Should We Stop Animals From Having Sex With Each Other?
No if you're a utilitarian, unclear if you're not
I’ve been thinking about sex with animals recently1.
This has been mostly in response to the recent ridiculous uproar over Peter Singer’s Tweet linking to a paper by the Journal of Controversial Ideas, which he helps run. The paper, by the pseudonymous Fira Bensto, argues that there are a narrow range of circumstances in which bestiality is, while disgusting, not immoral. Examples include the following:
Alice and her dog: Alice selfdescribes as being in a romantic relationship with her dog. She cares a lot about his wellbeing and strives to ensure that his needs are fulfilled. They often sleep together; he likes to be caressed and she finds it pleasant to gently rub herself on him. Sometimes, when her dog is sexually aroused and tries to hump her leg, she undresses and lets him penetrate her vagina. This is gratifying for both of them.
Lots of right-wing people got mad about this, citing an obscure paper widely opposed as evidence for the widespread moral decay of the west. These people were very much in favor of the Journal when it was publishing controversial ideas about gender, for instance, that they agreed with, but were deeply outraged that the Journal began publishing the subset of controversial ideas that they didn’t agree with. How dare the Journal of Controversial Ideas publish controversial ideas?
But this article is not about that. It’s instead about sex between animals. Ordinarily, we think that if, for example, two ducks want to have sex, we shouldn’t stop them. But why is this?
The utilitarian has a pretty good account of this. Sex with animals is normally wrong because it typically harms the animals and risks spreading disease. Sex between animals of the same species is typically enjoyable and does not risk spreading disease the way it does if it is between people and animals. But most people think that bestial acts are wrong for reasons other than harm which seem to straightforwardly entail the impermissibility of sex between animals.
When tasked with explaining the wrongness of bestiality, the most common explanation is that animals can’t consent. But if they can’t consent to sex with people, presumably they can’t consent to sex with other animals either. Surely fish aren’t smart enough to consent to sex even with other fish—they don’t understand the full ramifications. We think that children can’t consent to sex—but that’s one reason why we wouldn’t allow children to have sex with other children. So why would animals be any different?
People might appeal to a view—potentially Catholic—of sexual ethics to explain the difference. They might say that the reason not to have sex with animals is not that it’s bad for the animals or that it wrongs the animal but that we have a duty not to do it—perhaps it perverts our faculties. But this doesn’t seem like the full explanation. So see this, imagine a scenario where there is some practical reason to create a machine that causes a humanoid robot to have sex with animals. This seems wrong, but it doesn’t involve perverting our faculties. It seems that not only is it wrong to create this machine, but it’s bad that it exists—all else equal, it would be good to destroy it. But if this is true, then it can’t be that the wrongness of bestiality comes only from what it does to us.
There might be a robust account of natural law theory that can explain this. One might think:
Cruelty to animals is wrong which is one reason sex with animals is typically wrong.
Sex with animals is additionally wrong because it misuses our faculties.
Sex between animals doesn’t misuse their faculties because animals’ proper function is to have sex with each other.
But most people aren’t natural law theorists. So for those who aren’t but also aren’t utilitarians, what’s your account of why sex with animals is wrong but sex between animals isn’t? I think considerations along these lines are enough to disqualify the claim that sex with animals is wrong because they can’t consent—for they can’t consent any more to sex with other animals. It’s instead wrong for other reasons. Therefore, utilitarians and natural law theorists seem to have an easy time explaining this asymmetry—people who adopt a roughly common-sense view of morality don’t.
Keen readers will register this as an example of a joke.
The utilitarian cannot say animals having sex with each other is fine even most of the time if wild animal suffering is a thing for that species (and it is for most species). Also, the consent theorist might be able escape the problem by appealing to agency. It’s wrong for (most) humans to have sex with an animal because we know better; we know it violates consent, and we would be the perpetrators of that wrong. Animals aren’t moral agents, so it isn’t even clear that they’re doing something wrong (violating consent) when they have sex. For very young children who aren’t yet moral agents, letting them have sex with each other might have negative consequences for them in the future, which is why it’s good to intervene on their behalf.
What about power dynamics as an explanation? Two 14 year-olds can consent to each other because there is no asymmetric power dynamic whereas this wouldn’t hold with a 14 year old and a 30 year old.
Similarly, if a human wants to have sex with a sheep the power dynamics are extremely one sided, but two sheep or humans not.
(This viewpoint would imply that if we encounter a relationship between a human and a creature who is much stronger and smarter than a human (e.g Smaug) we should also not consider this ethical of Smaug)