This post is mostly for Cassandra's enjoyment, because she'll like the article, but I'll take a moment to answer the question the authors ask in the tagline:
"We now have solid evidence that elephants are some of the most intelligent, social and empathic animals around—so how can we justify keeping them in captivity?"
Well, we can justify it precisely because of their limited access to reason. In the Politics, Aristotle suggests that some men are slaves by nature. Specifically, those who "are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast—and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them—are slaves by nature. For them it is better to be ruled in accordance with this sort of rule, if such is the case for the other things mentioned."
What he means by "for them it is better" is that the slaves themselves will enjoy better results if their affairs are managed for them, i.e., if they are not left to their own devices. This should be an improvement that they themselves could recognize, rather than one that comes from outside of them (i.e., not "I think you would be better off if you lived as I want," but rather, "I realize that, though I'd prefer to do heroin every day, and would choose it if I were left free, it really would be better if I weren't free to make that choice").
Because they have enough reason to see the good, but not to choose it, there is a kind of objective justice to organizing their lives for them. This is true even if they don't choose this state, because it's the ability to choose to do what they can see would be better that is at work. Thus, if a judge should involuntarily commit an addict, the addict may be angry about it, and certainly wouldn't have chosen commitment for himself. But he should be able to see the justice of it, to recognize that in an objective way he will be better off for it.
So it is possible to justify the captivity of elephants in the same way. Note, though, that the force of Aristotle's assertion that there is a kind of just and natural slavery is to bracket it as the only acceptable kind. It turns out to be a harsh criticism of every kind of actual slavery being practiced in his own day.
We might apply a similar critique to our favorite zoo.
4 comments:
You'll probably laugh at me, but I worried a lot about going to see the circus. I worry about the elephants.
I hope what you say is true. I don't have any particular problem with the idea that animals (and even different humans) value different things and experience life differently. I've never forgotten having to have our beagle put to sleep when she got cancer.
The vet wanted me to drug her and keep her alive as long as possible. That seemed obscene to me. I told myself that she wasn't enjoying life anymore (and that ws true), and I couldn't see her discovering the meaning of life through suffering.
While not wishing to be silly about it, I do wonder sometimes if we justify all sorts of things on the basic that some other group isn't like us? At the same time, nature can be very harsh.
The thing that surprised me most about the circus was that the elephants appeared to be kind of jazzed about performing. Hope that's not an illusion.
If it makes you feel better, they are very happy when they perform for a variety of reasons. The biggest one being the pleasure of their master as they perform their tasks. The second is the routineness of the routines themselves. Animals are creatures of habit and are generally happiest when in their little ruts in their little world....when that world is a loving and humane one, as are most circuses. The one-off stories of animals attacking their trainers are like airplane crashes. They happen so rarely and when they do are so spectactular in nature that they're easily sensationalized beyond truth and reality.
That intelligent animals can be very happy in a working relationship with good humans I don't dispute--but I'm very skeptical of arguments to the effect that our slaves are better off in their slavery. We have a strong tendency to assume that, when what we really mean is that their slavery is convenient for us. It's not a standard we'd readily have applied to ourselves.
Well, that's just the point of Aristotle's argument -- if it was in fact a just case, we would ourselves be able to see the justice of it. We still might not choose it, in just the way that a heroin addict wouldn't choose to be put in prison or rehab to keep them from the drug. But they should be able to see that it is better in an objective way, even if it isn't what they want.
What you're thinking of is the kind of argument that was made by the proslavery forces at the time of the Civil War. They made an argument that had the form "They're so much better off," but without the trouble of asking the slaves themselves if they could recognize an objective justice in the arrangement. Presumably the addict can, in just the way the slave of 1844 would not.
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