NEL NODDINGS ON THE LIMITS OF CARING FOR ANIMALS
Just as there is natural caring when the one-caring loves the one-to-be-cared-for, so there can be natural caring when one has familiarity with animals. When one is familiar with a particular animal family, one comes to recognize its characteristic form of address. Cats, for example, lift their heads and stretch toward the one they are addressing. Receiving an animal as nearly as we are able to do so adds greatly to the pleasure we experience in its company. Its responsiveness helps to sustain us as ones-caring. When I enter my kitchen in the morning and my cat greets me from her favorite spot on the counter, I understand her request. This is the spot where she sits and “speaks” in her squeaky attempt to communicate her desire for a dish of milk. I understand what she wants, and it does not seem inaccurate to say that she expects to be given both milk and affectionate stroking. I have incurred an obligation and, as we shall see, this obligation rests on the establishment of a relation. Puffy is a responsive cared-for, but clearly her responsiveness is restricted: she responds directly to my affection with a sort of feline affection—purring, rubbing, nibbling. But she has no projects to pursue. There is no intellectual or spiritual growth for me to nurture, and our relation is itself stable. It does not possess the dynamic potential that characterizes my relation with infants. I must consider her welfare because we are in a relation where reciprocity is presently exhibited.
But must I receive the stray who calls at my door? Is there an ethical dimension to our caring beyond the one already discussed, that is, beyond refraining from inflicting pain? I think there is, in the very important sense of maintaining internal truth and serenity. If I have pleasant memories of caring for cats and having them respond to me, I cannot ethically drive a needy one away from my back door. A chain has been forged. A stranger-cat comes to me formally related to my pet. I have committed myself to respond to this creature.
But what if the creature at the door is a rat? I would certainly not invite it in, nor examine its body for wounds nor stroke it affectionately nor even feed it. Indeed, I might kill it with whatever effective means lay at hand. Now, we have an opportunity to explore something important. We are once again faced with the threat of capriciousness in our ethical conduct. I have suggested that the “I must” arises (for me) with respect to cats but that I feel no such stirring in connection to rats. Is this not pure sentiment of the most idiosyncratic form?
Sentiment is surely involved. Indeed, I have been trying throughout this work to show just how sentiment is involved in ethicality and why we cannot brush it side or try to get “above” it in our ethical reasoning. It is sentiment, a feeling of sensual pleasure and affection, that has induced a relation between me and the cat family. The relation, in turn, gives rise to the genuine ethical “I must.” But I was not obliged to enter the relation. There was no inevitable caring and being cared for with respect to cats. The first encounter was either an accident or a choice. Hence it is entirely reasonable for me to claim that I have an ethical responsibility toward cats and that you may not have such a responsibility. I shall claim, also, that while I have such a responsibility for cats, I have none, beyond refraining from the infliction of pain, for rats. I have not established, nor am I ever likely to establish, a relation with rats. The rat does not address me. It does not appear expectantly at my door. It neither stretches its neck toward me nor vocalizes its need. It skitters past in learned avoidance. Further, I am not prepared to care for it. I feel no relation to it. I would not torture it, and I hesitate to use poisons on it for that reason, but I would shoot it cleanly if the opportunity arose.
What we see clearly here is how completely our ethical care depends upon both our past experience in natural caring and our conscious choice. We have made pets of cats. In doing so, we have established the possibility for appreciative and reciprocal relation. If we feel that the cat has certain rights, it is because we have conferred those rights by establishing the relation. When we take a creature into our home, name it, feed it, lay affectionate hands upon it, we establish a relation that induces expectations. We will be addressed, and not only by this particular creature but also by others of its kind. It seems obvious that we might live ethically in the world without ever establishing a relation with any animal, but once we have done so, our population of cared-fors is extended. Our ethical domain is complicated and enriched, and to behave uncaringly toward one of its members diminishes it and diminishes us. If we establish an affectionate relation, we are going to feel the “I must,” and then to be honest we must respond to it. Farm people have a saying: “If you are going to eat it, don’t name it.” This is doubly wise. It is not only that it takes a certain stoicism to go one eating “Goldie” or “Henrietta” but naming a creature and eating it seems symptomatic of betrayal. By naming it, we confer a special status upon it and, if we would be ethical, we must then honor that status.
(Excerpted from Nel Noddinngs, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, 2nd edition [Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003], pp. 155-57.)