Ethical Defenses and the Iditarod

As discussion surrounding the Iditarod once again amplifies in intensity, it is important to consider the annual practice by mulling over the defenses offered up in support of it. This seems uncontroversial. However, the antagonism often engendered by the dialogue seems to suggest just how controversial mere conversation can be. My intention here is to circumvent the anger by explicitly focusing on the varied justifications and their validity.

1. Tradition: "Yes, let's destroy our culture in exchange for a few dogs' lives. This race has strong cultural values and trying to be done with it because of a few dogs dying is pitiful."

Intuitively, we know that "tradition" doesn't follow, ethically. Sexism is deeply rooted in traditional mores and cultural values. Spousal rape is a particularly gruesome manifestation of this. Furthermore, normative judgments of the past must have their value tested in light of evolving ethical standards. If a practice or a cultural value offends current sensibilities, it ought to be modified or replaced. The racist cannot justify the oppression of black Americans by an appeal to what his father and father's father once did.

2. Their enjoyment: "If you saw the excitement that these dogs display every time their people take out the running harnesses you'd know better."

This suggests that the outward behavior of a participant alone determines the ethical defensiveness of a practice. Would dog fighting be ethically justified then? From both video documentation and firsthand accounts, many of these dogs enthusiastically participate, for example. Many seem to love the battle. It stands to reason that we have merely judged dog fighting as "wrong" in spite of grounding our acceptance of the Iditarod on assessments that are certainly applicable to both activities.

Furthermore, evolutionarily successful traits are passed along through the genetic code. If, therefore, generations of a particular being have produced offspring, it follows that success was had, and survival traits were selected for. "Enthusiasm" and "adeptness" for particular activities then can be understood. However, an ethical defense of the activity doesn't follow from this fact. For if it did, consider the situation of generational human slavery. The same logic seems to apply. You must conclude this, therefore: "If your people have been enslaved long enough for you to be genetically adapted to a particular type of labor and mentally adjusted to a point that your work is enthusiastic, then freeing you might be the crueler thing to do." A priori this conclusion seems atrocious. Not only does it offend deeply held ethical principles and our moral evolution as a nation, but it fails to acknowledge the fact that ending the enslavement and force doesn't also end the behavior. The dog, for example, would no longer be forced into a human sporting event. However, there's nothing in this argument that would prevent leisure running and pulling.

Back to the defense. The argument goes, A dog shows enthusiasm for pulling and running; therefore, the Iditarod is justified. This begs the question, Don't you need to defend the choice to take these natural capacities and insert them into the context of a human sporting event? Unless we assume that dogs have the cognitive capacity to understand the concept of a "sport" - that they more closely approximate the intellectual development of mature human animals - we've run into an ethical wall. The Iditarod isn't for the sake of the dogs themselves but for the human animal participants.

Love of pulling and running doesn't imply the necessity of an Iditarod. What is required then is an ethical defense of putting these dogs in harm's way for the sake of human sport, a fact that is empirically validated by example after example of both suffering and death experienced by the dogs running this race. Can we assume consent? Their behavior certainly doesn't carry the water for such an assumption.

3. Suffering and death are constitutive of living: "Dogs die every day, so do people; that's part of living [and] dying. So is the suffering, ask anyone who doesn't have enough to eat every day."

Would it be ethically defensible therefore to force me into a sporting event for the entertainment of others, wherein I will likely suffer and potentially die? Surely suffering and death characterize my life in proportion to the suffering and death that the dogs in the aforementioned defense will likely experience. Human beings suffer and die every day. Why are we concerned at all about the whole project of Ethics?

Let me end with an example. Say I'm a child, and I am particularly good at X. I am adroit and passionate; my ancestry also excelled at doing X. Because of my enthusiasm for X, when given the opportunity to do X, I literally jump at the chance. Would my parents be justified in placing me in a situation in which the following is true: (a) they have ample evidence of its inherent danger because (b) X is taken to its excess; (c) because I am a child and don't fully understand the concept of a "sport," nor do I really care about finishing first (I just love to do X), the entire sport is organized around the desire of others for such an event; and (d) I am pushed to a dangerous extreme because of the very nature of the event, which (e) I'm not cognizant of because I'm a child?

I suspect the answer will be no: it isn't justified because of the force involved. This reason certainly extends to the case of dogs and the Iditarod even if we assume they have the intellectual capacity to understand our species' concept of a "sport" and "competition" because we cannot be sure that they consent, which ought to be foundational if we are to truly assume this level of mental maturity.