From the Jesuit journal
The Month, February 1991:
David Oderberg describes the work of Basil Wrighton in the field
of 'animal liberation'. His approach was based on a recognition of
'rights', whereby we 'treat more of the individual and its nature, and
see its rights as insulating it from sacrifice for the benefit of
others'.
Organisations for the promotion of animal welfare have been with us
for more than a century - apparently a long time, but quite a short part
of the history of mankind's ethical development. Over the last twenty
years, however, we have seen the growing influence and activity of
bodies devoted not simply to animal welfare - after all, one can believe
in the absolute exploitability of animals and still be concerned for
their welfare during exploitation (witness the official bodies within
the meat industry or the scientific community, said to monitor the
welfare of their victims) - but to the cause of what has been dubbed,
following the title of Peter Singer's well-known book, 'animal
liberation'.
These latter organisations are devoted to upholding not pragmatic
principles but moral rules governing our conduct toward our nonhuman
fellows. These rules embody requirements of, variously, 'equal respect',
'equal consideration', 'non-discrimination against members of other
species', and the like. From such rules it follows that certain
practices, such as animal experimentation and meat-eating are, in
some measure, prohibited. Some groups are total abolitionists,
others make exceptions, and it is not difficult to conceive of hard
cases that test these moral rules to the limit of their acceptability.
On the whole, however, the modern animal liberation movement has had
a philosophical underpinning which is utilitarian in character, deriving
its support from Peter Singer's many writings on the subject.
(1) Such thinking sees only the existence of
suffering in itself as important, a quantity to be reduced (and
happiness, of some ill-defined sort, promoted). The principle of Double
Effect, a mainstay of moral theology, whereby the common-sense idea that
the ends do not justify the means is given a theoretical formulation, is
rejected. Hence, for example, if animals could be raised in happiness
and comfort, and slaughtered painlessly, there would be no principled
objection to eating them. (2) This
notion of the expendability of living beings for the 'greater good' is
the hallmark of utilitarianism, and has been generalised to cover,
interalia, comatose patients and infants (and adults) whose lives are
'not worth living'. (3)
All of this is pernicious stuff, bound up with a noble cause, that of
protecting our nonhuman fellow creatures. A way of nullifying such an
approach is provided by a recognition of rights, whereby we treat
more of the individual and its nature, and see its rights as insulating
it from sacrifice for the benefit of others. With respect to animals,
such has been the approach of Tom Regan. (4)
And for Catholics, such has been the approach of Basil Wrighton.
Basil Wrighton
Basil Wrighton was a parish priest who spent his life in
Staffordshire and Oxfordshire, retiring in 1976 to Hendred House, where
he was given a flat and use of the Eyston family's thirteenth-century
chapel in which he celebrated Holy Mass daily until his death in 1988,
at the age of eighty-eight. He had a working knowledge of fifteen to
twenty languages, was steeped in classical learning and wrote, over more
than half a century, scores of articles for many Catholic journals.
These include articles on Christian philosophy and theology, on
Kierkegaard, Newman, Eastern religion, modernism and its effects, and
many pieces on the rights of animals. In the 1940's he discovered the
Catholic Study Circle for Animal Welfare, still the leading organisation
in the Catholic animal rights movement, and began writing for their
splendid magazine The Ark around 1950. For many years he served
as the CSCAW's Chairman and later Emeritus Chairman. A shy and reclusive
man, he was regarded by all who knew him as saintly, and the sermons he
gave in Oxford were said by many to have been the most inspiring they
had ever heard.
The principle pieces on animal rights which Fr Wrighton wrote for
The Ark over a period of thirty-five years have recently been
collected and published as a single volume called Reason, Religion
and the Animals. (5) In it he
expresses his debt to the earlier work of Dom Ambrose Agius,
(6) and many of us are familiar with the
work of the Anglican theologian Andrew Linzey. But there is much to be
done by Catholic thinkers in systematising the philosophy of animal
rights or, more neutrally, of our moral obligation toward animals, in a
way which runs counter to the predominant utilitarian trend mentioned
above, and which provides theoretical recognition of a sphere of moral
concern that extends to all of God's creatures.
Let us look at Basil Wrighton's chief concerns, which no doubt will
constitute a reference-point for future thinkers on the subject.
In his 1950's piece ' The True Civilisation' he laments the
disappearance from the modern world of the 'mystic vision of the
saints', notably St Francis (although St Aidan springs to mind as well),
whose civilising influence can counteract the persecution of animals
daily carried out in the name of pleasure and elegance (for instance,
hunting and fur-wearing), but especially in the name of scientific
curiosity where, 'ignoring the patent facts of a physical and nervous
organisation similar to his own, he [the scientist] can. . . condemn
helpless and guileless fellow-creatures, living and breathing and loving
like himself, to the last extremities of torture and mutilation. . . '
(p.2).
Moving through his writings in chronological order (as they are
arranged) in Reason, Religion and the Animals, one finds Fr
Wrighton concentrating less and less on hunting, fur-trapping and other
abuses of animals for amusement and profit - not that these activities
have by any means disappeared, rather that they have tended to diminish
over the years in the face of their increasingly apparent
unjustifiability - and more on scientific (especially medical) research
on animals, ever increasing and ever difficult effectively to criticise
in the eyes of a public confronted daily with tragic stories of human
suffering. (7)
Animals have moral rights
The principle theme of Fr Wrighton's thought is that, as a general
principle, animals have moral rights, and these moral rights claim from
us respect for them. They have been placed on earth by God, and have
their own natures, their own ends, and their own capacities to develop
and to flourish according to their endowments. This position is in stark
contrast to scholastic philosophy which, as Fr Wrighton points out, was
notoriously deficient in its attitudes to animals, inheriting from
Aristotle a type of utilitarian thinking toward them from which it has
never been able to rid itself, and which has always sat paradoxically in
what is otherwise a system of natural law binding humans. Take for
instance this claim by Aristotle: 'If nature makes nothing incomplete,
and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals
for the sake of man'. (8) It seems that
this was also the view of St Thomas Aquinas. (9)
By recognising the man-independent teleology of our fellow living
creatures, however, we broaden the scope of our moral awareness and
avoid the trap of seeing the natural world and its inhabitants as
exploitable commodities, created solely for mankind's use and benefit.
Thus it is a theological mistake - pointed out often now but recognised
by Fr Wrighton in his 1967 article 'Morals in the Melting-Pot' - to
regard God's grant to us (10) of
dominion over nature as one of beneficial ownership. It is, rather, one
of stewardship or trusteeship, whereby our actual power to control and
subdue nature and our fellow creatures is recognised, but qualified by
an absolute duty to refrain from violating the rights of those who, with
us, are cohabitants of the one planet.
Objective justice
This obligatory respect, due to our nonhuman fellows as a matter not
simply of mercy but of objective justice, does not involve a downgrading
of the status of humans or a derogation from our own rights, because
'the demand [for respect] is greatest for our own species, but it
extends to the others too in proportion to their nearness to us'
(p.73). For example, faced with the choice,
in a no-cost Good Samaritan situation, between saving a drowning human
and a drowning pig, I should save the former. But does this imply that I
can take the pig and torture it with a battery of toxic drugs to learn
how I might save a human's life? What rights to ascribe to which animals
is largely an empirical matter: we have a duty to inform ourselves of
the qualities and capacities of nonhuman animals and to recognise (not
to endow but to discover) rights on the basis of those qualities and
capacities which we humans typically posses as well and in virtue of
which we have rights. If, for instance, we learn, as Heathcote
Williams tells us, that elephants bury their dead, this must
impinge on the thought that we can pillage elephant carcasses (those of
elephants which have died naturally, of course, hunting being prohibited
a fortiori) for their parts - ivory, feet, hide and so on. Interhuman
morality is thus the paradigm by which we judge the rights of God's
other creatures, to be recognised according to their natures (both as
individuals and as members of kinds).
Things we ought not to know
Another of Fr Wrighton's principal concerns is 'that a good and
merciful God, such as we believe in, cannot conceivably have so arranged
things that necessary knowledge [scientific, especially medical] can
only come to man through the infliction of merciless cruelties on His
other sensitive creatures' (p.80).
There must be, and are increasingly revealed to be, other, more humane
types of research whereby the same beneficial knowledge can be acquired.
Some incidental, pure knowledge will probably not be available, but 'not
all knowledge is good or desirable. There are things which we ought
not to know' (p.59). And even if
some beneficial knowledge is not forthcoming, it is not as though we
have been given a divine guarantee that all human suffering will
eventually disappear (at least in this life), a fact often forgotten in
a culture in which freedom from all pain is a pathological pursuit. He
does not concentrate on the ineffectiveness and positive danger to
humans of animal experimentation, for that would be to concede too much
to the scientists (though such information is readily available);
(11) Fr Wrighton's point is always the
ethical one, that 'our spiritual mentors on the other hand, the
representatives of the Church, are primarily concerned with morality,
and cannot for one moment admit that a good end can justify evil means,
or even doubtful means' (p.34). Hence
the Principle of Double Effect must be respected: 'We must be utterly
uncompromising here, for vivisection is a deliberate choice to do evil
in the furtherance of one's aims; and that is a thing which nothing
can justify or excuse' (p.88). Without
this principle all morality would collapse into a morass of dangerous
and muddled utilitarian thinking. Thus animal experimentation, condemned
as it was so many years ago by Cardinal Manning, Bishop Westcott and
Cardinal Gibbons of the USA (not to mention C.S. Lewis,
(12) Ruskin and others), can never be
justified when the experiment involves an intrinsic evil; the violation
of the properly recognised rights of God's creatures.
The proper view of the Creation is then, according to Fr Wrighton,
the traditional Genesis view properly interpreted. This view is
incompatible with any that treats the animals as 'cheap bodies' - of no
value in themselves, and entirely expendable for the use and
convenience, and even the amusement, of humans. 'Is it conceivable that
their loving Creator designed them, in their endless variety and beauty,
for such a purpose? Can we pretend that He made the progress of science
and medicine depend on a perpetual holocaust of innocent lives
squandered on experiments of doubtful value and possible futility? If
such a thing cannot be God's will, it ought to be unthinkable for us too
(p.97).'
On a practical level Christians have, for many centuries, 'swum with
the social tide. They have become more and more deeply involved and
compromised with the unbelieving world of science and politics, so that
they find it extremely difficult to cut themselves loose and regain
their freedom of mind and conscience' (p.75).
Theologians, says Fr Wrighton, 'have encouraged this conformity and have
themselves indulged in dogmatic slumber when they ought to have been up
and sounding the alarm' (p.75). It is
up to Christians to reconquer the moral high ground by opening their
eyes to the natural world around them and bringing within their sphere
of compassion their fellow creatures who have been placed on this planet
as part of the divine plan. Compassion does not mean simply feeding the
neighbour's dog while he is on holiday, it means waking up to the living
hell which exists in this nation's (and the world's) laboratories and
slaughterhouses for countless millions of suffering beings, and putting
a stop to it.
Attitudes towards animals
In a fascinating study entitled 'Animals in the other religions', Fr
Wrighton examines the attitudes to animals of all the major religions
outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Although some, such as ancient
Egyptian religion, had a more sensitive attitude toward animals than
others (for example, Confucianism), all failed and still fail to measure
up to the moral standards required of us by a proper understanding of
the Creation. Fr Wrighton's greatest praise is reserved for Hinduism and
pure Buddhism, which consistently teach (in so far as clear teaching can
be found) reverence for all animal life, and not at the expense
of charity toward men. We have much to learn from the 'contemplative,
pacific and humanitarian philosophy of India', an outlook from which the
Church, with its Graeco-Roman heritage, has long been divorced. As
farsighted as Hinduism and Buddhism are, however, their inherent
philosophical defects prevent a properly adjusted ethical attitude -
Buddhism especially, for its denial of a personal God, forgiveness of
sins and 'identity of soul': its 'profession of universal benevolence
remains somewhat austere and withdrawn, an Olympian stoicism lacking the
warmth of charity exemplified for us in the incarnate Saviour-God'
(p.69). The 'nightmare of reincarnation' and
the deification of animals (in Hinduism) also contribute to an
unbalanced view, syncretistic in its approach to the Creation, and so
leading to extremes of behaviour which we should regard as more than
what is required of us by the moral law. Only Christianity (as the
fulfilment of the Jewish revelation) contains the world view which can
provide a balanced ethic involving attention to the particularity and
diversity of the Creation and requiring of us compassion and the
observation of justice toward all creatures. (13)
Harmony in a Golden Age
To the extent that carnivorousness can be shown to be typically
unnecessary for the survival of the human being (and it can, hard
imaginary cases aside), vegetarianism is one part of our total
obligation of respect for all nonhuman creatures according to their
natures. (14) Flesh-eating, claims Fr
Wrighton (and many others), is an acquired taste, and a concession to
weakness. Genesis (15) tells us that
'the Creator's original plan, then, was that both man and the animals
should be vegetarians' (p.40) The Fall,
however, involving as it did ' the entry of sin and violence, with the
disruption of natural conditions and the change to a savage diet'
(p.41), radically altered man's nature. But
Biblical prophecy (for example, in Isaiah) reminds us of the eventual
return to a Golden Age of harmony between God's creatures. 'The
irresistible conclusion, then, is that there is little hope of
abolishing the manifold cruelties to animals which disgrace our society,
until men give up the habit of eating flesh' (p.43).
Self-preservation may once have been a legitimate motive for
hunting and eating meat (lack of all the facts concerning dietary
necessity mitigating man's culpability) but now it is not - we are no
longer in this condition (though we are still corrupted by original
sin).
Ahead of his time
Reading through Fr Wrighton's elegantly written essays one is struck
by the prescience of his thought, the prophetic nature of his moral
awareness. Thirty years before the utilitarians and secular thinkers had
even begun seriously to investigate the facts and moral principles
behind our treatment of animals, he was trenchantly criticising our
practices and the spurious values underlying them. He employs
terminology which has only recently become part of popular usage,
railing against 'factory farming', 'reproduction by test-tube methods',
and 'social engineering'. It is true that the thoughts of this shy,
saintly and learned man leave many questions unanswered: To what extent
are we enjoined to strive to return to an Edenic state - or is
this to wait until the Last Judgement? Does a movement toward wholesale
vegetarianism require such a radical transformation of our nature? How
do we deal with hard (albeit fanciful) cases where the sacrifice of a
few animals can save the lives of many humans (the Daisy the Cow versus
the City of New York scenario)? There are many philosophical and
theological questions begging to be dealt with adequately.
Despite the elegance of Fr Wrighton's prose and the gentleness
shining through his life and work, one is consistently aware of the
foreboding inherent in his reflections, involving a scenario that would
be laughable were it not so plausible: (16)
'Perhaps when science has advanced a bit further and human bodies are
walking around with other people's heads and the characters of synthetic
devils, the moralists will wake up and call a halt - if there are any
moralists left' (p.74). Fr Wrighton's
work is compulsory reading for all who wish to prevent this nightmare
becoming a reality.
Notes
(1) Beginning with Animal Liberation (Avon, 1975) and
including (with J. Mason) Animal Factories (Crown, 1980),
Practical Ethics (CUP, 1979), (ed. with Tom Regan) Animal Rights
and Human Obligations (Prentice Hall, 1976) and (ed.) In Defence
of Animals (Blackwell, 1986).
(2) Animal Liberation, pp. 164-165.
(3) A dizzying tour of the utilitarian literature will reveal books
with such titles as Should the Baby Live? (Singer and Kuhse),
The End of Life (Rachels), Abortion and Infanticide (Tooley -
he favours both), and What Sort of People Should There Be?
(Glover).
(4) See his The Case for Animal Rights (Routledge, 1983)
(5) Reason, Religion and the Animals, by Fr Basil Wrighton (CSCAW,
1987). All references in the body of the article are to this book.
(6) Dom Ambrose Agius, God's Animals (CSCAW, 1973).
(7) In 1987 there were (according to Home Office statistics, the
actual number being almost certainly larger) 3 million animal
experiments, including: 600,000 tests of the effects of toxic drugs and
chemicals; 5,000 tests connected with alcohol and tobacco research;
137,000 'procedures' causing animals to have cancer; 90,000 cases of
exposure to radiation; 32,000 cases of 'procedures deliberately causing
psychological stress'; and 80,000 cases of the injection of germs
directly into the brain or spinal chord. There were no prosecutions
under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986, and one license
was revoked. Thousands of the experiments would have been performed
without any form of anaesthetic.
(8) Politics (tr. Jowett) 1 1256b.
(9) Summa Theologiae I.q.96.
(10) Gen. 1:26-28.
(11) See for example Dr Robert Sharpe, The Cruel Deception (Thorsons,
1988).
(12) See a paper by Lewis published by the New England
Anti-Vivisection Society (Boston, 1947).
(13) It should be noted as well that the less-than-sensitive approach
of biblical Jewish teaching toward animals has been modified by Talmudic
principles requiring much greater compassion (for example the doctrine
of Tza'ar Ba'alei Chaim [pain to living creatures]).
(14) 700 million animals are slaughtered in Britain each year
for food (2 million per day, or 1,400 per minute).
(15) Gen 1:29-30.
(16) See the experiments of Dr Robert White, bioethical consultant to
the Vatican, reported in my article 'Animals - the Need for a New
Catholicism' (New Blackfriars, May 1989).
David S. Oderberg lectures at Trinity and University Colleges,
Dublin.
The Month, February 1991
NB A selection of Rev. Wrighton's reflections on animal rights
may be read at:
www.clergyanimalrights.blogspot.com.
