the fact that common sense thinking is deeply divided on it. Animals
exist on the borderline of our moral concepts; the result is that we
sometimes find ourselves according them a strong moral status, while
at others denying them any kind of moral status at all. For example,
public outrage is strong when knowledge of such operations as puppy
mills is made available; the thought here is that dogs deserve much
more consideration than the operators of such places give them.
However, when it is pointed out that the conditions in a factory farm
are as bad as, if not much worse than, the conditions in a puppy mill,
the usual response is that those affected are "just animals" after
all, and do not merit our concern. This disparity of thought gives
rise to a philosophical question: what place should animals have in an
acceptable moral system?
1. Indirect Theories
On indirect theories, animals do not warrant our moral concern on
their own, but may warrant concern only in so far as they are
appropriately related to human beings. The various kinds of indirect
theories to be discussed are Worldview/Religious Theories, Kantian
Theories, Cartesian Theories, and Contractualist Theories. The
implications these sorts of theories have for the proper treatment of
animals will be explored after that. Finally, two common methods of
arguing against indirect theories will be discussed.
a. Worldview/Religious Theories
Some philosophers deny that animals warrant direct moral concern due
to religious or philosophical theories of the nature of the world and
the proper place of its inhabitants. One of the earliest and clearest
expressions of this kind of view comes to us from Aristotle (384-322
B.C.E.). According to Aristotle, there is a natural hierarchy of
living beings. The different levels are determined by the abilities
present in the beings due to their natures. While plants, animals, and
human beings are all capable of taking in nutrition and growing, only
animals and human beings are capable of conscious experience. This
means that plants, being inferior to animals and human beings, have
the function of serving the needs of animals and human beings.
Likewise, human beings are superior to animals because human beings
have the capacity for using reason to guide their conduct, while
animals lack this ability and must instead rely on instinct. It
follows, therefore, that the function of animals is to serve the needs
of human beings. This, according to Aristotle, is "natural and
expedient" (Regan and Singer, 1989: 4-5).
Following Aristotle, the Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274) argues that since only beings that are rational are
capable of determining their actions, they are the only beings towards
which we should extend concern "for their own sakes" (Regan and
Singer, 1989: 6-12). Aquinas believes that if a being cannot direct
its own actions then others must do so; these sorts of beings are
merely instruments. Instruments exist for the sake of people that use
them, not for their own sake. Since animals cannot direct their own
actions, they are merely instruments and exist for the sake of the
human beings that direct their actions. Aquinas believes that his view
follows from the fact that God is the last end of the universe, and
that it is only by using the human intellect that one can gain
knowledge and understanding of God. Since only human beings are
capable of achieving this final end, all other beings exist for the
sake of human beings and their achievement of this final end of the
universe.
Remnants of these sorts of views remain in justifications for
discounting the interests of animals on the basis of the food chain.
On this line of thought, if one kind of being regularly eats another
kind of being, then the first is said to be higher on the food chain.
If one being is higher than another on the food chain, then it is
natural for that being to use the other in the furtherance of its
interests. Since this sort of behavior is natural, it does not require
any further moral justification.
b. Kantian Theories
Closely related to Worldview/Religious theories are theories such as
Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804). Kant developed a highly influential moral
theory according to which autonomy is a necessary property to be the
kind of being whose interests are to count direclty in the moral
assessment of actions (Kant, 1983, 1956). According to Kant, morally
permissible actions are those actions that could be willed by all
rational individuals in the circumstances. The important part of his
conception for the moral status of animals is his reliance on the
notion of willing. While both animals and human beings have desires
that can compel them to action, only human beings are capable of
standing back from their desires and choosing which course of action
to take. This ability is manifested by our wills. Since animals lack
this ability, they lack a will, and therefore are not autonomous.
According to Kant, the only thing with any intrinsic value is a good
will. Since animals have no wills at all, they cannot have good wills;
they therefore do not have any intrinsic value.
Kant's theory goes beyond the Worldview/Religious theories by relying
on more general philosophical arguments about the nature of morality.
Rather than simply relying on the fact that it is "natural" for
rational and autonomous beings to use non-rational beings as they see
fit, Kant instead provides an argument for the relevance of
rationality and autonomy. A theory is a Kantian theory, then, if it
provides an account of the properties that human beings have and
animals lack that warrants our according human beings a very strong
moral status while denying animals any kind of moral status at all.
Kant's own theory focused on the value of autonomy; other Kantian
theories focus on such properties as being a moral agent, being able
to exist in a reciprocal relation with other human beings, being able
to speak, or being self-aware.
c. Cartesian Theories
Another reason to deny that animals deserve direct concern arises from
the belief that animals are not conscious, and therefore have no
interests or well-being to take into consideration when considering
the effects of our actions. Someone that holds this position might
agree that if animals were conscious then we would be required to
consider their interests to be directly relevant to the assessment of
actions that affect them. However, since they lack a welfare, there is
nothing to take directly into account when acting.
One of the clearest and most forceful denials of animal consciousness
is developed by Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who argues that animals
are automata that might act as if they are conscious, but really are
not so (Regan and Singer, 1989: 13-19). Writing during the time when a
mechanistic view of the natural world was replacing the Aristotelian
conception, Descartes believed that all of animal behavior could be
explained in purely mechanistic terms, and that no reference to
conscious episodes was required for such an explanation. Relying on
the principle of parsimony in scientific explanation (commonly
referred to as Occam's Razor) Descartes preferred to explain animal
behavior by relying on the simplest possible explanation of their
behavior. Since it is possible to explain animal behavior without
reference to inner episodes of awareness, doing so is simpler than
relying on the assumption that animals are conscious, and is therefore
the preferred explanation.
Descartes anticipates the response that his reasoning, if applicable
to animal behavior, should apply equally well to human behavior. The
mechanistic explanation of behavior does not apply to human beings,
according to Descartes, for two reasons. First, human beings are
capable of complex and novel behavior. This behavior is not the result
of simple responses to stimuli, but is instead the result of our
reasoning about the world as we perceive it. Second, human beings are
capable of the kind of speech that expresses thoughts. Descartes was
aware that some animals make sounds that might be thought to
constitute speech, such as a parrot's "request" for food, but argued
that these utterances are mere mechanically induced behaviors. Only
human beings can engage in the kind of speech that is spontaneous and
expresses thoughts.
Descartes' position on these matters was largely influenced by his
philosophy of mind and ontology. According to Descartes, there are two
mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive kinds of entities or
properties: material or physical entities on the one hand, and mental
entities on the other. Although all people are closely associated with
physical bodies, they are not identical with their bodies. Rather,
they are identical with their souls, or the immaterial, mental
substance that constitutes their consciousness. Descartes believed
that both the complexity of human behavior and human speech requires
the positing of such an immaterial substance in order to be explained.
However, animal behavior does not require this kind of assumption;
besides, Descartes argued, "it is more probable that worms and flies
and caterpillars move mechanically than that they all have immortal
souls" (Regan and Singer, 1989: 18).
More recently, arguments against animal consciousness have been
resurfacing. One method of arguing against the claim that animals are
conscious is to point to the flaws of arguments purporting to claim
that animals are conscious. For example, Peter Harrison has recently
argued that the Argument from Analogy, one of the most common
arguments for the claim that animals are conscious, is hopelessly
flawed (Harrison, 1991). The Argument from Analogy relies on the
similarities between animals and human beings in order to support the
claim that animals are conscious. The similarities usually cited by
proponents of this argument are similarities in behavior, similarities
in physical structures, and similarities in relative positions on the
evolutionary scale. In other words, both human beings and animals
respond in the same way when confronted with "pain stimuli"; both
animals and human beings have brains, nerves, neurons, endorphins, and
other structures; and both human beings and animals are relatively
close to each other on the evolutionary scale. Since they are similar
to each other in these ways, we have good reason to believe that
animals are conscious, just as are human beings.
Harrison attacks these points one by one. He points out that so-called
pain-behavior is neither necessary nor sufficient for the experience
of pain. It is not necessary because the best policy in some instances
might be to not show that you are in pain. It is not sufficient since
amoebas engage in pain behavior, but we do not believe that they can
feel pain. Likewise, we could easily program robots to engage in
pain-behavior, but we would not conclude that they feel pain. The
similarity of animal and human physical structures is inconclusive
because we have no idea how, or even if, the physical structure of
human beings gives rise to experiences in the first place.
Evolutionary considerations are not conclusive either, because it is
only pain behavior, and not the experience of pain itself, that would
be advantageous in the struggle for survival. Harrison concludes that
since the strongest argument for the claim that animals are conscious
fails, we should not believe that they are conscious.
Peter Carruthers has suggested that there is another reason to doubt
that animals are conscious Carruthers, 1989, 1992). Carruthers begins
by noting that not all human experiences are conscious experiences.
For example, I may be thinking of an upcoming conference while driving
and not ever consciously "see" the truck in the road that I swerve to
avoid. Likewise, patients that suffer from "blindsight" in part of
their visual field have no conscious experience of seeing anything in
that part of the field. However, there must be some kind of experience
in both of these cases since I did swerve to avoid the truck, and must
have "seen" it, and because blindsight patients can catch objects that
are thrown at them in the blindsighted area with a relatively high
frequency. Carruthers then notes that the difference between conscious
and non-conscious experiences is that conscious experiences are
available to higher-order thoughts while non-conscious experiences are
not. (A higher-order thought is a thought that can take as its object
another thought.) He thus concludes that in order to have conscious
experiences one must be able to have higher-order thoughts. However,
we have no reason to believe that animals have higher-order thoughts,
and thus no reason to believe that they are conscious.
d. Contractualist Theories
Contractualist Theories of morality construe morality to be the set of
rules that rational individuals would choose under certain specified
conditions to govern their behavior in society. These theories have
had a long and varied history; however, the relationship between
contractualism and animals was not really explored until after John
Rawls published his A Theory of Justice. In that work, Rawls argues
for a conception of justice as fairness. Arguing against Utilitarian
theories of justice, Rawls believes that the best conception of a just
society is one in which the rules governing that society are rules
that would be chosen by individuals from behind a veil of ignorance.
The veil of ignorance is a hypothetical situation in which individuals
do not know any particular details about themselves, such as their
sex, age, race, intelligence, abilities, etc. However, these
individuals do know general facts about human society, such as facts
about psychology, economics, human motivation, etc. Rawls has his
imagined contractors be largely self-interested; each person's goal is
to select the rules that will benefit them the most. Since they do not
know who exactly they are, they will not choose rules that benefit any
one individual, or segment of society, over another (since they may
find themselves to be in the harmed group). Instead, they will choose
rules that protect, first and foremost, rational, autonomous
individuals.
Although Rawls argues for this conception as a conception of justice,
others have tried to extend it to cover all of morality. For example,
in The Animals Issue, Peter Carruthers argues for a conception of
morality that is based largely on Rawls's work. Carruthers notes that
if we do so extend Rawls's conception, animals will have no direct
moral standing. Since the contractors are self-interested, but do not
know who they are, they will accept rules that protect rational
individuals. However, the contractors know enough about themselves to
know that they are not animals. They will not adopt rules that give
special protection to animals, therefore, since this would not further
their self-interest. The result is that rational human beings will be
directly protected, while animals will not.
e. Implications for the Treatment of Animals
If indirect theories are correct, then we are not required to take the
interests of animals to be directly relevant to the assessment of our
actions when we are deciding how to act. This does not mean, however,
that we are not required to consider how our actions will affect
animals at all. Just because something is not directly morally
considerable does not imply that we can do whatever we want to it. For
example, there are two straightforward ways in which restrictions
regarding the proper treatment of animals can come into existence.
Consider the duties we have towards private property. I cannot destroy
your car if I desire to do so because it is your property, and by
harming it I will thereby harm you. Also, I cannot go to the town
square and destroy an old tree for fun since this may upset many
people that care for the tree.
Likewise, duties with regard to animals can exist for these reasons. I
cannot harm your pets because they belong to you, and by harming them
I will thereby harm you. I also cannot harm animals in public simply
for fun since doing so will upset many people, and I have a duty to
not cause people undue distress. These are two straightforward ways in
which indirect theories will generate duties with regard to animals.
There are two other ways that even stronger restrictions regarding the
proper treatment of animals might be generated from indirect theories.
First, both Immanuel Kant and Peter Carruthers argue that there can be
more extensive indirect duties to animals. These duties extend not
simply to the duty to refrain from harming the property of others and
the duty to not offend animal lovers. Rather, we also have a duty to
refrain from being cruel to them. Kant argues:
Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards
humanity. Animal nature has analogies to human nature, and by doing
our duties to animals in respect of manifestations of human nature, we
indirectly do our duty to humanity…. We can judge the heart of a man
by his treatment of animals (Regan and Singer, 1989: 23-24).
Likewise, Carruthers writes:
Such acts [as torturing a cat for fun] are wrong because they are
cruel. They betray an indifference to suffering that may manifest
itself…with that person's dealings with other rational agents. So
although the action may not infringe any rights…it remains wrong
independently of its effect on any animal lover (Carruthers, 1992:
153-54).
So although we need not consider how our actions affect animals
themselves, we do need to consider how our treatment of animals will
affect our treatment of other human beings. If being cruel to an
animal will make us more likely to be cruel to other human beings, we
ought not be cruel to animals; if being grateful to animal will help
us in being grateful to human beings then we ought to be grateful to
animals.
Second, there may be an argument for vegetarianism that does not rely
on considerations of the welfare of animals at all. Consider that for
every pound of protein that we get from an animal source, we must feed
the animals, on average, twenty-three pounds of vegetable protein.
Many people on the planet today are dying of easily treatable diseases
largely due to a diet that is below starvation levels. If it is
possible to demonstrate that we have a duty to help alleviate the
suffering of these human beings, then one possible way of achieving
this duty is by refraining from eating meat. The vegetable protein
that is used to feed the animals that wealthy countries eat could
instead be used to feed the human beings that live in such deplorable
conditions.
Of course, not all indirect theorists accept these results. However,
the point to be stressed here is that even granting that animals have
no direct moral status, we may have (possibly demanding) duties
regarding their treatment.
f. Two Common Arguments Against Indirect Theories
Two common arguments against indirect theories have seemed compelling
to many people. The first argument is The Argument from Marginal
Cases; the second is an argument against the Kantian account of
indirect duties to animals.
i. The Argument From Marginal Cases
The Argument from Marginal Cases is an argument that attempts to
demonstrate that if animals do not have direct moral status, then
neither do such human beings as infants, the senile, the severely
cognitively disabled, and other such "marginal cases" of humanity.
Since we believe that these sorts of human beings do have direct moral
status, there must be something wrong with any theory that claims they
do not. More formally, the argument is structured as follows:
1. If we are justified in denying direct moral status to animals
then we are justified in denying direct moral status to the marginal
cases.
2. We are not justified in denying direct moral status to the marginal cases.
3. Therefore we are not justified denying direct moral status to animals.
The defense of premise (1) usually goes something like this. If being
rational (or autonomous, or able to speak) is what permits us to deny
direct moral status to animals, then we can likewise deny that status
to any human that is not rational (or autonomous, able to speak,
etc.). This line of reasoning works for almost every property that has
been thought to warrant our denying direct moral status to animals.
Since the marginal cases are beings whose abilities are equal to, if
not less than, the abilities of animals, any reason to keep animals
out of the class of beings with direct moral status will keep the
marginal cases out as well.
There is one property that is immune to this line of argument, namely,
the property of being human. Some who adhere to Worldview/Religious
Views might reject this argument and maintain instead that it is
simply "natural" for human beings to be above animals on any moral
scale. However, if someone does so they must give up the claim that
human beings are above animals due to the fact that human beings are
more intelligent or rational than animals. It must be claimed instead
that being human is, in itself, a morally relevant property. Few in
recent times are willing to make that kind of a claim.
Another way to escape this line of argument is to deny the second
premise (Cf. Frey, 1980; Francis and Norman, 1978). This may be done
in a series of steps. First, it may be noted that there are very few
human beings that are truly marginal. For example, infants, although
not currently rational, have the potential to become rational. Perhaps
they should not be counted as marginal for that reason. Likewise, the
senile may have a direct moral status due to the desires they had when
they were younger and rational. Once the actual number of marginal
cases is appreciated, it is then claimed that it is not
counter-intuitive to conclude that the remaining individuals do not
have a direct moral status after all. Once again, however, few are
willing to accept that conclusion. The fact that a severely
cognitively disabled infant can feel pain seems to most to be a reason
to refrain from harming the infant.
ii. Problems with Indirect Duties to Animals
Another argument against indirect theories begins with the intuition
that there are some things that simply cannot be done to animals. For
example, I am not permitted to torture my own cat for fun, even if no
one else finds out about it. This intuition is one that any acceptable
moral theory must be able to accommodate. The argument against
indirect theories is that they cannot accommodate this intuition in a
satisfying way.
Both Kant and Carruthers agree that my torturing my own cat for fun
would be wrong. However, they believe it is wrong not because of the
harm to the cat, but rather because of the effect this act will have
on me. Many people have found this to be a very unsatisfying account
of the duty. Robert Nozick labels the bad effects of such an act moral
spillover, and asks:
Why should there be such a spillover? If it is, in itself,
perfectly all right to do anything at all to animals for any reason
whatsoever, then provided a person realizes the clear line between
animals and persons and keeps it in mind as he acts, why should
killing animals brutalize him and make him more likely to harm or kill
persons (Nozick, 1974: 36)?
In other words, unless it is wrong in itself to harm the animal, it is
hard to see why such an act would lead people to do other acts that
are likewise wrong. If the indirect theorist does not have a better
explanation for why it is wrong to torture a cat for fun, and as long
as we firmly believe such actions are wrong, then we will be forced to
admit that indirect theories are not acceptable.
Indirect theorists can, and have, responded to this line of argument
in three ways. First, they could reject the claim that the indirect
theorist's explanation of the duty is unsatisfactory. Second, they
could offer an alternative explanation for why such actions as
torturing a cat are wrong. Third, they could reject the claim that
those sorts of acts are necessarily wrong.
2. Direct but Unequal Theories
Most people accept an account of the proper moral status of animals
according to which the interests of animals count directly in the
assessment of actions that affect them, but do not count for as much
as the interests of human beings. Their defense requires two parts: a
defense of the claim that the interests of animals count directly in
the assessment of actions that affect them, and a defense of the claim
that the interests of animals do not count for as much as the
interests of human beings.
a. Why Animals have Direct Moral Status
The argument in support of the claim that animals have direct moral
status is rather simple. It goes as follows:
1. If a being is sentient then it has direct moral status.
2. (Most) animals are sentient
3. Therefore (most) animals have direct moral status.
"Sentience" refers to the capacity to experience episodes of
positively or negatively valenced awareness. Examples of positively
valenced episodes of awareness are pleasure, joy, elation, and
contentment. Examples of negatively valenced episodes of awareness are
pain, suffering, depression, and anxiety.
In support of premise (1), many argue that pain and pleasure are
directly morally relevant, and that there is no reason to discount
completely the pleasure or pain of any being. The argument from
analogy is often used in support of premise (2) (see the discussion of
this argument in section I, part C above). The argument from analogy
is also used in answering the difficult question of exactly which
animals are sentient. The general idea is that the justification for
attributing sentience to a being grows stronger the more analogous it
is to human beings.
People also commonly use the flaws of indirect theories as a reason to
support the claim that animals have direct moral status. Those that
believe both that the marginal cases have direct moral status and that
indirect theories cannot answer the challenge of the Argument from
Marginal Cases are led to support direct theories; those that believe
both that such actions as the torture of one's own cat for fun are
wrong and that indirect theories cannot explain why they are wrong are
also led to direct theories.
b. Why Animals are not Equal to Human Beings
The usual manner of justifying the claim that animals are not equal to
human beings is to point out that only humans have some property, and
then argue that that property is what confers a full and equal moral
status to human beings. Some philosophers have used the following
claims on this strategy: (1) only human beings have rights; (2) only
human beings are rational, autonomous, and self-conscious; (3) only
human beings are able to act morally; and (4) only human beings are
part of the moral community.
i. Only Human Beings Have Rights
On one common understanding of rights, only human beings have rights.
On this conception of rights, if a being has a right then others have
a duty to refrain from infringing that right; rights entail duties. An
individual that has a right to something must be able to 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 (Cf. McCloskey, 1979). Since animals
are not capable of representing themselves in this way, they cannot
have rights.
However, lacking rights does not entail lacking direct moral status;
although rights entail duties it does not follow that duties entail
rights. So although animals may have no rights, we may still have
duties to them. The significance of having a right, however, is that
rights act as "trumps" against the pursuit of utility. In other words,
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, raising animals for
food, and using animals for our entertainment in such places as rodeos
and zoos.
There are two points of contention with the above account of rights.
First, it has been claimed that if human beings have rights, then
animals will likewise have rights. For example, Joel Feinberg has
argued that all is required in order for a being to have a right is
that the being be capable of being represented as legitimately
pursuing the furtherance of its interests (Feinberg, 1974). The claim
that the being must be able to represent itself is too strong, thinks
Feinberg, for such a requirement will exclude infants, the senile, and
other marginal cases from the class of beings with rights. In other
words, Feinberg invokes yet another instance of the Argument from
Marginal Cases in order to support his position.
Second, it has been claimed that the very idea of rights needs to be
jettisoned. There are two reasons for this. First, philosophers such
as R. G. Frey have questioned the legitimacy of the very idea of
rights, echoing Bentham's famous claim that rights are "nonsense on
stilts" (Frey, 1980). Second, philosophers have argued that whether or
not a being will have rights will depend essentially on whether or not
it has some other lower-order property. For example, on the above
conception of rights, whether a being will have a right or not will
depend on whether it is able to represent itself as a being that is
legitimately pursuing the furtherance of its interests. 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. More generally, it has been argued
that if we wish to deny animals rights and claim that only human
beings have them, then we must focus not so much on rights, but rather
on what grounds them. For this reason, much of the recent literature
concerning animals and ethics focuses not so much on rights, but
rather on whether or not animals have certain other properties, and
whether the possession of those properties is a necessary condition
for equal consideration (Cf. DeGrazia, 1999).
ii. Only Human Beings are Rational, Autonomous, and Self-Conscious
Some people argue that only rational, autonomous, and self-conscious
beings deserve full and equal moral status; since only human beings
are rational, autonomous, and self-conscious, it follows that only
human beings deserve full and equal moral status. Once again, it is
not claimed that we can do whatever we like to animals; rather, the
fact that animals are sentient gives us reason to avoid causing them
unnecessary pain and suffering. However, when the interests of animals
and human beings conflict we are required to give greater weight to
the interests of human beings. This also has been used to justify such
practices as experimentation on animals, raising animals for food, and
using animals in such places as zoos and rodeos.
The attributes of rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness confer
a full and equal moral status to those that possess them because these
beings are the only ones capable of attaining certain values and
goods; these values and goods are of a kind that outweigh the kinds of
values and goods that non-rational, non-autonomous, and
non-self-conscious beings are capable of attaining. For example, 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 rather than be led by
blind instinct (Cf. Francis and Norman, 1978; Steinbock, 1978).
Furthermore, the values of appreciating art, literature, and the goods
that come with deep personal relationships all require one to be
rational, autonomous, and self-conscious. These values, and others
like them, are the highest values to us; they are what make our lives
worth living. As John Stuart Mill wrote, "Few human creatures would
consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of
the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures" (Mill, 1979). We find
the lives of beings that can experience these goods to be more
valuable, and hence deserving of more protection, than the lives of
beings that cannot.
iii. Only Human Beings Can Act Morally
Another reason for giving stronger preference to the interests of
human beings is that only human beings can act morally. This is
considered to be important because beings that can act morally are
required to sacrifice their interests for the sake of others. It
follows that those that do sacrifice their good for the sake of others
are owed greater concern from those that benefit from such sacrifices.
Since animals cannot act morally, they will not sacrifice their own
good for the sake of others, but will rather pursue their good even at
the expense of others. That is why human beings should give the
interests of other human beings greater weight than they do the
interests of animals.
iv. Only Human Beings are Part of the Moral Community
Finally, some claim that membership in the moral community is
necessary for full and equal moral status. The moral community is not
defined in terms of the intrinsic properties that beings have, but is
defined rather in terms of the important social relations that exist
between beings. For example, human beings can communicate with each
other in meaningful ways, can engage in economic, political, and
familial relationships with each other, and can also develop deep
personal relationships with each other. These kinds of relationships
require the members of such relationships to extend greater concern to
other members of these relationships than they do to others in order
for the relationships to continue. Since these relationships are what
constitute our lives and the value contained in them, we are required
to give greater weight to the interests of human beings than we do to
animals.
3. Moral Equality Theories
The final theories to discuss are the moral equality theories. On
these theories, not only do animals have direct moral status, but they
also have the same moral status as human beings. According to
theorists of this kind, there can be no legitimate reason to place
human beings and animals in different moral categories, and so
whatever grounds our duties to human beings will likewise ground
duties to animals.
a. Singer and the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests
Peter Singer has been very influential in the debate concerning
animals and ethics. The publication of his Animal Liberation marked
the beginning of a growing and increasingly powerful movement in both
the United States and Europe.
Singer attacks the views of those who wish to give the interests of
animals less weight than the interests of human beings. He argues that
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. However, doing this goes against
the intuitively plausible and commonly accepted claim that all human
beings are equal. Singer concludes that we must instead extend a
principle of equal consideration of interests to animals as well.
Singer describes that principle as follows:
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, 1993: 21).
Singer defends this principle with two arguments. The first is a
version of the Argument from Marginal Cases; the second is the
Sophisticated Inegalitarian Argument.
i. The Argument from Marginal Cases (Again)
Singer's version of the Argument from Marginal Cases is slightly
different from the version listed above. It runs as follows:
1. In order to conclude that all and only human beings deserve a
full and equal moral status (and therefore that no animals deserve a
full and equal moral status), there must be some property P that all
and only human beings have that can ground such a claim.
2. Any P that only human beings have is a property that (some)
human beings lack (e.g., the marginal cases).
3. Any P that all human beings have is a property that (most)
animals have as well.
4. Therefore, there is no way to defend the claim that all and only
human beings deserve a full and equal moral status.
Singer does not defend his first premise, but does not need to; the
proponents of the view that all and only humans deserve a full and
equal moral status rely on it themselves (see the discussion of Direct
but Unequal Theories above). In support of the second premise, Singer
asks us to consider exactly what properties only humans have that can
ground such a strong moral status. Certain properties, such as being
human, having human DNA, or walking upright do not seem to be the kind
of properties that can ground this kind of status. For example, 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.
However, there are some properties which only human beings have which
have seemed to many to be able to ground a full and equal moral
status; for example, being rational, autonomous, or able to act
morally have all been used to justify giving a stronger status to
human beings than we do to animals. The problem with such a suggestion
is that not all human beings have these properties. So if this is what
grounds a full and equal moral status, it follows that not all human
beings are equal after all.
If we try to ensure that we choose a property that all human beings do
have that will be sufficient to ground a full and equal moral status,
we seemed to be pushed towards choosing something such as being
sentient, or being capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. Since
the marginal cases have this property, they would be granted a full
and equal moral status on this suggestion. However, if we choose a
property of this kind, animals will likewise have a full and equal
moral status since they too are sentient.
The attempt to grant all and only human beings a full and equal moral
status does not work according to Singer. We must either conclude that
not all human beings are equal, or we must conclude that not only
human beings are equal. Singer suggests that the first option is too
counter-intuitive to be acceptable; so we are forced to conclude that
all animals are equal, human or otherwise.
ii. The Sophisticated Inegalitarian Argument
Another argument Singer employs to refute the claim that all and only
human beings deserve a full and equal moral status focuses on the
supposed moral relevance of such properties as rationality, autonomy,
the ability to act morally, etc. Singer argues that 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 that is structurally analogous to such practices as racism and
sexism.
For example, the racist believes that all members of his race are more
intelligent and rational than all of the members of other races, and
thus assigns a greater moral status to the members of his race than he
does do the members of other races. However, the racist is wrong in
this factual judgment; it is not true that all members of any one race
are smarter than all members of any other. Notice, however, that the
mistake the racist is making is merely a factual mistake. His moral
principle that assigns moral status on the basis of intelligence or
rationality is not what has led him astray. Rather, it is simply his
assessment of how intelligence or rationality is distributed among
human beings that is mistaken.
If that were all that is wrong with racism and sexism, then a moral
theory according to which we give extra consideration to the very
smart and rational would be justified. In other words, we would be
justified in becoming, not racists, but sophisticated inegalitarians.
However, the sophisticated inegalitarian is just as morally suspect as
the racist is. Therefore, it follows that the racist is not morally
objectionable merely because of his views on how rationality and
intelligence are distributed among human beings; rather he is morally
objectionable because of the basis he uses to weigh the interests of
different individuals. How intelligent, rational, etc., a being is
cannot be the basis of his moral status; if it were, then the
sophisticated inegalitarian would be on secure ground.
Notice that in order for this argument to succeed, it must target
properties that admit of degrees. If someone argued that the basis of
human equality rested on the possession of a property that did not
admit of degrees, it would not follow that some human beings have that
property to a stronger degree than others, and the sophisticated
inegalitarian would not be justified. However, most of the properties
that are used in order to support the claim that all and only human
beings deserve a full and equal moral status are properties that do
admit of degrees. Such properties as being human or having human DNA
do not admit of degrees, but, as already mentioned, these properties
do not seem to be capable of supporting such a moral status.
iii. Practical Implications
In order to implement the Principle of Equal Consideration of
Interests in the practical sphere, we must be able to determine the
interests of the beings that will be affected by our actions, and we
must give similar interests similar weight. Singer concludes that
animals can experience pain and suffering by relying on the argument
from analogy (see the discussion of Cartesian Theories above). Since
animals can experience pain and suffering, they have an interest in
avoiding pain.
These facts require the immediate end to many of our practices
according to Singer. For example, animals that are raised for food in
factory farms live lives that are full of unimaginable pain and
suffering (Singer devotes an entire chapter of his book to documenting
these facts. He relies mainly on magazines published by the factory
farm business for these facts). Although human beings do satisfy their
interests by eating meat, Singer argues that the interests the animals
have in avoiding this unimaginable pain and suffering is greater than
the interests we have in eating food that tastes good. If we are to
apply the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests, we will be
forced to cease raising animals in factory farms for food. A failure
to do so is nothing other than speciesism, or giving preference to the
interests of our own species merely because of they are of our
species.
Singer does not unequivocally claim that we must not eat animals if we
are to correctly apply the Principle of Equal Consideration of
Interests. Whether we are required to refrain from painlessly killing
animals will depend on whether animals have an interest in continuing
to exist in the future. In order to have this interest, Singer
believes that a being must be able to conceive of itself as existing
into the future, and this requires a being to be self-conscious.
Non-self-conscious beings are not harmed by their deaths, according to
Singer, for they do not have an interest in continuing to exist into
the future.
Singer argues that we might be able to justify killing these sorts of
beings with The Replaceability Argument. On this line of thought, if
we kill a non-self-conscious being that was living a good life, then
we have lessened the overall amount of good in the world. This can be
made up, however, by bringing another being into existence that can
experience similar goods. In other words, non-self-conscious beings
are replaceable: killing one can be justified if doing so is necessary
to bring about the existence of another. Since the animals we rear for
food would not exist if we did not eat them, it follows that killing
these animals can be justified if the animals we rear for food live
good lives. However, in order for this line of argumentation to
justify killing animals, the animals must not only be
non-self-conscious, but they must also live lives that are worth
living, and their deaths must be painless. Singer expresses doubts
that all of these conditions could be met, and unequivocally claims
that they are not met by such places as factory farms.
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.
Likewise, hunting for sport, using animals in rodeos, keeping animals
confined in zoos wherein they are not able to engage in their natural
activities are all condemned by the use of the Principle of the Equal
Consideration of Interests.
b. Regan and Animal Rights
Tom Regan's seminal work, The Case for Animal Rights, is one of the
most influential works on the topic of animals and ethics. Regan
argues for the claim that animals have rights in just the same way
that human beings do. Regan believes it is a mistake to claim that
animals have an indirect moral status or an unequal status, and to
then infer that animals cannot have any rights. He also thinks it is a
mistake to ground an equal moral status on Utilitarian grounds, as
Singer attempts to do. According to Regan, we must conclude that
animals have the same moral status as human beings; furthermore, that
moral status is grounded on rights, not on Utilitarian principles.
Regan argues for his case by relying on the concept of inherent value.
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.
Regan relies on a version of the Argument from Marginal Cases in
arguing for this conclusion. He begins by asking what grounds human
rights. He rejects robust views that claim that a being must be
capable of representing itself as legitimately pursuing the
furtherance of its interests on the grounds that this conception of
rights implies that the marginal cases of humanity do not have rights.
However, since we think that these beings do have moral rights there
must be some other property that grounds these rights. According to
Regan, the only property that is common to both normal adult human
beings and the marginal cases is the property of being a
subject-of-a-life. A being that is a subject-of-a-life will:
have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the
future, including their own future; an emotional life together with
feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests; the
ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a
psychological identity over time; and an individual welfare in the
sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them,
logically independently of their utility for others, and logically
independently of their being the object of anyone else's interests
(Regan, 1983: 243).
This property is one that all of the human beings that we think
deserve rights have; however, it is a property that many animals
(especially mammals) have as well. So if these marginal cases of
humanity deserve rights, then so do these animals.
Although this position may seem quite similar to Singer's position
(see section III, part A above), Regan is careful to point to what he
perceives to be the flaws of Singer's Utilitarian theory. According to
Singer, we are required to count every similar interest equally in our
deliberation. However, by doing this we are focusing on the wrong
thing, Regan claims. What matters is the individual that has the
interest, not the interest itself. By focusing on interests
themselves, Utilitarianism will license the most horrendous actions.
For example, if it were possible to satisfy more interests by
performing experiments on human beings, then that is what we should do
on Utilitarian grounds. However, Regan believes this is clearly
unacceptable: any being with inherent value cannot be used merely as a
means.
This does not mean that Regan takes rights to be absolute. 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.
Given these considerations, Regan concludes that we must radically
alter the ways in which we treat animals. When we raise animals for
food, regardless of how they are treated and how they are killed, we
are using them as a means to our ends and not treating them as ends in
themselves. Thus, we may not raise animals for food. Likewise, when we
experiment on animals in order to advance human science, we are using
animals merely as a means to our ends. Similar thoughts apply to the
use of animals in rodeos and the hunting of animals.
4. Bibliography
a. Anthologies
* Miller, H. and W. Miller, eds. Ethics and Animals (Clifton, NJ:
Humana Press, 1983).
* Regan, T. and P. Singer, eds. Animal Rights and Human
Obligations 2/e (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989).
* Walters, K and Lisa Portmess, eds. Ethical Vegetarianism: From
Pythagoras to Peter Singer(Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1999).
b. Monographs
* Carruthers, Peter. The Animals Issue: Morality in Practice
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
* Clark, Stephen. The Moral Status of Animals (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1977).
* DeGrazia, David. Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral
Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
* Dombrowski, Daniel. Babies and Beasts: The Argument from
Marginal Cases. (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1997).
* Fox, Michael A. The Case for Animal Experimentation: An
Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective (Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1986).
* Frey, R. G. Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
* Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason (Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), originally published 1788.
* Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (New
York: Harper Torchbooks, 1956), originally published 1785.
* Midgley, Mary. Animals and Why They Matter (Athens, GA: The
University of Georgia Press, 1983).
* Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishers, 1979), originally published 1861.
* Noddings, Nell. Caring: A Feminist Approach to Ethics and Moral
Education (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1984).
* Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
* Pluhar, Evelyn. Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of
Human and Nonhuman Animals(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995).
* Rachels, James. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of
Darwinism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
* Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: The University
of California Press, 1983).
* Rodd, Rosemary. Biology, Ethics, and Animals (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990).
* Rollin, Bernard. The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal
Pain, and Science(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
* Sapontzis, S. F. Morals, Reasons, and Animals (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1987).
* Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, 2/e (New York: Avon Books, 1990).
* Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics, 2/e (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).
* Warren, Mary Anne. Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and
Other Living Things (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
c. Articles
* Carruthers, Peter. "Brute Experience", The Journal of Philosophy
86(1989): 258-69.
* Cigman, Ruth. "Death, Misfortune, and Species Inequality",
Philosophy and Public Affairs10(1981): 47-64.
* Cohen, Carl. "The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical
Research", The New England Journal of Medicine 315(1986): 865-70.
* DeGrazia, David. "Animal Ethics Around the Turn of the
Twenty-First Century", Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics 11(1999): 111-29.
* Diamond, Cora. "Eating Meat and Eating People", Philosophy
53(1978): 465-79.
* Feinberg, Joel. "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations",
in W. T. Blackstone, ed.,Philosophy and Environmental Crisis (Athens,
GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1974).
* Fox, Michael A. "Animal Experimentation: A Philosopher's
Changing Views", Between the Species 3(1987): 55-82.
* Francis, Leslie Pickering and Richard Norman. "Some Animals are
More Equal than Others",Philosophy 53(1978): 507-27.
* Goodpaster, Kenneth. "On Being Morally Considerable", The
Journal of Philosophy 75(1978): 308-25.
* Harrison, Peter. "Do Animals Feel Pain?", Philosophy 66(1991): 25-40.
* McCloskey, H. J. "Moral Rights and Animals", Inquiry 22(1979): 23-54.
* Miller, Peter. "Do Animals Have Interests Worthy of Our Moral
Interest?", Environmental Ethics5(1983): 319-33.
* Narveson, Jan. "Animal Rights", Canadian Journal of Philosophy
7(1977): 161-78.
* Steinbock, Bonnie. "Speciesism and the Idea of Equality",
Philosophy 53(1978): 247-56.
* Warren, Mary Anne. "Difficulties with the Strong Animal Rights
Position", Between the Species2(1987): 161-73.
* Williams, Meredith. "Rights, Interests, and Moral Equality",
Environmental Ethics 2(1980): 149-61.
* Wilson, Scott. "Carruthers and the Argument From Marginal
Cases", The Journal of Applied Philosophy 18(2001): 135-47.
* Wilson, Scott. "Indirect Duties to Animals", The Journal of
Value Inquiry, forthcoming.
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