Without a Tear: Our Tragic Relationship with Animals

by Mark H. Bernstein

In Without a Tear Mark H. Bernstein begins with one of our most common and cherished moral that it is wrong to intentionally and gratuitously inflict harm on the innocent. Over the course of the book, he shows how this apparently innocuous commitment requires that we drastically revise many of our most common practices involving nonhuman animals.
 
Most people who write about our ethical obligations concerning animals base their arguments on emotional appeals or contentious philosophical assumptions; Bernstein, however, argues from reasons but carries little theoretical baggage. He considers the issues in a religious context, where he finds that Judaism in particular has the resources to ground moral obligations to animals. Without a Tear also makes novel use of feminist ethics to add to the case for drawing animals more closely into our ethical world.
 
Bernstein details the realities of factory farms, animal-based research, and hunting fields, and contrasting these chilling facts with our moral imperatives clearly shows the need for fundamental changes to some of our most basic animal institutions. The tightly argued, provocative claims in Without a Tear will be an eye-opening experience for animal lovers, scholars, and people of good faith everywhere. 
 

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

Reviews

[Steven H]

A PHILOSOPHER ARGUES AGAINST CAUSING ‘GRATUITOUS SUFFERING’ FOR ANIMALS

Mark H. Bernstein is an American philosopher who teaches Ethics at Purdue University. He a wrote in the Introduction to this 2004 book, “My goal in this book is to provoke a Newtonian experience… We are in the midst of a holocaust. Literally tens of billions of innocent, defenseless lives are being intentionally and unjustifiably destroyed each year… Pain, suffering, and terror accompany nearly all these deaths Virtually every single one of us is party to this mayhem and murder… Our excuse…is our ignorance; almost all of us are unwitting accomplices. Reading this book will eliminate this excuse and may, in some ways, make your life more trying. Still… once the situation is recognized for what it is, your life and the lives of billions of others will be incalculably improved. The victims of this holocaust … are nonhuman animals… My supposition is that if animals cried, so would we… I will show that altering our relationships with nonhuman animals may offer us perhaps the most significant way to enhance the lives of unfortunate humans… My argument for a radical change in our attitudes and actions toward nonhuman animals revolves about one simple claim, the ‘Principle of Gratuitous Suffering.’ This precept tells us that it is wrong to intentionally inflict gratuitous suffering on other, innocent individuals… I cannot … merely submit it as an inarguable truth. My task … is to clearly articulate and defend this principle.” (Pg. 1-3)

He continues, “I will not discuss every form of animal exploitation. For example, I will not consider the fur industry or the use of animals for recreation… I am a professional philosopher… I believe… that our responsibilities to animals are far more significant and stringent than most people believe. I have ARGUMENTS for this position… I ask only that you give me a fair shake, listening with an open, unprejudicial, reflective mind… The animals need---and deserve---a change in our minds and hearts. Only then will we change our actions.” (Pg. 5-6)

In Chapter 1, he states, “My primary aim… is to introduce, articulate, and defend a fundamental moral principle that I dub the ‘Principle of Gratuitous Suffering’ (PGS)… ‘It is morally wrong to intentionally inflict (or allow the infliction of) gratuitous pain or suffering on another, innocent individual.” (Pg. 7)

He continues, “Some engaged in animal-related practices may see the PGS as offering them a moral r, reprieve, since it remains silent about the moral legitimacy of bringing about the painless deaths of animals… [But] Factory farming and vivisection inflict pain and suffering to virtually every animal in their hegemonies… The popular idea that dee… do not suffer a lingering death in virtue of the great marksmanship of hunters is a myth of mammoth proportions… At any rate, the PGS can be slightly amended to include the painless deaths of animals. ‘(PGSD) It is morally wrong to intentionally inflict (or allow) gratuitous pain and suffering on another, innocent individual, and it is morally wrong to intentionally and gratuitously kill (or allow another to kill) another, innocent individual.’” (Pg. 29)

He states, “the domain of moral patients extends far beyond the borders of our species. We must realize… that our moral community includes many nonhuman terrestrial animals and may well include many extraterrestrials as well. To realize that our moral responsibilities and obligations are not restricted to humans is the first step in a moral revolution whose scope and significance should, and hopefully will, eclipse those of all previous generations.” (Pg. 39)

He observes, “Some have claimed that the property of being HUMAN is what confers inherent value on human beings. Obviously, humans uniquely have this property… One who proposed this suggestion is a ‘speciesist.’… a speciesist believes that merely being a member of the human species… gives human beings a special value that warrants considering their well-being to be categorically different from and superior to that of all other animals… At first blush this does not seem like much of an answer. In trying to discover what is it about humans that makes them special, we are told that it is their membership in the human species. This appears to beg the question.” (Pg. 49)

Turning to religious questions, he notes, “There is a change from a vegetarian edict in the ideal, Edenic state to permissible meat-eating in the postdiluvian state. What causes this drastic change from the time of Adam and Eve to the time after the Flood? Significantly, God permits humans to eat meat only after Noah’s forty-day travail. Some scholars have suggested that the postdiluvian world contained no food other than animals, since all plant life had been destroyed… Another possible explanation is that Noah… now becomes a partner with God in the preservation of the species. But it is difficult to understand why such a partnership would dispose God to allow Noah and his descendants to eat the progeny of the very animals the indefatigably helped to preserve…. Surely none but a depraved person could then, even with divine permission, eat those whom he has grown to know and care for.” (Pg. 65-66)

He points out, “Vegetarianism also has the benefit of making the violation of some commandments impossible. No longer need one be concerned about prohibitions regarding the mixed consumption of meat and dairy, eating nonkosher animals, or eating the blood and fat of animals.” (Pg. 72)

He summarizes, “I have argued that a conception of animals as bearing inherent value best harmonizes with the concept of an all-merciful God full of lovingkindness. It should from the outset strike us as queer that such a God would condone, let alone encourage, treating a huge part of his sentient creatures with relative disregard… we can plausibly interpret much of scripture as supporting the view that animals have value beyond the instrumental.” (Pg. 79)

He explains, “Let me summarize the conclusions to this point. There are no good reasons for conceiving of human beings as having a special value that confers privilege only on them. The secular candidates for providing humans with inherent value crosses species borders. Rationality, linguistic ability, moral agency, and so forth are qualities some nonhuman animals possess and some humans lack… Attempts to use Judeo-Christian religion to morally segregate humans from animals also fail. Virtually all scripture can be legitimately interpreted in ways that grant animals inherent value. Most important, our institutionalized abuses of animals in factory farming, vivisection, and hunting are irreconcilable with the conception of a God whose most salient attribute is lovingkindness.” (Pg. 91)

Turning to factory farming, he acknowledges, “I absolutely will appeal to your emotions and feelings, but not from a need to be manipulative or unfair…. Properly understood, reason does not stand opposed to the emotions. In fact, without emotions or feelings, reason cannot gain a foothold on moral issues… I thus raise emotionally charged issues … because this debate is possible only if one starts caring about the abuses ubiquitous in factory farming and slaughterhouses, and caring can begin only if there is some state of affairs that bothers, annoys, frustrates, or repulses. It is thus essential to document what transpires on factory farms and in abattoirs.” (Pg. 92-93)

He states, “I am skeptical of the efficacy of animal experimentation… I now believe not only that animal experimentation is unnecessary to the development of drugs, therapies, and other disease-management techniques but also that it has retarded progress… the notion that animal testing is scientifically necessary has reached the status of dogma and what we need to do to discard it and thus enhance the prospects for healthier lives for our progeny.” (Pg. 130-131) He adds, “animal testing is superfluous. Nonhuman animal experimentation is unnecessary in that many of the same tests that are routinely carried out on nonhuman animals could be performed on HUMAN animals. The medical benefits would prove enormous… I assume that it is unethical to experiment ROUTINELY on humans. I leave it open whether, in extreme situations, human experimentation may be morally permissible… My assumption is … that as a matter of routine institutional practice, human experimentation performed either against the subject’s will or without the subject’s fully informed consent is morally out of bounds.” (Pg. 147)

He concludes, “The legal system provides animals no relief. It and the institutions that directly involve animals need a complete overhaul. For more important, our attitudes regarding nonhuman sentient creation requires drastic revision… as is the case in all moral revolutions, a change in our hearts will have more significance than a change in our heads.” (Pg. 190)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying the issue of animal rights.