A robust literature within philosophy and the political and social sciences suggests that markets influence value, and that a certain amount of “moral decay” occurs when we commodify something. This is primarily why bioethicists resist practices such as selling gametes, embryos, or transplantable organs. This is also why surrogate mothers and embryo donors are “compensated” but not paid. Within this literature on markets and moral decay, a strong case has been made that the commodification of animals leads to objectification, and to an increased willingness to allow animals to suffer in ways that would be unacceptable under more neutral circumstances. Scholars have looked carefully at the commodification of animals destined to become foodstuffs and at commodification within biological sciences of transgenic and other bioengineered animals. This same moral decay surely also occurs in relation to pets: the current system of buying and trading and selling animals “incentivizes” people to devalue animals in exchange for personal gain, and we all know that money can bring out the devil in us.
A research article published in Science in 2013 sheds some interesting empirical light on this issue, particularly as it relates to individual animal lives. In “Morals and Markets,” Armin Falk and Nora Szech explore what they call “the risk of moral decay through market interaction” by setting up an experimental paradigm to test the market’s influence on how people value the life of a mouse. In Falk and Szech’s study, human subjects were asked to decide whether to trade a mouse’s life for money. To make the experiment realistic, the researchers ensured participants that the consequences of their choice would be real. A healthy young mouse would, if the participant “saved” it, be allowed to live out its lifespan in “an appropriate, enriched environment, jointly with a few other mice.” (707) If they decided to take the money and kill the mouse, they were assured that a real mouse would actually die, and they were shown a video demonstration of the killing process that would be used.
Under their first experimental condition, Falk and Szech did an individual exchange, in which each person chose between a mouse’s life and a given amount of money. They found that just under half of the participants were willing to have the mouse die for 10 euros (about $13). Pretty bad odds for the mice, I would say. The effect of the market on willingness to kill was even more pronounced in their second and third experimental conditions—situations of bilateral and multilateral trade, in which two or more people bargained over the price of the mouse’s life. This increase in moral decay is the result of what Falk and Szech call “diffusion”: the moral implications of the trade were one or two steps removed, so it was possible to feel that one’s individual act didn’t directly cause the mouse’s death. And it was also possible to think, “Well, if I don’t make the money-for-mouse trade, someone else will, so I might as well do it.” (This very common form of rationalization is called, in technical parlance, “passing the moral buck.”) “The downward trend,” they suggest, “provides a further indication of moral decay in the mouse market and is suggestive of social learning and endogenous social norm formation.” (p. 709) In deadpan academese they conclude, “Our evidence shows that market interaction causally affects the willingness to accept severe, negative consequences for a third party.” (Falk and Szech, p. 707)
Our pets are really no different than the animals we buy and sell and trade as foodstuffs, clothing, and fur-bearing agar plates: they are firmly entrenched within the market system. They are livestock that we buy and sell for companionship and entertainment. The only real difference is that some of us have emotional attachments to pet animals that make them have very high emotional value, something that it is hard to put a price on. This is why some courts are beginning to assign monetary compensation for emotional damages suffered by the death of a pet, since market replacement price is such a poor reflection of the pet’s true value. Even here, though, the animal’s life is valued because it makes us happy, not because the animal has any intrinsic worth.
Political philosopher Michael Sandel says, “we have to ask where markets belong—and where they don’t.” (What Money Can’t Buy) Perhaps animals who we take on as companions simply don’t belong in the market. Perhaps pet animals are sentient beings with consciousness, inner lives, past and future experiences, social relationships and communities, offspring and parents—all of those things that make humans the kind of entity that should not be bought and sold. It seems like utopian science fiction to imagine a world in which animals are truly treated as subjects and not objects, and where they don’t have a price on their heads. But as Falk and Szech point out, “dispute about the marketability and the appropriateness of markets has led to some of the most fundamental upheavals within modern societies.” For example, the abolishment of trading and selling human beings in the U.S. led to the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, and ultimately also the gradual erosion of racist attitudes toward blacks. Disputing the marketability of animals seems essential to evoke the kind of massive moral upheaval necessary. The only way to imagine a world in which institutionalized violence toward animals isn’t the norm is to imagine a world in which selling an animal for money would seem as repulsive as selling children.
We can be relatively sure that the commodification of pet animals leads to objectification and exploitation, to systems of production that seek to maximize profit and which blunt our sense of moral responsibility. But is there any evidence to show that removing companion animals from the market would actually affect how we value them? Would we be able to resolve some of the profound ethical problems related to pets, by moving animals to safety, beyond the boundary of the market system? Would we treat them better? Would we finally begin to respect their intrinsic value? It is very hard to distill an empirical answer to these questions, since we have no experience of a world in which pet animals are not products to be bought and sold. But I suspect the answer to each of these questions is likely “yes.”
Would it be possible to remove pet animals from the market, while many other animals remain as commodities? On the one hand, maybe this is a good place to start since pets seem to have more purchase on our moral imaginations than other cultural categories of animals. Maybe we could capitalize on the relative advantage pets have, hope that there will be some moral trickle down to other animals in need of empathy and protection. Companion animals are perhaps our best possibility for learning empathy toward animals and humans and for developing our capacity to relate to animals in ways that are both humanizing and humane.
On the other hand, “pet” is an arbitrary assignation and singling out pets might simply reinforce the morally bizarre situation we are now in, where the classifications for assigning value are driven by taste and preference, and change (sometimes dramatically) over time. It wouldn’t make sense to argue that pet dogs don’t belong in the market while dogs being raised and sold for medical or veterinary research do. Nor would it make sense to say that dogs and cats shouldn’t be bought and sold, but other animals can be. Maybe moral solidarity is where we should begin. All animals. ASAP.
Although removing animals from the market will ultimately require a radical shift in mindset, there are baby steps we can take now to dispute the power of the market. For example, we can work to dispel the myth that purebred dogs make better companions; we can increase consumer pressure to “buy mongrel”; we can encourage boycotts of unethical breeders and pet shops; we can become compassionate consumers and only buy ethically-sourced animals; we can support various kinds of legislation that might stymie the pet industry by requiring accountability (e.g., “return” legislation such as was passed in Michigan, which would allow pet owners to sue for veterinary expenses if a pet has medical problems resulting from their place of origin; APHIS retail pet shop rule). Finally, we can put a tourniquet on the hemorrhaging pet industry and squeeze shut the flow of blood and suffering by refusing to buy an animal. Ever.