Moral Schizophrenia

We adore our dogs and cats, are mad about animated films such as Finding Nemo and Ice Age and nevertheless our behavior towards animals in general shows of our deep insensitivity in the face of their great suffering.

Billions of animals suffer every day because of us humans. Animals are turned into food, clothing, are used for sport, entertainment, experimentation and trade. According to the American ministry of Agriculture, the United States alone slaughters more than 800 million animals per year destined for human consumption. These animals are treated like objects and commodities and in large scale factories they endure their short lives under the worst and most horrific circumstances. The old slogan that says that if slaughterhouses would have glass windows, most of us would become vegetarians probably (or rather hopefully?) still holds true. When we walk through the supermarket aisles we can pick up a clean and neatly packed piece of flesh and not much reminds us of their former shape, or even the fact that our dinner once actually was a living being and that the chances are great that it had to suffer greatly for our 15 minute delight.

In the face of this everyday genocide it is rather bizarre that we humans have chosen a few of those non-humans to become our closest companions. Some of us consider our dogs and cats as members of the family, we give them the best and most expensive food, we take them to specialized hairdressers and clinics and we can buy them designer coats and special seat belts for the car. Many of these humanized dogs share their bed with their master, are taken on family holidays and seas of tears are shed when they finally die of old age.

How is it that people cringe when they hear that the Chinese eat dogs, while chewing on a cow? What is the moral difference between eating a baby sheep and a dog? Why do we in the West give so many privileges to our few chosen companions and ignore everything else? Why should a dog be treated differently from a pig? Where is the moral logic behind this?

Generally the suffering of animals is taken as a “necessary evil” for the well being of us humans. We need to raise them for our food production, we need to test our medicines and pharmaceuticals on it, we need to kill them for fashion, but on the other hand we love them. We try to teach our children respect for animals, and only few of us would advocate that torturing animals is acceptable. But the again, the torturing goes on behind closed doors, and it is easy to shut our eyes, and pretend we didn’t know.

We claim to take the suffering of non-humans seriously. There is a virtual agreement that it is morally wrong to inflict "unnecessary" suffering or death on our non-human cohabitants. The paradox however, is that although we express disapproval of the unnecessary suffering of animals, most of their suffering and death can be justified only by our pleasure, amusement or convenience. Most of this mass murder cannot by any stretch be plausibly characterized as "necessary".
When it comes to non-humans, we exhibit what can best be described as moral schizophrenia. We say one thing about how animals should be treated, and do quite another. If we took seriously the principle that it was wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering on non-humans, we would stop altogether bringing domestic animals into existence for human use. When using our power to inflict suffering and try to convince ourselves of different reasoning why don’t we start to take seriously what Jeremy Bentham said over 200 years ago: "The question is not, can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer?" .