pain-free animals?
I'm grateful to Nancy Janisch, our resident voice of prudence on matters of science and animals, for looking into the following, very dubious, developing prospect in animal agriculture:
Over the past few months there has been some discussion about genetically engineered pain-free farm animals. Adam Shriver, author of an article on the same subject in the journal Neuroethics, recently discussed his proposal in a New York Times op-ed piece.
At first glance you, like the people in a small Johns Hopkins survey, might think this is a bad idea. But what if animals that did not feel pain existed? Then what? In the same survey “many people” felt that if such animals existed, researchers had a moral duty to use them. It appears the waters become muddy very quickly.
From my perspective, we can’t simply say genetic manipulation of animals is wrong. Some of you might believe it is, and you might be right, but the reality is we are a very long way down that road already - Chihuahua dogs, Clydesdale horses, Devon Rex cats, and so on. The entire process of domestication involves genetic manipulation. We humans have been at this for thousands of years.
On the other hand, few if any of us want to declare that anything goes. Most of us might agree that just because we can potentially do something doesn’t mean we necessarily should. Our multi-millennial experience with domestication and genetic manipulation contains many examples of good intentions gone wrong. Like most ethical decisions, this is neither black nor white. We continue to reside in the grey area called life.
So how might we sort this out?
The veterinarian in me immediately began thinking about the problem of animal pain, and how difficult it is to assess clinically. Animal senses, while similar to our own, are nevertheless different. Their vision, hearing and ability to smell are all quite different than ours. Their methods of communication are different than ours. Even if we restrict our discussion to mammals, even bats, whales, and dogs are quite different in the ways they perceive and interact with the world. How could we know with certainty that the animals were not feeling pain? How could we know with a high degree of accuracy how distressing any particular action or sensation would be for them?
But those are technical questions that skirt the ethical thinking we must do first. It seems to me there are a couple of related, but somewhat different, issues to address.
The first issue is an anthropocentric one. What are the implications of pain-free animals for us as humans? Years ago people debated whether or not animals could feel pain. There were people who did not think animals could feel pain. For some of these people, animal experimentation (including vivisection) was permissable because animals did not feel pain. Others, however, thought vivisection and other sorts of experimentation were not permissible, even given their belief that animals did not feel pain. Their argument was that these sorts of actions were morally damaging to humans.
In brief, animals deserved humane treatment because to do otherwise was too costly to human souls. Cruel treatment of animals leads, at worst, to cruel treatment of humans. At best, people become desensitized to the suffering of other living creatures.
If pain-free farm animals were created, I think this very old concern remains relevant. If as a society we don’t need to concern ourselves with the pain of farm animals, how long before we become desensitized to the pain of wild animals and companion animals, and even humans? This is a “slippery slope” sort of argument, but some slippery slopes really do exist.
The other argument against pain-free animals is that we are really just using biotechnology to sidestep the ethical issues. There are people who are born without the ability to feel pain. May I hold this person’s hand over a fire, or punch them, simply because they won’t feel what I do? I don’t think so. The action on my part is still wrong, regardless of the other person's perception of injury.
Inhumane behavior against animals isn’t excused because the animal has been declared “pain-free." This seems to me to be nothing more than a way for us to take the easy way out – to continue with the status quo and assuage our guilt. It allows us to sidestep the difficult question of what constitutes ethical and humane treatment. It’s a sort of “no harm, no foul” ethic. But unethical behavior is unethical behavior, whether anyone knows about it, or whether anyone is directly harmed by it.
Theologically, as Christians we can’t get away with this either. As I've mentioned before, we humans bear a particular responsibility to animals. Our dominion over animals is to echo the dominion God exercises. God’s dominion is self-emptying, self-giving, self-sacrificing. Our life with animals (and with each other) isn’t about what we can get away with, or how we can alter the rules to best suit us. It’s not about how we can excuse or justify our behaviour. Our relationships with animals (and each other) matter. That’s not to say, necessarily, that our relationships with cats, cows, bees and people are all equivalent. But we do need to treat each of these relationship seriously and respectfully, just as God does.
(Many thanks to Nancy for sharing this excellent op-ed of her own, originally posted on her blog Conversation in Faith. Also see Nancy's previous reflections on domestication and human responsibility to animals (here, here and here). She mentioned that you can find out more about people who don't feel pain here and here, as well read a philosophical discussion of animal consciousness here. By the way, C.S. Lewis was one such person who argued against animal experimentation on the basis of both animal pain and its consequences for the human soul. Photos copyright Margo Harrison & Evgeniy Meyke/123rf.com)
March 6, 2010
Reader Comments (5)
This is a great post. As a pre-vet student I'm very interested in the forfronts of science as it relates to animal care. I doubt they'll ever accomplish much in this area, if there are people seriously trying. I completely agree that this effort would be "really just using biotechnology to sidestep the ethical issues." On top of that, pain comes in many forms and take numerous neurological pathways - it would be impossible to circumvent them all. And when it comes to animal husbandry, the greatest source of pain is not cuts and bruises and lameness. Its psychological. Its the stress and anxiety of being withheld freedom to perform normal comforting behaviors. Pain-free would not even touch those bigger issues.
Thanks very much for the note and the additional thoughts, Lauren. I'm definitely with you. I do wonder though, perhaps some of the potential genetic rewiring would attempt to decrease the mental/psychological functions and needs (supposedly) as well? Not that it would be any more justified for doing so. I mentioned in a Facebook comment on this post that one thing Nancy didn't explicitly touch on in her post is whether we have the right to fundamentally change the nature of God's creatures, physiologically or psychologically? That seems a great deal more like playing God (or Satan, more like), which would obviously fall under the umbrella of despotic dominion, not the stewardship and husbandry clearly depicted and expected in Scripture. Again, thanks for a great note - Ben
The playing God idea is a very hard one to pin down. I've thought about it a lot in my classes. We are genetically manipulating the natural world when we make vaccines. And we already manipulated into being virtually every domestic animal we are familiar with from our dairy cows to our pet dogs. Sometimes which alterations are good and which are bad are a matter of perspective without easily agreed upon moral implications. I think its sad and wrong that we've bred Quarter Horses (a strain of which has a terrible, disabling genetic disease) and any type of dog with a, for lack of a better term, smashed in face (pug, bulldog) because of the poor affect on their respiratory health. And we didn't even do that for food! We just like the way they look! Anyone who loves Quarter Horses or pugs would heartily disagree with me though. Genetic manipulation in agriculture and medicine has saved millions of lives and fed millions of people...so it all comes down to - did it glorify God? We'll know in heaven.
To add...selective breeding for personality traits is already widespread. Dogs and horses especially come to my mind (haha like always). Would it be different if we went directly into their genes instead of wait it out several generations? We want nice horses that don't buck us off and dogs that don't bite our kids...we also want dairy cows that like to live indoors in concrete barns. Is there a difference at the fundamental level? Do we have the right to alter pet dogs but not farm animals?
I agree that there is some room for discussion, as Nancy mentioned herself. But my reference to "playing God" was with respect to completely overhauling such an integral dynamic of an animal's nature, whether physical or psychological. I think there are some definitive lines we can begin by drawing, as to what sorts of breeding are potentially within our bounds and which are categorically not. And I agree with your implication, we are equally bound by ethical considerations whether the animals are treated as companions or for consumption. Thanks for all the interaction - Ben