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The treatment of animals

The treatment of animals. Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk. Utilitarianism. Happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain Bentham: The question is not ‘Can they reason ? nor, Can they talk ? but, Can they suffer ? ’

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The treatment of animals

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  1. The treatment of animals Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

  2. Utilitarianism • Happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain • Bentham: The question is not ‘Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?’ • Singer: speciesism is immoral discrimination against animals just because they are not human • But surely there are important differences here, e.g. reason, emotional depth, self-awareness, moral agency • Reply: true, but these are not relevant to causing suffering

  3. Implications • Should we stop eating meat, wearing leather, conducting animal experiments? • Would doing so reduce the amount of (animal) suffering in the world more than it would increase (human) suffering? • Suffering is wrong, but killing is not • Happy animals that are replaced

  4. Kant • Human beings are ends in themselves. • We have a rational will and can adopt ends. • This is the only thing that is unconditionally good. • The goodness of every other end depends upon being adopted by a will. • Animals are not rational, and so are not ends in themselves. • So they can be treated as means to our ends.

  5. Kant • We have no duties to animals, but we do have duties – to people – regarding animals • We must not become unkind through how we treat animals • Objection: the harm to the animal, not ourselves, is what is wrong • Objection: do we have duties to other human beings who aren’t rational?

  6. Regan’s deontology • Creatures who are a ‘subject of a life’ have rights • For such creatures, there is a way its life goes for it, and this matters toit • Therefore, we can’t kill them for any reason less important than saving life. • All right to life is equal • We should discriminate between more and less valuable lives

  7. Aristotle • Animals are not rational and cannot share in eudaimonia • So our moral concern with eudaimonia has little place for considering animals • Recent virtue theory: there are virtuous and vicious ways of treating animals • What matters is not just capacities, but relationship • We are not wrong to privilege those closest to us • But we do form bonds with animals, and we share aspects of our form of life with them

  8. Virtue ethics • Compassion requires that we take account of animal suffering • Reducing animals to ends is selfishness • Implications?

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