April 8, 2003
"I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY":
Our Animal Allies: U.S. Military Drafts Creatures To Help With Mine Detection And Other Tasks, Provoking Questions About Risks And Morality (STEVE GRANT, April 4, 2003, The Hartford Courant)Is an animal's life more expendable than a human life? Is life any less precious to an animal than it is to a human? These are philosophical questions, the kind that could fuel an hourlong argument in a college dorm, but they are far from abstract thumb-suckers.America is at war, and animals have been deployed to do certain tasks, usually to take advantage of one of their especially acute senses. And that can put the animals at risk.
Already, a team of highly trained dolphins dispatched by the Navy to find mines in the waters off Iraq has brought to the surface questions about the appropriate use of animals in war.
These are big, ethical questions, difficult to answer, and resistant to consensus. Should we have the consent of an animal before it takes on a dangerous task? If so, how do we do that?
There are moments that must make even those who are not conservatively inclined despair for the state of the culture and the future of the nation: the printing of this article is surely such a moment. Simply to ask the questions that Mr. Grant does as if they were open to serious debate is a sign of a horrifying pathology within the body politic. One suspects that he is quite wrong and that if you polled people you'd find a rather strong consensus that would be willing to trade as many dolphins, sea lions, dogs, chickens, and whatever else we've used, as it took to save the life of any one of the soldiers who has died, but there is a growing "animal rights" movement that actually believes there's an ethical question implicated here.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 8, 2003 10:28 AM
When biotechnological advances have us on the verge of potentially altering the very nature of "man" and the internet's leading blogger refuses even to acknowledge a moral issue might be involved, is it really any surprise that some people are already incapable of distinguishing between man and "other" animals?
Posted by: Kevin Whited at April 8, 2003 11:52 AM"Is an animal's life more expendable than a human life?"
Yes.
Case closed.
And what of Saddam's dumping of oil into the Gulf of Oman during the first Gulf war? Clearly, this was a use of chemical weapons against sea life, and their participation in a coalition of the willing to oust his reigme is to be applauded and expected - dolphin packs, after all, will launch preemptive attacks against sharks, so it is hardly surprising they should be willing to attack Saddam.
Posted by: mike earl at April 8, 2003 1:55 PMI ate a dozen shrimp for lunch, so clearly I think they
were more expendable than me.
But were they worth less than a Courant editorial writer?
Tough moral question.
Is it possible that "Lassie" and "Flipper" were two of the most subversive TV shows ever screened to a gullible, undiscerning public?
Do I dare detect PETA's manipulative hand behind it all?