What makes us animals? Commonalities? We do share a lot with
many animals – two eyes, nose, mouth, arms and legs, and cells. However, chairs
have four legs, but this doesn’t make them cows or pigs. What if we share more
commonalities than differences with chimps? Does this make us a chimp? What if
our cells more closely resemble the amoeba’s cells? Would this make us amoebas?
In a NYT article, “Humans Are Animals. Let’s Get Over It,” Philosopher Crispin
Sartwell assumes that we are animals:
·
One difficult thing to face about our animality
is that it entails our deaths; being an animal is associated throughout philosophy
with dying purposelessly, and so with living meaninglessly. It is rationality
that gives us dignity, that makes a claim to moral respect that no mere animal
can deserve. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/opinion/humans-animals-philosophy.html
At first glance, it does seem that our intelligence gives us
more dignity than those “other members of the animal kingdom,” but perhaps “dignity”
is just a concept humans invented to give us a sense of value and superiority?
Besides, if we apply this concept consistently, it will
force us to conclude that some of us humans have more dignity than others, like
those who have achieved PHDs or run a hedge funds. Do they deserve more
respect? Hardly!
If we want to retain the idea of human dignity or primacy over the animal kingdom, we don’t want to go there, but where do we go? They is only one place – to the God who gave us this dignity and sees His likeness in the humans he created (Genesis 1:26-27) and never calls us “animals.”
If we want to retain the idea of human dignity or primacy over the animal kingdom, we don’t want to go there, but where do we go? They is only one place – to the God who gave us this dignity and sees His likeness in the humans he created (Genesis 1:26-27) and never calls us “animals.”
Nevertheless, Sartwell is committed to the idea that we are
animals:
·
But maybe we’ve been too focused on the
differences for too long. Maybe we should emphasize what all us animals have in
common.
However, if we do emphasize what we have in common, we
should regard and treat our fellow human beings as animals. Is this the brave
new world Sartwell seeks, where dogs eat dogs and where only the fittest
survive?
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