Peter Singer discusses moral value of non-human animals - the history of moral progress around equality of human animals and how we ought to treat animals - from Judaism & Christianity to Aristotle to Bentham (father of modern utilitarianism). Singer highlights Benthan's view that the capacity for suffering/joy is the vital characteristic that entitles a being to moral consideration. He discusses why we should take non-human animal suffering seriously and what we can do to alleviate the suffering of non-human animals. Animal Liberation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_%28book%29 Peter paper 'SPECIESISM AND MORAL STATUS' where he convincingly rejects Speciesism: http://www.oswego.edu/~delancey/Singer.pdf Abstract: "Many people believe that all human life is of equal value. Most of them also believe that all human beings have a moral status superior to that of nonhuman animals. But how are these beliefs to be defended? The mere difference of species cannot in itself determine moral status. The most obvious candidate for regarding human beings as having a higher moral status than animals is the superior cognitive capacity of humans. People with profound mental retardation pose a problem for this set of beliefs, because their cognitive capacities are not superior to those of many animals. I argue that we should drop the belief in the equal value of human life, replacing it with a graduated view that applies to animals as well as to humans." Plato.Stanford Entry on Moral Status of Animals: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/ Biography: Peter Singer is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, a position that he now combines with the position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Life You Can Save, The Point of View of the Universe and The Most Good You Can Do. In 2014 the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute ranked him third on its list of Global Thought Leaders, and Time has included him among the world’s 100 most influential people. An Australian, in 2012 he was made a Companion to the Order of Australia, his country’s highest civilian honour. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgRoZVT6kYc

3. “And God said, Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over
the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

4.  “Plants exist for the sake of
animals, and brute beasts for the
sake of man…” Aristotle, Politics

5. “It matters not how man behaves
to animals, because God has
subjected all things to man’s
power.”
Thomas Aquinas, SummaTheologica

6. “…it seems reasonable, since art copies
nature, and men can make various automata
which move without thought, that nature
should produce its own automata, much
more splendid than artificial ones. These
natural automata are the animals.”
Descartes, letter to Henry More, February 5,
1649.

7.  “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.”
Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics.

8. “The question is not,
Can they reason? nor,
Can they talk? but,
Can they suffer?”
Jeremy Bentham,
Introduction to the
Principles of Morals
and Legislation (1789)

9.  Humans have an incomparably
higher moral status than animals.
 Animals are items of property.
 Comparisons between humans
and animals are offensive to
humans.

10.  We have duties to be kind to
animals and to avoid being cruel to
them. But we do not have to give
the same weight to their interests
that we give to human interests –
even where the interests are
similar.

12. “Speciesism… is a prejudice or
attitude of bias towards the
interests of members of one’s own
species and against those of
members of other species.”
Animal Liberation, Chapter 1

13. “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.”
Animal Liberation, Chapter 1.

14.  Is painlessly killing animals wrong?
Even if they will be replaced by
other animals living good lives?

15. “There is a real distinction, for a human being, between
timely and untimely death. To be ‘cut short’ before one’s
time is a waste- even a tragedy…No such thoughts apply
to domestic cattle. To be killed at thirty months is not
intrinsically more tragic than to be killed at forty, fifty, or
sixty.”
Roger Scruton, “The Conscientious Carnivore” in Steve Sapontzis, ed, Food
for Thought
Roger
Scruton on
killing
animals

16.  What are the experiences of
animals like?
 How do we weigh the pleasures
and pains of chimpanzees, pigs,
dogs, cows, chickens and fish
against those of normal
humans?

17. Should we try to reduce the
suffering of wild animals? Or is
there intrinsic value in nature that
counts against our interference?

18. .

19. Number of vertebrate animals killed annually
in research, worldwide: approximately 100
million.
Number of vertebrate land animals killed
annually in food production worldwide: 60
billion (UN FAO estimate)
In other words, food production uses roughly
600 times more animals [without including
fish].

21.  1999 Banned in UK
 2001 EU gives notice of ban by 2013
 2002-8 Banned in Florida, Arizona, Oregon,
Colorado, & California (with various phase-
out periods
 2013 EU ban comes into effect
 2015 California ban comes into effect.

23.  1990 banned in UK
 2007 EU ban in effect
 2015 California ban in effect
(calves must have space to turn
around)
 2007- major US veal producers
agree to phase out.

25.  1992 banned in Switzerland
 1999 banned in Sweden
 2012 EU ban in effect (modified
cages with more room and
nesting boxes still permitted)
 2015 California ban in effect
(hens must have space to
spread wings)

27. In numbers, the largest of all
sources of animal suffering among
farmed land animals.
EU: minor changes only, elsewhere
often no change at all

28.  Number of wild fish caught annually for
human consumption: 1 – 2.7 trillion
[www.fishcount.org]
 By-catch not included in this figure
 There is strong evidence that fish do feel
pain (SeeV. Braithwaite, Do Fish Feel Pain?)
 None of these fish were killed humanely,
except for some trials inThe Netherlands
and Norway.

29. From Steven Pinker, Better Angels of Our Nature.

30. Increase in Vegetarianism, UK and US, 1984-2009
Source: UK: Vegetarian Society, US: Vegetarian Resource Center
Compiled by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature.

32. Source: GuoTingshuang and Yang Zhenhai, Ministry of Agriculture, China
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y1936E/y1936e05.htm
But in China…

35. https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=vegan&cmpt=q&tz=

36. https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=vegan&cmpt=q&tz=

37. Let me tell you about the worst thing I have ever done.
In 1975, as a twenty year-old sophomore, I got a
summer job as a research assistant in an animal
behavior lab. One evening the professor gave me an
assignment… [Pinker then describes how, following his
professor’s instructions, he tortured a rat to death.]
The reason I bring up this blot on my conscience is to
show what was standard practice in the treatment of
animals at the time…just five years later, indifference to
the welfare of animals among scientists had become
unthinkable, indeed, illegal.
Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, p.455-6