Man and Beast

Dominion
The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
by Matthew Scully
St. Martin's, 434 pp., $27.95

AMERICANS LOVE ANIMALS. We coo over and coddle our cats and dogs as if they were children. We paste "Save the Whales" bumper stickers on our cars. We groan in empathetic sadness if a squirrel darts into the road in front of a car. We flock to national parks to catch fleeting glimpses of bears, elk, and antelope. We anthropomorphize the animal world with movies such as "Bambi" and "Babe."

This way of treating animals can be charming, if occasionally loopy. It is also an indicator of prosperity and cultural success: We are so far removed from the struggle for daily survival that we have the luxury of caring about animals and their suffering--as, indeed, we ought.

But in recent years, a radical and misanthropic social movement--promoting animal rights and liberation--has eclipsed the animal-welfare activism typified by the old American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Animal welfarists accept that humans are more important than animals. Animal liberationists see humans as only another animal, with no greater moral value or claim to rights. Welfarists acknowledge that animals may be used to benefit humans--so long as this is done in the most humane way practicable. Liberationists want to ban all human use of animals. Welfarists are pro-animal. Liberationists are antihuman. Worse, the more radical animal liberationists have become violent. The Animal Liberation Front is a case in point, employing vandalism and personal threats against those they label animal abusers. Things have gotten so bad that the recently passed anti-terror legislation included penalties for attacking animal-related businesses.

Into this overheated atmosphere has now come animal lover and author Matthew Scully, who was, until recently, a speechwriter for President Bush. In "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy," Scully makes an impassioned argument based on the fact that animals suffer and feel pain. He insists that he is not a supporter of animal rights, and while caring passionately about animals, he agrees they are less important than people. "Dominion" seeks, he says, merely to help stimulate "a spirit of kindness and clemency" toward the animals he sees as being abused.

SO, IN ONE OF THE BOOK'S most effective sections, Scully coolly rebuts the argument advanced by the godfather of the animal-liberation movement, Princeton University's Peter Singer. Decrying Singer's advocacy of infanticide, Scully worries that "Singer's attack on the sanctity of human life follows a natural trajectory from his case for animals, that they are one and the same moral project." This is a wise concern. A declaration of the equality of humans and animals allows not just animals to be treated like people, but people to be treated like animals. We are already seeing the fruits of that position, as some animal rightists and bioethicists suggest that cognitively disabled people be used in medical research in place of animals deemed to have a higher cognitive capacity.

Once we've rejected Singer-style animal liberation as the antihuman nihilism it is, however, we still need a principled rationale to guide our commitment to the humane treatment of animals. "Dominion" demands from us greater mercy and kindness toward animals--and who could disagree? But the book does little to strengthen the intellectual case for those who want to ease the burden on animals without surrendering to the disaster of animal rights. Indeed, Scully states explicitly, "You will find no theories in this book."

One place "Dominion" looks for help is the Bible. Although Scully says he is not "particularly a pious or devout person," he claims that there is a model for the ethical treatment of animals contained in Scripture. In the Garden of Eden, he points out, there was no predation. He also reminds us of the prediction that--as Isaiah 11:6 puts it--"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." These are biblical suggestions that God does not want us to harm animals or cause them to suffer.