Moral Schizophrenia

I was having a conversation with a friend at work and he pointed out this story to me, about a Tundra Swan with an injured left wing who had to be flown back to Alberta, otherwise he might have died.

The friend expressed what I might call outrage that such resources were put into helping one animal. He pointed to another story (which I'm having trouble finding right now) about a deer in New Brunswick (I believe) that was stranded on a lake, injured, and wandering around, obviously suffering. Members of the public were fairly outraged that officials didn't get to the deer more quickly and end its suffering. Meanwhile, probably 100 yards away, there were numerous people... hunting deer:

"Why don't they just hunt that deer instead, put it out of its misery, and everyone just shut up," said my friend.

One local ended up boating out to where the deer was and killing it. The CBC story ended, by the way, with a thankful, "The deer meat did not go to waste."

While I don't necessarily agree with my friend (or CBC's) conclusion on the matter, I do agree there is a serious disconnect between how we treat and view animals in different situations. Why does it matter if a deer suffers if we see no value in the creature's life anyway? Or do we just feel less bad when it's a "quick kill" or when the suffering is done in slaughterhouses, hidden from view?

My experiences have shown me that most people have at least some problem with animal cruelty, though where they draw the line between "cruel" and "acceptable" may be vastly different. Maybe they draw the line with companion animal abuse, cruelty with no purpose or with what goes on in our meat and dairy industries.

I know a number of people who will become irate when hearing about Michael Vick or the Toronto Humane Society, and then turn around and eat a steak. Or people who look down on hunters, but have no problem eating meat from animals that had far less of a fair chance at life, and far less of a pleasurable life. I've even seen someone eat bacon while looking up cute pictures of pigs online. Of course, I dare not bring up that pigs often have their tails chopped off and are castrated at a young age (by hand and with no anesthetic).

Prof. Gary L Francione refers to this as a type of moral schizophrenia, where we place animals in different categories for no logical reason. Animals A, B, and C are our friends; animals D, E, and F are our food. An organization out of Toronto had a great series of ads that showed animals from each category and bluntly asked, "Why love one, but eat the other?"

While there are no simple answers for what we deem cruel and what we deem "the natural order of things," I nonetheless think this is worthy of consideration. Are our instincts to feel bad flawed or wrong? Or should we recognize our moral considerations towards all animals and find ways to incorporate them into our daily lives?