Animal ethics and the argument from absurdity

Theories of rights are many and engaging in a detailed discussion of those theories is beyond the scope of this essay. However, here we shall start with the views of the 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes, which informed attitudes towards animals well into the 20th century. Descartes based his rights arguments on cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am 1. Therefore consciousness and thought were central to his views on humans and animals. In part five of Discourse on Method published in 1637, he examined the nature of animals and how they were distinguished from humans. Mind, for Descartes, was not part of the physical universe; it was a separate substance and a link between humans and the mind of God. This link to God i.e. mind was unique to humans and non-humans had no mind and therefore no link to the mind of God. 2 His views suggest that the use of language is a sign of rationality and only beings that possess minds and souls are rational and argues that animals do not have immaterial minds or souls and are therefore not rational. It therefore follows that animals do not have sensations like pain, thirst or hunger. Animals for Descartes, were therefore nothing more than a "complex automata" and the squeals of pain, were mechanical reactions of the animal to external stimuli and not evidence of any sensation of pain. Humans on the other hand have minds or rational souls hence their capacity to use language and feel sensations like hunger, thirst and pain and this justifies their entitlement to holding rights. Furthermore, philosophers such as Locke and Grotius attached great emphasis on the ability of humans to reason, which for them justified their equal access to rights. However, the basis proposed by Descartes, Locke, and Grotius and defended by modern philosophers such as Georodie Duckler is being increasingly questioned. Questions are being asked about the moral standing of animals and whether their interests should also be considered. Amongst the commentators who have increasingly questioned the justification for focusing exclusively on human interests to the exclusion of all other species is Peter Singer who has attacked the basis of the theories of natural law. Singer is an advocate of utilitarianism and in Animal Liberation Movement, he refers to the proposals of equality of consideration by many philosophers, but points to their failure to recognize that this principle also applies to members of other species and not only humans. 3

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1986

Broadview Press, 2009

Can animals be regarded as part of the moral community? To what extent, if at all, do they have moral rights? Are we wrong to eat them, hunt them, or use them for scientific research? Can animal liberation be squared with the environmental movement? Taylor traces the background of these debates from Aristotle to Darwin and sets out the views of numerous contemporary philosophers – including Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Mary Anne Warren, J. Baird Callicott, and Martha Nussbaum – with ethical theories ranging from utilitarianism to eco-feminism. The new edition also includes provocative quotations from some of the major writers in the field. As the final chapter insists, animal ethics is more than just an “academic” question: it is intimately connected both to our understanding of what it means to be human and to pressing current issues such as food shortages, environmental degradation, and climate change.

La ética animal ha presentado una serie de cuestiones desafiantes en lo que respecta a la relación entre humanos y animales. Para algunos filósofos, los animales no humanos tienen valor en sí mismos. Esta afirmación se basa en la mayor parte de los casos en una apelación a la sintiencia o a la conciencia en el sentido fenoménico: puesto que hay algo lo cual es ser un animal, los animales no pueden ser tratados como mera materia biológica. Sin embargo, esta afirmación ha sido objeto de crítica. Este artículo analiza tres de los argumentos más comunes contra lo que aquí se llama el "valor individual" de los animales no-humanos. Tales argumentos son el argumento de la capacidad, el argumento humanista y el argumento de las relaciones especiales. Se ha mantenido que todos ellos se enfrentan a problemas, que dejan la puerta abierta a la posibilidad de que los animales no-humanos puedan tener, y de hecho posean, valor individual. Palabras clave: Antropocentrismo, argumento de los casos marginales, derechos animales, ética animal, agencia moral.

Filozofija i drustvo, 2021

This paper addresses the issue of the moral status of non-human animals, or the question whether sentient animals are morally considerable. The arguments for and against the moral status of animals are discussed, above all the argument from marginal cases. It is argued that sentient animals have moral status based on their having interests in their experiential well-being, but that there are degrees of moral status. Two interest-based approaches are presented and discussed: DeGrazia?s view that sentient animals have interests in continuing to live, and that their interests should be granted moral weight; and McMahan?s TRIA which similarly postulates that animals have interests and that in a given situation we should compare the human and animal interests at stake. Finally, the paper concludes that the anthropocentric approach to animal ethics should be abandoned in favour of the biocentric ethics.

1998

A couple of decades after becoming a major area of both public and philosophical concern, animal ethics continues its inroads into mainstream consciousness. Increasingly, philosophers, ethicists, professionals who use animals, and the broader public confront specific ethical issues regarding human use of animals as well as more fundamental questions about animals' moral status. A parallel, related development is the explosion of interest in animals' mental lives, as seen in exciting new work in cognitive ethology 1 and in the plethora of movies, television commercials, and popular books featuring apparently intelligent animals. As we approach the turn of the twenty-first century, philosophical animal ethics is an area of both increasing diversity and unrealized potential-a thesis supported by this essay as a whole. Following up on an earlier philosophical review of animal ethics (but without that review's focus on animal research), 2 the present article provides an updated narrativeone that offers some perspective on where we have been, a more detailed account of where we are, and a projection of where we might go. Each of the three major sections offers material that one is unlikely to find in other reviews of animal ethics: the first by viewing familiar territory in a different light (advancing the thesis that the utility-versus-rights debate in animal ethics is much less important than is generally thought); the second by reviewing major recent works that are not very well-known (at least My thanks to Tom Beauchamp, Maggie Little, and Barbara Orlans for their comments on a draft of this paper.

How far is too far? The current sphere of animal ethics consists of two main theories; utilitarianism, as advocated by Peter Singer, and the animal rights (or deontological) view, as put forth by Tom Regan. I believe that both these views have their shortcomings because they lack the tools to make them context specific and thus seem very extreme and unreasonable. In this paper, I reject the bases of both Singer and Regan’s view and show that it is impossible to maintain moral consistency when strictly following either of them. I then argue for a middle ground between the two views with practical elements from Singer and Regan, which could provide us with a normative theory on what action to take with regards to issues such as consumption of meat and animal testing.

Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет/The Annual of the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje

In the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of works in the field widely defined as "studies of the relationship between man and animals", "studies of animals", or "anthrozoology", and even "studies of animal ethics". Among the avant-garde in this field there is a confrontation with this naturalized discourse. Over time, this has led to a growing need to reconsider, analyse and upgrade the validity of the argument of different ethical views and their theories that serve to determine and evaluate our behaviour towards animals as morally acceptable or not. Hence, what the author is primarily concerned with, is critical reflection on a wide range of theories that seek to explain relevant positions on our relationship to animals and wildlife on Earth. Taking on this new responsibility in relation to our treatment of animals modifies not only our way of more direct treatment of animals, but also the way we should be constituted as entities in the world. It is an assumption that we share the world with other beings and that this implies a moral obligation that goes beyond the category of belonging to the same species. A new culture of human coexistence with other non-human beings needs to be inaugurated, in line with modern living conditions on this planet.