Justice For Animals, a review

Martha Nussbaum's new book, Justice For Animals, Our Collective Responsibility (Simon & Schuster 2022) has gotten some notice. It seems to be a gift of sorts to her recently deceased daughter who was active in the animal rights movement.

It's an interesting book with much to say about our treatment of animals. A considerable bit of it rubbed me the wrong way.

Suggestions about how we ought to treat animals from people who eat them have to be taken with a grain of salt. Nussbaum claims that she "tried" a vegan diet, but it made her tired. Poor her. It's like someone saying that they tried to give up pedophilia.

Another thing that really irks me is college/university faculty members like Nussbaum who voice some concern for animals yet don't serve on their institution's Animal Care and Use Committee(s), the legally required animal experimentation oversight committees. If they did, I don't think we'd see claims like Nusbaum's that the 3R's (reduction, refinement, and replacement) have "become the watchwords of all regulatory bodies." Even a cursory review of what's being done in the labs exposes the naivety of such claims. For instance, Nussbaum is a Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. At her institution, vivisectors are putting electrodes in monkeys' brains. These "watchwords" mean little to the animals in the labs. See:

The interplay between kinematic and force representations in motor and somatosensory cortices during reaching, grasping, and object transport Project Number 5R01NS125270-02 Contact PI/Project Leader HATSOPOULOS, NICHOLAS G Other PIs
Awardee Organization UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

She also challenges the use of arguments that point to the ethically salient similarities between us and other animals. She thinks that doing so appeals in some way to the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being. But no one pointing to the similarities between us (the only species with legal rights) and other species does so because they believe that there is some devine ordering of creation. Oddly, she, at times, makes this argument herself. Indeed, it can't be avoided when arguing on behalf of animals, just as I have done.

In spite of these and numerous other criticisms I have, her prominence might help draw some attention to the terrible things we do to other animals. The book is worth reading if for no other reason than to be able to talk about her claims with those who might read the book and want to talk about something she says.

PS: Another thing that really irked me was her use of Jonathan Balcombe and Peter Singer to defend her mixed-up position. In the case of Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows, she claims that he eats fish. He doesn't. She points to Singer's comment that experimenting on 100 monkeys to help 40,000 humans with Parkinson's could be justified. She makes these claims to defend her fish-eating and support for some animal research.

Suomi Reading

Suomi Reading (YouTube)

Suomi was Harry Harlow's star pupil. His doctoral thesis recounts his use of the "vertical chamber" to induce chronic depression.

Primate Research at UW - For The Record 2008

Primate Research at UW - For The Record 2008 (YouTube)

ALS-Diagnosed Dr. Helene Dwyer Speaks Against Animal Experimentation

ALS-Diagnosed Dr. Helene Dwyer Speaks Against Animal Experimentation (YouTube)

UW Caught Lying - Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal

UW Caught Lying - Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal (YouTube)

2010 Forum on Ethics of Animal Research

2010 Forum on Ethics of Animal Research (YouTube)

The Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal

Remembering the Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal (YouTube)

Veterinarians: An Ironic Impediment to Progress for Animals

Many new medical doctors swear an oath to treat their patients with care and respect. New veterinarians swear to use their knowledge and skills "for the benefit of society."

I've known a number of veterinarians who have cared deeply for animals and have spoken out on their behalf. Such veterinarians seem to be quite rare.

Thinking of veterinarians as animals' doctors likely contributes to the public's mistaken belief that they are M.D.s for animals and that they also treat their patients with care and respect. And certainly, some do.

But in many, maybe all organizations involved with using or selling animals, veterinarians are involved in and defend whatever it is that their organization, employer, or industy does to animals.

Some examples:

Today, there are approximately 400 veal farms in the U.S., and many are Amish or Mennonite families. Each farm family raises about 400 head per year. Out of all the formula-fed calves marketed each year, 95 percent come from Veal Quality Assurance (VQA)-certified farms. All VQA certifications are verified by a veterinarian.

The care that’s given is really unprecedented, even for a zoo. -- Dr. Dennis Schmitt, head veterinarian, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation

It was pictures like this one from Barnum and Bailey's elephant training farm that even the vets couldn't whitewash.

Laboratory animal veterinarians serve as a unique bridge between the humane use of laboratory animals and the advancement of scientific and medical knowledge.

But every company and institution experimenting on animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act is required to have a committee -- an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, an IACUC (sometimes called an ACUC) -- that is supposed to make sure that the regulations of the Animal Welfare Act are being followed, and one of the committee's members must be a veterinarian. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a senior veterinarian served on the committee that oversees the use of monkeys. That vet, "Buddy" Capuano argued that the committee did not have the right or power to stop or force certain modifications to a project involving maternal deprivation.

What this means for the animals is that whenever concern over the care and use of animals finds its way into consideration by the public, there are always veterinarians who come forward and claim that the animals are well cared for, even respected and loved. And, because they are "animal doctors" those listening to their poppycock are hoodwinked.

Veterinarians are not medical doctors. They take no oath to protect and try to do what is best for their "patients". In cases involving the use of animals or their sale, there are no patients involved; there are only victims.

The Michelle Basso Case

If by some miracle society doesn't implode as a result of climate change, ecological collapse, and/or nuclear war, humans might at some point in the future acknowledge that other animals are as deserving of basic rights as we are. Perhaps historians and philosophers in the future will look back on the history of our terrible treatment of other animals in an effort to understand why we behaved so badly.

It makes sense that they might since they already consult history to try and understand why we have and still often do treat other humans very badly. Studying the history of our predjudice and its effects seems to help us embrace the inclusion and protection of those we have hurt and maligned.

Though still a work in progress, we are beginning to acknowledge our sins and aggressions against those of other races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, abilities, and disabilities; we are trying to overcome our predjudices. Some of us are ahead of the curve; we recognize that humans aren't the only animals whose lives can be miserable as a result of our predjudice toward them.

The Michelle Basso Case might be of value to those with an interest in understanding the prevailing predjudice.

The Michelle Basso Case shows clearly that one can rise to a position of authority responsible for the care and treatment of thousands of monkeys (in this case, the 1000s of monkeys at the Washington National Primate Research Center in Seattle and a smaller number at the university's breeding colony near Mesa, Arizona) even after veterinary staff (at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center) documented exceptionally poor treatment of the monkeys in her lab.

Those reports were probably Basso's motivation for leaving Wisconsin. Currently, a vivisector's poor treatment of animals is clearly not an impediment to rising to a position of power in those ranks.

Basso's duplicity is clear when her problems in Wisconsin are considered against the claims she makes in her interview. The link is to Chapter 16 of my book, "We All Operate in the Same Way."

Interview with the Director: The importance of the Washington National Primate Research Center

June 27, 2022
Chris Petkov and Renee Hartig

Are You Doing the Devil’s Work?

What if Satan is real?

Maybe it tricks us into doing bad things to others because it is nourished by fear, pain, and grief. If this were so, it would do all in its power to get us to hurt each other.

Maybe this is why we raise so many animals in such terrible conditions and wage war on each other. Maybe Satan is nourished by this suffering. Maybe the animals squirming and crying out when being experimented on, going insane in their tiny cages, dogs spending their lives on a chain, cows standing in knee-deep filth in a feed lot, or soldiers dying slowly in a ditch somewhere are the sort of things that sustain Satan.

It would explain a lot.