Is a dolphin like a cow? Both are mammals. Both breathe air.
So did Japanese government officials have a point when they rebuffed Caroline
Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador, for tweeting the U.S. Government’s stinging response
to the annual dolphin round-up and slaughter at a cove in Taiji during the
third week of January in 2014? If so, can we extract a cultural difference? In assessing this question, the roles of the
two very different cultures come into play. Are we then to be left in the void
of cultural relativism, barred from coming to a verdict?
Dolphins in a family group. (examiner.com)
In the hunt in question, the fishermen trapped 250 dolphins,
killing about 40 for food, retaining 50 more to sell to aquariums, and letting
the rest go.[1] After confining the dolphins in a netted area for
three days, the fishermen led the forty into the shallow water near the cove’s
beach. As shown on CNN, the fishermen
utilized a dining-type tent structure to hid the actual killing from external
view. The fishermen stabbed the dolphins’ heads, which is said to cause great
pain.[2]
After coordinating with other embassy officials, Kennedy
tweeted that the hunt had been inhumane. Yoshihide Suga, Chief Cabinet
Secretary, pointed out that dolphins are “very important water resources,” just
as cows are very important land resources in North America.[3]
In fact, the Japanese government explicitly labeled the American critics as
hypocrites for not including the killing of cows and chickens in the West. Yet
it is fair to ask whether cows and chickens come close to the dolphin in terms
of social development (e.g., living in families), intelligence/language, and
self-awareness. For this reason, cows and chickens are not said to be “killed”
in the U.S., whereas Americans refer to the dolphins hunted in Japan as being
killed.
To be sure, differences in words used can come out of
cultural differences; after all, the Japanese government officials refer to
cows used for food in the U.S. as being killed. The East Asian culture is
doubtless very much present in the response made by Taiji Mayor Kazutaka
Sangen. “We have fishermen in our community, and they are exercising their
fishing rights. We feel that we need to
protect our residents against the criticisms.[4]
The notion that government officials have a responsibility to keep their
constituents from being publicly criticized must strike Westerns as quite
alien.
As difficult as it is to evaluate cultural differences by a
presumed “universal standard,” the legalistic defense hinging on rights can
indeed be called into question. In response to Kennedy tweeting that the
Japanese should not kill dolphins,
Yoshihide Suga stressed that dolphin “fishing” (i.e., not killing) is “carried out appropriately in accordance with the law.
Dolphin is not covered by the International Whaling Commission control,” he
explained, “and it’s controlled under the responsibility of each country.”[5]
In responding to the legality of the
practice, Suga unwittingly commits Hume’s naturalistic fallacy—the erroneous
assumption that ought comes from is. That is, he assumes that the
morality of dolphin “fishing” (dolphins are not fish) is a matter of what the
law is. It is as though ethics reduces to law. Kennedy could simply have noted
that Sangen and Suga were not answering her
normative, or ethical. Indeed, she had not tweeted anything suggesting that
the “fishing” was at the time illegal.
In conclusion, biological differences between cows and
dolphins may come into play in allowing the world to come down one way or
another on the Japanese cultural custom. It may not be inhumane solely from the
standpoint of another culture. Furthermore, spotting logical errors can also
contribute to moving beyond cultural relativism to an answer.
[1]
Kirk Spitzer, “Japan Criticizes Dolphin Tweet from Kennedy,” USA Today, January 22, 2014.
[3]
Spitzer, “Japan Criticizes.”
[4]
Ibid., emphasis added to the culturally relevant sentence.
