Like most little girls, I loved Wilbur the Pig in the book, Charlotte's Web and cried when I read of his victory over slaughter. But even then, at eight years old, my mind was asking questions. Are humans different from animals? If so, how? The power that fictitious pig had over me was a human one. Wilbur could speak. He had a mind and emotions just like mine. To me, Wilbur had become a person.
But was he? In reality, are pigs or goats or chickens or dogs people? Or is there a fundamental difference between humans and animals?
My son, who is studying philosophy (and, incidentally, whose favorite food is bacon), proposes an answer to that question in this way: plants have bodies, animals combine bodies and spirits, but only humans inhabit the triad of body, spirit, and soul.
While we may debate farming practices and their environmental impacts, humans don't question our need to eat plants. After all, we can't even chew rocks. But perhaps a deeper answer for our guilt-free vegetarian consumption lies in our view of what plants are. While George Washington Carver spent hours talking to flowers, most of us don't find conversation with plants relationally satisfying. Animals, however, have bodies that are more similar to ours—with eyes to see and ears to hear—so we feel more closely aligned to them. But when we add to that the concept of the spirit—that hard-to-define entity that gives animals personality and the almost-human characteristics of happiness and pain—it is that emotional tie that fuels our concern.
But what wolf pack, in a pre-hunt council, discusses the ethics of killing a baby moose? Or what hawk, in his dive toward earth, feels sorry for the rabbit below? The very fact that we as humans ask questions about right and wrong, and that we compassionately agonize over our answers, proves our souls' vitality. It is our three-chord strand of body, spirit, and soul that sets us above the rest of nature, but it is also this gift that requires us to wrestle with our responsibilities toward nature—to care for in it ways that sustain and replenish it—as only we, as humans, can.
In one way or another there will always be death in order to sustain life. Do we command the robins outside our windows to stop eating mosquitoes? We might implore our cats to forswear hunting mice, but will they listen? If we can’t impose our moral doubts onto animals, then we also should be careful not to project our human feelings into them. If I swat a fly, will the rest of the swarm accuse me of murder? That idea, like so many others, is a purely human one.
If we reject that animals are lesser beings than people, then all of us, morally, must become vegan. But if I accept that I am, with all other humans, a steward of nature, then I will view both plants and animals as having purpose--some for cultivated beauty, others for food, some as pets, and others as majestically wild. Because it's healthy for my body, I choose to eat mostly fruits and vegetables. But then, occasionally, when my son comes home from graduate school, I can pull the meat out of the freezer that I bought from my organic farming friend and wake the house to the aroma of sizzling bacon.
And I can be thankful even to that fanciful pig, Wilbur, who, by confronting me with questions, served a purpose in my life after all.
But was he? In reality, are pigs or goats or chickens or dogs people? Or is there a fundamental difference between humans and animals?
My son, who is studying philosophy (and, incidentally, whose favorite food is bacon), proposes an answer to that question in this way: plants have bodies, animals combine bodies and spirits, but only humans inhabit the triad of body, spirit, and soul.
While we may debate farming practices and their environmental impacts, humans don't question our need to eat plants. After all, we can't even chew rocks. But perhaps a deeper answer for our guilt-free vegetarian consumption lies in our view of what plants are. While George Washington Carver spent hours talking to flowers, most of us don't find conversation with plants relationally satisfying. Animals, however, have bodies that are more similar to ours—with eyes to see and ears to hear—so we feel more closely aligned to them. But when we add to that the concept of the spirit—that hard-to-define entity that gives animals personality and the almost-human characteristics of happiness and pain—it is that emotional tie that fuels our concern.
But what wolf pack, in a pre-hunt council, discusses the ethics of killing a baby moose? Or what hawk, in his dive toward earth, feels sorry for the rabbit below? The very fact that we as humans ask questions about right and wrong, and that we compassionately agonize over our answers, proves our souls' vitality. It is our three-chord strand of body, spirit, and soul that sets us above the rest of nature, but it is also this gift that requires us to wrestle with our responsibilities toward nature—to care for in it ways that sustain and replenish it—as only we, as humans, can.
In one way or another there will always be death in order to sustain life. Do we command the robins outside our windows to stop eating mosquitoes? We might implore our cats to forswear hunting mice, but will they listen? If we can’t impose our moral doubts onto animals, then we also should be careful not to project our human feelings into them. If I swat a fly, will the rest of the swarm accuse me of murder? That idea, like so many others, is a purely human one.
If we reject that animals are lesser beings than people, then all of us, morally, must become vegan. But if I accept that I am, with all other humans, a steward of nature, then I will view both plants and animals as having purpose--some for cultivated beauty, others for food, some as pets, and others as majestically wild. Because it's healthy for my body, I choose to eat mostly fruits and vegetables. But then, occasionally, when my son comes home from graduate school, I can pull the meat out of the freezer that I bought from my organic farming friend and wake the house to the aroma of sizzling bacon.
And I can be thankful even to that fanciful pig, Wilbur, who, by confronting me with questions, served a purpose in my life after all.
