sentience

Question 1

what is a sentient

Answer 1

one that has some ability: to evaluate the actions of others in relation to itself and third parties, to remember some of its own actions and their consequences, to assess risk, to have some feelings and to have some degree of awareness

Question 2

what are some human opinions that have changed over time

Answer 2

• all humans vs. subsets
• companion animals
• animals similar to humans (chimpanzee)
• larger mammals
• warm-blooded animals
• all vertebrates

Question 3

true/false: animals are capable of sophisticated learning

Answer 3

true

Question 4

where is there little concern for animal welfare?

Answer 4

pests, those that can’t be eaten

Question 5

how are animals more complex if they have to contend with a varied environment?

Answer 5

• Have elaborate motivational system
• Allows them to think about impacts of their
environment
• Make appropriate decisions

Question 6

what animal are more complex in functioning?

Answer 6

animals that live socially

Question 7

true/false: demands on cognitive ability are greater in small groups than large social group

Answer 7

false, large

Question 8

what makes an animal sentient

Answer 8

level of brain functioning that makes some degree of awareness possible

Question 9

Do humans have ethical duties to animals?

Answer 9

Yes, otherwise why would we study animal welfare

Question 10

Do animals have moral standing?

Answer 10

Animals can suffer

Question 11

“the question is no can they reason bo can they talk but rather can they suffer” whos quote?

Answer 11

Jeremy Bentham

Question 12

define utilitarianism

Answer 12

The right act or policy is that which will result in the maximum utility or expected balance of satisfaction minus dissatisfaction in all the sentient beings affected
• Mill (1861)

Question 13

what does utilitarianism imply

Answer 13

Implies that decisions are taken only on the basis of the average or overall good of collection of individuals

Question 14

what is the best known approach to animal ethics?

Answer 14

utilitariansim

Question 15

define consequentialism

Answer 15

Only consequences are important when making ethical decision

Question 16

how does utilitarianism always aim at bringing about the best possible consequences?

Answer 16

Taking into account all of those affected by an ethical decision

Question 17

what is the starting point of utilitarianism?

Answer 17

general benevolence

Question 18

what is the most prominent form of utilitarianism and define it

Answer 18

Hedonistic Utilitarianism
• Defines the good as welfare
• Defines welfare in terms of subjective experiences, including both negative welfare and positive welfare

Question 19

according to utilitarianism, when should be animals be included in our ethical decisions?

Answer 19

if they feel pain and pleasure

Question 20

what is the significance of Peter Singer?

Answer 20

• Argues in favor of a radical attitude to the welfare of farm animals
- Boycott animal products and become vegetarians

• Not because he thinks it is in principle wrong to kill an animal but because consumption of meat/other products from commercially reared animals leads to animal suffering

• If a being can suffer, it has an interest in
avoiding suffering

• It’s interests should be treated equally to the similar interests of other beings
- Whether they are human or not

Question 21

heatedism

Answer 21

bring pleasure and minimize pain

Question 22

describe the modern intensive livestock production

Answer 22

• Animals in confined feeding operations suffer

* Some basic interests of these animals are set aside – efficient production and meat is cheap

Question 23

describe consumers

Answer 23

accept much high costs of meat production to increase animal welfare

Question 24

why does Singer believe that people in industrialized societies should not eat meat at all?

Answer 24

• Creates animal suffering, not outweighed by the human pleasure it generates
• Eating meat is inefficient use of resources, contributes to climate change

Question 25

when does killing become problematic?

Answer 25

• It may cause suffering

* Animal can no longer have positive experiences

Question 26

in principle, how can we raise livestock?

Answer 26

• Raise an animal for food
• Give it a happy life
• Kill it painlessly
• Breed another animal that would not otherwise have lived

Question 27

speciesism

Answer 27

when humans see themselves as superior to other animals

Question 28

define personhood

Answer 28

• Based on being a self-conscious individual with “future directed preferences”
- Want to go on living

Question 29

true/false: Not all animals can be considered as “replaceable”

Answer 29

true

Question 30

what are the categories of humans and sentients?

Answer 30

• Persons- biographical sense of self
• Near-persons- fairly significant cognitive abilities
- Great apes, some marine mammals, elephants
• Merely sentient
- chickens

Question 31

describe the philosophies of animal rights

Answer 31

⚫ Never justified to sacrifice the interests of one individual to benefit another
⚫ Healthy animals do in a morally relevant sense have an interest in not being killed
⚫ Unethical to sacrifice the interests of the first animal for the sake of others

Question 32

how does animal rights differ from utilitarian view

Answer 32

Not justified to conduct a harmful experiment on one individual only for the sake of the interests of the other

Question 33

what do animal rights believe is our duty?

Answer 33

to protect the right of each individual animal not to be killed nor deprived of the means necessary to live a good life

Question 34

“As for commercial animal agriculture, the rights view takes a similar abolitionist position. The fundamental moral wrong here is not that animals are kept in stressful close confinement or in isolation, or that their pain and suffering, their needs and preferences are ignored or discounted. All these are wrong of course, but they are not the fundamental wrong. They are symptoms and effects of the deeper, systematic wrong that allows these animals to be viewed and treated as lacking independent value, as resources for us-as, indeed, a renewable resource.” whos quote

Answer 34

Tom Regan

Question 35

what is the species-integrity view?

Answer 35

Not only individuals that ought to be the focus of our moral concerns
• We ought also to promote the values of species

Question 36

according to species-integrity view, why is extinction of a species something to be deplored?

Answer 36

not only because of its consequences for the welfare of humans and animals but as something that is in itself bad.

Question 37

what are the duties of species integrity view

Answer 37

We have duties to species and not only to individual animals

Question 38

what is the agent-centered view?

Answer 38

What is important about our treatment of animals is what it does to us as moral agents

Question 39

what are our duties according to the agent-centered view?

Answer 39

We have duties to animals because otherwise we are more likely to act wrongfully to humans

Question 40

Our duties toward animals are merely indirect duties toward humanity…If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness toward animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealing with men.- whos quote?

Answer 40

Kant

Question 41

which view claims “virtue ethics” should govern our treatment of animals?

Answer 41

agent-centered view

Question 42

what do utilitarianism believe vs agent-centered regarding the use of rats in experiments vs. poisoning/trapping rats in pest control

Answer 42

Utilitarianism
• Allow both as long as care is taken to cause the animals as little suffering as possible

Agent-centered
• Forbid us to use animals in experiments for our own advantage (cruel), but when rats cause us inconvenience it is prudent to trap them

Question 43

Use of rats in experiments vs. poisoning/trapping rats in pest control: animal rights view vs integrity of species view

Answer 43

Animal rights view
• Forbid both

Integrity of species view
• Allow both – rats are plentiful and their species is threatened by neither activity