• Two Arguments Against Speciesism • Animal Liberation and Utilitarianism • Animal Liberation Vs

Lecture 7: Animal Liberation • Two arguments against speciesism • Animal liberation and utilitarianism • Animal liberation vs. biocentrism • Are animal rights inviolable? • Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation

Friday, September 27, 2013 Topics

• Two arguments against speciesism • Animal liberation and utilitarianism • Animal liberation vs. biocentrism • Are animal rights inviolable? • Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation

Friday, September 27, 2013 What do we owe to animals?

• Lori Gruen, “The Moral Status of Animals”

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal Liberation

• “Humans are members of the species Homo sapiens. But...species membership is a morally irrelevant characteristic, a bit of luck that is no more morally interesting than being born male or female, Malaysian or French” • If there is something morally special about humans, it’s because we have some special psychological capacity that gives us moral status. • So what is it?

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal Liberation

• Animal liberationists think there is no special characteristic that gives moral status to all and only humans • “Speciesism” is as groundless as racism: belief in the inherent moral superiority of one species over another.

Friday, September 27, 2013 Two Problems for Speciesism • Most of the psychological abilities that once seemed to make us special are also shared by animals • “...developing family ties, solving social problems, expressing emotions, starting wars, having sex for pleasure, using language, or thinking abstractly...”

Friday, September 27, 2013 Two Problems for Speciesism

• Even if there were some ability, X, that only humans have, not all humans will be equal with respect to X • Does that mean we can do whatever we like with humans who don’t have X?

Friday, September 27, 2013 Are humans ‘special’?

• Kant’s view was that human beings are morally superior to animals because of their heightened capacity for self-awareness and reﬂection • However, these can’t be grounds for disregarding the interests of non- humans: after all, not all humans are equal in these features either.

Friday, September 27, 2013 Topics

Friday, September 27, 2013 Are humans ‘special’?

• One of the major ﬁgures in this tradition is Peter Singer • For Singer, we have direct moral obligations to all sentient creatures, and only sentient creatures • Utility principle: since happiness is the only good, and pain the only bad, we should minimize unnecessary suffering wherever it occurs.

Friday, September 27, 2013 Are humans ‘special’?

• Utilitarianism does not impose any absolute moral restrictions on what we can do with animals. • It just holds that, if we are to cause suffering to an animal, we have to justify it in terms of the net beneﬁt to others.

Friday, September 27, 2013 Are humans ‘special’?

• Another viewpoint, the animal rights tradition, tends to be more absolutist. • This holds that it is inherently morally wrong to hurt or kill sentient creatures.

Friday, September 27, 2013 Topics

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation vs. biocentrism

• According to biocentrism, we have moral obligations to all living things - a point that Singer denies. • Unless a creature is capable of pleasure or pain, it has no ‘interests’ to speak of. • To say a creature has interests means it can be beneﬁt, or be harmed, by our actions.

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sentience and Interests

• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and...

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sentience and Interests

• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and... • a rock

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sentience and Interests

• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and... • a rock • a bacterium

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sentience and Interests

• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and... • a rock • a bacterium • a tree

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sentience and Interests

• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and... • a rock • a bacterium • a tree • a stream

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation vs. biocentrism • Kicking a stone, cutting down a tree, or polluting a stream, may be harmful to other people or animals, but it’s not harmful to the rock, tree, or stream • The same would go for people in permanent vegetative states

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sliding scale of moral responsibilities

• Mammals and birds • Insects and crustaceans ?? • Bacteria and viruses

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sliding scale of moral responsibilities

• Mammals and birds • Insects and crustaceans ?? • Bacteria and viruses

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sliding scale of moral responsibilities

• Mammals and birds • Insects and crustaceans ?? • Bacteria and viruses

Friday, September 27, 2013 Sliding scale of moral responsibilities

• Mammals and birds

• Insects and crustaceans ?? • Bacteria and viruses

Friday, September 27, 2013 Topics

Friday, September 27, 2013 Equal treatment?

• Saying that humans and animals deserve equal consideration doesn’t mean treating their lives as having equal worth • Animal rights are not inviolable

Friday, September 27, 2013 Equal treatment?

• In the lifeboat example, we should usually save the person over the dog:

• the human will typically suffer more

• friends and family will suffer more

• greater loss of potential happiness

Friday, September 27, 2013 Topics

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation • Animal Liberation: • Biodiversity Conservation: • Hunting is (usually) • Hunting is (usually) wrong because it OK if it is (usually) causes consistent with the suffering preservation of the species • Advocates for hunting bans • Advocates for selective ‘culling’

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation • Animal Liberation: • Biodiversity Conservation: • Factory farming and • No particular animal stance is implied by experimentation biodiversity are wrong conservation

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation • Animal Liberation: • Biodiversity Conservation: • Keeping animals • Animals should be captive for kept captive for the entertainment, or purpose of even breeding breeding programs programs, is when necessary for typically wrong preservation of species

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation and endangered species • From the point of view of suffering, it’s just as wrong to harpoon an endangered blue whale as any other species of whale. • Being endangered doesn’t, in and of itself, make a creature more valuable

Friday, September 27, 2013 Animal liberation and endangered species • The only reason to give special protection to endangered creatures is because of the beneﬁts that the species may have to humans and other animals

Friday, September 27, 2013 Considerations

• AL seems to forbid hunting, while biodiversity conservation would often encourage it. • AL does not provide an adequate explanation for why it’s particularly wrong to allow a species to become extinct, particularly if the species does not beneﬁt other creatures.

Friday, September 27, 2013