Karma Killed Coeztee

[1]

As I've been reading much animal rights and ethics literature, I have suddenly become intrigued by the notion of Karma.... Not to spoil a good read for all the logicians out in blogspace, but "what if"? What if all of our actions are centered around Karma? What if, as Coeztee wrote, "But they do not understand death as we do, or rather, as we fail to do." [2] Of course Coeztee meant to say that humankind cannot understand death as it is because we have never experienced it. Therefore, as I interpret Coeztee, we have no true knowledge of death. So we misperceive most all facets of death by not only possessing limited knowledge of death ourselves, but by also possessing a misperception of how death is suffered by animals, so we often do what suits our understanding of animals: they're here to serve us...and as some say God created the animals for us to use.

[3]

But what if it goes further than this? What if this whole paradox of analyzing and philosophizing about humans suffering and animals suffering compared to the holocaust and slavery were so far off base that it didn't even begin to correlate with reality as we [don't'] know it? This could certainly be the case as nobody has written from experience on death. But what about suffering? Surely, some of us suffer before we die as part of death. David and I mumbled under our breaths about Dr. Kavorkian, aka, "Dr. Death. But "Dr. Death" didn't do what he did because he liked killing people. He wanted to help people suffering from and during terminal illnesses. So, certainly we cannot altogether separate suffering from death, or life. As hard as Dr. Kavorkian tried, he could not separate suffering from life until after death.

[i]


But speaking of life, what if death does not exist? What if [death] the exiting of our humanly bodies is really just another passage onto our next rebirth? According to Tanner's Lecture, animal compassion is a very recent Western ethical view. So let's take David Hume's thoughts on inaliable rights, such as the right to bear children. Regarding this matter, Hume thought individuals had this right only if there were enough worldly resources to sustain such rights. So, if resources cannot support a child, then one does not have inalienable rights according to natural law. However, the Western perspective does not adhere to these principles in this regard as we can virtually have as many children as we want to. Yet we do adhere to inalienable rights as being rights given to us separate from, and not contingent, upon statutory laws or even customs. We are, as humans, born with these rights of "liberty".

Which brings me to Coetzee's question,

"Isn't there a certain wisdom in the traditional view that says that animals cannot enjoy legal rights because they are not persons, even potential persons, as foetuses are? In working out rules for our dealings with animals, does it not make more sense for such rules to apply to us and to our treatment of them, as at present, rather than being predicated upon rights which animals cannot claim or enforce or even understand?"[4]

For me, the legitimacy of animal compassion does not lie on the ability for the animal to understand it's rights, rather, in our ability to see it's rights in relation with our actions and coexistence. According to the notion of Karma, our actions towards other beings will be payed back to us in this life or the next existence. With this notion of Karma comes a certain level of speculation and theory building that doesn't appeal to our conventional notions of logic (but neither does Christianity). Yet, indeed, there is logical order to the idea of Karma. Allow me to quote from the Bhagavad Gita,

These bodies come to an end,
It is declared, of the eternal embodied (soul),
Which is indestructible and unfathomable.
Therefore fight, son of Bharata!

Who believes him a slayer,
And who thinks him slain,
Both these understand not:
He slays not, is not slain

He is not born, nor does he ever die;
nor, having come t o be, will he ever more be come not to be.
Unborn, eternal, everlasting, this ancient one
Is not slain when the body is slain

Who knows as indestructible and eternal
This unborn, imperishable one,
That man, son of Prtha, how
Can he slay or cause to slay--whom?

As leaving aside worn-out garments
A man takes other, new ones,
So leaving aside worn-out bodies
To other, new ones goes the embodied (soul).

Swords cut him not,
Fire burn him not,
Water wets him not,
Wind dries him not

Not to be cut is he, nor to be burnt is he,
Not to be wet nor yet dried;
Eternal, omnipresent, fixed,
Immovable, everlasting is he.

Unmanifest he, unthinkable he,
Unchangeable he is declared to be;
Therefore knowing him thus
Thou shouldst not mourn him

Moreover, even if constantly born
Or constantly dying thou considerest him,
Even so, great-armed one, thou
Shouldst not mourn him

For to the one that is born death is certain,
And birth is certain for one that has died;
Therefore, the thing being unavoidable,
Thou shouldst not mourn him [5]

This passage from the Bhagvad Gita referring to Karma reminds me of how much we don't know about death and suffering. Yet at the same time reminds me of how much we think we know about death. I venture to say, we don't even know the beginning. And nature as we see it, can be deceptive and so can the ethics associated with how humans--and animals--react to nature and life.

[ii]

The above youtube reveals a leopard who has an ethical conscious. The leopard kills a baboon who then has a baby after being killed. Something moves, and the cub leopard notices the baby baboon that has just been born. In what seems to be an awakening of moral consciousness, the leopard protects the baby from the Hyenas. What's so amazing about this video is the leopard seems to have compassion and though a predator by nature, demonstrates the understanding of the preciousness of life. Does this rare video capture the ethical conscious of a leopard? You be the judge. But do we still believe Wendy Doniger when she says, "no one can prove someone else does not know how animals feel."?[6] It'd be hard to say that you could not know how the leopard felt. The leopard felt guilty. Was this perhaps its moral consciousness speaking to it about a newborn baby? Or was its moral conscious--that we don't understand--acting out of some Karmic belief that the act of deliberately killing the baby would yield negative Karmic affects on its next life?

The leopard seemed to perceive life as precious, at least in the form of a new born. And we, to some extent, value life. But our understanding of life and death as we know it is limited to our understanding insofar as how we apply our faculties to understand life and death. As far as I understand life and death, I understand it as a cycle of life where what dies feeds the living. Thus a continuous cycle of birth and rebirth. But where does the soul come in? This is the question that defies scientific notions of death, being we just die. If we have a soul that lives separate from our bodies, then why do we consider our souls do die when our bodies die? To me, there is just as much logic in the notion of rebirth as there is heaven, hell, purgatory or a nice long nap (as Socrates described).

The point I'm getting to is that there is just as much reason not to hurt an animal due to ethical reasons as there is not to hurt an animal for Karmic reasons. There are so many dimensions in our world which we are unaware of, to me, the possibility that when a soul dies, it is being born is just as real to me as any other speculative theory about death. They're all speculative--just like when Smuts, "If they relate to us as individuals, and we relate to them as individuals, it is possible for us to have a personal relationship." [7]This speculation draws on the logic of the notion that individuality equates to 'personal' qualities. Smuts elaborates, "The possibility of voluntary, mutual surrender to the dictates of intersubjectivity constitutes the common ground that Aquinas and O'Hearne ignore when they claim that animals and humans cannot be friends." [7]If we believe our actions in this life will have a Karmic effect on the next, not only does this reduce the amount of suffereing we cause but it gives us control over the emotional dilemma of animal rights. If we don't take away their "rights", e.g., their right to live, then we no longer have to fear that we are acting immoral. If we do everything we can as individuals such as refrain from eating meat as part of our daily diet even though we like the taste, then, as Smuts states, "We fear such loss of control, but the gifts we receive in turn make it a small price to pay." [9]

Works cited
[1]http://www.dining-out.co.za/ftp/Logo/KarmaGautengLogo.gif
[2] Coetzee, J.M. Elizabeth Costello (New York: The Penguin Group, 2003) 109
[3]http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/suffering_animals.jpg
[4]Coetzee, J.M. Elizabeth Costello (New York: The Penguin Group, 2003)107
[5]Edgerton, Franklin (translations)The Bhagavad Gita(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972)11
[6]Anthology, 309
[7]Anthology, 316
[8]Anthology, 312
[9]Anthology, 312

Videos Cited.
[i]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09xBPtJRwhI
[ii]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_06oX8DqrU