1. Introductory Remarks
The idea that we owe ethical consideration to non-human animals underpins the important question of whether animals can be wronged, that is, whether moral consideration and moral rights are solely due to humans, or whether this is also the case for non-human animals. Whether we owe moral allegiance to animals (and why and how it matters) is a question that deserves a great deal more philosophical attention. One good place to start is by looking at the discussion of why animals deserve moral consideration in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, eighteenth-century feminist philosopher and advocate of human and women's rights.
Wollstonecraft (Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989d, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014) neither argues for the rights of animals nor mentions the moral consideration of animals in her two Vindications, but she does so in her early educational works (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c). Her account of animal ethics — which is more promising than many other such theories — offers a variety of reasons that people with different motives should treat animals benevolently. In what follows, I will offer an interpretation of Wollstonecraft's moral arguments for animal ethics.
Although she does not in any way elaborate, Wollstonecraft does in fact briefly mention the benevolent treatment of animals towards the end of the Vindication of the Rights of Women, where she argues that the ethical treatment of non-human animals should be part of the national education system “for it is not at present of our national virtues” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 203). Her motivation for the substantiality of humanity lies at the centre of becoming compassionate towards every living being (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 203). According to Wollstonecraft, benevolence and compassion must be inculcated from childhood through an educational program based on habituation. Habituation is crucial, as it can lead one to become wicked or virtuous. The ethical treatment of non-human animals should be part of national education because, she notes, civilization does not allow for the close relationship between humans and animals that was established in primitive shelters and caves. Instead, when “civilized” human beings are brought up in a society where domination is the norm, and where their minds remain uncultivated, those who are mistreated at the hands of their superiors react by dominating those they see as their inferiors, i.e., animals (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 203). This “habitual cruelty” towards non-human animals is first learned in school, she says, where it is one of the favourite forms of entertainment for male students (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 203). The cruel treatment of animals transforms into barbarity towards humans. Thus, “Justice, or even benevolence, will not be a powerful spring of action unless it extended to the whole creation; nay, I believe that it may be delivered as an axiom, that those who can see pain, unmoved, will soon learn to inflict it” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 203).
Wollstonecraft's thought that children should be taught how to become benevolent and compassionate individuals towards animals as part of national education stems from her early pedagogical works, namely, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b) and Original Stories from Real Life (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c). In Section 2 of this article, I will focus on Wollstonecraft's animal ethics in her educational works. In Sections 3 and 4, I address her account of animal ethics in these books, especially in Original Stories. Though the main focus in both books is on the idea that benevolent treatment of animals has instrumental rather than intrinsic value is useful for the moral development of children and for becoming good for our fellow creatures and family relationships, Wollstonecraft suggests that animals’ welfare is itself ethically vital, which is a critical point for her theory of animal ethics. I argue that both the intrinsic and instrumental values of animals are defended in Wollstonecraft's works through three distinct arguments that can be interpreted to appeal to people who care about animals’ welfare for different reasons. These arguments appeal to ethical, consequentialist, and theological reasons.
Wollstonecraft's ethical argument includes looking at the moral development of children and how they exercise good towards other people who are in need by becoming compassionate (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372). The consequentialist argument tackles the future parent-child relationships, which argues that, once people are habituated to becoming cruel — especially towards their inferiors, e.g., animals — they will also become careless and merciless parents. Therefore, they will end up living miserable lives by receiving the same unmerciful treatment from their children in turn (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 373). These arguments obviously have instrumental motivations behind the benevolent treatment of non-human animals.
The theological argument claims both instrumental and intrinsic value in the benevolent treatment of animals. Humans, Wollstonecraft says, are God's creation and were created to be rational in his image. Hence, humans are capable of self-improvement through the exercise of reason and they can become virtuous. It is important for humans to become virtuous because it leads them to happiness by pleasing God, i.e., their happiness is dependent on God's. Only in this way can they guarantee a better lot in Heaven (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 371). This is another instrumental motivation for people to treat animals benevolently. However, the theological aspect also values animals’ inherently by emphasizing respect for each creature's existence, as everything is the creation of God. No creature of God should be treated cruelly and wantonly, regardless of their differences in rationality or in terms of the rewards for doing so that one can achieve after death (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, pp. 367–368). These arguments will be examined in detail in Section 3. Section 4 takes up the points developed in Section 2 and uses them to analyze Wollstonecraft's defence of the inherent value of non-human animals besides their instrumental values.
Section 5 explains Wollstonecraft's argument for the claim that we need to value non-human animals for reasons that go beyond the educational objective of teaching children to be morally upright individuals. This means looking at her moral psychology, in particular, the relationship between reason and passion, and her theological arguments. The last section concludes that Wollstonecraft's animal ethics with its distinctive use of a three-prong approach that relies on ethical, consequentialist, and theological arguments, is a very promising start for those interested in developing an animal ethics that does not depend on a theory of animal rights. Although her theological hierarchy means that Wollstonecraft views humans as superior to non-human animals, she acknowledges an equal claim to existence and dignity for all creatures.
2. The Rights of Brutes
Thomas Taylor,Footnote 1 in A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (Reference Taylor1966), critiques Wollstonecraft's defence of equality by arguing that if the rights of man are universal and can be applied to the whole of humankind — including women — then they can also be applied to “the brute creation,” vegetables, and even minerals (Taylor, Reference Taylor1966, p. 19). Taylor's mockery targets Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men, in which she argues, contra Edmund Burke, that all men have equal rights to education since they are all intrinsically capable of reason (Anker, Reference Anker2004, p. 259). Later, Wollstonecraft extends her argument of equality for men to women in Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Anker, Reference Anker2004, p. 259). Taylor parodies Wollstonecraft's idea of equal rights of men and of women by a reductio ad absurdum: If we accept that all men possess equal rights, then we must accept that all women also possess equal rights. If that is the case, all animals also have rights, which shows that the first premise must be false (Anker, Reference Anker2004, p. 260).
In her Portraits of Wollstonecraft, Eileen Hunt Botting (Reference Botting2021, p. 83) notes the irony of Taylor parodying of Wollstonecraft by appealing to the rights of animals; less than two centuries later, Peter Singer (Reference Singer1974) uses the same arguments to position Wollstonecraft as one of the earliest proponents of historically vulnerable and oppressed groups. In “All Animals Are Equal,” Singer shows how Taylor's use of the idea of animals having rights to parody the rights of women can be turned on its head, and he suggests that we refute Taylor's attack on women's rights by developing a concept of equality deep enough to serve as the basis of an account of animals’ rights (Singer, Reference Singer1974, pp. 103–104). Singer's argument suggests that Taylor unwittingly uncovered a potential defence of animal rights in Wollstonecraft's arguments. We can dig into this potential defence of animal rights by keeping what Singer calls the “principle of equal consideration” in mind: “The basic principle of equality, I shall argue, is equality of consideration; and equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights” (Singer, Reference Singer1974, p. 104).
Botting notes that Taylor's use of the word “brute” is derived from Wollstonecraft's Vindications, where she draws a line between human and non-human animals (Botting, Reference Botting2021, p. 83). For example, in Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft asks, “In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 37). Wollstonecraft argues for this distinction in arguing that all humans are created according to God's image and so have the capacity for reason and are moral beings possessing the same rights and duties that result from “God's universal and rational moral law” (Botting, Reference Botting2021, p. 83). Accordingly, while humans are both rational and sentient, animals are only sentient (Botting, Reference Botting, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 93). Wollstonecraft does not, then, defend animal ethics in her Vindications. However, this does not mean that Taylor is correct to present such a defence as an absurdity, or even that Wollstonecraft would have to reject it. Nonetheless, we need to look to her earlier work that for a discussion of animal ethics.
Wollstonecraft's take on the treatment of animals in that earlier work is interesting because it stands in contrast to her reason-based distinction between humans and animals in the Vindications. Original Stories and, to some extent, Education of Daughters present arguments that seem promising in terms of understanding her views on the benevolent treatment of animals. In Education of Daughters, Wollstonecraft talks about the impact of telling benevolent stories about animals in children's moral upbringing, arguing that it is crucial to teach them to both exercise concern for the welfare of their inferiors and to improve their characters (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 10). In Original Stories, she puts great emphasis on how we should exercise benevolence towards animals by respecting their environments — refraining from harming them, and learning not to feel disgust at the sight of them (especially insects) (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, pp. 367–368). Learning to be benevolent towards animals is a crucial part of becoming virtuous in Wollstonecraft's scheme because it enables people to practice doing good by imitating God, and practice is necessary for the acquisition of virtue (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c pp. 370–372).
Although Taylor seems to notice the potential for a theory of the rights of animals in Rights of Men and Rights of Woman, he does not think it is possible for such a theory to be serious, as the satirical tone of his text suggests. Yet, as I will show in the following section, Wollstonecraft's animal ethics plays an important role in both Education of Daughters and Original Stories.
3. Wollstonecraft on the Brute Creation (Non-Human Animals)
Original Stories and Education of Daughters both feature arguments for the welfare of animals and for the thought that the benevolent treatment of animals plays a crucial role in the moral upbringing of children. In Education of Daughters, Wollstonecraft discusses animals twice — on both occasions, in the context of education. She argues that the moral development of children requires restraining them but not correcting their faults unless there is sufficient cause. One such cause is children's display of cruelty towards their inferiors — in particular, animals (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 10). She encourages parents and teachers to tell stories featuring the benevolent treatment of animals in an entertaining manner. Since animals are perceived as children's inferiors and since they are often the first things that attract their attention, hearing stories about them not only entertains but also guides children by forming their character traits as well as strengthening the good dispositions of their inner selves (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 10).
Education of Daughters primarily revolves around the education of young girls and women in terms of intellectual and virtuous ideals by proposing that “the young ladies would grow into better wives and mothers if their educations centred around substance rather than superficiality” (Botting, Reference Botting2021, p. 52). As a result, the mention of animals takes place only in two sections: “Moral Discipline” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 9) and “Benevolence” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 43). In the former, Wollstonecraft emphasizes the importance of restraining children from harming animals by encouraging parents and teachers to tell children benevolent stories, as mentioned above (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 11). In the latter, she argues that when they have been told stories that encourage benevolence towards animals, children become more interested in animal welfare, and behave more gently towards them. She also gives an example of how she prevents a young girl from killing ants by mentioning Mr. Addison's account of them to her. After hearing this account, the girl becomes careful not to step on them anymore (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989b, p. 44). Thus, the treatment of animals in these sections concerns both the moral upbringing of children and the welfare of animals.
Original Stories offers a more detailed discussion of the benevolent treatment of animals. Educational practices like stories and conversations about animals and morals help children become both morally upright persons and closer to God. By relying on this storytelling method, Wollstonecraft aims to educate children and counteract the prejudices and bad habits they acquire through society by engaging their undeveloped reason (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 359). The book follows Mrs. Mason — a governess — in her attempt to educate Mary and Caroline — sisters who have lost their mother and whose father finds them too troublesome to care for, which is why he leaves them under the complete management of their governess (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 361). The first three chapters exclusively focus on the treatment of animals. Their titles are “The Ant, The Bee, Goodness, The Lark's Nest, The Asses” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 367), “The Difference between them and Man, Parental Affection of a Dog, Brutality punished” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 371), and “The Story of crazy Robin, The Man confined in the Bastille” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 374). There are two important lessons that Wollstonecraft aims to draw in these chapters: first, we should not treat animals badly and, second, animals are inferior to humans. The two are linked: Being good to animals is a way to perfect ourselves, which suggests that our perfection matters more than animals’ wellbeing. However, Wollstonecraft also argues that we need to show real concern for animals’ wellbeing.
3.1. The Theological Argument
Wollstonecraft's attribution of her theological view to Mrs. Mason's first lecture cannot go unnoticed. Mrs. Mason witnesses the children harming insects while playing. One of the girls, Mary, argues that, as she finds the sight of these creatures disgusting, there is no harm in killing them (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 367). Mrs. Mason emphasizes that insects are part of God's creation and that every creature occupying a place in this world is placed there by the divine order. In other words, because God created the creatures that disgust the children, such as snails, spiders, and caterpillars, we should respect his work and not harm them (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, pp. 367–368).
Mrs. Mason explains how God gave each of them a place in which they would not suffer and where the most suitable food for their nourishment could easily be found. When creatures can no longer find food for themselves, God leads them to lay their eggs on the plants that are proper to support their offspring. She gives the example of bees that live in their comfortable towns and pile up honey for their young when it snows and flowers wither by telling the girls that “this forecast is as much the gift of God, as any quality you possess” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 368). In any case, Mrs. Mason concludes, superior strength does not justify harming those we do not like, for whatever reason. She tells Mary, “You are often troublesome — I am stronger than you — yet I do not kill you” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 368).
3.2. Wollstonecraft's Understanding of the Distinction Between Humans and Non-human Animals and Its Relation to Her Theological Argument
In Chapter II, the conversation between the girls and Mrs. Mason revolves around the distinction between humans and non-human animals. Mary wants to understand whether animals are inferior to humans. Mrs. Mason's answer is again based on a theological argument. Animals are indeed human's inferiors — in the way that we are inferior but still similar to angels. Those beings superior to us, she adds, are glad to benefit us and pursue our happiness because we are God's creatures (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 371). By highlighting the resemblance between the angel-human relationship, on the one hand, and the human-animal relationship, on the other, she shows the importance for humans to do good and show benevolent affection for their inferiors. Such behaviour pleases God and our happiness relies as much on pleasing him as it does on acquiring virtue so that we may become angels in the afterlife (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 371).Footnote 2
Before going into the details of how Mrs. Mason illustrates the distinction between animals and humans, I would like to elucidate how reason, virtue building, imagination, friendship, and devotion fit together in Rights of Woman. There, Wollstonecraft argues for three main aspects of humans’ superiority over animals: our capacity for reason, our capacity for acquiring virtue, and our experience/knowledge. That is, one can attain knowledge through experience and struggling with passions, which animals cannot do (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 37). Hence, what distinguishes humans from other animals are reason, virtue, and knowledge. Both the perfection of our nature and our happiness are measured according to them. Thinking of humanity as a whole, the exercise of reason produces virtue and knowledge (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 37).Footnote 3
Let us turn back to Mrs. Mason explaining to her pupils the fundamental distinction between humans and non-human animals (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372). She gives examples from birds’ lives to show that, unlike humans, they are incapable of improving themselves and, even if they have some sense of improvement, they use it solely for self-preservation. Birds, for instance, make their own nests. When they fly, they might see many other nests that are more beautiful. If they could reason, they would be able to exercise their own taste in creating their nests (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372).
This lack of ability to improve oneself is also tied to emotional development. Hens, she says, make nests for their eggs by tearing the down from their breasts; feed their young until they are full; protect them with their wings; and, defend them from all threats. However, once the young are fully covered with feathers, the affection previously shown — an affection “that seemed to be stronger than the first impulse of nature” — disappears completely (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372).
Mrs. Mason notes the link between passions and reason with regards to the idea that animals’ incapacity for sustained affections is the result of their lack of reason. Not having the reasoning capacities that humans do means that animals can neither exercise the good nor acquire virtue (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372). Hence, the type of affection and impulse that they have are similar to our inferior passions, which are independent of our will and are performed involuntarily. That is, they have been implanted to preserve the species and create a sense of gratitude in the face of kindness. If we care for animals and feed them, they love us back just as children do, but they cannot grasp the reason they do so because they lack imagination and reason (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372).
Friendship and devotion are primarily what put humans above animals, who cannot even form the idea of what friendship and devotion are. Friendship is described by Mrs. Mason as being founded on both knowledge and virtue — which are exclusive to humans. Devotion, however, is described as “preparation for eternity; because we pray to God, we offer an affront to him if we do not strive to imitate the perfections. He displays every where for our imitation, that we may grow better and happier” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372).
After listening to Mrs. Mason lecture about the essential differences between animals and humans, the children are eager to find the ways they should behave so as to confirm their superiority to animals. The answer lies in both compassion and the ability to “let your superior endowments ward off the evils which they cannot foresee” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372). Mrs. Mason points out that, when it comes to benevolent treatment, children's capacity for doing good can only be extended towards animals because animals are their inferiors while adult humans are their superiors. Further, because it is easiest to exercise good towards animals and because they know animals lack reason, children can be confident that — even with their limited knowledge — they can be of help to them, whereas this may not be the case with other children — either younger or their own age — as they all have an underdeveloped capacity for reason.
3.3. The Ethical and Consequentialist Arguments
It is clear from the outset that Mrs. Mason's discourse on animals contains two goals, not one. One is about perfecting the children's moral character and the other concerns animals directly. After the conclusion of the story — following the model of the fable — she turns to the ethical aspect of the benevolent treatment of animals by defining the meaning of goodness as prescribing two motives for humans not to harm animals: striving to improve animals’ wellbeing by providing them with as much pleasure as we can, and avoiding becoming vicious, cruel, and thoughtless beings (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 368).
The benevolent treatment of animals not only leads us to acquire virtue and become closer to God (our duty in this world is to please him and our happiness depends on it), but also helps us become morally upright beings by doing good for our fellow creatures. She gives an example from her childhood: She used to feed the creatures surrounding her home and to care for wild animals and insects, which made her heart grow more humane and, in turn, enabled her to become useful to other humans (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, pp. 372–373). That is, through exercising this special compassionate behaviour towards animals by becoming their voice, she also developed the ability to “give bread to the hungry, physic to the sick, comfort to the afflicted” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 373).
Just as treating animals benevolently has a positive effect on human beings’ moral development, inflicting harm upon them negatively affects it — in particular, in shaping future parent-child relationships. Mrs. Mason argues for this claim by giving another example from her own experience. She tells the children about a man who enjoyed torturing every creature inferior to him and who she witnessed watching two guinea pigs roll down a roof without attempting to rescue them. The animals died, and Mrs. Mason says such was the man's cruelty that it was good they died as he would otherwise have found another way of torturing them. As a father, she continues, not only did he disregard his children's education and become a bad role model for them, but he also tortured them. Consequently, when he became old and weak, and in need of support and compassion, his children abandoned him to a miserable and lonely death (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 373). It is important to note that teaching children to exercise benevolence in their treatment of animals has an important consequence in terms of the reciprocal relationship between parents and children. Not only is it bad for the moral upbringing of children, but it will also cause them to become irresponsible and cruel parents who will both perpetuate the cycle of abuse and end up being exposed to the same cruelty and neglect by their children in return.
4. Towards a Wollstonecraftian Defence of Animal Ethics
In the previous section, I presented some of the arguments that reflect Wollstonecraft's account of animal ethics by focusing on Original Stories. The stories and conversations about the importance of treating animals benevolently emphasize three major points. First, these conversations are crucial for the moral development of children. Second, learning how to be good to animals helps us form a divine relationship with God, both in this world and the hereafter. Third, and less extensively developed in Original Stories, the welfare of animals themselves matters ethically. This point is significant if we were to look for a potential defence of animals’ ethical consideration in Wollstonecraft.
Wollstonecraft's ethical emphasis on doing good towards animals is important as moral practice for two reasons. First, it has a direct relation to being useful to our fellow humans, e.g., helping the poor, the sick, the hungry, and so on. Second, it helps us build foundations for a future reciprocal relationship between parents and children.
This point is connected to the theological one.Footnote 4 As members of God's creation, we were made rational in his image so that we are capable of self-improvement and of good by providing pleasure to our inferiors, i.e., children and animals. When we act benevolently towards our inferiors, we do so intending to please God as our happiness depends on pleasing him. At the same time, we acquire virtue, “and when we have acquired human virtues, we shall have a nobler employment in our Father's kingdom” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989c, p. 372).
Let us now turn to the third point, that the wellbeing of animals matters morally, independently of how it helps humans become better and closer to God. Wollstonecraft emphasizes that valuing animals’ wellbeing for their own sake is important, as every creature living in this world is the creation of God and so made by the divine order and that our duty is to respect each creation of God regardless of its inferiority to humans. Thus, the fact that humans are animals’ superiors does not mean that we are allowed to harm them or be disrespectful to their natural environment.
Wollstonecraft does not argue for the rights of animals, although she is an important figure in and proponent of the rights and equality of humankind, especially women's rights. Taylor parodies her defence of human equality and rights by suggesting that she should argue for animal rights. This, we saw, raises an important question: Does Taylor unwittingly reveal a defence of animals based on Wollstonecraft's arguments?
Although Taylor's attack on the notion of rights refers to Wollstonecraft's Rights of Men and Rights of Woman, there are no overt elements of such a defence of animals in either Vindication. However, this fact does not mean that we cannot derive a defence of animals by taking some of her arguments as starting points. Her earlier works, Education of Daughters and Original Stories — which are more radical than they were thought at the time of publication — suggest that treating animals benevolently has instrumental rather than intrinsic values. Yet, in both books, Wollstonecraft also argues that animals should be valued for themselves. This argument is, I suggest, where anyone wishing to develop a Wollstonecraftian theory of animal ethics should start.
5. The Theological and Moral Psychological Aspects of Valuing Animals: The Interdependent Relationship Between Reason and Passions and the Great Chain of Being
This section explores the moral and theological framework behind the Wollstonecraftian animal ethics presented in previous sections. It addresses the following question: Why does she think we owe respect to animals beyond the educational purpose of teaching children virtue? I argue that her reason for thinking that humans are superior to animals depends on the same ethical and theological framework. This framework explains the interdependence of reason and passions in the theological concept of the Great Chain of Being on which Wollstonecraft relies.
5.1. Wollstonecraft's Moral Psychology and the Interdependent Relationship Between Passions and Reason
Wollstonecraft's theological defence of the benevolent treatment of animals as a way of forming a divine relationship with God in this world and in the afterlife has essential correlations with her moral psychology. Thus, in order to understand her theological framework, we need to look first at her view about how the passions and reason function together.
Wollstonecraft's moral philosophy and moral psychology shape the pedagogical tactics of Original Stories and Education of Daughters by focusing on human passions, rationality, and their integration with each other. I have already begun to show how this process works by relying on Wollstonecraft's animal ethics with regards to the benevolent treatment of animals. For example, the role of the passions and the use of reason aim at raising compassion and sympathy in children towards non-human animals. The arousal of compassion and sympathy in children by hearing stories featuring benevolence that are both instructive and amusing about non-human animals is a way to prepare children to gain morally appropriate character traits in the future.
In Original Stories, Wollstonecraft aims at encouraging development in children's moral character. Accordingly, the method she uses is to tell real-life stories about the unfortunate events and their aftermath that people she knows personally, and some of their pets, experience.Footnote 5 Not only does she want to soften children's hearts by filling them with sympathy and compassion at the sight of any kind of cruelty towards inferior beings, but she also directs them to use their reasoning ability by reminding them of the fundamental distinction between humans and animals, which is that humans are superior morally and rationally.Footnote 6 In addition, Wollstonecraft goes further with telling stories to children by emphasizing the long-run impacts of benevolent and cruel treatment of animals, such as reciprocal relationship between parents and children.
In order to gain a better understanding of what Wollstonecraft says on the relationship between the passions and reason in her early works, I will turn to the Rights of Woman, where she develops the hierarchical side of the account. Wollstonecraft's emphasis on the importance of reason aided by the passions is stated in the opening paragraphs of the first chapter:
In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in reason. What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we spontaneously reply. For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes, whispers Experience. (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 37)
Wollstonecraft thinks that human adults and children are superior to animals. As they are our inferiors, treating them with kindness will enable us to become virtuous. This consequentialist argument, combined with the moral one, is also connected to her theological argument: Humans are created rational because God created them in his image. Hence, they can improve themselves both morally and intellectually so that they can perform morally appropriate and good actions towards inferior beings, such as animals.
The values Wollstonecraft places on reason and its role in developing virtue while at the same time differentiating humans from non-human animals do not immediately help us understand her third point about the role of the passions. Following our reading of the first two points she makes in that passage and, given that Wollstonecraft seems at times very negative towards the passions, one way of interpreting the point is to say that she ultimately values reason over them. Indeed, Wollstonecraft encouraged women to improve their minds (reason) and bodies as well as to avoid excessive sensibility, which she associates with “epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 31). She condemns the traditional view that attributes sensibility to women and rationality to men by asserting that elegance is subordinate to virtue and that, as human beings and not only as women, we should aim to cultivate our characters first (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 31).
But this negativity does not apply indiscriminately to all passions, and Wollstonecraft does not completely reject the notion of sensibility. Rather, in Rights of Woman she notes that “it is not against strong, persevering passions, but romantic wavering feelings that I wish to guard the female heart by exercising the understanding” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 102).Footnote 7 As Janet Todd notes, the concept of the romantic is dangerous for Wollstonecraft because female education renders women subordinate to men and teaches them to become sensual and sexual beings by making them unable to discern reality from imagination (Todd, Reference Todd1980, p. 17). It is this “romantic unnatural delicacy of feeling” that causes women to be deceived by creating for themselves an image of the perfect marriage, which is a kind of “madness and folly” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, pp. 58–88). Thus, this excess of sensibility is dangerous for women's status and character because “their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected, consequently they become the prey of their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by every momentary gust of feeling” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, p. 88).
Moderate use of the passions and moderate sensibility can be better than “romantic feelings” in terms of maintaining a balance between reason and passion by not indulging in sensibility, to the point where it rises inhibiting our reasoning. She encourages the reader to stick with passions that are not harmful as long as they go hand-in-hand with human reasoning.
Martina Reuter (Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 55) suggests we interpret this position by comparing it to a paragraph in Rights of Men. There Wollstonecraft argues:
The passions are necessary auxiliaries of reason: a present impulse pushes us forward, and when we discover that the game did not deserve the chace, we find that we have gone over much ground, and not only gained many new ideas, but a habit of thinking. The exercise of our faculties is the great end, though not the goal we had in view when we started with such eagerness. (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989d, p. 16)
Although she values reason over the passions, by emphasizing their differences, Wollstonecraft makes it clear that both have a positive impact on human virtue. Reuter (Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 53) defends this position by appealing to Virginia Sapiro's interpretation that Wollstonecraft adopted a unitary characteristic of mind suggesting that reason and the passions cannot function independently. When the passions are not governed by reason, they become “unintelligible, as in madness” (Reuter, Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 53). However, if they are ruled by reason, we can understand the distinction between sensibility and mechanical or mere sensualism. As the words “habit of thinking” suggest, and as Sapiro argues, the notion of sensibility is gained through the habituation of the mind and leads one to become virtuous aided by reason. She also remarks that relying solely on reason without the passions is mechanical and calculative (Reuter, Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 54). Thus, a closer reading and interpretation of Wollstonecraft's account of the relationship between reason and passions suggests that they function interdependently.
According to Reuter (Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 55), Wollstonecraft shows in Rights of Woman how reason and passion function together in terms of making judgements. There, Wollstonecraft notes:
that the regulation of the passions is not, always, wisdom. — On the contrary, it should seem, that one reason why men have superior judgement, and more fortitude than women, is undoubtedly this, they give a freer scope to the grand passions, and by more frequently going astray enlarge their minds. If then by the exercise of their own reason they fix on some stable principle, they have probably to thank the force of their passions, nourished by false views of life, and permitted to overleap the boundary that secures content. But if, in the dawn of life, we could soberly survey the scenes before as in perspective, and see every thing in its true colours, how could the passions gain sufficient strength to unfold the faculties? (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft and Botting2014, pp. 136–137)
Here, Wollstonecraft draws attention to passions directed to goals, including false views that do not deserved to be followed. Yet, passions have values for two reasons: They help us, first, reveal mental faculties and, second, acquire the habit of thinking (Reuter, Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 55). Once again, the habituation of the thinking process cannot work by calculative reason alone. Though we are led to act wrongly through our passions, this enables us to distinguish right actions from wrong, “which in the long run contributes to reason's ability to fix stable principles” (Reuter, Reference Reuter, Bergès and Coffee2016, p. 55). This passage and Reuter's interpretation coincide with the opening paragraphs of Rights of Woman, where Wollstonecraft mentions the relationship between passions and experience denied to brutes. This claim is, of course, again based on the fundamental difference between humans and animals in that the former acts through the guidance of reason and passions whereas the latter acts by instinct.Footnote 8 Because of this dissimilarity, animals are unable to comprehend their failures and learn from them, unlike humans.
Let us clarify this point. One feels sadness after an unfortunate event or wrongdoing. Thanks to this experience — along with the contribution of the passion — people gain knowledge by using their reasoning so as not to experience the passion again. Hence, they might direct themselves to morally appropriate conduct that is more likely to bring positive results, which helps them to become virtuous. In this way, people can train themselves to become virtuous by relying on their passions and the habit of using their reasoning ability.
This is one way of interpreting what Wollstonecraft suggests in the third point, about knowledge, passion, and experience. It can happen with the help of literary works as well as real-life examples. Of course, in order to adopt such a habit and perspective, one needs a proper education in the first place, which is what Wollstonecraft aims to do so with Education of Daughters and Original Stories. For example, Wollstonecraft's guinea pig example is a warning of what happens if one acts contrary to reason and to proper human passions.
The same thing might also apply to literary works, especially nineteenth-century novels that include romantic and scandalous human relationships and human passions. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Reference Brontë1996), one of the main characters is Heathcliff, whose toxic, evil, and furious personality leads him to betray his stepfather after his death and take revenge on everyone he knows — especially Edgar Linton and his family, because he married Catherine Earnshaw, with whom Heathcliff had been in love. Consequently, the story from Heathcliff's side ends with a miserable life and death and as he becomes prey to his own toxic personality by being filled with jealousy, toxic love, and anger towards every person in the novel. Such literary examples from that era are, I believe, good examples to guide readers’ moral and intellectual behaviour by setting them as lessons that would be an instrument to prepare them for real-life experiences. Although we do not have evidence that Brontë had a pedagogical aim in mind, it is possible to imagine one.
In the same manner, Wollstonecraft's emphasis on maintaining the balance between the use of reason and the passions takes place in her literary and philosophical work, The Wrongs of Woman: or, Maria (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989a),Footnote 9 where she presents two women, Maria and Jemima. Maria's character is depicted as romantic and she indulges herself with sensibility. She represents women whose character and perspective became defective due to female education leading them to make errors in their judgements of people (Todd, Reference Todd1980, p. 20). Jemima, however, represents people who use their reason excessively and without sensibility, which makes her cold and selfish (Todd, Reference Todd1980, p. 20). Thus, these two characters stand for two extremes. However, they find a way to moderate their character types by building a strong friendship, which Wollstonecraft values highly. In order to show the implication of the balance between the passions and reason, Todd quotes a line that focuses on Maria's realization of achieving to maintain such balance: “True sensibility, the sensibility which is the auxiliary of virtue, and the soul of genius, is in society so occupied with the feelings of others, as scarcely to regard its own sensations” (Wollstonecraft, Reference Wollstonecraft, Todd, Butler and Rees-Mogg1989a, p. 163).
Thus, Wollstonecraft's philosophical and literary work is also significant in terms of signalling the theme of the above passage from Rights of Woman and of the passage from Rights of Men cited by Reuter highlighting how reason and passions can work interdependently by avoiding two extremes. I have explained how and why it is important for understanding the ethical treatment of animals that we can find in Wollstonecraft's early pedagogical works. This interdependent relationship between reason and passions would also give a sense of in what ways we are different than and superior to non-human animals and of how this difference emphasizes the moral significance of treating our inferiors benevolently.
5.2. The Chain of Being: Why Value Animals?
This subsection focuses on Wollstonecraft's theological perspective on valuing animals. It explores the relationship between her vantage point of reason and passion and her theological approach towards the benevolent treatment of animals. This relationship, I believe, gives a sense of why she constantly references God and his effect on the development of our characters by encouraging us to perform virtuous behaviours.
For what, then, does this sort of ethical approach aim? Why does Wollstonecraft emphasize the function of the passions and their relation with reason in order to become closer to God and his perfection? The answer — based on her take on the theological adaptation — is quite simple. Wishing for things that direct us to a divine purpose rather than an earthly one is the critical element, which encourages us to use “practical reason directed toward the discovery of right ends as well as right means” (Zaw, Reference Zaw1998, p. 102). This characteristic is unique to humans and Wollstonecraft argues that this type of knowledge is denied to brutes, which sets the fundamental distinction between humans and non-human animals in terms of reaching a god-like perfection. In this sense, the conceptions of God and of his perfection are grasped by human reason and passions as the proper object that deserves unquestionable devotion and can satisfy this devotion (Zaw, Reference Zaw1998, pp. 102–103).
The love of God is rational and divine in that it leads one to virtue. Naturally, when we love someone, we admire them and aspire to be like them and “an element in idealizing human passion is emulation” (Zaw, Reference Zaw1998, p. 103). In the same manner, we want to become like God, to be closer to him and his angels, and to please him. First, humans have a distinctive reasoning and contemplation ability, along with the experience of the passions. Second, due to these faculties and to the longing for perfection, the perfection and love of God become agreeable to reason and the passions. Once we grasp his perfection and genuinely love him — as with emulating anything we find beautiful and perfect — we want to become like God, i.e., virtuous. This is human existence's ultimate and true end (Zaw, Reference Zaw1998, p. 103).
Wollstonecraft's moral stance, which includes the function of reason and passion in becoming virtuous, is crucial for grasping her theological approach to treating non-human animals ethically. Aside from her adaptation of Christianity and the moral stance in her arguments, her reference to God, angels, humans, and non-human animals shows how she values and takes seriously the existing hierarchy. This appeal to the hierarchical order stems from the model of the Great Chain of Being, adopted before the eighteenth century. According to it, everything was created in a hierarchical order. God is at the top of the hierarchy and next come angels, human beings, non-human animals, plants, and rocks (Ruston, Reference Ruston and Ruston2008, p. 56).
This classical understanding persisted during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by attributing an exclusive value to humankind and glorifying its nature, “For it rested in great part upon the supposition that all other created beings exist for man's sake” (Lovejoy, Reference Lovejoy2009, p. 186). Contrary to the traditional supposition, which gave rise to inequality, a different implication rested upon the principle of plenitude, that every being and creation exists in the chain not primarily to serve another but for their own sake, that is, “for the sake of the completeness of the series of forms, the realization of which was the chief object of God in creating the world” (Lovejoy, Reference Lovejoy2009, p. 186).Footnote 10 “The completeness of the series of the forms” puts forward the significance of each creation's multitudinous existence. As much as the function of the system matters, this completeness refers to the inherent value of all by valuing their own existence. This understanding of the chain emphasizes the inherent value of all, including non-human animals.
The Christian adaption of the Great Chain of Being animalized women by granting them a different level of dignity than that of their male counterparts.Footnote 11 By contrast, because she builds her scale with reference to God, angels, humans, and non-human animals, the hierarchical order Wollstonecraft adopts not only brings value and moral status to animals but also equal rights and dignity to women. The erasure of the difference in status between men and women means that, in order to preserve the general shape of the Chain of Being, she has to adopt a stricter distinction between humans and non-human animals. Yet, Wollstonecraft's appeal to a hierarchical order between God, angels, and God's creations relies on the principle of plenitude, the idea that every being and creation exists in the chain not primarily to serve another but for their own sake (Lovejoy, Reference Lovejoy2009, p. 186).
Although such an approach appeals to respect for the inherent worth of all of creation occupying a place in the chain, by having an equal claim to existence “within the limits of rational possibility” and not being used for the utility of another, there is still inequality in possessing dignity (Lovejoy, Reference Lovejoy2009, p. 186). I believe that this explains why Wollstonecraft emphasizes the distinction and values the intrinsic value of animals.
6. Concluding Remarks
This article offered a discussion of Wollstonecraft's animal ethics, which we can find in her early pedagogical works. My starting point was Taylor's parodical work mocking Wollstonecraft's extension of equal rights to women and saying that she might as well extend those rights to animals. I argue that there is in fact a defence of animal ethics in Wollstonecraft's early works, and that its significance lies in that the moral discourse she adopts can be interpreted from a virtue-ethical, theological, and consequentialist perspective. These three aspects are important for understanding the distinction between the instrumental and intrinsic values of animals in Wollstonecraft's scheme. That is, although she did not talk about the rights of animals and although her arguments in her early educational works focused on the instrumental value of animals (the moral development of children, being helpful to fellow human creatures, parent-child relationships, and pleasing God), I hope to have shown that Wollstonecraft also cared about animals for their own sakes by respecting their existence regardless of the hierarchical order she embraced.
Having shown that Wollstonecraft's animal ethics is important to comprehend the inherent value of animals and their instrumental value, I raised the question of why we owe respect to animals beyond the educational purpose of teaching children to become virtuous beings. For this matter, I first looked into Wollstonecraft's moral psychology regarding the interdependent relationship between reason and passion to show how this relation would give a sense of the superiority of humans over animals, whereas it also gives insight into how this difference is important for the moral aspect of treating inferior beings benevolently. Then, I touched upon the relationship between reason and passion and Wollstonecraft's theological approach in order to understand her ethical approach to the treatment of animals. I argued that the reason she embraced the hierarchical order of the Great Chain of Being by emphasizing the fundamental distinction between humans and animals based on reason is due to the animalization of women in the chain by its classic Christian adaptation, which attributes less dignity to women. However, I also showed that the principle of plenitude, which appeals to the inherent worth of all of creation in giving each creature a place in the chain so as to have an equal claim to existence and not to be used for the utility of another, even allowing for different levels of dignity, explains Wollstonecraft's emphasis on both the distinction and the inherent value of animals in her early educational works.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Sandrine Bergès, for her valuable contributions and feedback throughout the whole process of writing this article. As well, I would like to thank four anonymous reviewers who offered insightful comments.
Competing interests
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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