Whaling, Bullfighting, and the Conditional Value of Tradition
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Whaling, Bullfighting, and the Conditional Value of Tradition Paula Casal1 Accepted: 6 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The paper develops an account of the value of tradition that completes that of Samuel Scheffler and employs it to discuss whaling and bullfighting. The discussion, however, is applicable to many other practices the paper describes, and its relevance extends also beyond animal ethics. Some of the arguments discussed here for maintaining these traditions appeal to their positive aspects, such as their contribution to social or environmental harmony; other arguments focus on the impermissibility of one group criticizing another group’s practices when its own are vulnerable to comparable criticism. Reflecting on the first kind of argument, the paper responds, building on the work of G. A. Cohen and T. M. Scanlon, that the value of tradition, if any, must be conditional. Reflecting on the second, however, the paper disagrees with Cohen and Scanlon on the impermissibility of casting the first stone. Keywords Animal suffering · Bullfighting · Double-standards · G. A. Cohen · Thomas Scanlon · Samuel Scheffler · Sustainability · Tradition · Michael Walzer · Whaling
Introduction Legislators often attach considerable importance to preventing the use of animals in ways that generate great suffering or harm.1 Even medical researchers working on pandemics that threaten the loss of many human (and animal) lives must regularly 1 This shows, even if compliance is imperfect, that there is a public aspiration to prevent people from using animals in ways that deeply harms them without a good justification for doing so. I shall here assume this aspiration is justified. Some influential justifications include Singer (1975) on suffering, McMahan (2002) on killing, and Regan (1983) on both. But one may appeal to more moderate positions too. See Casal (2004) and Mosterín (2010).
* Paula Casal [email protected] 1
ICREA, Law School, Pompeu Fabra University, Room 40.E028, Trías Fargas 25, 08005 Barcelona, Spain
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apply for licences to use animals, which may be denied, inter alia, if alternatives emerge.2 Researchers are generally required to use invertebrates, such as short-lived flies, in preference to fish, reptiles, or amphibians. When, exceptionally, mammals are subject to experiments, short-lived mice are used, together with a protocol for their euthanasia. The so-called 3R rule requires scientists to: (1) Replace animals with alternatives, (2) Reduce their numbers maximally, and (3) Refine the procedures to minimize pain. In contrast, other harmful uses of animals are treated very differently on the grounds that they constitute ‘traditions’.3 This label permits ignoring the 3R rule and killing painfully any number of animals, such as bulls and whales, regardless of available alternatives. These appeals to ‘tradition’ rarely define the term. It normally refers to social practices transmitted by individuals across generations over extended periods largely, or
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