Here's an easy thought experiment. Think of a companion animal you've known either your own or someone else's. It could be a dog, cat, horse, the list goes on. To have a good mental picture of that animal, now notice the feelings that are evoked by that mental picture. Just notice, now think of a cockroach or rattlesnake. Can't you have a mental picture and notice your feelings now? Animals can have many different meanings. As the sociologists Arnold Arluke and Clinton Sanders put it, being an animal in modern societies may be less a matter biology than it is an issue of human culture and consciousness. Whereas we consider some animals as beloved family members and best friends, others are pests and vermin. We consider some animals wild, and whether we kill and eat them depends on the meaning they have for us. People who hunt for meat don't consider dairy cows fair game. Animals have different meanings, largely because we categorize them along a hierarchy of the value that Arluke and Sanders call the sociozoologic scale. Ever since Aristotle developed what he called the scale of nature, we have ranked animals in various ways, always below human beings of course. Elwood Darwin another is after him challenged systems that place humans above all other creatures. The idea of a hierarchy remains powerful. We make distinctions not only between humans and animals, but also among animals. Envision of scale of 1-5 with five keynoting the species most favorite by humans and one the least. You could consider the species good and bad. Of course, the scale uses anthropocentric standards. We're evaluating good and bad in human terms, not in any objective or scientific sense. Where would you put that companion animal you envisioned? Where would you put the cockroach and the rattlesnake? Think in terms of general cultural ideas about these species. You might think rattlesnakes are cool and there's a lot to appreciate about them, but no one will argue that they're loyal and cuddly. Where do you think the so-called average person would put the animals you've envisioned? On this basis, you probably put the dog or the cat at the high end on number 5, and the cockroach and the rattlesnake down at one. This is how the sociozoologic scale works. We rank animals in a structure of value that allows us to define, reinforce, and justify our interactions with them. Some animals are constructed as merely human. This is especially the case for domestic dogs and cats often considered companions, best friends, or family members. Horses too would land a place at five. They're considered valuable either as companions, as workers, or as athletes. Other species are valuable to humans as food and others as laborers or objects for research. These also rank highly on the sociozoologic scale. We consider these good animals. Yet other animals, such as the cockroach or the rattlesnake, we consider pests or vermin. Remember, we're not talking about how you individually feel about these species, it's how western culture at large regards them. The meanings ascribed to animals are simply mutual descriptions. They also convey differing moral and social value. For example, defining some species as pets makes them more important and valuable, morally, and socially than those defined as pests. These definitions influence how we regard and treat species. We consider dogs loyal, but regard snakes as sneaky and evil and cockroaches. Well, forget about it. In the United States, we allow events called rattlesnake roundups, but we would never allow the same treatment to be inflicted on dogs. We poison and squash cockroaches and a host of other insects. But we'd be arrested if we did the same to a member of another species. Species having emotional values such as pets, or instrumental value such as horses, and most animals used for food fall into the good category. These species have a high moral status. Consequently, people are concerned about their welfare, at least to some degree, and harming or killing them usually brings consequences. Species that humans have placed on the low end of the sociozoologic scale include rats, mice, and many insects, species considered pests and vermin. Some are disliked because they pose real or potential threats to humans and their property, to other animals or to the environment. People look down on them and even kill them without consequence of regard for their welfare. Some species were cast as bad by virtue of being out of place in the way of human activity. We admire a bear, a cougar, or wolf, if he or she remains at a distance. Once the animal oversteps the boundaries of the position we've assigned to him or her and intrudes into our social space, that creature we've admired quickly becomes a nuisance or a threat who can and must be eliminated through any means possible. Here's the takeaway. The sociozoologic scale is a system of meaning that rank species as good or bad according to their social, cultural, and moral value to humans. It influences not only how we think about animals, but also how we treat them.
