Animal Rights and Philosophy
today
Frank
Bouchier-Hayes
As the title suggests, I intend to look at the ways in which contemporary philosophy confronts the issue of animal rights. As the philosopher David Oderberg points out, philosophical writings on animal rights really took off in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Oderberg, p.97). The philosopher whom we most associate with the animal rights movement, namely Peter Singer, is even credited with founding the area of ethics known as applied ethics in which philosophical discussions of animal rights have, over the past thirty years, formed an increasing part. Indeed, Oderberg argues that two of the most discussed areas in applied ethics in that period are abortion and animal rights (Oderberg, p.97). This linkage is not merely of statistical interest, according to Singer, as views associated with animal rights will necessarily inform views associated with abortion. In short, the use of ‘the ability to feel pain’ as a right –conferring property in the debate on animals can also be used in the debate on abortion, in the sense that if one accords animals rights on the basis that they are able to feel pain, then one can also accord foetuses rights on the basis that they too are able to feel pain.
Lawrence Hinman points out that:
Certainly there are many areas of our lives which involve animals either directly or indirectly. Many of us have pets, ride horses, visit zoos and places like Sea World, perhaps even go hunting or fishing. All of these involve animals directly. Many of us eat meat or fish, wear leather belts and shoes, use prescription medications, ride in cars with seat belts. Many of these involve animals indirectly as sources of food, as subjects of medical and safety research, and the like. Our relationship with animals pervades our daily lives in numerous, often unnoticed, ways.
Many of these relationships with animals must be revised if we discover that animals are persons, or even that they have a moral status beyond the little that has been traditionally been accorded to them (Hinman, p.460)
Because, as Hinman has pointed out, there are many issues associated with animal rights, it would be impossible for me to address all of them adequately, and so I have chosen to focus on three philosophical commentators on the animals issue, namely Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and David Oderberg. Other individuals will also feature in the discussion, but only by way of responding to the views presented to us by these three individuals. Singer is a preference utilitarian, while Regan and Oderberg are both rights-theorists who approach the animals issue from different angles.
Let me begin by quoting some remarks made by philosophers in past centuries concerning animals. Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch make the point that
Traditionally, philosophy has not been effective at defending the moral status of animals. Arguably, it was Aristotle who was responsible initially for the superior attitude that western societies have taken towards animals. For Aristotle, animals were devoid of reason. [Also for Aristotle] The power of reason is what clearly distinguishes humans from animals. Moreover, [for Aristotle] the purpose of humankind is to use its reason. That is [for Aristotle] the function of a person, to deploy the rational mind. If that is so, what is the function of animals for Aristotle? (Vardy and Grosch, p.209)
They then quote
the following passage from Aristotle’s Politics
Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man – domestic animals for his use and food, wild ones for food and other accessories of life, such as clothing and various tools. Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, it is undeniably true that she has made all animals for the sake of man (Vardy and Grosch, p.209)
Vardy and Grosch go on, however, to make the interesting point that the Pythagoreans, who predate Aristotle by two centuries, tended to favour the care of animals but ‘only on the basis that in tucking into a piece of cooked pig one might be munching on the implanted soul of an ancestor’ (Vardy and Grosch, p.210). They believed that the souls of humans could migrate after death into the bodies of animals as well as people (doctrine of metempsychosis). They also tell the humorous story on page 210 of their book that Pythagoras himself is said to have attempted to prevent someone from whipping a puppy dog with the words:
Stop, do not beat it; for it is the soul of a dear friend – I recognised it when I heard the voice (from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers).
Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, we are told, ‘firmly believed that animals were not capable of feeling pain,’ a belief that removed any qualms he might have had about experimenting on animals (Vardy and Grosch, p.211).
Moving from the 17th to the 18th century we find Immanuel Kant quoted on page 211 of their book referring to animals in the following manner:
so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious, and are there merely as a means to an end. The end is man (Lecture on Ethics).
Staying with the 18th century we find Jeremy Bentham, quoted on page 218 of their book, writing as follows:
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them except by the hand of tyranny… The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk? but ‘Can they suffer?’
(Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch.17).
The reference to the withholding of rights from animals on the basis of tyranny suggests that a link can be made between campaigners for animal rights and campaigners against racism, sexism, etc. Indeed writers such as Regan and Singer can find no justification for continuing to deny animals rights if we can no longer justify the denial of rights to individuals on the basis of gender or race. The point could of course be made that individuals in many countries continue to be denied rights, but what we must bear in mind is whether this is justified or not. Regan and Singer would argue that such practices are not justified, and would draw a parallel between these cases and the case of animals.
The focus thus far on animals has been largely negative. Vardy and Grosch sum up this negative response to animal rights as follows:
This long tradition of placing animals clearly outside the realm of morality or ethical significance on the grounds that they do not possess rational minds is often referred to as the ‘absolute dismissal argument.’ Animals are simply excluded, or dismissed, from the moral circle which binds humanity together (Vardy and Grosch, p.211).
The reference in the last extract to exclusion from a moral circle is one that is taken up by writers such as Singer and Regan who talk of expanding the moral circle to include animals.
Before I conclude this section of the paper, I would like to draw your attention to one last quotation, cited in a new book on environmental ethics by Joe Walker, which arguably underlies much of our thinking on the animals issue.
The test of a society is how it treats its animals (M K Gandhi).
In other words, regardless of how you come down on the animals issue, i.e. whether you come down on the side of animals in the first instance or on the side of humans in the first instance or if you attach equal priority to each, you are still left with the question of how animals are to be treated. To put it another way, whatever theory you choose to subscribe to in relation to animals must then be put into practice. If, for example, you decide that animals deserve to be treated with the same respect as human beings, then it is not enough for you to simply subscribe to this in theory without doing anything to implement it in practice.
Philosophers or academics in general are often accused of not living in the real world but in their own carefully constructed theoretical world and never the twain shall meet, but, in the case of animals, many philosophers do not simply theorise but feel compelled to put their theories into practise in their daily lives.
Philosophers
of Today on the Animals Issue
I Peter Singer
Let me begin this section of my paper then by considering the work of Peter Singer, a self-confessed utilitarian. What implications does his ethical position have in terms of the animals issue? Singer is famous for his espousal of ‘animal liberation.’ It is important to distinguish this from the ‘animal rights’ approach espoused by Regan. Because Singer is a utilitarian, it is impossible for him to talk of either animals or humans having rights. Instead, they must be considered as creatures with the capacity for pleasure or pain, or at a more sophisticated level, as creatures with the potential for having their preferences satisfied or not. Singer argues that if we accept this account of human and animal psychology, then it is speciesist to draw a line between animals and humans and to say that the suffering or preferences of the latter (humans) count in one way whereas the suffering or preferences of the former (animals) count in another way. In other words, he is arguing that if we find racism and sexism to be unacceptable, then we must find the suffering of animals at the hands of humans to be equally unacceptable. Bentham puts it best when he says that each is to count for one and none for more than one.
Singer’s argument then is not for animal rights but for animal liberation. He cites the cases of severely mentally handicapped people, comatose people, etc. Singer, if he were to use the language of rights, could maintain that if we argue that humans are worthy of rights because they possess reason or can talk whereas animals are not worthy of rights because they cannot talk or reason, then we must also logically exclude the mentally handicapped, the comatose, etc. from the realm of rights. Since, however, we are not prepared to exclude the latter then we cannot, if we are to be consistent, exclude the former. In other words, Singer is arguing for equality of treatment.
Bernard Williams in his book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy denies the strength of Singer’s claim of unwarranted speciesism. Indeed, he argues that it is perfectly natural for us as human beings to morally differentiate our species from every other species since it is to human beings alone that the term ‘moral’ properly applies. To say this however is not to give humans the freedom to do with nonmoral animals what they will since one could argue that in causing animals unnecessary pain we are diminishing ourselves as human beings (Vardy and Grosch, p.215).
Singer also talks of interests as being crucial to settling the issue. According to him, a minor interest mustn’t count over a major interest. For example, the minor interest that I have in having a pleasant taste of food in my mouth should not be counted above the animal’s major interest in living, which is lost to provide for my minor interest (Vardy and Grosch, p.215).
Vardy and Grosch make the interesting point in relation to Singer’s position that trying to draw animals into the moral circle on the basis that they share many of the characteristics that humans exhibit, e.g. self-consciousness, autonomy, etc., smacks of a certain type of arrogance on his part (Vardy and Grosch, p.218). In other words, Singer’s argument could be reduced to the statement ‘if you resemble us then we will accord you rights.’
Gary E. Varner, in an article included in Hinman’s book, contends that because Singer is a utilitarian, he is not against animal experimentation in principle but is against it because ‘he doubts that the benefits to humans significantly outweigh the costs to the animals’ (Hinman, pp.490-491). Varner sums up the difference between Singer and supporters of animal experimentation as follows:
When it comes to utilitarian justifications for animal research, the probability – and Singer is correct that it is never a certainty – that various lines of research will save or significantly improve human lives must be known or estimated before anything meaningful can be said. Singer is convinced that most research will not meet this burden of proof; most researchers are convinced of just the opposite (Hinman, p.491).
David Oderberg responds to Singer’s approach by first pointing out that to subscribe to utilitarian or consequentialist thinking means that one cannot absolutely rule out ‘eating meat …animal experiments …killing animals for clothing, hunting, circuses, zoos, and other practices that could conceivably (and often do) provide benefits to humans that outweigh animal suffering’ (Oderberg, p.141). He goes on to say that because Singer is a preference utilitarian who appears to count preferences equally, it is hard to see how he can disapprove of hunting or zoos in principle. If he were to attempt to defend such disapproval, he would have to show why the preferences of the millions in favour of hunting or zoos could be overruled by the desires of the significantly lesser numbers of animals not to suffer. Oderberg also points out that as a preference utilitarian, the killing of a young baby with a mild disease by a doctor with parental consent on the grounds that they have ‘a good chance of producing a disease free baby next time round’, and that no one is adversely affected by the killing is as acceptable for Singer as the painless killing of chickens after a life in good surroundings on the grounds that they are replaced by other chickens. The reason for this arguably morally repugnant stance is that both the child and the chickens are replaceable. All that matters for the preference utilitarian is that the new chickens enjoy the same lifestyle as the old chickens, and that the next baby has a better quality of life than the previous baby could expect to have had (Oderberg, p.141).
The point that Oderberg is trying to make here is that any theory that involves utilitarian thinking cannot adequately handle moral disputes. Most people find it difficult to conceive of a moral system that regards humans as being more or less replaceable, depending on the effect in terms of pleasure or pain that their being replaced has on others. Morality in other words seems to come down to more than weighing up costs and benefits in numerical terms. Certain actions appear to be wrong regardless of the consequences.
II Tom Regan
Let us now turn our attention to the thoughts of Tom Regan on animals. Regan argues for the total abolition of the use of animals in science, the cessation of commercial animal agriculture, and the cessation of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.
He argues the case for animal rights in terms of they being the ‘subject-of-a-life.’ To be the subject-of-a-life is, according to Regan, to have inherent value. Both animals and humans, according to Regan, must be given rights on the basis of their inherent value. Before we critically analyse his argument, let us be clear about exactly what he means when he talks about something being the subject-of-a-life.
To be the subject-of-a-life is to be an individual whose life is characterised by [the having of] beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else’s interests. Those who satisfy the subject-of-a-life criterion themselves have a distinct kind of value – inherent value – and are not to be viewed or treated as mere receptacles (Cited in Oderberg, p.102).
As far as assigning inherent value is concerned, Regan believes that all mammals have inherent value, except perhaps for newly born or very young mammals. Birds, fish, and other non-mammals are not regarded as having inherent value because they cannot be the subject-of-a-life, but Regan condemns killing them for sport or profit for the following reason:
Even assuming birds and fish are subjects-of-a-life, to allow their recreational or economic exploitation is to encourage the formation of habits and practices that lead to the violation of the rights of animals who are subjects of a life (Cited in Oderberg, p.103).
David Oderberg looks at Regan’s criteria for something being the subject-of-a-life, and finds that none of the criteria cited give us grounds for granting animals rights. He begins with perception and memory, and argues that this does not take us much farther than pleasure and pain, which he has dismissed as a basis for the granting of rights for the following reason. To simply speak of pleasure and pain for any living organism is to speak of things going well or badly for that organism. Oderberg points out that unless we want to include all living things under the umbrella of rights, we must discover something else to mark out animals as worthy of rights that other living things don’t possess or reflect in their behaviour (Oderberg, pp101-102).
The problem which Oderberg has with using perception and memory as a basis for the granting of rights is that, as he puts it, ‘there is an inferential gap between claiming that a being is a subject in the psychological sense and saying that it is a subject in the moral sense’ (Oderberg, p.103). If a sense of the past (memory) and perception alone has nothing to do with whether or not something has rights, then, Oderberg points out, a sense of the future does not add anything to the argument for granting animals rights (Oderberg, p.104). To speak of an emotional or experiential life as conferring rights on animals is also, according to Oderberg, misguided because this can be reduced to things going well or badly for it. As he puts it:
We can…say that the perceiving, remembering, feeling animal is, in virtue of such capacities, a locus of value, precisely because its life goes badly or well according as such capacities are or are not harmed…We can even agree with Regan that because of such characteristics animals’ experiential life fares well or ill for them ‘logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else’s interests,’ if all Regan means by this is that in order to know whether an animal’s life is going well or badly for it we do not need to know whether the animal is useful to any human being (or other animal, for that matter), or whether anyone else has an interest or is interested in the life or welfare of that animal……. What we need to know, however, is by what logic the addition of psychological characteristics such as these to the list of features of a being that is the subject-of-a-life yields the conclusion that such a being has rights, and this is not something Regan is able to tell us (Oderberg, pp104-105).
Oderberg then turns to the argument that animals have rights because they have beliefs and desires. Assuming the by no means uncontroversial statement that animals do have beliefs and desires, this still does not, according to him, automatically result in the granting of rights to animals. He defends his position as follows:
To say that a creature with beliefs and desires can have its life promoted or frustrated in ways not possible for an animal lacking these states is an evident truth. In other words, the life of animal that believes or desires can go well or ill for it in ways more complex than in the case of an animal that does not have these states. But what follows from that?…there is no reason for thinking that a being has rights simply in virtue of having a life that can go well or ill for it (Oderberg, p.108).
Oderberg goes on to explore the question of whether, as Regan believes, self-consciousness in a creature can yield rights for that creature. The first point he makes in this regard is that self-consciousness in itself contributes nothing to the debate about animal rights because ‘the important question is not whether the animal is conscious of itself, but whether the animal is conscious of itself in a certain respect’ (Oderberg, p.116). He goes on to argue that it is difficult to see a chimpanzee’s awareness of itself is anything more than an awareness of itself as ‘an individual with certain body parts, including hair, that it is able to manipulate’ (Oderberg, p.116). Oderberg is in other words arguing that for example to see a chimp grooming itself in no way indicates that the chimp has a sophisticated sense of self-awareness. Furthermore he points out that there is no evidence currently available to suggest that ‘chimpanzees or any other animals have self-consciousness in the sense of being able to think about their own thoughts, to reflect on their own reasoning processes, to make judgements about their own judgements’ (Oderberg, p.116).
In tackling Regan’s final ingredient for being the subject-of-a-life, i.e. that a creature should have ‘the ability to initiate action in the pursuit of [its] desires and goals,’ Oderberg points out that ‘Taken at its broadest, there is not a living creature on earth, plant or animal, that does not initiate action in pursuit of its desires and goals’ (Oderberg, p.117). Even if we look at the behaviour of apes and chimpanzees who appear to initiate action in the pursuit of goals, for example the deceptive behaviour of an ape who succeeds in distracting another ape from retrieving food in order to retrieve the food itself, all we are entitled to say, according to Oderberg, is that ‘there is a certain repertoire of deceptive skills built into the brains of certain apes, though what actual shape those skills take in real life may depend to some extent on what experiences they have’ (Oderberg, p.119).
Animals going to their deaths in abattoirs struggle to defend themselves, argue animal rights supporters, which indicates that they are initiating action (struggling) in the pursuit of a goal (avoiding death). Oderberg’s response to this is to say that ‘rights cannot flow from mere defensive behaviour’ (Oderberg, p.119). All animals, from primates to single celled organisms, can be said to indulge in defensive behaviour when they kill enemies, repel territorial invaders, adapt to hostile conditions, and repair bodily damage. Moreover, the same could possibly be said of a plant which cures itself of a disease or a weed which kills another plant in order for it to thrive. Unless we want to give rights to all animals and plants, we must, according to Oderberg, rethink our basis for granting rights to animals (Oderberg, p.120).
III David Oderberg
Having dispensed to his satisfaction with Regan’s criteria for a subject-of-a-life as forming the basis for the granting of rights to animals, Oderberg goes on to consider what in his view licenses us to ascribe rights to ourselves and not to animals. He argues that:
We must not…apply to animals terms descriptive of paradigmatically human behaviour in anything other than an analogous sense. For although animals pursue the good in one way, they do not do so in the manner necessary for the attribution to them of rights. And this is because there are two conditions necessary for the ascription of rights which no animal (apart from the human animal) satisfies: (1) a rights-holder must know that he is pursuing the good, and hence that he is acting for a purpose; (2) a rights-holder must have free will in his pursuit of the good. Free will, and a certain kind of knowledge, are required of any being that possesses rights (Oderberg, pp.121-122).
He fleshes out the two conditions for rights by saying that in order for a creature to be the subject of morality, it must also be free to choose between right and wrong. He also allows that certain factors may deprive someone of the freedom to act morally, but that all that this means is that the individual ‘is not able, at that time, and in that context, to make a free decision or freely take a course of action. But that individual does not stop being a creature with free will, with the inherent freedom that is an inextricable part of its very nature’ (Oderberg, p.129). In addition, he argues that if a creature is to be characterised as being moral, it must be capable of giving reasons for its actions. As well as establishing the link between morality and reason giving, Oderberg also points out that there is a link between free will and reason giving, because to act freely is to be capable of giving reasons for your actions. Oderberg’s central point in relation to the animals issue is that ‘it seems at least from the empirical viewpoint that no animal has free will any more than [it has] the capacity to act for a reason. Animals, it appears, are governed wholly by instinct’ (Oderberg, p.131). Thus, he denies that animals can be moral, and consequently also denies them rights.
Oderberg responds to those who cite the ongoing discovery by scientists of the increasing role of instinct in human lives by saying that although we are partly instinctive, all conscious human activity can be discussed in terms of choice or free will, otherwise there would be no hunger-strikers or celibates (Oderberg, p.132).
Oderberg points to two dilemmas facing animal rights supporters. The first is that either the animal rights supporter really believes the absurdity that animals should be stopped from eating each other, because if one is committed to the proposition that all animals have rights then one has to intervene in situations where animals are in danger of being eaten by other animals, or the animal rights supporter denies that he has to intervene in situations where animals are in danger of being eaten by other animals by saying that’s just the way the animal kingdom works (i.e. it’s in the animal’s nature to kill, it’s instinctive), in which case he or she has defeated his or her own position by denying animal’s free will if one accepts Oderberg’s argument that free will confers rights. The second dilemma facing animal rights supporters is that to ask human beings to respect the rights of all animals is an impossible demand to fulfil on our part. Respecting the rights of one animal will involve violating the rights of another animal. For example, respecting the right to life of the wildebeest will mean violating the right of a lion to its natural food (Oderberg, pp136-138).
Finally, Oderberg looks to the question of how we are to treat animals. He puts it as follows:
Human beings may not have duties to animals, but they certainly have duties in respect of animals…Animals, too, have their own value…Without the horse it is doubtful that human civilisation could have existed…Without the comfort offered by animals as pets human life would be poorer and more miserable than we might like to imagine…They provide us with important scientific knowledge…With their closely knit, heavily symbiotic relationships, the diversity of species is essential to the health of the natural and human world. All of this enjoins upon us obligations of care and respect for animals, and a vigilance that we do not repay their service with cruelty and wanton suffering (Oderberg, p.139).
He ends his non-consequentialist account of the animals issue by saying that even though needless cruelty to animals may not be construed as violating the rights of animals, we must stop assuming that only by violating a right can we be cruel and degrading, for every act of needless cruelty disgraces and degrades us (Oderberg, p.142). As Oderberg puts it:
What seems to be a paradox – the denial of animal rights coupled with a significant respect for every sentient creature – is nothing of the sort (Oderberg, p.143).
Oderberg is in short telling us that much of our contemporary treatment of animals in terms of our use of them for food, clothing, research material involves needless suffering for such animals, and it is important for us as human beings, if we are to lay any claim to being moral, to be aware of this fact and to seek to ensure that such suffering does not continue to be the case for animals in the future.
IV Stephen R. L. Clark
Let us now turn briefly to a writer who takes a distinctively different approach to the animals issue. Stephen R. L. Clark, in an article included in an applied ethics anthology, sees the debate concerning animals to fundamentally involve the answers given to the following question:
What has happened to ensure that so many moralists now think it ‘obvious’ that all and only human beings are really owed ‘respect,’ and that the actual affections felt between human and non-human should be disregarded? (Almond, p.322).
In other words, Clark is making the point that it is only recently the case that humans have sought to draw definite lines of demarcation between themselves and animals. Enlightenment thinking, with its focus on the supremacy of the rational, encourages such demarcation. Clark wishes us to return to a pre-enlightenment style of thinking in terms of our attitude towards animals, to a period in which animals and the environment are accorded respect simply on the basis of our interdependence on each other.
He expands on his plea for cooperation as opposed to exploitation in terms of our relations with animals as follows:
We can come, we have come, to many agreements with non-human creatures. There is no essential boundary between human and non-human. Our ethics rest as much on sentiment and personal attachment as on any reasoned argument about what things like us should do. We may also be forced to realise that our lives and loves depend upon the living earth, made up of many million…kinds of creatures whom we cannot afford to treat as worthless. It is easy now to despise those human tribes who thought all strangers were their enemies or prey, who failed to see the promise of a greater friendship. In learning that those strangers were, after all, ‘like them,’ they came to feel a certain respect for them that gradually permitted a degree of attachment between older enemies. But a more secure affection, and respect, came with the understanding that the strangers were not like them. The living earth, the promise of a greater friendship, often depends upon unlikeness (Almond, p.328).
Clark is, in other words, arguing that we ought to respect animals not on the basis of their resemblance to humans, but instead on the basis of their difference. Humans and animals are on this view simply to be regarded as different creatures sharing the resources that the earth has to offer, and respecting each other on this basis. As Vardy and Grosch point out in relation to Clark’s position:
This re-casting of the Kantian Respect for Persons Theory as the Respect for Living Creatures Theory avoids the need to identify various indicators of personhood in living beings before moral consideration can be extended to them (Vardy and Grosch, p.219).
Clark’s proposal that we unconditionally respect all living creatures manages to avoid the difficulties inherent in Regan’s proposal, and it could also be said to address Oderberg’s human-centred perspective as well as Singer’s utilitarian perspective on the issue by making the point that it is unconditional respect not preference calculations or conditional respect that holds the key to the debate concerning animals.
CONCLUSION
It will be clear that many issues were unexplored, and of those that were explored only a brief examination was made of each. Nevertheless, I would argue that I am not convinced by Singer’s utilitarian approach because it could give rise to unacceptable situations such as the chicken/baby example being endorsed. In addition, his approach tends to leave the animals issue on very shaky ground in the sense that in the final analysis neither humans nor animals really matter. All that matters for such an approach is that preferences are satisfied. Regan’s rights-based approach seems to me to have been effectively handled by Oderberg, but the question still remains as to whether the fact that humans are moral whereas animals are not automatically implies that we can use animals, albeit in a humane fashion, for food, clothing, research material, etc. One could argue that both Regan and Oderberg unnecessarily complicate the animals issue by basing its resolution on the development of a set of complex criteria which animals have to satisfy in order for it to be possible to ascribe rights to them. One could also argue that it is unhelpful for us to suppose, as Oderberg does, that an unbridgeable moral gap exists between humans and animals, and to base our dealings with animals on such a supposition. The difficulty about using the capacity for morality as a basis for discriminating between humans and animals is that there is no universally agreed system of morality. Moreover, what is condoned by one moral system is condemned by another. If I were to hazard an opinion on the correct moral approach to take in this instance, I believe that one should embrace Clark’s suggestion that we can best resolve the animals issue by believing that animals and humans are simply different creatures equally worthy of respect.
REFERENCES:
David Oderberg Applied Ethics (Blackwell Publishers Ltd.) 2000
Lawrence
M. Hinman Contemporary
Moral Issues (Prentice Hall) 1996
Peter
Vardy & Paul Grosch The
Puzzle of Ethics (Fount
Paperbacks) 1999.
Joe
Walker Environmental
Ethics (Hodder &
Stoughton) 2000
Gary
E. Varner, ‘The Prospects for Consensus and Convergence in the Animal Rights
Debate,’ in L. M. Hinman (ed.), Contemporary Moral Issues (Prentice Hall) 1996
Stephen
R.L. Clark, ‘Enlarging the Community: Companion Animals’ in Brenda
Almond
(ed.), Introducing Applied Ethics
(Blackwell Publishers) 1995