01. 07. 2021.

Animal
Rights
 
 
First, we will consider the
traditional view, which is that animals have no rights. 
Proponents of this view do not claim that it
is permissible to cause pointless
animal suffering, but they do insist that we
have no obligations to the animals
themselves.
 
Kant “Why We Have No Obligations to Animals”
 
Immanuel Kant was an
opponent of utilitarianism who wrote 70 years before
Mill.  We will discuss his theory in more detail in
the coming weeks.
 
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
(the formula of the end in itself):
 
Act as to treat
humanity, both in your own person, and in the person of
every other, always at
the same time as an end, never simply as a means.
 
Basically, this means that
we should respect people by not using them in ways
they would not consent
to.  We should respect people because
they are
autonomous:  Autonomy is
the freedom that human beings have to pursue their
own ends (goals).  Kant believed that autonomy was extremely
valuable, but in
order to have it one must have free will, which requires
having self-
consciousness and the capacity to be guided by reason.  But animals, according
to Kant, are not
autonomous.  Therefore, the Categorical
Imperative does not
apply to them.
 
“Animals
are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an
end.  The end is man.”
 
Thus, we have no direct
duties to animals.  That is, we have no
duty to respect
or foster the ends of animals. 
However:
 
“If
any acts of animals are analogous to human acts and spring from the
same
principles, we have duties towards the animals because thus we
cultivate the
corresponding duties towards human beings.”
 
Our duties to animals are
indirect, and derive from our to duty to respect and
foster the ends of
humanity (the categorical imperative).  This is the traditional
“animal rights”
doctrine.
 
“If
he is not to stifle his own feelings, he must practice kindness towards
animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings
with
men.  We can judge the heart of a man by
his treatment of animals.”
 
Kant’s contention was that
cruelty to animals leads to cruelty to humans. 
Thus,
it is in the self-interest of humanity to treat animals humanely,
at least most of

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01. 07. 2021. V

the time.  Kant’s view

was that we should refrain from pointless cruelty to
animals.  Since animals are here only to serve man,
causing animal suffering is
justified whenever it suits our interests.  For example:
 
“Vivisectionists,
who use living animals for their experiments, certainly act
cruelly, although
their aim is praiseworthy, and they can justify their
cruelty, since animals
must be regarded as man’s instruments; but any
such cruelty for sport cannot be
justified.”
 
Note that Kant recognizes
here that animals do suffer.  This
distinguishes him
from those who believed that animals are unfeeling
automatons.
 
According to Kant, Cruelty
to animals is justified in cases where the benefits to
humans outweigh the harm
to humans.  He believed that the
scientific value of
animal experimentation outweighs the negative effects on
the scientists in their
dealings with others. 
Notice that this consequentialist reasoning is available to
Kant only
because we have no duties to animals. 
Rights always trump
consequences, on Kant’s theory.
 
 
Carl Cohen, “Why Animals Have No Rights”
 
 
“A
right is a claim, or potential claim, that one party may exercise against
another.”

“The differing targets,

contents, and sources of rights, and their inevitable conflict, together
weave
a tangled web. Notwithstanding all such complications, this much is clear about
rights in
general: they are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a
community of moral agents. 
Rights
arise, and can be intelligibly defended, only among beings who actually do, or
can, make
moral claims against one another. Whatever else rights may be,
therefore, they are necessarily
human; their possessors are persons, human
beings.”

    
“[Nonhuman
animals] are not beings of a kind capable of exercising or responding to moral
claims. Animals therefore have no rights, and they can have none…The holders of
rights must
have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty, governing all
including themselves. In applying
such rules, the holders of rights must
recognize possible conflicts between what is in their own
interest and what is
just.”

    
“Humans have
such moral capabilities. They are in this sense self-legislative, are members
of
communities governed by moral rules, and do possess rights. Animals do not
have such moral
capacities. They are not morally self-legislative, cannot
possibly be members of a truly moral
community, and therefore cannot possess
rights. In conducting research on animal subjects,
therefore, we do not violate
their rights, because they have none to violate.”

            
A common objection,
which deserves a response, may be paraphrased as follows:

"If having rights requires being able to make

moral claims, to grasp and apply
moral laws, then many humans -- the
brain-damaged, the comatose, the senile -
- who plainly lack those capacities
must be without rights. But that is absurd.
This proves [the critic concludes]
that rights do not depend on the presence of
moral capacities."

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01. 07. 2021. V

    
This
objection fails; it mistakenly treats an essential feature of humanity as
though it were a
screen for sorting humans…The issue is one of kind. Humans are
of such a kind that they may
be the subject of experiments only with their
voluntary consent. The choices they make freely
must be respected. Animals are
of such a kind that it is impossible for them, in principle, to give
or
withhold voluntary consent or to make a moral choice.

    
A second objection, also often made, may be paraphrased as follows:

"Capacities will not succeed in distinguishing

humans from the other animals.
Animals also reason; animals also communicate
with one another; animals also
care passionately for their young; animals also
exhibit desires and preferences. 
Features of moral relevance -
rationality, interdependence, and love -- are not
exhibited uniquely by human
beings.  Therefore [this critic
concludes], there can
be no solid moral distinction between humans and other
animals."

    
This
criticism misses the central point. It is not the ability to communicate or to
reason, or
dependence on one another, or care for the young, or the exhibition
of preference, or any such
behavior that marks the critical divide. … Actors
subject to moral judgment must be capable of
grasping the generality of an
ethical premise in a practical syllogism. Humans act immorally
often enough,
but only they -- never wolves or monkeys -- can discern, by applying some moral
rule to the facts of a case, that a given act ought or ought not to be
performed.

    
… Does a lion have a right to eat a baby zebra?  Does a baby zebra have a right not to be
eaten? Such questions,
mistakenly invoking the concept of right where it does not belong, do not
make
good sense. Those who condemn biomedical research because it violates
"animal rights"
commit the same blunder."

It does not
follow from this, however, that we are morally free to do anything we please to
animals. Certainly not. In our dealings with animals, as in our dealings with
other human beings,
we have obligations that do not arise from claims against
us based on rights. Rights entail
obligations, but many of the things one ought
to do are in no way tied to another's entitlement.
Rights and obligations are
not reciprocals of one another, and it is a serious mistake to suppose
that
they are.

 
Cohen’s argument that
animals don’t have rights:
 
1)           A right is a claim
that one party may exercise against another.
 
2)           Rights exist only
among beings who can make moral claims against
one another.
 
3)           The attributes of human beings that give
rise to their ability to make
moral claims against others are lacking in
animals.  These attributes are
intellectual, and include the ability to understand ethical principles and
guide one’s actions accordingly.
 
4)           Therefore, animals
cannot make moral claims against others.
_________________________________________________________________
                 
5)           Therefore, animals
do not have rights.
 
 
 

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01. 07. 2021. V

 
The Basic
Principle of Equality
 
 
BPE:  The interests
of all persons are deserving of
equal consideration.
 
This is widely regarded as
the ethical foundation for equal legal rights among
persons.  There are different ways in which we might
give people “equal”
consideration, and these give rise to different forms of
equality.
 

Maximum equal liberty*                                         →   

libertarianism
Slogan: “My freedom ends where yours begins.”
 
Equal liberty and equal opportunity               → 
liberalism
Slogan: “Level the playing field.”
 
Equal
liberty, opportunity, and outcomes →    radical
egalitarianism
Slogan: “No one deserves more than anyone else.”
 
Each person’s happiness counts equally →  
utilitarianism
Slogan: “Maximize happiness, everyone
considered.”
 
 
*Note that maximizing equal
liberty is not the same as maximizing liberty. 
One
way to maximize liberty might be to enslave certain people so that
others would
have more freedom to do as they please.  But this would not be equal liberty.
 
 
Utilitarians are egalitarian
in that they count everyone’s happiness equally.  As
we have seen, this doesn’t imply that everyone is owed an equal
amount of
happiness!
 
A utilitarian would say that
we have one basic interest, and that
is to be happy
and avoid unhappiness. 
All other interests would derive from this basic interest. 
Mill’s definition (pleasure and the absence
of pain) will serve well enough for our
purposes.

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01. 07. 2021. V

 
Utilitarianism does not have
any built-in provisions for recognizing rights. 
(Jeremy Bentham referred to rights as “nonsense on stilts”.)  It is somewhat
ironic, then, that Peter
Singer uses utilitarianism as the basis for arguing that
animals have rights.
 
 
 
Peter Singer, “All Animals are Equal”
 
 
Speciesism:  The belief
that the interests of (a member of) one’s own species
count for more than the
interests of (a member of) another species.
 
Singer likens “speciesism”
to racism and sexism.  He asks:  What is the ethical
basis for opposition to
racism and sexism?
 
An answer he rejects:  The sexes and all of the different races are
equal with
respect to their intellectual and moral capacities.
 
There are two problems with
this response.
 
(1)  Even if the sexes and races are all equal in
these respects, it is still not true
that individuals are.  For example, some people have greater
intellectual
capacities than others. 
Does it follow that those with greater capacities should
be given more
consideration than those with less?  No.
(IQ example)  So,
factual equality
between groups does not establish equal rights for individuals.
 
(2)  It suggests that if the sexes and races were
not equal in these respects--if
there were a difference, on the average,
between two groups--then sexism or
racism would be justified.  But racism implies that someone belonging to
a
certain race is owed less moral consideration than someone of another race. 
Why would racism be justified by there being
differences—on the average—
between groups? 
It wouldn’t.
 
Singer claims that the real
basis for opposition to racism, sexism or elitism is not
that individuals or
groups are in fact equal in terms of their abilities, but that their
interests count equally.

Equality and the interests of animals

 
BPE extended to animals: 
 
The interests of all
beings are deserving of equal consideration.
 

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01. 07. 2021. V

“If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for

refusing to take that
suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature
of the being, the principle
of equality requires that its suffering be counted
equally with the like suffering—
in so far as rough comparisons can be made—of
any other being. If a being is
not capable of suffering, or of experiencing
enjoyment or happiness, there is
nothing to be taken into account. This is why
the limit of sentience (using the
term as a convenient, if not strictly
accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer
or experience enjoyment or
happiness) is the only defensible boundary of
concern for the interests of
others. To mark this boundary by some characteristic
like intelligence or
rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not
choose some other
characteristic, like skin color?”

 
The capacity for suffering
and enjoyment is both necessary and sufficient for
having interests.
 
For Singer, a being has
rights if and only if it has interests; it need not have
autonomy, membership
in a community, the ability to respect the rights of others,
a sense of
justice, etc.
 
Singer’s view seems to be
that what matters is not who or what suffers, but the
suffering itself.  If the suffering itself is equal, then our
concern for that suffering
ought to be equal. 
This follows from the idea that suffering is intrinsically bad.
 
Singer concludes that
“speciesism” is unjustified.
 
What follows is not that
animals have the same rights as humans, but that their
interests should be
given equal consideration.  Because they
have different
capacities they will have different rights.  “Since dogs can’t vote, it is
meaningless to
talk of their right to vote.”
 
Question:  What if dogs did have the capacity to vote? 
Should they then have
the right to vote?  Twelve year olds have the capacity to vote..
 
On Factory Farming...
 
Having argued that the
interests of animals deserve equal consideration, Singer
goes on to argue that
factory farming is unjust discrimination against animals:
 

“It is not merely the act of

killing that indicates what we are ready to do to other
species in order to
gratify our tastes. The suffering we inflict on the animals
while they are
alive is perhaps an even clearer indication of our speciesism than
the fact
that we are prepared to kill them. In order to have meat on the table at a
price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production
that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire
durations of their lives. Animals are treated like machines that convert fodder
into flesh, and any innovation that results in a higher "conversion
ratio" is liable
to be adopted…

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01. 07. 2021. V

Since, as l have said, none of these

practices cater for anything more than our
pleasures of taste, our practice
of rearing and killing other animals in order to
eat them is a clear instance of
the sacrifice of the most important interests of
other beings in order to
satisfy trivial interests of our own. To avoid speciesism
we must stop this
practice, and each of us has a moral obligation to cease
supporting the
practice.”

 
On Animal Experimentation...
 
Singer objects to
experimentation that causes harm to animals on the same
grounds.  Such should be undertaken only in cases
where an experiment that
caused similar harm to humans would be justified.
 
(tacit) objection:  A typical human would suffer more than, say, a rat, from the
same
kind of stimulus (e.g. an electric shock) because a typical human being is
more
self-aware, has a sense of dignity and self-worth, would experience more
emotional suffering, etc.  Moreover, a
typical human has a family that would
suffer greatly from his/her captivity and
torture.
 
(tacit) reply:  In that case the harm is not similar.  So it is true that it would be
worse to
shock a human than a rat, other things being equal.
 
However, the harm would be
similar in a case where the human is an infant
orphan with irreversible brain
damage preventing further mental development. 
We should be willing to shock the rat only in cases where we are willing
to shock
the infant.
 
Singer thinks that most
animal experimentation that harms its subjects should
be eliminated on these
grounds.  He thinks that such
experimentation seldom
has enough utility value to justify the suffering it
causes.
 
Singer’s main argument:
 
1)  Suffering is intrinsically bad.
 
2)  If suffering is intrinsically bad, then what is morally relevant
is not who or
what suffers, but the suffering itself.
 
3)  Therefore, the suffering of all beings is deserving of equal
consideration.
 
4)  Therefore, we ought to cause suffering to animals only in cases
where
causing an equal amount of suffering to humans would be justified.
 
5)  The factory farming of animals would not be justified if it
caused an equal
amount of suffering to humans instead.
 

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6)  Most experiments that cause suffering to animals would not be

justified if
they caused an equal amount of suffering to humans instead.
 
7)  Therefore, the factory farming of animals is morally wrong, and
most
experiments that cause suffering to animals are morally wrong.
 
Questions, comments for Discussion
 
·  Is it just the suffering of animals that
Singer objects to, or does he also object
to the shortening of their
lives?  A utilitarian might object to
the former but not
the latter, which would leave room for humane factory
farming.
 
·  Would Singer object to altering animals so
that they do not suffer from factory
farming? 
(Douglas Adams’ example from “Restaurant at the End of the
Universe”,
genetic engineering example)
 
 
Singer says that sentience
implies moral significance:  “To mark
this boundary
by some other characteristic like intelligence or rationality
would be to mark it in
an arbitrary manner. 
Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?”
 
·  Many philosophers would take issue with this
statement, and consider it
question-begging. 
Why think that any other characteristic would mark an
arbitrary
boundary?  It is one thing to say that
equal suffering counts equally, but
it is another thing to say that it is the
only thing that counts.
 
Suppose we agree, with
Singer, that equal suffering counts equally. 
We can still
maintain that there
are other things that count, such as our obligation to treat
autonomous
agents with dignity, an obligation we don’t have to animals.
 
·  Perhaps Kant’s argument against animal
cruelty can explain why experiments
on the brain damaged are more suspect than
experiments on animals.  If cruelty
to
animals has some tendency to foster cruelty to humans, then cruelty to the
brain-damaged can be expected to have a greater tendency to foster cruelty to
humans.
 
· Some animal
experimentation has great utility value. 
Virtually every vaccine,
medical procedure, etc. was developed with the
help of animals, would have
been difficult to develop otherwise, and would have
required human suffering in
the place of animal suffering.  Do viable substitutions exist in most
cases?  This
seems doubtful, especially
in new forms of research.
 
· Suppose that a house is
burning and we have just enough time to save (a) an
orphan, or (b) a family of
rats.  Does Singer’s position imply that
we should save
the rats?
 
If it doesn’t, if one
orphan’s interests outweigh those of a large number of rats
(1,000+ rats) then
does this suggest that animal research can be justified?

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· Singer follows the lead
of Jeremy Bentham.  But Mill contended
that the higher
faculties give rise to higher quality pleasures.  Higher quality pleasures count for
much more
than lower quality.  Since humans, but
not animals, are capable of
higher quality pleasures, this would seem to imply
that the interests of humans
count for more than those of animals, for
Mill.  The higher faculties of humans
are morally significant not only because those who have them experience
greater
happiness and suffering, but also because they lead to accomplishments
that can
create even greater happiness in the future.
 
 
· How would Singer
respond to a social contract theorist who argues that we
have no obligations to
animals because they aren’t part of the social contract?

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