CockadoodleMoo.org

Our volunteer Dusty came out this weekend, braving nearly impassable rutted and icy roads. She's volunteering as part of a class, and her teacher asked her to write up how the situation relates to "power and authority." 

This is an important topic for me, and one I expect to write a lot about in the future. But here are some rambling thoughts off the top of my head as to how power and authority relates to CockadoodleMoo.

A position of power — such as humans have over animals or a parent has over a child or a government has over a people — is not healthy if the one in power uses that power to exploit those at the mercy of that power. Unfortunately, "might makes right" is a guiding principle for many — of course only when they happen to be on the side of "might." This is especially the case with humans' relationship to nonhuman animals. People justify the worst exploitation of animals with quips about liking it at the top of the food chain. Yet they would never accept this excuse in other contexts, such as accepting another nation's rationalization for massacring a conquered people. Or imagine if an alien race invaded Earth and began putting humans in factory farms with the cows and pigs and used the same logic that THEY are now at the top of the food chain. 

Rather, I would make the case, that in order to truly earn power, one must protect and respect those over whom one has power, similar to how an adult human should protect rather than exploit a child. A good way to understand why this is the only morally justified use of power, one should consider philosopher John Rawls' "veil of ignorance". He said that any rule is morally justified if a being would agree to that rule without knowing what body they would be put in on this Earth. Basically, imagine yourself looking down on Earth from some land of pre-existence. You can make whatever laws or philosophies you think appropriate as long as you don't know which thinking, feeling being's body you'll enter when you get here. For instance, then it wouldn't make sense to create sexist or racist laws because you wouldn't know whether you're going to be born into a man or a woman's body, an Asian person's body, an Arab's, a black's or a white's. But neither would you know whether you're going to be born into a human or a nonhuman body. How could you then use your power to exploit, harm and kill animals — especially when doing so is unnecessary? 

With the animals at CockadoodleMoo, we are often asked how we plan to "use" them. We don't use them. They are under our care and protection, with us exerting authority only when necessary to keep them safe, when it's in their best interest. We're lucky enough to be the ones in the position of power (a far better position to be in) and thus there's a responsibility to treat this luck-of-birth with awareness, understanding and respect for those we're fortunate enough to have power over. Besides, to inflict suffering on those with no power seems cruel and unjust. The animals generally were brought into this world because of human action, and thus we feel an obligation to offer them the best life we can. To exploit them merely because we can would only justify the philosophy of "might makes right". More importantly, we wouldn't want someone else who, by happenstance, has power over us to exploit us so it would hypocritical of us to do so ourselves.

~ Mark