An irreducible understanding of animal dignity

Abstract

Alongside lively philosophical debate about human dignity (Etinson, 2020; Rosen, 2012), several philosophers have begun asking whether "dignity" could also illuminate our moral relations with nonhuman animals (e.g., Abbate, 2020; Anderson, 2005; Gruen, 2014; Humphreys, 2016; Nussbaum, 2006; Ortiz, 2004). Increasing talk of animal dignity is also occurring in public and even legal discourse (Kotzmann & Seery, 2017). For example, in a recent habeas corpus hearing for a Bronx Zoo elephant, a Judge declared that the elephant is "a dignified creature" but "there is nothing dignified about her captivity" (Wilson, 2022, p. 4). Such language is perhaps beginning to resonate more with people than it once did. Nonetheless, some philosophers seriously doubt that dignity is a coherent and useful moral idea (Zuolo, 2016). Dressing circus-kept animals in human clothes and laughing at them may strike modern people as cruelly demeaning to those nonhumans. Yet for critics, these apparent assaults on "dignity" are ethically trivial or else merely indirect wrongs—objectionable only because such treatment could upset human witnesses or generally promote animal exploitation (Martin, 2019, p. 94). According to dignity's critics, other moral concepts can far better explain what is wrong with that treatment. Dignity is a complex notion and providing lucid accounts is challenging. Furthermore, philosophical analysis of animal dignity is relatively limited. It warrants greater attention. In this paper, I explore an understanding of animal dignity that seems to be irreducible to a range of other moral concepts and to some other conceptions of dignity. The understanding I explore appears to be a sui generis notion that involves a special kind of non-natural harm and assault upon animals. This special or distinctive harm and assault is related to the cognate notions of defiling, degrading, demeaning, dishonoring, and honoring treatment. Presenting this sui generis understanding requires examining arguably the most compelling current account of animal dignity on offer—a "relational" conception of dignity as social respect or status. Although very important, I shall ask whether there is also another "relational" way of understanding dignity that is irreducible even to that account—although importantly it might complement and deepen it. This suggests that more than one ethically important way of conceiving of dignity is possible. In the following, I outline criticisms of animal dignity with a focus on reductionist attacks, identify a social conception of dignity, reflect on some key examples of human behavior that seem to facilitate understanding of animal dignity, briefly introduce positive forms of irreducible dignity, and consider several objections, before concluding. Like "human dignity" (Cochrane, 2010), "animal dignity" may be attacked as merely rhetorical or as an excessively indeterminate concept. Dignity could mean, for example, inherent value, virtue, social rank, bodily integrity, autonomy…and much more (Schroeder, 2010). However, as I attempt to do below, dignity might be more carefully specified to avoid damaging vagueness. Some pro-animal thinkers worry that "dignity" is too closely associated with higher human abilities and the denigration of nonhumans. Dignity talk, says Will Kymlicka (2018, p. 771), "is saturated with the idea that dignity involves not being treated as an animal." This is true of some analyses of human dignity (e.g., Kateb, 2011), but perhaps there are approaches that avoid throwing animals "under the bus" (Kymlicka, 2018, p. 779)—and that even enlarge our respect for animals. Both human and animal dignity are targets of a reductionist attack by philosophers who are dismissive and sometimes damning of the concept. For example, some philosophers have forcefully claimed that human dignity is a useless concept that simply means respect for persons or autonomy (Macklin, 2003). The reductionist critic says that "dignity," while apparently fine sounding, is ultimately uninformative and replaceable with more fundamental and valuable moral ideas. Federico Zuolo (2016), for instance, argues that reductionism undermines recent characterizations of animal dignity by Michael Meyer and Martha Nussbaum. Meyer (2001) proposes a Kant-inspired "simple dignity," which identifies animal dignity with inherent or intrinsic moral worth. While Kant connected dignity with rational autonomy, the "simple dignity" account says that even without rational autonomy or moral equality with humans, sentient nonhumans nevertheless possess intrinsic worth. They thus also have a dignity (Meyer, 2001, p. 120). Such dignity may also ground various rights and be offended when a nonhuman dignity-bearer is used as a mere means (see Humphreys, 2016). Unlike Meyer, Nussbaum (2006) locates dignity in natural wellbeing and species-typical flourishing. For Nussbaum, dignity involves the realization of various natural animal capabilities—such as emotional expression, play, health, and relationships—that we recognize as important. A life without dignity, on Nussbaum's account, is one that lacks these possibilities for natural flourishing. Thus, animals, like humans, also have dignity. Zuolo attacks Michael Meyer's "simple dignity" as reducible to broad notions of moral considerability and Martha Nussbaum's account as reducible to natural living and wellbeing. Zuolo concludes that animal dignity lacks a distinctive ethical meaning and is best replaced with more informative concepts (Zuolo, 2016, p. 1119). Perhaps this attack is unfairly reductionist. For example, one might say that Nussbaum's naturalistic conception of dignity is not just about natural wellbeing but is also partly constituted by a sense of wonder toward flourishing and of "waste and tragedy" toward damaged lives (Nussbaum, 2006, p. 346). Nonetheless, we might still feel that "dignity" does too little distinctive work in accounts which are so strongly centered on natural wellbeing (Nussbaum) and intrinsic worth (Meyer). This raises the possibility that relational understandings of dignity can better resist reductionism. For even if relational understandings depend on or refer to features like intrinsic moral worth and natural living and wellbeing, they might also include and foreground significant ways of human relating and behaving that render those understandings distinctive or special. By revealing these possibilities, we may cast doubt on reductionist moves that seek to banish talk of dignity. Doing so, however, can create further problems. In particular, any kind of dignity that cannot be reduced to more familiar concepts may be criticized as illusory or morally trivial. It will therefore be necessary for us to say something about why an irreducible understanding of dignity might be morally important and valuable (even if we cannot provide a more extended defense within the confines of this paper). Next, I describe one important relational account—a social conception of dignity—recently advanced by animal philosophers. Comparing and contrasting it with a sui generis understanding will hopefully clarify both these relational understandings and advance discussion about animal dignity. The social (or social-moral) respect or status account locates animal dignity in ways of presenting and viewing ethically valuable individuals and in expressions of moral (dis)respect toward them or their worth (Anderson, 2005, pp. 282–283). Such presentations and expressions occur in the space of social relations (Bird, 2013, p. 161) rather than being principally located in either natural or moral "properties." This account might apply to humans and nonhumans. Social accounts of nonhuman dignity have been developed by Lori Gruen and C.E. Abbate. Gruen describes dignity not as reducible to "properties" like "autonomous nature" (Gruen, 2014, p. 232) but rather as a relational property linked to our own and our community's perception of morally valuable others (Gruen, 2014, p. 234). This understanding has historical connections with "social or civic demands for recognition and respect" and "social harmony and human fulfillment" (Gruen, 2014, p. 234). It thus has intertwined moral and social dimensions. Just as some behavior toward humans "reinforces negative attitudes" toward certain humans (Gruen, 2014, p. 235), so too certain ways in which an animal is presented or treated can tend to undermine (or occasionally promote) moral respect for that individual in society. An example is making animals in zoos or circuses appear ridiculous. Gruen (2014, pp. 238–239) cites zoo enclosures that visibly render the contained animals pathetic and so difficult to morally respect. On Abbate's account, dignity violations "essentially amount to some form of disrespectful treatment" of an individual's inherent value (Abbate, 2020, pp. 771, 776). She draws on Jeremy Waldron's notion of dignity as a "status" in society (Abbate, 2020, p. 772). Unlike inherent value, dignity as a kind of social standing can be affected for good or ill depending on how we treat and relate to those individuals.1 Abbate suggests that disrespectful treatment or ways of viewing humans and animals constitute dignitary wrongs and harms. Such behaviors may cast intrinsically valuable others as objects, instruments, or tools (Abbate, 2020, p. 777). Some forms of disrespect occur simply from, say, inflicting, or attempting but failing to inflict, unnecessary suffering (Abbate, 2020, pp. 777–778). Others are instead culturally created—an example of this disrespect would be if people were to assign a mere number rather than a name to children (Abbate, 2020, p. 779). Our cultures can help determine various treatment as profoundly expressive of disrespect for others' worth, even when the treatment is not otherwise harmful. Abbate claims that dignitary wrongs and harms differ from "ordinary" wrongs and harms since the former do not themselves damage "experiential" welfare by, say, causing suffering or preventing satisfaction (Abbate, 2020, p. 772). Indeed, Abbate's dignitary wrongs and harms can occur in the absence of any ordinary harm—non-experiential welfare harms included2 (Abbate, 2020, p. 776). Dignitary harms follow from dignitary violations. For example, a dignitary harm can result from contemptuously mocking an oblivious animal without this causing any ordinary ill effects for them. Bringing these features together: dignity on the social account concerns behavior toward individuals that socially promotes or expresses insufficient recognition of an individual's intrinsic moral worth (however "worth" is understood). These behaviors are disrespectful ways of wronging and (perhaps) thereby harming valuable individuals, even when they are not at risk of suffering any natural harms. The disrespect can stem from cultural ways of marking an animal's inherent moral worth, from showing contempt, and perhaps from other behaviors with social overtones.3 Like the social conception, a sui generis understanding of dignity relates to apparently distinctive—but often ignored—ways animals are treated. Neither the sui generis nor the social understanding reduces dignity to natural features, such as wellbeing and autonomy, or to moral properties, such as intrinsic worth. Instead, both conceptions link dignity to certain important human behaviors toward individuals. However, although sui generis dignity is relational, it is arguably not reducible to the social form of dignity. I shall suggest that when we reflect on certain telling experiences or descriptions of animal treatment, it does not always seem possible to explain—or to fully explain—those phenomena by means of the social account. Nonetheless, I shall also suggest that a sui generis kind of dignity can sometimes complement and deepen the social conception. In outlining an understanding of dignity irreducible to other moral concepts and to the social account of dignity, it will help to focus on several telling examples. These examples relate to experiences in which people have felt compelled to employ the term "dignity" and related moral terms such as "degrade," "defile," "demean," and "dishonor." For convenience, I shall call these terms d-terms. These d-terms are part of what I call "dignity language." The approach here tracks Kaufmann et al.'s (2011, p. 24:2) suggestion that conceptual investigation of dignity profits from starting not with abstract ethical conceptions (e.g., of inherent worth) but with examples of dignity violations, such as the degradations, defilements, and humiliations that strike us as morally compelling phenomena (see also Luban, 2009; Margalit, 1998). sport brightly-colored clown collars…In their paws they clutch balloons, on a string…It makes me feel sorry, embarrassed for the bear…stripped of its natural nakedness, and dressed up like a clown. To be looked at and laughed at and photographed for tourists. I think of the bear as defiled, and the photographer as pimp (Cataldi, 2002, p. 106). Cataldi's choice of the term "defiled" to describe her morally unsettling experience is noteworthy. For Cataldi, rejecting such language or substituting it with ideas of physical cruelty or diminished flourishing, would obscure rather than clarify the full nature of the assault on those bears. The violation here thus appears to be "non-natural." It would be simpler to cart the bags to the incinerator immediately after the [killing] session and leave them there for the incinerator crew to dispose of. But that would mean leaving them on the dump with the rest of the weekend's scourings…He is not prepared to inflict such dishonour on them (Coetzee, 1999, p. 144). Coetzee suggests that dishonoring the corpses5 by leaving them amongst the rubbish or beating them is not just distressing for Lurie, but wrong and bad for the dead dogs, even though they experience nothing and suffer no natural harms. This parallels a conviction many (most?) people have that dead humans can be wronged and even harmed when their bodies are "desecrated." The next example concerns not post-mortem indignity, but putative indignity in the act of killing. Cat shovel case: Philosopher Raimond Gaita tells a story of his cat Tosca being mortally wounded by his dog at his home. Witnessing the cat's terrible suffering, Gaita considers "putting her out of her misery" (Gaita, 2016, p. 94) by hitting her on the head with a near-to-hand shovel, but Tosca disappears. Later, he comes to realize with some shock that to kill her like that, though painless and merciful, would have dishonored her. Gaita explicitly connects such dishonoring with the idea of assaulting animal dignity (Gaita, 2016, p. 35). For Gaita, dignity does not concern natural welfare, inherent worth, or various familiar animal rights (e.g., the right to life or to kind treatment). The wrong that would have been done to Tosca by striking her with a shovel was not about ending her life or hurting her. In fact, Gaita believed that ending her life and her suffering (perhaps by taking her to a veterinarian for euthanasia by lethal injection) was morally right. Nonetheless, he believed that killing her with a shovel would have dishonored her and thus offended her dignity.6 Baboon ridicule case: Philosopher Cora Diamond relates a scene7 in which a worker at a Head Injury Lab poses with a baboon "who has massive cranial hemispherical sutures." The lab staff "laugh at the animal, whom they tease as having the 'punk' look" (Diamond, 2001, p. 148, fn 41). Diamond suggests that "moral disgust" at the baboon's treatment "may be compared with the response of the Dayaks in Borneo to ridiculing or humiliating an animal, to dressing it (for example) in human clothes 'in parody of humanity'." For the Dayaks, "this is a great crime, on the level of incest" (Diamond, 2001, p. 137). Diamond might well say that the treatment demeans or degrades the baboon and thereby wrongs her. Essential to Diamond's point is that the baboon is a genuine victim: she is harmed by the ridicule even though she lacks desires about not being humiliated and is not violated or harmed in any "naturalistic sense" (Diamond, 2001, p. 137). Damage to, say, the baboon's natural capabilities, or to her ability to flourish according to her telos (Schultz-Bergin, 2017, p. 844), is not to Diamond's point.8 The above examples highlight uses of our "d-terms," that is, defiling, degrading, demeaning, and dishonoring treatment. They also highlight a concern about dignity, understood via these terms, that differs from concern focused on, say, inherent worth or rights, or "natural" properties like suffering, flourishing, and autonomy. Although one may choose to interpret the moral import of these examples as being underpinned by these notions,9 some of the above authors carefully distinguish these moral phenomena from the more familiar ethical categories. Indeed, they relate those scenes precisely because they believe they reveal something morally distinctive or unique. This is the case even if various naturalistic features may be related to important ethical aspects of such treatment (more on this later) and even if significant natural harms often accompany dignitary assaults. A final point about these examples. Will Kymlicka (2018, p. 770) suggests that some people find dignity an "awkward or term for animals. These however, an some people feel that "dignity is necessary to describe both the moral nature and of some forms of treatment. that "dignity" and our may be to moral in a range of it seems examining what they might about the possible of dignity. have some that not of dignity language are reducible to various familiar morally important we shall consider some further In this I will also consider for that relational of dignity our d-terms not be always or fully by the social account. could be an important about the of dignity. I shall introduce this discussion with human examples. with the social account, a sui generis understanding of dignity to both humans and animals. on an important by and her as her In who to most of on her out of the an and the to the a and Will a out on the and it would be to on They and point at the as they and laughing at as they The who has a a with to her and only that she does not what to her after since she will no and cannot be She tells a me out with the from and are so will even that I have be the way society dead bodies is and and but by her one at the a of rubbish he has been meaning to dispose of. might we morally the above In the we might think that wrongs by their and causing her to suffer out of might perhaps also say that as a mere means to her own and without to autonomy or inherent worth. It seems however, that we would describe as or those terms, we may well think that such a could be with other moral such as as mere autonomy, or moral worth, and so Thus, the example does not appear to be a good example of dignity understood as or treatment. In with that we may feel that our are not only but also to a full of the behavior in the and To be we might also say that the is treated and in ways that damage his autonomy he he could have to being on the Nonetheless, many people would say that this is also or by his treatment. Furthermore, at some people will feel that the dead is by being on the rubbish suffering no natural harm and no violation of her autonomy was treated according to her thus have a for that dignity language the form of our is both and necessary to fully understanding the moral in the that is so, it seems that though perhaps for the example, is for the and examples. would the social account say account dignity to various familiar moral ideas and that the treatment of the and the are distinctive dignitary violations dignitary harms those individuals. The social account that kind of violation in terms of the social or of disrespect for their intrinsic moral worth. For example, the beha

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