Animal Suffering and Human Supremacism

Esse : What avenues for reflection on animal suffering does philosophy offer? Martin Gibert : We can find reflections on our obligations toward animals and pro-vegetarian arguments as early as Greek antiquity, with Pythagoras. Throughout history, numerous philosophers, including Plutarch, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Bentham, have been sensitive to animal suffering. Yet, overall, these “lovers of wisdom” proved no more astute than their contemporaries in identifying speciesism, or species-based discrimination, recognition of which is essential for thinking about animal suffering (it would not be the first time that systemic injustice had passed philosophers by). That being said, things have considerably improved over the past forty years to the point that today the field of applied animal ethics exists, focusing on our obligations toward animals as individuals. It’s flourishing, especially in Canada through the work of Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (Zoopolis, 2011) and in Québec with Valéry Giroux (L’antispécisme, 2020). One could say that the starting point consists in identifying “moral patients” — entities toward which we have obligations. In animal ethics, most philosophers embrace “sentientism” and consider that “sentience,” or the ability to feel emotions, pleasure, and pain, is an appropriate criterion for identifying moral patients. In short, animal ethics is concerned with animal individuals because they can feel pain, and we can thus do them good or harm. Many people confuse the living with animals. In reality, they’re very different. Although all sentient beings are living, the opposite is not always true. Animal ethics isn’t concerned with the living in general — not with viruses, bacteria, plants, or ecosystems — because these entities do not feel pain. From a sentientist perspective, they are not moral patients. Esse :&ensp;Do perspectives other than sentientism exist? MG : Yes. Some philosophers defend “biocentrism,” the idea that being alive suffices as criterion for being a moral patient. From a biocentric perspective, since all living beings can, by definition, die, and can, to a certain extent, flourish, then we, for example, have the moral duty not to kill them or hinder their development. This minority theory has more resonance in environmental than animal ethics. It states that the scope of our moral consideration should extend to non-sentient living beings such as bacteria and plants. Based on all the discourse around “the living,” which suggests that we act in the interest of living beings, or act for them, one might think that we are all biocentrist. In reality, attributing an intrinsic moral value to the living remains a marginal and exacting philosophical stance. In terms of sentientism, one can say that living beings have cognitive and aesthetic value (they teach us things; they can be beautiful or ugly), yet their moral value can only ever be instrumental: the forest and trees must be preserved not because they are moral patients but because they shelter animals. It’s understood that biocentrism encompasses more entities than sentientism does: animals, plants, and a whole range of living organisms. Nevertheless, these two theories remain far from the currently prevailing approach, which traces a much narrower circle of morality: “anthropocentrism” or “human supremacy.” From this third perspective, it is easy to justify the use of non-human animals in art or any other sector since they are simply not moral patients. It’s therefore acceptable to buy or sell them; we can justify putting them in cages or killing them because they are definitively nothing more than commodities or resources at our disposal. By urging that we no longer buy or sell animals, abolitionists — activists who advocate that animals no longer be appropriable — thus oppose speciesism and human supremacy on the legal front. Esse : Does that mean that animal suffering is morally acceptable if it involves an approach that aims to condemn a certain social, if not legal, tolerance for the exploitation of sentient beings for human purposes? How are art practices that adopt this position seen through the lens of animal ethics? MG : Saying that it’s wrong to kill or mistreat animals — be it for contemporary art or for greed — does not necessarily mean that doing so is always bad. There are exceptions. For example, it’s easy to imagine a consequentialist argument that justifies making an animal suffer in order to save others (the same could be said for humans). Following this logic, a performance that instrumentalizes or mistreats an animal could be considered morally acceptable if it manages to turn the public vegan or encourages people to advocate for animal rights. There are of course different approaches in animal ethics, which, in part, determine how animal suffering is analyzed, and, more broadly, how animals are used (without their consent) in contemporary art. The debates can be summarized by saying that animal rights ethicists advocate for animal rights — the right not to be killed, mistreated, or put in cages — whereas consequentialists and utilitarians, like philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (1975), tend to focus on the (unnecessary) suffering and harm that animals are subjected to. Esse :&ensp;Proponents of aesthetic autonomy and artistic exceptionality may, however, propose a special ontological status for works of art. How should we respond to this? MG :&ensp;I can imagine artists who might attempt to justify animal suffering in the name of art. They may invoke exceptionality for art, an extraterritoriality that would place the artist or the work beyond the realms of good and evil, justifying the right to starve a dog or to pulverize fish. Yet this argument is very weak. Above all, it is unclear what would justify an artistic exception: art is an activity that generates artefacts and experiences. It can be morally evaluated like anything else. A crime is no less a crime because it is committed within the framework of an art performance. And the point of view of mistreated or killed animals must not be ignored: they have nothing to gain from “participating” in such a project. Besides, would we accept that humans be mistreated for a work of art? No, would be the likely response of those who advance the idea of artistic exceptionality. But why this double standard? Because they are speciesists! Esse :&ensp;Artistic exceptionality, therefore, gives precedence to human well-being over the well-being of other animals. Why does animal suffering generally seem less shocking than human suffering? MG :&ensp;I would say that the theses of artistic exceptionality and human supremacy are mutually reinforcing. If I exaggerate a little, one might arrive at the following: Why would a work of art possess an exceptional ontological status that would place it above ethical principles? Because it is a work made by an exceptional being, a human. But why is a human being exceptional? Because it is capable of creating exceptional works (which touch the hidden essence of being human). Human supremacy privileges humans because they are human. It’s directly linked with speciesism. Because it is so central, this concept deserves a precise definition, which I will take from Cahiers antispécistes: “Speciesism is to species as racism and sexism are respectively to race and to sex: the will… to give no consideration (or to give less consideration) to the interests of certain individuals to the benefit of others, while putting forward as a justification differences that may be real or imaginary but are always deprived of a logical link to what they purport to justify.”“Speciesism,” Cahiers antispécistes: cahiers-antispecistes.org/en/speciesism/. Just as not everybody may recognize racism or sexism, the same can be said of speciesism. We live in societies in which parents, schools, and the media convey, time and again, that it is normal, natural, and necessary to eat animals.Psychologist Melanie Joy calls “carnism” the invisible ideology (a subset of speciesism) that conditions us to view certain animals as being edible. See her book Why we Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism (Berkeley: Conari, 2011). Artists are no exception: the majority perpetuate this ideology. Yet, if we do not recognize the moral dilemma of eating animals or that the thought of doing so is constrained or motivated by the desire to continue eating them (and to thus exercise one’s human privilege), it’s highly likely that animal suffering will be neglected in all domains, including art. Esse :&ensp;And what about the critical dimension of art? Doesn’t an artwork have the power to raise awareness? Alec SothDog Days, Bogotá, Untitled 28, 2003. Photo: © Alec Soth/Magnum Photos, courtesy of Magnum Photos MG :&ensp;This is an empirical question about which we lack data. I don’t doubt that certain works may raise awareness about the issues, but what is the global effect of art on animals? We can anticipate that the vegan or antispeciesist movement (the former term characterizes practice; the latter, the theory) will increasingly arouse the interest of artists who usually have affinities with progressive political movements. Yet we must not delude ourselves either. Artists are no more willing than philosophers, politicians, or computer scientists to sacrifice pleasure (eating animals) for purely moral reasons. Their moral reasoning is generally entrenched in the same kind of bias and cognitive dissonance as that of the rest of population.See my book Voir son steak comme un animal mort (Montréal: Lux, 2015), and that by social psychology professor Laurent Bègue-Shankland: Face aux animaux: Nos émotions, nos préjugés, nos ambivalences (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2022) to better understand our perspective on animals. In short, I don’t expect too much from contemporary art in regard to helping the 70 billion terrestrial animals that are slaughtered ever year in abattoirs — if only because vernissages are rarely vegan. Now, if we take a long-term view, art certainly has a critical dimension — like other human activities — yet it also reinforces numerous social norms that are far from progressive. I have the impression that it has, for several centuries, gladly reinforced human supremacist norms. And is why I tend to believe that art, like many human activities in speciesist society, is generally harmful to animals. Esse :&ensp;How can art be used to develop greater empathy and compassion toward animal suffering? MG :&ensp;When I was pursuing my doctorate in philosophy — in moral psychology, to be precise — I became interested in the role of the imagination in moral perception. I held that it has an epistemological function: the imagination can help us learn things about the world; notably, through perspective-taking, reframing, and thought experiences. My book L’imagination en morale (Paris: Hermann, 2014) provides many examples. Clearly, art consistently mobilizes these uses of the imagination, and it can evidently do so in raising awareness about animal suffering. The intimate nostril-level portrayal that captures the gaze of two cows in Andrea Arnold’s film Cow (2021) or Alec Soth’s photographic portraits of stray dogs (Dog Days, Bogotá, 2007) can certainly help the public adopt an animal perspective. Empathy is not, strictly speaking, an emotion, but an emotional vector: having empathy for the suffering, joy, or fear of a dog is equivalent to experiencing oneself the dog’s range of emotions. This is obviously crucial for understanding “from within” that it is wrong to mistreat animals. Worthy of note is that we empathize with an individual (a specific animal) rather than with a species, which can be seen as an abstract entity that does not suffer or have emotions. Yet it may not always be desirable to provoke empathy. It can lead to emotional burnout, as is prevalent in the healthcare sector. Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard instead advocates for compassion, which he defines as love for those who suffer, as the desire to eliminate their suffering as well what causes it. I imagine that art too can foster compassion, but I would like to emphasize one point: it’s not a zero-sum game (having compassion and empathy for X does not mean that one feels the same for Y), but a muscle that can be developed with training. That being said, I believe that art can also promote animal welfare by tackling speciesism. In fact, how is it possible to address animal suffering without evoking this ideology? It is exactly this approach that disregards and justifies the unnecessary suffering and exploitation of billions of animals. I would argue that the best way to eradicate animal suffering is by fighting against speciesism. And to do so creatively. Translated from the French by Louise Ashcroft Alec Soth, Martin GibertAlec Soth, Martin GibertAlec Soth, Martin Gibert

Animal Suffering and Human Supremacism

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