I haven’t had a loving relationship with a dog since fourth grade, but I still felt nauseous when I saw a report about a Wisconsin man who baked his ex-girlfriend’s dog in the oven alive.
Judge William Atkinson sentenced the man to six years in prison and ordered $1,500 in restitution to his ex-girlfriend.
Often when a story like this pops up somewhere, whether it’s about an obscure man from Wisconsin who cooks a dog or a famous quarterback who gambles on dogfights, you’ll always have that person who says, “Who cares? It’s just an animal.”
When this story was picked up on The Clarion-Ledger’s Web site, one online commenter calling himself “libsrdum” mindlessly wrote, “It’s a dog, who cares. It’s not like it had a soul. Would he still go to jail if he ate it? Cooking an animal and eating it is not a crime.”
In January, Reflector entertainment editor Hannah Rogers wrote an op-ed piece about animal cruelty in Mississippi, specifically Alonzo Esco, an animal control officer in Canton who killed at least 100 animals apparently for his own amusement and could face six months in prison. The ever-vigilant online commenters ranted about how it doesn’t matter, since they were just animals.
One commenter who referred to himself as “Spaniard” said, “Animals are not humans. [.] Someone spending serious time in jail for animal cruelty is mind boggling.”
When Michael Vick underwent the maelstrom of controversy surrounding his associations with a dogfight club, I heard similar comments here and there and in the media.
In fact, I remember making some of the same comments and employing some of the same logic myself. I mean, they’re just animals, right?
The problem with this apparently popular line of thinking is that it ignores the fact that while animals are animals, we are human. And when we express or take part in violence, it reflects something of our inhumanity. Philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that, while animals have no intrinsic moral value, that doesn’t permit sadistic cruelty toward them, and “We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” In severe cases, someone bakes his ex-girlfriend’s dog alive or kills 100 dogs just for the sake of it.
Less severe cases of actions that betray our violent tendencies might include enjoying gratuitous violence in certain movies or watching Spike TV’s “1,000 Ways to Die.”
Although a lot of people try to use the “they’re-just-animals” argument to downplay animal cruelty, the fact remains no major philosophy on the ethics of animal treatment justifies causing harm to animals without a reason or simply for the twisted pleasure of it, according to the peer-reviewed Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
I say all of this as someone who has generally had negative experiences with pets, especially dogs. I’m far from being an animal lover, so don’t accuse me of being some kind of wacko animal rights advocate a la PETA.
Nevertheless, a lot of the arguments used against sensible laws and regulations regarding the treatment of animals (like not putting a live dog in an oven) are baseless and even a little disturbing sometimes.
Matt Watson is a graduate student majoring in Spanish. He can be contacted at [email protected].