Killing a Spider

Killing a Spider


The statements that follow are common to a lot of ethical discussions concerning animal welfare. They represent the opinions of many people, and I will try to analyze them.


 * Why should you not kill a spider for fun? A spider does not feel pain.
 * Thousands of new spiders are hatched to replace it; the individual spider is
 * not unique, it has no emotions, no sense of family, it does not behave in any
 * way that can be appreciated by human beings, it does not do good, save for
 * killing more annoying insects in our houses. So why not kill it?

Killing is Fun
Why is it 'fun' to kill a spider? Some people would argue that there is something fundamentally wrong in the minds of people, who think killing animals is 'fun'. I do not believe this is the case.

Most children, including myself, have killed and tortured animals for 'fun'. It is an investigation of the concepts of life and death themselves.


 * How much damage can an animal sustain before it dies?
 * Does every living thing die?
 * What does dying mean?

No child is born with a built-in understanding of the concepts, and many adults are never satisfied with the definitions of 'being alive' and 'dying'. Philosophically oriented people spend their lives wondering about 'the meaning of life', and the definition of 'dying'. We can never directly investigate what it feels to die, because it's a one-way street. Children take the direct approach to the problem, they hurt animals to see any change in behaviour. If they kill off an animal, they realize the ultimate change: death. Of course, such experimentation is very destructive, and parents should ensure that their children do not keep on destroying their surroundings in their experimentation. But the experiment itself may be very important, and if the child is prohibited from experimentation, it may resume it at a later period in life, potentially with very problematic consequences.

The experiments may lead to a basic understanding of the concept of life and death, and the children may experience feelings of guilt and horror, when their empathy convinces them that the animals is sort of like themselves. This is often aided by parental guidance, such as "how would you feel, if a giant spider ripped your legs off?". An experience of guilt following such experimentation is in my opinion on of the best possible lessons to learn about other lifeforms in the childhood.

Some children never reach this stage, which in my opinion can be due to lack of parental guidance, or a lack of empathy in the child. The parents are annoyed with the destructive behaviour for other reasons, and just force the children to stop. The children never se the similarity between themselves and the animals, and just behave according to or opposite the rules of the parents, whatever applies best to the family in question.

The discussion so far has had the point of view of the children. It is not an approval of torturing animals in any way, just a statement that there is not necessarily anything wrong with making such experiments, and that the experiments themselves may be important to the individual children.

Now on to the next part of the discussion.

Spiders Feel No Pain
Excuses for mistreatment of animals, such as the lacking ability to feel pain and the lack of emotions to appreciate the mistreatment, has always aggravated me. They are hard to argue against, because the human emotional concept of 'pain' is defined through our own experiences only. Furthermore, physical pain is often interchanged with emotional pain, to further complicate matters.

The human empathy is a remarkable ability. It forces most people to feel the emotions of other people; it is what makes us cry, when we watch certain movies. It angers us when we read the news. It makes us believe we understand the thoughts of songwriters, when we hear their songs. Tree-huggers and animal activists (and myself) are brought to tears by their empathy, when they observe cruelty to the other living beings. They displace their viewpoint to the animal, and create an echo of the actions inflicted upon the animal in the mind, thus imagining the pain, they would feel, if they were the animal. Why do tree-huggers cry more than the average lumberjack? Practice. The tree-huggers actively try to use their empathy, because they are surrounded by like-minded individuals. And the empathic pain is amplified by the other humans, as humans are inescapably social animals. From a Darwinian viewpoint, our empathy is an ability that provides more efficient communications between humans, thus aiding social groups in acting efficiently as a whole.

But the only real pain any human has ever felt, is his own. The pain of others is discovered via screams or tears, and is understood through empathy. What about spiders? They don't scream, except in cheesy horror movies. Perhaps they don't scream, because they can't feel pain. It makes perfect sense. Also, spiders never complain, go on strike, or write letters to politicians about mistreatment. I do believe that many people never has made more intelligent observations than this. But to help those people, I will say this: spiders do not scream in pain, as they have no vocal cords, and cannot make any sound audible to humans. And why would they even have the ability to scream? Humans scream, because they hope that other humans could help them. Birds scream to warn other birds of danger. Spiders do not help each other, they eat each other, so screaming would be stupid.

But what is pain, then? The human body have neurons, that transmit information to the brain, when they are damaged. This process is called nociception. Scientific authorities define pain as the experience that results from the nociception. Of course, the purpose of pain is to react to the source of the damage to the neurons, and reduce the damage by retracting from it. And as a surprise to some, animals are no different. Spiders retract from sources of damage in a way that is no different from humans. They do so due to an experience caused by nociception. There is absolutely no reason to name this experience anything but 'pain'. And if this wasn't enough, some plants have exactly the same mechanism -- of course they react slower, as plants generally move very slowly, but they react to nociception. I also see no reason to call the experience causing such a reaction anything but pain.

So: Spiders do feel pain. End of story. Feel free to make your own definition of the word 'pain' that specifically prohibits applicability to animals and plants.

Spiders Are Evil
Another excuse for being harmful to animals, is that they are evil and may be punished. When stated like this, it sound very stupid, but it is the essence of statements I have heard by many.

Don't think I'm unaware of the huge pitfall here, the definition of good and evil as concepts. Not to digress to deeply into that most fundamental of philosophical topics, I will use the term 'evil' with semantics that most people will agree on and make the following statement without further discussion:


 * Unnecessary violence towards any human being is evil.

People in general do not agree on the application of the concept of evil to anything but other humans, so I will avoid making any invalid assumptions here. (Also, I don't think about boxing or karate when I say 'unnecessary violence'!)

I think it is natural for humans to apply human emotions and concepts to their surroundings. It is part of being a social creature. I felt horror when reading the observations of cruelty amongst chimpanzees by Jane Godall during her studies. Wildlife TV-shows are ripe with violence and brutality between predators and their prey, and we are appauled. And your cute little house cat is probably a regular fiend when 'playing' with a mouse. Any illusions of innocence in the world of animals are quickly wiped away. Indeed, these examples does seem to constitute acts of evil in the world of animals.

However, we laugh at the idea that a teapot or a pile of bricks could be evil. I also do not think anyone would hold a plant morally responsible for its actions. So there is a boundary here.

I think it is invalid to morally judge an object incapable of understanding morals. I refuse to see a spider as being evil, as long as it is incapable of understanding concepts beyond that of catching prey and reproducing. The same argument is used by legal systems, when acquitting people due to insanity. They are not capable of grasping the wrong that they do, therefore they are not 'guilty' in our modern sense of the word, and should be treated instead of punished.

The problem with the chimpanzee is that is acts and looks sort of like a human. Chimpanzees do have emotions, although not as highly evolved as those of humans, and perhaps they are exposed to feelings of guilt as humans are. So they should know better. But are the acts of those chimpanzees evil? They would be, if they were committed by a human being. I have no answer here.

But anyway, the spider walks due to reasons of stupidity. They cannot be evil, because they do not know what that means.

Why Not Kill a Spider?
I have analyzed and contradicted common excuses for cruelty to non-human life forms. Now the hard part: a valid argument against such cruelty.

Civilized people around me have given me reasons:


 * Spiders are useful animals, they eat other annoying insects such as flies and mosquitos

WRITE ME

A Related Matter
Mercy killing.

Conclusion
By the way, I don't like spiders. I think they are creepy. But I don't kill them unless they're in my bed.