Introduction
Good philosophy has an impact on how we understand the world and how we live our lives.
Happy Animals
Happy cows
Smart Cows
Dogs
Animal Research: Beagles
Pigs: Gestation crates
Chickens: Battery hens
Animal Equality (go to youtube channel). Apr 8 2014
Killing vs Suffering
Speciesism: We should treat them differently in that they have different capacities. But they do have the interest to avoid suffering and to have their basic social and psychological needs.
Hunting, free range meat maybe ok, but we have a clear cut case in factory farming.
Common Bad Arguments That Justify Current Animal Farming for Meat
Exercise: Fill in the missing premise that makes the argument valid and evaluate the truth value of the premise.
Argument 1: The historical argument
(P1) Historically humans have always eaten meat.
(C) It is morally permissible to eat factory farmed meat.
Argument 2: The Evolutionary Argument
(P1) We are designed to eat meat.
(C) It's morally permissible to eat factory farmed meat.
Argument 3: I like it.
(P1) Meat tastes good and eating it give me pleasure.
(C) Eating factory farmed meat is morally permissible.
Argument 4: We need to eat meat.
(P1) We need to eat meat.
(C) Therefore, eating factory farmed meat is morally permissible.
Argument 5: Other animals eat meat.
(P1) Animals eat other animals and we don't say it's morally wrong.
(C) Therefore, it's morally permissible for humans to eat meat.
Argument 6: What if plants feel pain?
(P1) If plants feel pain then no matter what we eat we'll cause pain and suffering.
(C) It's morally permissible to eat factory farmed meat.
Environmental Arguments
Main Argument for Animal Rights: Species Membership Isn't a Relevant Moral Property
The Case for Equality: What Do We Mean by Equality?
(P1) When it is asserted that "all human are equal" we are not referring to any specific physical trait, physical capacity, or mental capacity, etc...
(P2) To do so we would be demonstrably false. Humans are not equal in those respects.
(P3) We must mean something else.
(C) We mean equal in terms of moral consideration: We are all worthy of equal moral consideration of our individual interests.
Arguments against sexism and racism appeal to this argument.
Suppose actual equality.
What is required for moral consideration of one's interests?
If not intelligence, color of skin, physical capacities or traits that confers moral consideration, what is it?
Whatever trait we consider (except the capacity to suffer), let put to the test. Would we accept a division in moral consideration across humanity according to intelligence? to strength? size? language ability? color of skin? morphology?
"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 one day come to be recognised 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? It is the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a
full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable
animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were
otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk but, Can
they suffer?"
WWKS?
Stone vs The Mouse.
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.
Potential Human Objection
Infants, although not rational, able to talk, or think about the future, have the potential to become adult humans with all those capacities. But these are not capacities that we actually think are relevant for moral consideration.
Reply 1: Consider those unfortunateReply 2: Analogy with race
enough to have been born with brain damage so severe that they will never be able to reason, or talk or do any of the other things that are often said to distinguish us from non-human animals. The fact that we do not use them as means to our ends indicates that we do not really see decisive moral significance in rationality, or autonomy, or language, or a sense of justice, or any of the other criteria said to distinguish us from other animals. Why do we lock up chimpanzees in appalling primate research centres and use them in experiments that range from the uncomfortable to the agonising and lethal, yet would never think of doing the same to a retarded human being at a much lower mental level? The only possible answer is that the chimpanzee, no matter how bright, is not human, while the retarded human, no matter how dull, is.
This is speciesism, pure and simple, and it is as indefensible as the most blatant racism. There is no ethical basis for elevating membership of one particular species into a morally crucial characteristic. From an ethical point of view, we all stand on an equal footing -whether we stand on two feet, or four, or none at all.
If we look back we realize the following is a ridiculous argument: We shouldn't eat/use for experiments this severely handicapped baby because he's potentially a white adult. Race isn't a relevant moral property. The capacity to suffer is.
What Follows?
Equal consideration of interests not rights. Without the capacity to exercise a right it is not possible to confer it.
Scientific Testing on Animals vs Humans:
From disanalogy to analogy: Some dismiss moral consideration of animal suffering because of skepticism about the capacity of animals to feel pain, however, in animal testing it is precisely because we believe their capacity to feel pain is like ours that we use them.
The consequent dread of randomly rounding up humans for experimentation would be an additional harm above what most animals would experience. The animals would only suffer the immediate pain.
It follows that there is a reason to prefer animal testing over human testing.
Unintended consequences: Since the severely handicapped and infants aren't aware of what going on around them, it would be just as morally justifiable to do experiments on them.
Objection: Would the abolitionist be prepared to let thousands die if they could
be saved by experimenting on a single animal?
Reply: Would the experimenter be prepared to
experiment on a human orphan under six months old, if it were the only way to save
many lives? (I say “orphan” to avoid the complication of parental feelings, although
in doing so 1 am being overfair to the experimenter, since the nonhuman subjects of
experiments are not orphans.) A negative answer to this question indicates that the
experimenter’s readiness to use nonhumans is simple discrimination, for adult apes,
cats, mice, and other mammals are more conscious of what is happening to them,
more self-directing, and, so far as we can tell, just as sensitive to pain as a human
infant. There is no characteristic that human infants possess that adult mammals do
not have to the same or a higher degree.
Objection: It's hard to compare the experience of pain across species.
True, but the margin of error is large enough where there are clear enough cases such that we would need to change our practices.
Killing Vs Experiencing Pain
The capacity for desires about the future, self-awareness, and meaningful social relationships are relevant to the question of taking a life, they are not relevant to the question of moral consideration of one's interest to avoid suffering.
Example: If we have to choose between saving the life of a severely handicapped individual without self-awareness or intelligence and that of a normal human being we might give preference to the later because of the properties listed. On the other hand, if both were in equal pain and we could only medicate the pain of one, it's hard to see why any properties matter beyond the capacity to experience pain.
If we choose to save the life of a human over an animal (if we are forced to choose) it's because of the properties the human actually has, not because he is a member of a particular species.
Animal Testing and Predictive Power
Animals as Food:
READ p. 8
Resources required for meat production (ratios)
Potential Human Objection
Infants, although not rational, able to talk, or think about the future, have the potential to become adult humans with all those capacities. But these are not capacities that we actually think are relevant for moral consideration.
Consider those unfortunate
enough to have been born with brain damage so severe that they will never be able to reason, or talk or do any of the other things that are often said to distinguish us from non-human animals. The fact that we do not use them as means to our ends indicates that we do not really see decisive moral significance in rationality, or autonomy, or language, or a sense of justice, or any of the other criteria said to distinguish us from other animals. Why do we lock up chimpanzees in appalling primate research centres and use them in experiments that range from the uncomfortable to the agonising and lethal, yet would never think of doing the same to a retarded human being at a much lower mental level? The only possible answer is that the chimpanzee, no matter how bright, is not human, while the retarded human, no matter how dull, is.
This is speciesism, pure and simple, and it is as indefensible as the most blatant racism. There is no ethical basis for elevating membership of one particular species into a morally crucial characteristic. From an ethical point of view, we all stand on an equal footing -whether we stand on two feet, or four, or none at all.
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