Comparison of Costellos Argument to the Contradictory Perspectives of Nagel, Locke, and Wallace - Essay Example

Animals and Humans Introduction In the middle of Elizabeth Costello’s speech, in Chapter 3 of J.M. Coetzee’s novel, Costello’s daughter-in-law Norma remarks, “’She is rambling’’ (Pg. 73). Indeed, when taken for its exactly scientific or consistent philosophical proscriptions, Costello’s speech is logically inconsistent and slightly rambling. However, as Costello herself states, “seven decades of experience tell me that reason is neither the being of the universe or the being of God” (Pg. 67). In great part, it seems that Costello’s underlining argument is that despite the mainstream reasoned acceptance of meat eating and animal testing, humanity must rely on powers of sympathy and empathy in realizing that such practices are severely misguided. This essay considers Costello’s argument, and compares it to the contradictory perspectives of Thomas Nagel, John Locke, and David Foster Wallace. Elizabeth Costello Costello begins her speech by comparing herself to Kafka’s Red Peter, an educated ape who was depicted as having gained higher-level intellectual competence. She goes on to discuss the occurrences at Treblinka, a Nazi death camp, and considers the roles of the Nazi guards as they allowed such atrocities to occur. While the comparison between the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews and humanity’s treatment of animals is at first tacit, Costello eventually openly states that, “we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty and killing which rivals anything that the Third Reich was capable” (Pg. 65). In this regard, it seems that Costello’s initial assault on the faculty of reason is included to demonstrate that while the Nazi’s were capable of reasoned logic, such thoughts were incapable of preventing them from sending the prisoners to their slaughter. Costello insinuates that it is her artistic faculty (this is, afterall, the reason she was invited in the novel to give the speech) in feeling empathy for others, not her reason, that has led her to the conclusion that humans are cruel to animals, which others less-endowed fail to grasp. Thomas Nagel In considering the nature of the mind-body question, Thomas Nagel reflects on the nature of consciousness. He begins by stating that the issue has never been definitely resolved, and goes on the make a number of assertions. The first of which, he argues, “the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism” (Nagel 1). However, when relating the ability of human’s to equate their conscious experience with that of a bat, Nagel states “if extrapolation from our own case is involved in the idea of what it is like to be a bat, the extrapolation must be incompletable. We cannot form more than a schematic conception of what it is like” (Nagel, pg. 3). When considering the nature of perspective Nagel states, “If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity—that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint—does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it” (Nagel, pg. 4). Nagel’s overriding argument is that when human’s attempt to empathize with animals they do so from a mental state that is uniquely human, and therefore are perpetually restricted in their understanding. In Elizabeth Costello’s speech she criticizes Nagel’s article. As previously mentioned, Costello understand that through her artistic faculty she is able to transcend the phenomenological restrictions Nagel is referencing and experience sincere empathy with animal species. Costello states, “he [Nagel] is wrong…To be a living bat is to be full of being; being fully a bat is like being fully human, which is also to be full of being” (Coetzee, pg. 77). In this regard, Costello is attempting to contradict Nagel by arguing that it is not the scientifically definitive knowledge of bat experience that is important, but it is the acknowledgement of the bat’s ‘existence’ that should be its defining sympathetic trait. John Locke In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke discusses the nature of the acquisition of knowledge. Locke argues that knowledge is derived solely from the sensory experience and personal reflection. He writes, I would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof there come to be ideas of these operations in the understanding. These two, I say, viz. external material things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings (Locke, pg. 2) This line of thought distinguishes itself from other philosophers who argue that understanding of the world can be derived from rational thinking alone. When considering Elizabeth Costello’s speech it is slightly confusing as she openly criticizes philosophers such as Descartes for discounting animals as less than human for having a soul that corresponds to machines. However, Descartes is also directly opposed to Locke who contends that, “The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive” (Locke, pg. 2). Indeed, Elizabeth Costello finds herself at odds with both modern rational and empiricist thought. In the chapter titled Of Identity and Diversity, Locke considers the nature of what constitutes human identity. Locke argues that man’s identity is differentiated the same way as an animal’s because man is composed of a particular shape. He goes on to compare a rational talking parrot to a man that is incapable of rational thought. Locke argues that even though the parrot has the original man’s soul, he is not a man because he lacks man’s requisite bodily shape; thus, arguing that rational thought is not a pre-requisite of being a man. Locke continues with a meditation on the difference between a man and a person. He argues that even though man and animal are the same, as differentiated through a particular shape, the definition of person necessarily goes beyond this understanding. Locke asks the question, “if the same substance which thinks be changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be different persons?” (Locke, pg. 13). In section 12 he concludes with, “unless they will say, it is one immaterial spirit that makes the same life in brutes, as it is one immaterial spirit that makes the same person in men; which the Cartesians at least will not admit, for fear of making brutes thinking things too” (Locke, pg. 13). It seems that Locke ultimately contends that a person is specifically a person because it is able to know itself as itself in different times and places – that is, it is not ‘being,’ but rather consciousness of the self that differentiates the ‘person’. In this regard, Locke’s conception of the essential component of human identity being self-consciousness is in direct opposition to Elizabeth Costello when she states, “he [Nagel] is wrong…To be a living bat is to be full of being; being fully a bat is like being fully human, which is also to be full of being” (Coetzee, pg. 77). She goes on to state that, “The question to ask should not be: Do we have something in common – reason, self-consciousness, a soul – with other animals?” (Coetzee, pg. 79). For Costello, human’s should strive to feel ‘sympathy,’ and through that sympathy they will achieve a transcendent empathy with other beings, namely animals. Indeed, Costello argues that the understanding of animals as lacking self-consciousness means acknowledging that their primary mode of being is to live unencumbered by imprisonment. That the similarity of the human soul to “the feel of a pea rattling around in a shell” (Coetzee, pg. 78), means that humans are already in a state of confinement and can bear the burden more than animals; thus, Costello concludes, “that we see the most devastating effects: in zoos, in laboratories, institutions where the flow of joy that comes from living not in or as a body but simply from being an embodied being has no place” (Coetzee, pg. 79). David Foster Wallace In David Foster Wallace’s article Remember the Lobster, he visits the Maine Lobster Festival and details the interaction between the festival goers and PETA over ethical concerns about the way lobsters are boiled alive. During his journey Wallace interviews a rental car attendant who states, “There’s a part of the brain in people and animals that lets us feel pain, and lobsters’ brains don’t have this part” (Wallace, pg. 5). Wallace uses this statement as an overriding theme for the perspective of the festival organizers and attendees. He points out that despite such a claim being factually uncertain, the festival has quizzes that promote such a perspective. Wallace advances a meditation on the nature of suffering. He states that ethicists distinguish between two different views of suffering, one of them is biological and the other is observational. The biological strand of thought considers, “how much of the neurological hardware required for pain-experience the animal comes equipped with—nociceptors, prostaglandins, neuronal opioid receptors, etc” (Wallace, pg. 7). Wallace explores this issue and at one point questions if it possible that the animal actually feels pain in the same way that humans do. Even as this line of thinking seems more scientifically advanced than Costello’s reliance on empathy and sympathy as deciding factors, Wallace eventually concludes, much like Nagel, that it is impossible to definitely scientifically determine the exact nature of the lobster’s suffering. Wallace then goes on to consider observational methods of determining suffering. He makes a convincing case that the actions of the lobster when being boiled alive, including their scraping at the sides of the pan, demonstrate the undeniable pain they feel. He further strengthens this point by explaining how they exhibit preferences for particular temperatures. He concludes the article with a morally ambiguous tone, equally decrying the moral impossibility of eating lobsters and the impossibility of stopping. In great part it seems that Elizabeth Costello would agree with David Foster Wallace conclusions that lobsters feel pain, and thus it is morally irresponsible to consume them; however, she would deride Wallace’s relative apathy and lack of empathy in refusing to do anything about it. Conclusion In conclusion, while Elizabeth Costello’s speech may initially appear rambling and incoherent, it’s evident that it is founded in response to a large body of philosophical literature. Costello’s plea is that of the artist and the romantic. She casts aside nuanced philosophic rationalism and empiricism for the purity of emotion and sympathy. The consumption of animals is neither something to be justified based on concepts of consciousness, or rationality, or soul, but, Costello argues, merely to be understood by understanding their being. References Coetzee, J.M. (2003) Elizabeth Costello. Penguin Group. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Nagel, Thomas. What is it like to be a bat? Wallace, David Foster. Remember the Lobster. Read More