Some animals are more equal than others
Philip Bowern on Wednesday
AREPORT in yesterday’s Western Morning News, about research into the attitudes of children towards animals and how those attitudes change as children grow into adults might have been filed, by some readers, under the heading “daft things that qualify as ‘research’ at university.”
I’m also a long-term sceptic of some of the subjects that seem to justify long hours of study and Phd funding. It’s probably borne of jealousy, however – who wouldn’t want to while away their days working out the optimum dunking time for a biscuit, say, or how long you should let the grass grow in an orchard to avoid bruising windfall fruit (both genuine university studies, I can assure you).
But the study we reported on Tuesday, entitled “The Development of Speciesism: Age-Related Difference in the Moral View of Animals,” will, I suspect, be of at least passing interest to WMN readers, particularly those engaged in livestock farming who tend to read the paper on a Wednesday, when we publish our farming pages.
The gist of the research – and I am sure the authors will forgive my precis – is that children believe that farm animals should be treated the same way as people and pets. They believe eating animals is less morally acceptable than adults do – but that this generally changes as they reach adulthood.
The findings suggest, say the researchers at Exeter University, that something happens during adolescence to change the childish view of animals. And, rather extending the brief from research to comment, lead researcher Dr Luke McGuire says: “If we want people to move towards more plant-based diets for environmental reasons, we have to disrupt the current system somewhere.” I can feel some of our livestock rearing readers bristling at the notion that more plant-based diets will, necessarily, be environmentally beneficial. But putting that to one side, there seem to me to be very good reasons for what the researchers call speciesism and giving a hierarchy to animals, including humans.
People will, for good reason, stand at the top of the hierarchy. There may be some weird types out there who would swerve to save a badger but kill a child at the side of the road, but I think we can dismiss them.
Opinions might differ about the animals that come next in the lineup. But since, for centuries, humans have worked closely with dogs and horses, I would suggest they occupy the next highest places. We love our pets and can probably add other animals with which we share our homes and gardens to that list, including cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and other “fur babies.”
Livestock like cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry would come next. Yes, we rear them to eat their meat or provide us with, wool, hides, milk and eggs, but that doesn’t mean moral ambivalence – quite the reverse. Their value gives them a status that elevates them in the species hierarchy. When it comes to wild animals it is probably easier to start from the bottom. Again, for good reasons based on the threat they have posed to humans over millennia, animals like rats and snakes are more likely to provoke revulsion than love, even among children.
This research says children view all species in broadly similar terms from a moral point of view, but change that position when they grow up. I am not sure there is much mystery in how the change comes about, or much of a need to “disrupt” it.
Quite simply, it’s called learning. In a far less scientific experiment children I know at an inner city school were once confronted with the news that “a chicken,” the feathered, clucking bird wandering around their playground, and “chicken” the deep-fried delicacy served up by Col Sanders, were the same thing.
“What?” they cried... “really?” for the very good reason that a crispy piece of chicken doesn’t look very bird-like. It didn’t take long, however, for them to start tucking in. And that, I think, is the way things will stay. The important issue is not trying to persuade children to keep their moral outlook that “all animals, are the same” right into adulthood, for dubious environmental reasons but to ensure that all animals – whether, pet, working beast or livestock reared for food – have the best life possible.
‘For good reason rats and snakes are more likely to provoke revulsion than love’