Lysle Shaw-McMinn Notes of: http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/anim-eth.htm 1. INDIRECT THEORIES a. Worldview/Religious Theories (Aristotle) ~ humans are rational, animals are not, and therefore they are instruments to us ~ only people who can make true, rational decisions have value ~ Counter Argument: Many humans are not rational, mentally disabled, elderly, babies. b. Kantian Theories ~ animals do not have autonomy and therefore interests should not count ~ animals have no will/free will. intrinsic value arises from having a will ~ humans are different. we are moral agents, we speak, we are self aware. ~ Counter Argument: Many humans do not have the ability of autonomy, incompetent patients. c. Cartesian Theories ~ animals are not conscious. ~ Counter Argument: Many primates and possibly others are conscious. ~ Counter Argument: Some humans are not conscious, ie PVS. d. Contractualist Theories ~ morals should be decided by rational beings that have no connection to any race/sex/nationality ~ well these beings will know that they are rational, so they will only give morals to other rational beings ~ Counter Argument: These beings would be selfish to choose to give morals only to the rational, they would not be given moral worth to the mentally disabled e. Implications for the Treatment of Animals ~ animals are property and we have to treat them like that, so dont kill your neighbors cat ~ dont hurt animals in public, it will make people sad ~ yet kant and carruther agree that cruelty/torture is wrong because it portrays an indifference to suffering that would carry over to humans f. Two Common Arguments Against Indirect Theories ~ what about infants, the senile, the severely cognitively disabled, and other such "marginal cases" of humanity? - Counter: its 'natural' for humans to be above other animals. but few would claim that. - Counter: POTENTIAL. humans have potential for rationality, ect. - Response: students have potential to get an A on exams, but if they fail the test we do not give them A's for potential - Response: wood has the potential to be chairs, but they are not - Response: biomass of a dead being has the potential to be animate but biological process has failed so they cannot be considered alive ~ torturing is wrong and that is intuitive so your arguement needs to somehow accommodate that. Kants argument doesnt do that satisfactorially (torturing cats is wrong because it effects ME negatively. a moral spillover. there wouldnt be a spillover if a person realized the clear line between animals and humans as kant has. but we cant becuase there isnt a clear line) 2. DIRECT BUT UNEQUAL ~ animals have moral status. animals dont have as high moral status as humans. a. Why Animals have Direct Moral Status ~ animals can feel pain/pleasure. the more human like they are the more they can feel pain and pleasure b. Why Animals are not Equal to Human Beings ~ only human has property. ~ only humans have rights, are rational, autonomous, self conscious. only humans are able to act morally. only humans are part of the moral community. - **** Counter: If that is what grounds rights, then what is needed is a discussion of the moral importance of that ability, along with a defense of the claim that it is an ability that animals lack. i. Only Human Beings Have Rights ~ ONLY HUMANS HAVE RIGHTS: you only deserve rights if you can claim that thing for himself, where this entails being able to represent himself in his pursuit of the thing as a being that is legitimately pursuing the furtherance of his interests. ANIMALS cannot represent themselves. - Counter: Some humans cannot claim them for themselves (elderly, children), how does claiming a thing mean you deserve it? COMMON VIEW ON ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION: animals do have DIRECT MORAL STATUS though, although they dont have rights. ~ we can trump the duties to animals if its for overall good. ~ **** "if an individual has a right to something, we are not permitted to infringe on that right simply because doing so will have better overall results. Our duties to those without rights can be trumped by considerations of the overall good. Although I have a duty to refrain from destroying your property, that duty can be trumped if I must destroy the property in order to save a life. Likewise, I am not permitted to harm animals without good reason; however, if greater overall results will come about from such harm, then it is justified to harm animals. This sort of reasoning has been used to justify such practices as experimentation that uses animals." ii. Only Human Beings are Rational, Autonomous, and Self-Conscious ~ animals are sentient gives us reason to avoid causing them unnecessary pain and suffering. HOWEVER, rationality is needed for full equal status. So its okay to put humans first. ~ full equal status is humans only due to dignity- in order to achieve the kind of dignity and self-respect that human beings have, a being must be able to conceive of itself as one among many, and must be able to choose his actions ~ humans wouldnt want to be animals, even if they could have everything materialistic as animals. becuase humans place such a high value on rationality. iii. Only Human Beings Can Act Morally ~ give more weight to those who can act morally and be unselfish iv. Only Human Beings are Part of the Moral Community ~ we value human relationships and value economy, comunication, ect. so must consider those closest to us first. 3. Moral Equality Theories a. Singer and the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests ~ if we attempt to extend such unequal consideration to the interests of animals, we will be forced to give unequal consideration to the interests of different human beings. i. The Argument from Marginal Cases (Again) ~ there is no property that all humans have that no animals have except being human ~ if we were to encounter alien life forms that did not have human DNA, but lived lives much like our own, we would not be justified in according these beings a weaker moral status simply because they were not human ii. The Sophisticated Inegalitarian Argument ~ rationality, autonomy, the ability to act morally: if we were to rely on these sorts of properties as the basis of determining moral status, then we would justify a kind of discrimination against certain human beings ~ sophisticated inegalitarians are morally corrupt because he judges people morally by how smart or rational they are. all the properties we are talking about, rationality, ect, are properties of degrees and degree varies within human race as well as outside it. so if we apply a separation morally depending on degree, we must do it inside the human race as well as outside. iii. Practical Implications ~ Singer also condemns most experimentation in which animals are used. He first points out that many of the experiments performed using animal subjects do not have benefits for human beings that would outweigh the pain caused to the animals. For example, experiments used to test cosmetics or other non-necessary products for human beings cannot be justified if we use the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests. Singer also condemns experiments that are aimed at preventing or curing human diseases. If we are prepared to use animal subjects for such experiments, then it would actually be better from a scientific point of view to use human subjects instead, for there would be no question of cross-species comparisons when interpreting the data. If we believe the benefits outweigh the harms, then instead of using animals we should instead use orphaned infants that are severely cognitively disabled. If we believe that such a suggestion is morally repugnant when human beings are to be used, but morally innocuous when animals are to be used, then we are guilty of speciesism. b. Regan and Animal Rights ~ focus on RIGHTS and happiness of the whole cannot trump rights. ~ According to Regan, any being that is a subject-of-a-life is a being that has inherent value. A being that has inherent value is a being towards which we must show respect; in order to show respect to such a being, we cannot use it merely as a means to our ends. Instead, each such being must be treated as an end in itself. In other words, a being with inherent value has rights, and these rights act as trumps against the promotion of the overall good. ~When the rights of different individuals conflict, then someone's rights must be overriden. Regan argues that in these sorts of cases we must try to minimize the rights that are overriden. However, we are not permitted to override someone's rights just because doing so will make everyone better off; in this kind of case we are sacrificing rights for utility, which is never permissible on Regan's view (unlike singer) 2. The 'Ought Implies Can' Principle You can't be morally obligated to do something it's literally impossible for you to do. In other words, to say that, morally speaking, you ought to do something implies that it must be possible for you to do it (i.e., you can do it). Relevance: If you accept this principle, then nothing about whether it's morally OK to eat animals or not is proved by pointing out that we don't think animals are obligated not to kill other animals. Why not? Because, while we can choose to become vegetarians, (most) other animals can't make that kind of choice. In fact, they can't even consider the possibility. As such, the 'ought implies can' principle tells us that it doesn't even make sense to ask whether they ought to become vegetarians or not. The relevant point here is that, as your abilities change, your obligations may also change. So, since we have abilities (most) other animals don't, we may also have obligations they don't.