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Justia January 8, 2014
Read the whole story
here:
http://verdict.justia.com/2014/01/08/fortieth-anniversary-endangered-species-act-platos-allegory-cave
The Fortieth Anniversary of
the Endangered Species Act and
Plato’s Allegory of the
Cave
By Sherry F. Colb
Last month marked the fortieth
anniversary of the Endangered
Species Act (ESA), passed in 1973
and signed by President Richard
Nixon. Whether one considers this
legislation from the right or
from the left of the political
spectrum, its anniversary
provides an opportune moment for
reflection on its deep messages
about the relationship between
humans and other animals, and
about relationships between and
among humans as well.
Plato’s Allegory of the
Cave
In Plato’s seminal work,
The Republic, he presents an
allegory about the relationship
between the abstract world of
ideas and the concrete material
world. Plato asks us to imagine a
cave in which prisoners are
chained and required to live out
their lives facing a blank wall,
illuminated only by a fire that
burns behind them. All that the
inhabitants of the cave can see
before them are mere shadows of
real objects, fuzzy images that
necessarily fail to reflect the
richness and multidimensionality
of reality.
Then one day, the prisoners
are freed from the cave and able
to see reality in all of its
glory. Once the former prisoners
can see and understand, this new
vision of reality is infinitely
greater and more profound than
what the prisoners previously
believed was all that there
was—shadows appearing on the
walls of a cave.
For Plato, the prisoner who
ultimately becomes free is a
metaphor for the philosopher, and
the inhabitants of the cave are
those whose experience revolves
around the material world. The
philosopher can contemplate the
abstract idea—the Platonic
“form”—of which
any concrete material feature of
the world is merely a shadow. A
specific table, for example, is
an imperfect example of the form
of “table,” which is
the perfect table that resides
only in the world of ideas. In
contrast to how we normally think
about “reality,” Plato
thus tells us that our idea of a
table (or of kindness, truth, or
justice) is more substantial and
real than any individual instance
of it in the material world could
ever be. In this Platonic
worldview, individual items in
the world are mere exemplars, far
less important than the
abstraction that they
collectively represent.
Animals in the World of
Forms
What does Plato’s cave
have to teach us about
humans’ relationship with
animals, in general or as
specifically envisioned in the
ESA? Consider the level of
reality at which the ESA
contemplates animals. On its
surface, the ESA appears to be a
statute that protects animals (as
well as plants) from human
predation and rapaciousness. If
we reflect upon the ESA, however,
we see that it does so—if at
all—only incidentally. The
statute does provide for the
classification of some animals as
threatened or endangered, and it
limits or prohibits the killing,
harming, and exploitation of
animals belonging to those
classifications. Meanwhile,
though, the ESA leaves other
animal species (those not
threatened or endangered)
unprotected. That is why hunters
of particular sorts of animals
seek to have them removed from
the list of
“endangered” or
“threatened”
species.
An individual animal, however,
is threatened and endangered any
time someone attempts to hurt or
kill that animal, and he or she
will react accordingly (by
attempting to run, or by flailing
about ineffectually while
suffering at human hands). No
individual animal reserves the
“fight or flight”
impulse for occasions on which
the entire species is in
danger.
Yet the ESA focuses not on
particular animals as beings with
value in and of themselves but
instead views them each as an
exemplar of his or her particular
species, important only insofar
as he or she provides an outward
manifestation of the
characteristics common to the
species. The enemy of the ESA,
then, is not a particular
animal’s untimely death or
suffering. It is the extinction
of a species—a state of
affairs in which the
“form” of the species
will cease to have living
exemplars in the material world.
Thus, the ESA has nothing to say
about the billions of animals we
slaughter for food, so long as
the species to which they happen
to belong continue to have
sufficiently numerous exemplars
in our world, however briefly and
miserably each individual animal
lives.
We accordingly see that the
ESA protects animal
“forms” rather than
protecting actual animals. And
the ESA’s view of animals as
forms illuminates the way in
which many of us have been taught
to think about the beings with
whom we share this world. An
understanding of this helps make
sense of some of the things that
people say in conversations with
vegans like myself, who have come
to see animals as distinct
individuals.
Some people have said to me,
for example, that they feel good
about consuming
“heritage” breeds of
turkeys or pigs, because there
would be no turkeys or pigs of
these particular sorts in the
world, in the absence of the
slaughter that people endorse
through their consumption
choices. If one is attending only
to the continuing life of a
species (or, in this case, of a
particular breed of turkey or
pig) rather than to the life of
the animal, then one might indeed
view oneself as
“protecting” the animal
(i.e., the form of the breed) by
consuming its exemplars. After
all, the farmer breeds these
material exemplars only because
(and so long as) there are people
prepared to pay for their
slaughter, by consuming them.
By the same token, the
“forms” approach to
animals helps explain why people
who consume the flesh and
secretions of cows might
simultaneously express concern
for the future of cows, if the
world were to become vegan, a
concern that I have heard on more
than one occasion. What is good
for the individual, living,
breathing cow—an end to her
exploitation, an end to her
separation from her offspring, an
end to her mutilation and
slaughter—may be
“threatening” to the
form of cow. The form of the cow
is the idea of the domesticated
animal that might eventually have
few or no exemplars in our world,
if people stop consuming the
flesh and secretions of those
exemplars.
Breeds created for
exploitation and slaughter are
indeed unlikely to be
purposefully bred if their
offspring are no longer to be
used by humans. And if one is
attached to the form of the cow
(but not to actual cows, in all
of their particularity), then
exploitation might seem
paradoxically like a kindness to
“the cow.” In the world
of the forms, individuals and
their concrete experiences matter
very little, while the ongoing
production of exemplars matters a
great deal.
Humans in the World of
Forms
Contrast the ESA’s
conception of animals—as
exemplars of the forms of
particular species, to be
protected only insofar as is
needed to replenish the
supply—with the view of
humans reflected in civil rights
and human rights legislation.
Laws like Title VII of the 1964
Civil Rights Act prohibit an
employer from treating an
individual employee in a manner
motivated by the
individual’s membership in a
racial (or other statutorily
identified) group.
To decide to fire, to fail to
promote, or to otherwise mistreat
an employee on the basis of race
is to engage in “forms”
thinking. Rather than attend to
the particular characteristics
that an individual employee
brings to bear, the
discriminatory employer instead
focuses on the fact that an
employee is female, African
American, Mexican, or Jewish, to
make a decision. Far more
important than an employee’s
individuality, from the
perspective of the employer who
discriminates, is the fact that
the employee is a member (and
thus an exemplar) of a group, who
is therefore presumed to carry
the traits stereotypically
associated with that group.
Racism, sexism, and other such
approaches to our fellow humans
embrace—to a greater or
lesser extent—the notion
that what is real is race or sex,
with the individuals who fall
into a disfavored category seen
as largely interchangeable and
interchangeably tainted with
whatever group characteristic
preoccupies the racist or sexist.
In their most extreme
manifestations, racism and sexism
yield the obliteration of the
individual as someone with
cognizable interests and
entitlements of his or her own.
If a member of a hated group gets
in the way of the racist’s
or sexist’s plans, the
thoroughgoing racist or sexist
feels little compunction about
utilizing and disposing of the
individual, someone who was never
truly seen by the racist or
sexist as more than a shadow to
begin with.
Ordinarily, one does not
associate the elevation of ideas
over the material world with
oppression and even genocide, but
the association is nonetheless
real. Hitler looked at Jews and
saw only exemplars of a despised
idea, “The Jew,” rather
than seeing and appreciating
particular individuals with a
vast array of characteristics,
interests, and preferences.
Proponents of slavery looked at
African Americans and saw only
instances of live property to be
used, rather than individuals
with the same basic needs and
dreams as their oppressors. And
in a less extreme but still
troubling context, people
involved in a war or other
serious conflict tend to see
members of the enemy camp as
exemplars of the idea of
“the enemy.”
In a comical reference to how
fans express loyalty to sports
teams, despite the fact that the
individual membership of the
teams frequently changes, one
Seinfeld episode described sports
fans as rooting for
“laundry” (i.e., the
uniform worn by whichever people
happen to occupy the positions
for a particular team at a given
time). Cheering for one’s
team is not, of course, akin to
genocide or to slavery, but it
manifests a related tendency to
elevate the idea of a group over
the unique individuals who make
up that group, albeit for an
innocuous pastime. Even in
relatively innocuous settings
(like watching sports), it is
worth noting this tendency with a
critical eye.
How to View Animals As
Individuals
For the most part, modern
legal and ethical customs require
that, except in extreme
circumstances (such as war), we
treat and think about the humans
with whom we interact mainly as
individuals, rather than as
exemplars of an idea or
stereotype of a group. By
contrast, our primary interaction
with nonhuman animals is one of
“forms.” Our
interactions consist in
exploitation, and we treat
animals as lacking in inherent
value, worth only what we can
take from them, the exemplars of
the various species, in the way
of food items like dairy, eggs,
and flesh; clothing materials
like leather, wool, and fur; and
other consumer products.
Most of us, however, have had
the experience of valuing an
individual animal for him or
herself. One common example is
the family dog or cat, who
receives a name and whom we often
call “him” or
“her” rather than the
ubiquitous “it” we use
to refer to most farmed animals.
For a great number of people, the
illnesses of companion animals
inspire worry, and their deaths
provoke genuine grief.
The animals who endure farming
and slaughter do occasionally
make an appearance as valued
individuals. This sometimes
occurs when a cow or a pig
escapes from a slaughterhouse.
People who regularly consume
animal products nonetheless will
cheer for the escaped animal and
want her to be spared. The
contrast is between seeing and
valuing an individual being as
the unique creature that she is,
and regarding the animals whose
flesh and secretions one consumes
as abstractions, mere exemplars
of the idea of “cow” or
“chicken” or
“pig,” an idea that
represents a source of food,
rather than real living beings
who want to live just as much as
our dogs and cats do.
Re-Entering Plato’s
Cave
Upon reflection, one might
view the process of leaving
Plato’s Cave as a morally
hazardous one, when sentient
creatures (rather than inanimate
objects like tables) are
involved. It is a process by
which our natural ability to
empathize and care for others,
including other humans and
nonhumans, begins to evaporate
into the ether, replaced in our
minds by an abstract conception
of a category into which we may
arbitrarily place members of the
individual’s group. Once
abstracted in this way, the
individual becomes vulnerable to
discrimination and violence that
fail to trigger the pangs of
conscience that might otherwise
accompany the harm we do to our
fellow living inhabitants of this
planet.
We might consider embracing an
allegory that reverses the one
envisioned by Plato. In this
alternative allegory, the
philosopher who can easily turn
individuals into abstractions has
been dazzled and hypnotized by
the sun, now unable to see the
material world clearly and in all
of its texture and complexity.
This philosopher, unwittingly
chained to abstractions, enters
the beautiful cave in which
reside all manner of sentient
creatures. In that cave, the
philosopher is once again able to
see particular people and
particular animals and is able
now to appreciate that his
actions have consequences, not
just for ideas but for real-life
beings. Though the world of ideas
may be an interesting place to
visit, truth, goodness, and
justice must be practiced,
pursued, and lived in the real,
concrete world.
Sherry F. Colb, a Justia
columnist, is Professor of Law
and Charles Evans Hughes Scholar
at Cornell Law School. Her most
recent book, Mind If I Order the
Cheeseburger?: And Other
Questions People Ask Vegans, is
currently available on
Amazon.
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