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Monday, May 13, 2019

Emoting over animal pain

A Catholic reader of this blog is deeply troubled by the problem of animal suffering. He reports his painful recollection of a YouTube video that depicts

. . . the killing of a baby elephant by 13 lions. They first attacked the little elephant in the open, but he was saved when several water buffalo intervened and drove the lions off. The baby then ran to two large bull elephants nearby, but rather than protecting him from the lions, they were indifferent. The lions, seeing this, rushed the baby, which helplessly ran off into the bush, where the lions, 13 in all, caught him, and began to devour him. You probably know that because of an elephant’s trunk, a lion’s bite to the neck does not kill, so I assume that the baby was eaten alive.

I find the thought of this killing and the myriad other killings like it very hard to accept. How does a theist explain such acts in nature? I know something of the various theodicies and defenses of theistic philosophers, but when confronted with this scene of terror and horrendous death, I find them all unconvincing. Something in the depths of my being rejects them all as over-sophisticated attempts to mask what is truly terrible so as to defend at all costs the first of Hume’s four options, that of a perfectly good first cause. I am not saying that I am abandoning my theistic beliefs, but I think that for too long, theists have not taken the matter of animal pain and suffering seriously enough.

Leaving philosophic theism aside, there is glaring indifference to this matter in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, where the fixation on humanity’s fall, faults, and need for salvation. Without denying whatever truth may be found in this long theological reflection on human misery, what of the animals, those here millions of years before man walked on the earth, and all those who have shared and do share the earth with him? 


i) I've often written about the so-called problem of animal suffering, so I won't repeat that here. Instead, I'll say some new things in addition to what I've said in the past.

ii) Some issues are artificially important. They're not intrinsically important, but they become important because some people make them more important than they are. 

iii) For most of their history, Christians and Jews have been overwhelmed by human death and suffering all around them. It's only in the age of affluence and modern medicine that that's retreated to some degree. At a time and place when many children were orphaned by disease and war, when many children who slept together with their siblings watched their young brothers and sisters buried due to death from famine or childhood illness, it would be morally obscene to fret over animal suffering. That's a luxury for spoiled people who don't have more serious and immediate evils to lament. 

iv) It's not coincidental that he cites the example of a mammal. He doesn't talk about fish eating other fish, or a bird eating an earthworm, or a hawk eating a snake, or snakes consuming other snakes, or adult crocodiles gobbling up young crocodiles. That shows you how subjective the reaction is. Like a lot of guys, I find certain reptiles impressive. I have a morbid fascination with crocodiles, Komodo dragons, anacondas, reticulating pythons, and venomous snakes. However, I have no affection for reptiles. I suspect that's because I'm too mammalian to have affection for reptiles. 

v) Most wild animals aren't nice. A few year ago there was a nature show about meerkats. They're cute and fun to watch. But they're not nice animals. They stage vicious raiding parties on rival meerkat communities. Otters are cute. They can be fun to watch. But they belong to these same family as wolverines, and otters have a vicious streak. 

vi) Apropos (v), some animals are evidently intelligent. Animal intelligence ranges along a continuum. I think it's fair to say there's such a thing as animal minds, at least among some higher animals. But if we could get inside an animal mind, we might well find that animal minds are quite alien to us. Many animals may well have minds like a psychopathic serial killer. There are science fiction movies about getting inside the mind of a psychopath. 

Suppose Ted Bundy picked the wrong coed. Suppose she had a couple of Dobermans who mauled him to death. Normally, it would be horrific to witness someone mauled to death by dogs. If, however, that was Ted Bundy, I wouldn't shed a tear. 

vi) It's striking that some animals seek out what appears to be painful behavior. Take a cat fight. To a human observer, that looks excruciating. Perhaps it is. But if it's that excruciating, shouldn't we expect the pain to be a deterrent to cat fights? Why do cats initiate fights if it's that painful? Maybe it's not as painful as it looks to us, from our human frame of reference.  

12 comments:

  1. I remember seeing a video of an otter killing a turtle by flipping it on its back and holding it underwater until it drowned. They're not so cute!

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    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB9ZDFUtteE

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  2. Good points!

    I suspect many other cultures (past and present) don't exactly share Vallicella's qualms about an elephant eaten by lions.

    1. For example:

    Elephants are not only being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas, but farmers plant crops that elephants like to eat. As a result, elephants frequently raid and destroy crops. They can be very dangerous too.

    While many people in the West regard elephants with affection and admiration, the animals often inspire fear and anger in those who share their land.

    Elephants eat up to 450kg of food per day. They are messy eaters, uprooting and scattering as much as is eaten. A single elephant makes light work of a hectare of crops in a very short time.

    Small farmers - often desperately poor and already economically and nutritionally vulnerable, forced by circumstances to encroach into elephant habitat - can lose their entire livelihood overnight from an elephant raid.

    Large agriculture is also affected. In the largest palm oil producing province in Indonesia, Riau, losses due to elephant damage of oil palm plantations and timber estates are estimated to be around US$105 million per year.

    People are also often injured and killed. In India, over 100 people are killed by elephants each year, and over 200 people have been killed in Kenya over the last 7 years.

    Elephants are often killed in retaliation. Wildlife authorities in Kenya shoot between 50 and 120 problem elephants each year and dozens of elephants are poisoned each year in oil palm plantations in Indonesia.

    2. Read: "The day my child was killed by an elephant".

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    1. Strictly speaking, Vallicella was quoting a Catholic friend, then using that as a launchpad for his own position.

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  3. --vi) Apropos (v), some animals are evidently intelligent. Animal intelligence ranges along a continuum. I think it's fair to say there's such a thing as animal minds, at least among some higher animals. But if we could get inside an animal mind, we might well find that animal minds are quite alien to us. Many animals may well have minds like a psychopathic serial killer. There are science fiction movies about getting inside the mind of a psychopath.--

    Dolphins are possibly the most intelligent animal.

    They can also be sinisterly evil.

    https://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2015/08/dolphins-facts.html

    After all, you can't be evil without intelligence - otherwise it's just mindless instinct.

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    1. "Dolphins are possibly the most intelligent animal."

      I hear dolphins are second only to mice, while mice are hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional creatures whose rodent aspect represents a three-dimensional projection of their actual form.

      In fairness, I appreciate dolphins replacing a destroyed Earth with a replacement Earth as part of their movement to "Save the Humans". ;)

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    2. So long, and thanks for all the fish...

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. --while mice are hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional creatures whose rodent aspect represents a three-dimensional projection of their actual form.--

      Clever-smart mice, you say-say? Stand-walk on hind legs and have huge underempire beneath feet of man-things?

      Myth-rumour! No such-such things. No empire of rat-men. No Horned Rat awaiting in the Warp for his glorious incarnation in the End Times.

      Go back to your work-chores before you are arrested for heresy, man-thing.

      https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Skaven

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    5. The Skaven would be fearsome if they weren't so incompetent! DOOMWHEEL! :)

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    6. "So long, and thanks for all the fish..."

      You know me too well! :)

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  4. Why, when people start to interpret animal phenomena in human terms, do they begin and end with pain? The potential is endless. What about racial justice, liberating the oppressed, ending colonialism and partriarchy, show trials and re-education camps for aggressors? There's no end to the fun that could result!

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