Chapter One

Man and Animal

j

harles Darwin and some biologists are of the view that

morality is a result of evolution. According to this view,

every species subjected to evolution has its own morality

at some level. Human beings are not the only species

with morality. Religions as widely adopted in the West,

like Christianity, seem to have the opposite view with regard to the

subject of morality. In Christian teachings, man only possesses an abil-

ity to think in terms of morality because man has a soul given by God.

Animals have no soul, so they cannot think in terms of morality. This

assumption is accepted by even great moralists like Kant. Kant says that

animals do not have any moral status compared with human beings.

The lack of moral status of animals leads to a moral conclusion about

what man does to animals. When animals are treated badly by man,

the person cannot be counted as immoral. He is just unkind. The per-

son is said to be immoral only when he treats fellow human badly.

In India, people also have a religion which says that God is the per-

son who creates all things in the universe. In this sense, a theist religion

of India like Hinduism seems to believe in God not differently from

Christianity. However, in Hinduism, when God creates man and ani-

CC

Classical Indian Philosophy

-16-

mal, the soul is given to both of them equally. There is no difference

between a man’s soul and an animal’s soul. In atheist religions like

Buddhism and Jainism, the same belief can be clearly found too. Bud-

dhism says that animals also have a mind similar to the one possessed

by human beings. Jainism claims that animals have a soul similar to the

one found in man. We can say that according to Indian religion there

is no difference between man and animal in terms of moral applicabil-

ity.

In modern philosophy’s applied ethics, the question concerning the

moral status of animals has been regarded as one of the important phi-

losophical questions. There are many philosophers who feel that what

we have done to animals from the past to the present cannot be de-

fended in terms of morality. We eat them. We use them in medical

and biological research. In short, we exploit them as a means to our

benefit. This kind of treatment if applied to human beings is clearly

unacceptable. However, some philosophical thinkers attempt to argue

that man has some moral right to mistreat animals as a means. The fol-

lowing seem to be the important arguments used by these thinkers.

First, animals do not have self-consciousness and other related emotions.

This claim says that having self-consciousness is required to make such

entity a person. A person only has moral status. In the case of being

human, we know: “Who am I,” and we know further: “It is me per-

ceiving the world,” and we know more: “I have some objectives in liv-

ing a life.” For these philosophers, animals do not have such things as

said. We may understand this line of argumentation more clearly if

relate it to something like the robot. Imagine we have highly function-

ing robots. They behave like human beings. They serve us as servants

in our home. We have programmed them to laugh, cry, and express

other emotions which are generally found in man. Even though these

robots are seen behaving like human beings, they are not persons. They

have no rights, no liberty, and so on. As Kant suggests, some people

Somparn Promta

-17-

may treat their robots badly. We can say that these people behave un-

kindly to the robots. Unkindness in this context means simply: some

man is unkind to his car if he drives it violently. The person who treats

his robot badly cannot be blamed and labeled as a bad person in terms

of morality, like we cannot blame the man who drives his car violently.

Animals are like the robots in the sense that both of them do not have

self-consciousness. The robots do not have consciousness: “Who am I,”

and it is the same with animals. In short, a lack of self-consciousness

appears to make animals not have a moral status. People who treat

animal badly are not immoral persons. They are just technically bad

like the man who drives the car violently. All are concerned with this

technical matter only, and it’s not an issue of morality.

It is so clearly that Indian philosophy does not accept this argument.

In terms of religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism claim that

animals have self-consciousness because they have the soul which is the

source of the self. The Buddhists believe that the enlightenment makes

the Buddha know the truths concerning animals which include a truth

that animals have the mind and self-consciousness. The masters in

Hinduism and Jainism are claimed to know the truths like the Buddha.

However, if we do not consider the matter from the religious view-

points, merely observation is believed by Indian philosophers enough

to conclude that animals have self-consciousness.

We shall take Buddhism as the example. In the West, the question

of “can the machine think like a human?” has been long explored.

Some philosophers are of the view that the machine can think under

some required conditions. Alan Turing is well known for his imaginary

experiment named the Turing Test. Imagine that we, the human be-

ings, sit in a room with a computer as communicating device. From

our computer, there are connection cables leading to other computers

in other rooms. Some are used by other human beings and some are

specially programmed computers. We start a conversation with them.

Classical Indian Philosophy

-18-

Turing says that if we cannot notice a difference between the machines

and the persons behind the wall, we must conclude that the machines

can think like human beings. It should be noted that the definition of

‘thinking’ used by Turing is determined from behaviors performed by

the machines. We can write it into a formula that: a non-human entity

can think if it behaves not differently from human.

Buddhism is known to use this kind of definition as well. The Bud-

dha says that man and animal share two basic instincts: the me-instinct

and the mine-instinct. The me-instinct is called in Pali ‘ahamkara,’ and

the mine-instinct is ‘mamamkara.’ It should be noted that these two

basic instincts shared by man and animal are also found in Hinduism

and Jainism. The me-instinct is given in a form of self-consciousness.

The Buddha says that man and animal know that “It is me doing such

things like walking, eating, or sleeping.” The mine-instinct is given in a

form of possessive emotions. The words that carry a possessive mean-

ing, like: my family, my country, my house, my friends, and so on, are

created from this kind of instinct. Of these two things, the me-instinct

is more basic. It is the basis of the mine-instinct. That is, before we

have a feeling like “it’s my car” we must have a feeling “it’s me” first.

The me-instinct gives rise to two main emotions in man and animal:

love and fear. Firstly, we love ourselves. Secondly, if we are threatened

we fear. We fear because we love to live and do not want to die. It

should be noted that what was said by the hedonist thinkers like Ben-

tham and Mill share many commonalities with Buddhism. Bentham

says that man is placed under the governance of two masters which are

happiness and pain. The Buddha says there are two things that have

important influences on man and animal. They are happiness (sukha)

and suffering (dukkha). Love and fear are related to these things respec-

tively. That is, we love happiness and fear suffering. It is the same with

animal. The question is, “how we can observe the love and fear in ani-

mals?” The answer is so clear. We can observe this everywhere. Biologi-

Somparn Promta

-19-

cal research seems best to illustrate what happens to animals in terms of

love and fear. Even the frightening animals like snakes also have fear.

In some animals such as bird and dog we can observe their love of their

children easily. So, it is not questionable that animals have self-

consciousness and other related emotions like self-love and fear.

In the Buddhist belief concerning rebirth, it is said that man can be

reborn as an animal in a next life. Actually, there are a number of sto-

ries of the Buddha’s rebirths which say that the Buddha himself used to

be born as various animals in his past lives before he becomes the Bud-

dha. There is also this kind of belief in Jainism and Hinduism. The

masters of Jainism, such as Mahavira, were also said to be born as ani-

mals in past lives like the Buddha. Considering this perspective, man

and animal share the same world of morality. As this subject is also

concerned with the second argument posted by those who deny the

moral status of animals, we shall consider it next.

Second, animals do not have a moral consciousness. It seems that there

is a hidden assumption behind this argument. The assumption is “mo-

rality can be considered as a kind of contract made between those who

share an equal moral status.” In political philosophy, a political con-

tract will be valid only if it is done between the persons with same po-

litical status. This is why, in the social-contract theory, people in the

community are given the same status as the citizen. As citizens, it is not

important who you are: poor, rich, male, or female. The sharing of citi-

zenship enables you have equal rights and freedom to choose in terms

of politics like any other. In the past, some societies had systems of

slavery. They argued that slaves did not have the same status as the

owners, so they were treated unequally. The above argument concern-

ing the moral status of animals is like the argument which says that the

slave cannot have the moral status as said. They say that animals can be

compared with the slaves, so they cannot be treated like human beings.

At the outset, the main problem with this line of argument is: how

Classical Indian Philosophy

-20-

do we know that animals do not have a moral consciousness like hu-

man beings? Next, even though we can rationally prove that animals do

not have this consciousness, the problem is: can we use this to be

grounds to deny the moral capabilities of animals. Indian philosophy

never uses the unequal status between things to be the ground for de-

nying the moral status of beings in lower positions. For example, some

people in the world are wise and some are foolish. This is a natural dif-

ference. The wise person uses his intellectual ability to treat the foolish

person as he wishes. As he is wise, so he can do this without the resis-

tance of the fool. When being asked, “How you use your fellow human

as a tool like this?” he says the man whom he uses is fully willing, so

there is no wrong in doing so. We see that it does not matter if the

foolish person is willing. The point is the wise man treats him as if he

were not a human being. The wise person cannot use the lower posi-

tion of the foolish person as the ground for arguing that he can treat

others like that.

The moral relation between man and animal in Indian philosophy is

bidirectional. The moral relation between the wise and the fool is also

bidirectional. We shall find this kind of relationship between husband

and wife, parents and children, master and slave, teacher and student,

and so on in Buddhist teaching. Buddhism accepts that difference be-

tween things or people in the world is natural. And this thing cannot

be used as the ground for discrimination. So, bidirectional relationships

between things or persons in a Buddhist perspective do not depend on

their difference in the sense that if we can prove that a thing at one side

of the relation is lower that can be used as the ground to treat it as a

means. The wise can never use the fool as a means. A person can never

use his fellow human as a slave. In the same way, man can never use

animal as a means. The lower position of animal can never be used as

the ground to treat them as we wish. This view is generally accepted

among Indian religions.

Somparn Promta

-21-

Turn back to the point “animals do not have moral consciousness”

again. We have considered above that even though it may be true that

animals do not have moral consciousness, this cannot be used as

ground to exploit animals for the whims of humanity. Or we can say

that the moral status of animals still exists even if we can prove that

they do not have moral consciousness. However, even the view con-

cerning the lack of moral consciousness in animals can be questioned if

it is correct. Normally those, who argue that animals have no moral

consciousness, usually point out that when animals commit what we call

evil, such as killing, they never feel guilty. This is an example of the facts

suggesting a lack of moral consciousness in animals. It should be noted

that a claim that animals do not have moral consciousness is a very

strange thing according to Indian philosophy. In Zen Buddhist litera-

ture, there is a saying which claims that animals can be enlightened. In

early Buddhism, even though there is no statement claiming the poten-

tial of the enlightenment of animals, it is generally known that animals

can behave in terms of morality. It is said that one time the Buddha

used to be born as a wild rabbit. He sees a Brahmin who is hungry as

there is no food around there. He thinks the Brahmin is a holy person

who can benefit the world more than him. So, the life of the Brahmin

is of more importance than him in terms of utility for the world. The

rabbit decides to jump into fire to be food for the Brahmin. This story

is religious fiction, but it represents the general position of Buddhism

towards animals in terms of the potential to behave morally. It is true

that the potential to act morally in man is more explicit than animal.

But we have modern research in the field of zoology and related disci-

plines which present that animals behave in terms of morality not dif-

ferently from humans.

The view that animals also have morality can be traced back to Dar-

win. In his books, The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, Dar-

win promotes the idea that the morality possessed by man is not one

Classical Indian Philosophy

-22-

kind while the one possessed by animals is another; actually, they are

the same as a result of enduring evolution of the species. Darwin him-

self had many dogs at his home and he said these dogs gave him many

lessons towards understanding the moral behavior of animals. Recently,

an experiment undertaken by scientist has shown that rats express em-

pathy towards their fellow rats. In this experiment, two rats are placed

in a box. Inside the box, one rat is tied to a device which will generate

electricity when a bar inside the box is pressed.

Another rat is free. The free rat has learned that

when the bar is pressed, the food is released. At

first, he presses the bar to receive food two or

three times. But later he has noticed that when-

ever he presses the bar his fellow will be shocked

by electricity. So he has understood that the pressing of the bar pro-

vides two things. Firstly, he will have the food; secondly, his fellow suf-

fers. This is a moral dilemma—how to choose between these two sides.

The experiment has found that the rats finally decide to let the food

away. They do not press the bar.

For those who are acquainted with animals this kind of experiment

might be interesting. In daily life we can see animal behavior that can

be said be morally motivated. As Darwin points out, social instinct

might be the beginning stage of morality as we have defined today. In

India, religion has a close relation with animals as gods and animals are

given equal places. We know that Ganesha has a rat as his vehicle. In

Hindu temples where people worship Ganesha, we usually find a large

number of rats and sometimes they are close friends with human be-

ings. The following is a picture of a person said to be a Hindu priest

with his fellow rats. The picture is taken from a Hindu temple in India

where the worshiped god is Ganesha. Even though the feeling and ac-

tion towards animals in Indian religion is largely derived from belief,

meaning that sometimes an adherent of religion treats animals like that

Somparn Promta

-23-

not because of his personal feeling, but through religious reasons; we

still see that ultimately there must be really some thought that views

animals in such a positive way—the thought of the masters in religion.

Friendship between man and animal

may be considered as a kind of social

instinct, but this understanding cannot

destroy its beauty. It does not matter if

this feeling of friendship originates

from whatever. The point is, if we have

found it both in man and animal, we

should conclude that since this thing

found in man is called a moral behav-

ior we must call it the same in animals,

to be fair. The dog that devotes his life

to protect his master’s life should be

viewed not differently from the same action done by a human servant.

The third and the last argument to be explored is the one which says

that we have no moral obligation to treat animals in the same way that we

treat our fellow humans because animals are not human. In my view, this

seems to be the worst argument. One time in the not so distant past, a

philosopher said that abortion is not wrong since the fetus is not yet a

human. It is just a cluster of human cells. The same philosopher also

said that a tree and its fruit are not the same thing. The fetus can be

compared to a fruit while the woman can be compared to a tree. Abor-

tion is not the killing of a human being, like destroying a fruit cannot

be compared with the destroying of the tree. It should be noted that in

the case of a human fetus, a person could argue that ‘he’ is human be-

cause his genes are of human beings. So, we would find that even in

the case that is more possible to argue for, some philosophers still argue

against the humanization of the fetus. It is thus not strange to hear the

above argument against the moral aptitude of animals. Even inside the

Classical Indian Philosophy

-24-

domain of human beings themselves, some of them such as the fetus

are subjected to analysis as being excluded from the domain. How do

animals become of lesser importance in the view of this kind of phi-

losopher?

The circle of ethical studies these days has raised a question concern-

ing the moral belief and practice of human beings: are we free when we

think about morality especially when concerning animals? Some phi-

losophers are of the view that actually we are not free. When we think,

we think from our brain. And the brain of a species cannot be free

from its long history of biological accumulation. The Darwinian biolo-

gists such as Dawkins believe that the brain of human beings and other

species is the place where important biological data is recorded. This

biological data in the brain can be transferred to the next generation

and plays a role behind the species’ behaviors especially the ones that

are related to the struggle for existence. Our ancestors in the distant

past had to struggle with extreme conditions to live and preserve their

life. They did not know why. Dawkins postulates that the genes inside

human beings and other species on the earth play a quiet role behind

the struggle for existence. They do not talk, but send mysterious signals

to our brain; and this genetic programming is all about why we and

our ancestors in the past never stop struggling for existence.

Competition between species is a normal phenomenon according to

the Darwinian biologists. They also say that in competition there could

be some that are defeated. In this case, such species become extinct

from the earth. The genes know that if we are defeated, that means

great danger, so they must be selfish. Morality, as set up by man, should

be viewed as something invented within this fact—a fact which sug-

gests that the genes inside us and other species are selfish. When the

brain receives signals sent from the selfish gene, it cannot do things

other than serve the selfishness of the species. Some philosophers of

this century say that human morality cannot be free from a thing they