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PETA has an ongoing campaign against “speciesism,” saying humans have no right to use animals. But is speciesism—even though it sounds like “racism” or “sexism”—really such a bad thing?
Cy Kellett:
Is being a speciesist as bad as being a racist? Dr. Logan Gage is next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. And one of the things that we’ve been saying for years is, “In order to defend the Catholic faith more and more, you have to defend basic reality.” Among the realities that we’re being encouraged not to notice, as a matter of fact, to fight against, is that humans are distinct in this world. Humans are not like the other creatures or inanimate objects of this world. To have that view is increasingly being called speciesism. So are we speciesist? And if we are, is that akin to being a racist or a sexist? Is it an evil that’s in our biases that we need to overcome? We need a philosopher to deal with that, and that’s what we got, Dr. Logan Gage from Franciscan University. Here’s what he had to say.
Cy Kellett:
Dr. Logan Gage from Franciscan University in Steubenville, thanks for being with us again.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Happy to be here. Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
We always enjoy our opportunity to get to talk with you. I want to start by sharing my insecurities with you. I don’t like, on Twitter, when I’m called a racist or a homophobe, and there’s a lot of words that you got to avoid being called. Now, I’m scared of the word speciesist. Should I be scared of being called a speciesist? It’s very frightening.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Well, this is a powerful term that’s being used by some of our secular friends to describe people that are as bad as racist in that they don’t think that humans are equal to all animals. Those of us who resist the view that there’s something special about humans that isn’t special about chickens, for instance, and that are willing to eat chickens. We are supposed to be the equivalent of racist, in this regard, as speciesist.
Cy Kellett:
I noticed when I did a speciesist search on the internet and really a lot, this is a major campaign from PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, this label, I guess they’ve decided it’s very effective so they’re using it all over the place.
Dr. Logan Gage:
I’m kind of amazed by it. The founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, basically summed it up when she said that, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy,” that, that’s what’s really behind her view of so-called animal equality. Now, equality and rights language is very powerful for us Americans. We believe in equality. We love the narrative of ever expanding equality and granting rights to more and more. And so, they’re rhetoric the way they’re framing this is that, you don’t want to be backwards. You don’t want to be racist. You don’t want to be the equivalent of one with regard to animals so you ought to believe in animal equality and animal rights, so forth. That we’re all really equal.
Cy Kellett:
In doing my research, I was looking for contemporary stuff, but you sent me a very interesting article from 1989 from the famous philosopher, Peter Singer or infamous, I suppose it depends on how you feel about Peter Singer, and he wrote an article, All Animals Are Equal, which a kind of funny way, it’s a quote from George Orwell, Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” This is an idea that’s not brand new. I mean, this is ’89 that Singer made this kind of philosophical case against speciesism.
Dr. Logan Gage:
In fact, in 1975, Singer wrote this famous book on animal rights where he’s expanding his utilitarian ethical philosophy in such a way as to say that, if we’re not treating animals equally to us… For instance, he thinks, well, listen, a little baby, a newborn baby you’re bringing home from the hospital, they’re not very rational. What equations do they know? What synergisms can they make, and neither is a dog. And in fact, he thinks a fully develop Jack Russel Terrier is more rational than your baby. And so if you’re willing to say, “Kill a dog, a dangerous dog,” or something like that, but you’re not willing to kill a baby then you’re the equivalent of a racist here. You’re being a speciesist. By which he means, you’re treating animals and humans unequally even where they are perfectly equal. You’re just preferring your own kind, and that just like a racist might prefer, say, their own ethnic group or something.
Cy Kellett:
I’m not really good at history, but it seems like in the olden days, when you made arguments that involved killing babies, people tended to treat that person as a pariah. But Dr. Singer is quite popular. He does quite well.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Yes. He has a prestigious chair at Princeton University and he’s advocated the idea that, if you find that your baby’s defective, for instance, you have a certain sort of, almost like a return policy at Walmart in which you’re allowed to kill your newborn child and just try again. The reason, again, that he thinks this is okay is because he thinks, “Listen, we’re willing to kill these other animals that aren’t very rational,” and your newborn baby, he thinks, isn’t very rational. We’re all equal here. This isn’t a very pro-human philosophy. In fact, it’s an anti-human philosophy in some ways. He’s saying there’s nothing special about us. He thinks that those of us who think there’s something special about us, we’re called human exceptionalists. We think that we’re exceptionally great as humans, which I do think, actually.
Cy Kellett:
I kind of think that, too. I think there seems to be ample evidence of this. I mean, the fact that you and I are talking to one another across thousands of miles via these instruments would suggest that we are exceptional in the animal kingdom, but that’s not dispositive for Dr. Singer.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Right. My friend, David Berlinski, who’s a mathematician and philosopher, lives in Paris. He wrote in one of his books, he said, “Scientists do all these studies on chimpanzees to show how smart they are and how amazing they are.” And they are very amazing creatures, but sometimes the scientists forget that they’re on one side of the bars and we’re on the other, that we’re studying them. We’re obviously not fully equal in many respects. There’s a lot of differences. In fact, our Catholic tradition seems to have held that we’re different in kind, not just degree. After the rise of a sort of evolutionary naturalism, this idea that there’s no God, and we’re all sort of blind products of evolutionary forces. We start to get this idea that we’re really just different by degree. We have a little more brain processing power than the chimps, and we have a little more strength than other animals and so forth.
Dr. Logan Gage:
But there are quite a number of differences in kind, it seems to me. One thing that’s been big in our tradition is the fact that we can think about things in general. We can think about humanity in general, without thinking about Cy or about Logan. We can reason with arguments. That’s not something other animals do, where we pull out the implications of our premises or presuppositions. We can do mathematics. We make art just for art’s sake, for beauty. We plan for the distant future. I don’t think your dog is too worried about the world it’s leaving to its grandchildren and so forth. We can do science. We act for rational reasons, not just because. We don’t just eat things because they smell good, I hope. We act for rational reasons.
Dr. Logan Gage:
We eat things like kale, where you have no real bodily reason to really. It doesn’t smell good. It doesn’t taste good, but why do people eat kale? Well, because you can see that it is good for your body in certain ways, using just your reasons. We act for rational reasons and we have moral obligations to one another in a way that other animals pretty obviously don’t. I think that we have a lot of indications that we have higher powers than other animals, a certain kind of thinking and a certain kind of feeling that is different than the thinking and feeling even of the highest animals.
Cy Kellett:
I challenge you on that, however, because it seems to me that even in 1989, Dr. Singer anticipated your argument and he says, “Well, okay, fine.” He didn’t mention you by name, but essentially, he’s saying, “Look, if you’re going to make that argument, that it’s these capacities that distinguish us,” and he’s quite clear on this, “you have no basis on which to say the profoundly mentally incapacitated person has any rights at all or is your equal.” See, I would assert Terri Schiavo, for example, is my moral equal. And he says, “No, because you, not me Peter Singer, but you, are the one who said it’s our capacities that distinguish us.” And you can kill Terri Schiavo now.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Good. I think, with all respect, that’s Singer’s most basic philosophical mistake here. On his metaphysics, on his sort of view of reality, everything’s just different by degree. The only thing that makes you, you is your very current ability right now. Your ability to argue with me right now about this, that means we’re equal, but you could lose that. You could be in an accident or something and then Singer thinks we have to say, “Well, Cy isn’t being rational anymore. And therefore on this view that rationality separates us, we can kill him.” But that seems to me a mistake. Our potential to do something on the Catholic view is grounded in our nature and frankly, just in good philosophy, I think, not just the Catholic views, what Aristotle thought.
Dr. Logan Gage:
That our capacities are grounded in our nature, that the kind of thing we are gives us certain powers. So there’s doggy powers and Oak tree powers and human powers, and even when we’re sleeping, we have all those powers or when we’re in a coma, we have all those powers. For instance, here’s one thing, so why aren’t we sad that your dog can’t read English? Well, because it’s not in its nature at all to be able to do that. But if one of our children is in an accident or has a genetic defect and they’re not able to do that, we’re very sad about it. Why? Because they really do have the power to do it, but certain physical impediments make them unable to actualize or realize the power they have. There really is a difference between say a child that can’t speak and a rock that can’t speak. Neither one of them can currently speak, but the child obviously does have the power, the capacity, it’s the kind of thing that should be able to speak. That’s why we’re sad when people have certain deficiencies, handicaps, and other difficulties.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So we’re a different kind of thing than a horse.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Exactly. We have different powers.
Cy Kellett:
All right. I just want to make one little discourses here and then get back on track. But you said that the naturalist view, which kind of got a big boost from the Darwinian insights, is essentially, and I don’t think you use this word, but intelligence, the kind of human intelligence that we have is an adaptation. Really, that’s an adaptation, it’s been very effective. It’s made us very successful, but it’s very much like the development of a bacterial flagellum, which I don’t even know what that is. I’m just saying those words like I know.
Dr. Logan Gage:
It’s a little motor on the bacteria that pushes it through water.
Cy Kellett:
I’m glad you know, that’s why you’re at the university. But do you see what I’m saying? At some point, we have to have an argument about that’s actually not an adaptation and there is no natural adaptation that makes a human.
Dr. Logan Gage:
On Singer’s view and on the evolutionary naturalist view in general, part of what Singer seems to be saying is, “Why would we privilege ourselves above dogs? Because it’s just an accident of evolutionary history since that’s all an accident, anyway.” He’s just taking that for granted. “It’s all an accident anyway, that the dog wound up with its capacities and you wound up with yours.” He’s just assuming this entire naturalist view from the very beginning, that everything’s a kind of accident, anyway. But I guess what I want to say to that is, “Well, but why on naturalism should we care about animal equality? Why should we care about any form of equality?” Human equality, anything. I mean on their view, as you’re saying, everything’s just kind of an adaptation. Rationality is no more valuable than non rationality and so forth.
Dr. Logan Gage:
What’s the big deal about any of these things? We’re all just accidents. We’re not meant to be here. I can’t figure out why we’re supposed to care about animals on their view. If we’re comparing worldviews here, say a theistic worldview with God or a naturalistic worldview without God, it seems to me that the theistic worldview with a prominent God who cares about things, where things are intrinsically valuable and he’s made them for a purpose, on that view, it seems to me, we should hold a certain sort of responsibility in our treatment toward animals. Whereas on the naturalist view where the universe is going to end in some heat death or whatever, and we’re not here for any purpose. I can’t figure out why I’m supposed to spend my life caring about where my tuna came from in my restaurant.
Cy Kellett:
But Dr. Singer’s response might be, “But I do care, and people like me care. I don’t have to justify it to you.” But I think one question we might pose to Dr. Singer, and I wonder if you would agree with this is, yes, but if people have your view two generations, three generations from now, won’t they just become mere hedonists or neolist or something? Maybe you, you hold some old fashioned value, but they’ll get rid of your thought if they really come to believe what you’re teaching. Is that a fair critique?
Dr. Logan Gage:
I think that’s exactly right. I mean, sometimes people don’t appreciate how much the Christian worldview has shaped Western society, such that all of our intuitions, even these good intuitions that we don’t want to be cruel towards animals. Those are very much grounded in a sort of theistic worldview. And so Singer might say, “Yeah, but I do care about animals.” Right. But I’m saying that on your worldview, I can’t see why you have any reason to. I would argue exactly as you are that, that seems like a holdover from this Christian past where we used to care about how we treated lower beings, because we saw them as on a scale. God’s up here and everything is sort of a limited imitation of the ultimate reality God. We care about the entire hierarchy of being from highest to lowest, from biggest to smallest. We care about that because God created it all and made it good, and we can see it really is intrinsically good that these are beautiful ways that imitate God’s being in very limited capacities, of course.
Dr. Logan Gage:
But on the naturalist view, I can’t see why these things are supposed to be valuable at all or why I’m supposed to care about their pain. You might just say, you do, that’s fine. But on your worldview, I can’t see why it matters.
Cy Kellett:
Right. What will be the worldview that comes out of people being convinced by your arguments? And I have to say, when you think about 1975, 1989, when Dr. Singer wrote these things, he’s winning, we’re losing.
Dr. Logan Gage:
There’s no doubt about that, and if we’re honest, what have been the fruits of this view? Has it really been the case that we’ve elevated animals much higher up? Is that really what’s happened in our society? Or has this really been, fundamentally, at the end of the day, about lowering human status, that we are mere animals that justifies our current brand new sexual views, that justifies our behavior and really justifies our ill treatment in the last 50 years of the elderly, the handicapped, the unborn and so forth. We seemingly now have a reason not to care too much about them because, well, they’re just sort of animals. I think humans have taken a hit here and been lowered much more than animals been raised up after decades of this worldview in elite circles.
Cy Kellett:
The battle against racism is actually ennobling for everybody. If we sincerely overcome racism then, but this battle for animal rights is not ennobling for everybody. It has a consequence that actually that denigrates the human.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Well, and notice that the civil rights argument, which stemmed out of a Christian worldview was about, there is a fundamental human family and that these mere accidental differences in pigmentation of skin tone and so forth, they are essential to us. They’re just sort of accidental. They’re not fundamental to who we are as persons. But notice that when it comes to animals, there really is a difference between say rational and non-rational animals, humans and other forms of animals. We really are different in kind, as I tried to say a minute ago. I think there’s a good difference here between why we should care about racism but not about this notion of speciesism, that we really are different than the other sorts of creatures. Were essentially different. We’re not just like a tiny bit smarter than the snails. That’s not the case.
Cy Kellett:
Right. They adapted this slime and we adapted intelligence and relative to one another, these are just different ways of succeeding in the universe.
Dr. Logan Gage:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
Here’s another problem that I have though, and I think you already solved it kind of, but I want you to put me on more solid ground. I don’t think I am a speciesist just because I think that a lion is not of the same worth as a child, but I don’t want anybody to hurt the lion. I really like elephants. When you think of the higher primates, like a chimp or a bonobo or a gorilla, I really do think that there’s something owed to that animal and I don’t know why I owe it to that animal. I don’t have a grasp of why, but still, I do owe the animal something. Or am I thinking about it wrongly?
Dr. Logan Gage:
No, I think that’s a good intuition. I think that’s right. What Singer and the others want to do today is talk about animal rights though. And it’s a good question, is that the way we have to do this? Traditionally, from a Christian worldview, there’s always been this obligation not to mistreat animals. In fact, think about our older Western language. We ought to treat them humanely. We have to treat them in a human way, a way that befits our rationality and dignity.
Cy Kellett:
Well, a humane society.
Dr. Logan Gage:
That’s right, and so we see that we ought not to mistreat them, not because they necessarily have intrinsic rights. It’s hard to actually see how non-rational beings can have rights because if you have rights, it seems like you have obligations and so forth. I don’t think your dog has any obligations to other creatures.
Cy Kellett:
Keep people out of the front yard. That’s his main job.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Because these aren’t metaphorically about its obligations to be a good dog, but it doesn’t have literal obligations to treat others in a certain way. There are ways that we hope that they treat other beings, but they don’t have really obligations. You’re not going to morally praise and blame your dog, I think.
Cy Kellett:
No.
Dr. Logan Gage:
You might get upset with your dog, but you’re not going to morally like, you’re a terrible in sense of a dog, you’re not going to do that in a moral sense. I don’t think that we need rights talk though, with animals to ground our humane treatment of them. It’s precisely because we are rational beings, that we can see that we ought not to mistreat any good thing in God’s creation including animals. And especially in our Christian worldview, God’s put these things under our sort of wise dominion. We’re supposed to be taking care of them, managing them in a humane way.
Dr. Logan Gage:
To mistreat another good being, and especially one created by God for a purpose, is awful. These press releases from PETA and whatever, I agree with a lot of what they say. We ought not to be abusing animals. We ought not to be using them for our mere convenience in ways that they’re obviously going to get hurt and so forth. We agree with all that, but that doesn’t mean that they have rights. It doesn’t mean that they’re on an equal footing with human beings. We don’t need to ground it that way at all, it seems to me.
Cy Kellett:
Then how do we make moral distinctions in the treatment of animals? Like, I think horse racing is fine, I don’t have a problem with racing horses. But then another person might look at that and go, “That’s just for entertainment. There’s nothing necessary in that. You don’t have to race horses in the same way that maybe like chickens feed billions of people or fish feed billions of people.” But still, my intuition again, and I’m not a philosopher, but I think it’s okay to race horses.
Dr. Logan Gage:
No, I think that, that’s right. I mean, one way we might think about this is, “Are we treating animals in a way that befits or sort of helps their nature, help them be more fully what they are?” I mean, when you look at race horses, I mean, they’re built to just fly then it’s beautiful when they do it. Now, if it were the case that all race horsing involved broken legs just constantly every other race, well then, no that wouldn’t be treating them in a way that’s appropriate given the kind of thing that they are. We’re not helping them be better horses. We’re not helping them flourish. Because one way that Christians can think about ethics is, “How do we help ourselves flourish? How do we help those around us flourish?”
Dr. Logan Gage:
I don’t think it would be right to engage in an activity, say cockfighting or something, where you’re just tearing up the animals back and forth. Now, that seems inhumane to me, that seems, that purely for our entertainment, we’re going to watch these things bleed and suffer. Now, that doesn’t make any sense, but if there are some activities such as horse racing, I think there’s a good distinction between whether we’re helping them be more fully what they are, express their God-given nature, or whether we’re just harming them for our own pleasure. That seems very different to me.
Cy Kellett:
I guess want to conclude with maybe a primer for, I especially worry about young people who, I do think, I know that when I was young, I was more sensitive to being labeled. I mean, when people call me names now, I tend to go, “You know what? The check still cashes, I don’t worry what you call me.” But when you’re young, you feel this intense desire to be good, and I guess, maybe even I’ve lost some of that fire. And so you don’t want to be a species issue, so how should I think about what humanity is, what an animal is and give me the big picture. Think about how we should relate to one another as animals and as humans.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Well, and I mean, this is one of the things I hope that a good education does for young people and especially at one of our say, great Catholic institutions of higher learning, is that hopefully a good education will teach you to differentiate between the rhetoric in an argument and the words that sort of touch on your heartstrings versus real evidence and truth. I just don’t think we should get caught up in, “I don’t want to be a racist.” We just shouldn’t get caught up in that, get it caught up in our real ethical obligations and duties and certainly from a Christian perspective, all that is, is good. God creates things and he calls them good and he’s right about that.
Dr. Logan Gage:
It’s good to be an animal. It’s good to be human, but that doesn’t mean there’s no distinctions between us, and that doesn’t mean we can’t see reasonable distinctions between the relative value, for instance. I mean, if you could save your dog or your child from a house fire, it just seems obvious it’d be wrong for you to prefer the dog. But on Singer’s view, it depends on how old your kid is, and I suggest that, that’s just pretty obviously mistaken.
Cy Kellett:
But maybe how disabled your kid is, as well, which is, that’s a horrifying thing, this is very bad for the disabled.
Dr. Logan Gage:
I mean, you don’t want to play the Nazi card too often, this sort of Argumentum ad Nazium or Argumentum Ad Hitlerum or something. You don’t want to do that too quickly, but you got to be honest, who else in recent history has said such things?
Cy Kellett:
We have seen this before.
Dr. Logan Gage:
I don’t know. I guess I would say to young people, I hope that sounds wrong to you when you read him saying that babies in the handicap don’t really count for very much but your Jack Russell Terrier’s very smart. And therefore, that’s where your real obligations lie. I’d say, “Follow your intuitions there.” But then in a Christian worldview, I mean, I think just in general, we can make real distinctions between the powers of humans, that sort of are two key powers on the Christian worldview are our intellect, our ability to understand and take in the world, and then our will, our ability to make free choices to desire, not only any goods that come across our senses, but rather to desire even higher goods, love, knowledge, friendship. We are just so obviously different when you think about us in terms of our fundamental powers. We don’t have to treat everything as the same, and we don’t need to be swayed by this rhetoric about, “You’re going to be as bad as a racist if you don’t agree with me here.” That seems a pretty obvious mistake.
Cy Kellett:
All right. I really appreciate you laying out that worldview. I very much enjoy speaking with you. My estimation of Franciscan University is much higher since I’ve gotten to know you and it was already very high.
Dr. Logan Gage:
Well, thank you very much.
Cy Kellett:
I like that you threw an ad in for Catholic universities right in the middle of that, too.
Dr. Logan Gage:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Well, Dr. Gage, thanks. I appreciate it. When we run across these problematic arguments, we’ll come back to you, because you’re very helpful in working them out with us.
Dr. Logan Gage:
God bless. Thanks a lot, Cy.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
I actually do hold my dogs to a very high moral standard. I consider it an evil when they steal my burrito, but maybe I shouldn’t be holding them to that moral standard. I’m going to have to rethink that whole strategy of dealing with my animals, blaming them when they steal food from the table. But I think that the point is very well made, and Dr. Gage is just the guy to make it that really we can make these distinctions and that there are false distinctions all over the place. And certainly, when we just kind of habitually or even, with some intellectual justification, want to make a distinction between the worth of men and women or the worth of this color people against that color people. These are false distinctions, but just because those are false distinctions doesn’t mean that real distinctions aren’t possible.
Cy Kellett:
We are different from the bonobos. We are different from camels and from all the other animals as cool as they are. But that too, doesn’t mean that we don’t have obligations to animals, that we can just be cruel or capricious in our treatment of animals. Fined distinctions are needed and that just happens to be something that the classical philosophical tradition and the Catholic moral tradition are very, very good at. We can respect the animal kingdom and care for animal populations and individual animals and do all of that in good conscience without having to surrender the difference between an animal and a human being, a difference that should not be surrendered because, as Dr. Gage pointed out, then you start to mistreat humans and you start to justify things that really should not, cannot, be justified. As a matter of fact, I remember when I was growing up, they used to have a phrase called “never again” when it came to some of these ideas.
Cy Kellett:
Well, sometimes never again doesn’t last long enough. Anyways, very grateful to Dr. Gage, grateful to you for joining us. If you have anything you’d like to tell us, maybe an idea for a future episode, maybe a comment on this episode, send us an email focus@catholic.com. Edgar gets them, focus@catholic.com. Say hi to Edgar when you send that email. If you want to support us financially, you can do that at givecatholic.com. And if you want to help us grow this podcast, we’d appreciate it if, wherever you listen, you’d give us that five-star review, maybe a nice comment that will encourage other people to get the podcast, if you’re listening on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or one of those, then like and subscribe. In that way, you’ll be notified when new episodes are available. And if you’re watching on YouTube, you’re part of a growing audience on YouTube.
Cy Kellett:
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