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On the Status of Vermin 1 BETWEEN THE SPECIES www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ Issue VI August 2006 On the Status of Vermin Stephen M. Young Colorado State University December 1, 2005 Introduction In animal rights there has been a proliferation of material discussing the ethical treatment of agricultural animals and animals used in research. The topic of this paper and will contain an assessment of a different qualification of animals that has been paid little attention in most academic traditions; this is vermin. Vermin is a colloquial word employed to discern an animal that is unwanted. Vermin is an interesting topic as oppose to ‘invasive species’ or ‘maligned species’, which have been paid considerable attention, because those titles do not necessarily connote the same as ‘vermin’. There are two main objectives to this paper: the first is an epistemic concern – how do we know what is a vermin. This, of course, has a metaphysical component: do vermin have an ontological status aside from how humans categorize them? The second objective is mainly ethical – given the criteria of vermin and how we treat them, how ought we treat them? The first objective of this paper is to define what qualifies as vermin. The entails drawing distinctions between invasive species other terms and vermin, as well as Between the Species VI August 2006 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 2 mapping out the characteristics that make an animal qualify as vermin. Eventually it will be shown that the category of vermin is conventional in society, which, in itself, has implications that will be discussed in the second objective. It is my hope that in formulating criteria for vermin, it might be possible to distinguish between different types of vermin, potentially leading to different methods for treating them. In deciphering criteria we will be forced to look at the causes of vermin, and since vermin will be shown to be a convention of society/human civilization, that is we have literally created the title but we enable some animals to live in ways that make them candidates for being vermin, which implies that ‘vermin’ do not have ‘natural’ ontological status, we are left with the question: do we have responsibility to them? This question leads to the second objective of this paper: a discussion on the moral concerns surrounding vermin and the potential implications. There are many issues that arise from the first objective. Some of them will be discussed and other issues will be relegated to a lesser status and, consequently, they will only be outlined or mentioned, but could be discussed with further research. Here is a preliminary listing of the different ethical questions. First, given that there is a growing social concern for animal rights, why is it that the animals we see as vermin have not been extended the same rights? Is there a logical or practical basis for this, or is it simply an aesthetic dislike? Do we have the responsibility of treating them as something more than vermin if they are a creation/by-product of our society? Second, the criteria and treatment of vermin, in some cases, rely upon an idea of ecological soundness, which leads to the question: can concerns for animal rights lead us to a form of environmental ethics, which has in some cases relied upon a type mysticism or an articulated but un- Between the Species VI August 2006 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 3 argued belief that living things, in virtue of living, have intrinsic value? Third, if there are discernable criteria for vermin, can we logically extend our criteria to include other animals that are not normally considered vermin, namely ethnic groups or lifestyles of different humans? This relies upon the idea that if we can logically extend principles (like rights) to animals, contrarily, we must be able to extend those same principles that we use for animals to humans. Herein, lies a problem: the logical extension or movement is in someway inappropriate, the treatment of some animals that we categorize as vermin, or we ought to treat some humans as we treat vermin. Ultimately, I will conclude that our ethical beliefs coupled with the dangers and ineffective methods of extermination mandate that we ought to employ alternative methods for limiting populations of vermin and all potentially hazardous animals. Discerning Vermin Vermin and others Often we employ the word vermin to animals that we are not fond of, and, in some cases, these words and ways of acting towards those animals is rationalized. In cities or more populated areas vermin is employed to animals that pose certain health concerns, but in rural areas were agriculture is the predominant life-style vermin is used in conjunction with animals that are destructive to the land or the ecological system. Here there are already two different types of vermin, health vermin and destructive vermin, but before we can investigate these different types a comparative analysis of labels that are applied to animals will help in establishing the importance and difference of vermin. Between the Species VI August 2006 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 4 Philosophical consideration has been targeted namely at invasive species, and most of the this has been generated out of ecological concern. The importance of this work should not be underestimated for I feel that the natural habitats are important to maintain and this can lead to a concern for environmental ethics, but our project is different. When ecologists, philosophers, and others discuss invasive species they usually mean invasive alien species – that is, species that are not native to the ecological system they are inhabiting and probably destroying. Yvonne Baskin accurately describes some problems with invasive alien species: “these invaders dominate, disrupt, out compete, prey on, hybridize with, or spread disease among native species or alter the terms of life in the community of changing the soil, the available light or water, the frequency of fire, or even the structure of the landscape.” (Ibid., 3) These invasive alien species are problematical for ecological equilibrium (if we are willing to assume that equilibrium of a biotic community is value-laden, which is an issue that cannot be dealt with here, but will be assumed on the basis that many people do value the natural environment to some degree) and vermin, who can be classified as invasive species, are too. However, invasive species must be an assemblage of animals that are not native and are, in some way, destructive/disruptive to the ecological equilibrium. Additionally, vermin is a term used with animals and usually only small animals, although as we will see there are exceptions, while invasive alien species connotes plants as well as animals. While there are differences between invasive species and vermin there are also similarities. Most people are familiar with the invasive species problems that Australia faced in the 19th century. The most famous of which is probably the rabbit problem. Rabbits came to Australia as cargo on ships of convicts and settlers for food from the Between the Species VI August 2006 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 5 1770’s through the early 1800’s. While rabbits, in this situation, are invasive species, they also fit the criteria of vermin: small animals, destructive, hazardous, over-populated, etc. The lesser-known Madagascar rubbervines in Queensland, while similar in many regards, do not qualify as vermin because they are plants. An in depth discussion on the specific problems associated with the invasive species in Australia can be found in the book They All Ran Wild by Eric Rolls, although he calls invasive species and vermin ‘pests’. Pest is another term occasionally employed as an informal synonym with vermin, but pest does not necessarily suggest the dangerous or destructive nature that vermin does. A pest is similar to a varmint, but a pest can be something that is merely annoying. However, both pests and vermin usually imply animals and insects. While there may be interesting philosophical problems or issues with insects and some may posit that insects also deserve moral consideration, it is not a position that will be entertained in this essay. For the sake of this discussion when vermin is used it will only refer to the animal division of pest/vermin. Here vermin are different from invasive species and pests. In some cases, vermin are pests and/or invasive species, but this paper is chiefly concerned with the cases of animals that we consider vermin, some of which are not necessarily alien. A large portion of this paper focus on rats because many people think of rats as vermin, although some think of rats as pets or friends. Rats provide an interesting case because they are seen as a parasitic animal that lives on the outskirts and feeds on the waste of human society – ought we consider them invasive species or alien? We can formulate this question as ‘can we think of sewers as natural ecosystems?’ Ultimately, we will Between the Species VI August 2006 www.cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 6 conclude that sewers are non-natural and thus we cannot consider vermin invasive. Similarly, prairie dogs, which live in their natural habitat, are considered vermin. The first problem that arises is how we define what is natural. Some like to think that there cannot be anything that is non-natural. The argument is as follows. If animals are natural, and humans are animals, then humans are natural. Or if animals cannot produce something non-natural, and humans are animals, then humans cannot produce something non-natural. Basically, this is a holistic argument that relies on the notion that something natural cannot do anything that is non-natural – or that something synthetic cannot be constructed from something organic.
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