- Recommended Blog
- Essay: Is It a Vice to Throw Feces?
- This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank and Mary Hoffman
1. Recommended Blog
James McWilliams’ daily blog
consistently offers thoughtful, insightful comments related to animal
Reading his blog is a daily highlight:
Is It a Vice to Throw Feces?
Rhesus monkeys have been known to
throw feces at researchers, an activity that researchers call a
“vice.” It’s not a vice when an individual harms another for purposes
of survival, for example carnivores killing to eat or prey fighting
back trying to avoid becoming a meal. These behaviors are necessary
and are not choices. Using the term “vice” suggests moral agency – the
ability to make moral choices between doing something harmful and
refraining from the action. Should the rhesus monkeys be condemned for
throwing feces at researchers?
The monkeys recognize that they
are being tormented, and their behavior clearly reflects anger at
their tormenters. I don’t think we can say that the researchers and
monkeys are both right – either the torment is justified (in which
case the monkeys are engaging in a vice, though they may not
understand the reasons they are suffering) or the torment is not
justified, in which case the moral high ground goes to the monkeys.
As cochair of the Medical Research Modernization Committee, I
have argued that animal experimentation is not necessary for medical
research or medical progress. Whether it has some value is a more
difficult question. If I am correct about the lack of necessity,
intentionally harming the rhesus monkeys is incompatible with
Christian values of love, compassion, and mercy. As I see it, this
would mean that the monkeys would be justified in hurling their feces
at those who are tormenting them.
I am reminded of Job 12:7
"But ask the beasts, and they will teach you…” Maybe if humans
listened to what the rhesus monkeys are telling us, humans would
rethink some of the assumptions about our relationship with God’s
nonhuman world. We could become wiser, more righteous, and more
inclined “to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
R. Kaufman, M.D.
3. This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank
and Mary Hoffman
How Does God Want Us to Live?