lecture 7: animal liberation - william e. macaulay honors...
TRANSCRIPT
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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
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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
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What do we owe to animals?
• Lori Gruen, “The Moral Status of Animals”
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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?
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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.
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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...”
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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?
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
![Page 14: Lecture 7: Animal Liberation - William E. Macaulay Honors Collegemacaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/mhc200f2013garson/files/... · 2013-09-27 · Animal Liberation •“Humans are members](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022050411/5f88657849adca4ee41ef808/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
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.
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Sentience and Interests
• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and...
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Sentience and Interests
• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and...
• a rock
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Sentience and Interests
• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and...
• a rock
• a bacterium
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Sentience and Interests
• Consider the difference between a deer, on the one hand, and...
• a rock
• a bacterium
• a tree
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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
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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
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Sliding scale of moral responsibilities
• Mammals and birds
• Insects and crustaceans
• Bacteria and viruses
??
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Sliding scale of moral responsibilities
• Mammals and birds
• Insects and crustaceans
• Bacteria and viruses
??
Friday, September 27, 2013
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Sliding scale of moral responsibilities
• Mammals and birds
• Insects and crustaceans
• Bacteria and viruses
??
Friday, September 27, 2013
![Page 24: Lecture 7: Animal Liberation - William E. Macaulay Honors Collegemacaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/mhc200f2013garson/files/... · 2013-09-27 · Animal Liberation •“Humans are members](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022050411/5f88657849adca4ee41ef808/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Sliding scale of moral responsibilities
• Mammals and birds
• Insects and crustaceans
• Bacteria and viruses
??
Friday, September 27, 2013
![Page 25: Lecture 7: Animal Liberation - William E. Macaulay Honors Collegemacaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/mhc200f2013garson/files/... · 2013-09-27 · Animal Liberation •“Humans are members](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022050411/5f88657849adca4ee41ef808/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
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
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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
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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
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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
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Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation • Animal Liberation:
• Hunting is (usually) wrong because it (usually) causes suffering
• Advocates for hunting bans
• Biodiversity Conservation:
• Hunting is (usually) OK if it is consistent with the preservation of the species
• Advocates for selective ‘culling’
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Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation • Animal Liberation:
• Factory farming and animal experimentation are wrong
• Biodiversity Conservation:
• No particular stance is implied by biodiversity conservation
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Animal liberation and biodiversity conservation • Animal Liberation:
• Keeping animals captive for entertainment, or even breeding programs, is typically wrong
• Biodiversity Conservation:
• Animals should be kept captive for the purpose of breeding programs when necessary for preservation of species
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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
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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
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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.
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