The Place of Nonhumans in Environmental Issues

October 25, 2006

In the article "The Place of Nonhumans in Environmental Issues," Peter Singer discusses environmental issues in relation to nonhuman animals and compares the feelings of nonhuman animals to those of humans. Environmental issues include water and air pollution, converting natural habitats for human use, and general effects of human activities such as global warming. People change the environment for economic gain, but the changes harm humans and animals.

Singer claims that it is important to consider environmental issues in relation to nonhuman animals because it is now known that nonhuman animals have feelings. He says that it is proven that mammals and birds can feel pain and can suffer. He thinks that even vertebrate animals feel pain, because their nervous systems are similar to that of humans. Animals with such feelings have interests that humans must respect, just as people must respect other people because they can suffer and are conscious. 

One point that Singer makes is that eating mammals and birds must cause them pain and suffering. Therefore, people should not eat mammal or bird meat. Besides the pain and suffering done in killing meat animals (and in the threat of being killed), people use inhumane ways of raising, transporting, and slaughtering meat animals because they are cheaper. For instance, he states that four or five hens are cramped into a cage with a floor area equal to a single page of the New York Times newspaper. The floor is made of wire that makes it difficult for the hens to rest comfortably. He argues that inhumane treatment of animals is not morally defensible when people know that they can feel pain and suffering. People have a moral obligation not to inflict pain and suffering on any individual, including nonhuman animals.

Singer contends that equal consideration should be given to the suffering of both humans and nonhumans. Equal consideration "does not mean treating them alike or holding their lives to be of equal value." It means considering the interests of all individuals equally, not just the suffering of humans. If one or a group of individuals must suffer, the total effect must be considered before reaching a decision. For example, Singer explains that a decision might be made to save a human over a dog because the human plus his family and friends will suffer more than a lone dog. The decision must take into account the interests of the humans and the dog equally. According to Singer, most people sacrifice the interests of animals to satisfy their own interests because they do not give equal consideration to the suffering of nonhuman animals. Though it is difficult to measure pain and suffering, many cases are clear. He gives the example of wholesale poisoning. People use poisons, like "ten-eighty" and cyanide, on animal pests such as rabbits and coyotes that eat farm animals or produce because these poisons are cheap and effective. He agrees that sometimes there is a need for pest control, but he argues there are more humane ways to do stop animal pests. He says that people have not developed alternative means because they do not give equal consideration to both humans and nonhumans. 

Because nonhuman animals can suffer, Singer says that people should treat animals as individuals. According to Singer, people tend to categorize nonhumans as species, rather than individuals (except for their dogs cats, and domesticated birds). He calls this attitude speciesism. He points out that when most people worry about the future of blue whales, they do not think of them as individual blue whales but rather as a whole species that might become extinct. Singer claims the concept of speciesism is similar to the idea of racism. He argues that white slave owners denied consideration to the interests of individual blacks and treated them as interchangeable members of a group. Slave owners thought of slaves as nonhumans, just like most people think of nonhuman animals. Racism and speciesism are similar because people think of themselves as a superior species or race and others as lesser species. He states that slave owners thought that "the suffering of a black did not have the same moral significance as the suffering of a white." Similarly, most people today think that human suffering has more moral significance than nonhuman suffering. He thinks both racism and speciesism should be rejected for the same reasons. According to Singer, it is a clear case of speciesism when we sacrifice the interests of animals to satisfy our own interest. 

Because animals can suffer and are individuals and because people are now aware of these facts, Singer claims humans must give equal consideration to the effects of changes of the environment on both humans and nonhuman animals. Pollution, global warming, and conversion of habitats affect both humans and nonhuman animals. These activities result in short-term economic gain for people, but taking account of nonhuman animal suffering makes their bad effects more clearly outweigh the economic gains for humans. 

Also, animals are typically beneficial for people. Harming animals leads to bad effects on people. For example, people have cheaply put cadmium waste into bays, but now the shellfish are poisonous. Harming the shellfish led to a bad effect on people. 

I think Singer presented and supported his main points well throughout the article. Though I did not think much about the topics in this article before, I was persuaded to agree that mammals and birds can feel pain and suffering and that we should treat them as individuals rather than as an "other" group. 

It is also clear that, when people change the environment for economic gain, they harm both themselves and nonhuman animals. If animals are individuals, they suffer because of that. Loss of a species also can change an environment for the worse. In nature everything fits together, so it is good to take account of the interests of animals.

Most people think that cats and dogs have personality and can feel, so it is easy to agree that mammals can suffer and are different individuals. Knowing this, I think that we must give some consideration to the interests of mammals and perhaps birds. However, reptiles, amphibians, and fish are questionable. Singer says their nervous systems are similar to humans but that is only in their fundamental activities, not about higher things such as consciousness and suffering. People definitely have extra brain parts that nonmammals do not have and these are for language and thought. Mammals and birds have more brain power, but still lack structures and functions that people have.

The idea of speciesism was interesting. It is like us against them. People make "them" be all other life forms. People think of themselves as higher and better. They can think of other races like this, too. But I think that anyone can see that mammals and birds cannot speak, think, or do things that people can do, whereas other races can do those things. Racists only think that other races do them poorly compared to their race. So speciesism cannot be equated with racism. Also, most philosophies in the world have come to the conclusion that humans are the highest worldly beings, and this why most people do not give animals equal consideration with humans. Singer says that nonhuman animals are equal to us in suffering and pain, but suffering is hard to measure and most people are certain that humans feel much more than animals.

In my opinion, Singer does not prove that animals have equal interests with humans. He only uses commonsense to demonstrate that mammals and birds are capable of feeling pain. I think scientific studies on animal's capability of feeling pain actually indicate that they can feel pain, but that the pain they feel is not like our pain. They can withstand much stronger effects and seem to suffer less to the same hurt. 

I think that Singer was successful in convincing me that some consideration of nonhuman animal interests should be used when thinking about the environment and other things. He showed how to consider their interests in relation to people's interests in a fair and nonthreatening way. He does not challenge human interests nor demand that humans treat nonhumans as equal, only that morality requires us to consider nonhuman interests. 

However, Singer did not convince me to give up eating meat. He did make me realize that the meat industry is using inhumane practices and should change those methods. He did not show where people can get enough cheap substitute protein or how the meat industry workers and businesses can change over to a new life. Meat eating seems to be fundamental to human society. His intention to help animals is noble, but I don't think human society is ready for such a change. In my opinion, people would readily accept that they must pay more to improve the living and transporting of meat animals and to develop humane ways to process meat. But people will continue to eat more meat.

I think that the status of nonhuman animals as individuals will become clearer once people understand more about the brain and mind. Until then, Singer and others can only make speculations about how and what animals feel. After we learn more, people can make informed decisions about animal interests in relation to the environment and human interests. Meanwhile, we must rely on our feelings for animals. Singer has strong feelings, like they are all pets. I and most other people do not like animals that much and can think about the issue perhaps more broadly and with less passion.