Paper short abstract:

Malamud's 'serve us, animals' reflects anthropocentric thinking but can this transmute to ethical effect by learning from interdependent human-canine partnerships? The symbiotic lifestyle of a medical alert dog and a chronically ill human illustrates mutualism within 'rights' imperatives.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on Randy Malamud's grammatical coup de plume: 'Service Animals: Serve us animals: Serve us, animals', I examine the human(e)ly-trained medical assistance dog's ability to serve autonomously - as a self-regulating, decision-making organism - to benefit a human companion in terms of medical, social and emotional health. This trans-species partnership, which appears mutualistic in terms of benefitting both individuals while harming neither, supports Hamington's proposal that we can learn ethics from interactive relationships with animals by discovering 'qualities of empathy and compassion crucial for social morality'. Such discoveries may result in a cross-species embodiment of moral interdependence that also succeeds in extending the biomedical armamentarium.

However, the shadow of dominance for human gain still looms avariciously over weaker species and our user-consumer exploitative society allows erasure of the significant concepts of altruism, empathy and compassion necessary for ethical coexistence. As Malamud (2013, p.35) suggests, 'serve us, animals' is a command 'from the oppressor to oppressed'. Human disability can confer parameters of overwhelming social exclusion often echoed in the disallowed canine 'right' to be present, valued, and included in an anthropocentric society. So where is the balance for achievable moral coexistence in the partnership between a chronically ill human and a medical alert assistance dog? Looking at the negativity evolving from disability, inequality, and concomitant lack of 'rights' among species, and examining the converging biomedical and social roles enacted within a human-nonhuman symbiotic partnership, I favour Hamington's contention for a social morality that enforces rejection of speciesism.