THESIS ORIGINS OF THE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY ETHIC Submitted by Jo Ann Hedleston Philosophy Department In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Summer 1998 l-IV 4757 .Hl/'1 111&' COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY June 30, 1998 WE HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER OUR SUPERVISION BY JO ANN HEDLESTON ENTITLED ORIGINS OF THE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY ETHIC BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING IN PART REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS. ABSTRACT OF THESIS ORIGINS OF THE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY ETHIC This thesis gives a historical account of the ethical idea of kindness to animals that is part of the animal husbandry ethic as found in British and American culture. It deals in particular with the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson as the "author", along with Adam Smith, of the American agrarian dream, with special emphasis on the influence of the Christian utilitarian ethic of Francis Hutcheson, a leader of the Scottish Enlightenment in mid-eighteenth century, whose idea of the moral sense influenced both of these men. The modern idea of kindness to animals, or refraining from cruelty to animals, as part of good husbandry, comes· from the social humanitarian movement in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The idea is transformed iii from the ethic which states that we ought not be cruel to animals because it might in turn lead to cruel treatment of humans into a new ethic which claims we ought to be kind to animals because they are sensitive creatures with a value of their own beyond that of human use. That transformation of the ethic occurs in part as a result of the rise of natural science which gives us a new conception of the anatomical similarities of animals to humans. The discussion about what animals are is highlighted by Descartes' theory of the beast machine in Europe in general and I look at the controversy in detail in England and France especially as the organized church struggles to integrate the new empirical science and the old religion of Christianity. I make the claim that the humanitarian movement which produced the movement for reform in Britain was fueled by the ethical idea of the moral sense which first came to the public's attention through the popular writings of the Earl of Shaftesbury. These ethical ideas of the moral sense were refined and made palatable to ordinary Christians by the work of Francis Hutcheson and other natural theologians of the eighteenth century and written about extensively in the latter part of that century and the early part of the nineteenth in Britain. I survey some relatively unknown (in current scholarship) propagandistic literature of the animal welfare movement in Britain in order to support the claim that it was through a revival of Old Testament texts regarding the kind treatment of animals that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and others were able to bring about legislative change in England regarding the treatment of domestic animals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. iv I also survey some current theological writings on the subject of Christian duty to animals in order to compare the basic ethical assumptions of both centuries' interpretations of the Biblical texts, and suggest that modern problems in animal welfare might still be addressed by these same Biblically based ethical formulas, enlightened by scientific knowledge about animals. Jo Ann Hedleston Philosophy Department Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 Summer, 1998 v This work is dedicated to two of my grandfathers: Rev. W.O. Hedleston, pastor and professor of philosophy, University of Mississippi and his son W.O. Hedleston Jr., engineer and farmer TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Defining the Ethic of Animal Husbandry . 1 Boundaries of the Historical Definition . 5 Part I Midgley's and Webster's Accounts of Our Human History in Community with Animals . 8 Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment Ideals that Founded a New Agrarian Economy . 11 Part II The Search for the Modern Ethic Regarding Animals in Europe . 27 Men and Animals in the Literature of the Middle Ages . .28 Experimental Science and Animal Soul . .31 Cartesianism and Empiricism in France . .32 The Question of Animal Soul in France . 34 Cartesianism and Empiricism in England . 41 Empirical Science, the Enlightenment and Religion 49 Natural Theology and the English Moralists, The Idea of a Benevolent Moral Sense . 54 The Earl of Shaftesbury . 55 Francis Hutcheson's Communitarian Ethics Applied to Animals . 57 David Hume and Adam Smith . 64- vi The English Clergy and the Movement Against Animal Cruelty . .66 ReverendGranger ............. 66 Humphrey Primatt . 66 The Latitudinarians . .67 De Levie's Thesis . 69 Jeremy Bentham . .71 Paley's Natural Theology . 73 Paley's Influence on the Writers of Propaganda . 76 A Short Summation ..80 Part Ill The Nineteenth Century Literature of Agriculture and Animal Welfare . .81 William H. Drummond, An Essay from a Prominent Minister . .82 William Youatt, Advice on Theology from a Veterinarian . 88 Mrs. Charles Bray on What the Children Ought to Learn . .1 06 A Short Summation . 109 Part IV Modern Theology's View of the Origins of the Ethic in the Old and New Testaments .... .111 The Story of Creation Revisited . 111 Linzey and the Theocentric Model . 117 Dominion and Covenant as Redefined by the Christ of the New Testament . 119 Process Theology: Relational Panentheism or God's Immanence in Nature as Divine Empathy 121 A Short Summary . 123 PartV An Afterward and Suggestions for Further Study . 125 vii Introduction: Defining the Ethic of Husbandry The dictionary definitions of husbandry are as follows. 1. the cultivation and production of edible crops or of animals for food; agriculture; fanning 2. the science of raising crops or food animals 3. careful or thrifty management; frugality, thrift or conservation. 4. the management of domestic affairs, or of resources generally. 1 1. the care of a household 2. the control and judicious use of resources: conservation 3. the cultivation or production of plants and animals: agriculture 4. the scientific control and management of a branch of farming and especially of domestic animals (ME housebondrie) 2 The verb, to husband, is defined as: 1. a: to manage prudently and economicaUy b: to use sparingly: conserve3 , Jess Stein, eel., The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 694. 2 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, Massachusetts: G&C Merriam Company, 1979),p. 554. 3 lbid. 2 The definition of husband as a noun comes from the Middle English husbanda, meaning "the master of a house" or its "frugal manager" or "steward", and the husbandman is defined as, "a specialist in a branch of farm 4 husbandry" or "farmar'' • Taking care of domesticated animals in a practical sensa has traditionally involved looking out for their welfare, a word that in old Middle English is welfaren or "the state of doing walt in respect to good fortune, happiness, wall­ baing, or prosparity"5 The notion of promoting the animal's welfare and prosperity comes out of the methodology of prudent management of the animal resource which is the property which belongs to the farmers's household, and the idea of prudent management has a decidedly utilitarian foundation. The animal's health and welfare insures the best possible consequence for the prosperity of the farmers household. Within our Western tradition the farmer's responsibility for his or her animal property is defined by the husbandry ethic. This ethic has been the guiding normative principle of western agriculture over the last few centuries and perhaps longer, and in general it is reflected in the definitions previously mentioned. My focus here is on the relationship of the husbandman to what I will call the non-human animal, sometimes non-human for short. As the story of the relationship unfolds 1· will also use the terms: beast, brute and creature as they seem appropriate in the literature under consideration. I will also be using traditional male terms like mankind, men or Englishmen because this is the language of the literature under consideration (from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and some time previous to that). I will be trying to identify, on an intuitive level, with that era when almost all of the scholars were mala, so 4 lbid. 5 lbid. 3 I will be assuming the identity of the time period as much as possible. The ethic governing the modern relationship between human and domesticated non-human animal is relatively simple. It is something "every farm-boy or girl knows", according to Bernard Rollin (public lecture, ·1989). Simply stated it is this: that if you take care of the animals in your household in a judicious manner, then they, in turn, will "take care" of you, in the sense of providing the goods and services required of them and for which purpose you are presumably raising and caring for them in the first place. What this caring consists of is, on the one hand, a very scientific and practical matter involving the utilitarian aspect of the ethic, and, on the other hand, a more specifically moral issue having to do with the valuing of the non-human animal in a more intrinsic sense. Both aspects of the ethic would seem to serve a utilitarian purpose to some extent since the non-human animal is truly an economic product for the farmer, and the happiness of the animal "cashes" out in that product, but there seems to be a particular quality of treatment or care about the second aspect that goes beyond the economic benefit and "productness" of the animal and treats that creature as something more than a means to a human end.