Justice Served? The Presidential Turkey Pardon Re-examined

"Portrait of a turkey" by Johann Wenceslaus Peter Wenzal

This Thanksgiving break, I came across a video of the presidential turkey pardon. I watched President Biden come up to the turkeys, calling them out by their names, Peach and Blossom, and mentioning that they had been “productive members of society.” He then pardoned them as if they were people under the law's jurisdiction, calling to mind questions about what separates a person from an animal.

While a mute turkey dumbly standing in front of the president showed a clear demarcation between humans and animals, the Thanksgiving spectacle still begged the question: what separates man from the creatures he has evolved from? That there is a difference seems clear. In the Catholic tradition, faith that man is made in God’s image [1], shows that the likeness of man to his creator separates us from the other animals.

Collegium Institute’s Food for Thought program on animals this fall made me aware of several fundamental research discoveries about the nature of animal intelligence. These advances in research have made the man-animal difference harder to parse. In Darwin’s meticulous observation of earthworms, made after his treatise on the descent of man, he studied how earthworms are able to build shelter entrances. He wanted to see what level of intelligence the earthworms exhibited in the creation of the shelters by laying down leaves and other materials. His conclusion on worm intelligence far exceeded his expectations, as it showed they weren’t mere input-output beings, only capable of basic instinct. When pulling leaves into their burrows, worms have the choice to pull by either the base or the tip of a leaf. This decision varies based on the type of leaf that Darwin supplied to the worms. When given broad leaves they pulled at the base. When given rhododendron leaves, which curl at their midrib, making dragging at the tip more difficult, two-thirds of worms carried the leaves by their stalks. Darwin conducted similar experiments using artificial leaves, eliminating the possibility of a rote instinct for different kinds of leaves. Rather, the worms felt the leaves with tactile organs, forming a shape in their mind, and then judged the most efficient method of conveyance to their burrows. [2]

In other experiments taken at the Reserach Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), it was found that piglets worked together to free one of their fellows after they’d been trapped in a box. The pigs made an effort to help others based on a feeling of empathy, as the more their companion squealed or was shown to be in distress, the faster they worked to free the trapped piglet. [3]

If lower forms of life seem to have some level of experience, judgment, and empathy, like being able to hold an image in their mind, then are humans not special in kind, but only in the degree of their rational capacities? I would argue that this may be the case, but that the important litmus test for a human as opposed to an animal is its ability to rationalize justice. While seeing the empathy of a pig for its young, or the intelligence of octopuses in solving problems it can be hard to separate beast from man. But when a turkey is put on stage and society’s laws are hollowly applied to it, the differences become clear. These turkeys had no special qualities that separated them from others. They weren't guilty of anything to deserve its slaughter, so pardoning it was an entirely arbitrary decision.

Likewise, animals don’t have the capacity for moral judgement. They act without hesitation or consideration of right or wrong because it’s too complex for them to understand. Human moral choices may be boiled down to a consideration between personal immediate gain weighed against harm to others and harm to society, both of which are governed by instincts. Nevertheless, the human choice between a right and wrong action is extant. When a turkey is deserving of slaughter, or deserving of a pardon from that slaughter, based on its own actions, then animals will have become like man. Until then, justice is what separates man from beast.

Citations:

[1] The ESV Bible. Crossway, (2001). Genesis 1:27

[2] “The Inner Life of Earthworms: Darwin’s Argument and Its Implications,” Eileen Crist (2002).

[3] “What are farm animals thinking?,” David Grimm. Science (2023).