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Animal Suffering Matters

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The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics

Part of the book series: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ((PMAES))

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the suffering of nonhuman animals who are “domesticated” and who are considered to be the property of humans. Of course, both free-living and “domesticated” nonhuman animals suffer through being discriminated against and exploited by humans, but the focus in this chapter is the suffering that is authorized by laws that designate nonhuman animals as the property of humans. In particular, consideration is given to the suffering that humans impose on nonhuman animals with whom we often have the closest bonds, our companion animals. The unauthorized suffering that results from wanton cruelty to and neglect of our nonhuman companions is discussed and this is followed by consideration of how the lives of even the most loved and cherished companion animals are typically characterized by a lack of freedom and an absence of self-determination. In terms of our relations with our companion nonhumans, the chapter also reflects on the related suffering that humans impose on other nonhuman animals who are much less-valued, those who suffer and die to sustain a range of industries that are associated with the care of those who are often referred to as our “pets”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    N. Rose, The Politics of Life Itself (Woodstock, UK: Princeton University Press, 2007), 33.

  2. 2.

    N. Russell, “The Wild Side of Animal Domestication,” Society and Animals 10, no. 3 (2002): 285–302.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., 287.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., 286.

  5. 5.

    S. Bokonyi, “Archaeology: Problems and Methods of Recognizing Animal Domestication,” in The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, ed. P. Ucko and G. Dimbleby (London: Duckworth, 1969), 219–29.

  6. 6.

    T. P. O’Connor, “Working at Relationships: Another Look at Animal Domestication,” Antiquity 71 (1997): 149–56.

  7. 7.

    Russell, “The Wild Side of Animal Domestication,” 289.

  8. 8.

    P. Ducos, “Domestication Defined and Methodological Approaches to Its Recognition in Faunal Assemblages,” in Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East, ed. R. H. Meadow and M. A. Zeder, Peabody Museum Bulletins, no. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press, 1978), 54.

  9. 9.

    D. Nibert, Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 12.

  10. 10.

    J.-P. Digard, L’Homme et les animaux domestiques: Anthropologie d’une passion [Man and domestic animals: The anthropology of a passion] (Paris: Fayard, 1990).

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 291.

  12. 12.

    A. Kleinman and J. Kleinman, “The Appeal of Experience, the Dismay of Images: Cultural Appropriation of Suffering in Our Times,” Daedalus 125, no. 1 (1996) 1–25.

  13. 13.

    D. C. Harvey, “A Quiet Suffering: Some Notes on the Sociology of Suffering,” Sociological Forum 27, no. 2 (2012): 533.

  14. 14.

    J. Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008).

  15. 15.

    M. Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2007), xx.

  16. 16.

    P. Singer, Practical Ethics, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 50.

  17. 17.

    Harvey, “A Quiet Suffering,” 533.

  18. 18.

    I. Wilkinson, Suffering: A Sociological Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2005), 44.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 17.

  20. 20.

    M. Midgley, The Myths We Live By (London: Routledge, 2004), 138.

  21. 21.

    J. Dupré, Humans and Other Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 218.

  22. 22.

    S. J. Armstrong and R. G. Botzler, eds., Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), 15.

  23. 23.

    Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, 28.

  24. 24.

    For example, see I. J. H. Duncan, “The Changing Concept of Animal Sentience,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 100 (2006): 11–19.

  25. 25.

    Dupre, Humans and Other Animals, 253.

  26. 26.

    Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, 34.

  27. 27.

    Dupré, Humans and Other Animals.

  28. 28.

    K. Peggs, Animals and Sociology (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 20.

  30. 30.

    R. Garner, Animal Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2005), 15.

  31. 31.

    Garner, Animal Ethics.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 15.

  33. 33.

    R. Descartes, “From the Letters of 1646 and 1649,” trans. and ed. A. Kenny, in The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings, ed. L. Kalof and A. Fitzgerald (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 62.

  34. 34.

    Garner, Animal Ethics, 15.

  35. 35.

    P. Singer, Unsanctifying Human Life, ed. H. Kuhse (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).

  36. 36.

    Garner, Animal Ethics, 89.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    P. Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. (New York: New York Review of Books, 1990), 9.

  39. 39.

    Garner, Animal Ethics, 90.

  40. 40.

    Singer, Practical Ethics, 58.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 95.

  42. 42.

    A. Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters: Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 156.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., 163.

  45. 45.

    Garner, Animal Ethics.

  46. 46.

    H. Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

  47. 47.

    Ritvo, The Animal Estate, 1.

  48. 48.

    Edward Payson Evans, quoted in Ritvo, The Animal Estate, 2.

  49. 49.

    Ritvo, The Animal Estate, 2.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., 2.

  51. 51.

    Ibid.

  52. 52.

    Peggs, Animals and Sociology.

  53. 53.

    Ritvo, The Animal Estate.

  54. 54.

    J. Derrida, “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority,’” trans. M. Quaintance, in Jacques Derrida: Acts of Religion, ed. G. Anidjar (London: Routledge, 2002), 230–58.

  55. 55.

    P. Singer and P. Cavalieri, The Great Ape Project: Equality beyond Humanity (London: Fourth Estate, 1993).

  56. 56.

    P. Beirne, “For a Nonspeceisist Criminology: Animal Abuse as an Object of Study,” Criminology 37, no. 1 (1999): 128.

  57. 57.

    T. Benton, “Rights and Justice on a Shared Planet: More Rights or New Relations?” Theoretical Criminology 2, no. 2 (1998): 171.

  58. 58.

    M. Rowlands, Animals like Us (London: Verso, 2002), 124.

  59. 59.

    Garner, Animal Ethics, 125.

  60. 60.

    Garner, Animal Ethics, 121.

  61. 61.

    Beirne, “For a Nonspeceisist Criminology,” 129.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    Animal Welfare Board of India, Draft Animal Welfare Act 2011 (New Delhi: Ministry of Environment, 2011).

  64. 64.

    Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Justice for Animals: Prosecutions Department Annual Report 2013 (Horsham West Sussex, UK: RSPCA, 2013), 52.

  65. 65.

    Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Justice for Animals.

  66. 66.

    C. P. Flynn, “Why Family Professionals Can No Longer Ignore Violence towards Animals,” Family Relations 49, no. 1 (2000): 87–95.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 87.

  68. 68.

    Ibid.

  69. 69.

    In order to ensure that the language we use reflects our proper moral relations with nonhuman animals, Andrew Linzey and Priscilla Cohn argue that the term “pet” should be replaced by “companion animals” and that “free-living,” “free-ranging,” or “free-roaming” is more appropriate than “wild” when describing animals because “for most, ‘wildness’ is synonymous with an uncivilized, unrestrained, barbarous existence. There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.” A. Linzey and P. N. Cohn, “From the Editors: Terms of Discourse,” Journal of Animal Ethics 1, no. 1 (2011): viii.

  70. 70.

    A. Franklin, Animals and Modern Culture (London: Sage, 1999), 84.

  71. 71.

    A. L. Podberscek, “Good to Pet and Eat: The Keeping and Consuming of Dogs and Cats in South Korea,” Journal of Social Issues 65, no. 3 (2009): 617.

  72. 72.

    S. J. Armstrong and R. G. Botzler, The Animal Ethics Reader, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 237.

  73. 73.

    Podberscek, “Good to Pet and Eat,” 615.

  74. 74.

    A. Arluke and C. R. Sanders, Regarding Animals, 12.

  75. 75.

    Ibid.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 170.

  77. 77.

    Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Justice for Animals.

  78. 78.

    For example, see E. Allen, “Why Would Anyone Do This? Cruel Owner Jailed for Sickening Attack on Her Own Dog Who Suffered 30 Slash Wounds at Her Hands,” Daily Mail, last updated August 31, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195783/Cruel-owner-jailed-sic.

  79. 79.

    E. I. Gullone, “An Evaluative Review of Theories Related to Animal Cruelty,” Journal of Animal Ethics 4, no. 1 (2014): 37–57.

  80. 80.

    See, for example, C. P. Flynn, “Why Family Professionals Can No Longer Ignore Violence”; C. A. Faver and E. B. Strand, “Domestic Violence and Animal Cruelty: Untangling the Web of Abuse,” Journal of Social Work Education 39, no. 2 (2003): 237–53; A. Girardi and J. D. Pozzulo, “The Significance of Animal Cruelty in Child Protection Investigations,” Social Work Research 36, no. 1 (2012): 53–60.

  81. 81.

    M. Shell, “The Family Pet,” Representations 15 (1986): 121.

  82. 82.

    L. Hickrod and R. Schmitt, “A Naturalistic Study of Interaction and Frame: The Pet as a ‘Family Member,’” Urban Life 11 (1982): 55–77.

  83. 83.

    Ibid.

  84. 84.

    Arluke and Sanders, Regarding Animals, 12.

  85. 85.

    Ibid., 171.

  86. 86.

    D. Shir-Vertesh, “‘Flexible Personhood’: Loving Animals as Family Members in Israel,” American Anthropologist, n.s., 114, no. 3 (2012): 420–32.

  87. 87.

    Dogs Trust, Stray Dogs Survey 2012: A Report Prepared for Dogs Trust (GfK NOP Social Research, 2012), 5.

  88. 88.

    Ibid., 8.

  89. 89.

    C. B. Johnson, “Puppy Mills,” in The Global Guide to Animal Protection, ed. A. Linzey (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013). 155–156.

  90. 90.

    Y. Tuan, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).

  91. 91.

    Ibid., 107.

  92. 92.

    P. K. Anderson, “A Bird in the House: An Anthropological Perspective on Companion Parrots,” Society and Animals 11, no. 4 (2003): 393–418.

  93. 93.

    Tuan, Dominance and Affection, 107.

  94. 94.

    Ibid.

  95. 95.

    Ibid.

  96. 96.

    J. Berger, “Vanishing Animals,” New Society 39 (1977): 665.

  97. 97.

    I. Sample, “MPs Step Back from ‘Draconian’ Ban on Keeping Primates as Pets,” Guardian, June 10, 2014.

  98. 98.

    K. Hessler and T. Balaban, “Exotic Animals as Pets,” GPSolo 26, no. 5 (2009): 42–47.

  99. 99.

    C. R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals,” University of Chicago Law Review 70, no. 1 (2003): 387.

  100. 100.

    Berger, “Vanishing Animals,” 665.

  101. 101.

    Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, 28.

  102. 102.

    Rowlands, Animals like Us.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames, UK

    Kay Peggs

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  1. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK

    Andrew Linzey

  2. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK

    Clair Linzey

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Peggs, K. (2018). Animal Suffering Matters. In: Linzey, A., Linzey, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36671-9_23

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