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Table of Contents
1.
Indirect Theories
a. Worldview/Religious Theories
b. Kantian Theories
c. Cartesian Theories
d. Contractualist Theories
e. Implications for the Treatment of Animals
f. Two Common Arguments Against Indirect Theories
i. The Argument From Marginal Cases
ii. Problems with Indirect Duties to Animals
2 Direct but Unequal Theories
a. Why Animals have Direct Moral Status
b. Why Animals are not Equal to Human Beings
i.
1. Indirect Theories
On indirect theories, animals do not warrant our moral concern on their
own, but may warrant concern only in so far as they are appropriately related
to human beings. The various kinds of indirect theories to be discussed are
Worldview/Religious Theories, Kantian Theories, Cartesian Theories, and
Contractualist Theories. The implications these sorts of theories have for the
proper treatment of animals will be explored after that. Finally, two common
methods of arguing against indirect theories will be discussed.
a. Worldview/Religious Theories
Some philosophers deny that animals warrant direct moral concern due to
religious or philosophical theories of the nature of the world and the proper
place of its inhabitants. One of the earliest and clearest expressions of this
kind of view comes to us from Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.). According to
Aristotle, there is a natural hierarchy of living beings. The different levels are
determined by the abilities present in the beings due to their natures. While
plants, animals, and human beings are all capable of taking in nutrition and
growing, only animals and human beings are capable of conscious
experience. This means that plants, being inferior to animals and human
beings, have the function of serving the needs of animals and human beings.
Likewise, human beings are superior to animals because human beings have
the capacity for using reason to guide their conduct, while animals lack this
ability and must instead rely on instinct. It follows, therefore, that the
function of animals is to serve the needs of human beings. This, according to
Aristotle, is natural and expedient (Regan and Singer, 1989: 4-5).
Following Aristotle, the Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas (12251274) argues that since only beings that are rational are capable of
determining their actions, they are the only beings towards which we should
extend concern for their own sakes (Regan and Singer, 1989: 6-12).
Aquinas believes that if a being cannot direct its own actions then others
must do so; these sorts of beings are merely instruments. Instruments exist
for the sake of people that use them, not for their own sake. Since animals
cannot direct their own actions, they are merely instruments and exist for
the sake of the human beings that direct their actions. Aquinas believes that
his view follows from the fact that God is the last end of the universe, and
that it is only by using the human intellect that one can gain knowledge and
understanding of God. Since only human beings are capable of achieving this
final end, all other beings exist for the sake of human beings and their
achievement of this final end of the universe.
Remnants of these sorts of views remain in justifications for discounting the
interests of animals on the basis of the food chain. On this line of thought, if
one kind of being regularly eats another kind of being, then the first is said to
be higher on the food chain. If one being is higher than another on the food
chain, then it is natural for that being to use the other in the furtherance of
its interests. Since this sort of behavior is natural, it does not require any
further moral justification.
b. Kantian Theories
Closely related to Worldview/Religious theories are theories such as
Immanuel Kants (1724-1804). Kant developed a highly influential moral
theory according to which autonomy is a necessary property to be the kind of
being whose interests are to count direclty in the moral assessment of
actions (Kant, 1983, 1956). According to Kant, morally permissible actions
are those actions that could be willed by all rational individuals in the
circumstances. The important part of his conception for the moral status of
animals is his reliance on the notion of willing. While both animals and
human beings have desires that can compel them to action, only human
beings are capable of standing back from their desires and choosing which
course of action to take. This ability is manifested by our wills. Since animals
lack this ability, they lack a will, and therefore are not autonomous.
According to Kant, the only thing with any intrinsic value is a good will.
Since animals have no wills at all, they cannot have good wills; they therefore
do not have any intrinsic value.
Kants theory goes beyond the Worldview/Religious theories by relying on
more general philosophical arguments about the nature of morality. Rather
than simply relying on the fact that it is natural for rational and
autonomous beings to use non-rational beings as they see fit, Kant instead
provides an argument for the relevance of rationality and autonomy. A
theory is a Kantian theory, then, if it provides an account of the properties
that human beings have and animals lack that warrants our according
human beings a very strong moral status while denying animals any kind of
moral status at all. Kants own theory focused on the value of autonomy;
other Kantian theories focus on such properties as being a moral agent,
being able to exist in a reciprocal relation with other human beings, being
able to speak, or being self-aware.
c. Cartesian Theories
Another reason to deny that animals deserve direct concern arises from the
belief that animals are not conscious, and therefore have no interests or wellbeing to take into consideration when considering the effects of our actions.
Someone that holds this position might agree that if animals were conscious
then we would be required to consider their interests to be directly relevant
to the assessment of actions that affect them. However, since they lack a
welfare, there is nothing to take directly into account when acting.
One of the clearest and most forceful denials of animal consciousness is
developed by Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who argues that animals are
automata that might act as if they are conscious, but really are not so (Regan
and Singer, 1989: 13-19). Writing during the time when a mechanistic view
of the natural world was replacing the Aristotelian conception, Descartes
believed that all of animal behavior could be explained in purely mechanistic
terms, and that no reference to conscious episodes was required for such an
explanation. Relying on the principle of parsimony in scientific explanation
(commonly referred to as Occams Razor) Descartes preferred to explain
animal behavior by relying on the simplest possible explanation of their
behavior. Since it is possible to explain animal behavior without reference to
inner episodes of awareness, doing so is simpler than relying on the
assumption that animals are conscious, and is therefore the preferred
explanation.
Descartes anticipates the response that his reasoning, if applicable to animal
behavior, should apply equally well to human behavior. The mechanistic
explanation of behavior does not apply to human beings, according to
Descartes, for two reasons. First, human beings are capable of complex and
novel behavior. This behavior is not the result of simple responses to stimuli,
but is instead the result of our reasoning about the world as we perceive it.
Second, human beings are capable of the kind of speech that expresses
thoughts. Descartes was aware that some animals make sounds that might
be thought to constitute speech, such as a parrots request for food, but
argued that these utterances are mere mechanically induced behaviors. Only
human beings can engage in the kind of speech that is spontaneous and
expresses thoughts.
Descartes position on these matters was largely influenced by his philosophy
of mind and ontology. According to Descartes, there are two mutually
exclusive and jointly exhaustive kinds of entities or properties: material or
physical entities on the one hand, and mental entities on the other. Although
all people are closely associated with physical bodies, they are not identical
with their bodies. Rather, they are identical with their souls, or the
immaterial, mental substance that constitutes their consciousness. Descartes
believed that both the complexity of human behavior and human speech
requires the positing of such an immaterial substance in order to be
explained. However, animal behavior does not require this kind of
assumption; besides, Descartes argued, it is more probable that worms and
flies and caterpillars move mechanically than that they all have immortal
souls (Regan and Singer, 1989: 18).
More recently, arguments against animal consciousness have been
resurfacing. One method of arguing against the claim that animals are
conscious is to point to the flaws of arguments purporting to claim that
animals are conscious. For example, Peter Harrison has recently argued that
the Argument from Analogy, one of the most common arguments for the
claim that animals are conscious, is hopelessly flawed (Harrison, 1991). The
Argument from Analogy relies on the similarities between animals and
human beings in order to support the claim that animals are conscious. The
similarities usually cited by proponents of this argument are similarities in
behavior, similarities in physical structures, and similarities in relative
positions on the evolutionary scale. In other words, both human beings and
animals respond in the same way when confronted with pain stimuli; both
animals and human beings have brains, nerves, neurons, endorphins, and
other structures; and both human beings and animals are relatively close to
each other on the evolutionary scale. Since they are similar to each other in
these ways, we have good reason to believe that animals are conscious, just
as are human beings.
Harrison attacks these points one by one. He points out that so-called painbehavior is neither necessary nor sufficient for the experience of pain. It is
not necessary because the best policy in some instances might be to not show
that you are in pain. It is not sufficient since amoebas engage in pain
behavior, but we do not believe that they can feel pain. Likewise, we could
easily program robots to engage in pain-behavior, but we would not conclude
that they feel pain. The similarity of animal and human physical structures is
inconclusive because we have no idea how, or even if, the physical structure
of human beings gives rise to experiences in the first place. Evolutionary
considerations are not conclusive either, because it is only pain behavior,
and not the experience of pain itself, that would be advantageous in the
struggle for survival. Harrison concludes that since the strongest argument
for the claim that animals are conscious fails, we should not believe that they
are conscious.
Peter Carruthers has suggested that there is another reason to doubt that
animals are conscious Carruthers, 1989, 1992). Carruthers begins by noting
that not all human experiences are conscious experiences. For example, I
may be thinking of an upcoming conference while driving and not ever
consciously see the truck in the road that I swerve to avoid. Likewise,
patients that suffer from blindsight in part of their visual field have no
conscious experience of seeing anything in that part of the field. However,
there must be some kind of experience in both of these cases since I did
swerve to avoid the truck, and must have seen it, and because blindsight
patients can catch objects that are thrown at them in the blindsighted area
with a relatively high frequency. Carruthers then notes that the difference
between conscious and non-conscious experiences is that conscious
experiences are available to higher-order thoughts while non-conscious
experiences are not. (A higher-order thought is a thought that can take as its
object another thought.) He thus concludes that in order to have conscious
experiences one must be able to have higher-order thoughts. However, we
have no reason to believe that animals have higher-order thoughts, and thus
no reason to believe that they are conscious.
d. Contractualist Theories
Contractualist Theories of morality construe morality to be the set of rules
that rational individuals would choose under certain specified conditions to
govern their behavior in society. These theories have had a long and varied
history; however, the relationship between contractualism and animals was
not really explored until after John Rawls published his A Theory of Justice.
In that work, Rawls argues for a conception of justice as fairness. Arguing
against Utilitarian theories of justice, Rawls believes that the best conception
of a just society is one in which the rules governing that society are rules that
would be chosen by individuals from behind a veil of ignorance. The veil of
ignorance is a hypothetical situation in which individuals do not know any
particular details about themselves, such as their sex, age, race, intelligence,
abilities, etc. However, these individuals do know general facts about human
society, such as facts about psychology, economics, human motivation, etc.
Rawls has his imagined contractors be largely self-interested; each persons
goal is to select the rules that will benefit them the most. Since they do not
know who exactly they are, they will not choose rules that benefit any one
individual, or segment of society, over another (since they may find
themselves to be in the harmed group). Instead, they will choose rules that
protect, first and foremost, rational, autonomous individuals.
Although Rawls argues for this conception as a conception of justice, others
have tried to extend it to cover all of morality. For example, in The Animals
Issue, Peter Carruthers argues for a conception of morality that is based
largely on Rawlss work. Carruthers notes that if we do so extend Rawlss
conception, animals will have no direct moral standing. Since the contractors
are self-interested, but do not know who they are, they will accept rules that
So although we need not consider how our actions affect animals themselves,
we do need to consider how our treatment of animals will affect our
treatment of other human beings. If being cruel to an animal will make us
more likely to be cruel to other human beings, we ought not be cruel to
animals; if being grateful to animal will help us in being grateful to human
beings then we ought to be grateful to animals.
Second, there may be an argument for vegetarianism that does not rely on
considerations of the welfare of animals at all. Consider that for every pound
of protein that we get from an animal source, we must feed the animals, on
average, twenty-three pounds of vegetable protein. Many people on the
planet today are dying of easily treatable diseases largely due to a diet that is
below starvation levels. If it is possible to demonstrate that we have a duty to
help alleviate the suffering of these human beings, then one possible way of
achieving this duty is by refraining from eating meat. The vegetable protein
that is used to feed the animals that wealthy countries eat could instead be
used to feed the human beings that live in such deplorable conditions.
Of course, not all indirect theorists accept these results. However, the point
to be stressed here is that even granting that animals have no direct moral
status, we may have (possibly demanding) duties regarding their treatment.
2.
3.
than animals. It must be claimed instead that being human is, in itself, a
morally relevant property. Few in recent times are willing to make that kind
of a claim.
Another way to escape this line of argument is to deny the second premise
(Cf. Frey, 1980; Francis and Norman, 1978). This may be done in a series of
steps. First, it may be noted that there are very few human beings that are
truly marginal. For example, infants, although not currently rational, have
the potential to become rational. Perhaps they should not be counted as
marginal for that reason. Likewise, the senile may have a direct moral status
due to the desires they had when they were younger and rational. Once the
actual number of marginal cases is appreciated, it is then claimed that it is
not counter-intuitive to conclude that the remaining individuals do not have
a direct moral status after all. Once again, however, few are willing to accept
that conclusion. The fact that a severely cognitively disabled infant can feel
pain seems to most to be a reason to refrain from harming the infant.
ii. Problems with Indirect Duties to Animals
Another argument against indirect theories begins with the intuition that
there are some things that simply cannot be done to animals. For example, I
am not permitted to torture my own cat for fun, even if no one else finds out
about it. This intuition is one that any acceptable moral theory must be able
to accommodate. The argument against indirect theories is that they cannot
accommodate this intuition in a satisfying way.
Both Kant and Carruthers agree that my torturing my own cat for fun would
be wrong. However, they believe it is wrong not because of the harm to the
cat, but rather because of the effect this act will have on me. Many people
have found this to be a very unsatisfying account of the duty. Robert Nozick
labels the bad effects of such an act moral spillover, and asks:
Why should there be such a spillover? If it is, in itself, perfectly all right to do
anything at all to animals for any reason whatsoever, then provided a person
realizes the clear line between animals and persons and keeps it in mind as he acts,
why should killing animals brutalize him and make him more likely to harm or kill
persons (Nozick, 1974: 36)?
2.
3.
a right to something must be able to claim that thing for himself, where this
entails being able to represent himself in his pursuit of the thing as a being
that is legitimately pursuing the furtherance of his interests (Cf. McCloskey,
1979). Since animals are not capable of representing themselves in this way,
they cannot have rights.
However, lacking rights does not entail lacking direct moral status; although
rights entail duties it does not follow that duties entail rights. So although
animals may have no rights, we may still have duties to them. The
significance of having a right, however, is that rights act as trumps against
the pursuit of utility. In other words, if an individual has a right to
something, we are not permitted to infringe on that right simply because
doing so will have better overall results. Our duties to those without rights
can be trumped by considerations of the overall good. Although I have a duty
to refrain from destroying your property, that duty can be trumped if I must
destroy the property in order to save a life. Likewise, I am not permitted to
harm animals without good reason; however, if greater overall results will
come about from such harm, then it is justified to harm animals. This sort of
reasoning has been used to justify such practices as experimentation that
uses animals, raising animals for food, and using animals for our
entertainment in such places as rodeos and zoos.
There are two points of contention with the above account of rights. First, it
has been claimed that if human beings have rights, then animals will likewise
have rights. For example, Joel Feinberg has argued that all is required in
order for a being to have a right is that the being be capable of being
represented as legitimately pursuing the furtherance of its interests
(Feinberg, 1974). The claim that the being must be able to represent itself is
too strong, thinks Feinberg, for such a requirement will exclude infants, the
senile, and other marginal cases from the class of beings with rights. In other
words, Feinberg invokes yet another instance of the Argument from
Marginal Cases in order to support his position.
Second, it has been claimed that the very idea of rights needs to be
jettisoned. There are two reasons for this. First, philosophers such as R. G.
Frey have questioned the legitimacy of the very idea of rights, echoing
Benthams famous claim that rights are nonsense on stilts (Frey, 1980).
Second, philosophers have argued that whether or not a being will have
rights will depend essentially on whether or not it has some other lower-
The final theories to discuss are the moral equality theories. On these
theories, not only do animals have direct moral status, but they also have the
same moral status as human beings. According to theorists of this kind, there
can be no legitimate reason to place human beings and animals in different
moral categories, and so whatever grounds our duties to human beings will
likewise ground duties to animals.
Singer defends this principle with two arguments. The first is a version of the
Argument from Marginal Cases; the second is the Sophisticated Inegalitarian
Argument.
i. The Argument from Marginal Cases (Again)
Singers version of the Argument from Marginal Cases is slightly different
from the version listed above. It runs as follows:
1.
In order to conclude that all and only human beings deserve a full and
equal moral status (and therefore that no animals deserve a full and equal
moral status), there must be some property P that all and only human beings
have that can ground such a claim.
2.
Any P that only human beings have is a property that (some) human
beings lack (e.g., the marginal cases).
3.
Any P that all human beings have is a property that (most) animals
have as well.
4.
Therefore, there is no way to defend the claim that all and only human
beings deserve a full and equal moral status.
Singer does not defend his first premise, but does not need to; the
proponents of the view that all and only humans deserve a full and equal
moral status rely on it themselves (see the discussion of Direct but Unequal
Theories above). In support of the second premise, Singer asks us to consider
exactly what properties only humans have that can ground such a strong
moral status. Certain properties, such as being human, having human DNA,
or walking upright do not seem to be the kind of properties that can ground
this kind of status. For example, if we were to encounter alien life forms that
did not have human DNA, but lived lives much like our own, we would not
be justified in according these beings a weaker moral status simply because
they were not human.
However, there are some properties which only human beings have which
have seemed to many to be able to ground a full and equal moral status; for
example, being rational, autonomous, or able to act morally have all been
used to justify giving a stronger status to human beings than we do to
animals. The problem with such a suggestion is that not all human beings
have these properties. So if this is what grounds a full and equal moral
status, it follows that not all human beings are equal after all.
If we try to ensure that we choose a property that all human beings do have
that will be sufficient to ground a full and equal moral status, we seemed to
be pushed towards choosing something such as being sentient, or being
capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. Since the marginal cases have this
property, they would be granted a full and equal moral status on this
Singer does not unequivocally claim that we must not eat animals if we are to
correctly apply the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests. Whether we
are required to refrain from painlessly killing animals will depend on
whether animals have an interest in continuing to exist in the future. In
order to have this interest, Singer believes that a being must be able to
conceive of itself as existing into the future, and this requires a being to be
self-conscious. Non-self-conscious beings are not harmed by their deaths,
according to Singer, for they do not have an interest in continuing to exist
into the future.
Singer argues that we might be able to justify killing these sorts of beings
with The Replaceability Argument. On this line of thought, if we kill a nonself-conscious being that was living a good life, then we have lessened the
overall amount of good in the world. This can be made up, however, by
bringing another being into existence that can experience similar goods. In
other words, non-self-conscious beings are replaceable: killing one can be
justified if doing so is necessary to bring about the existence of another.
Since the animals we rear for food would not exist if we did not eat them, it
follows that killing these animals can be justified if the animals we rear for
food live good lives. However, in order for this line of argumentation to
justify killing animals, the animals must not only be non-self-conscious, but
they must also live lives that are worth living, and their deaths must be
painless. Singer expresses doubts that all of these conditions could be met,
and unequivocally claims that they are not met by such places as factory
farms.
Singer also condemns most experimentation in which animals are used. He
first points out that many of the experiments performed using animal
subjects do not have benefits for human beings that would outweigh the pain
caused to the animals. For example, experiments used to test cosmetics or
other non-necessary products for human beings cannot be justified if we use
the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests. Singer also condemns
experiments that are aimed at preventing or curing human diseases. If we
are prepared to use animal subjects for such experiments, then it would
actually be better from a scientific point of view to use human subjects
instead, for there would be no question of cross-species comparisons when
interpreting the data. If we believe the benefits outweigh the harms, then
instead of using animals we should instead use orphaned infants that are
severely cognitively disabled. If we believe that such a suggestion is morally
repugnant when human beings are to be used, but morally innocuous when
animals are to be used, then we are guilty of speciesism.
Likewise, hunting for sport, using animals in rodeos, keeping animals
confined in zoos wherein they are not able to engage in their natural
activities are all condemned by the use of the Principle of the Equal
Consideration of Interests.
human beings and the marginal cases is the property of being a subject-of-alife. A being that is a subject-of-a-life will:
have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including
their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain;
preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their
desires and goals; a psychological identity over time; and an individual welfare in
the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically
independently of their utility for others, and logically independently of their being
the object of anyone elses interests (Regan, 1983: 243).
This property is one that all of the human beings that we think deserve rights
have; however, it is a property that many animals (especially mammals) have
as well. So if these marginal cases of humanity deserve rights, then so do
these animals.
Although this position may seem quite similar to Singers position (see
section III, part A above), Regan is careful to point to what he perceives to be
the flaws of Singers Utilitarian theory. According to Singer, we are required
to count every similar interest equally in our deliberation. However, by doing
this we are focusing on the wrong thing, Regan claims. What matters is the
individual that has the interest, not the interest itself. By focusing on
interests themselves, Utilitarianism will license the most horrendous actions.
For example, if it were possible to satisfy more interests by performing
experiments on human beings, then that is what we should do on Utilitarian
grounds. However, Regan believes this is clearly unacceptable: any being
with inherent value cannot be used merely as a means.
This does not mean that Regan takes rights to be absolute. When the rights
of different individuals conflict, then someones rights must be overriden.
Regan argues that in these sorts of cases we must try to minimize the rights
that are overriden. However, we are not permitted to override someones
rights just because doing so will make everyone better off; in this kind of case
we are sacrificing rights for utility, which is never permissible on Regans
view.
Given these considerations, Regan concludes that we must radically alter the
ways in which we treat animals. When we raise animals for food, regardless
of how they are treated and how they are killed, we are using them as a
means to our ends and not treating them as ends in themselves. Thus, we
may not raise animals for food. Likewise, when we experiment on animals in
order to advance human science, we are using animals merely as a means to
our ends. Similar thoughts apply to the use of animals in rodeos and the
hunting of animals.
4. Bibliography
a. Anthologies
b. Monographs
Midgley, Mary. Animals and Why They Matter (Athens, GA: The
University of Georgia Press, 1983).
1974).
Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1983).
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, 2/e (New York: Avon Books, 1990).
c. Articles