Animals the Third.

It should come as no surprise when I say that I love animals. I don’t propose going into why, I just want to say something about people’s attitudes towards them.

Humans are convinced of their pre-eminence among living creatures. I would suggest that most go one stage further: they’re convinced that it’s only humans who really matter, and that any clash of interest, however trivial, must always resolve to the benefit of the human. There was a case in the news yesterday of a gamekeeper who was fined for poisoning predatory birds. Gamekeepers frequently do that, because predatory birds interfere with the landowner’s hobby of shooting the game birds. So we have a situation where people not only find it acceptable to kill creatures for the sake of recreation (because most of the birds don’t get eaten,) they also find it acceptable to kill other creatures that are getting in the way.

So on what do we base this conviction of pre-eminence? Almost entirely on the fact that we have superior minds. ‘Mind’ is a complex phenomenon that covers a number of different faculties, but two are most often cited as demonstrating our inherent superiority.

The first is our superior intelligence. Undeniable at face value, but it raises questions. What do we mean by intelligence? We define it in ways that suit us – the recognition of spatial relationships, mathematical relationships, and the finer nuances of reason and semantics. We develop IQ tests to compare one with another, conveniently forgetting that they’re geared to specific needs within specific human cultures – the ones that developed the IQ tests. They’re constantly, and rightly, being accused of inadequacy even within an inter-cultural context, let alone as a means of comparing one animal with another. There’s a bit of a cart-before-the-horse feel about it all. We decide first that we’re superior, and then design the tests on our own terms to prove it. The fact is, we don’t really know what animal minds are capable of. Research is constantly finding that they are more capable than we thought they were, even by the standards we set. But that isn’t really the point. The point is that animals use their minds differently, and in ways that suit their natural lifestyles. They don’t crow about their abilities, they just get on with doing what they need to do in order to function and stay alive.

The second is our ability to develop ‘proper’ ways of behaving. ‘Manners maketh man,’ we say. We call it civilised behaviour. OK, but again we have to accept that our perceived need to do this is largely driven by our move away from natural imperatives. We are isolating ourselves from the very root of our physical existence, but more on that later. A lot of what we call manners are nothing more than ‘mannered,’ and have more to do with class distinction than anything else. Etiquette can be quite ludicrous when you really think about it, and animals have no need of such extremes. They do have protocols, though – systems designed, again, to facilitate their function within the natural environment. They’re doing what they need to do without going to unnecessary lengths to serve any need to feel superior.

But there’s a more general point to make. The faculty of mind is just one of many faculties that a physical entity can draw on. There are lots of others, and in most of them animals are inherently superior. Some of them are stronger than us, some of them are faster than us, some of them can fly, and some of them have cognitive and sensual faculties that we can only dream of. And they use them to their best advantage, just as we use ours. We can build sky scrapers better than a blue tit could, but have you ever seen a blue tit’s nest? I would challenge any human to make one so perfect. And the reason we can build such good sky scrapers is because we’ve developed technology. This is what we do: develop machines to make up for our physical weakness. We can build machines that fly faster than any bird, and machines capable of lifting far greater weights than an elephant could. Does this make us superior? In a way, yes; but it also means that we are walking a potentially dangerous road. We are taking ourselves further and further away from the ability to exist without manufactured things. Is that a measure of superiority? And if there’s one thing we can’t do, it’s invent a machine that comes even close to the power and complexity of nature itself. Animals work wholly with nature; we choose largely to ignore it, or even work against it – often with catastrophic results. Is that superior behaviour?

I do understand that if you extend this argument to the spiritual level, however you define ‘spiritual,’ there is a case to be made for regarding humans as the most advanced species in the material world. It takes into account aspects of mind that the other animals probably don’t have, at least not most of them. It takes us into areas like art and ethics. As far as we know, animals never make art; but can we know for certain that they don’t appreciate it? Do they not make art simply because they don’t need to; in which case, does the lack of need in itself demonstrate the inferiority of the animal mind? That’s a moot point, since need is surely defined by function.

Where I feel this discussion reaches a conclusion, however, is in considering the human capacity for ethics and altruism. Apart from a small number of unproven incidents, it seems that animals show little or no capacity for either. In those areas at least, it might reasonably be argued that we are superior. So doesn’t that faculty prove itself only when we apply it? Doesn’t it place upon us a certain responsibility to treat animals with the respect they undoubtedly warrant, acknowledging their right to live and prosper in their own way? Doesn’t it argue absolutely that we should use our power and complex intellect to nurture and protect animals, not exploit and abuse them?

‘God gave man dominion over animals,’ crow the hunters (even those who don’t believe in God.) A friend of mine who has studied Hebrew tells me that this is an inaccurate translation from the original. She tells me that ‘dominion’ would be better translated as ‘stewardship.’ The two are very different.