The ethics of poisoning my cat and the abortion dilemma

[Hotu Matua]

This thread is not just another thread on abortion.

It is different because I share the Objectivist notion that the unborn has no rights. Women who choose abortion and their doctors and nurses should not be considered criminals and put under retaliatory force by the State.

My approach here is to show how abortion can be judged as moral or immoral, based on an Objectivist ethics, beyond the usual discussion of rights.

I'll start by telling you about Misha, my cat.

She was adopted by my family about two years ago. She was very young and lonely, an alley cat. This is a pic of her

La gata (5) por Hotu Matua, en Flickr

We knew very little about cats. We imagined it would be a matter of getting for her a place for she to defecate, cat food and vaccines from the vet.

Soon we realized she was destroying our furniture. We could not cope with cutting her nails frequently enough.

Yesterday we sent our sofa and chairs to be upholstered. We know this will not stop here.

We have thought in getting rid of Misha. We have looked for months for families that would adopt her. No success.

I have thought in abandoning her on a hill nearby, where I have seen some feral cats. A feral cat is a descendant of a domesticated cat that has gone back to the wild.

My wife and I have even engaged in fantasies on how to kill her.

In the end, we always discard abandoning her or killing her... and we keep looking for other "foster parents".

Would it be immoral if I posion Misha?

I think it would.

I think that keeping her alive and losing my furniture is more valuable to me than killing her and keeping my furniture.

But is this thinking rational? and how does it relate to the abortion issue?

More to come...

Edited April 5, 2012 by Hotu Matua

[softwareNerd]

I think that keeping her alive and losing my furniture is more valuable to me than killing her and keeping my furniture.

if those are your values, then how would someone argue with that? Are you implying that everyone should be adopting stray cats and dogs that would otherwise often be euthanized?

[Hotu Matua]

According to an Objectivist theory of values, which means a relational (not intrinsic, but objective) theory of values, I value Misha because

1) Misha is real and has an identity

2) There are objective needs in me that are met by Misha's reality or identity, and that make me act to gain or keep Misha's existence

3) These actions are consistent with my hierarchy of values, among which survival qua man (meaning, long-term flourishing) is number one.

So far, so good.

Now, what is that reality of Misha that meets my real needs and which moves me to keeping her alive?

Well, it is true Misha is cute, but a disecated animal would also be cute. I did not adopt a disecated animal. I wanted a live animal. Why?

Well, I love Nathaniel Branden's explanation: visibility.

Misha is a sentinent being, smart enough to interact with me in a sense that makes me feel existing. I get the confirmation of my existence, my intelligence and will because the presence of this cute animal which is capable of responding, to a nice degree, to my intelligent and willingful actions.

Certainly, a chimp would give me more confirmation of my existence, more visibility, than a cat. A human friend would give me more visibility than a chimp. And my wife gives me much more visibility than a friend. The more I see my existence reflected, the more visible I feel.

Narcisus fell in love with his reflection, or so the myth goes. In some sense, we all fall in love with our reflections. A person, though, produces a reflection much more significant to us than an inanimate mirror. A person's reflection of our own values, principles, ideas or preferences is specially powerful to us because he/she could have a different set of values, principles, ideas or preferences. He/she could be different, and nevertheless has made choices that are similar to ours.

A cat has enough intelligence and will (different from, say, a fly or a fish) as to make us feel visible. And that is why we care about cats much more than about flies or fish. That's why cats (but not flies or fish) can make us company and, to some extent, to a primordial extent if you wish, they can be some sort of "friends".

We honor or respect cats, dogs, dolphins and chimps in a different sense we honor dragonflies and frogs.

If we see an animal being killed on a highway or in a lab, we react with more compassion if it is a cat or a dog than if it is a lizard or a frog.

It makes sense to honor animals that either 1) provide economic value or 2) provide visibility. In a principled moral life, and all other things being equal, we act benevolently towards these kind of animals.

Therefore, unless a cat is objectively worsening my flourishing (preventing me from expanding my intelligence and will) the moral thing is to act in a benevolent way towards a cat.

A non-benevolent attitude towards cats, dogs, dolphins, chimps and the like show despise to conciousness, to otherness, or, to put it together, to other's conciousness that confirm my own existence: to visibliity.

I have discussed so far the ethics of an action based on benevolence. But there is another aspect to consider: personal responsibility.

[Hotu Matua]

if those are your values, then how would someone argue with that? Are you implying that everyone should be adopting stray cats and dogs that would otherwise often be euthanized?

No, I am not.

I don't know how valuable your furniture is to you.

I don't know how willing you are to cut your cat's nails with enough frequency.

I know nothing about your habits, needs or preferences.

I don't know if you are allergic to cat's hair.

So, at this point, I cannot say whether adopting, not adopting, or abandoning a astray cat is the right thing for you.

[musenji]

You know you can have a cat's front paws permanently declawed, right? I grew up with two such cats. And apparently there are lots of other solutions to be found as well.

I know this doesn't address the ethical issue, just thought you might like to know, if you didn't already.

Edited April 5, 2012 by musenji

[FeatherFall]

Yeah, I was going to suggest declawing the cat. Where I'm from, that's usually done while the cat is relatively young. I have two cats who still have their claws and I imagine that they would feel miserable if they lost the claws after eight years. Have you provided the cat with scratching posts?

[whYNOT]

Well, Hotua, it appears you answer yourself very well!

You got it, in my opinion, with your scale of values.

To the often-mentioned fact that one can't value life

without reference to one's own life, I'd add that one's hierarchical

value system, down to the lowest forms of life, automatically 'pulls up'

everybody and all living things the higher it progresses.

Actually, not so automatic: it follows from paying attention, from

full consciousness. Has anyone stopped to observe the incredible will

to live the lowly and despised cockroach possesses - and felt some admiration?

[Nicky]

The cat may not have the material value of the furniture, but, unlike the furniture, you love your cat. That's why you don't want to kill it. What you are protecting is not just the cat, but your emotional well being.

Acknowledging, enjoying, and acting on one's emotions isn't necessarily irrational. Acting on emotions that are consistent with a rational ethics is moral, acting on emotions which aren't is immoral.

That is the difference between protecting yourself emotionally by protecting a cat you love, and protecting yourself emotionally by having an unwanted baby. Your love of a cat is moral, and so is your fear of losing it. Loving a cat is consistent with a rational ethics. However, in my view, the fear of losing an unwanted pregnancy is necessarily based in an irrational ethics. I am yet to hear an argument to convince me otherwise.

[Hotu Matua]

Thanks very much for all your comments, guys.

Declawing the cat at this stage is not an option where I live. Vets are not allowed to do it by local Law.

Now, the facts are that I don't want the cat in my life, and that's why I keep looking for foster "parents". But I won't kill it either.

My question is why would killing my cat be immoral? The cat is my property. The cat has no rights. So, why not just killing her?

You know where I am coming from.

I believe that a basic reverence of this sort of sentinent beings helps my life. Specially when I have chosen, at some moment in my life, to take care of one of them.

I believe that my daughters derive benefit when I show them how to treat these beings with respect for what they are, and for what I am.

Here the issue of custody or stewardship comes into place.

Being an owner of a sofa is some respect different that being the owner of a cat.

The sofa doesn't seek self-preservation through self-generated actions. The cat does.

The sofa doesn't have a mind. The cat does, at a non-conceptual level.

The sofa's condition is basically the condition I want it to be. The cat, however, has a broad range of possible states or conditions that I don't choose.

Therefore, I cannot be the owner of a cat in the same sense I am the owner of a sofa.

I cannot own the cat's mind. I cannot own the way she makes me feel visible, somewhat guessing some of my states of mind and reacting accordingly.

In this sense, wouldn't it be more precise talking about custody that about ownership of a cat?

If we explore the concept of custody, maybe we will be able to understand how, independently of the conceptual or non conceptual thinking of a human newborn, parents have moral responsibility on her well-being, beyond the traditonal discussion about baby's rights.

Since rights of newborns or deeply mentally disabled persons represent a courteus extension of the core concept of rights, it follows that we should carefully consider from an ethical point first, which entitites should receive this courtesy, and what is the rational basis of an extended rights umbrella.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Hotu Matua

[JASKN]

If it were me, I'd drop the cat off at a barn in the middle of the night. That is, if you really don't want the cat.

Consider another scenario where an animal was regularly attacking your daughters. You wouldn't think much about killing it then, right? Or if it was spraying all over your living room, you'd get rid of it that day somehow, right? You have control ("ownership," "custody," whatever) over the animal because no one else has a claim to it and it is an animal and you are a human. That's all there is to it. What you choose to do to it brings other issues in, such as if you would choose to torture it or starve it. But the fact remains that it's you who holds control over the cat, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Why don't you just drive out of town and have it declawed? I don't recommend poisoning. When I looked into that for a sick pet of mine there were a lot of ambiguities about the levels of suffering the animal would endure. You could also give it to an animal shelter. They will either poison it ("put it down"), and they know how to do that properly, or someone else will decide to take it home. Either way, problems solved, and that's what a shelter is there for, anyway.

[Hotu Matua]

Continuing with our brainstorming, custody and property ownership share at least one common trait: they imply borders of exclusion.

The fence of my property keeps others outside. They cannot take decisions on my piece of land, or house, or sofa.

Similarly, there is a fence over my children. Other parents cannot take decisions on their education, nutrition, enterteinment and so on.

Please look at the strength of the fence over my children: Other parents are not morally allowed to take decision on my children even if they could prove to be better custodians (more capable of offering a better education, nutrition, environment, etc). than me and my wife.

Hitherto, custody and property ownership look pretty similar.

However, the difference lies in what the owner can do with its property (morally speaking, we are not talking here about police or State) and what the custodian can do with his custodee (if that word could exist). Custody implies a limitation, derived from the nature of the custodee. The more autonomous (self-directed) is the being, the more limits it sets to the decisions of the custodian. The closest the being is to self-recognition (closeness in time or in degree), the strongest the limits of custodians decisions.

It is moral to choose what school your 5 year old boy will attend, but not necessarily which colour of T-shirt he will wear today.

It is moral to choose what your 2-year-old toddler will NOT eat, but not necessarily which he will eat among several appropriate options.

And certainly, it is moral to choose whether your 5-day-baby will be breastfed or resort to milk formulas, but not whether she will eat at all today or not.

But then why, to begin with, should we be moral when excercising custody?

[Hairnet]

You don't have any responsibility to the cat at all. You just have a relationship with the creature. You have (very rational) principles that state that you should not betray or hurt things that you are in a relationship with and those have been turned into sentiments. When you think about killing your cat you offend your sentiments, for the same reason that causing a friend, child, or spouse suffering seems wrong to you. This seems more like the heart break people feel when considering breaking up with a long term partner (without the killing part) than an abortion question.

When someone gives birth to a child they are recognizing their relationship with a child, and those same principles work with biology to create a very powerful set of sentiments that cause rational people to abhor the idea of infanticide.. Its not a matter of rights or custody but the idea that you have a relationship with a lesser creature but you still have the principle that you should not betray, hurt, or abandon things that you recognize as yours (your wife, your friend, your child, your cat, etc).

People who hurt, abandon, and betray those that they consider theirs are easily seen as villainous and it makes sense that we would have laws against people who do that to children.

When deciding to go against your sentiments think in terms of the principles. What do you get out of the relationship with the cat? What is the best way to end that relationship or fix it? Why do you consider the relationship with this cat more similar to a human-human relationship than to a human-object relationship?

[chev]

Buy a scratching post and use classic conditioning techniques. It works for every aspect of house breaking a domestic feline, in my experience.

[brian0918]

Declawing is a serious surgery and renders the cat helpless if it is ever lost or released. I agree with chev - your scenario is not particularly troublesome, and only requires you to put in the effort necessary to correct the cat's behavior. That is, if the cat is enough of a value to you. Look for books or local experts on modifying animal behavior.

Edited May 10, 2012 by brian0918

[intellectualammo]

It should be a crime to kill such a cute kitty!

But serioulsy, it shouldn't be, as they have no rights.

If I was in this situation, I think I'd of buried a bullet in it's head for the damage it caused a while ago.

But seriously, given what you have said, trying to condition kitty might be the best way to go for you right now, see what results.

[Leonid]

La gata (5) por Hotu Matua, en Flick

]

Did you ever consider buying the scratching post or permanent removal of nails? Did you seek any professional advice? To cause death or suffering to the intelligent, feeling animal is morally wrong. For the same reason the late abortion ( over 12 weeks) is also morally wrong in Objectivism.Adopting an animal or having a child is a responsibility which cannot be easily discarded. Life is standard of all values and if you betray life you betray values.

Edited May 12, 2012 by Leonid

[Nicky]

Did you ever consider buying the scratching post or permanent removal of nails? Did you seek any professional advice? To cause death or suffering to the intelligent, feeling animal is morally wrong. For the same reason the late abortion ( over 12 weeks) is also morally wrong in Objectivism.Adopting an animal or having a child is a responsibility which cannot be easily discarded. Life is standard of all values and if you betray life you betray values.

The Objectivist position is that one's own life is the standard of one's values. The notion that life in general is the standard of values is antithetical to Objectivist Ethics.

[softwareNerd]

... ... abortion ( over 12 weeks) is also morally wrong in Objectivism.

This is blatantly false, and a misrepresentation of Objectivism. Edited May 12, 2012 by softwareNerd

[Leonid]

This is blatantly false, and a misrepresentation of Objectivism.

Please read Ayn Rand .

"Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. "

“A Last Survey”

The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3

[whYNOT]

The Objectivist position is that one's own life is the standard of one's values. The notion that life in general is the standard of values is antithetical to Objectivist Ethics.

No, untrue.

"The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the STANDARD of value - and HIS

OWN LIFE as the ethical PURPOSE of every individual man."

[...]

"Man must choose his actions, values, and goals by the standard of that which is proper to

man - in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in

itself, which is his own life." [VoS]

I think the brilliance of this is that she tied together man's metaphysics,

epistemology, and morality - in one statement.

[Leonid]

No, untrue.

"The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the STANDARD of value - and HIS

OWN LIFE as the ethical PURPOSE of every individual man."

[...]

"Man must choose his actions, values, and goals by the standard of that which is proper to

man - in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in

itself, which is his own life." [VoS]

I think the brilliance of this is that she tied together man's metaphysics,

epistemology, and morality - in one statement.

Right. Life is standard and source of values for the any concerned organism.

" Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of “Life” that makes the concept of “Value” possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil." (GS)

The only difference between man and all other organisms is that man doesn't have build-in mechanisms of choice and has volitionally use his mind to make them. Therefore man's cardinal value is rationality. Man's life is more than mere survival, he only can life qua man, that is-rational being.

"

Edited May 14, 2012 by Leonid

[softwareNerd]

Please read Ayn Rand .

"Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. "

“A Last Survey”

The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3

You are misinterpreting what Rand said. Never, in any published context did Rand ever say that abortion was wrong after the first three months.

One may argue that she did... but one would be wrong.

[Leonid]

You are misinterpreting what Rand said. Never, in any published context did Rand ever say that abortion was wrong after the first three months.

One may argue that she did... but one would be wrong.

First of all, i didn't interpret anything. I just quoted Ayn Rand. Second, you missed the most important part of the quote "the essential issue concerns only the first three months. " The meaning of this is that beyond of this period of gestation Ayn Rand didn't even consider the possibility of abortion since such an action would be evidently wrong.

[softwareNerd]

Second, you missed the most important part of the quote "the essential issue concerns only the first three months. " The meaning of this is that beyond of this period of gestation Ayn Rand didn't even consider the possibility of abortion since such an action would be evidently wrong.

No, I missed nothing. You're simply reading meaning where there is none.

[Leonid]

No, I missed nothing. You're simply reading meaning where there is none.

So, in your opinion, what is the meaning of this statement? Clearly, while discussing abortion, Ayn Rand considered essential to this issue only the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Edited May 14, 2012 by Leonid