The Problem of Animal Pain

The problem of animal pain has been a bone of contention in the Christian community.  There have been a few answers provided in an attempt to address the problem:

1. The fall of Adam
2. The fall of Satan
3. Animal pain doesn’t count for any moral concern
4. PDE-style response
5. Soul-building theodicy for animals (I won't be discussing this one)

YEC often urges (1.) as the only biblically satisfactory solution to the problem, but nowhere does Scripture teach that the death and pain of animals is the result of Adam’s fall.  This, paired with YEC’s vast implausibility, removes this as a live option for me.  It of course would face a further objection in that it seems odd that animals would suffer due to Adam’s wrongdoing.  But (1.) at least escapes the criticism that God initially designed the world in such a violent way as we observe in the animal kingdom.

(2.), on the other hand, is also not taught in Scripture.  It is a speculative hypothesis but can be quickly proposed as a way to relieve the tension.  That it fits well within an OEC framework keeps it alive as an option for me.  It of course also suffers from the objection for why animal suffering and Satan’s wrongdoing would be linked, but would, again, escape the initially designed violent objection.  

Lately, I’ve been more interested in (3.) and (4.) as possible solutions.  For (3.), the proposal is that animal pain isn’t worth moral consideration--so that the death of a deer in a forest fire just wouldn’t count as a good or a bad thing, it’d just be a neutral event--more akin to me turning off my computer than to a human’s death.  This is clearly a Cartesian conception of animals.   Many may think that (3.) would be a speculative hypothesis.  But this isn’t necessarily so.  We’re capable of researching pain as it manifests in physiology and neurobiology, and there have been suggestive experiments that show that pain can be felt under two distinct modes:  (a) a perception that something in one’s body is in pain along with a perception of the intensity of the pain (b) a perception of the unpleasant nature of the pain.  There are human subjects who, for various reasons, seem to suffer physical pain only in the sense of (a), who do not feel the “badness” of pain.  These human subjects still react to pain stimuli, they still pull away from heat and so on.  They just don’t experience its badness or its horror.  The suggestion is that animals may only suffer such a pain as well, and that higher cognitive function would be required to suffer from (b).   The further suggestion is that only pain of the (b) type would be worthy of moral consideration, while the pain of (a) type is not.  There are some experiments involving rats in which they are spinalized and still seem to exhibit pain avoidance behavior, even *learned* pain avoidance behavior.  This would seem to go some way towards showing that animals only experience pain of type (a).

So the suggestion is that there is no problem of animal pain.  Animal pain doesn’t count as worthy of independent moral consideration.  What does the last sentence’s use of “independent” imply?  I’ve got something in mind along the lines of what Aquinas teaches about animal pain:  The pain of animals is only worthy of consideration in view of the effect such pain has on the psychology of men.  For instance, it’s wrong to torture an animal because it reinforces bad habits and bad tastes on the man who’s doing the act.  Animals do share the experience of (a.) type pain with us, and if a man begins to like to see animals in pain states of type (a.), this may carry over to cruelty to humans.

I like (3.) and it’s been my preferred solution for quite awhile.  But I’ve been thinking of (4.) lately as well.  Take it that animal pain is in fact an inherently bad thing and that option (3.) is wrong, then (4.) would suggest the following:  God intends to bring about a lawful, harmonious, and diverse created order.  To achieve such a balance between the aesthetic and lawful qualities, there must be animal pain.  God intends to achieve the aesthetic and lawful qualities, but merely foresees the animal pain that results from such a harmonious and lawful order.  If PDE is right, and if the aesthetic beauty and lawfulness of the order is proportionate to the resulting animal pain, then PDE would permit or justify such a creative act.  

I think (4.) has some real potential, but I still really like (3.), for it easily justifies the eating of animals, which is something that I really like to do.   (3.) is dependent on this paper by Calum Miller.