PETA seeks to avoid controversy as much as Rush Limbaugh tries to avoid pomposity. Its taste for controversy is understandable from the perspective that the organization is trying to change the world. Making the case for animal rights and creating a revolutionary change in public attitudes and actions toward animals is a formidable task. Radical animal rights activists essentially are trying to redefine the human-animal relationship. Accomplishing that requires overcoming thousands of years of entrenched human belief. In one observer’s words, PETA is struggling to “redefine accepted social practices into social problems.”
PETA, relying heavily on the animal rights theories of Peter Singer, places its struggle within the context of utilitarian ethics. Loosely defined, that school of ethics defines morality in terms of what produces the greatest balance of pleasure over pain. Thus, PETA grounds its mission in an ethical framework. It is strange then that there is so little ethical reflection guiding so many of their campaigns.
Two campaigns in particular come to mind in considering PETA’s ethical numbness: “Holocaust on Your Plate” and “Are Animals the New Slaves.” In both campaigns, which consisted of traveling exhibits, PETA attempted to re-contextualize animal suffering in parallel with episodes of great human suffering. Holocaust on Your Plate showed a series of large images of animals in factory farms juxtaposed with images of Nazi concentration camp victims. Are Animals the New Slaves campaign was similar in form but juxtaposed images of animal cruelty with those of African-American oppression, from slavery through the civil rights era. It didn’t take much imagination for an observer to conclude that PETA was equating animal suffering with some of the most extreme human suffering imaginable. The campaigns brought howls from such organizations as the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The criticism was deserved. The campaigns were pure exploitation of two terrifying episodes in human history for an end entirely unrelated to the suffering or experience of Jews (and other Nazi victims) and African-Americans. While PETA might argue that the end sought – savings the lives and stopping the physical abuse of billions of animals – justifies the use of such means, even if those means are morally questionable. Many if not most modern moral philosophers argue that the principle of justice must take precedence in any moral deliberation. Exploitation clearly violates the justice principle. Still, if PETA wants to operate on a consequentialist “ends justifies the means” basis, it should take into account the admonition of the philosopher Mortimer Adler, who believed that ends surely justified means: “If an action is morally bad in itself, it cannot really serve a good end, even though on the surface it appears to do so.”
Mr. Rodman, the use of materials in your campaigns that exploit any humans, especially groups that have suffered oppression and violence, is entirely reprehensible. It calls into question the integrity of your organization, and it erodes the moral authority that any social change movement needs before it can succeed in effecting positive change. Quit picking at the wounds of human suffering to make your case. The suffering of animals is, in itself, sufficient for your purposes.
PETA and the Ethical Treatment of Humans 