Vermin, the proximate and often unpleasant stranger

Cris Mayo

pp. 191-202

in: Suzanne RICE, A. G. Rud (eds), The educational significance of human and non-human animal interactions, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

Some of our closest relationships begin unpleasantly but move into ethical cooperation. Challenging ourselves to consider difficult relations more carefully may provide us with a way to consider how such relationships are established, the problems they cause, and the more ethical responses to even those who we may experience as unpleasant. I am especially thinking here of animals with whom we interact and even may derive some benefit from although they may also arouse worry or even disgust. Some of these relationships have started out dubiously but have not only turned into sources of comfort for both species but also changed the shape of their mutual development. Theories of coevolution of dogs and people, for instance, suggest that cooperation in hunting, use of resources, and sharing responsibilities helped both species adapt (Schleidt & Shalter, 2003), a process that began with wolf-vermin eating human food waste (Budiansky, 2000). My concern in this chapter is about vermin and the challenges they pose to thinking ethically about relationships between human and non-human animals. My larger point is that our relationships with animals or any kind of vermin need not be pleasant in order to be ethical. Indeed, ethical relationships that happen to be pleasant, we know, are the easier sort. The challenge to maintain or establish an ethical relationship in the midst of duty is hard (which is arguably why we have ethics in the first place).