Animal Sacrifices

Preface

Preface Even as recently as a decade ago, not a single student in the thousands of philosophy courses offered annually in America's colleges and universities discussed the ethics ofhow humans treat animals. Today, each semester, many tens of thousands ofstudents, perhaps as many as a hundred thousand a year, examine this topic. Usually part ofa course on contemporary ethical issues that includes such issues as abortion, nuclear war, euthanasia, and world hunger, "ethics-and-animals" has become a staple in the diet of ideas in moral philosophy, at least in the English-speaking world. The changes that have taken place in the classrooms of philosophy have occurred as a direct result of related changes in philosophy's scholarship. Previously relegated to occasional, brief mention in the footnotes of journal articles or to scattered , incidental passages in longer works, ethical questions about how humans ought to treat animals have come to be the principal subject not only of an increasing number of learned papers (indeed, several prestigious professional quarterlies in philosophy have devoted whole issues to essays on "ethicsand -animals") but also of a steadily growing number of books. Viewed historically, the increase in scholarly work carried out by moral philosophers in the last decade is nothing short of astonishing. And with this growth has come the burgeoning pedagogical interest in teaching "ethics-and-animals," with the result that today it is the exception, whereas only a decade ago it was the rule, to find a philosophy book or course on contemporary ethical issues that fails to include a significant secCopyrighted Material x Preface tion devoted to moral questions about how humans do and should treat animals. To many, the curriculum in religious ethics at present is the mirror image of the state of moral philosophy ten years ago. Discussions of abortion, nuclear war, euthanasia, world hunger, and other pressing issues in social and personal morality are common ingredients in courses in religion and ethics, but not the ethics of our treatment of animals. As was true of moral philosophers of earlier generations, the explanation of this omission itself tells a tale. For it is not as if most religious ethicists have asked searching questions about the many uses humans make of animals and, after having given these questions a sustained, fair, and knowledgeable hearing, have decided to exclude them because the questions lack ethical significance . Rather, the questions are absent largely because they have not been asked. This volume is intended to help foster growth in the area of religious ethics and animals. With two exceptions, the papers collected here were presented at an International Conference organized around the theme of "Religious Perspectives on the Use of Animals in Science." Held in London, England, on July 25-27, 1984, the Conference's sponsor, the International Association Against Painful Experiments on Animals (IAAPEA), was, and is, hardly a morally neutral bystander on the issue of animal experimentation. However, every effort was made to ensure that compliance with IAAPEA's ethical position on this issue was not in itself used as a criterion for inclusion in the Conference program. A "Call for Papers," distributed more than a year before the Conference, was mailed throughout the world to major Schools of Theology, Departments of Religion, Schools of Divinity, and Departments of Religious Studies. The selection of speakers was based exclusively on the academic integrity of each respondent's record of publication, the scholarly promise of the submitted abstract and the sponsor's interest in hosting a balanced conference, a~ international in composition as resources permitted. IAAPEA was, one might say, willing to risk truth's being on the program Copyrighted Material Preface xi rather than to try to program the truth. The quality of the papers chosen for presentation and reproduced here more than confirms the sponsor's elemental wisdom in this regard. Although the stated theme of the Conference, adopted as the subtitle of this book, refers to the use of animals in science , it soon became evident to those involved in selecting Conference papers that the contributors inevitably touch upon the ethics ofother uses we humans make of animals-as beasts of burden, for example, or as food. In their several ways, then, each paper serves as a general introduction to a wide range of ethical issues involving animals, as seen from the vantage point of one or another of the world's major religions . More than this...