2. Singer and equal consideration for animals
The idea of animal rights has not always been taken seriously
E.g. in reply to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792),
Thomas Taylor satirized it in the book A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (1792)
If someone wanted to respond for women’s rights against Taylor, they might say:
women are capable of rational decision making, so similar to men, so should have
similar rights; but animals aren’t similar, and so shouldn’t have similar rights
But although animals differ from humans, and thus their rights must, women and
men also differ, so difference from humans alone is no objection to a fundamental
equality of animals and humans.
Equality does not mean treat each the same, but equal consideration
3. Singer and equal consideration for animals
Argument no. 1.
Equal consideration does not rest on factual equality in any ability
In the words of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826): ‘Because Sir Isaac Newton was
superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the property or
persons of others.’ (Letter to Henry Gregoire, February 25, 1809)
Worry: perhaps IQ is not morally relevant but other abilities are morally relevant,
e.g. the capacity for moral action
See e.g. Kant’s remark: ‘morality is the condition under which alone a rational
being can be an end in itself’ (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 435)
4. Singer and equal consideration for animals
Argument no. 2.
We ought to practise equal consideration
Equal consideration means taking consideration of the interests of every being
affected by an action
E.g. as in Bentham’s: ‘Each to count for one and none for more than one’
Humans and animal alike can be affected by an action, because the susceptibility of
being affected by an action requires nothing more than an ability to experience pain
or pleasure (‘sentience’)
To have an interest is to be liable to be affected in pleasure/pain
Therefore, humans and animals deserve equal consideration
5. Speciesism
Speciesism … ‘is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of
members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species’
(Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 6).
E.g. it is ‘speciesist’ for us to believe that pains of the same intensity and duration are
worse if felt by humans than if felt by animals
Or consider painless killing.
Suppose a baby is born with irreparable and severe brain damage, which cannot be
cured. The parents ask the doctor to kill the infant painlessly. The doctor will not be
able to do so legally. It would violate the idea that human life is sacrosanct. Yet we do
not object when dogs, pigs, etc., are killed even though we cannot deny that they have
more of the abilities (e.g. relate to others, act independently, be self-aware) that make
for a valuable life.
If our only reason for this difference in attitudes is that the baby is a Homo sapien,
then this is a case of speciesism
6. Speciesism
Speciesism … ‘is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of
members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species’
(Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 6).
Anthropocentrism = an ethics that prioritises the value of human beings
Strong anthropocentrism = only human beings are of value, and no non-human
thing is of any intrinsic value
Weak anthropocentrism = human beings have a significantly higher value than any
non-human thing, although some non-human things can be of intrinsic value
Q: How is speciesism similar to anthropocentrism?
Q: How does speciesism differ from anthropocentrism?
7. Bentham on animal rights
‘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 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? 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?’
(J. Bentham, [1789] Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. 17)
Q: What is Bentham’s argument here?
8. Rights
Three views of rights, in descending order of thickness:
1. A right = a permission (e.g. Hobbes’s view of natural rights)
2. A right = a permission that others are constrained to respect
3. A right = a permission that others are constrained to respect, and that no one but
the individual rights-holder (or their designated representative) can waive
Mill’s conception of a right (in Utilitarianism) as ‘a valid claim on society to protect
him in the possession of it’ is in line with 3.
Q: Why might Singer prefer to speak of ‘protections that people and animals ought
to have’ on the basis of a capacity for suffering pain, rather than of rights?
9. The critique of speciesism and our attitude to the
environment as a whole
Q: What does Singer’s ethical position imply about the rest of the environment?
Q: What if e.g. we switched from eating meat to eating broccoli and avocados, and
the production of broccoli and avocados became worse for the environment than
fishing?
10. ‘Speciesism’ in philosophy
Singer thinks that philosophers who treat the idea of equality as solely a matter of
human equality are caught in a dilemma: if human equality is to be justified by appeal
to some characteristic that all actual human beings share, then either not all human
beings will have it, or not only human beings will have it.
‘Once we ask why it should be that all human beings-including infants, the intellectually
disabled, criminal psychopaths, Hitler, Stalin, and the rest have some kind of dignity or
worth that no elephant, pig, or chimpanzee can ever achieve, we see that this question is
as difficult to answer as our original request for some relevant fact that justifies the
inequality of humans and other animals’ (Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 239)
11. Two responses (see A. Wood, Kantian Ethics, p. 96-101)
The unity of the person response
1. A human being is the same being at all stages of its existence, including those in which it
is not, or is not yet, a thinking, rational responsible being
2. A being has the same moral status at all stages of its existence
3. Thinking, rational responsible beings are ends in themselves
4. Therefore, even a human being who is now incapacitated (e.g. in a coma), or is not yet
fully developed (e.g. a child) or has regressed (e.g. through old age), is an end in itself
5. Animals never become thinking, rational responsible beings
6. Therefore, the life of any human being is worth more than the life of an animal
Objection: a child might die/be killed before it matures, or a fetus born with an incurable
mental impairment. Neither then ever becomes an end in itself. So, 6 is not proven.
12. Two responses (see A. Wood, Kantian Ethics, p. 96-101)
The Kantian response: always treat rational nature as an end
Here we can distinguish:
(i) What an action expresses about rational nature (respect or disrespect)
(ii) Whether the being to whom an action is directed has rational nature
E.g. a young child is not yet a thinking, rational, responsible being. But in acting to promote
the development of rational nature in them, we express respect for rational nature
To suppose that there is a human being in whom rational nature could not be promoted
(e.g. a baby born with incurable brain damage, an incurable mental patient) is to play at being
God by assuming perfect knowledge, which we may not do
Therefore, the imperative to respect rational nature requires us to treat all human beings,
but not members of nonrational species, with respect
This position is logocentric (= rational nature alone has absolute value). It would justify
treating the life of any human being as worth more than the life of an animal
13. Regan on animal rights
According to Regan, it is wrong to regard animals as things or resources that are there
simply for our use
Animals have rights, because they have the same inherent value as humans
First of all, Regan rejects indirect duty views, i.e. the view that duties concerning animals
are only ever duties owed to a human being who owns (or cares for) the animal
Indirect duty views, Regan argues, must rest on one of the following claims:
[1] There are no direct duties to animals because animals do not feel pain
[2] There are no direct duties to animals because the pain animals feel does not matter
[3] There are no direct duties to animals because animals cannot contract and the ability to
contract is a precondition for having rights
According to Regan, [1]-[3] are all false. Therefore, the indirect duty view is false.
Hence, duties concerning animals must be duties owed to them
14. Regan on animal rights
Regan then asks: what theory can explain the fact that duties concerning animals are owed
to them directly?
There are three possibilities:
[1] The ‘cruelty-kindness view’, i.e. we have a direct duty to be kind to animals and not to
be cruel to them
Objection: the presence/absence of a mental state in us (which both kindness and cruelty
require) cannot guarantee that an act does right by an animal
[2] The utilitarian view, i.e. count the interests of everyone affected (animals and humans)
equally, and maximize their aggregate satisfaction
Objection 1: aggregation ignores the distinctness of individuals
Objection 2: only counting interests allows us to use evil means to achieve our ends
15. Regan on animal rights
Regan therefore advocates a third view:
[3] The rights view, i.e. that each ‘experiencing subject of a life’ that has wants, that has
beliefs, that feels things and that values its own welfare, has inherent value
An animal as well as a human being is an ‘experiencing subject of a life’
Therefore, an animal as well as a human being has inherent value
Every individual thing with inherent value is owed respect directly
Therefore, animals are owed respect directly, i.e. have rights
16. Regan on animal rights
Indirect duty views, Regan argues, must rest on one of the following claims:
[1] There are no direct duties to animals because animals do not feel pain
[2] There are no direct duties to animals because the pain animals feel does not matter
[3] There are no direct duties to animals because animals cannot contract and the ability to
contract is a precondition for having rights
According to Regan, [1]-[3] are all false. Therefore, the indirect duty view is false.
Objection: indirect duty views need not rest on one of the above claims. An individual’s
claim to have rights might rest on something other than sentience or ability to contract.
Namely: deserving to be regarded as if one has reason. (This seems to be a view that
Wood puts forward in Kantian Ethics.)
17. Tutorial preparation
Read:
[1] P. Singer 1975. Animal Liberation, New York: HarperCollins, excerpt available at:
https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/singer.pdf
or also available at:
https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1179&context=phil_ex
[2] T. Regan [1985]. ‘The Radical Egalitarian Case for Animal Rights’, available at:
http://tomregan.free.fr/Tom-Regan-Radical-Egalitarian-Case-for-Animal-Rights.pdf
And consider:
Must we give animals and human beings equal consideration?
Also recommended:
[3] A. Wood 2008. Kantian Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 95-105.
Online access via the MU library.
18. Class rep
A class rep represents the views of students on the teaching and learning that they
are receiving.
A class rep needs to be prepared to be contacted (e.g. by email or whatsapp) by
other students on the course.
Would you like to be class rep?
