The Gospel of Matthew records Christ telling his followers that they “are of more value than many sparrows” [1]. Luke also tells of Jesus consuming fish [2]. To Christian animal ethicists, these Biblical claims are the source of some frustration. To reconcile these claims with an animal rights position, Andrew Linzey [3] suggests that Christ had to engage in the consumption of fish because of protein source scarcity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Of course, this claim will turn out to be false if some of Jesus’ closest allies were vegetarian, as some have argued [4]. Other Christian ethicists have resisted a strong animal rights position on the grounds that it is too demanding. For example, Celia Deane-Drummond suggests that veganism is a form of asceticism [5]. This claim is difficult to square with the availability of plant-based fast foods and other desserts. Another criticism of Christian animal rights is that it is simply not traditional. For example, John Schneider suggests that Christian tradition gives “unequivocal moral permission…for humans to employ animals as instrumental means to ends” [6]. But this claim is difficult to defend. Traditional practices have epistemic weight because they are reliable or otherwise defensible, not because they are traditional.
It seems that Christian environmental ethicists will therefore have to find other ways to reject Christian animal rights positions. In my view, one way to do so is to spotlight a lacuna in animal rights arguments. This lacuna concerns an explanatory gap existing between arguments for sentientism and arguments for egalitarianism. To see this gap, consider the following argument for sentientism as articulated by the environmental ethicist Ronald Sandler [7]:
P1: If something has the capacity to suffer, then it has an interest in avoiding suffering
P2: Nonhuman animals have the capacity to suffer
C1: Therefore, nonhuman animals have an interest in avoiding suffering
P3: The interest in avoiding suffering is morally considerable in all humans
P4: There is no difference between humans and nonhuman animals that justifies moral considerability of human suffering, but not nonhuman suffering
C2: Therefore, the interest of nonhuman animals in avoiding suffering needs to be considered when evaluating actions, practices, and policies
Now, in my view, this is a good argument. As I see it, it is hard to make rational sense of any attempt to resist the argument’s conclusion (C2). However, one often overlooked facet of this argument in the writings of many animal ethicists is that C2 is a conclusion for sentientism: the view that all minded creatures have intrinsic moral value. It is not a conclusion for egalitarianism: the view that all intrinsically valuable creatures are equally valuable.
In response, one might argue that P4 suggests an egalitarian reading of C2. The problem with this suggestion is that it is false. P4 suggests that there is no difference between human and nonhuman suffering that justifies considering only human suffering when making moral decisions and ignoring nonhuman suffering. That is, the target of P4 is absolute anthropocentrism: the view that all and only human beings possess intrinsic moral value. Thus, P4 is consistent with moderate anthropocentrism: the view that all human beings possess more intrinsic value than other creatures, and moderate anthropocentrism is consistent with C2. That might seem strange but remember that moderate anthropocentrism only suggests that human beings possess the most intrinsic value. It does not suggest that all and only all human beings possess intrinsic value. So, the moderate anthropocentrist can accept C2. They will just reject the animal rights position on the grounds that the animal rights theorist is an egalitarian sentientist who only has an argument for sentientism, not for egalitarian sentientism.
Such a person would have little difficulty reconciling their view of the community of intrinsically valuable creatures with the Biblical claims cited above. After all, Christ tells his followers that they “are of more value than many sparrows.” He does not tell them that sparrows are valueless. In fact, Christ suggests exactly the opposite. Before making this claim, the Gospel of Matthew has Christ claim that “not one [sparrow]…will fall to the ground apart from your father” [8]. This suggests that sparrows are intrinsically valuable. Therefore, the most straightforward reading of these passages is from the perspective of a moderate anthropocentrist.
Of course, this is not to endorse the moderate anthropocentric position. There may be something more that can be said in defense of Christian animal rights. I have not examined every argument for that position. However, I have suggested that many such theorists must go farther than many have [9]. Perhaps they can, but perhaps Christian environmental ethicists should look elsewhere. Perhaps biocentrism (the view that all living things possess intrinsic value) or ecocentrism (the view that the intrinsic value of all things is determined with respect to its position or role in an ecosystem) is better suited for the Christian ethicist. These are topics worth exploring in further detail [10].
Notes
[1] Matthew 10: 31, NRSV.
[2] Luke 24: 23, NRSV.
[3] Linzey, Andrew. 1994. Animal Theology. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 135.
[4] For example, James Tabor argues that Jesus’ teacher, St. John the Baptizer, was a vegetarian on historical grounds. See: Tabor, James. 2006. The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
[5] Deane-Drummond, Celia. 2019. Theological Ethics Through a Multispecies Lens: The Evolution of Wisdom, Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 253.
[6] Schneider, John. 2020. Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 232.
[7] Sandler, Ronald. 2018. Environmental Ethics: Theory in Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 141.
[8] Matthew 10: 29, NRSV.
[9] For example, it will not help for such theorists to follow Peter Singer in assuming that a principle of equal consideration is morally axiomatic before deploying the argument cited above. Such a position would only presume an egalitarian position, rather than argue for one. This would leave the lacuna I have emphasized here unaddressed. See: Singer, Peter. 1975|2009. Animal Liberation. New York: Harper Collins.
[10] For some work in this direction, see my previous essay: "Which God Should Environmentalists Believe In?"
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter Scott Stepanenko is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. His current research focuses on issues that emerge at the intersection of science and theology in philosophy of religion. He received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati where he completed a dissertation on the limits of moral demandingness with attention to the demandingness of the obligations of individual human actors with respect to climate change. He is a former Research Associate at the Center for Religious Understanding at the University of Toledo (Ohio).
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