Lamark

Question 1

Stanley Bergman, “Ethical Capitalism? It’s worth a Try” (Canvas) Dan Stewart, “The Great Debate: Can Capitalism Be Ethical?” http://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=4840
David Harvey, “Crisis of Capitalism”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0Slavoj Žižek, “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

Answer 1

read

Question 2

What is new liberation movement Singer advocates for? Why does he anticipate resistance to this liberation movement?

Answer 2

An extension of the basic rights of human beings to other species.
the “do unto others as they would do unto you.”
Resistance: we are so different from each other how can we have equal rights.
He :
Compares to womens rights movement. When Taylors comment that if you allow women to vote you might as well give it to animals.
it seemed absurd to give rights to women, but we have radically changed.

Question 3

2. What does Singer mean when he writes, “equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact”?

Answer 3

Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans
- Not all human beings are factually the same. When we say all are equal we are not refering to their abilities, and intelligence

Question 4

3. What is “speciesism”? Give some details as to what we do when we are speciesist.

Answer 4

Considering your species more important than another.

• we are willing to kill them.
• willing to inflict their lives in striving to mass produce meat. we put them in cramped, unclean, and unnatural call.

Question 5

4. How does the notion of “suffering” figure in to Singer’s account?

Answer 5

suffering is a clearer indication of speciesism because it might be argued that at least part of what is wrong with killing a human is that most humans are conscious of their existence over time and have desires and purposes that extend into the future see.

Question 6

5. What is Singer’s argument against continuing to eat meat?

Answer 6

In eating animals: In doing so we treat them purely as means to our ends. We regard their life and well-being as subordinate to our taste for a particular kind of dish
-Since, as l have said, none of these practices cater for anything more than our pleasures of taste, our practice of rearing and killing other animals in order to eat them is a clear instance of the sacrifice of the most important interests of other beings in order to satisfy trivial interests of our own

Question 7

6. How does Singer use human infants and, primarily, those with mental deficiencies to support his claims about equal treatment of non-human animals?

Answer 7

That the imbecile is not rational is just the way things have worked out, and the same is true of the dog—neither is any more responsible for their mental level. If it is unfair to take advantage of an isolated defect, why is it fair to take advantage of a more general limitation? I find it hard to see anything in this argument except a defense of preferring the interests of members of our own species because they are members of our own species