動物的道德地位

動物的道德地位

人獨特的道德地位？ • 人可以對動物做的事：買賣、宰殺、穿牠們的毛皮、吃牠們的肉、限制牠們的行動自由、對牠們進行實驗…等等。 • 當人對動物做這些事時，牠們會不會感到痛苦？ • 人為什麼不可以對其他人做同樣的事？

人獨特的能力？ • 從手中脫落之粉筆的向下動作 vs. 人的行動。 • 人的行動如同粉筆的向下運動一樣，只是受到自然力量（物理的、生物的、心理的、社會的等等）之作用而有的動作嗎？ • 羚羊知覺到獅子來時的意識經驗 vs. 小偷知覺到警察來時的意識經驗 • 人有獨特的深層自我意識的能力，這使得理性成為可能。 • 理性≠智力

人是有理性的動物 • A rational being is one who is conscious of the grounds on which she is tempted tobelieve something or to do something – the purported reasons that move her to adopta belief or an intention. Because we are conscious of the grounds of our beliefs andactions, we cannot either hold a belief or perform an action without endorsing itsgrounds as adequate to justify it.(C.M. Korsgaard)

人的理性能力使得人不僅能夠按理由而決定行動，甚至能夠自己選擇並且決定行動的目的，有別於動物是被大自然賦予的本能決定其目的，而被衝突的欲望當中較強者決定其行動。理性意謂著自決、自主、自制與自治的能力。人的理性能力使得人不僅能夠按理由而決定行動，甚至能夠自己選擇並且決定行動的目的，有別於動物是被大自然賦予的本能決定其目的，而被衝突的欲望當中較強者決定其行動。理性意謂著自決、自主、自制與自治的能力。 • 例如：年輕的公黑猩猩既想要求偶交配，又想要避免掉黑猩猩老大的痛擊，兩股衝突的欲望中較強者決定了他的行為—避開痛擊。由於他並沒有深層的自我意識，所以他無法藉著意會到他的較強欲望如何左右他會做出的行動而能夠拒絕該欲望，也無法透過endorse他的較強欲望而獲得一個理由。不僅如此，他也無法藉著意會到大自然為他設下的本能目的而能夠拒絕該目的。

人獨特的道德地位：目的自身 • 康德的人性表述 • Kant: “Now I say, man, and in general every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will….Act so that you treat humanity….always as an end and never as a means only. Human beings qua rational have an inherent dignity and so ought to treat each other as ends and never merely as means.”

康德之論證的基本想法 • Kant started from the fact that when we make a choice we must regard its object as good. • His point is that being human we must endorse our impulses before we can act on them. • He asked what it is that makes these objects good, and, rejecting one form of realism, he decided that the goodness was not in the objects themselves. • Were it not for our desires and inclinations — and for the various physiological, psychological, and social conditions which gave rise to those desires and inclinations - we would not find their objects good.

康德之論證的基本想法 • Kant saw that we take things to be important because they are important to us — and he concluded that we must therefore take ourselves to be important. • In this way, the value of humanity itself is implicit in every human choice.

Kant • “All objects of inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclination and the needs founded on them did not exist, their objects would be without worth. • The inclinations themselves as sources of needs, however, are so lacking in absolute worth that the universal wish of every rational being must be indeed to free himself completely from them. • Therefore, the worth of any objects to be obtained by our actions is at all times conditional.

Beings whose existence does not depend on our will but on nature, if they are not rational beings, have only a relative worth as means and are therefore called “things”; • on the other hands, rational beings are designated “persons” because their nature indicates that they are ends in themselves, i.e. things which may not be used merely as means. • Such a being is thus an object of respect and, so far, restricts all [arbitrary] choice… For, without them, nothing of absolute worth could be found, and if all worth is conditional and thus contingent, no supreme practical principle for reason could be found anywhere.” (G 428-29)

We can read this passage as suggesting a regress towards the unconditioned: moving from the objects of our inclinations, to the inclinations themselves, finally back to ourselves, our rational nature. • The final step, that rational nature is itself the objective end, is reinforced by this consideration:

“The ground of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. • Man necessarily thinks of his own existence in this way; thus far it is a subjective principle of human actions. • Also every other rational being thinks of his existence by means of the same rational ground which holds also for myself; thus it is at the same time an objective principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of the will.” (G 429)

Reconstruction of the argument • Presuppositions: • “good” is a rational concept • A rational action must be done with reference to an end that is good, and a good end is one for which there is a sufficient reason. （「善」與「理由」之間的關聯：善的可被證成） • It must be the object of every rational will, and it must be fully justified. （「善」是所有理性者共同的目的） • If it is only conditionally good, the unconditioned condition for its goodness must be sought. （有條件之善源出於無條件之善，後者是理性窮究的對象）

“Good” is a rational concept • “We desire nothing, under the direction of reason, except in so far as we hold it to be good or bad.” • Kant: “the will is a faculty of choosing only that which reason, independently of inclination, recognizes as practically necessary, i.e., as good.” • Insofar as we are rational agents we will choose what is good—or take what we choose to be chosen as good. （選擇的東西是作為「善」而被選擇） • Kant takes “good” to be a rational concept, this means two related things.

「善」是理性的概念：涵義一 • First, reason must determine what is good. • If the end were set by inclination and reason determined only the means, then only the means could be called “good”. (C2 62) • Thus, if an end is good, it must be set by reason; and if an action is done under the full direction of reason, then the end must be good.

「善」是理性的概念：涵義二 • Second, if an end is deemed good it provides reasons for action that apply to every rational beings. （沒有「私有的」行動理由，沒有「私有的」善） • Kant: “what we call good must be, in the judgment of every reasonable man, an object of the faculty of desire, and the evil must be, in everyone’s eyes, an object of aversion. Thus, in addition to sense, this judgment requires reason.” (C2 60-61) • If one’s end cannot be shared, and so cannot be an object of the faculty of desire for everyone, it cannot be good, and the action cannot be rational.

From these considerations it follows that if there are perfectly rational actions, there must be good ends, and that when we act under the direction of reason, we pursue an end that is objectively good. • （若有完全理性的行動，則必然有善的目的；若是在理性的指導下而行，則所追求的目的即是客觀地善。）

康德之論證的闡述 • Suppose that you make a choice, and you believe what you have opted for is a good thing. • Q: How can you justify it or account for its goodness?

康德之論證的闡述 • In an ordinary case it will be something for which you have an inclination, something that you like or want. • Yet it looks as if the things that you want, if they are good at all, are good because you want them—rather than your wanting them because they are good. For “all objects of inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the needs founded on them did not exist, their objects would be without worth.” • 討論：你同意康德的論點嗎？

康德之論證的闡述 • The objects of inclination are in themselves neutral: we are not attracted to them by their goodness; rather their goodness consists in their being the objects of human inclinations. • This, however, makes it sound as if it were our inclinations that made things good. • This cannot be right, for “the inclinations themselves as sources of needs, however, are so lacking in absolute worth that the universal wish of every rational being must be indeed to free himself completely from them.” • 討論：你同意康德的論點嗎？

康德之論證的闡述 • Now even without fully endorsing what Kant says here, we can easily agree that there are some inclinations of which we want to be free: namely those whose existence is disruptive to our happiness. （不會帶給我們幸福的愛好） • Take the case of a bad habit associated with an habitual craving—it would not be right to say that the object craved was good simply because of the existence of the craving when the craving itself is one that you would rather be rid of. （例如：酒精成癮、毒品成癮） • So it will not be just any inclination, but one that we choose to act on, that renders its object good.

康德之論證的闡述 • Even consistency with our own happiness does not make the objects of inclination good. （會帶給我們幸福的愛好） • This is partly because we are not certain what our happiness consists in, but more because of a claim that has already been made in the opening lines of the Groundwork: we do not believe that happiness is good in the possession of one who does not have a good will. • 討論：你同意康德的論點嗎？

康德之論證的闡述 • This is, of course, our great temptation –to believe that our own happiness is unconditionally good. • But it is not really a tenable attitude. • For either one must have the attitude that just one’s own happiness is unconditionally good, which is rather a remarkable feat of egocentricism, or one has to have the attitude that each person’s happiness is unconditionally good. （把幸福作為無條件之善可分成兩種情形）

康德之論證的闡述 • But since “good” is a rational concept and “what we call good must be, in the judgment of every reasonable man, an object of the faculty of desire” (C2 60-61), we cannot rest with the position that everyone’s happiness, whatever it might be, is absolutely good. For:

康德之論證的闡述 • “Though elsewhere natural laws make everything harmonious, if one here attributed the universality of law to this maxim, there would be the extreme opposite of the harmony, the most arrant conflict, and the complete annihilation of the maxim itself and its purpose. • For the wills of all do not have one and the same object, but each person has his own… In this way a harmony may result resembling that depicted in a certain satirical poem as existing between a married couple bent on going to ruin, “Oh, marvelous harmony, what he wants is what she wants”; or like the pledge which is said to have been given by Francis I to the Emperor Charles V, “What my brother wants (Milan), that I want too.” (C2 28)”

康德之論證的闡述 • Given that the good must be a consistent, harmonious object of rational desire and an object of the faculty of desire for every rational being, one can take neither everyone’s happiness nor just one’s own happiness to be good without qualification: the former does not form a consistent harmonious object; and the latter cannot plausibly be taken to be the object of every rational will if the former is not.

康德之論證的闡述 • Thus happiness cannot in either form be the “unconditioned condition” of the goodness of the object of your inclination, and the regress upon the conditions cannot rest here. （幸福不是你所愛好之對象乃是善的無有條件的條件） • We have not yet discovered what if anything makes the object of your choice good and so your choice rational.

康德之論證的闡述 • Now comes the crucial step. • Kant’s answer is that what makes the object of your rational choice good is that it is the object of a rational choice. • That is, since we still do make choices and have the attitude that what we choose is good in spite of our incapacity to find the unconditioned condition of the object’s goodness in this (empirical) regress upon the conditions, it must be that we are supposing that rational choice itself makes its object good. （理性選擇本身使其對象為善）

康德之論證的闡述 • Kant’s idea is that rational choice has a value-conferring status. • When Kant says: “rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily thinks of his own existence in this way; thus far it is a subjective principle of human actions”, he is claiming that in our private rational choices and in general in our actions we view ourselves as having a value-conferring status in virtue of our rational nature. • We act as if our own choice were the sufficient condition of the goodness of its object: this attitude is built into (a subjective principle of) rational action.

康德之論證的闡述 • When Kant goes on to say: “Also every other rational being thinks of his existence by means of the same rational ground which holds also for myself; thus it is at the same time an objective principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of the will,” he is making the following argument. • If you view yourself as having a value-conferring status in virtue of your power of rational choice, you must view anyone who has the power of rational choice as having, in virtue of that power, a value-conferring status.

康德之論證的闡述 • This will mean that what you make good by means of your rational choice must be harmonious with what another can make good by means of her rational choice—for the good is a consistent, harmonious object shared by all rational beings. • Thus it must always be possible for others “to contain in themselves the end of the very same action.”

康德之論證的闡述 • Thus, regressing upon the conditions, we find that the unconditioned condition of the goodness of anything is rational nature, or the power of rational choice. • To paly this role, however, rational nature must itself be something of unconditional value—an end in itself. • This means, however, that you must treat rational nature wherever you find it (in your own person or in that of another) as an end. • 討論：你同意康德的論點嗎？

康德之論證的闡述 • This in turn means that no choice is rational which violates the status of rational nature as an end: rational nature becomes a limiting condition of the rationality of choice and action. • It is an unconditional end, so you can never act against it without contradiction. • If you overturn the source of the goodness of your end, neither your end nor the action which aims at it can possibly be good, and your action will not be fully rational.

康德之論證的闡述 • To say that humanity is of unconditional value might seem, at first sight, somewhat different from the claim with which the Groundwork opens: that the good will is of unconditional value.

康德之論證的闡述 • What enables Kant to make both claims without any problem is this: • Humanity is the power of rational choice, but only when the choice is fully rational is humanity fully realized. Humanity is completed and perfected only in the realization of “personality,” which is the good will. • But the possession of humanity and the capacity for the good will, whether or not that capacity is realized, is enough to establish a claim on being treated as an unconditional end.

康德之論證的闡述 • When Kant says rational nature or humanity is an end in itself, it is the power of rational choice that he is referring to, and in particular, the power to set an end (to make something an end by conferring the status of goodness on it) and pursue it by rational means. • Q: what is involved in treating your own and every other human being’s capacity for the rational choice of ends—that is to say, for conferring value—as an end in itself?

問題 • 人乃是目的自身，具有道德地位，那其他動物呢？ • Kantian moral philosophy is usually considered inimical both to the moralclaims and to the legal rights of non-human animals. • Kant himself asserts baldly thatanimals are “mere means” and “instruments” and as such may be used for humanpurposes.

In the argument leading up to the second formulation of the categoricalimperative, the Formula of Humanity as an end in itself, Kant says: • “Beings the existence of which rests not on our will but on nature, ifthey are beings without reason, have only a relative worth, as means,and are therefore called things, whereas rational beings are calledpersons because their nature already marks them out as an end in itself,that is, as something that may not be used merely as a means […] (G4:428)

In his essay “Conjectures on the Beginnings of Human History,” a speculativeaccount of the origin of reason in human beings, Kant explicitly links the momentwhen human beings first realized that we must treat one another as ends in ourselveswith the moment when we realized that we do not have to treat the other animalsthat way. He says:

“When [the human being] first said to the sheep, “the pelt which youwear was given to you by nature not for your own use, but for mine”and took it from the sheep to wear it himself, he became aware of aprerogative which, by his nature, he enjoyed over all the animals; andhe now no longer regarded them as fellow creatures, but as means andinstruments to be used at will for the attainment of whatever ends hepleased.” (CBHH 8:114)

Note that there are two slightly different senses of “end in itself” at work in Kant’s argument, which we might think of as an active and a passivesense. • I must regard you as an end in itself in the active sense if I regard you as capable of legislating for me, and so as placing me under an obligation to respect your choices or to help you to pursue your ends. • I must regard you as an end in itself in the passive sense if I am obligated to treat your ends, or at least the things that are good for you, as good absolutely.

Kant evidently thought that these two senses come to the same thing. For in his most explicit statement about why we have duties only to rational beings, Kant says: • “As far as reason alone can judge, a human being has duties only to human beings (himself and others), since his duty to any subject is moral constraint by that subject’s will.” (MM 6:442) • But that does not obviously follow.

The idea that rational choice involves a presupposition that we are ends in ourselves is not the same as the idea that rational choice involves a presupposition that rational beings are ends in themselves, for we are not merely rational beings. • The content of the presupposition is not automatically given by the fact that it is rational beings who make it.

Do we presuppose our value only insofar as we are beings who are capable of willing our principles as laws? • Or do presuppose our value as beings for whom things can be good or bad? • In fact, Kant’s argument actually shows that we presuppose our value as beings for whom things can be good or bad – as we might put it for short, as beings who have interests.

Suppose I choose to pursue some ordinary object of inclination, something that I want. • According to Kant’s argument, this choice presupposes an attitude I have towards myself, a value that I set on myself, or a standing that I claim. • Is it my value as an autonomous being capable of making laws for myself as well as other people? • Or is it my value as a being for whom things can be good or bad?

If it is the value that I set on myself as an autonomous being, then when I make a choice I should be motivated by respect for my own autonomy, my capacity to make laws. • The natural way to understand the idea that I respect my own autonomy is to suppose that I conform to a law simply because I myself have made it.

Kant certainly thinks that whenever I make a choice I make a kind of law for myself, as well as for other people, and the idea is not without content: it is the essential difference between choosing something and merely wanting it. • Wanting something, which is just a passive state, does not include a commitment to continuing to want it, but willing something, which is an active state, does include a commitment to continuing to will it, everything else equal.

動物的道德地位

動物的道德地位

Presentation Transcript