Descartes and Dumbledore

In honor of September 1st (the day Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry begins again!) being the other day, I wanted to post about this quote that Ally brought up the other day in class:

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” -Sirius Black (from “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” by J.K. Rowling)

In this quote, Sirius is referring to the exploitation of house elves (creatures who, by and large, exist to serve wizarding families).  When he say “inferiors,” what he means is not that house elves are emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually incapable; he is talking about their place in society.  So the quote is also applicable to animals, as we discussed previously.

Kundera, page 288: “Man is master and proprietor, says Descartes, whereas the beast is merely an automaton, an animated machina, a machine animata.  When an animal laments, it is not a lament; it is merely the rasp of a poorly functioning mechanism.  […T]hus, we have no reason to grieve for a dog being carved up alive in the laboratory.”

Descartes totally denies that animals have any soul at all—he speaks of them as though they are inanimate objects that exist for the use of humans.  Has Descartes never looked into the eyes of a puppy?!?  How could he deny the soul of such a cute little animal?!?  Of course society views animals as “inferior” to humans, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to be treated with at least a little bit of humanity.  When we deny the spiritual value of animals, I think we lose our own humanity.

And then Descartes has the nerve to say that we shouldn’t “grieve for a dog being carved up alive in the laboratory.”  Carved up…alive?  ALIVE?  Really, Descartes, really?  The fact that he would even suggest that idea is revolting!  If someone can think about dogs being carved up alive without at least a wince, then at that point, the dog becomes more humane than the human.  We don’t have to grieve for just the dog; we should also be grieving for Descartes, because clearly he’s the one missing a bit of his soul…so, to wrap up, I’d like to end this post with another quote from the Harry Potter series, spoken by Dumbledore:

“Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.”

And yes, Descartes, that’s aimed at you.