The Psychology Behind Our Treatment of Animals
Meeting Minutes for February 8, 2006; #201
Announcements
Check our website: www.freethoughtassociation.org for the most up to date information about upcoming events and opportunities. And for questions regarding specific items of interest, send e-mails to: info@freethoughtassociation.org. Meetings are held at 7PM on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at the Women’s City Club, 254 E. Fulton Street, Grand Rapids, MI.
FREETHOUGHT DELIVERED TO YOUR HOME: Remember that for those of you who cannot attend our regular meetings, they are broadcast on GRTV on Wednesdays at 10:30PM. We thank Gordon Matousek for recording and editing the meetings and getting them formatted for these broadcasts.
‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ PAPER RECYCLING STATIONS: Please give generously to our donation cannister at our meetings or through Paypal on our website. All expenses are met via your tax deductible donations (since we are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization); from equipment, room rental, special events and quest speaker fees to mailings and supplies. While there are plans in the works for having a paid part time staff member, so far we have been 100% volunteer run. Our quarterly expenses and revenues are always available for member perusal.
MANGIA! We gather after our regular meetings at Vitales Italian Restaurant for food, fellowship and drinks. This is a fun way to get to know each other and carry on the discussion generated by the topic (or any other thoughts) in an informal setting.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE SAGE OF DOWN HOUSE: February 12 is the birth date of the great English naturalist who resided with his family at Down House in Downe, Kent, Charles Darwin. Darwin Day is celebrated all over the world now by those who honor and celebrate Darwin and his contributions to biology in discovering the key mechanisms involved in biological evolution, revolutionizing this branch of science. One such Darwin Day celebration is occurring at the Michigan State University Museum. For other events check the website: www.darwinday.org.
ANOTHER ‘PERSON OF INTEREST’ FOR THE NSA: Board member of the Skeptics Society and our own Freethought Association, Professor of Biological Sciences at GVSU, Director of its Science Education Center, and Educational Director for the Michigan Evolution Education Initiative and Evolution Education Institute, Gregory Forbes, PhD, has just been named Civil Libertarian of the Year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He has earned this honor for his tireless work in keeping science instruction in education strong, particularly in the instruction of biological evolution, and in keeping the anti‑Constitutional faith‑based teaching of creationism in all its guises out of public education. Congratulations, Dr. Forbes!
HEAR NO EVIL: Our next regular meeting topic will be: EVIL; Should We Speak of it in the 21st Century? It will be presented by Danny L. Balfour, PhD, Professor and Director of the School of Public and Nonprofit Administration at Grand Valley State University. This will be on February 22 at 7PM.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: For more information on upcoming events and happenings of the Freethought Association, check recent past minutes, or for the most up‑to‑date information and details, check our website, shown at the top. These events include coming regular meetings at the Women’s City Club as well as activities at other locations, such as the Freethought Movie Nights, Freethought Meditation Group meetings, Dinners for 8, Freethought Women’s Group, and the upcoming Freethinkers on Snow Tubes at Pando Ski Center.
INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS & CREATIVITY ISTS: Because it has been newly added to the calendar and we want to get the word out in a timely fashion, we announce separately this year’s Freethought & the Arts Fair. It will be on April 12 at the WCC (254 E. Fulton St.) starting at 7PM. This is an opportunity for members to participate by sharing their creative side through short films, two‐ and three‑dimensional art, juggling, music, poetry, or other passionate pursuits. If you would like to become involved or want more details, please contact this Secretary and Arts Night coordinator, Charles LaRue at: calart@hotmail.com. This year we are reformatting this event as more a festival or fair celebration of the arts. Acts will be arranged primarily around the room and artists/performers are encouraged to answer questions, do demonstrations and engage in audience participation. We are also planning on having a Creativity Station/Center: where children of all ages may participate in hands‑on arts and crafts activities.
Presentation
OUR TOPIC for this meeting was The Psychology Behind Our Treatment of Animals, presented by FA member, Jamie DeLeeuw. Jamie graduated from GVSU last year with majors in psychology and polysci. She co‑founded Animal Care Takers, a student organization that volunteers at animal shelters and fundraises for national animal welfare/rights organizations. DeLeeuw also authored the Call to Action Community Psychologist paper and is currently working with another FA member, Dr. Luke Galen, on a study examining the relationship between belief in evolution, religious fundamentalism, and support for animal rights. It was noted that at age 12, she gave up meat and a decade later, she gave up God.
In the overview of her presentation, DeLeeuw stated what she would be covering including the psychological factors that enable people to harm animals for human benefit; the moral reasoning of believers in animal rights; the personality characteristics of pro‐ and anti‑vivisectionists; and psychology’s role in maintaining and promoting animal experimentation. She also touched on the question of: is there is a connection between animal rights advocates and those who advocate for other so‑called pro‑life issues from a religious standpoint?
We explored the psychological mechanisms involved in the human use of animals. For this portion of her presentation, DeLeeuw drew from the research of Dr. Scott Plous, Psychology Professor at Wesleyan University in CT, who has a special interest in the psychology of prejudice and discrimination, decision‑making, and—pertinent to this discussion—the human use of animals and the environment.
American society uses millions of animals each day for food, recreation, and a variety of other purposes, yet psychologists—in contrast to other social scientists—Plous has noted, have devoted very little attention to studying how people think about their use of animals. Jamie declared that billions of poultry and more than 100 million cattle, pigs and sheep are raised (read processed) on factory farms. Two hundred million are killed by hunters; 15–25 million more are killed by trappers, and 20–100 million more are used in research labs; this last lacking precision due to the very nature of the practice of animal use in labs, such as re‑numbering the animals to make it appear that fewer were used. Plous proposed, and DeLeeuw amplified on this, that many factors supporting the use of animals are psychological in nature and are therefore legitimate topics for psychological research. Some of the psychological factors that enable people to harm animals for human benefit include structural variables that dissociate consumptive practices from the infliction of harm. Mechanisms that reduce personal conflict when dissociation is threatened is another factor. There are also in‑group & out‑group biases and factors relating to the perceived similarity of animals and humans. Throughout, the emphasis is on opportunities for empirical research rather than ideological or philosophical arguments concerning animal rights.
As for the factor of dissociation, it can be intentional, but is more due to structural variables. The language surrounding animal use, for instance, places living, sentient beings in the category of the commodity or product derived from them. They are trophies, resources, game, and even referred to in the language of crops to be harvested. Pigs are referred to as pork, cows as beef, etc. as a means of objectifying them. It also places them into a category of things that cannot feel pain. Animals are processed for meat rather than slaughtered. De‑beaking is referred to as beak trimming as a euphemism. Violence is recreational and part of experiencing the great outdoors and nature in all its splendor.
The processing of animals as commodities is carefully done to foster disassociation by altering the appearance of the product. Faces, especially eyes, are removed (this Secretary recalls that in a reality show where contestants had to consume repulsive things, that they generally were able to consume genitalia, intestines, etc. and even creatures such as slugs, but in the latter instance, it was the presence of eyes that was the greatest hurdle for consumption), feet, and other structures that help us see a kinship with the food item are similarly not seen in the end product.
There is a physical remoteness between the purchaser of meats and the location of factory farms where the processing takes place, happy cows, pigs and other meat animals are shown in cartoon fashion as happy. Charlie the Tuna is miffed that he is not selected by Starkist to be killed for our benefit. Media attention is seldom focused on the conditions of factory farms or other animal treatment issues when they are more institutionalized, making it appear that only a few cruel and neglectful people are out there leaving their pets to starve or become infested (as in some Animal Planet‑type shows for instance).
Another researcher DeLeeuw drew information from was University of Cambridge Professor, James Serpell who has dealt with issues relating to the history of cultural and ethical aspects of animal use. He notes that as we develop new technologies, we feel less dependent on nature for survival and come to make greater distinctions between the animals that are permissible to eat and kill and those whom we bring into our lives on a more intimate and social basis. He and other researchers look at the spectrum of regard for animals going from hunting to domestication and the creation of a dichotomy between nature and society. Nature is to be conquered, or as the biblical mandate has it, we humans are to have utter dominion over all that lives and non‑human animals are to feel dread and fear from human presence.
There is a paradox that arises, as Northeastern Professor of Sociology, Arnold Arluke discusses, when humans work in places that provide care and compassion for non‑human animals such as animal shelters, but are expected to put large numbers of the beings they house to death. It is referred to by the oxymoronic title of: caring killing. Arluke, the author of Regarding Animals, also makes note of the further paradoxical scorn toward fellow humans along with the near idolatry of animals in Nazi Germany and other societies and times. It is asserted that the way we regard animals has a great deal to do with the way in which we regard ourselves and the societal contexts in which we live.
One may contrast the affection expressed for animals as sentient creatures in general society if they are pets, while simultaneously turning a blind eye toward the callous and harmful behavior toward other, likewise sentient, creatures when assigned to another category of animal‑kind (such as livestock). Some are cherished members of the family and focused upon adoringly in art, film and literature while others are killed as vermin, hunted for sport, cruelly tortured in traps, experimented upon as unfeeling objects of study, etc. Regarding Animals deals with how we construct animals being, by extrapolation, how we construct ourselves.
Labs use numbering systems rather than names and refer to the subjects as it rather than he or she. It is thought that to do otherwise would jeopardize critical scientific objectivity or veer dangerously close to the scientific sin of anthropomorphization. The contemporary European attitude, by contrast, is one where interaction between researcher and animal subject is encouraged so as to mitigate false data that can emerge from frightened subjects. It is a way, not so much of being humane for humane treatment’s sake alone, but for safeguarding the reliability of data from scientific research.
While armchair theorists have long pontificated on animals they had never seen in their natural habitat, or if so, only for a very short duration, and tend to see animal behavior as very predictable, uniform and generalized; those who work in the field have a very different take. The latter cannot help but notice different personalities and employed strategies based on awareness of how another member of the group will think and act. Alliances are formed, quarrels are witnessed, bonds made and broken, etc. This writer read an account by the primatologist, Franz deWaal, of how chimps were showcased for the amusement of the public. They were dressed up human finery in the context of a high culture tea party. At first they bumbled and clumsily performed the tasks they were trained for. The boundary between us and them was established anew, much to everyone’s mirth who witnessed this performance. However, they grew ever more skillful in their activity and before long, the distinction between humans and these chimpanzees was blurred and finally nullified. The public was uncomfortable witnessing this and the shows had to be stopped.
As alluded to earlier, animals slayed as game for sport is often thought of as the harvesting of resources... even renewable resources. One hunter’s quote that DeLeeuw gave us was: Deer have to be harvested... It is not a whole lot different than going into the field and harvesting apples each year. End quote. Euphemisms are employed such as bagging, thinning, managing and controlling. In the lab situation, the euphemistic counterpart for animals becomes standardized research tools, model systems, lower, subhuman, and inferior species. The military terminology reduces dogs to trained biosensors; pigeons are used as biological weapons systems, and so on.
Our presenter also spoke of the overt monitoring within organizations, such as when the 4H Plan for Prevention warns animal fair participants to be aware of the current terminology they use to avoid humanizing the animals. Examples given were to not refer to chicks, calves and lambs as baby versions of adult animals; to use the word process rather than slaughter; to speak of health products instead of drugs; family farms rather than factory farms, etc. This word swapping practice extends to biomedical literature where the Journal of Experimental Medicine has public guidelines that suggest substituting intoxicant for poison; fasting for starving; hemorrhaging for bleeding; and the aforementioned renumbering of animals in studies where the subject is referred to as, for example 10-2, rather than 102, to make the quantity of animals used appear smaller.
DeLeeuw cited the research of Worchel & Andreoli who have found that people tend to deindividuate the targets of aggression or anticipated aggression and that physical aggression is disinhibited when violence is described as recreational. The aforementioned researchers, along with Franzoi, David & Jones, and Glass, have found that when one group of subjects is directed to inflict pain or harm to members of another experimental group of subjects, the victim group is routinely derogated and dehumanized verbally by the oppressor group. By developing such negative attitudes toward their victims, exploiters can not only avoid thinking of themselves as villains, but they can also justify further exploitation. One can see this play out in stereotyping, discrimination, and in war where the enemy is made subhuman and fully other... an us and them mentality. Such mechanisms of in‑group & out‑group behavior are also seen, in the context of this presentation, in the human treatment of non‑human animals.
It was already touched upon that animal industries, such as intensive farming operations, slaughterhouses, meat‑packing stations, animal labs, and fur farms are remote from the general population in most cases. This is often due more to practical circumstances than as a deliberate strategy aimed at maintaining dissociation, though examples can be given of intentional buffering of the public from the sights and sounds associated with hunting and other animal use. Media attention deals very little with farm animals and intensive or factory farming. Magazines and educational TV programs, too, focus mostly on wildlife. Public awareness concerning animal products is often minimal as a result of both intentional and unintentional causes. And example Jamie used to demonstrate how pervasive public ignorance is, was that only 54% of those surveyed in a study could answer correctly whether veal comes from lamb or not. Even more alarming; roughly one third of adults did not know that butter, cheese and ice cream are derived from cows.
A further example DeLeeuw gave pertaining to public knowledge concerning the use of animals for food/clothing showed that less than π of respondents answered more than one item correctly in the following eight True/False questions. Bear in mind that all are TRUE statements: 1) Leather from alligators and snakes is usually made by skinning the animals alive. 2) The unwanted chicks of laying hens are often ground alive to make pen food. 3) Most goose down comes from geese that are plucked alive. 4) To make kid gloves, young goats are sometimes boiled alive. 5) To harvest silk, live silkworms are typically boiled in their cocoons. 6) In the US, pigs and cows usually die from having their throats slit with a knife. 7) It is common practice in the US to castrate pigs, sheep and cattle without the use of anesthesia. 8) Animals used for food are not protected by the US Animal Welfare Act.
It was previously mentioned how there exists the strange duality of people loving and consuming animals. This comes from socialization, where conflicts are avoided, in part, be deemphasizing consumed animals as objects of affection. Stuffed animals, for example, were found to be overwhelmingly in the likeness of dogs, cats, bunnies, and bears. Cows, pigs, and chickens, however represented a mere 3% of these children’s bedtime toys. Children are also socialized to believe that meat is essential for adequate nutrition. Furthermore they are led to believe that it comes from happy farm animals living in idyllic settings. Few visit large scale production farms from which most of what we typically consume is derived. Incredibly, through the ages of 10 and 11, children frequently fail to link common animal products with live animals. As to the element of unhappiness, most children not only believed that farm animals led untroubled lives but twice as many attributed unhappiness to companion and wild animals as to farm ones. They are often taught that zoo animals lead happy lives, despite the fact that their parents believe the opposite.
Cognitive dissonance appears when one wants very much to believe something but is shown that this perception is not true. This Secretary read of where a Fundamentalist Christian who believed every word of the Bible to be absolute and perfect was shown passages where a ruler was said to have ruled for a certain amount of time, then another one which gave a very different time on the throne for the same ruler. No matter how clearly this was presented to the Bible believer, who was of average intelligence, he simply could not see a contradiction in the two different accounts of the same person and events.
Cognitive dissonance is a way of reducing conflict and there are strategies for this. With regards to animal use, these include avoiding the stressful topic when it comes up; asserting that the use of animals is necessary for our survival or natural to our species; asserting that the use of animals causes no more suffering than its alternatives; minimizing one’s own use of animals and the most common one: denying that non‑human animals feel pain. One example of this last mechanism was that some 63% of people felt that fish experience no pain when a hook is in their mouths and they suffocate and die slowly. If there was not a pain response, animals would have no mechanism for avoidance of situations that would bring about their death and/or injury. All sentient creatures move toward what provides comfort or aids in their survival and move away from what causes discomfort, pain, injury or death.
As Scott Plous (referenced previously in this summary) has written (and was quoted by our speaker): While it is obviously impossible to know with certainty whether animals feel pain in the same sense that humans do, the evidence for pain in animals is as compelling as the evidence for pain in one another. The way most nonhuman mammals react to pain is remarkably similar in physiology, behavior, and evolutionary purpose to the way that humans react to pain... The evolutionary function to avoid noxious stimuli and heed bodily illness or injury, is identical in animals and humans... Many nonhuman mammals may feel even more pain than humans as their senses are often more acute. End quote. DeLeeuw also quoted the famed autistic humane livestock facility designer, Temple Grandin: Treated as though they don’t feel pain, cattle are branded, dehorned, and castrated without anesthesia. End quote. At this point DeLeeuw discussed the Cartesian beliefs that still live on to this day. Rene’ Descartes made major contributions to various areas of knowledge but also believed in mind body dualism and was also a proponent of animals being essentially living machines, insensate to pain, and with non‑individualized behavior. This view allowed vivisection to flourish; in Descartes’ view, when an animal being cut open alive and aware, was writhing and screaming (a term we would use if it were a human), it is merely an artifact of the machinery breaking down. There is no pain experienced.
An extreme example of the Cartesian position is not only that animals are immune to suffering, but that they actually prefer to be used and people do them a favor by using them. In this portion of her presentation, DeLeeuw mentioned cockfighting and how unnatural this form of entertainment was: the fighting cocks have to be extensively trained, have artificial spurs attached to them, and are specially bred for aggressiveness and even fast‑clotting ability. Broncos are induced to buck from a strap that they try to rid themselves of that is attached to them; bulls in bullfights are skewered over and over during the course of the event and bear baiting, setting cats on fire and other unconscionable acts were once fairly common, mostly because of this artificial barrier constructed to perceive non‑human animals as being immune to pain and put on Earth to avail themselves to our every whim.
Turning our attention again to hunters, Ms DeLeeuw showed the fallacy in the common hunter’s statement that they hunt for population control and to reduce animal suffering. If overpopulation was the reason, wildlife authorities would work to lower the birthrate of the animals in question. Instead, wildlife managers often eradicate predators in order to increase the population of many hunted and trapped species. Also if it was in the collective interest to reduce population numbers, sharpshooters could humanely kill the old, sick and diseased members of those populations. Instead, the majority of hunters work against natural selection by killing the largest and healthiest members of the population. Also, millions are wounded each year by unskilled shooters and 1000s die painful deaths by bow and arrows or leg‑hold traps.
Even when it is recognized that nonhuman animals experience pain, there often yet remains a denial of self‑awareness or intelligence in them. But this view is contradicted by extensive research. Some examples cited by our presenter included a gorilla that was taught sign language which has consistently scored between 85 and 95 on the Stanford‑Binet Intelligence Scale. DeLeeuw, to the amusement of those of us in attendance, noted that Coco the gorilla scores better than the average Mississippian! Several studies on self awareness have documented that chimps, orangutans, and pigeons are capable of using mirrors to locate body markings that cannot be seen directly. Chimps in the wild, when ill, have been observed to seek out bitter‑tasting medicinal plants and medicate themselves in appropriate dosages. Non‑primates, such as rats, are able to discriminate among their own behaviors and press levers corresponding to whether they are face‑washing, walking, rearing or immobile. An African gray parrot, named Alex, was taught to verbally identify the name, shape, and color of objects chosen from a set of 100 possible combinations. And pigeons have been trained to discriminate among human faces, expressing happiness, anger, surprise, and disgust. There is a raft of literature on the intelligence and creative problem solving ability of the octopus too, among other creatures not specifically mentioned in this presentation.
What this means is that the use of animals depends not so much on issues of intellect or self‑awareness as on species membership itself. Society does not consume mentally impaired people or assume that because people lack speech and reason, they also lack the ability to feel pain. This paragraph paraphrases something expressed by philosopher and Professor of Bioethics, Peter Singer, who wrote the seminal tome: Animal Liberation.
We discussed animals as an Outgroup more specifically at this point in the presentation, which segues nicely from the above statement on species membership. Humans have a long track record of dehumanizing fellow humans as well and DeLeeuw gave many examples of this in her presentation. She also paired our regard for the ultimate outgroup: animals, with human outgroup bias. African slaves were hunted just as nonhuman animals are today; outgroup humans were experimented upon in extremely unethical and inhumane ways, including as just one fairly recent example of the Tuskegee syphilis study, and it was assumed that nonwhites had a higher pain threshold than Whites, so measures to mitigate pain were unnecessary. Outgroup members could be penned and put down without qualm as nonhuman animals are. One may recall that the Japanese Americans put in detention camps whereas German Americans were not so‑treated in the same historical timeframe.
Research has shown that ingroup members tend to perceive outgroup members as inferior, relatively unattractive, and significantly more homogeneous (they all look alike)than ingroup members. The very act of categorization itself leads to an over‑estimation of between‑group differences and an under‑estimation of within group differences, which suggests that perceived differences between humans and animals may be exaggerated~such as in the ability to feel pain. A hard pill to swallow for the dedicated racist is that there is genetically more difference within racial groups than between them! And modern evolutionary developmental science (evo‑devo) as well as molecular biology is showing how very closely related we are evolutionarily to all other forms of life, and chimps are so close genetically to us, that many progressive taxonomists feel they should be joined along with humans in the genus Homo.
The point is not that the treatment of animals is equivalent to the treatment of racial or ethnic minorities, nor is the domination of animals equivalent to human enslavement. The point is that several psychological factors involved in the treatment of human outgroups are also observable in the treatment of non‑human animals. With this in mind; that human slavery (in this case of Africans brought to America) and animal domination are not equivalent but that similar mechanisms are involved in dissonance‑reducing statements about both human and non‑human animals, it is instructive to explore these similarities. Both have been perceived to be content with their lot and benefiting from being used; being less sensitive or insensitive to pain; unintelligent, less or unaware; the Bible in both cases was used to justify and support the practices; both have been described as an economic necessity, natural and inevitable. Those whose livelihood depends on the use of animals often stress that they love animals, that their own economic interests prevent widespread cruelty, and that abolitionism amounts to fanaticism.
A population, whether human or non‑human, that is placed by an ingroup into that of an outgroup, becomes expendible in the eyes of the ingroup, whereas seeing all animals (human or non‑human) as valuable and irreplaceable blunts this tendency to devalue or enhance value based on contrived reasons. DeLeeuw spoke of other outgroups not depending on species or race/ethnicity, such as vegetarians, feminists, atheists, etc. Other groups, defined only by gender and age—women and children—have made gains over time. Women’s rights and child labor laws are examples. Ironically, there were instances where animal rights made more headway than some human rights. The ASPCA (The American Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) successfully prosecuted some child abuse cases via the mechanisms used to enforce anti‑animal cruelty laws.
Jamie DeLeeuw next addressed with us the Similarity Principle. This is an organizing principle that links the treatment of animals with the treatment of people. In general, people tend to give more consideration to those who are perceived as similar to themselves than those who are dissimilar; they are more willing to help similar others, more attentive to the pain and suffering, more attracted, more punitive when the victim of an aggressive act is similar, and less punitive/aggressive when the offender is similar.
There are several small studies in which animals were used as referents to test this principle. In one such study six species were involved: Gorilla; Black Rhinoceros; Hooded Crane; Hierro Giant Lizard; Giant Catfish; and Tooth Cave Ground Beetle. These then represented a non‑human primate, a non‑primate mammal, a bird, reptile, fish, and insect, and the order of presentation was randomized. They were ranked by participants according to their similarity to humans. Another study posed the situation where all these species were equally endangered. Asked to select one out for saving, the gorilla far and away was the winner for salvation. There was even explicit mention of the reason for the choice made being the gorilla’s similarity to humans.
In a broader test of the principle, Americans were asked whether they felt particular concern for specific animals. The animals used in the poll, along with the percentage of respondents who reported feeling concern for them is indicated in the following list: Dogs: 89; Seals: 85; Marine Mammals: 84; Horses: 78; Bids: 76; Cats: 71; Rabbits: 67; Fish: 64; Rodents: 32; Frogs: 33; Snakes: 21.
There is also a connection between perceived biological similarity and judgments as to how capable animals are of feeling pain. In one visual presentation on this, we saw the same six categories of animals (non‑human primates, non‑primate mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects) with respondents divided between animal rights activists and non‑activists. Here is how it sorted out as to perceived similarity to humans: Non‑human primates were given a 7.2 ranking by non‑activists and a 7.4 for activists; non‑primate mammals: 4.4 for non‑activists and 4.5 for activists; birds: 2.8 (non‑activists), and 3.8 for activists; reptiles: 2.3 for non‑activists and 3.6 for activists. For fish, it was 2.2 similarity to humans for non‑activists, whereas activists ranked them at 3.3. Finally for insects it was 1.7 and 3.2, relatively.
For both activists and non‑activists the perceived similarity decreased from non‑human primates to insects and in the same order but activists consistently ranked all groups higher than did their non‑activist counterparts; the lowest similarity value given for activists for insects is one that is between that of birds and non‑primate mammals on the non‑activist side.
When this study is conducted with the respondent’s view of the subject’s ability to feel pain (but not, this time, comparing/contrasting similarity to humans), we find that the non‑activists give the non‑human primates an 8.5 and the activists give them a 9.0. Nonprimate mammals get an 8.1 from the non‑activists while the value remains the same (9.0) for the activists. Birds? They drop to 6.6 for pain sensitivity in the minds of non‑activists, where the activists rank them just below the last category but still far higher than the non‑activists, at 8.6. Reptiles are now only slightly moved by pain stimulus according to non‑activists: 5.8. Activists, however, decrease their rating by only a tenth of a percent: 8.5. Fish swim about with a hook piercing their heads garnering a mere 5.2 from the non‑activists, where the activists have only just barely dipped below the 8.0 level here, at 7.9. With insects we have non‑activists seeing them able to feel pain at a level of 4.3. Pull off those wings! It doesn’t matter! Activists see their insect subjects as experiencing pain at the 7.0 level. Once again the lowest value on the activist side (insects) is between the birds and non‑primate mammals on the non‑activist side.
The non‑activist side plummeted steadily from a high of 8.5 (that was still lower than the 9.0 high on the activist side) to a dismal 4.3, while the activists saw a drop from 9.0 to 7.0 (two percent) only. Unlike non‑activists, animal rights activists tended to believe that all animals possess a large capacity to feel pain, regardless of similarity to ourselves. Jamie noted in her presentation the correspondence between pain and similarity judgments; both having a long history in connection with human outgroups. It was believed that less pain was felt by so‑called savages and native tribes in North America, Africa and India, members of the lower class, criminals and prostitutes.
Regarding the factor of age in the Similarity Principle: In one study in the late ’70’s, less than half of all young children were given medication for post‑operative pain following major surgery, such as limb amputation, and newborns are routinely circumcised without anesthesia. The similarity principle extends to differences of aggression as well. People are less aggressive toward those perceived more similar to themselves and more so toward those perceived more dissimilar to themselves. However this principle is not the sole governing factor in the treatment of others. The perception and treatment of outgroups also depends on factors such as beauty, utility or economic value, familiarity, status, and potential harmfulness. The Similarity Principle merely suggests a correspondence between outgroup biases based on species membership and outgroup biases based on factors such as race, religion, and nationality. The validity and limits of its generality will emerge with time.
We were presented with a picture from a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) ad to demonstrate the similarity between humans and non‑human animals. In the image a woman was shown with her body sectioned off and labeled in the manner that a animal’s would be if set for slaughter, showing virtually the same basic arrangement of musculature (meat). I would, again, bring in my own fascination with evo‑devo, which goes beneath the skin and bone to the very switches in the genetic toolkit that produce the limb of an insect, lizard, bird, whale, ape and human, with essentially the same basic means of developing these; dependent primarily on the timing and duration of codings for protein sequences. Going to basic anatomy one sees modifications only upon the same bone structures for the human (or other primate) arm and hand as is found in the avian wing, inside the marine mammal’s flipper (a totally pointless arrangement of bones if it was made fully formed for the created kind of a cetacean, for example, by an Intelligent Designer), and the frog’s web‑footed forelimb... in these cases of similarity, they are called homologues. Still, the PETA ad powerfully conveys how readily we could portion off the human body for consumption, which is unthinkable, whereas this is the fate of livestock every day.
We also examined the concept of Scope of Justice, where DeLeeuw drew, in part, from the work of Social and Organizational Psychologist, Susan V. Opotow, PhD. Dr. Opotow’s work focuses on conflict and justice. Her concepts on the Scope of Justice as well as the idea of Moral Exclusion clarify conditions that advance moral exclusion so that considerations of fairness and moral rules do not apply. Those who are morally excluded are viewed as nonentities or as enemies outside the scope of justice, justifying harm inflicted on them. DeLeeuw pointed out that when non‑companion animals are considered, to the extent that their interests are in confluct with human ones, they are considered expendable and outside the scope of justice and moral concerns. Belief systems play a part in this view. Fundamentalist Christians, for example, perceive fewer beings within the scope of justice, while Buddhists tend to see more within the scope.
DeLeeuw led us next to explore the moral reasoning of believers in animal rights. Moral reasoning (the basis for ethical behavior) is defined as the reflective inquiry about moral values regardless of what one’s own particular set of moral values happens to be. We looked at Kohlberg’s cognitive theory of moral development in this regard. Dr. Lawrence K. Kolberg developed his theory during his research studies conducted at the Center for Moral Education, and is influenced heavily by the thinking of the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget and the American philosopher, John Dewey. The emphasis is on the idea that human beings develop philosophically and psychologically in a progressive fashion; so moral reasoning progresses through a series of stages. He breaks this down into the levels of pre‑conventional, conventional and post‑conventional, and each of these levels is further categorized into six identifiable stages which make up one’s social orientation. This framework may be used to help us understand why people believe particular courses of action are right or wrong.
Our presenter noted that Kohlberg identifies justice as the pinnacle of moral reasoning. Animal rights proponents have equivalent or higher‑level moral reasoning when compared to adult, education‑matched members of the general public. They tend to place a premium on individual rights and commitment to universal ethical principles, so it may come as no surprise that they do well on a justice‑based moral reasoning test. However, animal rights advocates have been suspected of having a skewed value system; one that lacks sufficient concern for people, and 41% of animal researchers used terms such as gullible and immature when describing a typical animal rights activist. One may bring to mind various unflattering and derogatory beliefs about women’s rights advocates and feminists, environmental activists and even basic human rights advocates.
On the part of her talk on pro‑vivisectionists, DeLeeuw discussed a survey of 1055 college students using the Myers‑Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and other personality measures that compared their results with scores on the Animal Research Survey (see Harold Takooshian, PhD, with interests and work in applied social/ personality, applied psychometrics, attitude survey research methods, etc.). Isabel Briggs‑Meyers developed the type indicator used by millions. She has said: Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire. End quote.
The score results indicated that pro‑animal experimentation individuals tended to be male, masculine, conservative, and less empathic than those who opposed the practice. They were sensate, thinking types, with a strong sense of duty and a desire to establish, preserve and maintain established institutions (status quo). This type correlates with political conservatism, religious fundamentalism, and less empathy for animals. Kimball, Johnson and Regan were cited in these findings. They also found that animal rights advocates were more likely to support vegetarianism and to be more ecologically concerned and liberal, less supportive of the military, and to be more feeling and intuitive types with greater empathy for animals. They were more devoted to relationships and people and concerned with self actualization and ethics; they were creative and innovative types. They tended to have less faith in science as well. Other models exist to derive data without animal use and not all data derived by animal experimentation is for life saving research but also for cosmetics and other uses that do not warrant what is perceived as unnecessary cruelty to animals by animal rights activists. Also noted was that research claims are often over‑stated for the need of animal subjects, as only about 2% of fruitful data was gleaned from animal research. More on this later in the summary.
The next topic heading DeLeeuw presented was Ethical Ideology, Animal Rights Activism, and Attitudes Toward the Treatment of Animals. Some of the information for this portion was from the work of Shelley L. Galvin and Harold A. Herzog, Jr. who found that activists are more absolutist in their moral orientation and with high idealism and low relativism. They tend to be disproportionately female, White, well‑educated, middle‑ to upper‑class, politically liberal and childless. D.R. Forsyth, who was also cited, developed the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) which examines the four ethics positions of relativism, idealism, subjectivists and exceptionalists. These positions were examined as to where animal rights activists fell. The questionnaire’s stated purpose was to investigate the relationship between individual differences in moral philosophy, involvement in the animal rights movement, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals.
Absolutists (where a majority of animal rights activists fall) tend to be more likely to take extreme stands on social issues, be harsher in making judgments about the behavior of others’—and their own—moral failings, and be less willing to compromise their positions than individuals who view moral judgment through a more relativistic lens. Nibert found support for the assumption that the way people regard animals is related to the way they regard humans. L. Herzog found that while often obsessed with their cause and feeling they carried a heavy moral burden, activists showed no signs of psychopathy, and Shapiro found that leaders in the animal protection movement were united by a common theme of a strong caring trait in their moral development. Forsyth, too, found that absolutists had the highest EPQ scores in the area of caring.
What about religious affiliation? Social science data indicates that most animal rights activists are not members of traditional churches and that they think of themselves as atheist or agnostic. There is however religious protection for those who object, in conscience, to classroom vivisection or dissection, and this is considered a constitutionally protected exercise of religious belief. This makes use of the the Supreme Court decisions regarding the functionality of religion, which is more about the role that belief systems play in a person’s life, functionally, rather than the substance of the belief system as to gods and favored prophets, etc. Most animal advocates possess a deeply spiritual sense of justice for the oppressed and a general revulsion regarding violence against sentient beings. When beliefs are understood to be an ultimate concern in the life of the adherent, then this takes the place of the same degree of belief in supernatural agency and religious doctrinal authority.
So then, is animal rights a functional religion? Social scientist advocates for the functional—as opposed to substantive—view of a belief system with core concerns as a religion see this as a construct that allows them to analyze secular movements as religions because they function in that way. Functional religion, then, provides meaning around which individuals coalesce, interpreting life through a system of beliefs and ways of conduct and behavior, to paraphrase J. Milton Yinger. Yinger’s typology of functional religion is fulfilled by findings regarding animal rights activists: they are socialized in doctrinal codes and behavioral codes; experienced conversions to a distinctive epistemology; realigned themselves with new communities of belief; and relied upon cult symbols and rituals to manifest latent beliefs and reinforce their commitment.
Conversion often occurs as a result of movement arguments followed by exposure to emotionally charged contact with animals or animal imagery, and those who experience this report that they were conscious of their conversion and aware of its enormity. Community activists gather together, share their common views and sustain each other’s commitments. They uniformly experienced feelings of social isolation, which in turn led them to seek out other like‑minded people. They had often faced ostracism and even scorn from family and friends when they tried to relate their experience. They usually consider themselves to be going through a continual transformation. Yinger sees this inclusive membership in a community of fellow‑believers in a cause as a church, even though those gathered exhibited purely secular behavior.
Berger argues that in response to modernity’s cultural delegitimization of traditional religions and objective truth, individuals rather than ending their quest for religious truth, shift the foci of their quest to other outlets. Thus, the contemporary animal rights movement may serve as an outlet for the expression
of functional religiosity. Francionne and Charlton, on the other hand, leave it to individuals to determine if their beliefs function as religions.
They (animal rights activists) mirrored religious adherents by amalgamating their traditional and new secular beliefs, thus overcoming dissonance and allowing them to interpret the world positively and relate to those in it when necessary. This last thought comes from the work of Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, who wrote the study in social psychology: When Prophesy Fails. In this study they find that when a prophecy fails, those who are isolated from the believer group are more prone to skepticism and doubt, while those within the group derive a sense of institutional group support, dissonance surfaces and belief actually increases from out of the failure of the prophecy. If God was to have rained down destruction on a given day and that day passes without incident, then the group may proclaim it as God sparing them for now but that when His wrath does come, it will be profound.
The creed, if you will, of animal rights activists is that animals have the right to live their lives without human interference—or have the right to be considered equally with humans in the ethical balance that weighs the right or wrong of any action. Suffering is evil, and its alleviation is good. People are related through evolution to the other animals but ethically constrained from using them because we alone are conscious of the suffering such use causes and we can exercise free will to end it. Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment upon, or use in any way. In the extreme form, activists see humankind as a malignancy upon the natural world and the best we can attempt is to reduce our harm to the extent that we are capable.
DeLeeuw explained that a Vegan is one who does not use, to the greatest extent possible, any products that come from animals. It is nearly impossible to entirely get away from animal use, but if an alternative is available, the Vegan will go that route. Our presenter herself is a vegetarian but she allowed that she has yet to go all the way to the Vegan way of life; particularly because she enjoys cheeses so much.
As for experimental animal research in psychology, we were shown that the APA (American Psychological Association) guidelines state that ethical concerns mandate that psychologists should consider the costs and benefits of procedures involving animals before proceeding with the research. However, the guidelines do not reference, or even suggest, the use of pain scales, scales of invasiveness, or even ethical costs. Psychology’s official position has been that the benefits of animal research are great and the costs are minimal. These claims, however, have not been substantiated. As scientists, psychologists have a burden to provide scientific data based on adequate measures to support such claims. Measuring scales have been developed, measuring the degree of invasiveness and other aspects of ethical cost, and have been found to have good internal and inter‑rater reliability.
The current USDA classification system categorizes pain, with reference to pain mitigating drugs used or not used, but provides no information on the degree of pain experienced by the animal and no information on the 80% of laboratory animals excluded from the Animal Welfare Act. The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee that was formed under the Animal Welfare Act and used to oversee government‑sponsored animal‑based research, has not lived up to its full potential. Dresser was cited for his assertion that committees require little more than a perfunctory claim to research value to justify extensive animal harm. And Brody states: The legal regime hardly considers whether a research project’s potential value can justify its cost in terms of animal suffering. End quote.
Further, the committee’s inadequacy stems from being dominated by scientific members who will only maintain the status quo. While some would like to address ethical issues, they are hand‑picked by the CEO of the facility, and when nine or ten committee members either receive funding or are involved in some capacity with animal research, there is a tremendous conflict of interest. Researchers have virtually no legal restrictions on their experimental methods. In the field of psychology, there is no true externally supervised checks and balances system to judge the intrinsic value of each study, often allowing experiments to be conducted that are too trivial, redundant or inapplicable to the human condition to ethically perform.
Claims from psychology’s animal research proponents regarding the value of their experiments have been demonstrated to be strikingly overstated. Only a small percentage in two highly esteemed clinical journals; the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (less than 1/3 of 1%!) and Behavior Therapy (2%) cite animal studies, demonstrating that while clinicians depend critically on human studies to treat clients, animal research is rarely used, as has been noted by Shapiro. Similarly, pharmacological animal research is shortsighted in its biological approach and can draw attention away from more applicable human studies; after all, many psychological problems such as eating disorders and alcoholism are what are termed problems in living, requiring sociocultural attention rather than exclusively physiological attributions (see Yeats). The presence of an animal model on a topic itself is not indicative of the scientific benefits of that research.
It is largely the field’s elitism, in the sense that it lacks—and even actively rejects—oversight, that has led to those deficiencies in insight. The likely results include errors in judgment that occur from psychological phenomena such as group‑think and confirmation bias (Frey and Schulz‑Hardt) whereby researchers maintain the status quo on their views on animal research rather than seriously questioning their own practices (Ulrich).
During the Q&A period we discussed the culture of life presentation and the utilitarian view that is more concerned with suffering than right to life concepts of when a collection of cells becomes a being with rights granted to human animals. One member spoke of being surprised by the powerful reactions he got when he said that he didn’t eat meat, even from a Buddhist friend. People would ask intensely if it was for health reasons... If it was about animal concerns, it was almost unfathomable for most he encountered. Another member, in a presentation he once gave on his animal rights views, said then that his eschewing meat eating was a harder pill for his family to swallow than even his turning away from Christianity.
We discussed the differences in societal views on animal use. Those who are closer to the taking of animal life and whose lives are more tightly interwoven with the other animals tend to use the entire animal and have a high regard for the being. Those societies, like ours, that have industrialized our animal use into massive processing factories are less concerned with waste, detached from the animals used and hold no reverence for them~seeing them as products and commodities. In this vein we also talked about the differences between such factory farming and the family farm in attitudes and practices, as well as scale of harm. We also talked about animals raised in humane ways where suffering is minimal, as opposed to being used as little more than organic machines serving a single purpose in horrific conditions.
In a show of hands to a question, we saw again that the number of vegetarians and vegans in our membership was significantly higher than what is seen in the general population. There are many possible reasons for this. Perhaps one reason is that freethinkers do not typically subscribe to the idea that we are a separate special creation and that all other beings are here for our use—to have dominion over. Too, not being a part of one of the major religions might make us more likely to examine other religions fairly including exposure to those other religions/philosophies that place the ending (or lowering) of suffering and a high regard for sentient beings highly in their belief system. Freethinkers, too, do not tend to take what we are given passively, without critical examination of the claims made, which, coupled with the fact that we are already an out‑group in larger society, perhaps causes us to be less invested in maintaining the status quo and more in exploring other ideas and ways of living.
We also discussed animal research that deals with personality differences between individuals within a species. This was once taboo, since it brought one dangerously close to anthropomorphism. But indeed, in studies, preferences emerge and the similarities of responses to the environment are being shown very close to human ones.
Hunters talk about how they help to control deer population problems but DeLeeuw pointed out that often these problems are artificially created with deer being introduced into areas from other places, or when natural predators are eradicated to artificially inflate the numbers of the animals hunted.
Some animal rights activists feel that having pets is wrong. One audience member noted that common household pets have been domesticated for so very long that the life of a pet is essentially its current natural environment. We discussed other ownership ideas as well. And we talked about the preference among animal rights advocates for animal shelters over animal breeders. We discussed road kill and laws establishing the safe passage of non‑human animals from place to place.
The highly accomplished, high‑functioning autistic and Associate Professor at Colorado State University, Dr. Temple Grandin was mentioned. She is a world renowned designer of humane livestock facilities and feels a special kinship with animals, from her special vantage point as an autistic individual who sees many commonalities of experience between the animal and the autistic person. She has described herself as an anthropologist on Mars for how she feels around what she terms neurotypical people. One of her recent books is Animals in Translation and we discussed the ideas contained in this work. She is a leading light in autism advocacy and animals welfare issues and wrote a stirring essay called Animals Are Not Things with some powerful metaphors about the living and non‑living things in our environment that we humans take control over.
We talked about how humans are able to regard the world in ways that can intensify the experience of pain and suffering. The extent to which humans so easily kill and torture each other does not bode well for great change in our treatment of non‑human animals. Some say that we should not focus so much on our treatment of animals, what with all the terrible things we do to our fellow humans, but perhaps a change in regard to one life form can make inroads into how we think about all other ones. Perhaps trying to focus on humans or non‑human animals creates a false dichotomy, much as an abortion clinic bomber or shooter claims that he does this out of his profound belief in the right to life. As was pointed out in DeLeeuw’s presentation, animal rights activists are also strong proponents of alleviating pain and suffering and proponents for the welfare and justice of all forms of life~human and non‑human alike, so perhaps it does not have to be an either/ or decision, but rather a continuum of concern. DeLeeuw also talked about how the way that people treat animals often tends to cross over into how they will treat people; noting that the majority of sociopaths start out abusing animals.
Secretary: Charles LaRue
The Freethought Association of West Michigan provides a community
for freethinkers to explore ideas from a rational, critical and
non-theistic perspective.
|
