Clear Vision Trust

Why are we beastly to animals?

If we are beginning to become aware of the suffering involved in the meat trade, but still eat meat, then we have a problem. We have a source of conflict in our lives.

We have to decide what to do with that awareness of the suffering inherent in meat-eating. It's all too tempting to push the awareness away so that we can carry on acting as before. We may even recall having done this in the past with this very issue. Another, and more creative, response would be to face up to and explore the conflict so that we can learn and grow from the insights this might reveal. A good place to begin is with an exploration of the views and assumptions that underlie meat-eating and provide a foundation for the practices of the farm and slaughterhouse.

One of the most powerful insights of Buddhism is that behind every action is a view . Views are not necessarily philosophical positions that we have carefully worked out; in fact we may never put some of our deepest-held views into words at all. Our views are more likely to be held as unconscious 'inherited' assumptions about the world. These assumptions guide and give rise to our actions. Bringing views into consciousness, and recognizing where they have come from and how they affect us, is a valuable exercise. It gives us the power to change our views for ones that will bring more harmony and fulfilment to our lives.

Applying this principle to meat-eating, we can see that many of our views about our relations with animals come from the Judeo-Christian model of the world. Even if we don't believe in the biblical account of the world it probably affects us unconsciously. After all, it has shaped the Western psyche for close on two millennia. Some of the views that we have unconsciously absorbed from this tradition stand in the way of our respect and compassion for animals.

Firstly, we have inherited the view that humankind has dominion over the animals and that we therefore have a 'right' to kill animals and that it is 'natural' for them to live in fear of us. We have come to assume that animals have been put on earth for us to use, and that their suffering is unimportant if it arises as a result of our use of them.

'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.' (footnote 12)

The book of Genesis clarifies what this stewardship entails when God tells Noah:

'And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.' (footnote 13)

Consequently, most of us believe that 'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to animals. The Western approach has typically been to see a rigid separation between humans and animals, with humans having a 'soul' or 'rationality' setting us apart. Westerners have generally seen human suffering as a matter for concern (with some important exceptions) while we have tended to ignore or deny animal suffering much of the time.

This view of animals as possessions to be used in any way we please became a philosophical standpoint for many Western thinkers. Thomas Aquinas, probably the greatest medieval European philosopher, wrote:

'We cannot wish good things to an irrational creature, because it is not competent, properly speaking, to possess good... Nevertheless we can love irrational creatures out of charity, if we regard them as the good things that we desire for others.' (footnote 14)

In other words we can only care for the welfare of animals if it will benefit a human, not for the sake of the animal.

The philosopher Descartes and his disciples developed yet further the idea that, because they are 'irrational', we can treat animals in any way we wish. Descartes regarded animals as no more than complex mechanisms, devoid of rationality. His followers took this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. If an animal has no 'soul', and is merely a mechanism, then the cries of an animal when it is injured no more signify that it is in pain than the rattling of a faulty engine suggests that an automobile suffers. His followers 'kicked about their dogs and dissected their cats without mercy, laughing at any compassion for them, and calling their screams the noise of breaking machinery', according to one of his biographers. (footnote 15)

This was probably the low point of Western relations with animals (although some factory farming methods come close), but some people have expressed such views well into the twentieth century. In the 1960s a theologian claimed that animals exhibit 'a very interesting and, indeed, very mysterious psychism, but one that is devoid of consciousness of any kind '. (Original emphasis retained.) He goes on to conclude that

'the problem of animal 'suffering' is an empty one, as 'unconscious suffering' is a contradiction in terms. To suffer and not to be aware of the fact, to suffer and not to be conscious of suffering, is the same as not suffering at all.' (footnote 16)

One powerfully influential scientific view of the early twentieth century came from the same current of thought. The school of 'behaviourism', whose most famous exponent was B.F. Skinner, dismissed the idea of animals having any self-consciousness. Like Descartes, he saw animals as complex machines devoid of the capacity to experience pain. Although this view has lost ground, it still has its exponents in the scientific community today. As recently as 1992, a serious scientific magazine could carry an article entitled 'Do Animals Feel Pain?'(footnote 17) The article reported that a working party of experts rather tentatively decided, after three years of deliberation, that vertebrates (which include all farm animals) ' may be capable of experiencing some suffering'. (My emphasis.)

It would be wrong to suppose that all Christians (or scientists) hold, or have held, the inhumane views we've touched upon. Many have taken a leading role in animal welfare, and some Christians (and scientists) are vegetarian and have a strongly compassionate relationship with the animal world. However, traditional Western views have deeply conditioned many of us and underpin our acceptance of the modern horrors of the factory farm, where animals are treated as machines, and where the pain they feel is regarded as inconsequential.

the buddhist perspective

'At first one should meditate intently on the equality of oneself and others as follows: 'All equally experience suffering and happiness. I should look after them as I do myself... I should dispel the suffering of others because it is suffering like my own suffering.' (footnote 18)

The Buddhist view of animals and their relation to humans is rather different from the traditional Western viewpoint outlined above. Buddhism has always recognized that animals show every sign of experiencing and fearing suffering. That animals lack some faculties that humans have, or have them less well developed, is a separate issue, and not one that affects animals' ability to suffer. Buddhism sees suffering as undesirable and freedom from suffering as something to be preferred, irrespective of whether it is an animal or a human that suffers.

Buddhism, then, regards animals as being worthy of our respect, and urges us to have compassion for animals when we see they are suffering. When they are free from suffering Buddhism also encourages us to respect that fact and not to cause them any unnecessary pain or distress.

In the West, the myth of humans being given dominion over the animals has shaped Western relations with nature. Many Buddhist myths and symbols, recognizing the continuity between animals and humans, and showing that all sentient life is intimately interrelated, are expressive of the Buddhist approach to animals. One such traditional Buddhist symbol is called the Wheel of Life.(footnote 19)This shows six realms of existence, including the realm of animals and the human realm.

The Wheel of Life is a symbol of change; it shows us how we progress or regress, depending on how we act. Buddhism does not see the realms as being completely separate from one another - beings can die in one realm and be reborn in another. Animals may be reborn as humans in the future and, possibly, those of us who are humans now may be reborn as animals. There is no absolute discontinuity, in the Buddhist account, between animals and humans. Instead, our continuity and commonality are emphasized. Animals and humans are, so to speak, all trapped on the Wheel, one of whose characteristics is a tendency to suffering.

As well as this symbol, there are many popular folk tales, called Jatakas, about the Buddha's previous lives. In some of these stories - which are similar to Aesop's fables - the Buddha is portrayed as an animal. Usually he is the animals' leader and performs heroic deeds that benefit others.(footnote 20)These stories illustrate Buddhist teachings through the simple, direct medium of storytelling rather than doctrinally.

These myths are not presented as reasons for becoming vegetarian, but as an illustration of how fundamentally different the Buddhist view of animals is from the Western view. Although there is no need for Western Buddhists to believe that the Buddha was literally an animal in previous lives, we can learn from the Jataka tales that early Buddhists had no problem with thinking about their revered teacher as having been an animal in a past life (footnote 21). Once more, animals and humans are seen as part of a continuum of life.

Although humans may or may not literally be reborn as animals, the underlying message of these images - that there is similarity and continuity between animals and humans - is something we can learn from. We all have the capacity to suffer and the desire to escape suffering. There is therefore no question of Buddhists regarding animals as 'things', to be possessed or treated as if they were objects without feelings. There is also no question of animals having been put here for us to use. Instead, we're all trapped in this Wheel of Life together. The main difference between humans and animals is that humans have a greater ability to seek and create happiness - for ourselves and others. Buddhism encourages us to empathize with animals and see them as worthy of our kindness and compassion.

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