Q: I treat kids with kala-azar, a disease transmitted to humans from dogs by sand flies. Treatment of dogs and humans is painful, prolonged and not very effective. Euthanizing infected animals is the best way to corral the disease. A stray dog, Lisa, established herself outside our house, and we fed her. When kala-azar was diagnosed, we reluctantly euthanized her. Ethical?
– Dolores Protagoras, M.D.,
Athens, Greece
A: This sad action was permissible, given the facts. You rightly imply a moral distinction between humans and nonhumans. No disease, no matter how horrific, would justify murdering human beings to prevent its spread. Yet we sometimes impose such things on animals, destroying some fowl, for example, to protect others – and us – from avian flu.
You may not destroy an animal to curb a minor malady, like the spread of fleas, or a disease that can be countered by quarantine or inoculation.
This position accords moral standing to animals but places a higher value on people, which Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton and author of “Animal Liberation,” does not automatically do. He e-mailed: “Maybe killing Lisa was justifiable. … But I don’t think that mere membership of one species rather than another can make a sharp difference to whether it is, or is not, right to kill an individual for the benefit of many others.”
To confer higher status on human beings is not simply to champion the species to which we belong. It reflects a willingness to consider intelligence, self-awareness and the capacity for suffering, among other qualities. It is an imperfect argument. But it does suggest that we value a dolphin over a mouse, a mouse over a worm.
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Q: A few weeks after my bike was stolen, I saw it locked to a post. I had modified and recorded the serial number. I don’t imagine it was the restaurant deliveryman who stole it, but I had no qualms about waiting for him to return and taking it back. Should I have called the police instead?
– Greg Faber, New York
A: You rightfully reclaimed your own property. I’m impressed you had sufficient charm to persuade this fellow to surrender the bike. If that’s what you mean by “taking it back” upon his return, and not something more two-fisted, you did no wrong.
If you had spotted the bike in front of a restaurant, you should have called the cops. There’s a good chance the bike would be there when they arrived, sparing you vigilante justice and letting them check the rest of the restaurant’s fleet and perhaps reunite another cyclist with his purloined bike.
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