What does dominion over animals mean?

No, I’m not turning into a bleeding-heart liberal.

Yes, I have been thinking, at both length and depth, about our moral responsibilities to animals. It has been easy for me to pay insufficient attention to these issues because they are often delivered in and among other messages that I consider radical and/or silly.

I am certain I will never be vegan. I am nearly as certain I will never be vegetarian. I will continue to approve of hunting, so long as reasonable care is taken to prevent suffering and kills are eaten. I will have many positions inconsistent with a lot of the hardcore animal rights crowd.

But a little while back I wrote about an essay that hit me profoundly. It made me realize that when it comes to how animals are treated, there are many things that a lot of reasonable people aren’t considering thoroughly enough. I believe that God gave us dominion over the animals, but I think that with that dominion comes an obligation to exercise a morality that most of them can’t themselves comprehend.

So I’m going to share conclusions as I come to them. Two things:

  • I don’t think there is any particular profundity in condemning cockfighting, dog fighting, and such. I’ll put straight trophy hunting in this category too, as I’m already on record with that. No reasonable people defend such barbarism. I’m trying to find some things I’ve either approved of or been ambivalent about, and concentrate on those, in the hopes that you might share my epiphanies.
  • Factory farming is a gigantic issue that is taking me considerable time to sort through. Most of the hardest things to think about have to do with our food. So my first thoughts on these issues won’t have to do with farming.

OK, enough preliminary. What have I decided so far?

I oppose cetacean captivity. Hey, guess what? I touched on this before too. I don’t think we should hold dolphins, orcas, whales, and so forth without a very good reason, and our entertainment isn’t sufficient. A dolphin may swim 100 miles in a day, and do so with the same peers for years. I think they do the best they can in captivity, but I also believe they’re aware of their plight. We shouldn’t hold them to jump through hoops.

I oppose circuses that use non-companion animals. Elephants don’t sit on their stools because it pleases them, or because it delights us. They sit on their stools because they’re afraid of what they know will happen to them if they don’t. Folks, circuses hurt elephants, systematically and repeatedly. Spend a little time on Google or YouTube sometime. Look up “bullhook” to start. The big cats don’t have it much better.

Now there are reasonable and humane ways to use companion animals like dogs and horses in a show. I’m fine with those. I’m not all right with elephants and other ordinarily wild megafauna.

I oppose greyhound racing. Lots of dogs are destroyed in pursuit of good racing stock. Said good racing stock often doesn’t have much of a life, in quality or quantity. We are better than greyhound racing.

Further conclusions as I reach them.

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4 thoughts on “What does dominion over animals mean?”

  1. The article that prompted this one took me several days to work through. It was tough to read and extremely thought-provoking. I enjoyed reading your thoughts here and I look forward to sharing mine with you the next time we (finally!) get back together again.

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  2. Another reason to oppose cetacean captivity is how it’s facilitated. By that I mean how the dolphins, whales, etc are captured. If you want an eye opener probably on a similarly shocking level as the article you read, I’d recommend watching “The Cove”. It’s not particularly “tree hugger liberal” and much more investigative journalism/documentary.

    It will likely lead you to take a second look at your sea food as well. It is not a film for the faint of heart, and there are very graphic scenes (it makes the list of top 5 most graphic for me) of what even an optimist would have trouble referring to as “wasteful hunting”.

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  3. Thank you for posting this, Bo. I haven’t been to a circus since childhood and write letters to local papers pleading people to shun them. Dogs, horses, and cats are entertaining enough – and Cirque du Soleil is fabulous. The treatment of the elephants and big cats is horrific.

    I’ve been watching clips of Blackfish. It’s pitiful and heartbreaking. Sea World will never see a penny from me, and I’ll encourage others to forgo visiting as well. The trailer for that movie should be run in theaters around the world to in an effort to reach (and hopefully touch) as many people as possible.

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  4. Thank y’all for responding so thoughtfully. There is a lot to consider here, and there are many eminently reasonable steps to take without jumping off the cliff into wacko.

    I’m going to be reacting to this for several months while I figure out what’s important for me to do. My friend Amanda pointed out on another post that it’s nearly impossible to eat out if you’re going to give these concerns any considerable weight. I get a great deal of pleasure from eating in restaurants. I have to figure out what I can do there.

    Reply

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