Torture a dog, torture a cow...

I just read an article about a guy in Costa Rica who tied up a stray dog in a museum and left it to starve until it eventually died. This was supposed to be an art exhibition - the dog itself and its death were the piece of art.

I don't know if this is true - or if it is urban legend - but I do know that there are several online "petitions" to denounce this artist's actions.

My first impression was that of severe repulsion and anger. But first impressions are not necessarily the most valid, and so I sought to explore this issue further.

This fellow stated as his reasoning for doing this: "The purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. In my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought. Now, if you publicly display one of these starving creatures, such as the case with Nativity, it creates a backlash that brings out a big of hypocrisy in all of us."

This leads me to pose the following questions (for which I have no real answers):

• if one's intention is that of greater awareness and understanding, is the sacrifice of one individual acceptable?
• are such utilitarian ethics even applicable when the species for whom utility is being sought (in this case dogs) has no means of communicating what they would consider utility, and what they would consider a fair sacrifice?
• with what authority do we protest another nation's choices? While such an exhibit would be illegal in Canada, it may be legal in another country. Do we call for the sacrifice of a nation's autonomy to protect the autonomy and safety of an animal? To what extent do we respect cultural relativity?
• we torture cows and chickens on a daily basis in mass-production commercial farms in Canada - through overcrowding, limited movement, and diseased living conditions - how is this any different from torturing this single dog? I don't see people refusing to buy mass-produced meat. Our protest of this artist, would be akin to people in India protesting our treatment of cows. Would we view such petitions with equal legitimacy?
• this artist clearly saw his work as a "harm-reduction" strategy - reduce harm to the greater dog population, by exposing the suffering of one individual dog. Can someone external to a context (i.e. us) truly understand the necessity of harm-reduction strategies that are context-specific? Do we not also have harm-reduction strategies which may seem bizarre and even oppressive to those external to our context? (e.g. needle-exchange, abortion policies)

No answers...lots of questions...