Animal rights, humanists and wishful thinking
Fluffy Bunny
Human beings are very good at believing things to be true just because they want them to be true. In some ways, this is a useful ability. For example, the belief that one will beat a normally deadly cancer is helpful if one is undergoing the painful chemotherapy required to give one any chance of survival at all. However, when it comes to our ability to discern the truth about the world, to assess evidence and argument according to the dictates of rational enquiry, our tendency to engage in wishful thinking is no help whatsoever.
Consider, for example, the part that it plays in the currently high profile debate over animal rights and vivisection. It is perfectly possible to object to animal experimentation on moral grounds: for example, one might hold that all life is sacred and that it should always be preserved. However, it is much more difficult to argue that animal experimentation is unnecessary because it has no scientific benefit. Colin Blakemore, one time head of the MRC (Medical Research Council), points out that:
Every drug, every form of advanced surgery, nearly every antibiotic, nearly every vaccine – the development of them all has at some stage involved animal testing… every pain killer; every treatment for heart disease, kidney disease and cancer; chemotherapy; radiotherapy; surgical techniques; bypass surgery; open heart surgery – you name it, animals were involved in the research.
Yet the line taken by many anti-vivisectionists is precisely that animal research has little, if any, medical benefit. For example, the section on “Bad Science” on the SPEAK web site is headed up with the claim that “Using primates kills people”. Further reading reveals that 70,000 people in England each year are killed or disabled by drugs that have been tested on animals.
It is easy enough to demolish this kind of argument: whilst it is true that whenever a drug is associated with a bad outcome, then animal testing will have been part of its development (because all drugs are tested on animals), it is also true: that we judge that the risks associated with powerful drugs are worth it; that we would be worse off in terms of deaths and injuries had there been no animal testing; and that we are overwhelmingly better off in general as a result of drugs that have been developed using vivisection.
Perhaps what is more interesting than the details of the (risible) arguments employed by anti-vivisectionists is the neat correspondence they set up between the wished-for and the real; that is, between the almost visceral desire for a world where there is no animal experimentation, and the claim that by happy coincidence our world does not reward animal experimentation. This kind of wishful thinking short-circuits the necessity to engage in messy and complicated arguments about morality and the relative value of human and animal life. It constitutes both intellectual and moral cowardice.
There is an interesting contrast here with the position of the vivisectionists. They too desire a world without animal experimentation, but recognise that it is not available unless we forego benefits to medical research. Here’s Blakemore again:
If there are alternatives [to animal research], let’s see them. We want them. I don’t know of a single person who uses animals in their research, who wouldn’t rather use an alternative.
It isn’t just anti-vivisectionists who engage in wishful thinking, of course. In fact, wishful thinking is ubiquitous, which is something we need to worry about if we are interested in finding out the truth about things. Consider, for example, that the recent history of the social sciences is replete with examples of an almost childish desire to reconstruct the world through the filter of political, ideological and moral commitments. Marxist theorists spent a large part of the twentieth century falling over each other trying to explain why revolution hadn’t occurred quite yet; sociologists, desperate to detach human behaviour from biology, spent their time jumping through hoops in order to explain away data that suggested that at least some human attributes and behaviour are inherited; and anthropologists, even today, in the name of resisting Western hegemony, happily grant epistemological privilege to local and situated “knowledges”.
Even people ostensibly committed to rational enquiry fall into the trap of wishful thinking. It ill behoves humanists, self-appointed defenders of reason par excellence, to sneer at the likes of Philip Gosse for supposing that the fossil record has been planted by God, whilst they remain committed to the view that it will be possible to reconcile the human-centred aspects of humanism with what science teaches us about the natural world and our place in it. The jury is still out on whether things such as free will, moral responsibility and the idea of human progress will survive the increases in knowledge that science brings. To suppose otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking. It might be more subtle than the kind engaged in by anti-vivisectionists or Philip Gosse style Biblical literalists, and perhaps it will be passed off as understandable optimism, but it no less wishful thinking for that. It is just another example of the way in which ideological, moral and political commitments tend to infect the judgements that we make about the world.
Category: Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology | Tags: animal rights, humanism, wishful thinking 21 comments »
March 25th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Banning wishful thinking would be like banning alcohol. It would make life intolerable. “Even the most valiant among us rarely has the courage to face what he really knows.” Nietzsche
March 25th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Sure, but there is moral virtue in the attempt.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:24 am
“they remain committed to the view that it will be possible to reconcile the human-centred aspects of humanism with what science teaches us about the natural world and our place in it”
Eh? I self-identify as a (secular) humanist, but I have no idea how the quoted statement relates to me. Could you expand on what the conflict is supposed to be?
March 25th, 2009 at 10:28 am
There surely is virtue, more in the root sense of the word than in the current sense, in looking things in the face. Even heroism, as Nietzsche suggests.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Owen
I’ve expanded on it here:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=27
If you’re interested, check out Kenan Malik’s reply (it’s in the B&W articles section, I think, and on his web site).
March 25th, 2009 at 10:39 am
By the way, let me add something to the list of wishful thoughts: we should ban torture because torture doesn’t work anyway. We should ban torture, but torture does work. I live in Chile, where torture was used very successfully by the Pinochet dictatorship to get information out of prisoners and hence, destroy opposition groups.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:40 am
That is indeed “expanded”! I’ll give it some thought, thanks.
March 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
First thing to say is that despite self-identifying as a humanist, I might not be a very “good” one. I’m not as optimistic about human nature as everyone else seems to be for one thing. I consider myself a scientifically minded, reasoning being first. The humanism part is several levels above my core assumptions. I choose the label because I identify with many of the standard humanist concepts, but I don’t think it _defines_ me, as such. That said:
“However, then the thought occurs, what happens if science suggests hypotheses that are unpalatable from a humanist perspective?”
Then you suck it up, and deal with it. I don’t see the problem. Malik may be a human-exceptionalist, but I don’t think you can hold him up as being all that representative. I’m not a human exceptionalist. My humanism is all about “no gods”, not “we’re special”. I don’t see the exceptionalism part as being _fundamental_ to humanism.
“that human beings are free, rational agents; that they are, in various ways, the source of morality; that human dignity and flourishing are important; and that there are significant common bonds between people, which unite them across biological, social and geographical boundaries”
I agree most humanists will have sympathy for most of those ideas[*], but I don’t see it follows that you have to be an exceptionalist to do so.
Also, there are exceptionalists in all walks. Anyone who things the mind is something distinct to the brain is surely an exceptionalist to some degree (no?). I don’t consider any particular philosophy flawed because a number of adherents are exceptionalists. But you’re arguing that humanism is _fundamentally_ broken because of this.
[*] And I love that way of defining a group. It nicely sidesteps the never-ending debates about exact definitions that are always going on somewhere. I’d been thinking along similar lines myself, since the last “atheist definition” war on talkingphilosophy, but you’ve put it nicely into words for me. I shall be stealing them as my own.
[Aside: Hmmm. I also don't think there's really such a thing as free will (in principle), and we're *far* from the rational animals we like to think we are (I was disabused of the latter notion after reading Cialdini's "Influence", amongst other things). I think that individuals are okay, but once these individuals form groups, the groups take on an identity all of its own, which is generally less okay. But I still associate with humanism. Maybe I should re-think that.]
March 27th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Hi Owen
Thanks for your comments. The point isn’t that human exceptionalism is necessarily required for the extra stuff a lot of humanists are keen on. It’s that we don’t yet know enough about the science of the brain, consciousness, etc., to rule out that possibility, there are good reasons to suppose that exceptionalism might be required, therefore, the rational stance is to be agnostic about this stuff. My argument is that a lot of humanists are not agnostic about it. It follows that they might end up being committed to human exceptionalism. This cannot be rationally justified.
This is interesting:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5047452/Scientists-identify-brain-region-that-helps-us-make-choices.html
March 27th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Amos
If torture works, then we should certainly use it in particular circumstances.
To borrow Ted Honderich’s example: Would you torture somebody if you had good reason to believe that you could prevent the torture of 1000 other people by doing so?
Yes, that’s what you should do (if torture works).
March 28th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Ticking bomb cases are not frequent, so I think that all torture should be banned, knowing that in the unlikely case of a ticking bomb, the police will use torture and that no one will bring charges against them. In 99.99% of the circumstances, torture, while effective, should not be used. It may sound very Machiavellian, but I count on the police to use torture if there is a ticking bomb and I count on the political and legal authorities not notice that torture was used.
March 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am
That’s my position too.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:23 am
(I’ve got two responses, but I can’t work out how to combine them nicely in one comment.)
“there are good reasons to suppose that exceptionalism might be required”
Not at the day-to-day level, surely? Let’s take free will. I’m reasonably aware of recent experiments that suggest the sense that we are in control of our decisions is just an illusion. For example, scans highlighting activity in specific brain areas prior to us being consciously aware of a decision being made, as in the link you provided.
I’m also of the opinion that we’re matter “all the way down”, and thus as subject to physical laws as anything else. Meaning that even were my sense-of-control NOT an illusion, I’d still be “just” the result of interacting particles; my feelings, sensations and behaviour are entirely deterministic, and not under my genuine control at all.
But I don’t see any of this as being relevant at the day-to-day level. I *feel* like I have free will. As illusions go, it’s very convincing. I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to behave as if I really do have free will, and treat others the same. I’m not dogmatically committed to that position — it’s purely pragmatic.
I would only need to invoke exceptionalism if I wanted to claim I really, literally do have free will, making me different to the rest of the universe. But that’s only interesting in an abstract, philosophical sense, and I’m more interested in living my actual, physical life.
It’s possible you might say, “yes, yes, that’s fine for you, but most humanists don’t see things that way”. To which I would reply, are you sure? Of course there will be exceptions, but I think most people who self-identify as humanist, if asked to read this thread, would agree with my version of their position rather than yours.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:24 am
(Response two.)
“It follows that they might end up being committed to human exceptionalism. This cannot be rationally justified.”
I can only explain this statement by assuming you’re looking at humanism the wrong way.
It’s not “humanist, therefore beliefs”, rather it’s “beliefs imply humanist”. If, on reflection, I see that certain commonly held positions, taken naively, imply something that is at odds with the physical world, I am at liberty to reconsider my beliefs accordingly. The core humanist beliefs (no-gods, people matter), don’t on their own imply exceptionalism, and holding those doesn’t pre-commit me to much else.
The big-H Humanist Manifesto reads a bit like a take-it-or-leave-it statement of beliefs. But this isn’t Catholicism.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:25 am
(Okay, *three* responses.)
“there are good reasons to suppose that exceptionalism might be required”
“[...] a lot of humanists are not agnostic about it”
“[...] they might end up being committed to human exceptionalism”
Or shorter: “might be required”, “a lot of humanists”, “might end up committed”.
That’s a reasonably-worded position to take, and one that I can happily discuss. But I contend it is at odds with:
“It ill behoves humanists, self-appointed defenders of reason par excellence, to sneer at the likes of Philip Gosse for supposing that the fossil record has been planted by God, whilst they remain committed to the view that it will be possible to reconcile the human-centred aspects of humanism with what science teaches us about the natural world and our place in it.”
[...]
“It is just another example of the way in which ideological, moral and political commitments tend to infect the judgements that we make about the world.”
That’s a much stronger position, and the tone is quite different. I don’t feel I can discuss that without getting all defensive about it. Oh, just like this, in fact…
(I won’t bother with another comment to disagree with “remain committed to the view”. This is probably enough.)
March 31st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Owen
I’m not convinced by your free will argument. But this is a complex matter about which I once intended to write (before inertia got the better of me!). Basically, my position is that we are only able to act as if we have free will because we don’t really believe that we don’t have free will (even if we think we believe we don’t have free will). I’ve come up with various thought experiments which – I think – demonstrate that point, but I’ve never written them down!
But, more concretely, there are absolutely circumstances where it matters a great deal that we don’t have free will. Specifically, whenever we have retributive thoughts, etc.
Also, I’m just not sure that it is rational to behave as if something you know isn’t true is true.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:39 am
What are we attempting to achieve?
The Sun is a finite power source. No function dependant on the presence of humanity can occur, without the existence of humanity. Thus, baring some presently non-demonstrable alternative form of intervention, humanity is currently life-on-Earth’s best (although slim I grant you) hope. If securing that position is dependant on the sacrifices of other life-forms, such submissions can only serve to improve the chance of continuation for all species.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
There’s always plenty of human exceptionalism to make do with in an emergency…Only humans wear Jimmy Choo shoes. Only humans play the zither. Only humans know how to make Derby pie. That ought to be enough.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:13 pm
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November 10th, 2009 at 11:59 am
so what do humanists belive about animal testing is it a good thing to them or is it a bad thing because what i have beeen told is that most humanists think that we are above animals an that sometimes if there is a chance of cureing humans from extremly bad illnesses that its ok to test on them . but is it really ??