Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Duty to nature?
Kant’s categorical imperative does not extend to animals, as he argues we have a duty to respect human autonomy because we are rational beings, and this is not true of other organisms.[1] “So far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.”[2]
Yet, Kant realized that Newtonian mechanics does not explain the natural world. Half a century before Darwin published The Origin of Species, Kant wrote: “Nature organizes itself.”[3] Every organism, he argued, is “both an organized and a self-organizing being, which therefore can be called a natural purpose.”[4] As things (such as machines) are organized, but not self-organizing, Kant reasoned that organisms are not things. Yet, he held, humans have direct duties only to each other, and only indirect duties with respect to nonhuman organisms and things.[5]
Gandhi’s argument for respecting all persons does not rely on their individual autonomy and rationality, but instead affirms the rationality manifested in karma. As the cycle of life, death, and rebirth offers an accounting of moral action over time that includes animals as well as humans, Hindus believe that we have a duty to respect all organisms. Therefore, Gandhi was a vegetarian and thought everyone should be.[6] “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress,” he wrote, “can be judged by the way its animals are treated."[7]
Gandhi’s argument for non-violence to animals is religious and rational. The Bhagavad Gita is read as a religious text, and Krishna is a Hindu god. Yet, Krishna’s injunction to Arjuna is more a rational argument than a divine command. Krishna urges Arjuna to have faith in karma, rather than in his own ability to foresee the future.
[1] This is the crux of the issue that distinguishes what are called anthropocentric ethical theories and biocentric (or ecocentric) ethical theories.
[2] Immanuel Kant, “Duties to Animals and Spirits,” in Lectures on Ethics, quoted in Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 175-176.
[3] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. W. S. Pluhar (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), in Evan Thompson, Mind in Life, 139.
[4] Ibid., 134.
[5] See “Lectures on Ethics,” Immanuel Kant, online at http://faculty.smu.edu/jkazez/animal%20rights/IMMANUEL%20KANT.htm.
[6] For a discussion of the sanctity of life in Hindu thought, see O. P. Dwivedi, “Satyagraha for Conservation: A Hindu View,” in J. Ronald Engel and Joan Gibb Engel, eds., Ethics of Environment (London: Bellhaven Press, 1990), in Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman, eds., Environmental Ethics, 310-318.
[7] Quoted at “How We Treat the Animals We Eat,” online at http://www.freewebs.com/foodguide/wfad.htm.
Yet, Kant realized that Newtonian mechanics does not explain the natural world. Half a century before Darwin published The Origin of Species, Kant wrote: “Nature organizes itself.”[3] Every organism, he argued, is “both an organized and a self-organizing being, which therefore can be called a natural purpose.”[4] As things (such as machines) are organized, but not self-organizing, Kant reasoned that organisms are not things. Yet, he held, humans have direct duties only to each other, and only indirect duties with respect to nonhuman organisms and things.[5]
Gandhi’s argument for respecting all persons does not rely on their individual autonomy and rationality, but instead affirms the rationality manifested in karma. As the cycle of life, death, and rebirth offers an accounting of moral action over time that includes animals as well as humans, Hindus believe that we have a duty to respect all organisms. Therefore, Gandhi was a vegetarian and thought everyone should be.[6] “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress,” he wrote, “can be judged by the way its animals are treated."[7]
Gandhi’s argument for non-violence to animals is religious and rational. The Bhagavad Gita is read as a religious text, and Krishna is a Hindu god. Yet, Krishna’s injunction to Arjuna is more a rational argument than a divine command. Krishna urges Arjuna to have faith in karma, rather than in his own ability to foresee the future.
[1] This is the crux of the issue that distinguishes what are called anthropocentric ethical theories and biocentric (or ecocentric) ethical theories.
[2] Immanuel Kant, “Duties to Animals and Spirits,” in Lectures on Ethics, quoted in Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 175-176.
[3] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. W. S. Pluhar (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), in Evan Thompson, Mind in Life, 139.
[4] Ibid., 134.
[5] See “Lectures on Ethics,” Immanuel Kant, online at http://faculty.smu.edu/jkazez/animal%20rights/IMMANUEL%20KANT.htm.
[6] For a discussion of the sanctity of life in Hindu thought, see O. P. Dwivedi, “Satyagraha for Conservation: A Hindu View,” in J. Ronald Engel and Joan Gibb Engel, eds., Ethics of Environment (London: Bellhaven Press, 1990), in Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman, eds., Environmental Ethics, 310-318.
[7] Quoted at “How We Treat the Animals We Eat,” online at http://www.freewebs.com/foodguide/wfad.htm.
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