Lecture 9

Animal rights – What rights do we have vs animals?

Racism, sexism … Racism is treating people differently merely because of their

race. Since race is regarded as an irrelevant characteristic, racism is condemned as unfair and morally wrong.

Sexism is treating people differently merely because of their sex. Since sex (being male or female) is regarded as an irrelevant characteristic in many contexts, sexism is condemned as unfair and morally wrong.

These condemnations are based on the principle of equal consideration: it is all right to treat two individuals differently only if they differ in relevant respects.

If there is no relevant difference (as between blacks and whites, or between men and women) , the individuals should be treated in the same way.

…and speciesism?

Defenders of animal rights say that discrimination against animals is arbitrary in a similar way as racism and sexism, and hence morally unjustified. They call it speciesism.

The principle of equal consideration requires that, as with race and sex, members of one species (homo sapiens) should not be favored over other kinds of animals, just because they belong to that particular species.

Does this mean that advocates of animal rights think that, for example, dogs should have a right to vote?

Of course not. Dogs (and other animals) are here relevantly different from humans: since they lack necessary concepts for taking part in elections, their exclusion is entirely justified.

Two kinds of speciesism A distinction is usually made between bare speciesim and

indirect speciesism. Bare speciesism is the belief that we have a moral right to

treat other animals differently merely because they do not belong to our species Homo sapiens.

Indirect speciesism is the belief that we have a moral right to treat other animals differently because of some specific characteristics of our species, which other animals do not possess (e.g. rationality, language, moral sense, etc.).

If there are indeed morally relevant differences between us and other animals, speciesism would be acceptable.

Are there such differences?

Kant was a speciesist “But so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct

duties. Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man. …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. If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness toward animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealing with men.” (Lectures on Ethics)

An obvious question: If, indeed, we have no duties towards animals, why then does Kant think that bad treatment of animals would lead to bad treatment of people?

Bentham on animals

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 the 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 the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, 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 of discourse? …The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789)

Equal consideration

Bentham also said: “Everyone is to count for one, and no one for more than one.”

Does this rule apply to situations where we have to decide whether to sacrifice animals’ or people’s interests? For example, what to do if we have to choose whether to save one human life or lives of 5 monkeys? Is human life worth more? If we say yes, are we guilty of speciesism?

How about choosing between saving a human or a monkey? Many animal rights advocates admit that death is worse for

humans than for animals (because of self-consciousness, sense of future…) and that consequently saving humans rather than animals is justified.

But in case of pain and suffering there may be no difference.

Dog pain and human pain Descartes thought than animals have no mental states, but

very few people believe this today. Equal consideration demands that we regard same

amounts of pain as equally evil, independently of the species to which the suffering organism belongs.

If a dog attacks a child and we can protect the child only by inflicting a greater pain on the dog than the pain the child would suffer if bitten by the dog, are we allowed to protect the child?

Wouldn’t that be speciesism (irrationally and unjustifiably protecting our own kind)? Or would it?

What should carry more weight here: (a) the philosophical argument about equal consideration, or (b) an intuitive gut reaction that protecting the child is the only right action?

Two letters1. Sir,

you appeal for money to save the gorillas. Very laudable, no doubt. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to you that there are thousands of human children suffering on the very same continent of Africa. There'll be time enough to worry about gorillas when we've taken care of every last one of the kiddies. Let's get our priorities right, please!

2. Sir,you appeal for money to save the gorillas. Very laudable, no doubt. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to you that there are thousands of aardvarks suffering on the very same continent of Africa. There'll be time enough to worry about gorillas when we've saved every last one of the aardvarks. Let's get our priorities right, please!

Do humans have a special moral status?

Dawkins says that, of course, much better reasons can be given in support of the first letter, but he criticizes our tendency to take for granted that humans are special (so much so that the question “Why?” often does not arise).

The interesting issue is what happens if we are unable to find cogent reasons for giving priority to human interests.

Should we then (1) treat humans and animals equally, because no ground for preferring humans is discovered, or (2) should we nevertheless continue treating humans as special, relying on the deep, strong and persistent moral intuition that behaving otherwise would be wrong.

In other words, in this conflict should we trust more an abstract argument or a basic feeling about what is right?

Reflective equilibrium General moral ideas are often tested by their implications

in particular cases. If the conflict arises between what a general idea advises and our intuitive reaction about what is right, we have a choice.

Either we can reject the general idea or abandon our intuitive reaction. Sometimes it’s hard to say what is right.

“Reflective equilibrium” is the name for balancing the two considerations and for indicating that there is no clear and unambiguous answer which side to trust more.

Another example of such a conflict is consequentialism and its implication that it can be OK to punish the innocent.

In the context of animal rights the question is: does the rule of equal consideration trump the intuition that a monkey’s or dog’s pain is not as important to avoid as a child’s pain.

Animal experimentation Medical experiments are often conducted on animals, with

the purpose of understanding better the human physiology and developing cures for various diseases.

Is such practice morally acceptable? Most people agree that unnecessarily cruel experiments

should be avoided, as well as those with inadequate justification.

But if the suffering is minimized and the goal is worthy, does this make the experimentation moral?

The principle of equal consideration seems to forbid them even under these circumstances.

Two issues are frequently run together here: (a) do these experiments really promise to give us knowledge? and (b) what is their moral status, even if they yield knowledge?

Generalizing from animals to humans

Some philosophers claim that (1) if animal experimentation is useful, this shows that it is morally unacceptable, and that (2) if it is morally acceptable, this shows that it will not be useful.

“If the cognitive abilities of humans and animals are so drastically different as to morally justify experimentation, then those differences will both reflect and promote other biological differences which undercut inductions from animals to humans. On the other hand, if underlying biological mechanisms are sufficiently similar to justify scientific inferences from animals to humans, then the higher-order traits of the test subjects are sufficiently similar to human traits to make research morally problematic.“

H. LaFollette & N. Shanks, “The Origins of Speciesism”, Philosophy (1996)

Generalizing from animals to humans (2)

This is a fallacious argument. True, in order to generalize from animals to humans, there

has to be a similarity between the two kind of organisms. True, if animals and humans have a different moral status,

there has to be a difference between the two kinds of organisms.

But the argument that the similarity in the first sense necessarily undermines the difference in the second sense is not convincing.

There is no a priori reason why organs of some animals should not be very similar to human organs, but with their moral status being nevertheless very different.

The same applies to the reasoning in the opposite direction (from moral difference to functional difference).

Dogs and people Researchers have developed a process to stop and restart a dog's

heartbeat. This was the first step in heart surgery. Research on dogs led to development of the heart-lung machine,

which allows surgeons to sustain life while performing heart surgery. Heart surgery techniques, such as coronary bypass surgery, artificial

heart valve insertion, and pacemaker implantation were tested and studied in dogs before being used in humans.

Through the use of dogs, researchers found that diabetics lack the hormone insulin.

The 1990 Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to researchers who studied the immunologic basis of organ rejection by working with dogs. These studies resulted in the ability to transplant kidneys, hearts, lungs, livers and pancreases in human patients.

Through research on dogs, scientists have gained extensive information on repairing fractured bones and saving the limbs of humans. The artificial hip was first developed in dogs.

Are people special? We think that it is more wrong to harm a mouse than a

cockroach. Also, that it is more wrong to harm a monkey than a mouse.

Are we right about this? If yes, isn’t it possible that it is more wrong to harm a human being than a monkey?

There is an argument that we should stop killing, say, antelopes. But we don’t think that we should stop lions from killing antelopes. Why not, if killing antelopes is wrong?

One answer is that it is in lion’s nature to kill antelopes. But why should we change our natural behavior (which

harms other animals), but let other animals continue doing these horrible things that we can stop.

If we are the only living beings that can change their natural behavior, does not this make us special?

Cruelty no, but… There is a consensus today that cruelty to animals and

causing them unnecessary suffering are both wrong. But not all want to go so far as to say that we should never

hurt animals or use them as a means toward our ends. Some say that the equality between animals and people is

established as much by increased respect for animals as by decreased respect for people. Contrast the care expressed for animals with some of Peter Singer’s views about people:

1. Killing unborn babies is OK.2. Killing handicapped babies after birth is OK.3. Killing healthy but unwanted children is OK.4. Killing old and sick people is sometimes OK (occasionally

even against their will).5. It is sometimes a waste of resources to care for old and sick.