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What is Calf Roping?
Calf roping is a rodeo event where a cowboy on a horse chases after a running calf, lassos
it by the neck and brings it to a stop. The calf is then tied and left on its side for a minimum of 5
seconds. This event is mired in controversy as calves do die (although rarely) and are injured
from participating. Typically, such controversies are set against the stereotypical backdrop of
crazy animal welfare activists vs. heartless cowboys. This way of framing the debate is not
productive when one wishes to consider the ethical validity of an event or not. In this essay I will
examine the philosophical research done on animal rights and how it relates to rodeo and calf
roping specifically. I will attempt to show that the stereotypical framing of the debate is not
reflective of reality and that rodeo culture ought to embrace the growing trend of animal welfare
advocacy. This is because rodeos come from ranching culture, which has historically values the
welfare of animals through its practice of animal husbandry. By the end, I will show that rodeo
has a moral obligation to remove calf roping from its event list.
What is the Moral Status of Animals?
The key to unlocking the answer to the question of whether or not a sport’s treatment of
animals is ethically justified is by determining the moral value of the animal in question. This is
not easily done. Clichéd maxims about moral status often involve nebulous concepts of equality
or sameness (e.g. “no one is above the law”) that implicitly exclude animals. For example, very
few people understand the “golden rule” (one should treat others as one would like others to treat
oneself) to include animals, even though the exclusion of animals is not explicit in the text. This
shows that we cannot rely on conventional wisdom when it comes to the moral status of animals.
Rather, we need to ascertain the moral status of animals from scratch while being critical of
conventional wisdom about the moral status of animals. In this section I aim to use the bedrock
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of different normative ethical theories to show that the interests of animals ought to be
considered in ethical discussion of animal use in sport. Then I will discuss each theory’s
importance to calf-roping specifically.
What follows is an explanation and analysis of a few different ethicist’s arguments on the
moral status of animals, all starting from different normative ethical theories. Any legitimate
account of the moral status of animals ought to be built on a tenable ethical foundations as
opposed to accepted social norms. This excludes common conceptions that come from non
sequitur or logical fallacy like, “Humans are the dominant species so we can do what we want”
or “God gave humans dominion over animals”. Rather, the three arguments in the subsequent
paragraphs follow from distinct interpretations of utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and virtue ethics.
Peter Singer argues that there is no reason to distinguish human suffering from the suffering of
animals and so their interest in not suffering holds significant moral value. Christine Korsgaard
argues that animals ought to be considered ends in themselves by the Kantian definition and so
should not only be treated as means. Finally, Rosalind Hursthouse applies virtue ethics to the
treatment of animals and finds that treating animals as if they have moral value is virtuous and so
it is the right thing to do.
The Utilitarian Argument
In Animal Liberation (2001), Peter Singer makes the case that because it is extremely
likely that most animals suffer similarly to humans, their interest in not suffering ought to be
respected. The logic of the argument is that just like slavery was justified by the flawed logic of
racism, the conventional wisdom regarding the moral status of animals is only justified by the
flawed logic of speciesism (i.e. that for some reason, animal suffering is different than human
suffering). Singer starts by pointing out that equality of race is not an accepted moral judgment
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today because all races are the same. Rather, it is because both black people and white people
have an interest in being treated ethically and that this single characteristic is the only thing that
the two races would need to have in common for racism to be wrong. Arguments in favour of
slavery held that black people were stupider than whites, or more subservient, or stronger. Today
such claims are as abhorrent, and probably false. But, if a peer-reviewed study were to be
published today that definitively proved that such things were true, would that mean the reestablishment of slavery would be morally permissible? According to Singer and similarly
minded utilitarians, that is not the case. It isn’t I.Q., skin-colour, or physical ability that
determines one’s moral standing, it is one’s ability to experience pleasure or pain. Some animals
lack language skills, the ability to use tools, be conscious of their own mortality, thumbs, but it is
none of these things that determine their moral value. The key point Singer that animals have
interests, and that moral questions about the interaction of humans and nonhumans ought to be
dealt with as conflicts of interest.
The consequences of this argument of the sport of calf-roping are surprisingly complex.
The utilitarian calculus is to blame for much of this. Adding up the harm done to calves during
the sport and comparing it to the pleasure given to fans and participants by the internal goods of
the sport is basically impossible. But, when put into perspective, the pleasure gained from calfroping is most likely similar to the pleasure gained by humans doing other similar sports where
there is no animal cruelty involved. This completely frees one from having to attempt any
summing of happiness, simply put, if you can replace the sport with a similar one which causes
less or no pain to animals, then continuing to practice the sport is surely unethical. This means
that by Singer’s estimation of the ethical status of animals, calf-roping is unethical and ought it
be removed or replaced from the Calgary Stampede.
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It should also be noted that much of the essay deals with raising animals for food. This is
of importance to calf-roping and rodeo because rodeos came from ranches used to raise animals
for food. Singer notes that animal suffering and animal killing are not the same thing and that it
is possible one may be ethically justified and not the other (p.315-316). This stands in contrast to
other ethicists who are mentioned in the essay who believe it to be an absurd stance. Of course,
“humanely” raising and killing animals is an impossibility on the scale that farming is currently
practiced. But it is worth noting that there were times in history when animal welfare was
important to the people who raised animals, even if those people had unintentionally unethical
practices. It is this culture from which rodeo evolved (Rollin, 1996). This is an important point as
it suggests that utilitarianism is not necessarily opposed to rodeo, something for animal rights
advocates to keep in mind. Utilitarianism is ultimately concerned with the interests of living
animals and minimizing pain in the lives of living beings. This, it seems to me, lines up well with
the concerns of traditional ranchers.
The Kantian Argument
What if you believe that the utilitarian calculus is too unknowable for any human to ever
be able to make reasonable judgements of which actions cause pleasure or pain? As Singer
points out in his essay, pain and pleasure are “mental events”, we can’t actually directly see them
happening (p. 306). This is the point Kant makes in his work in ethical philosophy. The
argument, as I understand it, goes: knowledge of right and wrong is not objectively knowable by
humans. This means that each person must make subjective a priori judgements of right or
wrong. People are rational and make choices for reasons, and so they should have the right to
experiment and make their life the best that they can. This means that the overriding moral law
respects the rights of everyone else to pursue a moral universe, and so we get the second
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formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at
the same time as an end.” (Kant, 1785). This ethical principle however, excludes animals. But in
Christine Korsgaard’s paper A Kantian Case for Animal Rights (2012), Korsgaard shows that,
despite Kant’s own views on the moral status of animals, the duty of human beings to care for
animals follows from the Kantian logic.
Korsgaard follows the line of reasoning Kant uses to introduce the categorical imperative and
points to the exact spot where Kant unnecessarily excludes animals from the maxim. He does this
because he believed that we must respect others in that what they think is good for everyone is
rational. Since animals do not reason, they can’t “legislate” morality for anyone else and we do
not have to respect their choices. Korsgaard points out that this does not obviously follow.
Korsgaard shows that in the Kantian logic, humans have value because they can have good things
and bad things happen to them, not merely because they can make universal moral. This means
that as far as animals are concerned, Kant says we don’t need to respect their autonomy (i.e. believe
that their choices are good for themselves) but we do need to respect them as ends in that good and
bad thing do happen to them (i.e. they have interests). This distinction between animals as ends
whose preferences or choices we must respect and animals as ends to whom good and bad things
happen is further fleshed out in the paper but suffice to say that Korsgaard’s argument is that
animals obviously have interests even if they can’t reliably act in their own interests rationally.
The consequences that follow from this argument for calf roping are similar to the
consequences of utilitarianism. However, there do exist some small but important differences. In
Singer’s interpretation of animal rights, animals only have interests in gaining pleasure and
preventing pain. This could mean that if the respect given to an animal’s choice were to cause the
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animal to be happy, it might be the right thing to do to let the animal do this. In Korsaard’s view,
however, it may be necessary to hurt animals in order to better serve their other interests. It also
follows from Korsgaard’s view that animal use in sport could be ethical in certain cases. Since in
Korsgaard’s analysis, there is no need to respect the autonomy of animals, only their interests, as
long as the animal’s interests in being free from pain, being healthy, etc. are respected we are
allowed to use them in sports and ranching. This again leads us to the notion of animal
husbandry, where animals are not autonomous or free, but where their interests are still respected
(Rollin, 1996). The reappearance of this theme is no mistake and will be discussed further
subsequently.
The Virtue Argument
A third argument for the moral status of animals actually doesn’t involve the moral status
of animals at all. In her 2006 essay on applying virtue ethics to animals, Rosalind Hursthouse
sought to improve on the problems inherent in the deontological and consequentialist approaches
above. So far we’ve seen the following arguments: Animals suffer like us so we should make
sure they don’t suffer. Humans can’t tell objectively if animals suffer so we ought to use the
categorical imperative and treat them as ends in that they have interests. Both arguments are
structured the same way: Animals are Xs, we should treat all Xs like this, so we should treat
animals like this. The problem is that we might, just like Kant had according to Korsgaard, make
a mistake in determining what is an X and what is not an X. Enter virtue ethics. In virtue ethics,
agents and objects and their statuses don’t matter, it is only the actions that are analyzed. Is such
and such an action honourable? Cruel? Selfless? Courageous? Etc. Hursthouse concludes that
causing unnecessary cruelty to animals is unethical on the grounds that it is cruel and selfish (she
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expresses particular disdain for the “I’d be a vegetarian but meat tastes so good” crowd). This
excludes people who must do it to survive.
This view has the most practical applications to rodeo. While some of the practices
internal to sport are conceived as virtuous, certainly all the virtues present in sport are secondary
to other virtues which take place in a context which does not have a lusory attitude. One must
remember Bernard Suit’s assertion that it would be cruel to restraining yourself from using your
full capacity to save someone’s life because it would be against the rules of some game you were
playing (Suits, 2010). Therefore it is certainly unethical to be cruel to an animal for sport.
However, there is no reason why simply using an animal without being cruel to it would be
unethical. Indeed, it may be the best possible thing to do to care for an animal, because caring is
virtuous. This is again reminiscent of the practice of animal husbandry which is used by
ranchers. This theme of ranching culture being a good ethical example for rodeo is at the heart of
the question of the morality of calf roping.
Animal Husbandry and Ranching
In his 1996 essay, Bernard Rollin maintains that the most practical way to change the
rodeo and make it more ethical is not to appeal to the work of the philosophers mentioned above,
but to appeal to the values of traditional ranching culture, which is an ancestor of modern rodeo.
I think this view is valid because each of the arguments laid out above has the values of
traditional ranching culture flowing through them. One can therefore appeal to traditional
ranching culture without making a logical error. Rollin points to the ranching maxim “we take
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care of animals and they take care of us” as an example of how ranching culture is intimately
concerned with the welfare of animals.
Since rodeo stems from ranching culture, it would be easy to make the argument that the
events ought to respect ranching culture too. This means that certain practices which might me
ethical on a ranch are not ethical when practiced in sport. This point has clear implications for
calf-roping. Calf roping came from the need for ranchers to stop runaway calves from getting
lost. This may have been ethical if the rancher did not want the calf to starve or be eaten alone.
However, when calf-roping is practiced in sport, it is unnecessarily hurting calves who would
otherwise be better off. Changing the sport to be more considerate of the interests of calves
would make it more in-line with ranching culture, and therefore more ethical. This could entail
the use of breakaway ropes, which do not bring the calf from 20mph to a complete stop in less
than a second by pulling at the animal’s neck. It should also be noted that this same argument
could be used for many other events in the rodeo. It is simply for the sake of specificity that I do
not include events like chuck wagon racing (where horses routinely die from injuries sustained
during races), steer roping, horse tripping, and other cruel rodeo events. While this argument
may convince some rodeo advocates, potential counter arguments should be considered.
Considering Counter Arguments
While it’s true that ranching culture may be more ethical than modern rodeo practices
because of context, today, there are many cowboys who participate only in rodeo and have never
worked on or lived on a ranch. This may indicate that rodeo and ranching are separate cultures
and that unnecessary animal cruelty is inherent to the former. If the line of reasoning is true, then
ethicists have no choice but to fall back on the more traditional philosophical arguments to try
and convince cowboys to change the rodeo. This is an important point as it shows that the appeal
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to ranching is only convenient in so much as it applies to the audience being lobbied. In this way,
Rollin’s applied ethics is not normative reasoning but rather a rhetorical debating technique.
While I am convinced by Rollin that the values of ranching culture are ethical and reminiscent of
the philosophical arguments presented, the appeal lacks the philosophical bedrock and reason of
the others and so it is useless in a non-rodeocentric debate.
One might also wonder why events like calf roping could have come to be if they are
unethical. Since we’ve established that ranching culture is inherently interested in animal
welfare, how could unethical events evolve from it? This argument fails to recognize the context
of each action. In the context of ranching, it is certainly possible to argue that calf roping is the
right thing to do if one does not want a calf to run away and die from predators or exposure.
Allowing such a thing to happen could be seen as unethical. While calf roping in the context of a
rodeo is unethical because the athlete must complete the action as fast as possible (which put the
calf at even greater risk) and because it is not in the animals interest to participate.
Another counter argument might take issue with the conception that ranching culture is
ethical to begin with. Ranching is a practice built on the industry of farming, which uses animals
for food. How can the slaughter of innocent animals and the practices surrounding it be ethical?
Here I would point to the idea that killing and animal does not necessarily cause it pain.
Moreover if killing the animal allows it to have had more happiness in its life on aggregate than
it would have had had it not been killed, then it is certainly ethical by utilitarian standards. In the
contexts of traditional ranching, both of these claims could reasonably be argued. Hursthouse
drew the distinction in her essay between eating meat now and doing it to survive. It could be
argued that at the point in history that ranching culture was pervasive, it was necessary to eat
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meat to survive. The practice of raising this necessary meat, when done humanely, can then be
justified, although we know better today.
Conclusion
Calf roping should no longer be considered a legitimate rodeo event because it hurts the
animals who are being used in the sport. I don’t wish to alienate cowboys with this assertion, nor
do I wish to make a logically invalid argument based on emotional appeals. Rather, I claim that
hurting animals is wrong and that cowboys ought to agree with this claim as a matter of cultural
integrity. Hurting animals is wrong to utilitarians because animals feel pain and the ethical thing
to do is minimize pain. This does not mean that there should never be any pain in an animal’s life
or that animal pain is more important than human pain. It simply means that animals can feel
pain and their interest in not feeling pain ought to be given equal consideration to similar human
interests. Hurting animals is wrong to deontologist because it goes against the categorical
imperative as interpreted by Korsgaard (2012). This places no restrictions on how humans resect
the autonomy or freedom of animals, it simply says that animal interests ought to be respected.
Finally, hurting animals can be cruel in certain situations if it is unnecessary. This means that the
practice of hurting animals is not virtuous, and therefore is not ethical for virtue ethicists. All of
these interpretations of animal rights can be interpreted in such a way that they are consistent
with the values of traditional ranching culture. This means that when calf roping is performed in
rodeos, rodeo is going against its own original culture in order to do a version of a sport that
could easily be changed to be more in-line with rodeo culture. Rodeos should make breakaway
roping mandatory in all calf roping events and should also consider changes to other
controversial events such as chuck wagon racing and horse tripping. This would preserve the
ethics that are inherent to rodeo.
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References
Hursthouse, Rosalind. (2006). Applying Virtue Ethics to Our Treatment of Animals. In J.
Welchmann (Ed.), The Practice of Virtue. Indianapolis: Hackett
Kant, Immanuel. (1993). Grounding for the Categorical Imperative. (J. Ellington Trans.)
Indianapolis: Hackett
Korsgaard, Christine. (1996). The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Korsgaard, Christine. (2012). A Kantin Case for Animal Rights. In M. Margot, D. Kuhne, J.
Hanni (Eds.), Animal Law. Boston: Harvard University Press
Rollin, Bernard. (1996). Rodeo and Recollection – Applied Ethics and Western Philosophy.
Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 23:1-9
Singer, Peter. (2001). Animal Liberation. In W.J. Morgan, K. V. Meier, A.J. Schneider (Eds.),
Ethics in Sport. Windsor, ON: Human Kinetics Canada
Suits, Bernard. (2010). Construction of a Definition. In M. McNamee (Ed.), The Ethics of Sport.
London, UK: Routledge