A long-standing feud with backyard wildlife took a strange turn this summer.
Usually this feud involves trying to dissuade deer from eating hostas and flowers. However, this season my husband applied deer repellent earlier than usual and it actually worked. Feeling a little too confident in my amateur gardening skills, I decided to plant a variety of seeds and flowers.
It didn’t take long for rodents to discover this buffet.
I’m pretty sure the squirrel has something to do with the soil that’s blown out of the pot. But holes dug in the ground, uprooted bulbs and chewed-up plants appeared to be the work of chipmunks.
Their family has lived under our patio for as long as I can remember. I found them secretly roaming the flower beds and planning crimes. Previously, I accepted this as part of the deal to have a backyard. This time I was furious at their brazen vandalism. I started thinking about the ethics of permanently getting rid of chipmunks.
Is it morally permissible to kill sentient beings simply for a flower garden?I was deeply conflicted about that idea. On the other hand, chipmunks have an established pattern of destructive behavior on our property. On the other hand, I don’t grow crops to feed my family.
I consulted some close friends and got just as many opinions. I thought about writing a letter to the New York Times ethicist or asking our imam.
Weeks have passed thinking about this moral dilemma.
One recent morning when I took Frankie outside to run some errands, we both noticed a small brown animal moving in the grass. It looks like my dog’s dream of catching prey is about to come true. But I couldn’t bear to witness a chipmunk murder right in front of my eyes.
As Frankie rushed toward the animal, I yelled, “Leave me alone!” At the top of my lungs. To my surprise, he listened – not a skill he is usually known for. He sniffed a chipmunk nearby and scurried back towards me.
I was taken aback by the intensity of my emotions regarding the prospect of this rodent’s death. Watching something die in front of your eyes is a different experience than calling an exterminator, even if the result is the same.
Seeing this made me think about how many gruesome acts there are, even if we cheer from afar, we shrink back from when witnessed up close. How many people would eat meat if they had to slaughter the animals themselves? How many people would kill other humans in war?
Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have debated the role that emotions play in forming our values. Moral emotions, the emotions and intuitions that play a major role in most of our ethical decisions, can be brought about by cultural conditioning or by innate evolutionary instincts. Empathy and sympathy are important moral emotions that we teach our children in the hope that they will become caring members of society.
Of course, we all value different things.
This is brought into sharp focus every four years and unfolds as a 30-second morality play on screen. One of the key proposals this election year is mass deportation. Former President Donald Trump has promised to round up and deport immigrants living in the country illegally, meaning about 11 million people will be expelled from the United States.
Some of his supporters may be happy to support such a mass expulsion. Others don’t care about this rhetoric because they believe it’s an impossible plan, although they may not support it. A plan that would destroy too many important industries and never come to fruition for logistical or legal reasons.
There are probably quite a few people who support this idea in theory, but they might think twice about it if they had to personally separate immigrant mothers from their American-born children.
If you had to look someone in the eye, that person has been your neighbor for years, has cleaned your house, taken care of your church lawn, done your roof. They may make repairs, but can you kick the person out of the house and banish them from their family? Can you do that to the millions of people who do nothing but work here, pay taxes, and try to make a decent living?
In short, could you intentionally cause someone’s suffering in your own backyard?
I decided to pay attention to my instinctive reactions to protect the chipmunks in my garden.
It’s not as complicated as I once thought.
