Question 'Zoophiles', as they call themselves, often claim that committing sexual acts with animals is okay because animals are capable of consenting, either by sexual displays (lifting tails, humping hapless human legs, etc), or by not biting/fighting back, or by allowing the human access to them, so to speak. The problem I have with this is that an animal can't attribute the same idea to sex as a human can - for a human sex may be bound up with love and other types of emotions where by and large for animals it is another biological duty. In my opinion that would mean that there is no real consent between an animal and a human because the two are essentially contemplating a different act. Am I missing something here? And is there any validity in the idea that it is wrong to engage in sex with animals because for most humans it is intuitively wrong? If it doesn't really harm anyone - if the animal is unscathed - does that make the whole argument pointless?

Accepted:
February 3, 2006

Comments

The part of the question that I find interesting is the claim that "there is no real consent between an animal and a human because the two are essentially contemplating a different act" (italics added). The question assumes that animals can contemplate. We grant that, for the sake of discussion. Animals contemplate sex biologically, while humans contemplate sex emotionally, according to the question.

Suppose two people, X and Y, meet in a bar or club, and drink wine, talk, and dance together intimately. After an hour or so, X says to Y: "shall we go to my place"? Y says "sure," and off they go. As soon as they get inside X's flat [crib, pad], they eagerly embrace, kiss, undress each other, and eventually end up entwined [perhaps coitally] on the sofa, floor, or bed. The consent of X and Y to this sexual act is implicit, not explicit, but that's not the issue here. The claim I quoted assumes that all is well with implicit consent. I will assume that, too, for the sake of discussion.

The question is whether there is no "real" consent to the sexual activity in which they are engaging because X and Y might be "contemplating different acts." Suppose X is thinking: "I am crazy head over heels in love-at-first-sight with Y. I hope we see each other again. " And suppose Y is not thinking anything of the sort, but only: "This is a wonderful evening." Does this mean that X and Y are contemplating different acts? X is contemplating an I-am-crazy-in-love act and Y is contemplating a one-night-stand act. And, if so, does that mean that there is no real consent between them, because they are not consenting to the same thing? Both seem to have consented to same sexual activity (their naked entwinement), but perhaps appearances are deceptive. X consented to an act under a certain contemplation-description; Y consented to an act under a different contemplation-description. Hence they did not consent to the same act. Hence there was no "real" consent at all. An interesting argument.

But I ask: what does it mean to "contemplate an act"? How can we identify and individuate the contemplation of acts so that we know when the same act is (or is not) being contemplated and consented to? Suppose X is buying a used car from Y. Also suppose that X contemplates the act as a car-buying act while Y contemplates the act as a car-selling act. Hence there is no real consent? That seems odd. One might reply: this is not a case in which X and Y contemplate different acts; they both contemplate the act as "X's money is being exchanged for Y's car." So the example does not show that contemplating different acts does not block consent; the example is irrelevant to that question. But (I reply back), if so, then the case of the sexually entwined X and Y is also irrelevant. We must have a way to identify and individuate act-contemplations.

Is this issue the same as the issue of the opacity of consent? Here's an example. X asks Y, "May I kiss you?" Y says, "sure." X proceeds to explore the inside of Y's mouth with X's tongue. Y pulls away abruptly, and exclaims, "I didn't say you could French kiss me!" When X says, "let's do A," and Y replies, "yes, let's do A," X and Y might not be referring to the same thing with the word "A." Is this what it means to contemplate different acts?

Help is needed from philosophers of mind and philosophers of action. Any takers? (Many other issues arise in the question. I leave those to other panelists.)

It seems to me that it is sufficient if there is a description of the act under which both parties consent to it. (I find myself tempted to say: ...and under which they both perform it. That may not be necessary but probably is.) Whether there are other descriptions under which one or another of the two parties has not consented to it seems irrelevant (especially if it is not a description under which they perform it): It will always be possible to find such descriptions. (Note that this is different from saying that there are descriptions under which one of the parties would withhold consent. Whether the existence of such descriptions would be relevant is a more difficult question.) If so, then the fact that X and Y, in the first example, happen to think of the consequences of their encounter in different terms does not seem to undermine their consenting to: having a sexual encounter. (And that, of course, is a description under which both of them perform the act.)

There are undoubtedly other issues that arise here. For example, suppose X has consented to a sexual encounter only because X thinks that Y is as crazy about X as X is about Y. Suppose further that Y has given X reason so to think. Then the consent is given under false pretenses, and there is undoubtedly a moral question in the vicinity. I don't myself want to say that X has not consented, but some people would draw that conclusion. (It's different if X's consent has been coerced.) But if Y has given X no such reason and X's belief is a product of wishful thinking, then I see no significant moral question in the vicinity. (Note that it doesn't seem relevant here whether consent is implicit or explicit.)

Alan's last example raises questions about understanding. It seems that Y, in the example, supposed that X would understand Y as saying that it was OK for X to kiss Y in a certain way. This is clearer if we suppose that X proceeds to plant a big smooch on Y's neck, chest, or butt. In that case, it would seem that Y would certainly be justified in saying, "When I said you could kiss me, I didn't mean you could kiss me there". And indeed, it seems to me that X would be liable to criticism on the ground that X had misunderstood the plain intent of Y's words. (It is, indeed, hard to imagine X as doing so other than willfully.) But perhaps it is less clear in the case Alan describes what the "plain intent" of Y's words might be. Perhaps Y ought to have been clearer.

This question raises interesting issues about animal cognition. I tend totake a rather hard line on this—a view similar to one held by the stoics and bythe contemporary philosopher Donald Davidson---according to which (non-human)animal cognition is so different from human cognition that animals cannot give thesort of consent that humans use to justify their sexual interaction.

So, my own answer to your question is this: If it is morally wrong to interactsexually interact non-human animals without consent, then this sexual contactis always wrong because that sort of consent is impossible to obtain.

I suppose one who shared my view of animal cognition could take a hardline on this and say that it is morally acceptable to use non-human animals assexual objects for human pleasure, but I would disagree -- at the very leastKant is right that treating animals as ends is wrong because it tends to leadto cruel treatment of humans, and it is probably true that animals are worthyof much stronger moral consideration than this even though (on my view) theydon't possess anything like human cognition.

(On the other hand, as Nozick’s famous argument aboutvegetarianism suggests, many meat eaters do act as if it is okay to usenon-human animals in extremely harsh ways for their own pleasure. So, perhapsthe “hard core zoophile” line I describe isn’t that far from the mainstreamafter all. For Nozick’s argument, see the “taking pleasure in the feeling ofthe bat sinking into the cow’s living flesh” argument in his Philosophical Explanations.)

I haven’t given much thought to the ethics of sex between humans and non-humans, but it seems to me that the fact that sex between humans requires consent does not imply that sex involving non-human animals requires consent. We require consent in sexual relations between human beings because we believe that making informed choices about intimate relationships is a significant good for human beings. Such choices cannot be part of a good life for non-human animals because such animals are permanently incapable of making them. That’s not to say that non-human animals are to be used as one pleases; it’s simply to say that whether consent occurs or does not occur cannot be a relevant consideration.