Transcript The Ethics of Animal Use

THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL
USE
Animal use: some preliminaries
*What are some varieties of animal use?
*Human use of animals for food is perfectly natural.
Does its being natural make it morally permissible?
*Are some forms of use mutually beneficially?
*Are some uses practically necessary?
*What are some examples of animal use that are
prima facie morally wrong/unjust/exploitative?
The Catholic Tradition
Following St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas claimed
that animals and plants exist for our use and
consequently have no moral standing.
Anything goes? Not quite. Cruelty towards animals is
morally problematic insofar as it is likely to encourage
morally problematic character traits like viciousness. It
is not wrong in itself.
*Worries?
Beyond inter-personal ethics:
the need for ethical theory
Which of our practices of using animals are morally
justified (if any)?
To answer this question effectively, we need to know
what counts as a good moral justification. That is, we
need the correct ethical theory.
Further, we need to apply the theory correctly to the
matter at hand.
Moral standing
When does a creature have a moral status or
standing? That is, when is a creature such that it can
be morally wronged? The project: to settle this issue in
a principled, non-arbitrary, non-biased manner.
We will limit ourselves to the classic utilitarian
(Bentham, Mill, Singer) and deontological (Kant,
Regan) discussions of these issues.
The utilitarian tradition (Bentham)
“The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation
may acquire those rights which never could have been
withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The
French have already discovered that the blackness of skin is
no reason why a human being should be abandoned
without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come
one day to be recognized, that the number of legs…are
reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive
being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the
insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps, the
faculty for discourse? …the question is not, Can
they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Bentham’s criterion
*Does Bentham’s criterion for moral standing seem
arbitrary/contrived? Or does his inclusion of (at least
some) animals seem principled given his understanding
of what morality is all about?
*Do you worry at all that Bentham has set the bar too
low for moral standing?
*Do you think we sometimes have enough evidence to
make reasonable judgments about whether an animal
is suffering?
What is it to suffer?
Plausibly the capacity for suffering requires more than
the capacity to detect & respond to bodily damage.
(Plants have that!) And more than just failure to satisfy
a want/need.
*Does it require a negative attitude in the form of an
evaluative judgment?
*Does it require phenomenal consciousness?
The deontological tradition (Kant)
“The fact that the human being can have the representation
“I” raises him infinitely above all the other beings on earth.
By this he is a person....that is, a being altogether different
in rank and dignity from things, such as irrational animals,
with which one may deal and dispose at one’s discretion.”
“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…
but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity
which it is his duty to show towards mankind. If he is not to
stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards
animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in
his dealings with men.”
Two readings of Kant
Kant’s emphasis on autonomy/personhood/rational
agency can be interpreted in at least two ways:
1.
Objective worth interpretation. The moral standing
of persons is due to their having a special type of
worth/dignity/value. (cf. Regan)
2.
Constructivist/contractualist interpretation. The
moral standing of persons is due to their capacity
to reflectively endorse and conform to rules for
coordinating the actions of rational agents.
Contractualism and animals
*How might the contractualist defend the idea that
animals still have an indirect moral standing?
Bentham & Kant on moral standing
*Why are the following not required?
 Being a member of the human species.
 Having a soul.
*Why are the following not sufficient?
 Being alive.
 Having a capacity to reason.
Worries about the classic positions
*Why might Kant’s autonomy requirement seem
problematic? (Does it rule out creatures we
commonsensically agree have moral standing?) And
why might it be problematic to suppose that our duties
to animals are only indirect?
*Does Bentham’s view have the consequence that
animals have an equal moral standing? Why might
that be an unhappy consequence of his view?
The worries illustrated
The case of the turtle torturer. Ivan loves all living beings
and treats them with great compassion—with one
exception. He despises turtles, and tortures them in private
whenever his schedule allows. There is no reason to worry
that Ivan’s character will be further corrupted: he is an old
man with a firm and settled character.
*Why is this case worrisome for the Kantian?
The case of the indiscriminate torturer. Igor has a torture
chamber with a variety of animals trapped in cages,
including both turtles and humans. You only have time to
rescue a few of the captives.
*Why is this case worrisome for the utilitarian?
A philosophical puzzle
Is there no principled middle ground between these
extremes of no direct duties & equal moral standing?
Regan on rights
“[W]e are each of us the experiencing subject of a life, a
conscious creature having an individual welfare that has
importance to us whatever our usefulness to others. We want
and prefer things, believe and feel things, recall and expect
things. And all these dimensions of our life including our
pleasure and pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our
satisfaction and frustration, our continued existence or our
untimely death—all make a difference to the quality of our
life as lived, as experienced, by us as individuals. As the same
is true of those animals that concern us (the ones that are
eaten and trapped, for example), they too must be viewed as
the experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their
own.”
Regan on rights
*How does Regan avoid the problems facing Kant
and contractualists more generally (i.e. that animals,
babies, and the senile have merely an indirect moral
standing)?
*Of course, Regan is still a deontologist, so his view is
importantly different from Bentham’s utilitarianism.
How might his view differ from utilitarianism with
respect to treatment of animals?
*Worries about Regan’s view?
Worries facing Regan
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In avoiding the worries facing Kant (i.e. that animals
and babies will have merely an indirect moral
standing), Regan has fallen into the same problem
facing Bentham!
Even worse, Regan does not seem to allow for
animal use when it is a practical necessity.
How can Regan block the move, made by Swiss
legislators, of extending rights to plants? We seem
to have nothing more than intuition to go on in
determining what has dignity/objective value!
The problem of equal standing
Utilitarians Mill and Singer want to avoid the
consequence that animals have an equal moral
standing. So does Regan, a deontologist.
*How might we do so?
Higher and lower pleasures
A classic response going back to Mill is to claim that
human beings have greater moral standing because they
are capable of greater happiness. Greater by what
measure?
Mill’s intersubjective standard: the better of two sorts of
pleasures are the ones subjects typically prefer, upon
having experienced both types.
*How might we exploit this measure to show that humans
have a greater moral standing? Does this look like a
promising strategy?
A related suggestion
When forced to decide between the interests of
humans and animals, we might reasonably prefer
humans because humans are capable of meaningful
activities (e.g. pursuits aimed Truth, Beauty, and
Goodness).
*Does this seem like a promising strategy?
Is death a harm to an animal, to anyone?
Why does death seem like a bad thing for the one
who dies? What reason do you have for fearing
death, setting aside the impact on others.
Let’s assume that death is the annihilation of the self.
A painful process of dying could be a harm, but how
could the event of passing into non-existence (death)
be a harm? That moment you cease to exist is also
the beginning of a time when nothing good or bad
can happen to you, right? You don’t exist!
Deprivation account of death’s badness
does not extend to chickens
The event of dying (understood as passing into nonexistence) is bad for the one who dies to the extent
that her life as a whole would have been more
desirable to her had she survived.
A chicken cannot conceive of its life as a whole. If a
chicken cannot conceive of its life as a whole, she
cannot care about how her life as a whole goes.
Hence, untimely death cannot deprive a chicken of
anything she cares about and so cannot be bad for
her.