Around seven a.m. each morning, I take our puppy "Kaddu" out for a fun walk around the park. Today was different: less than ten minutes into the walk, Kaddu was brutally attacked by a stray dog. In the few seconds that it took me to shoo away the brown dog with a plastic dog-training stick, he bit Kaddu's hind leg seven or eight times and ran away.
Kaddu squealed. Blood was oozing from the puncture wounds, he limped around in circles tugging at his leash. I looked up to see a group of morning-walkers gathered at the scene. Neighbourhood dogs rushed towards us hearing Kaddu's shrill yelps. I picked him up, and rushed back home - up three flights of stairs - to get him to safety.
We took him to the hospital. The vet cleaned his wounds, gave him two shots and told us there shouldn't be long-lasting damage. The puppy is back home now, lying uneasily in his bed watching an endless video of bleating sheep on YouTube. I hope he gets better soon. More importantly, I hope this stray-dog attack hasn't violated his psychological rules enough to erode the natural trust he places in humans and dogs alike.
While he heals, I realize that this incident has forever changed the way I view the world. My previous understanding of concepts - evil, randomness, free-will and responsibility - stand thoroughly shaken. They do not explain what I witnessed.
What I witnessed as the closest human-observer of the attack
Kaddu is a cool fellow, at least by canine-standards. He doesn't get overly agitated, he genuinely loves humans and dogs, and he very, very rarely barks. He doesn't mind other dogs eating from his bowl, lying in his bed, or even nibbling on his favourite snacks.
Today, as we strolled in the park - he was on my left, pulling at the leash attached to his body-harness - the environment felt straight out of a Camus-novel: an idyllic Sunday lying in wait for the absurd.
His nose was near the pavement as usual. He likes sniffing out berries, mud and exotic organic things. I spotted a newcomer in the park - a middle-aged brown dog across the hedges, some ten metres from where we were walking. My memory, upon which we must rely to replay the scene, distinctly tells me that the dog and I both paused to look at one-another. Kaddu was at the time unaware of his presence.
Knowing Kaddu's playfulness when it comes to other dogs - and this one didn't look hostile - I tugged on his leash. Kaddu stopped. He turned his head and the two dogs saw each other. Kaddu didn't do anything either to invite or to spurn the other dog; he simply stood. The other dog approached. He crossed the hedge and came onto the footpath.
The dog approached quickly, I sensed something was about to happen. The dog started sniffing Kaddu, who still was standing. The dog then licked Kaddu's belly twice. Then the dog bit. Kaddu was bitten again and again, he squealed. I raised my plastic training stick and struck the stray dog. As hard as I could. But the stick was clearly not a weapon. More bites, more high pitched shrieks. The silent park became a theatre of suffering. I struck the dog again, and for some reason, the dog relented and ran away.
Other neighborhood dogs charged into the scene, and growled and barked at the newcomer. I don't know what happened to the dog at this point, as I was aware only of Kaddu and his suffering. He was limping, his leg was bloody, and he was trying to get away but the leash held him back. I picked him up and went home. I've already told you what happened next.
On fate and free-will in a dog's life
There was once an age when some people thought of animals as mindless automata simply performing a set of predefined functions according to coded rules. We now know that to be untrue; the more closely you have interacted with an animal (especially cats, dogs, cows, goats, and other species high in the evolutionary ladder), the more strongly you will vouch for the animal's capability of independent thought. You may even recognize their characteristic "personality traits", although you may think of these traits in strictly anthropomorphic terms.
For example, our vet described dogs as "toddlers who never really grow up". A few paragraphs ago, I described Kaddu as a "cool fellow". These are perhaps limitations of our own framework of thinking, but we acknowledge that these animals think, reason and "feel".
When I recall the actions of Kaddu's assailant this morning, I inadvertently try to explain it with a cause or a sequence of causes. These causes may be mechanistic (i.e. physical factors and external forces may have caused the animal to attack) or intentional (i.e. the animal attacked due to its own volition). The former approach negates the animal's free-will entirely, and I don't subscribe to this approach. In this matter, however, there seems to be no logical mechanistic explanation for the attack, as there were no discernable external conditions which forced the brown dog to attack Kaddu.
Evaluating the cause of attack through an intent-driven framework, we are driven to think of the assailant's motive. Kaddu is not prey (the dog couldn't have killed and eaten Kaddu), or a predator that threatened the dog's survival. The attack seems to lack fear-motive. The dog was also not in its territory and therefore was not safeguarding its own space. What's even more strange: the dog approached Kaddu quietly, almost casually. It was as if the dog did not approach with an intent to maul Kaddu, but decided to bite after licking Kaddu twice.
Kaddu did not retaliate; he was too shocked and too much in pain. But the dog continued to bite repeatedly. It doesn't appear that the attack happened with the intent of establishing dominance. So why did it happen?
Having lived with a pet, I think of dogs as mostly rational decision-makers. They have basic needs which they fulfil based on a priority order: eat, drink water, rest, play, explore, have sex, etc. The stray dog that approached Kaddu seems to have operated outside this framework. This act seems to have had no practical goal (for the other dog). The two or three rational options that lay in front of the dog as it approached Kaddu shouldn't have included bite.
A karmic explanation of the attack, however, exists - as karma can "explain" the absurd. It can be thought that the attack was perhaps inevitable. The event may have happened due to causes that we can never comprehend, and to fulfil a teleology that exists outside our limited imagination and reasoning.
The whole-world thus operates as a single "thing", and individual actors' actions sometimes make no sense when read alone, and separate from other things. And reason operates on the whole, and therefore on any part of the whole - including the brown biting stray.
The attack as an Act of Evil
Portuguese philosopher Baruch Spinoza believed in the unity of all substances and termed this unity God i.e. everything operates together as a whole. According to his metaphysics, there is actually no evil in the world, as there can never be evil in the whole. He says "knowledge of evil is an incomplete knowledge". We thus perceive evil only because we are unable to see the big picture.
Applying such a framework makes more sense when we apply it to a world where individual actors are in a state of war with one-another. Where the fall of one would bring the rise of another: a zero-sum game. Here, by definition zero-sum, there is no net accrual of good and bad, for what is good for one is bad for the other.
This used to be a framework I more or less believed until this morning. But now, the apparently random attack on Kaddu questions the premise of zero-sum or any kind of summation at all. What kind of additional information could here lead to complete knowledge?
There is an ancient doctrine, at least for humans, that once one knows what is good, they may proceed to do it. Knowing good conduct (what is commonly known as morality) is a precursor to performing good deeds. Some philosophers go to the extreme of saying that evil only occurs due to intellectual error, due to some kind of miscalculation inside our rational minds.
Did the brown dog not know that it was bad to bite another puppy? Did the dog not realize that Kaddu would be caused immense pain due to the bite? The dog knew all of this, and yet proceeded to maul Kaddu. I would venture to say that the act was guided by the principle of inflicting maximum pain on another.
Its intent was purely malevolent. In fact, as Kaddu shieked and howled, the dog's biting became more violent. The desire to inflict pain on another was the main motivator for this action.
I now believe that free will allows one to inflict pain and suffering even when (relatively) unprovoked. And such an exercise of free-will must be construed as an act of evil, whether or not it serves to fulfill some unknowable teleological end (as in the doctrine of karma).
Until this morning, I too, like Spinoza, believed that true acts of evil do not exist (and may be explained away rationally). Now, I wish I still believed in such a soothing doctrine, but it is too fantastic to be true.
Nobility and the State of Nature
Another concept which refined itself further after the events of this morning pertains to the (exaggerated) "state of nature". This refers to the state the world found itself in before they appointed rulers, governments or kings. It refers to a world wherein there existed no higher power to resolve disputes between individual actors, a world where people's actions were guided by some unwritten principles or "laws".
Eighteenth century thinker Rousseau propagated the idea of a "Noble Savage" as one who is uncorrupted by civilization, and thereby symbolizes humanity's intrinsic goodness. Perhaps I am still affected by the recentness of our ordeal, but I draw several parallels between the drives and motivations of a dog and those of man.
These stray dogs still exist in a state of nature, uncorrupted by civilization. At the risk of anthropomorphizing animals once again and drawing analogies, I must state that I have never more strongly rejected the idea of the noble savage than today. There have always been animals and humans who have never known what it is to be "noble", or have recognized the concept of nobility and rejected it nevertheless.
In general, perhaps, most people and animals live by a set of rules and principles. The majority uphold a set of rules, creating an illusion of the intrinsic goodness of all. But history shows multiple prominent examples of immoral and evil characters rising to power by flouting these "rules" (their ability to flout rules often explains their ability to succeed). The concept would become much clearer if we studied the social interactions between dogs on the street.
Our Responsibility towards Animals
So we have given up several individual freedoms and subjected ourselves to government by law in order to experience a higher quality of life. Dogs have, over the past fifteen thousand years, given up certain freedoms as a species and allowed humans to transform them from fearsome wolves into cute four-legged pets.
Their domestication perhaps aided in their safety and survival. They've got food and protection, and they've allowed their humans to govern them and make decisions on their behalf.
They depend on their parents and caregivers to decide for them, for these persons are in a much higher position of power. And human decisions have massive ramifications in the life of the pet: where they live, how they live, what they eat, when they sleep, what tricks they learn, even whether they are allowed to procreate.
In this light, I must remind you again about how the attack transpired today. Kaddu was walking along curiously, on the footpath with his eyes fixed on the ground a few inches ahead of him. I pulled on the leash and stopped him, when I spotted the brown dog. When the brown dog started approaching him, I did not pull Kaddu away or shoo away the dog preemptively.
I lowered my guard, and allowed Kaddu to come into harm's way. I foolishly trusted a newcomer who had evil intentions, and Kaddu got hurt because of my decision. He was unable to truly exercise his own free-will as he was on leash (although it can be argued that if I was not present, Kaddu's wounds would be far more grave or that he would have been attacked nevertheless, or that that no one would have been able to take him to the vet).
We are responsible for the pets and other animals (birds, cows, squirrels and all) who live in close proximity to us. We must think of their well-being as our moral responsibility - our own compass of goodness must direct us towards this - as we have the power to influence their lives.
I hope Kaddu gets better soon. Can't wait to teach him how to roll over!
