November 28, 2023 • 28 mins
Dive DEEP into the meaning of life...through cats...with the help of experts in Western and Eastern philosophy on this episode of 6 Degrees of Cats, the world's #1 (and only) cat-themed culture, history and science podcast.
Dr. Abigail Levin, an animal ethics professor at Niagara University, returns to the podcast to explore our duty through deontological (say that five times fast!) ethics according to one Immanuel Kant, after a few false starts with the fathers of so-called Western philosophy: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
Dr. Levin, a practicing Buddhist, is joined by fellow Buddhist and animal ethicist Janet Gyatso, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School, whose lifelong love of cats and compassion for animals provide a focused lens on cats and Buddhism.
You will be as enlightened as host Captain Kitty (Amanda B.) by the end of this playful and profound episode in which we assess the life we have chosen for our pets - and the life they might have chosen if they had their say.
Support the podcast, sign up for The Captain’s Log, the companion podcast newsletter and learn about way$ to help keep this ship afloat for our next season here: linktr.ee/6degreesofcats.
Referenced episodes:
- The Golden Age of Cats: The Medieval Middle East, Muezza and the Mark of Muhammad (or Mary)
- Community CATalysts: Kosovans Caring for Their Animal Survivors
About the experts:
- Janet Gyatso, Ph.D., M.A., is Harvard Divinity School's first Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She is a specialist in Buddhist studies with concentration on Tibetan and South Asian cultural and intellectual history.
- Abigail Levin, Ph.D., J.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Niagara University in Buffalo, New York. Her primary research interests are in political philosophy, animal ethics, feminism and philosophy of race and gender. She recently published a book about celebrity animals and the ethical obligations arising from keeping animals in captivity.
Producer, writer, editor, sound designer, host, basically everything*
- Captain Kitty (Amanda B.)
* with co-executive producers Binky & Snuggles
Animal voices include:
- Binky & Snuggles _^..^_
Music:
- Leathered: "Look Alive" © 2022
- Samples licensed via Loopcloud
- Additional sound effects from Pixabay.com
Logo design:
- Edward Anthony © 2024 (Instagram: @itsmyunzii)
Research used:
- A&E Television Networks. (n.d.). Code of Hammurabi: Laws & facts. History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/hammurabi
- Attending to animals. Harvard Divinity School (HDS). (2019, October 29). https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/10/29/attending-to-animals
- Burnham, D. (n.d.). Immanuel Kant: Aesthetics. https://iep.utm.edu/kantaest/
- Camenzind, S. (2021, February 16). Kantian ethics and the animal turn. on the contemporary defence of Kant’s indirect duty view. Animals : an open access journal from MDPI. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7919796/
- Descartes, R. (1972). Treatise on man (T. S. Hall, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
- Hatfield, G. (2023, Oc
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Man, look at you, lucky little guy.
(00:04):
What a life.
You don't work.
You just get to sleep all day.
You get to watch "life of a cat".
can we trade places? [meow]
Welcome back, cool cats and cat allies alike to 6 degrees of cats.
The world's best and only cat themed culture, history and science podcast.
(00:27):
Hello my friends.
Here on Turtle Island from where I broadcast - Lenape Hoking to be exact, New York New York
the USA to be modern.
It is the time of the year when the air shifts.
It's midnight at 5 o'clock in the evening and I have bills to pay, people to see, things
to do, clients to harvest.
(00:49):
It's all a lot.
I just kind of feel helpless.
And then I look to my right, my little fur ball, peacefully resting.
What a life to be a cat, am I right?
Sleeping all day, eating a lot, going back to sleep.
(01:09):
Sounds like a great vacation.
Where is it?
That's not really the life that my little wild cats' ancestors lived.
I may have forgotten to mention this, but I'm not actually a cat.
So while I'd love to live the life I've given Binky and Snuggles, is that really what they'd
prefer?
(01:31):
In this episode, we're going to ask the big questions.
Is this life that we give a cat what they really want?
Deep questions call for deep out of the box thinkers in the world of philosophy, the pursuit
of knowledge.
Am I right?
Absolutely.
Thanks Dr. Levin.
You may remember Dr. Levin from our season one finale.
(01:53):
I'm Abby Levin.
My pronouns are she and her.
I am an associate professor of philosophy at Niagara University.
Philosophy at its best is about really thinking outside the box, really, pre-thinking.
The big picture, kind of, back in ancient Athens kind of thing is just that, is that out
of the box kind of thinking.
(02:16):
Greece.
thinkers in Greece were in conversation with many folks across the world, like those in
the Islamic world.
And we know from our episode featuring Dr. Ali Olomi on the golden age of Islam, that
the Islamic world was in touch with the Indic, the African, the Chinese, and other worlds
as well.
(02:38):
As an example of these exchanges, we can trace the lineage of our current philosophy of
law all the way back to the code of Hamarabi, one of the longest legal documents from the
Bronze era in Babylon.
So yeah, Greece.
We did stop off in Greece in season one to talk about the god of earthly pleasures, Dionysus,
(03:03):
and it's now time to bring it to Earth to hear from some mere male mortals.
Who to this day get a lot of credit for the modern understanding of philosophy in theory
and application?
Dudes like Socrates, the father of so-called Western philosophy, his student Plato and Aristotle.
(03:24):
You may imagine these folks as portrayed in classical art and marble busts.
Barefoot enrobed in a white toga, walking around the town square, lecturing their group
of nubile young dude acolytes and talking a lot.
But you know what's missing from that visual?
Okay, yeah, women, obviously.
(03:46):
But also, look down.
Is that a kitten rolling around under that guy's toga?
Well, of course, modern day Greece is littered with the descendants of these kitties.
So surely, these philosophers must have looked around, remarked upon the mystery, the grace
and the glory of these furry little friends and marveled, just marveled at their obvious
(04:11):
intelligence and grace.
I see Socrates as a total cat guy, right?
What would Socrates say?
He famously like wouldn't answer.
He'd totally just be like, "This is a weird question."
Okay, forget Socrates.
How about that cave guy, Plato?
Plato is one of the young guys in that visual being mentored by Socrates.
(04:33):
He actually wrote about Socrates featuring him and his brother in what we call the allegory
of the cave where they're discussing the nature of the material world and enlightenment or
something.
It's kind of where that red pill thing in The Matrix came from.
We're not going to comment on how that's been translated into the current context.
Anyway, I figure, you know, Plato must have seen the shadow of a kitty against the beautiful
(04:59):
Athenian sunset and Bada Bing, the allegory of the cave.
Right?
Silent on animals as far as I know.
What is up with that?
Greece was the spot or right next to the spot where cats and humans first connected.
Didn't they discover this burial site in Cyprus?
(05:24):
Last chance, Greece.
Aristotle.
Did he think of cats at all?
Definitely Aristotle was like, it's worth studying animals.
I think he wrote a whole book about horse physiology.
He might as well have written a book about cat physiology.
Like he was interested in being able to.
How do you coexist with so many animals running around that look like cats and not be endlessly
(05:46):
curious about them?
Okay.
Forget the Greeks helping us figure out how to better honor or even understand what cats
actually want or need.
This shouldn't be surprising.
We did mention right off the bat in this podcast that texts from the Western canon just don't
mention kitty cats.
They do talk about lions, but not felis catus.
(06:07):
Anyway, where was I?
Ah, yes.
Philosophy.
Right.
Let's skip ahead a few centuries and, you know, we're going to stay in Europe, but head
north a little bit.
Why north?
Well, when I started thinking about philosophy and shook the little filing cabinet in my
brain open.
Amidst the cobwebs and cat hair balls in there, this one word kept surfacing over and over.
(06:34):
Duty (...duty, duty, duty, duty, duty, duty).
It's basically a term in deontological ethics or Kantian ethics that holds that certain
beings are bearers of rights and then other beings are holders of duties to protect those
rights.
So basically rights and duties are corollary to each other.
(06:55):
So if I have a right to private property, then you have a duty not to trespass on my property.
Kantian.
Kantian.
Why does that?
Ah, right.
Immanuel Kant.
I Kant?
Believe I forgot about this 18th century Prussian (not Russian) philosopher.
(07:17):
Yeah.
Kant's duty stuff was kind of a big deal.
Let me not bore you with me trying to explain that and pass the mic back to a real pro,
Dr. Levin on all of this.
Duties and rights can be positive or negative.
So if I have a right to private property, your duty is a negative one, meaning you just have
(07:40):
to not trespass.
The negative is withhold from trespassing.
If I have a right to healthcare, then the state has a positive duty to build me a hospital
and provide me a doctor, positive means you're actually doing something.
If one agent has a right, then the other agent has a duty not to violate that right.
(08:00):
For every right, there is a corresponding duty.
Kant saw animals as exempt from duty primarily because he thought that humans and humans alone
possess an intrinsic cognitive capacity to be rational.
(Ha.)
Let's just call that intelligence.
I'd be the last one to say that cats don't have intelligence, but for the purposes of
(08:27):
our discussion, I don't think anybody on here is going to say that your cat is going to
sit here, listen to the podcast, appreciate how great it is, and understand the concept
of duty.
So if you agree with this premise and somewhat with Kant, then you Kant call your cats
(08:48):
A-holes.
It's all fun and games until someone seriously starts thinking cats are hateful creatures
deserving of punishment, and we end up in the--
We already talked about this.
At least Kant stands on animals shows some progress from previous European dudes like this
wise guy.
A famous western philosopher, Rene Descartes, thought that animals are like automatons,
(09:15):
sort of like robots, where they don't have any inner life, that oh, they don't really feel
paid, they don't really suffer, they're kind of dumb.
It's really, really not true.
It's so patently obvious how intelligent and how feeling they are.
I could not agree more.
That was our second expert.
(09:35):
I'm Janet Gyatso, I'm writing a book on animal ethics.
I teach at Harvard University.
I teach Buddhism mostly, primarily in Harvard Divinity School.
Buddhism.
A religion and philosophy, I think, right?
Religion is a very broad word.
(09:56):
It's very interdisciplinary and has a lot of different things in it.
All religions have philosophy.
They all have ritual.
They all have practices.
They all have doctrines.
They all have types of discipline.
They all have scripture.
They all have narratives.
So philosophy is one part.
Thank you, Dr. Gyatso.
(10:19):
For the record, both of our experts just happen to be practitioners of Buddhism.
Why did I start there?
It's so obvious.
Buddhism totally favors cats.
I know that.
No, I don't think that is true.
I think in East Asian countries, which tend to be Buddhist, there is a love of cats, really
(10:42):
wonderful paintings and images of cats in both Korean art and Japanese art.
So people of some cultures really appreciate cats.
But it's not really a Buddhist thing, for say.
I need to sit down for what's going to be shared next.
To add in some times, say that cats are sinful because they're hunters and they kill all
(11:04):
the time.
Yeah.
They're reviled in Buddhism in Japan.
There actually were quite a few monastery cats, but it was said that cats are not animals
who could hear the Dharma and would never listen to the Buddhist teachings.
Even if it looks like cats are meditating?
So traditionally, meditation is a very advanced practice.
(11:26):
The average lay person would not do meditation.
Sometimes it's become this sort of popular thing.
Mindfulness is not even Buddhist for say, just using that kind of practice.
That's not criteria that makes your Buddhist by meditating.
What about those images of those monks?
How about the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the dominant school of Tibetan Buddhism?
(11:51):
I think he has a cat.
It's not like Tibetans don't like cats.
When I traveled in Tibet several times, it turns out that nuns or older women like meditators
tend to have cats where they live.
It doesn't mean that they don't like cats.
It's just like part of the rhetoric of, you know, there's the predator animals and prey
(12:15):
animals.
Anyone who kills an animal would be sinful, which would include humans.
Need eating is considered to be sinful.
That doesn't mean that people are consistent about it.
Thank you, Dr. Gyatso.
Well, bear with me, folks.
I know it seems like we've taken a few steps back in getting a philosopher's take on cats,
(12:40):
but the path to enlightenment is non-linear.
And as advised by a very famous philosopher and religious leader who did love cats, let's
continue seeking knowledge even if it's in China.
After the break.
(13:09):
Folks, I have lived a long enough life to learn the Capricorn way that when something doesn't
make sense, that's a signal to investigate further.
Especially when it does make sense to literally 7% of the global population.
I'm talking about folks who identify as Buddhists.
(13:32):
Lucky you and me and all of us.
Dr. Gyatso was kind enough to give us all an abridged overview of Buddhism.
So off we go to Tokyo.
Well, not quite actually.
(13:55):
Buddhism comes from contemporary India.
The Buddha was actually born in northern Nepal around 500 BC.
And his teachings read all over Asia.
It's still widely practiced.
Not so much in India, although there has been a resurgence of Buddhism in India in the 20th
year of the year.
Tibet, Mongolia, Japan, Korea.
(14:16):
It's become a global religion.
Now there's a lot of convert Buddhists around in Europe, America and Africa.
Dr. Gyatso helped me understand the context for the whole cats-are-killers, predator, prey
perspective.
Buddhism promotes nonviolence.
(14:37):
The big word in Buddhism is compassion.
And for all creatures, which means not killing them and not hurting them and helping them.
I was lucky enough to get to know some really great Buddhist teachers, the elders.
I was studying with some of them and I saw the way that they were careful not to, for example,
(14:57):
kill bugs even.
They would greet animals on the street, which I do all the time myself.
(Me too.)
And make a prayer or say a mantra that they hope that this animal will have a good life.
So they practice compassion all the time.
And the ability to show compassion requires non-selfishness, which is part of generosity, self-awareness,
(15:25):
non-attachment, so not being overly attached to material possessions.
And of course, there's an idea of karma.
If you do hurt others, it makes for a bad karma for yourself.
Karma.
You've probably heard that word.
It's become more familiar through pop culture and the growing prevalence of new age and spiritual
(15:46):
movements that have kind of integrated that principle.
Its meaning in Buddhism has been somewhat decontextualized, so let's take a second to clarify.
According to my research.
Karma is the idea that intentional acts in the here and now have implications in your future
(16:08):
lives.
It's a major part of Buddhist cosmology that recognizes our current life as just a temporary
state of being.
And when we die, we might re-enter this mortal coil - to quote Shakespeare - in your next life.
Your next life is dependent on your karma or the accumulation of your past good or bad acts.
(16:34):
You may come back as human or some other living being down or up the scale of enlightened
beings.
There are six categories of beings, so it also includes hell beings, ghosts, animals,
humans, warrior gods and gods with a little g.
The two main ones that we see on planet Earth are animals and humans.
(16:57):
You can be reincarnated as an animal.
Animal can be reincarnated as a human.
There is a lot of fluidity back and forth between being born as a human and being born as
an animal.
People constantly tell me I was a cat in a past life.
Maybe.
"Goals?"
In general, the Buddhist doctrine is that humans are superior to animals.
(17:21):
So animals can't get enlightenment, can't become a Buddha. [meow]
You would have to be reborn as a human in order to get enlightened.
Part of the reason that we're superior is because the Buddhist belief that animals suffer
more than humans.
So to be a human is a better life in most cases.
(17:41):
My cats are like exceptions.
Your cats are an exception.
But the large majority of animals have a much harder life than the large majority of
humans, according to Buddhism.
Suffering, pain, struggle, everything we're doing in this life is somehow a response or
(18:02):
reaction to those things.
Buddhism is definitely one of the more direct philosophies in explicitly naming and validating
this inevitable aspect of what I guess we call being conscious or being.
So what can we do?
Buddhism includes compassion for humans as well as animals.
(18:25):
One of the other things that Buddhism focuses on is suffering and how pervasive suffering
is in our world.
Those of us who are lucky enough not to be suffering intensely are actually a small minority
of all the creatures on this planet.
(18:46):
A lot of kinds of meditations are to imagine and visualize all the creatures in the world,
including humans, including animals in the agricultural, farming industry right now.
The majority of them are suffering in various kinds of ways.
Certain kinds of Buddhist meditations ask you to imagine it and become more aware of
(19:09):
it and it doesn't mean that you can instantly do anything about it or although of course
if you can that's great but at the minimum to not just like shut it out of your consciousness
but to be aware of it and to feel it because in general Buddhism says that those of us
who are fortunate enough to not be suffering all that much tend to kind of block out all
(19:32):
the other stuff because we just can't take it.
Buddhism doesn't encourage you to face the truth to be able to acknowledge and truth is
very important.
Real talk time.
Folks, if I'm following the philosophy of Buddhism, compassion, selflessness, acknowledging,
(19:54):
suffering and detaching from possessing things, well I'm sort of worried.
I mean should we even have pets?
Dogs and cats actually chose us to live with us in their evolution and they're very comfortable
with humans.
I think that really the only pet that we should have are cats and dogs who in a certain sense
(20:17):
chose to live with humans.
And this ethical stance is shared by non-Buddhist philosophers as well according to Dr.
Levin.
Yeah, for sure Martha Nussbaum has written a ton on wild animals and art duty sort of as
a matter of political philosophy to wild animals.
Should you own a cat?
(20:37):
I think there would be space in her theory for yes, you should own a cat.
There's a real potential for human animal friendship that can benefit both the human and
the animal and should be like go for it assuming the conditions are right.
Right.
I read all the articles on being a good cat parent or roommate, steward, butler, whatever.
(20:58):
We have a cat food maze, giant cat jungle gym, they get all the treats and live in
the brush or any pet--
They're not satisfied with the human life.
They're probably bored and unconscious.
(21:20):
They seem to be so excited when you come home and when you're playing with them and then you think
about all the time in the day when you're not home and it's like what are they doing?
It's not only about your needs, but it's also about their needs.
I guess this is a reminder of my human myopia.
It's time to put on the cat-eyed glasses here.
(21:41):
One of the biggest things is this stimulating enough.
I think with animals, it's pretty clear that they don't have an interest in a longer life
rather than a shorter one.
I don't think they can think at that level of abstraction or future directed projects such
that you could say, oh, their future directed projects are thwarted if they died in an earlier
(22:06):
time than a later time.
I tend to think the best quality of life for whatever duration is what you're going for
rather than length of life.
Yeah.
We just can't assume that how we personally experience the world is the same for others.
That's a super important reminder of the limits of empathy here.
I think that is why philosophy is so helpful in these discussions.
(22:30):
That said, I do think that this next point, it applies to kitties and I'd say almost all
sentient beings.
I think that I stress is especially for our audience is like having pets and how to have
pets.
Ways of building a life that your pets can have that allows them to have a certain autonomy.
(22:55):
Freedom is a joy that they should be allowed to have.
Imagine if you will, a city cat, perhaps in Athens, in San Juan, Rome, Bangkok, Kigali, Cairo,
(23:16):
living moment to moment, sunbathing on city rooftops, chasing rodents, catching fish and dodging
danger, socializing, playing, constant excitement, every day a new day.
Yes, at the risk of the cruelty of the elements or mean encounters or a hungry stomach, but still.
(23:42):
Would they gaze upon the lives of my cats living in a world that is all of what, 500 square
feet, warm, safe, bored, depressed, eating the same food day after day, the life of a wild cat
retiree?
Where would they find themselves on the matrix of happiness, security and freedom?
(24:07):
Come to think of it, where would you?
Before this episode, I for sure thought I wanted to come back as a rich person's house cat,
but then I wouldn't be a cat, right?
So I'm not so sure.
There are way more things to dig into when it comes to balancing kitties' needs in the
(24:30):
current climate, especially when it comes to their intrinsic nature and their bonkers
efficient thrive instincts when they're outside.
Don't you worry,
I'm working on it.
But for now, I must honor my duty to make my cat happy, because yes, Binky, you are a good
boy and you will get chicken.
(24:51):
I also want to take the time to thank all those making the world a kinder place for both
feline and humankind, including my trap new to return friends like the Five Kittens Rescues,
Trap King Humane, Flatbush Cats and Paul the Cat Guy.
Gosh, there's just so many of you to count.
Talk about good karma.
Folks, either you're coming out of this episode more confused or like me, you've gained a
(25:15):
bit more of a sense of the philosophies around the world on how to do better by our fellow
carbon-based earth dwellers, specifically, felis catus.
May we all do what we can to prevent the suffering that we notice in our communities?
And most importantly, support and fight for the joy and liberation of all in any way we
(25:41):
can.
I'm going to step off my soapbox now.
Alrighty, we've definitely traveled the world intellectually and certainly geographically,
and in the next episode we're going to continue traveling the world that is the world wide
web.
And cats, of course, hope you'll join us.
I want to thank my wonderful experts.
(26:03):
Abby Levin and Janet Gyatso.
We appreciate you.
Yes, and you two, Binky and Snuggles.
While the opinions are my own, the research and the work is theirs.
If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include
the references and research that went into this episode.
And if you loved it, please give us a five star rating and review and be sure to recommend
(26:25):
it to anyone who would love this podcast.
Thanks again to you, listeners.
It is my duty to inform you that we appreciate you, you're beautiful, and remember everything
is connected.
One, two, one, two, three, four!
6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited, and hosted by yours truly, Captain
(26:46):
Kitty, aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats
or look us up on all those social media platforms.
You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats if you connect with us there.
All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the
(27:11):
weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
I was about like three years old, maybe at the oldest, and I was with my family.
We were at my grandmother's house and we were having a picnic on the lawn outside their
(27:35):
house, and there was a cat, and I ran over to it.
I tried to pet it, and it's really scratched my arm and my whole arm was bleeding.
I ran back to my parents and my aunts, and I was crying.
What I was saying was, "Meow no, scatch, meow no scatch", which meant "The cat did not scratch
me."
Cause I thought they would punish the cat for scratching me.
(27:56):
That was my main concern.
So that just shows how much I loved cats when I was three years old, and I was trying to protect them.
Man, look at you, lucky little guy.
(00:04):
What a life.
You don't work.
You just get to sleep all day.
You get to watch "life of a cat".
can we trade places? [meow]
Welcome back, cool cats and cat allies alike to 6 degrees of cats.
The world's best and only cat themed culture, history and science podcast.
(00:27):
Hello my friends.
Here on Turtle Island from where I broadcast - Lenape Hoking to be exact, New York New York
the USA to be modern.
It is the time of the year when the air shifts.
It's midnight at 5 o'clock in the evening and I have bills to pay, people to see, things
to do, clients to harvest.
(00:49):
It's all a lot.
I just kind of feel helpless.
And then I look to my right, my little fur ball, peacefully resting.
What a life to be a cat, am I right?
Sleeping all day, eating a lot, going back to sleep.
(01:09):
Sounds like a great vacation.
Where is it?
That's not really the life that my little wild cats' ancestors lived.
I may have forgotten to mention this, but I'm not actually a cat.
So while I'd love to live the life I've given Binky and Snuggles, is that really what they'd
prefer?
(01:31):
In this episode, we're going to ask the big questions.
Is this life that we give a cat what they really want?
Deep questions call for deep out of the box thinkers in the world of philosophy, the pursuit
of knowledge.
Am I right?
Absolutely.
Thanks Dr. Levin.
You may remember Dr. Levin from our season one finale.
(01:53):
I'm Abby Levin.
My pronouns are she and her.
I am an associate professor of philosophy at Niagara University.
Philosophy at its best is about really thinking outside the box, really, pre-thinking.
The big picture, kind of, back in ancient Athens kind of thing is just that, is that out
of the box kind of thinking.
(02:16):
Greece.
thinkers in Greece were in conversation with many folks across the world, like those in
the Islamic world.
And we know from our episode featuring Dr. Ali Olomi on the golden age of Islam, that
the Islamic world was in touch with the Indic, the African, the Chinese, and other worlds
as well.
(02:38):
As an example of these exchanges, we can trace the lineage of our current philosophy of
law all the way back to the code of Hamarabi, one of the longest legal documents from the
Bronze era in Babylon.
So yeah, Greece.
We did stop off in Greece in season one to talk about the god of earthly pleasures, Dionysus,
(03:03):
and it's now time to bring it to Earth to hear from some mere male mortals.
Who to this day get a lot of credit for the modern understanding of philosophy in theory
and application?
Dudes like Socrates, the father of so-called Western philosophy, his student Plato and Aristotle.
(03:24):
You may imagine these folks as portrayed in classical art and marble busts.
Barefoot enrobed in a white toga, walking around the town square, lecturing their group
of nubile young dude acolytes and talking a lot.
But you know what's missing from that visual?
Okay, yeah, women, obviously.
(03:46):
But also, look down.
Is that a kitten rolling around under that guy's toga?
Well, of course, modern day Greece is littered with the descendants of these kitties.
So surely, these philosophers must have looked around, remarked upon the mystery, the grace
and the glory of these furry little friends and marveled, just marveled at their obvious
(04:11):
intelligence and grace.
I see Socrates as a total cat guy, right?
What would Socrates say?
He famously like wouldn't answer.
He'd totally just be like, "This is a weird question."
Okay, forget Socrates.
How about that cave guy, Plato?
Plato is one of the young guys in that visual being mentored by Socrates.
(04:33):
He actually wrote about Socrates featuring him and his brother in what we call the allegory
of the cave where they're discussing the nature of the material world and enlightenment or
something.
It's kind of where that red pill thing in The Matrix came from.
We're not going to comment on how that's been translated into the current context.
Anyway, I figure, you know, Plato must have seen the shadow of a kitty against the beautiful
(04:59):
Athenian sunset and Bada Bing, the allegory of the cave.
Right?
Silent on animals as far as I know.
What is up with that?
Greece was the spot or right next to the spot where cats and humans first connected.
Didn't they discover this burial site in Cyprus?
(05:24):
Last chance, Greece.
Aristotle.
Did he think of cats at all?
Definitely Aristotle was like, it's worth studying animals.
I think he wrote a whole book about horse physiology.
He might as well have written a book about cat physiology.
Like he was interested in being able to.
How do you coexist with so many animals running around that look like cats and not be endlessly
(05:46):
curious about them?
Okay.
Forget the Greeks helping us figure out how to better honor or even understand what cats
actually want or need.
This shouldn't be surprising.
We did mention right off the bat in this podcast that texts from the Western canon just don't
mention kitty cats.
They do talk about lions, but not felis catus.
(06:07):
Anyway, where was I?
Ah, yes.
Philosophy.
Right.
Let's skip ahead a few centuries and, you know, we're going to stay in Europe, but head
north a little bit.
Why north?
Well, when I started thinking about philosophy and shook the little filing cabinet in my
brain open.
Amidst the cobwebs and cat hair balls in there, this one word kept surfacing over and over.
(06:34):
Duty (...duty, duty, duty, duty, duty, duty).
It's basically a term in deontological ethics or Kantian ethics that holds that certain
beings are bearers of rights and then other beings are holders of duties to protect those
rights.
So basically rights and duties are corollary to each other.
(06:55):
So if I have a right to private property, then you have a duty not to trespass on my property.
Kantian.
Kantian.
Why does that?
Ah, right.
Immanuel Kant.
I Kant?
Believe I forgot about this 18th century Prussian (not Russian) philosopher.
(07:17):
Yeah.
Kant's duty stuff was kind of a big deal.
Let me not bore you with me trying to explain that and pass the mic back to a real pro,
Dr. Levin on all of this.
Duties and rights can be positive or negative.
So if I have a right to private property, your duty is a negative one, meaning you just have
(07:40):
to not trespass.
The negative is withhold from trespassing.
If I have a right to healthcare, then the state has a positive duty to build me a hospital
and provide me a doctor, positive means you're actually doing something.
If one agent has a right, then the other agent has a duty not to violate that right.
(08:00):
For every right, there is a corresponding duty.
Kant saw animals as exempt from duty primarily because he thought that humans and humans alone
possess an intrinsic cognitive capacity to be rational.
(Ha.)
Let's just call that intelligence.
I'd be the last one to say that cats don't have intelligence, but for the purposes of
(08:27):
our discussion, I don't think anybody on here is going to say that your cat is going to
sit here, listen to the podcast, appreciate how great it is, and understand the concept
of duty.
So if you agree with this premise and somewhat with Kant, then you Kant call your cats
(08:48):
A-holes.
It's all fun and games until someone seriously starts thinking cats are hateful creatures
deserving of punishment, and we end up in the--
We already talked about this.
At least Kant stands on animals shows some progress from previous European dudes like this
wise guy.
A famous western philosopher, Rene Descartes, thought that animals are like automatons,
(09:15):
sort of like robots, where they don't have any inner life, that oh, they don't really feel
paid, they don't really suffer, they're kind of dumb.
It's really, really not true.
It's so patently obvious how intelligent and how feeling they are.
I could not agree more.
That was our second expert.
(09:35):
I'm Janet Gyatso, I'm writing a book on animal ethics.
I teach at Harvard University.
I teach Buddhism mostly, primarily in Harvard Divinity School.
Buddhism.
A religion and philosophy, I think, right?
Religion is a very broad word.
(09:56):
It's very interdisciplinary and has a lot of different things in it.
All religions have philosophy.
They all have ritual.
They all have practices.
They all have doctrines.
They all have types of discipline.
They all have scripture.
They all have narratives.
So philosophy is one part.
Thank you, Dr. Gyatso.
(10:19):
For the record, both of our experts just happen to be practitioners of Buddhism.
Why did I start there?
It's so obvious.
Buddhism totally favors cats.
I know that.
No, I don't think that is true.
I think in East Asian countries, which tend to be Buddhist, there is a love of cats, really
(10:42):
wonderful paintings and images of cats in both Korean art and Japanese art.
So people of some cultures really appreciate cats.
But it's not really a Buddhist thing, for say.
I need to sit down for what's going to be shared next.
To add in some times, say that cats are sinful because they're hunters and they kill all
(11:04):
the time.
Yeah.
They're reviled in Buddhism in Japan.
There actually were quite a few monastery cats, but it was said that cats are not animals
who could hear the Dharma and would never listen to the Buddhist teachings.
Even if it looks like cats are meditating?
So traditionally, meditation is a very advanced practice.
(11:26):
The average lay person would not do meditation.
Sometimes it's become this sort of popular thing.
Mindfulness is not even Buddhist for say, just using that kind of practice.
That's not criteria that makes your Buddhist by meditating.
What about those images of those monks?
How about the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the dominant school of Tibetan Buddhism?
(11:51):
I think he has a cat.
It's not like Tibetans don't like cats.
When I traveled in Tibet several times, it turns out that nuns or older women like meditators
tend to have cats where they live.
It doesn't mean that they don't like cats.
It's just like part of the rhetoric of, you know, there's the predator animals and prey
(12:15):
animals.
Anyone who kills an animal would be sinful, which would include humans.
Need eating is considered to be sinful.
That doesn't mean that people are consistent about it.
Thank you, Dr. Gyatso.
Well, bear with me, folks.
I know it seems like we've taken a few steps back in getting a philosopher's take on cats,
(12:40):
but the path to enlightenment is non-linear.
And as advised by a very famous philosopher and religious leader who did love cats, let's
continue seeking knowledge even if it's in China.
After the break.
(13:09):
Folks, I have lived a long enough life to learn the Capricorn way that when something doesn't
make sense, that's a signal to investigate further.
Especially when it does make sense to literally 7% of the global population.
I'm talking about folks who identify as Buddhists.
(13:32):
Lucky you and me and all of us.
Dr. Gyatso was kind enough to give us all an abridged overview of Buddhism.
So off we go to Tokyo.
Well, not quite actually.
(13:55):
Buddhism comes from contemporary India.
The Buddha was actually born in northern Nepal around 500 BC.
And his teachings read all over Asia.
It's still widely practiced.
Not so much in India, although there has been a resurgence of Buddhism in India in the 20th
year of the year.
Tibet, Mongolia, Japan, Korea.
(14:16):
It's become a global religion.
Now there's a lot of convert Buddhists around in Europe, America and Africa.
Dr. Gyatso helped me understand the context for the whole cats-are-killers, predator, prey
perspective.
Buddhism promotes nonviolence.
(14:37):
The big word in Buddhism is compassion.
And for all creatures, which means not killing them and not hurting them and helping them.
I was lucky enough to get to know some really great Buddhist teachers, the elders.
I was studying with some of them and I saw the way that they were careful not to, for example,
(14:57):
kill bugs even.
They would greet animals on the street, which I do all the time myself.
(Me too.)
And make a prayer or say a mantra that they hope that this animal will have a good life.
So they practice compassion all the time.
And the ability to show compassion requires non-selfishness, which is part of generosity, self-awareness,
(15:25):
non-attachment, so not being overly attached to material possessions.
And of course, there's an idea of karma.
If you do hurt others, it makes for a bad karma for yourself.
Karma.
You've probably heard that word.
It's become more familiar through pop culture and the growing prevalence of new age and spiritual
(15:46):
movements that have kind of integrated that principle.
Its meaning in Buddhism has been somewhat decontextualized, so let's take a second to clarify.
According to my research.
Karma is the idea that intentional acts in the here and now have implications in your future
(16:08):
lives.
It's a major part of Buddhist cosmology that recognizes our current life as just a temporary
state of being.
And when we die, we might re-enter this mortal coil - to quote Shakespeare - in your next life.
Your next life is dependent on your karma or the accumulation of your past good or bad acts.
(16:34):
You may come back as human or some other living being down or up the scale of enlightened
beings.
There are six categories of beings, so it also includes hell beings, ghosts, animals,
humans, warrior gods and gods with a little g.
The two main ones that we see on planet Earth are animals and humans.
(16:57):
You can be reincarnated as an animal.
Animal can be reincarnated as a human.
There is a lot of fluidity back and forth between being born as a human and being born as
an animal.
People constantly tell me I was a cat in a past life.
Maybe.
"Goals?"
In general, the Buddhist doctrine is that humans are superior to animals.
(17:21):
So animals can't get enlightenment, can't become a Buddha. [meow]
You would have to be reborn as a human in order to get enlightened.
Part of the reason that we're superior is because the Buddhist belief that animals suffer
more than humans.
So to be a human is a better life in most cases.
(17:41):
My cats are like exceptions.
Your cats are an exception.
But the large majority of animals have a much harder life than the large majority of
humans, according to Buddhism.
Suffering, pain, struggle, everything we're doing in this life is somehow a response or
(18:02):
reaction to those things.
Buddhism is definitely one of the more direct philosophies in explicitly naming and validating
this inevitable aspect of what I guess we call being conscious or being.
So what can we do?
Buddhism includes compassion for humans as well as animals.
(18:25):
One of the other things that Buddhism focuses on is suffering and how pervasive suffering
is in our world.
Those of us who are lucky enough not to be suffering intensely are actually a small minority
of all the creatures on this planet.
(18:46):
A lot of kinds of meditations are to imagine and visualize all the creatures in the world,
including humans, including animals in the agricultural, farming industry right now.
The majority of them are suffering in various kinds of ways.
Certain kinds of Buddhist meditations ask you to imagine it and become more aware of
(19:09):
it and it doesn't mean that you can instantly do anything about it or although of course
if you can that's great but at the minimum to not just like shut it out of your consciousness
but to be aware of it and to feel it because in general Buddhism says that those of us
who are fortunate enough to not be suffering all that much tend to kind of block out all
(19:32):
the other stuff because we just can't take it.
Buddhism doesn't encourage you to face the truth to be able to acknowledge and truth is
very important.
Real talk time.
Folks, if I'm following the philosophy of Buddhism, compassion, selflessness, acknowledging,
(19:54):
suffering and detaching from possessing things, well I'm sort of worried.
I mean should we even have pets?
Dogs and cats actually chose us to live with us in their evolution and they're very comfortable
with humans.
I think that really the only pet that we should have are cats and dogs who in a certain sense
(20:17):
chose to live with humans.
And this ethical stance is shared by non-Buddhist philosophers as well according to Dr.
Levin.
Yeah, for sure Martha Nussbaum has written a ton on wild animals and art duty sort of as
a matter of political philosophy to wild animals.
Should you own a cat?
(20:37):
I think there would be space in her theory for yes, you should own a cat.
There's a real potential for human animal friendship that can benefit both the human and
the animal and should be like go for it assuming the conditions are right.
Right.
I read all the articles on being a good cat parent or roommate, steward, butler, whatever.
(20:58):
We have a cat food maze, giant cat jungle gym, they get all the treats and live in
the brush or any pet--
They're not satisfied with the human life.
They're probably bored and unconscious.
(21:20):
They seem to be so excited when you come home and when you're playing with them and then you think
about all the time in the day when you're not home and it's like what are they doing?
It's not only about your needs, but it's also about their needs.
I guess this is a reminder of my human myopia.
It's time to put on the cat-eyed glasses here.
(21:41):
One of the biggest things is this stimulating enough.
I think with animals, it's pretty clear that they don't have an interest in a longer life
rather than a shorter one.
I don't think they can think at that level of abstraction or future directed projects such
that you could say, oh, their future directed projects are thwarted if they died in an earlier
(22:06):
time than a later time.
I tend to think the best quality of life for whatever duration is what you're going for
rather than length of life.
Yeah.
We just can't assume that how we personally experience the world is the same for others.
That's a super important reminder of the limits of empathy here.
I think that is why philosophy is so helpful in these discussions.
(22:30):
That said, I do think that this next point, it applies to kitties and I'd say almost all
sentient beings.
I think that I stress is especially for our audience is like having pets and how to have
pets.
Ways of building a life that your pets can have that allows them to have a certain autonomy.
(22:55):
Freedom is a joy that they should be allowed to have.
Imagine if you will, a city cat, perhaps in Athens, in San Juan, Rome, Bangkok, Kigali, Cairo,
(23:16):
living moment to moment, sunbathing on city rooftops, chasing rodents, catching fish and dodging
danger, socializing, playing, constant excitement, every day a new day.
Yes, at the risk of the cruelty of the elements or mean encounters or a hungry stomach, but still.
(23:42):
Would they gaze upon the lives of my cats living in a world that is all of what, 500 square
feet, warm, safe, bored, depressed, eating the same food day after day, the life of a wild cat
retiree?
Where would they find themselves on the matrix of happiness, security and freedom?
(24:07):
Come to think of it, where would you?
Before this episode, I for sure thought I wanted to come back as a rich person's house cat,
but then I wouldn't be a cat, right?
So I'm not so sure.
There are way more things to dig into when it comes to balancing kitties' needs in the
(24:30):
current climate, especially when it comes to their intrinsic nature and their bonkers
efficient thrive instincts when they're outside.
Don't you worry,
I'm working on it.
But for now, I must honor my duty to make my cat happy, because yes, Binky, you are a good
boy and you will get chicken.
(24:51):
I also want to take the time to thank all those making the world a kinder place for both
feline and humankind, including my trap new to return friends like the Five Kittens Rescues,
Trap King Humane, Flatbush Cats and Paul the Cat Guy.
Gosh, there's just so many of you to count.
Talk about good karma.
Folks, either you're coming out of this episode more confused or like me, you've gained a
(25:15):
bit more of a sense of the philosophies around the world on how to do better by our fellow
carbon-based earth dwellers, specifically, felis catus.
May we all do what we can to prevent the suffering that we notice in our communities?
And most importantly, support and fight for the joy and liberation of all in any way we
(25:41):
can.
I'm going to step off my soapbox now.
Alrighty, we've definitely traveled the world intellectually and certainly geographically,
and in the next episode we're going to continue traveling the world that is the world wide
web.
And cats, of course, hope you'll join us.
I want to thank my wonderful experts.
(26:03):
Abby Levin and Janet Gyatso.
We appreciate you.
Yes, and you two, Binky and Snuggles.
While the opinions are my own, the research and the work is theirs.
If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include
the references and research that went into this episode.
And if you loved it, please give us a five star rating and review and be sure to recommend
(26:25):
it to anyone who would love this podcast.
Thanks again to you, listeners.
It is my duty to inform you that we appreciate you, you're beautiful, and remember everything
is connected.
One, two, one, two, three, four!
6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited, and hosted by yours truly, Captain
(26:46):
Kitty, aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats
or look us up on all those social media platforms.
You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats if you connect with us there.
All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the
(27:11):
weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
I was about like three years old, maybe at the oldest, and I was with my family.
We were at my grandmother's house and we were having a picnic on the lawn outside their
(27:35):
house, and there was a cat, and I ran over to it.
I tried to pet it, and it's really scratched my arm and my whole arm was bleeding.
I ran back to my parents and my aunts, and I was crying.
What I was saying was, "Meow no, scatch, meow no scatch", which meant "The cat did not scratch
me."
Cause I thought they would punish the cat for scratching me.
(27:56):
That was my main concern.
So that just shows how much I loved cats when I was three years old, and I was trying to protect them.
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