The right to life

I have been re-reading an essay in The Philosophers Magazine (Issue 31, 2005) by Paola Cavalieri which discusses whether we should extend the most basic of human rights to whales - that of a right to life.

There is some discussion in the early part of the article about the history of the whaling industry and how we, as humans, moved from purely plundering a natural resource, to realising that stocks had to be preserved, to the point where we now are under international law, that a large proportion of nations regard whaling as wrong. The article puts forward that the next logical step is to move from the point of preservation alone to the right to life being possessed by the whales themselves.

But this article doesn't only look at the development of international law to support its' argument. There is also some interesting discussion on evidence from cognitive scientists and their increased understanding of brain structure both in land and marine based creatures. Alongside this is an important strand of western moral philosophy (e.g. Locke) that argues that the concept of a person is the concept of "..a being endowed with certain psychological characteristics - first and foremost, self-consciousness." Therefore being a member of homo sapiens is not an essential requirement for being a person. Cognitive scientists argue that the brain creates self through relationships and that there is a need for complex societies and relationships. There is now a significant amount of evidence that seems to show the sharing and development of culture amongst whales, particularly evidenced through cetacean vocal development and social identity.

So why am I including this discussion on a Taoist blog, I hear you cry? Because this discussion on the right to life has moved us (homo sapiens) on from just talking about preserving other species because we may need them in the future - the mercenary, selfish point of view - towards a Taoist perspective that every part of nature is interdependent and no one part is more important than any other, something that us hairless apes have a tendency to forget more often than not. Not only is all of nature interdependent, but it also equally valuable and deserving of respect.

There are so many science fiction films, series, books etc. that discuss the possible or even definite existence of alien species (both benign and malignant) that perhaps we have now arrived at the point where we can start to think about the right to life for those who don't look like us in any way (although it is remarkable how many 'alien' species seem to have 2 arms and legs! - a deep lack of originality amongst scriptwriters, obviously). From this point it is a relatively small step to the discussion about whether it's right to eat meat or not (but maybe we'll deal with that another day). Recent research has demonstrated other 'human' qualities in chimpanzees, specifically that of altruism; again humanity is no longer 'unique'.

It is also a point to consider that if we have almost reached this point in respect to whales, and we are realising that it is not only humans that can show a desire to help, perhaps we can also, as a species move forwards in our relationships among ourselves. Across the world, there are whole rafts of examples of the 'them' and 'us' divisions - where one group regards the other as slightly sub-human (for whatever reason). Divisions exist for a large number of reasons, some historical, some geographical and some religious - what we now need to do is to learn to move beyond these to seek harmony and balance. Perhaps now we are seeing what Lao Tzu says in the Wen-Tzu that "Changes arise from the times". Perhaps the time for change is now.

I will leave you with a final quote from Lieh-Tzu:

"All things have their place in the universe, whether it is active or passive, moving or not moving. They fulfill their function in the world simply by being what they are."

Tag Taoism