humans tinkering with animal populations.  The benefit that humans derive from the practice might either be an artificial peace of mind that they have done something to help creatures more lowly than themselves, or a relief that there will be a few less dogs and cats around to mess up the neighborhood.  In any case, it is assumed that the human motive to spay or neuter does not arise out of a genuine regard for the welfare of the individual dog or cat.  To answer this kind of argument, I must show how it is possible that humans could have a deep regard for their pets.  For help, I turn to Mary Midgley’s discussion of “The Mixed Community."  Human communities, she says, have always included animals.  The human-dog symbiosis appears to be ancient, and once Egyptian cats were domesticated around 1600 BC they quickly became very popular.  It could be argued that domestication was the beginning of animal exploitation.  Midgley makes the point that even in exploitation there is some amount of human sympathy, that to exploit an animal requires that we somehow understand its moods and communicate what we want from it.

By admitting that animals have been mistreated and even systematically exploited, I do not think my argument weakens.  This would be so only if exploitation were the sole manner in which humans related to animals, but this is certainly not the case.

Again, Midgley points out that children who grow up around animals become acquainted with them early in life, and children who don’t grow up around them often seek them out.  What is it about animals that children find so fascinating?  Midgley says it is the fact that animals’ lives are so foreign to us.  The point here is to demonstrate the human capacity to show genuine interest in beings that are different.  As Midgley puts it:

Experience of animals is not essentially a substitute for experience of people, but a supplement to it -- something more which is needed for a full human life.  ...One sort of love does not need to block another, because love, like compassion, is not a rare fluid to be economized, but a capacity which grows by use.  And if we ask ...whether the limits of its natural use in human beings coincide with the species-barrier, we see plainly that they do not.

The only people who would be likely either to initiate or perform a sterilization procedure are pet-owners and animal-lovers.  People who dislike cats and dogs are hardly likely to trouble themselves with the sterilization of any animal.  What then of the charge that sterilization, even if done out of concern for the animal, is still human interference -- a kind of tinkering with the animal population?  I will address this, at least in part, in my response to the first argument concerning rights.  For now, I would point out that this kind of involvement of humans in the dog and cat populations is very different from the sort of wildlife management practices utilized to control the deer population.  The means of control with deer is death.  Spaying and neutering are medical procedures intended to enhance life;  not just life in general, but the individual lives of particular cats and dogs.  The real intent behind these procedures is the desire to help animals.

Perhaps spaying and neutering dogs and cats are not misguided human practices; perhaps they are neither cruel nor exploitative.  Does this mean that humans are right to treat their dogs and cats this way?  Or would I be missing the point that cats and dogs have rights that preclude humans from interfering with them in this manner?  On one level I think animals could obtain more freedom of movement after being sterilized, because their owners would be more inclined to let them roam, but this does not address the issue at hand.  Instead, I will argue that by neutering my cat I am attempting to secure for him his right to live his life free from suffering.  Humans have traditionally attended to many aspects of the welfare of dogs and cats:  among other things, they have provided food and shelter, medical prevention and medical treatments, grooming and petting.  We have shown that relationships between humans and their pets are reciprocal.  Humans and animals both benefit from living in close proximity.  I believe that the human practice of spaying and neutering dogs and cats protects this mutually beneficial relationship by establishing parameters within which the relationship can be sustained.  In other words, I believe that humans are correct to involve themselves in this way in the reproductive lives of their pets, because to do otherwise could jeopardize their pets’ fundamental right to a life free from the kind of suffering which overpopulation generates.  The individual rights of the dog and cat can only be understood within the context of his or her general well-being.

Thomas Dean is a student at North Adams State College

Kristina Pauliukonis

When we ask questions of ourselves, and when we use our common sense in seeking other answers, we discover wisdom.  Socrates believed that everyone is capable of thinking philosophically if he or she is willing to use common sense.  By common sense I mean generally what is obvious, or that we know something implicitly.

Of course, not everything that is obvious to some people is obvious to everyone else.  For people to have a sense of common things, they must have these things in common.  So, literally, common sense cannot be universal. However, if we define common sense as thinking before assuming, as observing and connecting things reflectively, then it can be a universal term.  It is part of the learning process involved in understanding what goes on around us.

One of the differences between Socrates and the so-called pre-Socratic philosophers is that they may not have been as reflective in their theorizing or as open to dialogue.  If Parmenides says "nothing changes" and Heraclitus insists "everything changes," they are not learning from each other; they are not asking questions so that their pieces might fit together.  They are presuming to know something they do not know, which is not wisdom, but ignorance.

We have little documentation of the pre-Socratics, so it is difficult to know exactly what or how they thought.  We can only speculate about whether they asked questions -- although most of what comes down to us are answers.  However, they evidently never asked the question that from Socrates' perspective most needed answering.  Perhaps the "natural philosophers," whatever their thought processes, could not complete the puzzle because they had not yet investigated themselves, and thus did not know to use common sense to question, listen, and learn.

Socrates argues convincingly that to understand the world we must first learn about ourselves.  Perhaps this is because, in learning about ourselves, we become more capable of common sense, and may awaken to the questioning of other things.  When someone can say "I don't know that -- why don't I ask around about it?" that person is wiser than one who feigns knowledge, and one who is patient and alert may find the answers one seeks.  Socrates seldom got the answers he was after, but by using his common sense, by which I mean his persistent and humble questioning, he could fully understand the truths he did find.  That is a far more sacred knowledge:  one that we can understand, as opposed to one we only guess to be right so we can say "I know that."  Somewhere inside of ourselves, we know that we are not sure.  Then is it not better to know ourselves enough to say:  "I don't know; I'll ask around," even though we might never find the answer?

Kristina Pauliukonis is a student at North Adams State College

Krista Wroldson

Upon declaring independence from Great Britain, the United States proclaimed that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."  Another basic tenet upon which our country was established was the separation of church and state, an ideal arising out of fear of the religious persecution from which many of our ancestors in Europe had fled.  Article IV, section 1 of the Constitution requires every state in the union to give "full faith and credit ...to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state."  The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) would allow states to disregard the marriages of same sex couples performed in other states and create a federal definition of marriage which reads as follows: "the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife."  As we are a country founded upon principles of equality, separation of church and state, and equal protection under the law, the Defense of Marriage Act should not be enacted.

Although "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" originally applied only to white Christian males, since that time our country has matured enough to realize that this ideal applies to all people, regardless of sex, race, religion, or creed.  Discrimination, for any of these reasons, is no longer acceptable.  Since we have expanded our definition to include all people, it must follow that homosexual individuals and, therefore, whatever beliefs they may hold, also enjoy these same rights.  Although a common argument cited for the act is found in the Book of Leviticus (chapter 18, verse 22) which states, "Thou shall not lie with mankind; as with womankind: it is abomination," this argument is based on a common religious belief, not a belief that is shared by all citizens.

The religious high ground does not provide appropriate support for this legislation for two reasons. First of all,  the popularity of any particular belief does not make it true.  Secondly, the notion of separation of church and state makes it impossible to enact a law that is merely supported by the majority of religious beliefs.  Just as it is contrary to our Constitution to attempt to legislate religious practices, it is equally contrary to enact laws which impose the religious beliefs of any one group on the remainder of the population.  Since DOMA would force everyone to recognize and abide by the Christian idea of the inherent sin of gay relationships, such a law would necessarily run counter to the ideal of separation of church and state.  Furthermore, since it is illegal for Congress to enact any law which is contrary to the law of the land (and DOMA would, contrary to Article IV, allow states to ignore the legal act of marriage performed in another state) then the Defense of Marriage Act should be thrown out as unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal.

Opposed to the preceding argument are a wide array of attacks on homosexuality, including the argument that it is "not natural," that it is "immoral," or that the "purpose" of marriage is to raise a family (that is, have children).  Regardless of whether or not one subscribes to any of these positions, they fail to contradict the preceding argument, as the argument itself does not examine whether homosexuality is natural or moral, nor does it examine what the purpose
of marriage is.  The preceding argument focuses solely on the illegality of DOMA.  So, whether or not one believes homosexuals should be allowed to marry for whatever reasons one may have or beliefs one may hold, our nation's laws which have protected our people and their rights for over two hundred years do not allow the legislature to make laws according to religious standards which discriminate against others, or prevent any individual from pursuing Life, Liberty, and Happiness.

Krista Wroldson is a student at North Adams State College

Nicholas E. Hewitt

It seems to me that a great deal of the conflict between the “two great camps” (Frederick Engels) of realism and idealism stems from a confusion between realism and materialism.  As a refugee of the idealist camp, I am familiar with this confusion.  In sorting it out, I simply found it impossible to deny any external reality.  The mere possibility of my existence seemed to lurk before me as an independent reality.  Descartes was no Houdini when it came to escaping the snare of solipsism.  Even nothing became real!  Alas, I woke up one day to find that I was no longer able to call myself an idealist.  The idealists' denial of reality stems from a distaste for materialism.  I once found materialism so repugnant that it convinced me (against my philosophical senses) that I was an idealist!  I am now, in humanistic (but not theological) terms, a realist.  I am a product of what is; and what is is not mine.

However, the Universe, as all and one, God and Being, is the only true reality, if we take "real" to mean independent of the observing mind.  Everything else, everything -- cats, mats, selves, and others, are divisions and combinations categorized by experiential knowledge that arises from a priori understanding.  All things  are products of our relation to the world that we live in, and are absolutely dependent on our existence.

It is said that certain micro-particles are only in one place so long as they are being observed there.  Are space and time real?  If, for example, time is a human construct, how do we judge the "reality" of temporal objects, like the Sun and all that it nourishes?  Furthermore, what of my subjective experience?  I look into a parking lot, and I see a car.  I know it from the blacktop that supports it, the atmosphere that allows it, the sunlight that gives the light that it reflects some of, and so on.  It is an object, like a cat on the mat.  But were I a car enthusiast,  I would see hubcaps, wheels, and a hood, and I’d imagine the engine, and then its parts.  Were I a painter, I might not discern it at all from the parking lot or its light.  If I were a theoretical particle physicist or a cosmologist,  would I see anything but energy and its one vast matrix of relationships?  I firmly believe that the universe simply is.  Yet how we know it to be can never be anything more than the reflection of our own minds.

If we can take for granted the phenomenological claim that the constitution of the lived world is intentional by nature, then we must accept the act with the ego and its objects.  “Intentionality” connotes will.  Rather than asking if the world is constructed, we should ask how we go about constructing it.  With the answers to these questions, we can learn to describe and reproduce the conditions for the willful realization of the best of all possible worlds.  If we are to discover the truth that we are at the wheel, that we decide the course of our evolution, when will we stop acting as though we have been tied to the mast?  Our reality is the product of our involvement in the world.  We must investigate the means by which the human race may act responsibly and move progressively toward a more perfect relationship with it.

Nicholas E. Hewitt is a student at North Adams State College