I was dismayed to see columnist Mike Marchand's callous display of unconcern for the suffering of animals in last Monday's Observer. Inspired by Charles Rice's column on Sept. 24, Marchand attacks the "pure lunacy" of the "insane philosophy" of Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, the father of the modern animal rights movement. Among Singer's "lunacies" is purported to be the claim that "apes, bears, cats, possibly chickens, chimps, dogs, dolphins, pigs, seals and whales are all on a level with humans because they are rational and sentient beings" while "newborn and unborn babies are not." Even worse, Singer's madness has apparently spread to his followers, as evidenced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) member Ingrid Newkirk's apparent attempt to implicate Colonel Sanders in a genocide of a scale unknown even in the Holocaust: "Six million people died in concentration camps, but 6 billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses."

It is not my intention here to defend Singer's views against Marchand's misrepresentations and exaggerations. Even more troubling than his uninformed treatment of Singer is his snide response to Newkirk, a response that would be merely ridiculous were it not so sinister in its implications: "Now, let me be logical. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT CHICKENS! Even if there are 6 billion chickens, they're still chickens! When the chickens complain, I'll listen. It could be entirely possible that the cure for AIDS or cancer died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz or one of the other holocaust hells. The most 6 billion chickens could ever account for is about 60 billion chicken McNuggets. Anyone who could possibly equate the two has a severe case of mixed-up priorities. Or worse."

Recourse to CAPITAL LETTERS notwithstanding, the "logic" of Marchand's response is hardly evident. To reach the conclusion that the death of 6 billion chickens is of no moral consequence, Marchand needs more than his exasperated (and tautological) assurance that chickens are, after all, chickens. Yet the implicit sense of his "argument" is clear: Chickens are mere chickens, beings entirely unworthy of our moral consideration. In our moral reckonings, their deaths need not be taken into account. Nor, on Marchand's view, need their suffering: PETA plans to picket McDonald's on the grounds that in the course of their transport to slaughterhouses and eventual McNuggetization "every year, millions [of chickens] suffer broken bones and millions more die from the heat or cold." "Heaven forbid," responds Marchand sarcastically, "[that] chickens should suffer or die before they're killed [sic] and become chicken salad."

Marchand's ludicrous suggestion that he would be willing to listen to the chickens' complaints were any forthcoming is even more disturbing, in part because of its unintended consequences. Granted, chickens do not verbally protest their confinement in cages or plead for their lives in the slaughterhouse. Nor, however, do fetuses ask abortionists to leave them undisturbed in the womb. Nor do brain-dead humans lobby for the right to be sustained on life support. Nor do the severely retarded complain when beaten. If Marchand is only willing to extend moral consideration to those who can protest the suffering inflicted upon them, he is in danger of ignoring the suffering of the very classes of human beings that he is concerned to protect from Singer's "lunacy."

The fact that chickens have nothing to say to Marchand or anyone else about the suffering inflicted upon them does not prevent them from making their suffering known in other ways. As Singer points out in "Animal Liberation," factory farmed chickens in America are commonly confined four to a cage, leaving each bird a "living" space of 6-by-8-inches or less. Chickens confined under such conditions display various symptoms of their suffering, including noisiness, aggressive pecking and cannibalism. The latter symptoms tend to increase as the birds lose their feathers and cut their skin and feet by rubbing against the sides of their wire cages. Their close confinement prevents them from carrying out instinctual nesting behavior and frustrates their natural urge to simply stretch their wings.

What motivates Marchand's callousness? Perhaps he is worried that granting that the suffering of animals is morally significant would force him to adopt Singer's "lunatic" view that non-human animals are on a par with humans merely because they are sentient and can feel pain. What does he think rides on this conclusion? So Marchand is smarter than his dog. So what? What does intelligence have to do with suffering anyway? As Jeremy Bentham suggested, "The question is not, `Can they reason?' nor `Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?'" While more intelligent beings may be capable of more varied and subtle forms of suffering (e.g. the pain of anticipation, the sense of melancholy, existential dread), there is no good reason to suppose that dogs (and chickens) do not suffer. Marchand being much smarter than his dog is compatible with his having a moral obligation not to kick it in the ribs whenever he feels like it. Singer's point is not that non-human animals are on a par with humans in all respects, but that that they share with humans the capacity for suffering — a suffering which must be taken into account in our reflections on how we ought or ought not act.

Admittedly, Singer's utilitarian view has untoward consequences, consequences arising from his overly scientistic understanding of human beings and overly simplistic understanding of ethics. But Marchand need not become a utilitarian to justify taking the suffering of animals more seriously. As an enthusiastic exponent of Charles Rice's views, Marchand need look no further than Rice's own Catholic morality for reasons to object on moral grounds to at least some of the suffering that animals experience at the hands of humans. According to Rice, on Catholic teaching humans have "a serious duty to God, but not to the animals, to make a right use of animals without being cruel or inflicting needless pain." That is, even on Catholic moral principles, principles that preserve a rigid distinction between humans (created in God's image) and the mere animals over which humans have been granted dominion, there are moral restrictions placed on the causing of needless suffering to animals. Thus, Marchand need not lapse into Singerian "lunacy" to justify relinquishing his cruel stance. The Catholic view with which he expresses sympathy will allow him to maintain his sense that humans are "special," that the deaths of 6 billion chickens is not comparable in moral significance to the deaths of 6 million humans. But it will also give him reason for taking seriously the deaths of 6 billion chickens, especially when so many of those deaths involve the infliction of needless pain.

Marchand would do well to reflect on the meaning of "needless pain." As PETA protesters rightly insist, chickens COULD be transported to the slaughterhouse in such a way that they do not end up with broken wings or frozen to death. That is, they do not NEED to be transported as they presently are. Presumably, they could also be "farmed" in a more humane fashion, confined in larger cages or set free in an open range. But perhaps it will be suggested that the adoption of such measures is unfeasible given the economic demands placed on factory farmers in a highly competitive industry (a claim which is surely true as a description of present day America).

If chickens bound for our dinner plates cannot presently be raised and slaughtered in a manner that does not cause them to suffer, then we ought to ask ourselves whether we really "need" to eat chicken in the first place.

Philip J. Bartok

Graduate Student, Department of Philosophy

September 28, 1999

• Go ahead — ash'k a silly question
  
• Providence has been good to us
  
• Do we need to eat chicken?