Over the past decade dog fighting and the American Pit Bull Terrier have been at the center of an emotional maelstrom. From every corner of America and throughout Europe the solution of politicians has been a wide variety of breed specific legislation. In North America this has tended to do more harm than good, on the whole create problems for ordinary people and their dogs harming no one while doing very little to ameliorate canine violence on our streets or pit fighting activity.
Champions of the Pit Bull have organized and rallied to the defense of the breed in ways often rational and effective but also often counterproductive when propaganda which can not ring true, and which produces more emotional anger, is put forth.
A common proposition is that there are no bad dogs but only bad people, which has a grain of truth but is false in fundamental ways. It is true that every dog is a product of man’s breeding selections over many generations and thus not blameworthy as an individual. It is also true that every dog in responsible, knowledgeable hands is unlikely to be the cause of societal problems.
What is not true is the claim that Pit Bull and Pit Bull mix populations on the streets represent no more danger to the public at large than other dogs. While the gameness, the inborn propensity to immediately attack and fight to the death any dog placed before it, is diluted and varies in intensity it is still there to an unpredictable and thus even more dangerous degree. Many of these dogs never produce overt manifestation of this potential, but others do revert to type and make unexpected and unprovoked attacks on other dogs and human beings. The fact that “nice” pit bulls put forth to prove the innocence of the breed are usually females is tacit admission of this. This is a real problem, not an emotional reaction of hysteria prone people or the product of sensation seeking journalism.
At the center of the Pit Bull world is a fundamental divide which, while to a large extent concealed from public view, has emerged as a fundamental part of the problem. Some Pit Bull advocates believe that pit fighting is and always was morally wrong and that the salvation of the breed is to put these sordid origins in the past and put the remaining population of fighting pit survivors on the road to a future based on other, less violent functions.
But an enormous number of Pit Bull apologists continue to believe that gameness is what defines the breed, and that gameness can only be defined and proven in the fighting pit. They regard laws against pit fighting as misguided and wrong, intrusions on their rights by emotion driven legislative bodies. Their claim is that pit fighting is a perfectly legitimate activity, no more fundamentally immoral or wrong than many other well accepted human or animal competitions such as boxing, hunting or dog racing.
This conflict thus to a major extent hinges on the morality rather than the legality of pit dog fighting. My purpose here is to explore this moral issue in fundamental terms of objective merit rather than historical practice.
Although my instruction in theology and philosophy from the Jesuits is now a number of years in the past, some principles remain relevant. Society works as well as it does because on the whole we conduct ourselves according to agreed upon customs, laws and moral principles. Customs are in fundamental ways optional, conventions of behavior, language and interaction which smooth the flow of daily life. Refusing to shake hands or spitting on the sidewalk will normally be an awkward social moment but not necessarily have long term consequences.
Things which are illegal are not necessary immoral, that is reflect conventions of society at large which may vary according to time and place. Individual states and cities have different speed limits and minimum ages for legal consumption of alcohol. What is legal is according to what the people as a whole have agreed upon in their legislatures or what is promulgated under a dictator or king. Thus slightly violating a speed limit or returning a library book late are small matters requiring small remedies. If you exceed a speed limit or shoot a deer out of season you will perhaps pay a fine, but you will not become morally repugnant in the view of your peers and associates.
Beyond the impolite and illegal are actions which are wrong in fundamental ways beyond the power of man to condone or permit, such as holding a person in slavery or murder. Moral principles are held to be universally binding, either according to religious belief or secularly as being inherent in human nature. Much of European secular philosophy is based on the concept of natural law, that is, principles of behavior that each functioning human being is inherently capable of knowing from within himself, is a natural part of what it means to be a human being. Killing without reason, theft, rape and other actions are generally taken to be fundamentally immoral as well as against specific laws.
Pit bull fighting is illegal in every American state and most other civilized nations. In spite of this, many continue to maintain that although pit fighting is sometimes forbidden by law, it is not and never has been fundamentally immoral, does not conflict with natural law. These people are wrong.
Close examination must yield the conclusion that pit dog fighting as commonly conducted in America is fundamentally immoral, and the person participating rightfully becomes morally repugnant in the view of mankind as a whole. By this I mean the central act, the staging of the actual pit fight, is fundamentally contrary to natural law. Even when the act is totally free of ancillary evil acts such as torturing and killing losing participants and inhumane living conditions, it is fundamentally wrong.
Who among us will deny that to seriously injure or kill an animal for the sheer pleasure of seeing and vicariously participating in the infliction of pain and death is among the most immoral acts possible to any human being? Throughout history civilization has meant to universally regard mankind as holding children, animals and those whom circumstance has placed in the power of an individual as being under guardianship, that ultimately their well being must be accounted for by each of us.
Pit bull fighting is fundamentally immoral because the purpose is the creation and use of dogs which placed before any other dog will immediately engage in a fight to the death, something of no practical or morally acceptable purpose.
Great care must be made in such matters, there is enormous peril in extending the role of philosopher to that of judge. Slavery is widely regarded as fundamentally wrong, but throughout history highly regarded men such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington have been slave owners. Pit Dog fighting has in many eras been legal and socially acceptable and it is wrong to condemn a participant in a different historical context just as it is wrong to regard every man who ever owned a slave as evil.
Most human activities are legal according to the balance of the perceived benefits to the social costs. High School football causes several deaths and many injuries to young men each fall. But the benefits in health, the building of character and community cohesion are seen to far outweigh a few unfortunate accidents.
Similar observations are applicable to our other sporting activities. Professional basketball, baseball and football do result in some serious injuries, but death and crippling injury are relatively unusual. The newly popular “combat sports” have a lot of verbal hype, but the one or two I have seen on TV seem to be under a rigorous set of rules and a very firm referee.
When we come to the animal sports, greater diligence must be present because animals cannot choose for themselves. Rodeo sports are sometimes controversial, and elaborate rules and safeguards have come into place. When I throw a Kong for two or three of my dogs, an injury is possible in the scramble to retrieve the Kong first. Dogs are sometimes injured in hunting activities, working trials and when engaged in herd guarding or tending. These injuries are unfortunate but acceptable because of the over all validity of the activity. No matter how sad an injury or death, it is the consequence of an accident, not the fundamental objective of the activity.
Pit dog fighting is fundamentally different from all of these things and intrinsically wrong because it serves no valid or moral purpose. No rational, decent human being can today condone the practice of breeding, training and finally pitting dogs for the sheer pleasure of seeing and vicariously participating in the infliction of pain and death.
Jim Engel, August 2007