Humanism and Animals: Welfare, Rights and Our Ethical Responsibilities
Do animals matter? For humanists, the answer is yes.
Humanism is a worldview centred on human wellbeing, reason, compassion and ethical responsibility. But taking human wellbeing seriously does not mean that humans are the only beings who matter. Animals share our world, experience many of the same sensations and emotions that we do, and can suffer as a result of the choices humans make.
The humanist approach to animal ethics starts with a simple question: What do we owe to other living beings who can experience pain and suffering?
Humanists don’t need to appeal to a god, a sacred text or a belief in an immortal soul to answer it. Instead, we can use evidence, reason and compassion to think about how our actions affect other animals.
Why should humans care about animals?
Humans have an enormous influence over the lives of other animals.
We keep animals as companions, breed them for food, use them in research, alter their habitats and affect the natural environment in ways that can help or harm countless species. And with that influence comes responsibility.
Many animals can experience pain, fear, stress and pleasure. They seek food and shelter, form social relationships, care for their young and respond to their environments. Some demonstrate remarkably complex forms of intelligence and communication.
While animals experience the world differently from humans, we have strong evidence that many of them have rich subjective experiences of their own. This gives us an important reason to consider their wellbeing in the world. If we accept that suffering is something worth preventing when humans experience it, it is difficult to justify ignoring suffering simply because the individual experiencing it belongs to another species.
Is humanism only concerned with humans?
Despite the name, humanism does not mean that humanists believe that human beings have unlimited permission to do whatever we want to other species or that there is any kind of hierarchy of species. Humanism is an alternative worldview to ‘theism’, meaning a belief in God. Instead of a-theism, a straightforward lack of belief in God, Human-ism replaces the ‘God’ part of the-ism with human and means that we ‘believe’ in humans and the human ability to make a better world for everyone in it. Humanism places particular emphasis on human flourishing because human beings are the people who make humanist communities and societies. But humanist ethics also extends beyond our own species.
A humanist approach asks us to consider the consequences of our actions and to take suffering seriously wherever we find it. This is sometimes described as moral consideration for animals or animal sentience — the recognition that animals who can experience pain and pleasure have interests that deserve consideration. There is even a whole movement called Sentientism which promotes evidence, reason, and compassion for all sentient beings.
Importantly, a humanist view of animal ethics doesn’t require us to claim that humans and animals are identical. Humans have distinctive capacities, relationships and responsibilities. We have developed complex societies, languages, technologies and systems of moral reasoning. But having characteristics that distinguish us from other animals does not automatically mean that their suffering is irrelevant.
What is animal sentience?
One of the most important concepts in thinking about animal welfare is sentience. It refers broadly to the capacity to have subjective experiences, particularly experiences such as pain, pleasure, fear or distress.
We cannot directly experience another animal’s consciousness. We can’t know exactly what it feels like to be a dog, cow, octopus, bird or even another human. But we can learn from what they do: their behaviour, and what they are: their biology and nervous systems.
Scientific research has increasingly demonstrated sophisticated cognitive and emotional capacities across a wide range of animals. Mammals and birds, for example, show clear evidence of complex behaviours and responses to pain and social relationships. Research has also raised important questions about the experiences of fish, cephalopods and other animals.
This evidence matters ethically. If an animal can suffer, then causing it unnecessary suffering is a morally relevant action.
Do animals have rights?
Humanists may approach the question of animal rights in different ways. Some argue that animals have inherent rights that humans should respect regardless of any other consideration. Others focus on reducing suffering and increasing wellbeing, asking whether our treatment of animals is justified by the benefits it produces.
These approaches can lead to different conclusions in different cases, but they share an important starting point: animals are not merely objects. An animal is not simply a resource, product or piece of property. It is a living being with its own experiences and interests.
This also raises difficult questions about the ways humans use animals. Is it ethical to cause an animal pain for human convenience? How much suffering can ever be justified by the benefits humans receive? What responsibilities do we have towards animals we have bred and domesticated? And how should we balance animal welfare with environmental conservation, food production and human needs?
There are no simple answers, but humanism encourages us to take these questions seriously rather than assuming that tradition provides the answer.
What does a humanist view of animal wellbeing look like?
There isn’t a single “humanist position” on any question and this is especially true of questions involving animals. Humanists disagree about many fundamental issues including whether we ought to eat meat, experiment on animals, hunt, support zoos and even whether it is ethical to keep animals as companions.
What unites the humanist approach is respectful discussion and the use of reason, evidence and compassion.
Rather than asking only, “What have humans always done?”, we can ask:
- Does this practice cause animals unnecessary suffering?
- Is the suffering avoidable?
- Are there alternatives?
- What benefits do humans receive?
- How significant are those benefits?
- Can we achieve those benefits while causing less harm?
- What does the available scientific evidence tell us about the animals involved?
This approach doesn’t necessarily produce a unified answer in every situation, but it encourages us to continually examine our behaviour as our knowledge develops.
What about eating animals?
Food is one of the most difficult areas of animal ethics because it involves deeply established cultural practices and, for many people, questions of health, affordability, environment and personal choice.
Humanists may be vegetarian, vegan, omnivorous or somewhere in between. A humanist approach doesn’t require everyone to make exactly the same choices. Instead, it encourages people to think critically about the consequences of those choices.
For someone who eats meat or other animal products, this might mean considering where their food comes from and the conditions in which animals were raised and killed. It might mean reducing consumption, choosing higher-welfare products or exploring alternatives. For others, the ethical conclusion may be that they cannot justify killing animals for food when alternatives are available.
The important point is that humanist ethics allows us to question habits rather than treating them as morally neutral simply because they are common.
Animal experimentation and human benefit
Animal research presents another difficult ethical question.
Medical and scientific research involving animals has contributed to human knowledge and, in some rare circumstances, may provide benefits for both humans and animals. At the same time, experiments can cause animals pain, distress or death.
A humanist approach therefore requires careful consideration of both the potential benefits and the harms involved. Some humanists may support animal research where there is strong ethical oversight, suffering is minimised and alternatives are actively pursued. Others may oppose experimentation that causes harm to sentient creatures. The existence of a potential benefit does not automatically make experiments involving animals acceptable.
Humans have power and responsibility
Perhaps the most important part of the humanist approach to animals is recognising the extraordinary power humans have over other species.
We decide which animals are protected, which are farmed, which are hunted, which habitats survive and which species are threatened by our activities. That power brings ethical responsibility. Humanism encourages us to use our capacity for reason not simply to advance human interests, but to think carefully about the consequences of our actions for other animals and the wider living world.
We can acknowledge that human beings have particular needs and responsibilities without concluding that everything else exists for our benefit.
Compassion beyond our own species
Humanism starts with the idea that we should try to live ethically, using reason, compassion and our understanding of the world to guide how we act.
We can recognise the value of human life while also acknowledging that other animals have lives and interests all of their own.
Humanists share a commitment to living ethically, but may place different weight on different concerns and put their values into practice in different ways. When it comes to animals, this can lead to different conclusions about the choices we should make. But whatever those choices, the lives and experiences of other animals matter, and how we treat them is part of what it means to live ethically and be a good human – as far as we are able.