Animal ethics Flashcards
Specieism
II. Speciesism in Western political thought
A. Speciesism: valuing certain species more than others from a moral standpoint
1. The viewpoint of humans: most strong/frequent form of speciesism
a) Humans can think and use reason, animals don’t have reason and are governed by their sense
B. Man is a sacred entity and a master of animals → man’s ability to understand god and divinity makes them superior to animals (Thomas Aquinas)
1. Animals exist to serve man → servants of man by nature
C. Animal trials: societies acknowledged that animals may have agency for the first time
1. Renaissance relegated animals back to being viewed as beasts and slaves to their instincts
Animal Welfare
instincts
III. Welfare: a utilitarian perspective in animal ethics
A. First examples of treaties incorporating animal rights can be found in the US colonies (17th century) condemning certain agricultural practices
1. Banned cruelty towards animals and animal suffering
B. Bentham → animals are God’s creatures and should be treated humanely, want to maximize collective happiness and limit collective suffering
1. Animals are sentient beings, we deny rationality to slaves and animals and refuse to incorporate them into the moral community
a) Rationality should not be a clear criterion to enter the moral community → its not a good criterion
2. Does not believe in equality between humans and animals → distinction between the two based on animals not being conscious of their mortality and having no interest in continuing to live
3. But maximize the welfare of animals
Utilitarisnism / Peter Singer
C. Peter Singer: criticize speciesism as in western philosophy we’ve ignored the existence of animal suffering and have failed to recognize that animals also have an interest in not suffering
1. We have an equal consideration of interest but don’t have moral equality → animals don’t have the same moral status
2. Animals lack self-awareness and interest in life → later acknowledges that some animals may come closer to humans when it comes to self-awareness but not all
D. The utility calculus: slaughtering animals to consume meat vs. using animals as guinea pigs
1. Consuming meat: you want to limit your consumption of meat to decrease animal suffering but you recognize that you can’t force meat consumption to stop immediately → want to establish practices that will limit the suffering of animals when killing them for meat
2. Using animals as guinea pigs: we should allow this for medical testing because if we were able to find a cure, it would limit suffering overall
a) However, we should limit practices that create suffering
b) Also should ban the use of animals as guinea pigs in the beauty industry as that has no utilitarian value
Abolitionism
IV. Abolitionism: the inherent value of animal life
A. Animals should be granted rights: we don’t want to make the cages bigger, we want to open them and let the animals leave
B. The inherent value of animal life
C. Suffering should not be the criterion that we should use in animal ethics → use criteria based on the inherent value of life
D. Reagan doesn’t tolerate the use of animal or human life for other ends
E. How far do we go in considering that animals and humans are equal?
1. Animals should be protected as long as we consider them as subjects of life → their existence is important, complexity of forms of life, perception of who they are in the world → excludes insects from the moral community
F. Animals have rights as moral individuals independent of their relationship with human beings
1. Animals have the right not to be used for labor/as means without their consent
2. Should not test on animals or exploit them for the strengths or physical properties → can’t be used in agriculture, transport, or as pets
Protectionism
A. Protectionism: welfarism and abolitionism fail to provide a convincing ethical and political alternative
1. Reformist alternative; continuation of animal pragmatism
2. We should be happy with any small improvements we can make with our relationship with animals → abolitionists were too radical and couldn’t gain enough support
3. Protectionism is far more effective than abolitionism and utilitarianism because it draws on basic moral instincts
a) We all have a basic moral inclination to protect animals and all share some kind of visceral reaction when we see an animal suffering
4. Only by small improvements will we reach global change
Ethics of care
B. Ethics of care: feminist theory, our relationship with animals should not be based on rationality, but should be based on concern instead
1. Making sure that animals are taken care of
2. There is a parallel between the way we treat animals and the way we treated minorities/women historically
3. The patriarchal domination is problematic from an animal perspective and we must fight against the patriarchy
4. Very pragmatic
