Animal Rights and Animal Ethics

Animal Rights and Animal Ethics

Content Speciesism Are humans unique? Marginal cases Animal rights
Kant Singer Regan Do animals have rights? Factory farming Animal experimentation

Speciesism The moral status (moral standing) of a being or entity answers the question whether the being or entity is morally considerable. It usually refers either to a right not to be killed or made to suffer, or to a general moral requirement to be treated in a certain way.

Speciesism French philosopher René Descartes ( ) held that animals have no moral status because they have no souls. According to Descartes, because the soul is necessary to consciousness, animals cannot feel pain or pleasure.

Speciesism We now know that Descartes was wrong. Animals do feel pain and pleasure. They have consciousness and engage in purposeful behavior. The differences between humans and other animals are more a matter of degree than of kind.

Speciesism Speciesism is a prejudice for one’s own species and against other species. It involves the assigning of different moral statuses, values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership.

Speciesism Speciesism entails discrimination practiced by humans against other species. Unequal treatment is usually justified on the grounds that human beings, as a species, are superior in some ways to other species of animals.

Speciesism The most obvious property shared among all human beings that excludes all nonhuman animals is our membership of a particular biological group: the species homo sapiens.

Speciesism From the standpoint of modern ethics, an individual’s membership of a group alone is not morally relevant. Like racism and sexism, speciesism involves unequal treatment on the basis of group membership that cannot be morally justified.

Speciesism People who object to speciesism argue that a difference of species is not a morally relevant difference – in the same way that a difference of race (or sex) is not a morally relevant difference between human beings.

Speciesism Counterargument: Racism and sexism are wrong because there are no relevant differences between the sexes or races. Between people and animals, however, there are significant differences.

Speciesism For example, it is false that blacks and women are incapable of being benefited by education, and therefore they should enjoy equal access to educational opportunities. The same is obviously not true in the case of cows, or dogs, or even chimpanzees.

Speciesism Speciesism can be justified on the ground there is a clear difference between humans and other species. Human beings are more self-aware, and more able to choose their own course of action than other animals. This enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a higher moral status.

Speciesism Another argument in favor of speciesism is that it is biologically natural to treat one’s own species favorably. Almost all nonhuman animals treat members of their own species better than those of other species.

Speciesism Most people, faced with a difficult choice between a human and an animal, would probably react in a speciesist way. A child and a dog are trapped in a fire. You can only save one of them. Which will you save?

Are humans unique? What is distinctive about humanity such that humans are thought to have moral status and non-humans do not? Is there any moral justification for unequal treatment of humans and nonhuman animals?

Are humans unique? Humans are members of the species homo sapiens. As such, humans share a genetic make-up and a distinctive physiology. But this is unimportant from the moral point of view. Species membership is a morally irrelevant characteristic.

Are humans unique? Those who believe in Darwinian evolution argue that humans are animals and are fundamentally the same as other animals. Experts tell us that we humans share much of our DNA with other organisms.

Are humans unique? The genetic differences between human beings and their closest evolutionary relatives – chimpanzees – are proportionately very small: human beings and chimpanzees have approximately 98.4 percent of their genes in common.

Are humans unique? Thus, the crucial question is: whether or not the actual differences between humans (as a species) and other species of animals are morally relevant and hence justify different moral considerations and unequal treatment.

Are humans unique? If there are morally relevant differences between human and nonhuman animals that justify treating them differently, what are these differences and how do they matter?

Are humans unique? Humans are morally considerable because of the distinctively human capacities we possess, capacities that only we humans have. Capacities such as thinking and reasoning distinguish humans from nonhumans because they are thought to be integral to our ‘personhood’.

Are humans unique? Higher-order thinking is unarguably something unique to the human race. Besides, only human beings are naturally moral beings. Free will is another quality that makes human being unique; most other life forms act merely upon instinct.

Are humans unique? Humans can plan for the future, using memories of the past and reason to make decisions, rather than follow blind impulses. The major difference in the brains of humans and of other animals occurs in the frontal cortex, i.e. the site of self- consciousness (awareness of oneself as a separate and unique entity).

Are humans unique? We differ in kind from other animals because of our rational nature, a nature characterized by the capacities for conceptual thought and free choice. In virtue of having such a nature, all human beings are persons, and all persons possess the real dignity that is deserving of full moral respect.

Marginal cases Some philosophers, however, argued that while humans are different in a variety of ways from each other and other animals, these differences do not provide a philosophical defense for denying nonhuman animals moral consideration.

Marginal cases What is it that really differentiates humans morally from animals? Most of us, if asked this question, would initially respond by citing some psychological capacities, for example, self-consciousness, rationality, autonomy, free will, ability to use language to communicate, etc.

Marginal cases The problem with this response, is that, for each of these capacities, there are some human beings who lack it. Does it imply that those human beings who lack these capacities, or who possess them to no greater degree than certain animals, are not entitled to the same moral status as other humans?

Marginal cases If rationality, intelligence and language, etc. are necessary conditions for moral consideration, should human infants, the severely retarded and brain- damaged humans be excluded from moral consideration?

Marginal cases If members of society such as infants, the senile, the comatose, and the mentally handicapped have moral status, animals should, too, have moral status because there is no known morally relevant ability that those marginal-case humans have that animals lack.

Marginal cases The ‘argument from marginal cases’ is a philosophical argument regarding the moral status of animals. If these ‘marginal’ human beings deserve the same moral consideration as ‘normal’ human beings, why not animals too?

Marginal cases Consider a cow. We ask why it is acceptable to kill this cow for food – we might claim, for example, that the cow has no concept of ‘self’ and therefore it cannot be wrong to kill it. However, many young children may also lack this same concept of ‘self’.

Marginal cases So if we accept the self-concept criterion, then we must also accept that killing children is acceptable for exactly the same reason as it is acceptable to killing cows, which is absurd. So the concept of ‘self’ cannot be a relevant criterion.

Marginal cases For any criterion or set of criteria (e.g. language, consciousness, free will) there exists some ‘marginal’ humans who are mentally deficient in some way which would inevitably entail the exclusion of them form having moral status.

Marginal cases If we are justified in denying moral status to animals then we are justified in denying moral status to the marginal cases. We are not justified in denying moral status to the marginal cases. Thus, we are not justified in denying moral status to animals.

Marginal cases The argument from marginal cases requires us to ‘treat like cases alike’, but babies, the intellectually impaired and the senile currently have rights that animals do not have. To avoid the charge of speciesism, we should, therefore, give the same rights to animals.

Marginal cases Counterargument: Most of us believe that society (family, government, charities, etc.) has the duty to take care of the needs of every baby, every mentally impaired person, etc. Does it imply that society has the duty to take care of the needs of every animal?

Marginal cases We feel a special obligation to care for the handicapped members of our own species, who cannot survive in this world without such care. Most animals manage very well, despite their lower intelligence and lesser capacities, and do not require special care from us.

Marginal cases Those who reject the argument from marginal cases may argue that only moral agents or persons have moral status, and they are the primary holders of moral rights. We grant rights to human infants because they will become moral agents and so deserve our respect.

Marginal cases In the case of the mentally disabled, it may be true that chimpanzees have similar mental capacities as these persons, but their meanings in (human) society are not the same because of the web of social relationships that give special meanings to human existence.

Animal rights Do animals have rights? If animals do have rights, do they have the same rights as human beings? Are we humans violating these rights when we use them for our own purposes?

Animal rights One widely accepted view recognizes persons as beings with a moral status that entitles them to a complete set of basic rights. In the case of nonhuman animals, while they may have species-specific needs, they are not entitled to the same moral status and rights of human beings.

Animal rights Proponents of animal rights maintain that animals have rights of the same sort, although perhaps not exactly the same rights, as human beings. Animal interests are not always the same as human interests. Thus, animals rights may not be exactly the same as human rights.

Animal rights Thus, for example, animals may possess the right to life or a right against suffering, since they can suffer and die. But they cannot, for obvious reasons, possess political and civil rights such as the right to vote or the right to freedom of speech.

Animal rights Relevant rights for animals may include:
the right to live free in the natural state of their choosing the right to express normal behavior the right to life the right to reproduce the right to choose their own lifestyle the right to live free from human induced harm

Animal rights If animals do have rights, then there are certain things that human beings should not do to animals, because doing them would violate the animals’ rights.

Animal rights Accepting the idea of animal rights means:
no experiments on animals no breeding and killing animals for food or clothes or medicine no use of animals for hard labor no selective breeding for any reason other than the benefit of the animal no hunting no zoos or use of animals in entertainment

Kant Kant believes that appropriate human conduct (morality) does not extend beyond the human species because only humans are ends-in-themselves. All other animals are seen as a means to an end.

Kant Kant argues that moral agents must be self-conscious, be rational, have moral principles, be able to evaluate alternatives and be able to make judgments. Since non-human animals cannot reason, they cannot be moral agents.

Kant Kant denies that animals have moral status. For Kant, moral obligations and moral rights apply to agents alone. Animals are not autonomous or self- conscious, and so cannot be considered moral agents. They are mere objects or instruments for human use.

Kant Nonhuman animals lack the capacity of moral autonomy. Without moral autonomy there can be no understanding of duty. In Kant’s view, while animals are worthy of our moral concern, they cannot be afforded any moral status in their own right.

Kant In short, Kant assumes that humans are self-conscious and rational, whereas animals are not. This difference implies that we have no direct duties to animals; we have direct duties only to humans.

Kant Kant: “So far as animals are concerned we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious and there merely as a means to an end. The end is man… Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity.”

Kant Our duties to animals are indirect duties to humans. In other words, the moral treatment of animals is only a means of cultivating moral treatment of humans. We should not mistreat animals because this may lead to mistreatment of humans.

Kant Kant: “If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show towards mankind.”

Kant For Kant, if it is morally right to treat animals well, it is only because this promotes kindness between persons. Animals should be treated well not because they have intrinsic values, but only because of the positive effects on other humans.

Kant But why should killing animals tend to brutalize a person and make him more likely to harm or kill other people? Do butchers commit more murders?

Kant The problem with Kant’s view on animals is that it makes rational self- consciousness the sole criterion for being morally considerable. But why should we think that rational self-consciousness is the only thing of moral importance?

Kant To be consistent, Kant would have to agree that nonhuman animals that are self-conscious (e.g. chimpanzees) have moral status, and human beings who are not self-conscious (e.g. fetuses) do not have moral status.

Singer Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism because it evaluates the rightness or wrongness of an action by that action’s expected consequences, i.e. the degree to which an action satisfies interests.

Singer A utilitarian accepts two moral principles: [1] everyone’s interests count, and similar interests must be counted as having similar weight or importance, and [2] do that act that will bring about the best balance of satisfaction over dissatisfaction for everyone affected by the outcome.

Singer Utilitarianism believes that the essence of morality is to promote happiness and eliminate suffering. Animals are capable of happiness and suffering, so they are morally considerable in the same way that human beings are.

Singer Utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer challenges the view that there are fundamental differences in the moral status of human beings and non- humans. Singer asserts that many animals are capable of suffering and therefore warrant moral consideration.

Singer Singer maintains that sentience, the capacity of feeling pleasure and pain, is a sufficient condition for having interests. If a nonhuman animal can feel pleasure and pain, then that animal possesses interests. A sentient animal has an interest in a painless, pleasurable life.

Singer Singer argues that there is no morally justifiable way to exclude from moral consideration non-humans or non- persons who can clearly suffer. Any being that has an interest in not suffering deserves to have that interest taken into account.

Singer A mouse, like a human being, have an interest in not being kicked, because both would suffer. Unlike a human being or a mouse, a stone does not suffer when kicked, and therefore has no interest in not being kicked.

Singer Singer argues that what make racism and sexism morally objectionable is that a racist or sexist does not give equal weight to the similar interests of members of different races and sexes. He defines a speciesist as someone who gives different weights to the similar interests of humans and animals.

Singer Singer: “The racist gives greater weight to the interests of members of his own race, when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of another race. Similarly, the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.”

Singer The right action, according to utilitarian reasoning, is one that maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. Because nonhuman animals are just as capable of happiness and suffering as humans, their interests and satisfaction should be included in utilitarian calculations.

Singer Singer: “The essence of the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests is that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the like interests of all those affected by our actions.”

Singer To insist on equal consideration of animals’ interests is not to claim that animals have the same interests as human beings or that animals ought to be treated in the same way as humans.

Singer The equal consideration of interests will often mean quite different treatment, depending on the nature of the entity being considered. It would be as absurd to talk of a dog’s right to vote as to talk of a man’s right to have an abortion.

Singer To take another example, because a pig has no interests that would be served by an education, whereas a child does, equal consideration for the interests of a pig and child will lead to very different treatment.

Singer What a child and a pig have in common, however, is an interest in avoiding suffering. Thus, to the extent that animals are capable of suffering, their interests must be given equal consideration to our own when we make ethical decisions, according to Singer.

Singer Singer’s principle of equal consideration of interests calls for the immediate end to many of our current practices that cause enormous pain and suffering to animals such as factory farming, animal experimentation and hunting.

Regan Tom Regan disagrees with Singer’s utilitarian program for animal liberation, because he rejects utilitarianism as lacking a notion of intrinsic worth. Regan’s position is that animals and humans should have equal rights because of their equal intrinsic worth.

Regan Regan argues that what is important for moral consideration are not the differences between humans and animals but the similarities. Both humans and animals are what he calls ‘subjects-of-a-life’; both equally deserve moral consideration; and both are bearers of rights.

Regan Many animals, according to Regan, are ‘subjects-of-a-life’, i.e. conscious creatures having an individual welfare that has importance to them regardless of their usefulness to others.

Regan These animals possess capacities for emotion, belief, desire and memory, so Regan argues that we should treat them with the same respects as we treat human beings. They should be viewed as ends-in- themselves rather than mere objects or resources for others.

Regan If a being is a subject-of-a-life, it can be said to have ‘inherent value’. All beings with inherent value are equally valuable and entitled to the same rights. Their inherent value does not depend on how useful they are to others.

Regan ‘Inherent value’ is the value of conscious individuals (of any species) regardless of their usefulness to others. Any being that is a subject-of-a-life has inherent worth and the rights that protect such worth, and all subjects-of- a-life have these rights equally.

Regan Kant’s error, in Regan’s view, was in thinking that only human subjects were ends-in-themselves. For Regan, to be a subject-of-a-life is to be an end-in-itself. All subjects-of-a-life, therefore, have the same basic rights and dignity, and should be treated with equal respect.

Regan In Regan’s view, individuals who have inherent value must never be treated merely as a means. In other words, all subjects-of-a-life have the right to be treated with respect, which includes also the right not to be harmed.

Regan To attribute moral rights to an individual is to assert that the individual has some kind of special moral dignity such that certain things cannot justifiably be done to him/her/it for the sake of benefit to others.

Regan To have a right to life, for example, implies that others are prohibited from injuring their bodies, taking their life, or putting them at risk of serious harm. Humans are not justified in harming them for the sake of benefits to humans, no matter how great those benefits may be.

Regan For Regan, any practice that fails to respect the rights of those animals who have them (e.g. eating animals, hunting animals, experimenting on animals, using animals for entertainment) is wrong, irrespective of human need, context, or culture.

Regan Regan’s view entails that animals have the same basic rights and the same moral status as human beings. Thus, he argues for the abolition of [1] animal agriculture, [2] commercial and sport hunting, and [3] the use of animals in science.

Do animals have rights? No one can deny that animals have interests. Animals pursue their interests and suffer when their interests are not satisfied. Is the fact that animals have interests a sufficient condition for the possession of rights?

Do animals have rights? Opponents to animal rights may argue that [1] nonhuman animals cannot make moral judgments, [2] they do not behave morally and cannot take responsibility for their actions, and [3] and they are not members of the moral community.

Do animals have rights? If we value the lives of human beings more than the lives of animals, this is because we value certain capacities that human beings have but animals do not have. One of these capacities is our ability to make moral judgments.

Do animals have rights? The holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty governing all, including themselves. Animals lack the capacity of moral judgment. Thus, they do not have moral rights.

Do animals have rights? Counterargument: Some human beings (e.g. babies, senile people, people with some severe mental defects and people in a coma) do not have the capacity for free moral judgment either, and by this argument they would not have any rights.

Do animals have rights? Some argue that since animals do not behave in a moral way, they do not deserve moral treatment from other beings. Animals, it is argued, usually behave selfishly, and pursue their own interests without take others’ interests into consideration.

Do animals have rights? Human beings are normally held to be responsible for what they do. In recognizing that someone is responsible for his or her actions, you accord that person respect which is reserved for those who possess moral autonomy.

Do animals have rights? We do not expect animals to behave like moral persons. For example, we do not regard a dog as having done something morally wrong when it bites someone; if the dog is put to death because of the bite, that is to protect people, not to punish the dog.

Do animals have rights? It can also be argued that rights are unique to human beings because rights only have meaning within a moral community. Only human beings live in a moral community. Animals are not members of the moral community and thus do not have rights.

Do animals have rights? Rights imply obligations. The idea of rights and duties is distinctive to the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species. Why should human beings have obligations towards animals, if animals do not have obligations to other animals or to human beings?

Do animals have rights? Yet another view suggests that animals can have rights, but animal rights are weaker than human rights. According to this view, we are morally permitted to treat animals in ways that we cannot treat humans.

Do animals have rights? For example, it would be wrong to kill an annoying homeless person, but it would not be wrong to kill an annoying rat that has invaded the house.

Do animals have rights? What is the difference between killing an injured stray dog and killing an injured homeless person? Why is the former morally justifiable but not the latter?

Do animals have rights? Finally, even if animals do not have rights, human beings may still have a moral duty not to mistreat them. The argument that animals should be treated properly can be based entirely on the need for human beings to behave morally, rather than on the rights of animals.

Do animals have rights? We may accept that certain things are morally wrong and should not be done – regardless of whether the victim has any rights or not. For example, many people think that causing pain and suffering is morally wrong, whether the victim is a human being or a nonhuman animal.

Factory farming The second half of the 20th century saw the intensification of cattle breeding which provoked fierce debates. During the 1960s and 1970s, pressure groups started to argue on behalf of the interests of animals kept in factory farms.

Factory farming In the United States alone, billions of animals are killed each year for human consumption. The majority of these are raised in conditions in which their well-being is systematically sacrificed in every way that might reduce expenditures and thereby maximize profits.

Factory farming Factory-farmed animals often experience an entire life of pain. Cruelty to farm animals usually has the elements of an intentional act towards them, or willful neglect, that causes unnecessary suffering, in that it affects their life, health or comfort.

Factory farming The use of animals for food is the largest direct cause of animal abuse and suffering today. From the standpoint of utilitarianism, It is morally unacceptable to cause serious suffering to animals for trivial reasons.

Factory farming The suffering caused by factory farms is not justified by the human desire for meat. The principle of equal consideration of interests requires that we abstain from eating and using factory-farmed products.

Factory farming We have no nutritional need for animal products. In fact, vegetarians are, on average, healthier than those who eat meat. There is no shortage of foods that we can eat that do not require an animal to suffer in a factory farm or slaughterhouse.

Factory farming Almost all of us agree that we should treat dogs and cats humanely. There are few opponents, for instance, of current anti-cruelty laws aimed at protecting pets from abuse. How about applying these laws to animals in factory farms?

Factory farming Do we believe that dogs and cats are so different from pigs, cows and chickens? Why do we think that pets deserve legal protection from human abuse, while animals in factory farms do not?

Factory farming What separates pets from the animals we abuse in factory farms is physical proximity. Our disregard for factory-farmed animals persists simply because we do not see them. Few people are aware of the ways in which they are mistreated.

Factory farming What, if anything, is wrong with the idea of breeding human babies as a source of food? These babies would not exist at all if we did not plan to use them like that, and anyway they are not intelligent enough to understand and object to what we are doing.

Factory farming Those who think that doing so is wrong would have to agree that breeding farm animals for food is morally objectionable too not only because of the pain and suffering inflicted on the animals but also because they are treated as mere objects for our own purposes.

Animal experimentation
Medical research on animals has helped to bring about treatment of diabetes, cancer, stroke and heart ailments. For example, dogs were used in the discovery of insulin and monkeys were used in the development of a polio vaccine.

While some instances of animal experimentation promise very great benefits to human beings (and occasionally, to animals as well) many instances of experimentation on animals do not produce benefits that outweigh the harms they inflict.

We should first ask whether the experiment is worth conducting. As experiments routinely involve a large number of animals with an uncertain benefit to any humans or nonhuman animals, in most cases these experiments are not justified.

Many experiments are unnecessary because alternative methods of investigation are available, or yield results that cannot be reliably extrapolated to cases involving human beings.

The use of animals in biomedical research is often unnecessary, as in testing of cosmetics. There are alternatives that can supplant animal testing, such as computer modeling, animal tissue testing, genetic research, and stem cell experimentation.

Animal research is unreliable and sometime counterproductive. For instance, the link between smoking and lung cancer was discovered by the British scientist Sir Richard Doll in the 1950s by means of a study of human lung cancer patients in twenty London hospitals.

After Doll’s theory was published, animal researchers tested it by trying to reproduce the carcinogenic effects of smoking in animals. Doll’s findings were dismissed because these animal experiments failed to demonstrate the link between tobacco use and cancer.

Some of this animal research was funded by tobacco manufacturers. Doll’s important discovery was hindered and delayed by animal research, thus delaying the health warning to humans and resulting in millions more unnecessary deaths.

For experiments that are intended to yield knowledge about human beings, such as what medicines may benefit us, or what substances may harm us, the data obtained would be far more reliable if the experimental subjects were human beings rather than animals.

According to the animal rights position, the use of animals in experiments is a clear violation of their rights – they are being used as a mere means to some end. Thus, animal rights proponents are in favor of the abolition of animal experimentation.

Many animals are used in experiments because they are so like us – this makes them good models of human conditions in medicine. But if these animals are so like us, why do we treat them so differently?

If we believe it is morally unjustifiable to use ‘marginal’ human beings (e.g. infants or the mentally retarded) in experiments, why is it permissible to use animals of a similar mental or psychological capability?

The dominant ethical position worldwide today is that animal experimentation should cause as little suffering to animals as possible, and that such tests should not be performed unless they are necessary.

Animal Rights and Animal Ethics

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