Term
| Attitudes to animals in intellectual traditions |
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Definition
- Augustine: man has god given dominion over animals to kill or keep alive for its own uses. We are separated from animals by their lack of reason. Traditional basis for anthropocentrism (Aristotelian)
- Descartes: animals as clever mechanisms - no mental lives.
- Schopenhauer, da Vinci, Blake, some non-western traditions held them in different lights (Ahimsa etc)
- Kant: "duties towards animals and spirits" - indirect duties to animals - cruelty to animals becomes cruelty to humans. Empirical claim is debatable. Also, objections to animals only having indirect consideration |
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Term
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Definition
- Preference Utilitarianism - moral consideration for all sentient (desiring/preferences) beings
- Impartiality
- Analogy with racism - speciesism
- Equal consideration =/= same treatment (different preferences
- Equality as a moral idea, not an assertion of fact (not related to facts like intelligence)
- Ability to suffer is the only consideration. Anything else is arbitrary. |
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Term
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Definition
- Species-based consideration is sometimes necessary (lions with impala)
- Preference to members of own family like racism? If not, is speciesism different in the same way? |
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Definition
- people suffer more intensely/differently to animals (better for a beagle in a lab than a human) - conscious thoughts etc
- Singer's response: babies/the disabled |
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Term
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Definition
- Rights as potential claims within a community of moral agents
- Only humans are moral agents, therefore only humans have moral claims
- Doesn't mean that we do not need to be compassionate/beneficient/non-maleficient. NOT ALL OBLIGATIONS ARE BASED IN RIGHTS
- life -/-> imply moral life/ right to life.
- rights attributed to humans as a group, not individuals (accounting for babies/disabled)
- animals who express preference/reason/communicate are still incapable of moral agency (no abstract moral rule) |
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Term
| From where does moral capability/agency arise? |
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Definition
- Augustine: inner grasp of free will
- Thomas Aquinas: grasp of binding nature of moral law by human reason
- Hegel: self conscious human participation in ethical order
- Bradley: Development of human self through consciousness of other moral selves
- Prichard: intuitive sense of right and wrong
- Kant: human possession of moral will
SELF LEGISLATION? |
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Term
| Utilitarian defence of speciesism as a general rule of thumb |
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Definition
- great utility in animal testing
- animal pains are not as great as human pains
- objection to animal testing should logically be extended to food etc |
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Term
| Principle of equal consideration |
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Definition
- All beings capable of preferences/suffering are of moral consideration
- If we set the bar for qualification you exclude many humans (e.g. intelligence)
- What makes all human beings considerable? Sentience. Animals are also sentient. ALL SENTIENT ANIMALS ARE ALSO WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION
- Response: Singer presupposes a single property. Perhaps there are many, context specific properties.
- We must alleviate suffering,so preference is our requirement/guide
- Objection: painless killing? Response to this: why not?
- PERSON: a sentient being with a concept of the self in the future/desires etc. Killing a person violates more of their preferences than if you killed a sentient non-person. |
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Term
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Definition
- Animals should have rights: never treat a being (beings have inherent value) merely as a means to an end. DEONTOLOGICAL.
- Subjects of a life - phenomenal consciousness makes valuable/morally considerable. Totally against animal testing etc. |
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Term
| Is emotion morally significant? |
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Definition
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