The Chronicle of Higher Education is profiling Steven Best, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who also happens to be one of academe's most prominent animal rights activists. The co-founder of the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, Best has set himself up as an interpreter of--and some would say apologist for--the activities of one of the most controversial and dangerous animal rights organizations around, the Animal Liberation Front. Though Best claims not to be a member of ALF, and stresses that he doesn't even know anyone in ALF, he does socialize with convicted AR terrorists, and he does devote his spare time to the work of explaining to the general public why ALF--which the FBI lists as one of the most major domestic terrorism threats in the U.S.-- does the things it does.

Best's press office is set up to receive faxes from ALF activists, who notify the office after they have committed an attack (destroying animal research facilities, for example, or "liberating" animals from farms). Best and his three co-workers then post about the attack on their website and field queries from the press; in essence, he has positioned himself as a spokesperson for a group that cannot itself maintain a press office because it exists so far underground. Best objects to being called a spokesperson, but his ties to ALF had his colleagues concerned enough that they voted unanimously this spring to remove him from his post of philosophy department chair. The word around campus was that Best had to be ousted in order to prevent him from becoming another Ward Churchill. Best's colleagues are right to be concerned; to explain just how far afield Best's activities are, the article rehearses major moments in ALF's history and cites critics of the animal rights movement.

El Paso administrators are well aware of the the legal issues that could arise if the school appears to be discriminating against Best because of his views. Administrators state that the shift in philosophy department governance had nothing to do with politics, stressing that "Our position is that Dr. Best, just as any faculty member, has a right to express his views and engage in a discourse off campus or in any setting, as long as he is not representing himself as speaking for the institution." Administrators likewise claim that despite charges that Best is using his classes to recruit students to ALF, there is no evidence that he is actually doing so.

While there has been an enormous amount of discussion of how various forms of activism have found support on campus in the forms of ideologically one-sided scholarship, activism-oriented departments such as women's studies, and ideologically biased teaching, most of that discussion has centered on issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and foreign policy. This emphasis has been appropriate, as these issues are currently the biggest hot-button issues on campus. At the same time, it seems that there is a growing, if still nascent, movement to bring an animal right-oriented agenda into the classroom, and, from there, into the courts, and that movement deserves attention.

Spearheading this effort is former game show host and major animal rights benefactor Bob Barker, who has spent millions endowing funds for the study of animal rights law at such prominent law schools as Stanford, Columbia, UCLA, Harvard, and Duke.

There's a lot to learn here, and the Chronicle article is just the beginning.

Is it possible to have an "I-Thou" relationship with an animal, or can such only be "I-it?" Can there be no reciprocity of consciousness, sensibility, or respect? Anyone who has spent sufficient time with an animal, some animal that can tolerate human company, knows the answer. As the Jesus character in the film "The Last Temptation of Christ" said to his buddy: "You know, Judas, I have seen even in the eye of the ant the face of God."

John Bonnell

Most people don't know the difference between Animal Welfare and Animal Rights/Animal Liberation: they assume, incorrectly, that AR/AL is simply AW on steroids.

To an Animal Rights person, the life of a human and an animal are of equal value. Indeed, if you discriminate between humans and and animals on the basis of their species, you commit the sin of "speciesism," an act that is as immoral or unethical as would be an act of racism.

If you understand this, you will begin to understand why Professor Steven Best would save his dog from a burning building before he'd save a human stranger: the two lives are of equal value, and his dog is more important TO HIM than the life of your child, spouse, parent or friend is TO HIM. (If he doesn't know you or them, screw the lot of you!)

And you can understand why Dr. Jerry Vlasak finds it morally acceptable to kill a few human scientists to save many animals, why he openly (on TV, yet) advocated the practice itself, and how Professor Best can with clear conscience defend Dr. Vlasak's position. After all, all lives are of equal worth, and if you can kill a few scientists and intimidate the rest into abandoning animal experiments, you've ended up saving far more lives than you've taken!

Brian

I haven't formed a strong opinion on animal rights one way or the other, but what puzzles me about what I know of the animal rights argument is this: if you give an animal rights, don't you also have to give it responsibilities? Isn't it our ability to recognize the rights of others that in some sense accounts for our own rights? (This works when you think about it. Children have fewer rights than adults because they have less of an ability to recognize the rights of others.)

If we granted animals rights, wouldn't we also have to assume, from a legal perspective, that they now had the responsibility to recognize the rights of others? Are we going to prosecute lions for killing antelope on the Serengeti plain? And what about the 'lower' species? Are the police going to run my cat off to prison because he somehow got fleas and is currently trying to eat them off his body?

If so, poor Julian. He's a good cat. I bought him his own water fountain and take him to the vet regularly for check-ups. I think he might be better off without rights.

S.R. —

Part of the problem derives from the source of "rights." They are either "of this world" (the mind of humans) or they are "of the spirit world." There are some AR people who believe that "rights" are products of the spirit world — arsonist Rodney Coronado is one, and ELF activist Tre Arrow (presently awaiting extradition from Canada) may be another (the trees told him to change his name . . . ). AR/AL people seldom if ever make that crucial distinction, preferring to blur the distinction and let the members of their audience read into their pronouncements what they want to. The AR people talk of "rights" as if their origin is universally agreed upon — it is not.

But even if we assume that "rights" are bestowed by humans, the answer to your question is no, responsibilities are unnecessary for one to have rights. Enter the concept of the "moral patient" — a prime example being a comatose human, who continues to have rights by law (at least in western civilization).

But the key issue isn't what we "can" do, but what we "should" do, and the AR people conflate the two all the time. Again, the AR ideology doesn't come to grips with this distinction, and their audience all too often accepts uncritically the false conflation.

Of course, we humans can give animals rights! We can also give plants rights! But should we? Why is the AR value system preferable to others — a system of your personal choice, mine, that of the Catholic Church, a system that Kim Il Sung might champion, or that the Jains might prefer?

The AR people play a clever game: they attempt to shift the burden of proof from where it properly belongs, with themselves, to prove why something should be done (why animals should have rights) to you to prove why something should not be done (why animals should not have rights). So you find AR luminaries saying things like: "There is no rational basis for denying rights to other sentient beings. Species boundaries are morally irrelevant." All of a sudden, the burden of proof is on you to show why the AR assertion is false! (If you think I'm kidding, look at what Professor Best is quoted as saying in the CHE article.)

The burden of proof properly lies with AR advocates to make the case that their value system is supplant all others, not for those of us who are non-believers to prove that their system is lacking.

Brian

Brian,

Not to belabor the point, but I'd say in the case of the coma patients that under my model, we would depend upon the fact that they once possessed rights and once dictated what they wanted done with their bodies, should they be unable to make those decisions on the spur of the moment for themselves. At one point, they recognized the concept of rights. My point was that animals possess no such capacity, ever.

That said, I largely agree with your argument about where the burden of proof lies. The trouble is not the philosophy, but the execution. I went to a little school up in Cambridge, Mass., where a group of PETA activists once sat naked on a mattress outside the gates, apparently to protest animal experimentation. This didn't seem to bother anyone but the police. When asked, animal rights activists (Best among them) will liken their position to that of the 19th-century abolitionist: a voice of rights and reason in a morass of irrational racism (speciesism, in this case). If you made the argument you just made to them, they would reply, "Yes, but back during slavery, slave owners would have argued the same thing: that the burden of proof lay with the abolitionists." It's a false analogy, to my way of thinking. Anyone who's ever had pets knows that it is literally impossible to reason with them (and anyone who's owned a cat knows that it's impossible to get him to do anything, period), and there was simply no possible way that any pro-slavery advocate could have ever made the same argument about African-Americans. Clearly, slaves possessed reason, if not education (through no fault of their own, of course).

The trouble arises when you try to communicate these subtleties to people who haven't really thought about the issues involved (i.e., politicians). Or even to your ordinary college graduate, who probably will have owned a pet at some point in her life and will be more inclined than not to say, "Aw, yeah, dogs are cute and furry and I wouldn't want to hurt them or anything", never realizing that modern medicine, among other little conveniences, depends upon animal research. And that is how legislation gets passed, or at least fails to be fought. It seems like the visceral "I like furry vertebrates" position is the most difficult to fight. That's why I'm not sure that the approach that merely says, "You haven't proved that your value system is any better than mine" to the AR activist really strikes at the hearts of the sort of incidental support they get from the "I love my dog" crowd.

But thank you for your thoughts. Perhaps I exaggerated a little when I said that I hadn't really taken a position on this one way or another. I'm at the point where I'm willing to entertain a good argument from the AR people--but I haven't seen that argument yet.

What an intelligent comment, Buzz (speaking of the lower forms of life...)

First, I run an extensive anti-animal rights website at http://www.animalrights.net/, which some may find a useful resource (sorry for the shameless plug). Odd I've been reading you and Animal Crackers for a long time and didn't make the connection.

Second, Steve Best is simply the tip of the iceberg as far as academics who support animal rights and environmental terrorism.

The issue about academic freedom for Best and others to express their views is important, but it begs the question of how people with such extreme views end up in these positions in the first place. Does anyone really believe, for example, that someone who publicly advocated the firebombing of abortion clinics would have risen to to the same extent at UTEP that Best did?

They are already having to censor posts at the Chronicle.

What is interesting is that many of the "rights" types opposing spaying, neutering and animal control activities. They believe that dogs have the right to run in wild packs through cities and that feral cats should be allowed to breed without check.

Fun to watch the first time on television, not so fun to actually encounter someone trying to live that life.

Not to mention, very few of them attempt to impose vegan lifestyles on all feral dogs and cats.

Myself, I'm glad our society is peaceful and rich enough that we can have such flakes in it.