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Animal
rights in philosophy One of the first philosophers to take animal liberation seriously was one of the founders of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, who wrote, speaking of the need to extend legal rights to animals: "The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny." Bentham also argued that an animal's apparent lack of rationality ought not to be held against it insofar as morality is concerned: It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes ... (Bentham, 1781) Arthur Schopenhauer argued that animals have the same essence as humans, despite lacking the faculty of reason. Although he produced a utilitarian justification for eating animals, he argued for consideration to be given to animals in morality, and he opposed vivisection. His critique of Kantian ethics contained a lengthy and often furious polemic against the exclusion of animals in his moral system, which contained the famous line: "Cursed be any morality that does not see the essential unity in all eyes that see the sun." The concept of animal rights was the subject of an influential book — Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress — by English social reformer Henry Salt in 1892. A year earlier, Salt had formed the Humanitarian League; its objectives included the banning of hunting as a sport. In modern times, the idea of animal rights was re-introduced by S. and R. Godlovitch, and J. Harris, with their 1971 book Animals, Men and Morals. This was a collection of articles which restated the case for animal rights in a powerful and philosophically sophisticated way. It could justly be said that it was this work that reinvigorated the animal rights movement, and it inspired later philosophers to develop their ideas. It was, for example, in a review of this book, that the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, now Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, first coined the term 'animal liberation'. Peter Singer and Tom Regan are the most famous proponents of animal liberation, though they differ in their philosophical approaches to the issue. Another influential thinker is Gary L. Francione, who presents an abolitionist view that non-human animals should have the basic right not to be treated as the property of humans. Activists Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns, Nathan Braun of the Christian Vegetarian Association, and Ingrid Newkirk of PETA have also presented philosophies of animal rights. Although Singer is the ideological founder of today's animal-rights movement, his approach to an animal's moral status is not based on the concept of rights, but on the utilitarian principle of equal consideration of interests. His 1975 book Animal Liberation argues that humans grant moral consideration to other humans not on the basis of intelligence (in the instance of children, or the mentally disabled), on the ability to moralize (criminals and the insane), or on any other attribute that is inherently human, but rather on their ability to experience suffering. As animals also experience suffering, he argues, excluding animals from such consideration is a form of discrimination known as 'speciesism' — a term first coined by the British psychologist Richard D. Ryder. Tom Regan (The Case for Animal Rights), on the other side, claims that non-human animals as "subjects-of-a-life" are bearers of rights like humans, although not necessarily of the same degree. This means that animals in this class have "inherent value" as individuals, and cannot merely be considered as the means to an end. This is also called the "direct duty" view. According to Regan, we should abolish the breeding of animals for food, animal experimentation, and commercial hunting. Regan's theory does not extend to all sentient animals but only to those that can be regarded as "subjects-of-a-life." Regan argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify in this regard. While Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, at least in some hypothetical scenarios, animals could be legitimately used for further (human or non-human) ends, Regan believes we ought to treat animals as we would persons, and he applies the strict Kantian idea that they ought never to be sacrificed as mere means to ends, and must be treated as ends unto themselves. Notably, Kant himself did not believe animals were subject to what he called the moral law; he believed we ought to show compassion, but primarily because not to do so brutalizes human beings, and not for the sake of animals themselves. Despite these theoretical differences, both Singer and Regan agree about what to do in practice: for instance, they both agree that the adoption of a vegan diet and the abolition of nearly all forms of animal experimentation are ethically mandatory. Gary Francione's work (Introduction to Animal Rights, et.al.) is based on the premise that if non-human animals are considered to be property then any rights that they may be granted would be directly undermined by that property status. He points out that a call to equally consider the 'interests' of your property against your own interests is absurd. Without the basic right not to be treated as the property of humans, non-human animals have no rights whatsoever, he says. Francione posits that sentience is the only valid determinant for moral standing, unlike Regan who sees qualitative degrees in the subjective experiences of his "subjects-of-a-life" based upon a loose determination of who falls within that category. Francione claims that there is no actual animal-rights movement in the United States, but only an animal-welfarist movement. In line with his philosophical position and his work in animal-rights law (Animal Rights Law Project at Rutgers University), he points out that any effort which does not advocate the abolition of the property status of animals is misguided in that it inevitably results in the institutionalization of animal exploitation. It is logically inconsistent and doomed never to achieve its stated goal of improving the condition of animals, he argues. Francione holds that a society which regards dogs and cats as family members yet kills cows, chickens, pigs, etc. for food exhibits "moral schizophrenia". Michael E. Berumen adopts a position similar to the one shared by Bentham and Singer, in that he believes suffering, rather than rationality, is what makes a human or non-human animal eligible for the moral realm. Berumen believes universal morality can only be founded on the principle of impartial rationality, whereby we extend the rational requirement to avoid unnecessary harm to ourselves or others. Impartiality, by definition, requires us to extend this to all who can suffer, including other animals. Berumen contends that justified violation occurs only when we can describe our actions in terms of a universal law, one applicable to all similar situations [6]. Berumen's book Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business addresses some of the problems associated with the commercial use of animals. |