Author: Matt Deaton

Jade lives near an old graveyard (no new burials in decades), and walks her dog there, even though it’s against the law. Sometimes headstones emit steam, and Jade swears she’s heard moans coming from the ground. No, not really. But walking her dog there really is illegal. Should she continue?

Before answering, remember that good law tracks morality, but doesn’t determine it. That is, just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s necessarily moral (consider slavery, once fully legal), and just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s necessarily immoral (consider when it was illegal for women to vote). The law states what’s legal, not necessarily what’s moral. So don’t fall into the common trap of basing morality on legality – the two are related, but distinct. In fact, every so often (OK, continuously) people need to reflect in order to clarify what the law should say, to ensure it continues to better align with morality.

Jade’s not dealing with anything as consequential as slavery or suffrage – just a little doggie exercise. But while she might be quiet and respectful, pick up after her dog and not do any obvious harm (after all, the residents are dead… even if they sometimes moan), her presence may signal to less reverent pet owners that it’s OK for them to break the law, too. Before you know it, dogs are marking their territory on headstones, digging up graves, fighting over human hip bones – not pretty. There’s also a risk (however distant) that a family member could show up and cause a scene. “Let go of my great-grandmother’s pearls, you beast!!”

The crux of the case in favor: “[G]iven that the law was probably written to respect family members’ grief and to enable them to honor their loved ones in peace, it seems that the spirit of the rule doesn’t really apply.” Jade would be giving her dog some much-needed exercise, and she seems exceptionally polite and thoughtful. Maybe her presence actually honors the graves? Maybe many of the deceased were pet lovers?

So which is it – should Jade continue walking her dog in the cemetery, maybe with certain conditions (and an exorcist)? Or should she refrain? And most importantly, why?

Case 7 of the 2018-2019 NHSEB nationals pool invites us to reflect on pet owners’ responsibilities and on when a shelter dog would be better off left unadopted.

Characters Frankie and Sam have a roughly equal ability (or inability) to care for a pet. While both are dog lovers, neither has much money for veterinary care, the best home, or much time to devote to dog walking or play.

Frankie decides to refrain, while Sam goes ahead and adopts. Frankie’s reasoning is that any dog he might take home would be better off in a shelter where it might be adopted by a better resourced owner or simply euthanized. (Frankie doesn’t explicitly say that a dog would be better off euthanized than living under his care, but that unadopted dogs are often put to sleep is an obvious implication, and therefore must be in play in Frankie’s reasoning.)

Sam’s reasoning is that even though the conditions at his house aren’t ideal (his landlord forbids pets in the house), his dog is better off with him than at the shelter.

Analyzing Frankie vs. Sam’s decision, and the implications for the ethics of pet adoption, could be broken down into two steps. Step 1: determining whether a dog’s interests are morally valuable.

From the Kantian perspective, dogs lack rationality, and therefore are not owed direct moral duties. That is, we needn’t treat dogs as ends in themselves – the standard Kant demands for creatures that do possess rationality, in light of their ability to self-govern, and obey moral rules for their own sake.

However, Kant clarified that this doesn’t mean we’re free to treat non-rational animals any way we please. This is because the way we treat Fido may influence the way we treat one another. A person who leaves a dog tied to a stump in their backyard, denying it affection, nutrition and medical care, may very well come to treat human beings in a similarly callous fashion. Therefore from Kant’s perspective we have indirect duties to be good to non-human animals, because the way we treat our pets shapes the way we treat our neighbors.

From the Utilitarian perspective, our moral obligations to dogs is direct. Given the fact that their nervous system is relevantly similar to our own, it’s reasonable to conclude that dogs feel pleasure and pain in the same way that we do. And since Utilitarianism is all about objectively maximizing net pleasure over pain, the impact of our actions on our pets’ pleasure/pain is just as important as the impact on humans’ pleasure/pain.

Further, I believe it was Tomas Regan who made the “center of a life” argument (in Taking Animals Seriously) that many animals are relevantly similar to us in that they constitute a distinct being living a distinct existence. They possess a distinct consciousness, a past, a future, desires, relationships, emotions – most of the stuff that would seem to make humans’ welfare worthy of moral concern. Therefore if we think the interests and welfare of humans is worthy of moral consideration, we should extend the same to nonhuman animals – both constitute “centers of a life.”

These three brief arguments don’t mean a dog’s interests outweigh or are necessarily equal to humans’. But they do mean your intuition that we can’t treat a dog as if it were a brick can be explained with argumentation.

Step 2: determining whether a dog would be better off in a shelter (and possibly euthanized) or adopted by a loving but under-resourced owner.

Here the answer would seem to turn on just how bad the conditions at the shelter are, whether it’s a “no-kill” shelter, and just how unprepared and unfit the owner in question is.

The case states that Sam feels badly that he can’t bring his dog inside due to his landlord’s restrictions, and that his dog “gets cold and wet sometimes” as a result. An important question is whether Sam lives in Miami or Minnesota, as well as whether his dog is a Chow (thick coat) or a Chihuahua (not so much).

Another is whether Sam’s dog has access to a partially wooded (shaded) acre with plenty of room to run, or to only a 10×10 concrete pad. Sam’s dog would also likely appreciate playmates (squirrels to chase or neighbor dogs to converse with… at 3 a.m.). And dog houses can be conditioned and comfortable, or glorified cages. Simply saying Sam’s dog is in “the backyard” doesn’t give us much insight, but these are the sorts of factors that would impact the dog’s welfare, and in turn the moral permissibility of Sam’s treatment.

Another important consideration is the dog’s age. Much like humans, sometimes ailments will crop up in adolescent years, but dogs usually require the most intensive (and expensive) medical care later in life. If Sam’s dog is between a year and five years old (assuming it’s a breed that usually lives a decade or more) and has shown no signs of disease, the need for vet care in the near future may be low. If it’s pushing fifteen, the vet will likely need to be visited often, and continuous medications for arthritis and other ailments may be necessary in order for the dog to remain relatively pain-free.

Further, if Sam has good reason to think he’ll be in a better position financially to care for his dog when he gets older, the risk he’s taking now that no emergency vet visits will be in order may be a fair gamble. This gamble is more defensible to the extent that shelter life would be miserable (some are nice; others pitiful), and to the extent that Sam has reason to think he’ll have more time for his dog in the near future.

So there ya go. The ethics of adopting a dog on a budget in two quick steps 🙂 There’s more to analyze, but hopefully this will point you in the right direction.

The best of luck to all teams competing at UNC this year, and special encouragement to the teams from Tennessee, DC, LA and Houston (this one was for you and your crew, Deric – enjoy nationals!).

Matt