Virtue Ethics

Question 1

Aristotles view on animals

Answer 1

• Animals come below humans in his hierarchy of living things
• their final end was to serve human need
• he did not view animals as having any rights

Question 2

application to intensive farming

Answer 2

• using modern practices of intensive farming might seem incompatible with being a virtuous person
• the ethos of making large profits in the easiest way might encourage the vice of greed
• the appalling conditions in which animals are kept could not be described as compassionate
• the focus on meat production for the meat eaters of the western world intensifies the problem of global hunger and is clearly unjust

Question 3

application to animal testing and cloning

Answer 3

• Aristotle would have seen animal testing and cloning as compatible with being virtuous
• he dissected animals in his own research
• he viewed using intelligene to discover more about nature of the world as the highest use of reason, so animal testing would meet that intellectual virtue
• finding more effective ways of treating human disease and using cloning to improve the health of both humans and animals could be justified as reflecting compassion
• however, the lack of conern about animal sufferin, as seen for example by not using anasthaetics is far from compassionate
• some virtue ethicists claim that no animal testing is virtuous since it is done without consent and there is no attempt to implement the 3 Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement)
• Hursthouse promotes the virtue of animal concern

Question 4

application to blood sports

Answer 4

• it is hard to justify blood sports in terms of virtue ethics
• regarding another creatures suffering as a form of entertainment shows a lack of temperance, compassion and sensitivity
• Hursthouse claims that blood sports encourage a callous attitude

Question 5

application to xenotransplantation

Answer 5

• Aristotles support for scientific research and the acquisition of knowledge suggests that he might have supported xenotransplantation
• its purposes of understanding more about the nature of diseases such as cancer and of saving life through donor pig hearts could be seen as compassionate.
• Some virtue ethicists, however, would say the virtue of concern for humans is outweighed by the callousness towards and the exploitation of animals whos lives are destroyed