Some general thoughts on moral principles Moral principles are not absolutes. There are always situations where an exception to a rule can be established. Thus in the case of killing, the principle: 'thou shalt not kill' has exceptions when the killing is done in self-defense, under duress or without capacity.
To move to the case of animal testing, i think it reasonable that as a general principle we can say 'it is a wrong to torture animals'. However like any general moral principle one can always find exceptions to the rule.
Animals are called 'animals' and not 'humans' for the very good reason that they are not in fact human. My opponents would do well to bear this fact in mind. Humans possess mental faculties that place them a rung above animals on the moral scale.
Now, let me state another general principle: The suffering of a human should not be made subservient to the suffering of an animal. This follows from the fact that humans are of greater moral worth than an animal.
Again this principle does not always hold firm. There will be occasions where the suffering of a human is not great enough to warrant an animal suffering. But i do not think anyone doubts that a man is right to torture an animal to death if he is faced with either that or the death of his wife and 17 children.
Application in the present case
A similar consideration applies in relation to the hopi. If the suffering that the hopi must endure as a result of no longer being allowed to sacrifice eagles is greater than the suffering of the eagles then it would be immoral not to let the hopi continue in their ancient practices.
This last point will no doubt be fallen upon with relish by my opponents who shall say that i am heartless or irrational to place a religous practice above the life of any creature. I do not believe this is the case at all.
An aNIMAL can die only in a physical sense. A human on the other hand can suffer a spiritual as well as a physical demise. Who has ever seen an animal so broken in spirit that they have been unable to raise themselves from their bed or so sunken in despair that they throw themselves off a cliff. I myself have never seen this. (I do not doubt that animals possess some crude form of emotion but i think it a mere trifle in comparison to humanity).
Given what i have read, i believe that there must at least be a presumption that the hopi's very being is so tied to their religous practices that if this sacred practice were to be taken away from them (assuming one could find a way to successfully enforce the rule in any case, see below) they would be left to live in spiritual turmoil. Their existence would be made so base as to not be not worth living. To disallow the practice would drive a wedge between the hopi and their gods. Would you tell a christian they can no longer worship christ?
In support of these matters i refer my opponents AGAIN to bernand williams (perhaps this time they will bother to read it):
"[T]here is room for such claims as that a given practice or belief is integrally connected with much more of a society's fabric than may appear on the surface, that it is not an excresence, so that discouragement or modification of this may lead to a much larger social change than might have been expected; or again, that a certain set of values or institutions may be such that if they are lost, or seriously changed, the people in the society, while they may physically survive will do so only in deracinated and hopeless condition".
As a final point i would ask my opponents to consider exactly how they would enforce their 'moral' law. Would you fine the hopi at first? Then as they continued send them to gaol? Would that not be unjust? Could the hopi not in any case raise the defense of necessity (which is really another moral exception).
How would one stop the hopi taking the eagles? Place federal agents at all known eagle nests? Or perhaps ultimately the solution would be to relocate the hopi?
