Abstract
The growing number of books and articles concerning the status of nonhuman animals within Christian theology demonstrates an increasing interest in this subject. Daniel Miller’s book adds to this field by using the parable of the Good Samaritan to address our ethical responsibility to nonhuman animals (throughout his book, Miller uses ‘animals’ to refer to nonhuman animals—an understandable choice given the repetition necessary in such a book). One of the key claims Miller makes is that humans need to understand animals as neighbours and to make the ethical responses this entails. The book proceeds through six chapters, plus introduction and conclusion. It is based around three themes which Miller presents as key to interpreting the parable of the Good Samaritan—responsibility, care and nearness—and two theological issues that they raise, dominion and vegetarianism.
In the first chapter, on responsibility, Miller makes use of both contemporary studies in animal ethology and discussions of the interpretation of the imago Dei, in the latter engaging in large part with Emil Brunner and Karl Barth. Within this chapter, Miller denies that animals have moral capacity and is critical of those (such as Marc Bekoff) who use the term ‘moral’ of animals. He chooses a definition of morality which is highly cognitive and abstract, and, even though he admits that we may find a basis for morality in some animals, he therefore views only humans as ultimately responsible. Miller then builds on this through his discussion of the image of God and argues for a relational interpretation. Oddly, for a chapter with a significant section on the imago Dei, there is no mention of the functional interpretation, a leading one among biblical exegetes. Despite this, the concept of the imago Dei is used by Miller to create a moral distinction between humans and other animals, rather than one of biology. As the imago Dei, humans are the only responsible earthly agents and are, as such, responsible both to God and for their non-human animal neighbours.
The next two chapters are based around the theme of caring. Within the first, the author makes use of the feminist ‘ethics of care’ models espoused by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings to highlight the importance of both emotion within moral responsibility and the concrete relationships that provide a place for the human response. This in part entails distinguishing between care for animals and concern for the rest of the natural world, and accepting a link between human and animal emotions which allows for relation between the two. In the second chapter on caring, Miller distinguishes between ‘natural caring’ and ‘ethical caring’, the latter of which only humans, as images of God, are capable of doing. He then addresses a criticism made by animal rights theorists that caring is not enough to provide meaningfully for animals, and makes use of the parable of the Good Samaritan to do so, ultimately arguing that a care framework is superior to a rights-based one.
The fourth chapter is devoted to Miller’s third theme, that of nearness. In it, Miller examines the significance of nearness for Christian neighbourly love, and applies this to relationships with animals. He suggests that there is an ethical significance in both physical proximity and the nearness of relationship. These ideas are founded on, not only the parable of the Good Samaritan, but also the belief that in the incarnation Christ drew near to all creation, thus providing a basis for humans to draw near to animals. Given the differing ethical imperatives that exist for various levels of nearness, this necessarily suggests different ways of responding to wild animals, domestic animals, and pets. Miller argues that whereas we have a high degree of responsibility towards our pets, our response to wild animals should be more one of non-interference. To treat different animals differently is not, Miller suggests, a form of speciesism, but rather is to take seriously the different levels of responsibility that nearness creates. Miller states that the concept of nearness in ethics is one through which the unrealistic or unmanageable requirements of utilitarian or rights-based theories can be overcome. While this does indeed seem to be more manageable in many respects (e.g. I have more responsibility to my own cat than my neighbour’s, or to a cat on the other side of the world), questions seem to arise with regard to creatures I personally have little nearness to, but are in danger (e.g. wild species on the brink of extinction). In such cases, non-interference would not be overly useful on an individual level.
The fifth and sixth chapters examine the theological issues of dominion and vegetarianism in light of the preceding chapters. Chapter 5 treats the topic of dominion in three ways. First, Miller makes the distinction between dominion and subduing, where dominion is directed towards animals, involving relation, and subduing is directed towards plants and inanimate creation. Based on this, he then rejects the placing of animals, plants and inanimate creation into a single category over which humans have a single responsibility, and finally he proposes understanding dominion as involving responsibility on the part of humans. Within the chapter Miller engages both with Buber’s concept of the I–Thou relationship with regard to human–animal relations, and with Barth’s ethical distinction between plants and animals whereby harvesting is ethically secure while killing animals is very much closer to homicide. Ultimately Miller suggests that both present a level of mutuality in human–animal relations that is not present in human relations with the natural environment.
In the final chapter Miller makes the argument that killing animals represents an extreme case that is rarely compatible with viewing animals as neighbours. He makes use of the logic of Barth’s concept of the Grenzfall, which he interprets as meaning ‘extreme case’, and which Barth used primarily in relation to the killing of humans. Thus to take a life, and thereby to go against the general scheme of peace within creation, constitutes an extreme case. While Barth did not apply this to the killing of animals for food, Miller seems to show successfully how the logic of the Grenzfall can be applied to the nonhuman as well as the human. On the basis of this application of Barth’s thought, Miller argues for the theological place of vegetarianism within Christianity. He suggests that, given the calling to peace, it should be the case that those who choose to take an animal’s life to get meat must justify why their claim is an extreme case, rather than those who choose to be vegetarian having to justify their position. Essentially, Miller proposes changing the normative position, so that just as one is required to justify going to war and taking human life, one should be required to justify the taking of animal life—with vegetarianism therefore becoming standard church practice.
Miller’s book is an engaging one which presents a detailed account of the human relation to nonhuman animals in terms of the three themes of responsibility, caring and nearness. The discussion of these three themes based on the parable of the Good Samaritan provides a very helpful way of arguing for, and drawing out, the implications. When Miller addresses what the three themes mean in practice in the final two chapters, the importance of the topic is shown through what follows for understanding human dominion and the use of animals for meat. By his choices of partners to engage with and the manner in which he addresses his topics, Miller builds a strong case for his presentation of an ethical responsibility towards animals founded upon an understanding of the animal as neighbour. His dialogue with Barth is particularly interesting. While he favourably uses Barth’s relational interpretation of the image of God and his broader inclusion of animals within his theology, he is equally critical of Barth for not applying this within other areas of his thinking, such as the Grenzfall. Miller’s use of the Grenzfall is intriguing, and the conclusion he comes to, that the Church is called to the norm of nonviolence even with regard to animals, is powerful and appealing. Though limited in depth in some areas (such as in discussion of the image of God and the limitations of the workings of nearness), Miller’s book is, overall, a well-written and well-presented case for the theological significance of animal ethics.