[6.10.] Utilitarianism and Animal Rights.

 

 

[6.10.1.] Singer in Defense of Animal Rights.

 

One of Peter Singer’s best known works is his book Animal Liberation (1975).

 

In today’s reading, an excerpt from that book, Singer argues for a recognition of the moral relevance of animal suffering, and he does so from the point of view of utilitarianism.

 

Singer argues that a common-sense moral judgment shared by most people is wrong. He calls this point of view speciesism:

 

speciesism (df.): the view according to which a being’s moral status, including its rights and moral importance, depend on the species to which it belongs.

 

According to Singer, speciesism is no more justified than racism or sexism.

 

 

[6.10.1.1.] Human Rights vs. Animal Rights.

 

Singer does not believe that animals have all of the same moral rights that humans have. (It is obvious that they do not have all of the same legal rights that humans do… Singer is not making that trivial point; rather, he is concerned with moral rights.)

 

For example, my dog Murphy does not have the moral right to vote, to freedom of speech, or to freedom of religion. It is absurd to think that a dog has such rights. But this is because he does not have the rational capacities needed to make such rights meaningful. Murphy cannot understand voting; he is incapable of expressing opinions through speech; and he is incapable of worshipping or engaging in other religious behavior.

 

So to say that a dog has these rights is like saying that a man has a right to have an abortion.

 

But the fact that he belongs to a species other than homo sapiens is not the direct reason that he does not have these rights. Singer’s view implies that if dogs had different mental capacities and were able to understand voting, to speak, and to have a religion, then Murphy would have the relevant rights.

 

Says Singer: “There are obviously important differences between humans and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have. Recognizing this evident fact, however, is no barrier to the case for extending the basic principle of equality to nonhuman animals.” (RTD 121)

 

 

[6.10.1.2.] The Basic Principle of Equality: Equality of Consideration.

 

So in what sense are animals and humans morally equal?

 

“The basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. Equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights.” (RTD 122)

 

The claim that all humans are equal is not true, if understood as a descriptive claim; obviously, different humans have different traits and capacities. But it is true if understood as a normative claim about how people should be treated.

 

...the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact. Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to their needs and interests. The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings. (RTD 124)

 

The fundamental idea of moral equality adopted by Singer was expressed by the classical utilitarian Jeremy Bentham as: “Each to count for one and none for more than one.” (RTD 124)

 

In other words, the equality of all human beings amounts to equality of consideration: each human’s interests counts exactly the same as that of every other’s, and so each human being should be given the exact same consideration, regardless of how he or she differs from other humans.

 

What makes racism and sexism wrong is that they base moral consideration on factual differences, such as race and sex. The fact that a person is black, or Hispanic, or a woman, does not, in and of itself, justify treating that person differently.

 

The same is true with regard to human intelligence. The fact that one person is more intelligent than another does not imply that it is moral for the former to use the latter for his or her own ends.

 

Says Singer, “If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans for the same purpose?” (RTD 125)

 

 

[6.10.1.3.] Sentience.

 

For Bentham and Singer, the difference between those beings that count (from a moral point of view) and those that do not is sentience, the capacity for conscious experience. In particular, it is the capacity to experience suffering and enjoyment:

 

The capacity for suffering—or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness—is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language, or for higher mathematics. ... The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a pre-requisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in a meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests—at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road, because it will suffer if it is. (RTD 126-27, emphases added)

 

So the suffering and enjoyment of non-human animals is morally relevant, just like the suffering and enjoyment of human beings. As an illustration, Singer gives the example of the factory farming of chickens:

 

In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire durations of their lives. Animals are treated like machines that convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in a higher “conversion ratio” is liable to be adopted. As one authority on the subject has said, “cruelty is acknowledged only when profitability ceases.” So hens are crowded four or five to a cage with a floor area of twenty inches by eighteen inches, or around the size of a single page of The New York Times. The cages have wire floors, since this reduces cleaning costs, though wire is unsuitable for the hens’ feet; the floors slope, since this makes the eggs roll down for easy collection, although this makes it difficult for the hens to rest comfortably. In these conditions all the birds’ natural instincts are thwarted: they cannot stretch their wings fully, walk freely, dust-bathe, scratch the ground, or build a nest. Although they have never known other conditions, observers have noticed that the birds vainly try to perform these actions. Frustrated at their inability to do so, they often develop what farmers call “vices,” and peck each other to death. To prevent this, the beaks of young birds are often cut off.[1]

 

Singer’s view is that “sentience (using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer and/or experience enjoyment) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others.” (RTD 127, emphasis added)

 

[“Sentience” normally refers to the capacity for having conscious experiences; Singer is using it in a narrower sense, to refer to the capacity to have experiences of suffering and of enjoyment.]

 

It is wrong to cause non-human animals pain unless doing so results in an overall increase in well-being

 

Again, they do not have all the same moral rights as humans (e.g., the right to free worship, to free speech, to vote, etc.).

 

But they do have some of the same moral rights, including the right not to be caused undue physical pain.

 

 

Stopping point for Friday October 23. We have fallen one class behind the official course schedule. So, for next time, you have no new reading (read the RTD article by Norcross if you did not do so for today). Study today’s lecture notes for a possible pop quiz. Your next exam is still going to be on Monday November 2.