t is very odd that a man who favors animal rights should also think that having sex with animals is morally acceptable.  Indeed, there is a very straightforward sense in which this seems awfully self-serving, in that trans-species equality turns out to be a way of increasing the array of sexual outlets for human beings.  Well, there is such a person; and he has a very distinguished career as an academician.  His name is Peter Singer and he is a professor at Princeton University.  There is a very real sense in which Peter Singer’s views regarding animal equality and inter-species sexual sex give universities a bad name; for his views seems to be woefully at odds with commonsense. 

Now, as a response Singer can rightly point out that once upon a time it was thought to flow from commonsense alone that marriage between members of different ethnicities was in some sense unnatural.  In fact, there are still people who think that.  There are black people who think that black people should only marry black people because this is natural; and there are white people who think that white people should only marry white people because this is natural.  

So Peter Singer can rightly say that so-called commonsense is hardly a measure of what we should or should not do.  While there may be something to this point, it really ought not to turn out that an argument for sexual intercourse between different ethnic groups also counts as an argument for sexual intercourse between humans and animals. 

Now, to begin with, there is a very profound reason why Singer’s argument for inter-species sex is most disturbing.  For if inter-species sex between a human being and a dog, say, is perfectly acceptable, then what exactly would count as the moral reason for not having sex between adults and infants?  If, as Singer notes, (i) a dog’s humping a human being’s leg might signal an opportunity for a sexual twist between a dog and a human being, then is he not also committed to the view that (ii) the sexual curiosity of a child might also be the occasion for a sexual twist between an adult and a child? 

The point here is that Peter Singer is so facile in putting forth (i) that he says nothing whatsoever to block (ii).  And that is a genuine problem. 

Let me be unequivocally clear: I do not think for a moment that (i) is at all morally acceptable.  The point, though, is that clearly (ii) is even less morally acceptable than (i).

What makes sex between and a dog and a human unacceptable?  Part of the answer seems to be that this is tantamount to a human using a dog in precisely the way that Singer thinks is objectionable.  When humans have sex with one another, their appreciation for one another both emotionally and physically is very much a part of what makes the sex so very satisfying.  It is because she knowingly touched him in the way that he likes.  And it is because he knowingly touched her in the way that she likes.  This quite simply is the phenomenon of sexual reciprocity.

Well, sexual reciprocity between a human being and a dog would seem to be downright impossible.  Even if we could make sense of the human being knowingly touching the dog in the way that the dog supposedly wants to be touched, what we cannot possibly do is suppose that the dog knowingly touches the human in the way that the human wants to be touched.  I mean what do dogs know about how human beings want to be touched?

And I would have thought that respect for animals, which Singer claims to be so very much about, would have entailed recognizing that human beings and animals are simply not capable of reciprocal sexual touching.  It would be none other than anthromorphizing to suppose that humans know what pleases an animal sexually.  For instance, it cannot be maintained that a dog’s humping a human leg is on the par with a man having an uncontrollable erection.  We have no way of knowing that. 

I, myself, find the idea of inter-species sex rather absurd—at least in the way that Singer means it.  Let me explain. 

Of course, we can imagine intelligent creatures whose intellectual and emotional skills mirror those of homo sapiens, yet these creatures are not at all homo sapiens.  Presumably, the Vulcans of the famed series Star Trek would satisfy this condition.  Obviously, sexual bonds between homo sapiens and Vulcans would be morally permissible; for both satisfy the condition of being rational creatures.  What clearly does not follow from this is that sexual bonds are thus morally permissible between human beings and all non-human creatures—cows, chickens, horses, and so on. 

This is a point of elementary logic, and so one that is well within Professor Singer’s reach.  From the truth that (a) it is morally permissible for human beings to have sexual relations with other rational creatures who are not in fact human beings—Vulcans, for example, what simply does not follow at all is that (b) it is morally permissible for human beings to have sexual relations with cows and dogs and so forth. 

As no doubt some have no read, the Parliament of Spain has granted rights to apes.  Mr. Singer favors this idea of trans-species equality.  But we may ask: what exactly is the equality here?  Will the apes defend our rights, just as we defend their rights? 

Part of the idea that all human beings have the same rights is that all human beings should be prepared to defend the rights of one another.  Well, it most certainly is not this conception of the equality of rights that is being extended to apes.  No one thinks for a moment that if apes see some measure of racism on the part of Asians against Arabs, then apes should be no less willing to step up to the moral plate and defend Arabs against Asians than Native Americans or Eskimos.  It is not even clear that we think that apes can recognize racism. 

More generally, there is nothing resembling a robust conception of moral responsibility that we are willing to apply to apes.  So while it may be true that apes have something resembling a sense of self, what is manifestly false is that this sense of self allows us to attribute moral responsibility to apes. 

Of course, Professor Singer is quite right that we should not harm apes.  His more robust view, however, is that apes are not to be treated as “mere things that can be owned and used for our amusement or entertainment”.  And this view is most problematic.  For is he claiming that owning an ape is morally analogous to the wrong of owning a human being, or close enough to that?  One would think that this line of thought requires a rather sustained argument; and Singer provides none.  It is in this regard that Mr. Singer’s position turns out to be most morally fulsome. 

It is one thing to say that apes should not be treated cruelly.  It is quite another to say that owning an ape is rather like owning a human being.  The evolutionary difference between a fully adult ape and a fully adult human being is considerable in just about every conceivable way.  Indeed, it is human beings who have the charge of protecting apes—and not the other way around.  This alone suggests a monumental moral difference between human beings and apes.  In fact, precisely that difference alone makes it manifestly clear that inter-species equality between human beings and apes is just so much nonsense.  The very character of the moral asymmetry between them insures the absence of moral equality between them.  Or so it is if what one means by moral equality that rights and duties apply equally to all. 

Now, once it is acknowledged that we have this kind of significance moral difference between apes and human beings, then we can ask whether or not the moral floor of decency is the same for both.  The answer might be affirmative.  However, we must show that it is affirmative while taking into account the moral differences between apes and human beings—and not by adopting the question-begging,  and utterly absurd, posture that they are on the exact same moral plane.  For that simply cannot be if adult human beings are morally responsible for protecting adults apes; whereas a like moral responsibility does not apply to adult apes when it comes to protecting adult human beings. 

Now to advocate sex between creatures who embody this level of moral difference in-kind between them is to defend what can only be called a most morally bankrupt form of sexual perversion at the expense of animals.  And this, surely, is moral equality that animals can very well do without. 

Laurence Thomas