Interdisciplinary Lectures on Animal Rights 2006

 

During the summer term of 2006, a series of weekly talks and discussions on the field of animal rights/animal protection/animal ethics was held at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. This series was organised by the Interdisciplinary Study Group on Animal Rights (Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgruppe Tierethik, IAT), a group of students of the University of Heidelberg whose aim is to present a wide spectrum of opinions and disciplines and thereby enhance a discussion both inside and outside universities on a topic which has so far largely been ignoredin Germany.

26th of April:

Following on from the opening speech by the chairman of the society, Rainer Ebert, on the history of animal ethics which was entitled "What is the moral status of non-human animals?", the series of lectures was started by Dr. Markus Wild giving a talk on the topic "Animals in humanities and natural sciences". Wild is a philosopher at the Humboldt Universität Berlin and -- together with Prof. Dominik Perler -- editor of the collection of essays "Der Geist der Tiere -- Philosophische Texte zu einer aktuellen Diskussion" (publisher: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005). In his talk, he gave different examples on the way humans talk about animals, and he described different approaches on the separation between humans and animals: whereas differentialism describes animals as unconscious beings to be fundamentally different from humans, assimilationism does not assume that there are significant differences. In the gradualistic "sequence of steps", animals are assigned a lower position than humans whereas the metamorphistic point of view stresses the inherent and intimate kinship between humans and animals. Finally, the scepticistic belief of being unable to have secure knowledge assumes that understanding animals is impossible. According to Wild, these views are recurrent in all areas of the humanities and the natural sciences. More recent studies on monkeys, dolphins and crows however seem to challenge the differentialistic approach by a more assimilationistic point of view. In contrast to this, several studies in the humanities try to maintain a scepticistic approach and stress that animals are alien to us. According to Wild, if we want to have an undistorted approach towards animals, we must not try to make a compromise between these two positions. Instead, we need to have both of them in mind. The way of thinking about animals found in the natural sciences has to face the challenge of both trying to make sense out of the behaviour of animals whilst being aware of the fact that its interpretation can be flawed. In Wild's opinion, a critical anthropomorphism should be the best course of action.

3rd of May: Würbel
The second lecture was given by Prof. Hanno Würbel, holder of the chair on animal protection and ethology of the Justus-Liebig-Universität in Gießen. In his talk, he presented the biological foundations of animal protection. According to Würbel, pain and pleasure are both subjective feelings of an animal and can therefore only be treated scientifically by resorting to analogies and suitable indicators. By analogy to humans, an animal experiences pain if it (a) is in a situation which is analogous to a situation in which a human would experience pain (b) displays reactions which are analogous to those of humans in a comparable situation (c) has a central nervous system which is homologous (similar in structure and evolutionarily related to) those of humans.
In this approach, humans become models for animals by trying to find physiological reactions in humans in the context of situations where humans experience suffering (fear, pain, ...) which can be extended to animals. Using this method, it is possible to demonstrate the existence of suffering (even though it is not possible to attach a quantitative measure to it). It should be noted, though, that our approach does not provide a description of suffering in animals which are not close relatives to us in an evolutionary sense and whose nervous system is therefore fundamentally different from ours.

10th of May: Rheinz
Dr. Hanna Rheinz, a psychologist, cultural scientist, journalist, lecturer and founder of the "Initiative JŸdischer Tierschutz" (Initiative Jewish Animal Protection), gave a talk entitled "Kabbala of the Animals: Animal Rights in Jewish Culture and why they are Collectively Rejected until now" which provided an overview of Jewish animal ethics.
Following on from giving a background on a "Kabbala of the animals" which is yet to be fully developed, Rheinz gave an overview of the basics of the probably oldest animal protection and animal rights ethics in the world. It is based upon animals having a soul and all life being sacred. Furthermore, Rheinz discussed killing animals as well as the lack of consideration of the Jewish approach towards animals rights within the framework of a "judaeo-christian way of seeing the world" and the modern animal protection and animal rights movement. Up to now, the radical way of dealing with animal rights from a Jewish point of view has been both denied and neglected according to Rheinz, which is a consequence of a collective rejection of this topic. In her opinion, this rejection will have a major impact on assessing the history of the prosecution of humans and animals in past, present and future.

17th of May: Kaplan
The philosopher Dr. Helmut F. Kaplan gave a talk on the topic "Animal liberation -- Crimes or consequent ethics?". Following on from historical comparisons, Kaplan tried to assess the moral status of animal liberation by postulating a continuity of approach starting from the liberation of the slaves, the american civil rights movement, gender equality issues and finally animal liberation movements. He suggested that historically, common features of periods of social change have always been social disagreement and legal uncertainties on the point in discussion. As an example, he gave the case of the ship "La Amistad": After a mutiny in 1839 in which the slaves aboard the slave ship overthrew their masters, they were being charged for murder and they leader were threatened to be executed. However, opponents of slavery succeeded in getting the slaves acquitted of their crimes. Kaplan suggests that -- in particular concerning animal rights -- that it is necessary to anticipate and to be the avantgarde of a mindset to come if that new mindset is ever to become reality.

24th of May: Regan
One of the climaxes of the series of lectures was the talk "Animal Rights: An Introduction" by Prof. Dr. Tom Regan which was based on his book "Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights" (Rowman and Littlefield 2004). He is an emeritus professor of philosophy of the North Carolina State University and is the founder of the animal rights philosophy and as such is still highly influential on the animal rights movement.
In his talk, he started off by discussing cat slaughtering in China which led on to showing that most humans have a clear distinction between pets and livestock. Animal rights advocates on the other hand do not restrict their empathy and their respect only to pets but in contrast extend it to those animals which are commonly used to provide food, clothes and the like. Not all animal rights advocates arrive at this mindset in the same way, though. Regan classified them in three different categories: "DaVincians", "Damascans" and "Muddlers". Whereas DaVincians have - like Leonardo da Vinci - always felt a deep empathy with animals, Damascans had an experience which suddenly changed their approach to animals just as it happened to Saul when he encountered Jesus on the way to Damascus, which led to him becoming Paul. However, according to Regan, the majority of animal rights advocates are Muddlers: They form their opinion on animal rights step by step and gather more and more pieces of information, proofs and reasonings.
With the "Muddlers" as his target audience, Tom Regon went on to lay out his animal rights philosophy.

31st of May: Wenz

The philosopher and environmental ethics expert Prof. Dr Peter S. Wenz from Illinois gave a talk on the topic "Animal Rights in Social Context".
After giving a short introduction to the reasons for protecting animals from human exploitation and after giving and overview of Regan's and Cohen's opinions on animal rights, Wenz went on to stress the relationship between an appropriate level of protection and its social context. Wenz gave as an example the use of animals in medical research and used it as an argument against the belief that protecting animals is detrimental to the benefit of humans. Animal testings do not provide reliable results on the impact of the materials tested on humans as a success in animal testing might mean disastrous results when used on humans and vice-versa. In the end, the first human on which the substance or the method is used is the first "guined pig", whether there have been animal testings or not. According to Wenz's environmental synergism, the overall result for both humans and animals is improved if one respects both of them. The theory of the hedonic paradox provides that an agent will only profit from her actions if she is only interested in the topic in discussion. Therefore, humans profit if they have a high esteem of nature, including animals.

7th of June: Engel
Prof. Dr. Mylan Engel Jr. has been teaching at the Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and is since 2002 Executive Secretary of the "Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals". In his talk "Do Animals Have Rights, and Does It Matter If They Don't?", he discusses the subject of animal rights within animal ethics. In his opinion, the fixation upon rights leads to the assumption that an ethical treatment of animals only depends on whether animals have rights or not. This would then imply that if animals have indeed rights (as claimed by Tom Regan and Joel Feinberg), most things we do with animals are wrong, whereas if animals don't have rights (as claimed by Carl Cohen and Alan White), most of what we do to animals will not lead to any worthwhile debates.
In order to find out why this assumption and its conclusion are wrong, Engel described the current state of the animal rights debate and concluded from it what follows with respect to the ethical treatment of animals if the school of thought of animal rights philosophy and of the philosophy of rights in general is thought to be invalid. Following on from this, he layed out and defended two hypotheses:
(1) Discussing animal rights is as important as discussing human rights
(2) Even if we believe that the concept of animal rights is wrong, there are still compelling reasons for believing that most of what we do to animals nowadays is fundamentally wrong.

14th of June: Goetschel
Dr. Antoine F. Goetschel, executive director of the "Stiftung fŸr das Tier im Recht" (Foundation for the Animal in Law) and lawyer in Zurich, gave a talk on the topic "Animals in Law -- Demands for a Legislative Policy".
According to Goetschel, animals are only inappropriately protected by the laws. In her opinion, national and international animal protection laws lack -- apart from being dominated by economically motivated too narrow restrictions -- the structures necessary for enforcing them. Within civil law (e.g. animals in divorces, the law governing found animals, rental law, ...) there is much need for a modernisation of the treatment of animals. In her talk, Goetschel focused on deficiencies (mainly in the laws within the German speaking area) in the legal treatment of animals and which demands could be (un)realistically made for a change of these issues. She compared the current situation to the situation in Switzerland where her foundation played a crucial role in improving the situation of animals. For example, in Swiss law, animals are no longer treated as things, there has been an amendment to the Swiss federal consitution which now includes the "dignity of the creature", and the first lawyer with a focus on protecting animals in penal cases has started working in the canton of Zurich. Additionally, the foundation provides the most comprehensive library on animals in law within the German speaking area, a database which contains all known Swiss animal protection penal cases, and it supports scientific study within the area of animal protection law/animals within law.

21st of June: Luy
Prof. Dr. Jšrg Luy, philosopher and veterinarian with a special focus on animal protection, who has been an assistant professor on animal protection and ethics within the faculty of veterinary medicine at the Free University of Berlin since 2004, gave a talk on the topic "Animal rights -- Ethical foundations and their reality from the perspective of a public health veterinarian". He went on to investigate the different meanings of the term "animal rights" by applying a bottom-up and a top-down approach. In the bottom-up approach, he reconstructed and discussed the different ethical lines of argument whereas in the top-down approach, he described the different deficiencies arising in the practice of a public health veterinarian. He argued from the position of a pathocentric ethics and stressed the need for providing sound scientific evidence for the different animal ethics positions and for having them ancored in policies and in law.

28th of June: von Loeper
The lawyer Dr. Eisenhart von Loeper, a member and longtime president of "Menschen fŸr Tierrechte" (Humans for Animal Rights) and "Juristen fŸr Tierrechte" (Lawyers for Animal Rights), gave a talk on "Animal Rights -- Its dynamics and conflicts arising in practice".
In the first part of his talk, which provided the foundation for the following parts, he discussed the relationship between human and animal rights, their concrete meanings and the dynamics of the movement which he himself was part of which led to the inclusion of animal protection in the German federal constitution. Eisenhart von Loeper then went on to focus on currently blocked areas of policy, in particular on the lacking possibility of having associate bodies sue people violating animal protection laws ("Verbandsklage").
In the second part of his talk, he went on to emphasize the cruelty which people exert on animals and what we can do against it. He discussed five current legal and political issues dealing with animal rights and animal protection: the hen-ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1999, the lack of interest and of prosecution despite well-founded suspicions on breaching the law against keeping livestock in extremely poor conditions and against force-feeding them in the particular case of chicken, the ruling of the State Supreme Court in Hamm against keeping monkeys in darkness whilst doing experiments on them (Covance case), the ruling of the Administrative Court of Justice at Mannheim on the bann of feeding pigeons and the legality of Halal butchering of animals despite the inclusion of animal protection in the German constitution.

5th of July: Remele

Prof. Dr. Kurt Remele, lecturer on ethics and Christian social science at the roman catholic faculty of theology at the Karl-Franzens-UniversitŠt Graz gave a talk on "Between Apathy and Empathy. Religious teaching from an animal ethics perspective".
"Since twothousand years, Christianity prides itself of getting rid of animal sacrifices. Yet, it has sacrificed more animals than any other religion -- not to its God, but to its stomach." This quotation by Karlheinz Deschner summarizes Remeles lecture: the Christian churches cannot be examples of animal protection and animal rights. In particular the increase in the consumption of meat on Christian holidays and festivities and the corresponding increase in animal suffering have so far not been noticed by theological ethics. However, according to Remele, more and more opinions are heard which call for a more animal-friendly version of Christianity, with a rejection of exploitation and apathy and with an emphasis on compassion and respect towards animals.
In this context, Remele pointed out what monotheistic religions and the cultures which have been formed by them (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) can learn from religions such as Buddhism and Jainism with respect to non-human animals.

12th ofn July: Animal experiments
Led by the philosopher Prof. Dr. Dieter Birnbacher from the University of DŸsseldorf, a public debate was held on the topic "Animal testing: Is it scientific, is it necessary and is it ethically appropriate?".
Participants in this discussion were Prof. Dr. Axel Bauer who works on the ethics of medicine, Silke Bitz (biologist and expert working for "Humans for Animal Rights"), PD Dr. G‡bor Szabo (head of the department for experimental heart surgery at the University of Heidelberg) and Prof. Dr. Ursula Wolf (philosopher at the University of Mannheim).
Following on from talks which gave a broader background, this discussion provided the opportunity of debating animal ethics and scientific issues on a concrete example. From an ethical and philosophical perspective, it was discussed whether animal testings can be justified regardless of its yield and regardless of the degree of suffering imposed, whether animal suffering can be weighed up against the benefit to humans gained and how animal testings are to be assessed with a view towards the close relationship between the animal and the human psyche which underlies psychological and neurological experiments.
Also, more immediate applications of the ethical considerations mentioned in Sec. 7 Subsection 3 of the German animal protection law were discussed. From a medico-natural scientific perspective, the benefit, but also the possible damage caused to humans by animal testings were discussed. Additionally, the possibilities and the limits of modern methods designed to substitute animal testing and potential future developments thereof were discussed.

19th of July: Corbey
Prof. Dr. Raymond Corbey is lecturer for epistemology and anthropology at the archaeological institute of the University of Leiden and also teaches at the philosophical institute of the University of Tilburg. In his most recent book, "The metaphysics of apes: Negotiating the animal-human boundary" (Cambridge University Press 2005), which also lent its title to the lecture, he deals with the taboos and challenges of the human-animal boundary in a historical perspective.
Apart from a progressing modernisation and secularisation and the growing influence of the natural sciences, a crucial factor which led to the profound change in the northatlantic way of seeing the world was the discovery and the study of the apes and the early apelike hominides. Finally, it was no longer theology with its creation story which gave humanity its position within nature but the development of evolution. These newly discovered creatures, similar to humans but yet animals, turned out to be our closest relatives and therefore threatened traditional and well loved beliefs of human God-likeness and uniqueness. Nevertheless, the sacrosanct boundary between humans and animals which determined who could be owned, who could be killed, who could be eaten was not given up but redrawn. The exclusively human area was vigorously defended and again and again redefined. Corbey describes the involuntary withdrawal from former beliefs of human uniqueness which have been challenged over and over again by debates on apes.

19th of July: Politics
The discussion "Animal rights in politics" was led by Prof. Dr. Peter McLaughlin, executive director of the philosophical seminar of the University of Heidelberg. Participants were Lothar Binding MP (social democrats), Eva Bulling-Schroeter MP ("Die Linke/PDS" - socialist party), Hans-Michael Goldmann MP (free democrats) and Dr. Peter Jahr (conservatives) and also the member of the regional parliament Renate RastŠtter (greens).
The discussion followed on from a series of lectures which gave a very incongruent image on the current state of the discussion on animal rights. It seemed like a consensus among scientists was not within reach. Neither is there agreement on whether animals do have individual rights, nor is there consensus among those who agree that animals do have rights to the degree on which species have these rights and how these could be enforced.

A different picture emerges if one focuses on national and international politics instead. So far, not a single state grants individual rights to animals as it does to persons and corporate bodies. However, the ways humans are to treat animals has been regulated in many countries. An example of this is the German animal protection law which states in its first section "The purpose of this law is to protect the life and the wellbeing of the animals as a fellow creature following on from the responsibility of the humans. Nobody may cause harm, suffering and damage to an animal without good reason." However, as one might expect, there is substantial disagreement on what constitutes "good reason" and how animal suffering is to be assessed. Also, the more recent inclusion of animal protection in the German constitution -- which was one of the topics of the discussion -- did not provide for more clarity. In answering these questions, it is common practice to resort to scientific experts which then act as referees to politicians by providing references for use in policy making. In the discussion, this practice was discussed itself. Which contribution can politicians make towards the academic discussion of animal rights? Should it be compulsory, is it highly desirable or is it necessary at all for a politician to be aware of theoretical approaches towards animal rights within the humanities and the natural sciences?

26th of July: Cohen
The lecture "Why Animals Do Not Have Rights" was given by Prof. Dr. Carl Cohen, lecturer for philsophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who is together with Prof. Dr. Tom Regan author of the book "The Animal Rights Debate" (Rowman and Littlefield 2001).
He started his talk by analysing the concept of rights and the relationship between rights and duties. This relationship is according to Cohen not reciprocal as is often claimed. Even though it is certainly true that we have many important duties towards animals, this does not mean that these duties result in the animals carrying rights. According to Cohen, these duties are a crucial part of human society but are not part of the animal kingdom. Cohen describes only humans as the bearer of rights as it only them who have an idea of morality and who are therefore able to perform duties. Also, he accords humans who do not have an idea of morality rights as they are part of a species whose common trait is morality and whose morality only depends on the character of the species and not on those of the individual.

19th ot October: Drewermann
As our last speaker, we for fortunate to have the world renowned theologist, psychotherapist and author Dr. Eugen Drewermann.
In his lecture "'How is now with thy animals, say' -- On the necessity of a new ethics", Drewermann stressed that the main reason of the progressing destruction of nature is the anthropocentricity of the Christian way of seeing the world in which the whole world was created to serve humanity. This self-image of the human species on Earth sees itself as being on a divine quest, and even the idea of responsibility means with respect to humans only the defense of the human specio-egoism against all other lifeforms. What we are currently doing can be described as a paralysis by the motor of the evolution. This all occurs despite of knowledge that since 1859, which was when Darwin published "The Origin of Species", we know that humans are but a wave in the ocean of life, and that we should use this knowledge for a new ethics and a new wisdom in which the change perspective on the world is used for the protection of plants and animals instead of eradicating them. However, it is not only an unwillingness of ecclesiastical authorities to think in new ways but also the "laws" of a market which is free to turn into capital everything that lives, that is, to turn into the deadest of the dead, i.e. into money.

NB:
In this report, for simplicity, we used the word "animals" for "nonhuman animals". It should not be understood as a token of low esteem.