Animal Rights and Animal Ethics



Animal Rights and Animal Ethics

Humankind has clearly eaten and exploited other animals ever since our species evolved. Not only have animals been killed for meat, sport, furs and skin, but – ever since the advent of modern methods of livestock farming – billions after billions of animals have been subject to pain and distress in the process of meat production, through factory farming and methods of slaughter. Besides, a huge number of animals have been used in scientific experiments to test the safety and effectiveness of drugs, detergents, and cosmetics; while many others have been confined in zoos and circuses for entertainment.

Vast numbers of animals are being forced to live and die in conditions most of us would find morally repugnant. Yet their use has been justified by the belief that non-human animals do not deserve significant moral consideration. Much of our treatment of animals is morally indefensible and is motivated by selfishness. Consider the hunting of animals for sport, or the testing on animals by firms developing cosmetics, or the culling of seals and other animals for the fur to make expensive luxury items, like fur coats. In each of these there seems to be a glaring mismatch between the suffering of the animals and the trivial or selfish nature of the benefit to humans.

We unthinkingly destroy natural habitats when we take over land for agricultural purposes or build airports, roads, factories, housing estates, etc. In doing so, we fail to take into account the needs and interests that animals might have. Some scientists estimate that our impact on the environment is causing other species to become extinct a thousand times faster than normal. In the United States alone, 623 animal species are listed as either endangered or threatened. This includes 85 mammalian species, such as bears, foxes, panthers, and whales.

Is it reasonable to dismiss animal life and welfare as morally insignificant? Are we justified in placing animals outside our sphere of moral concern? There are, in fact, important moral differences between animals and inanimate objects. Unlike inanimate objects, animals are living, feeling creatures. Many animals are sentient in the sense that they can feel pleasure and pain just as we do. The possession of sentience is seen by many as a sufficient condition for moral consideration because any being that is sentient has an interest in not being made to suffer. Seen in this light, an overwhelming amount of the suffering that is currently being inflicted on animals can be deemed morally unacceptable.

Animal rights and animal welfare have been increasingly recognized as an important ethical issue. It is no longer in doubt that non-human animals feel pleasure and pain and have complex emotions too. Some of them, especially the primates that are genetically closest to us, display striking similarities to human beings in their emotions, communication, relationships, and social lives. These animals clearly have interests such as freedom from harm or freedom to pursue social interactions appropriate for their species. To sacrifice the interests of animals for the benefit of humans can be described as, and increasingly seen as, a form of unjust discrimination.

Speciesism

Speciesism, a term coined by British psychologist Richard Ryder in the 1970s, is the belief that the morally superior status of the human species justifies putting human interests before those of all other non-human animal species. The domination of humans over all other beings leads many of us to assume that our species has a higher moral status and the concomitant right to do anything to other species as we please. Speciesists, according to Ryder, tend to assume without justification that species membership can be a morally relevant factor for differential treatment. Ryder’s own position, on the other hand, is decidedly against speciesism:

Admittedly, we [humans] are on average the most intelligent species, but does that give us the right to exploit and torture the other species? If so, how about other less-intelligent individuals of our own species – do we have the right to experiment on children, subnormals or the old and senile? We have no good scientific reason to believe that other animals do not suffer and die like ourselves. So if we believe that it is wrong to inflict pain on an innocent human creature, it should logically follow that it is wrong to do the same to any other species. To ignore this logic is to risk being guilty of the prejudice of speciesism. (Richard D. Ryder, “Speciesism”, in Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics)

Exploitation and abuse of non-human animals is often taken for granted, under the assumption that even the minor interests of humans – such as cosmetic appearance, recreation, or convenience – outweigh the major interests of other animals. The traditional doctrine was that animals were made for human use, and so we might treat them in the same way as we treat mere objects. The assumption that animals lack moral status, however, can be seen as a mere “speciesist” prejudice, an attitude that has been the primary justification for the various ways in which we have deprived other animals of basic moral protections and inflicted unnecessary harm and suffering on them.

Does morality require that we respect the lives and interests of nonhuman animals? We are acting in a speciesist manner whenever we ignore the interests and well-being of animals and treat them as mere means to our ends. A difference in species membership is often used as the sole basis for the unequal treatment of humans and non-human animals. As such, speciesism has been compared to racism and sexism as a form of arbitrary discrimination. Like racism and sexism, speciesism singles out a class of individuals (non-human animals), subjects them to ill treatment, and denies them rights and protections on the basis of their membership in that class.

One of the principles of modern ethics has been the recognition that an individual’s membership in a group is not morally relevant. The cases against racism and sexism depend upon this principle, and likewise for the case against speciesism. Denying someone certain rights and opportunities just because they are a member of a particular race, or just because they are female, is generally considered to be unjust. Denying moral consideration to animals simply because they are not humans would be unacceptable for the same reason. If racism and sexism are wrong, then speciesism must be wrong also – a difference in species membership is not a relevant factor for differential treatment.

There is, however, an important difference between racism or sexism and speciesism. It is mistaken, for example, to think that blacks and women are incapable of being benefited by education, and therefore wrong to deny them the opportunity to attend school. But in the case of animals, it stands to reason that the right to education should not be granted to animals simply because most of them are incapable of learning. To be sure, this is not to say that we can ignore the morally relevant similarities between humans and other animals that have to be taken into consideration in our treatment of non-human animals.

Are we justified in thinking that it is morally right to choose to save the life of a human being rather than that of a dog where both cannot be saved? Is this preference merely a form of prejudice in favor of our own species? Defenders of speciesism may argue, based on observation of the behavior of other species, that virtually all animal species show preference for their own kind in various ways. In view of this natural, biological tendency, we are justified in treating our own species more favorably than others. It can be objected, however, that similar arguments may be used to justify racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.

Are Humans Unique?

Some philosophers and theologians have suggested that there are certain characteristics that make the human animal a unique species. Because of our uniqueness, they argue, we are justified in using non-human animals for our own purposes. Other philosophers have argued that the human animal is by no means unique, and that differences between humans and other animals are quantitative (a difference in degree) rather than qualitative (a difference in kind). On this view, the human animal cannot claim uniqueness as the basis for justifying the exploitation of non-human animal species.

Some relevant differences need to exist to justify the unequal treatment of humans and non-human animals. So the question we must consider is whether humans, as a species, possess morally relevant characteristics absent in all non-human species. If we value human beings more than other animals, this is because we value certain properties that humans have and animals do not. The most obvious property shared among all human beings that excludes all non-human animals is our membership of a particular biological group: the species Homo sapiens. Species membership, however, is irrelevant from the moral point of view. The mere difference of species cannot in itself determine moral status.

French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) held that non-human animals had no moral status because they had no souls. Animals, in his view, were merely “automata” – machines of nature with no conscious thoughts, emotions or sensations – and as such, were of the same class as mechanical objects such as clocks or other machinery. Descartes believed that thoughts, emotions and sensations were properties of a rational soul, something that was uniquely possessed by humans. As animals showed no sign of being inhabited by rational souls, they were unable to speak or reason, and could not even feel pain and pleasure.

Few thinkers today subscribe to the Cartesian distinction between humans and non-humans. Advances in evolutionary biology, in particular, blurred species boundaries between humans and other animals. According to the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin (1809–82), humans and other animals share a common ancestry. The animal world, seen through the lens of evolution, is composed of a multitude of organisms which are all related through evolutionary descent. The differences that exist between humans and other animals, on this account, are more a matter of degree than of kind.

What, if any, particular characteristic makes us superior to all other animal species? In the 1970s Donald Griffin, a professor of zoology at Rockefeller University in New York, demonstrated that the brains of animals and humans share many features, such as neural cells associated with empathy and other emotions. Since then, evidence has accumulated that many animals possess mental capacities that once thought were unique to humans. Not only do these animals feel pleasure and pain, they also have conscious awareness and engage in all sorts of purposeful behavior.

Despite the more sophisticated mental capacities that characterize our own species, we are not fundamentally different from other mammals. Each time a feature – memory, emotion, rationality, language, self-consciousness, etc. – is proposed to be uniquely human, some other animals subsequently prove to have similar capacities. For example, studies of self-recognition have shown that the great apes and elephants are capable of recognizing themselves in the mirror, and research on animal cognition has found that Gorillas and chimpanzees not only exhibit abstract reasoning powers but also possess the capacity to communicate through language.

Some might say that the distinguishing feature that sets humanity apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is moral agency. Humans alone, it is believed, can be regarded as moral agents because only humans are capable of making moral judgments and decisions and take responsibility for their actions. Moral agency, however, does not spring from nowhere; it has its psychological basis in a capacity that we share with a number of other species; namely, the capacity to empathize, i.e. to put oneself in another’s place. We humans are not the only species that care about others. For example, a study showed that a hungry rhesus monkey would not take food if doing so meant another monkey got an electric shock.

There is ample evidence for altruistic and pro-social tendencies in other animals. Examples include chimpanzees that voluntarily open a door to give a companion access to food, and capuchin monkeys that seek rewards for others even if they themselves gain nothing from it. After one chimp has been attacked by another, a bystander may go over to embrace the victim gently until she stops yelping. Female chimps have been seen to drag reluctant males towards each other to make up after a fight, while removing weapons from their hands. And within a chimp community, high-ranking males regularly act as impartial arbiters to settle disputes.

Animal Personhood

Personhood carries major implications for the legal, moral and psychological status of the being that is said to possess it. However, philosophers disagree on exactly what it would take for an animal to qualify as a person. Some definitions of personhood set the bar so high that they exclude some humans, such as young children or the cognitively impaired. One requires persons to be rational, self-conscious and a full-blown moral agent – a standard that would be hard to meet for children under 7.

Kristin Andrews at York University in Toronto, Canada, suggests searching for the six attributes listed here:

Subjectivity: Showing emotion, perspective and a point of view. (Chimps and bonobos throw tantrums when they don’t get their way. One researcher has reported a baboon urinating on a rival as a form of revenge.)

Rationality: The ability to think and reason logically. (Elephants, monkeys, birds and even fish have shown some understanding of basic math. Some animals can handle tougher problems: in one study, orangutans worked out the principles of water displacement to get a peanut. Many animals have also mastered tools: chimpanzees use leaves as toilet paper, for example, and crows make their own hooked tools to forage.)

Personality: A distinctive, individual character. (Individual squid can be shy or bold; sharks may be more social or solitary; and some great tits act cautiously while others are the reverse. Members of some spider species can vary in how docile or aggressive they are. As for chimps, their personalities can be assigned to sit on a six-point scale.)

Relationships: The capacity to form bonds with other creatures, and to care for others and be cared for. (Pilot whales stay close to one another as they dive, and use frequent bodily contact, behavior that looks like it is giving social comfort. Monkeys and elephants grieve the loss of fellow creatures. Imitation, too, could be a sign of the ability to form relationships – newborn chimps can imitate facial expressions, for example.)

Narrative Self: The sense of having an autobiographically connected past and future. (Dolphins can remember tricks they did in the past. Apes have some ability to look forward and backward: by remembering major events from previously watched movies, or taking a tool with them to solve a human-posed puzzle.)

Autonomy: The ability to make decision for oneself. (Communication might indicate an animal’s preference – like when an orangutan was observed pantomiming for help with a coconut. Some species also show signs of distinct social cultures; orcas, for example, live in groups with their own lifestyle, social structure and hunting techniques.)

The idea of personhood has ignited the debate – but rather than chase a perfect definition, society might need to settle for a practical middle ground. “If sentience gets you moral status, but personhood is needed for full moral status, then the entire range of animals that are sentient but not persons have a status in between persons and things,” says David DeGrazia, a philosopher at George Washington University in Washington DC.

Public opinion does seem to be shifting toward giving animals at least some rights. Last year, a Gallup poll found that 32 per cent of people in the US believe that animals should receive the same rights as people – an eight-point rise since 2008. (Aviva Rutkin, “Almost Human?” New Scientist, 2 July 2016)

The Argument from Marginal Cases

The principle of formal equality requires that cases which are relevantly similar should be treated in a similar manner, which implies that we need to show or prove that actual differences exist to justify differential treatment. Thus, to justify unequal treatment between humans and non-human animals, there must be some morally relevant differences that truly distinguish humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom. But what is it that really differentiates us morally from animals? What is the basis for thinking, for example, that we deserve a higher moral status than our primate cousins?

Most of us would respond by citing some capacities that, we think, are unique to humans that presumably justify excluding other animals from moral concern, such as rationality, intelligence, autonomy, or self-consciousness. If, for example, the possession of rational self-consciousness is seen as the justification for the superior moral status of humans, how about those people with profound mental retardation who may not be rational or self-conscious, or possess these qualities to a lower degree than some intelligent non-human animals, such as gorillas and chimpanzees?

For each capacity that might be cited, there are some human beings who lack it. If it is the possession of certain capacities (or the possession of such capacities in a higher degree) that endows humans with a higher moral status than animals, it seems logical to think that those human beings who lack the capacities (or who possess them to no greater degree than certain animals do) cannot share our superior moral status. The moral worth and status of so-called “marginal humans” such as infants, comatose people, and the severely mentally impaired, should instead be comparable to animals with similar capacities.

No matter what mental capacities are used for making distinctions, it remains a stubborn fact that some individual non-human animals are as smart as, or even smarter than, some individual humans. The argument from marginal cases is, therefore, invoked by philosophers (such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan) and animal rights advocates to call into question the unequal treatment between humans and other animals. By challenging the claim that humans have superior moral status or special moral rights, the argument draws attention to the inconsistencies between the ways we treat animals and the ways we treat humans.

Granted that there is a morally relevant similarity between marginal humans and some non-human animals, we face a dilemma. Currently, there are blatant double standards in our treatment of these cases. We use domestic and wild animals for food, skins, and fibers, for biomedical experiments, for entertainment, etc., while, at the same time, we enforce strict protection of marginal humans against abuse and exploitation. In order to be consistent, we cannot allow ourselves to treat cases which are relevantly similar in a differential manner, unless this is justified by a sufficient relevant difference.

A weakness of the argument from marginal cases is that it does not lend support to the view that animals generally deserve equal respect as human beings. It simply shows that there is an inconsistency in the way we treat intelligent animals and marginal humans, and leaves it up to us whether the inconsistency can be ironed out by treating the margin humans worse or the intelligent animals better. The argument fails to prove that animals have lives of value that entitle them to equal moral consideration and protection as humans. One might contend, instead, that not all humans merit the same moral status and moral rights.

Another objection to the argument from marginal cases is that granting equal consideration and protection to marginal humans can be justified on the grounds that they have special ties of affection to other “normal” human beings. The special moral status of marginal humans, in other words, may be seen as arising from the relationships with others within the community. For example, if a severely retarded infant is deeply loved by its parents, any harm inflicted on the infant can be viewed as harm to the adults. Yet, by the same token, it would also be wrong to inflict suffering on animals that are deeply treasured by humans, such as pets or endangered species.

The Animal Rights Position

Do animals have rights? If they do have rights, do they have the same rights as human beings? To say that non-human animals have moral rights is to think of them as morally significant beings; that is, beings worthy of moral consideration. Some people claim that animals do have rights and that we violate these rights in experimenting on animals, hunting them for sport, killing them for their fur or breeding them for food. Others claim that animals do not have rights in the way that humans do and therefore we do no wrong in treating them differently from the way we treat human beings.

Some philosophers have pointed to the fact that animals have interests as a basis for asserting that they have rights. A being, on this view, is entitled to moral rights and protection if its interests, well-being or quality of life can be affected by what others do to it. Unlikely inanimate objects, many animals have the capacity of sentience – the ability to experience pain and pleasure – which is often regarded as a necessary condition for moral status and moral rights. Sentient beings have an interest in not being harmed or caused to feel pain, and as such are morally considerable and entitled to moral protection.

The trouble with the sentience criterion is that different animals have different levels of sentience. In view of this, some animal rights theorists would attribute moral rights only to a small subset of sentient animals, whose mental capacities closely resemble those of our own; while others would extend moral status and moral rights to all sentient beings. (The sentience criterion generally implies that moral status should be accorded to most vertebrates, and probably many invertebrates as well.) Despite such disagreements, animal rights advocates agree that much of what is routinely done to animals, for instance, in the production of food and in scientific research, is morally objectionable.

The strongest argument against animal rights is that by ascribing moral rights to animals, we tie them in obligations they can neither fulfill nor comprehend. Moral rights, as the argument goes, arises within a community where all members accept obligations to others based on mutual respect. As such, only moral agents can be members of such a community and be endowed with rights. Opponents to this line of reasoning, however, may argue that if rights are limited to moral agents, then those who are the most in need of rights, such as infants or the severely mentally impaired, would also be excluded from moral protection.

The animal rights position maintains that human benefits are completely irrelevant for determining how animals should be treated. It is always wrong to harm a rights-holder so that others might reap some benefit, no matter how great the benefit might be. If we acknowledge that animals have rights, then we have the further question as to what rights they have. Most proponents of animal rights argue that animals possess the right to live and the right to be free from unnecessary pain. Zoologist Desmond Morris takes a step further by proposing a “Bill of Rights” for animals:

▪ no animal should be dominated or degraded to entertain us

▪ no animal should be kept in captivity unless it can be provided with an adequate physical and social environment

▪ no animal species should be driven to extinction by direct persecution or by further increases in the human population

▪ no animal should be made to suffer pain or distress to provide us with sport

▪ no animal should be subject to physical or mental suffering for unnecessary experimental purposes

▪ no farm animal should be kept in a deprived environment to provide us with food or produce

▪ no animal should be exploited for its fur, its skin, its ivory or for any other luxury product

▪ no working animal should be forced to carry out heavy duties that cause it stress or pain

Whether animals have a right to be treated with equal respect is a matter of dispute. But even if we think that animals do not have rights and therefore there may be nothing wrong in treating them in ways in which it would be wrong to treat humans, the fact remains that animals are mistreated and this mistreatment of animals does raise questions as to what we, as moral agents, should be doing. It can be said, for example, that we have a duty not to cause suffering to animals needlessly even if they have no rights against torture and abuse, just as we should not set fire to forests even though trees may not have any rights.

Human Rights for Apes?

Some scientists link the five great apes into one biologically similar group. The five types of apes are chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and humans. Humans are just another type of ape. These scientists note that humans and chimpanzees are 99 percent identical genetically, have similar blood groups, and have similar brain structures. Humans and chimpanzees show nearly identical behavior in their first three years of life. All five types of ape have self-awareness and moral awareness, as displayed in their behavior.

Modern scientific findings about the non-human great apes establish that they are complex beings with unique personalities, demonstrable intelligence of several kinds, communication abilities that exceed those of virtually all other animals, profound social needs, and true emotions that humans can easily recognize. These features in and of themselves are sufficient to merit fundamental protections for these animals. Furthermore, since these animals are demonstrably complex and since some humans with lesser abilities are protected, it is only fair to protect the nonhuman great apes as well.

One of the rights-for-apes advocates, Richard Wranghan, a chimpanzee expert at Harvard University, describes chimpanzees as follows: “Like humans, they laugh, make up after a quarrel, support each other in times of trouble, medicate themselves with chemical and physical remedies, stop each other from eating poisonous foods, collaborate in the hunt, help each other over physical boundaries, raid neighboring groups, lose their tempers, get excited by dramatic weather, invent ways to show off, have family traditions and group traditions, make tools, devise plans, deceive, play tricks, grieve, and are cruel and are kind.”

If chimpanzees and other apes are so like humans, then why not give them basic human rights, a right to live and a right not to suffer from cruel treatment, such as in medical experiments? Moreover, rights-for-apes advocates want to recognize the other four great apes as persons under law rather than property. As such, they would be provided with guardians to safeguard their rights, like young or impaired humans. In 1999, New Zealand became the first nation to adopt a law giving rights to apes. They are protected from scientific experimentation not in their interest. (Reported by Seth Mydaus in The New York Times, August 12, 2001.)

Kant’s Anthropocentric Ethics

Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy is anthropocentric in the sense that only human beings are regarded as persons and accorded full moral status. (Anthropocentrism, or human-centered philosophy, is in essence a form of speciesism.) For Kant, appropriate human conduct (or morality) does not extend beyond the human sphere because only humans can function as moral agents. Kant believes that humans alone possess the necessary qualities for moral agency such as rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness. Inasmuch as animals are not rational, autonomous or self-conscious, they do not qualify as moral agents or members of the moral community.

In Kant’s view, since animals cannot reason, they have no understanding of duty. Devoid of autonomy, animals are unable to set goals and make choices. Lacking self-consciousness, they are slaves to their own instincts. “Animals,” he writes, “are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.” In other words, non-human animals have no moral status and only exist for human purposes. From the standpoint of Kantian ethics, only humans have intrinsic worth and dignity, and it is by virtue of their special moral status that they alone should be respected as ends in themselves.

Given the fundamental differences between humans and non-human animals, Kant argues that we only have direct duties to humans but not to animals. Although animals do not have any moral significance in their own right, Kant suggests that we should, nevertheless, refrain from gratuitous cruelty towards them because cruelty to animals breeds cruelty to humans:

Our duties toward animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity… [W]e have duties toward the animals because thus we cultivate the corresponding duties toward human beings. If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show towards mankind. If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. (Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics)

The moral treatment of animals, according to Kant, is only a means of cultivating moral treatment of humans. We should not mistreat animals simply because this may lead to mistreatment of humans.

A flaw in Kant’s argument is that the reasoning he employs is essentially consequentialist: Instead of arguing that mistreatment of animals is intrinsically wrong, he thinks that it is unacceptable because of its bad consequences. Suppose your neighbors’ mentally challenged child is playing by himself in their yard. Most people would agree that it would be wrong for you to use the child for target practice. But why exactly is it wrong to do so? Is it wrong because it is morally wrong to inflict harm on an innocent victim? Or is it because your action may make it more likely that you would target other people?

Another problem with Kant’s anthropocentrism is that moral agency has been taken as the sole criterion for moral consideration. Kant’s ideal community of moral equals – a “kingdom of ends” composed exclusively of moral agents – would appear to deny membership not only to non-human animals but also to infants, the severely mentally disabled and other marginal humans who do not meet the requirements of moral agency. On the other hand, moral status might have to be granted to intelligent animals such as dolphins and the great apes inasmuch as these animals exhibit many of the essential characteristics of moral agents.

Singer’s Utilitarian Position

The contemporary philosopher whose name is most often associated with the animal liberation movement is Peter Singer. The roots of Singer’s view can be traced back to the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, who proposed that any being capable of suffering (i.e. any sentient being) should have its experiences taken into account by utilitarian calculations. To quote Bentham: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” Like Bentham, Singer argues that the scope of our moral concern should be extended to cover the interests of non-human animals:

The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any 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. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is… If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. (Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal”)

For Singer, any being that has an interest in not suffering deserves to have that interest taken into account. Failure or unwillingness to take animal suffering into consideration can be characterized as “speciesism,” a prejudice or attitude of bias towards the interests of members of one’s own species and against those members of other species. According to Singer, a difference in species is no more a morally relevant distinction than other arbitrary characteristics, such as race or sex. Undoubtedly, from the mere fact that a person is black or a woman, we cannot infer anything about that person’s intellectual or moral capacities. But is it also true of animals?

According to Singer, the case for equality between men and women, or between blacks and whites, is not premised on “actual equality” because “humans come in different shapes and sizes… with differing moral capacities, differing intellectual abilities, differing amounts of benevolent feeling and sensitivity to the needs of others, differing abilities to communicate effectively, and differing capacities to experience pleasure and pain.” Equality, in Singer’s view, is “a moral ideal, not a simply assertion of fact” and “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 satisfying their needs and interests.”

The demand of equality, in other words, rests on the principle that the relevant interests and welfare of all sentient beings should be given equal weight and consideration, regardless of individual differences in physical, mental and emotional capacities. Singer’s principle of equal consideration of interest requires that all similar interests ought to be considered and weighted equally in our moral deliberations. As long as animals can feel pleasure and pain, they have an interest in a painless, pleasurable life. We cannot disregard their interests simply because they are not members of our species. Because all interests are equal, they make the same moral demands on us.

In Singer’s view, to the extent that animals are sentient, their interests should be given equal consideration as those of humans. It does not follow, however, that animals should be treated in the same way humans are treated. Singer acknowledges that “equality of consideration” does not imply exactly the same treatment. It would make no sense to say that a pig should have a right to education, because it has no interest that would be served by an education. However, it would make sense to say that we ought to give equal consideration to the suffering of a pig and that of a human infant, because what both have in common is an interest in avoiding suffering.

The principle of equal consideration of interest necessitates giving equal moral weight to the relevantly similar interests of humans and animals. Singer contends that avoidance of pain is a characteristic of all sentient creatures. Like humans, animals also have an interest in a pleasurable life, relatively free of pain. In Singer’s view, humans have ruthlessly and cruelly exploited animals and inflicted needless suffering on them, and this must be stopped because all sentient beings should be considered as equals with respect to infliction of pain. We must bring animals within our sphere of moral concern and cease to treat them as expendable for whatever trivial purposes we may have.

While it might be reasonable to agree with Singer’s view that the capacity of sentience is a sufficient condition for moral consideration, we have to keep in mind that sentience comes in degrees such that different animals might have different levels of conscious awareness. Does it imply that the interests of some animals should carry more weight than others? Singer seems to admit that factual differences between animals and humans often warrant differential treatment. Does it mean that creatures with higher levels of intelligence, rationality or other morally relevant characteristics should be entitled to greater moral respect?

Regan’s Deontological Rights View

Deontological rights theorist Tom Regan concurs with Peter Singer’s view that our treatment of animals is wrong and that speciesism is unjust, but disagrees with Singer’s utilitarian reasoning because it does not provide sufficient warrant for the protection of innocent life. The utilitarian position, for example, does not object to the killing of animals as long as this is done in a way that does not cause them suffering. Singer himself does not oppose all uses of animals. If the benefits to humans of scientific experimentation or animal agriculture sufficiently outweighed the harms to animals, then they would be justified in utilitarian terms.

From the standpoint of deontological rights theory, there are certain things that, regardless of the consequences, are simply wrong to do to an individual – the rights of an individual can never be violated for the greater good of others. To defend the moral rights of animals would be to claim that certain ways of treating animals cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds. Rejecting Singer’s utilitarianism, Regan argues that moral rights should be accorded to all subjects-of-a-life, i.e. conscious creatures that have an individual welfare that has importance to themselves regardless of their usefulness to others.

To possess moral rights, an individual must be a subject-of-a-life (or an experiencing subject of a life) which, as Regan explains, is a being that possesses certain mental and emotional capacities, which include “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 psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them.”

According to Regan, the behavior of many animals provides ample evidence that they too have beliefs, desires and other mental capacities. He proposes, for example, that all mentally normal mammals one year old or older fit the description of a subject-of-a-life. All subjects-of-a-life, he then goes on to say, possess equal inherent value and thus possess an equal right to be treated with respect. Inherent value is a quality that Regan attributes to every creature that has a life that matters to it – a characteristic that entitles a being to moral rights and moral protection. To have inherent value, Regan claims, is to have a right not to be treated as a mere means by others.

Regan opposes the view that only moral agents – those beings who can make and act upon moral judgments – can have rights. It is generally agreed, for example, that human infants have a right not to be harmed. But as they have yet to develop the capacities necessary for them to act as moral agents, human infants, if they are indeed rights-holders, cannot be so in virtue of being moral agents. According to Regan, since there is no morally relevant difference between human infants and many non-human animals, there is no reason to insist that moral agency must be taken as a necessary condition for moral status and moral rights.

It is unacceptable, from Regan’s point of view, to treat animals as means to human ends. What is morally objectionable about the mistreatment of animals, he argues, is that animals are generally treated as resources to be used, abused, and destroyed for the sake of human needs and wants. By hunting deer, trapping fox, milking cows, experimenting on rabbits, and training circus elephants, we treat animals as mere means to our ends and violate their equal right to be treated with respect. Our failure to treat animals as inherently valuable is a failure in our duty to subjects-of-a-life.

The ultimate goal of the animal rights movement, in Regan’s view, is to call for (1) the total abolition of the use of animals in science, (2) the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture, and (3) the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping. Regan’s primary concern, however, is not the pain or suffering caused to the animals. What is fundamentally wrong, as he sees it, is “the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us – to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or put in our cross hairs for sport or money.”

Regan steadfastly denies that inherent value can admit of degrees; for him, a being either possesses inherent value, or it does not. Critics of Regan point out that morally relevant characteristics, such as sentience, autonomy, rationality, self-awareness, sociability or linguistic ability, all come in degrees. If these properties come in degrees, then it is reasonable to argue, pace Regan, that the moral status of different beings based on these properties should also come in degrees. As Regan has not explained how inherent value is related to other morally relevant properties, it is not possible to make any clear distinction between those who have rights and those who do not.

Almost everyone agrees that animals are entitled to some protection against human abuse, so it is reasonable to grant certain rights to animals for this specific purpose. However, for those who think that moral status comes in degrees, the weaker rights of animals may on some occasions be overridden by the stronger rights of humans. Another plausible alternative to Regan’s animal rights position is the proposition that although animals do not have rights, we still have a duty not to harm them, just as we should avoid polluting the environment not because trees or mountains have rights, but because we have a moral duty to protect the natural world.

Factory Farming

By far the largest direct cause of animal abuse, and one that is gaining prominence in the public consciousness, is the food-production industry. Globally, the number of land animals killed each year for food has exceeded 65 billion, according to conservative UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) figures. An average American meat-eater is responsible for the suffering and death of about 28 land animals and an estimated 175 aquatic animals per year, totaling over 15,000 individual animals over a 75-year life span.

Most of the animal products that humans eat are produced in circumstances that are extremely uncomfortable for the animals. The majority of these animals are raised in “factory farm” conditions in which their well-being is systematically sacrificed in every way that might reduce expenditures and thereby maximize profit. The advent of factory farming, the mass production and daily slaughter of millions of other creatures for food in circumstances designed solely for cost and handling efficiency rather than the welfare of the animals involved, raises concerns about the ethical treatment of farm animals.

The intensive practices of factory farming were first introduced under the assumption that animals could be used without limit. The development of modern confinement methods first began in the 1950s with poultry and dairy livestock, which were moved from outdoor circumstances to confinement facilities, while livestock kept for meat followed in the 1960s. Economic factors have led to technologically specialized intensive factory farms that are typically owned by large corporations that mass-produce and market food. The modern method of animal agriculture is accompanied by enormous suffering of the farm animals, which is increasingly recognized as a serious ethical issue.

Critics of industrialized animal agriculture point out that modern factory farms produce animals that live miserable lives and are then killed for human purposes. While such farms are not intentionally cruel, they employ practices that would certainly appear to be cruel if viewed from the perspective of the animals. Livestock is typically branded, force-fed, and confined, often without enough space to exercise or even turn around. They are kept in close proximity to other animals, which makes them susceptible to infectious diseases, a problem that is usually addressed by pumping the livestock with antibiotics.

Modern dairy production, for example, has been designed to maximize cows’ output by manipulating their physiology. To ensure that as much milk can be produced as possible (which involves milking several times per day), each cow is kept in a constant state of pregnancy. Dairy cows, which have a normal life expectancy of around twenty years, are also fed a special diet of chemicals, vitamins, and medicines designed to maximize production. Once their productivity declines, these cows are sent to the slaughterhouse where they are stunned and killed for beef.

Since we humans could easily nourish ourselves without eating these farm animals, the only reason for eating them seems to be our enjoyment of how they taste. An obvious solution to the problem of avoidable animal suffering, on an individual level, is to leave these animals off our plate. The idea that it is wrong to cause suffering, unless there is a sufficient justification, is one of the most basic moral principles shared by virtually everyone. If we accept as a basic moral principle that we should not cause avoidable harm, then we must accept that we should not cause avoidable harm to animals.

The principle of equal consideration of interests requires that we abstain, at a minimum, from eating factory-farmed products. Ideally, we should not consume products from any animal that we believe is sentient. Animal rights theorists would go further and argue that like humans, non-human animals have morally significant interests and hence rights, including the right to live and not be caused suffering. Animals, from the animal rights perspective, should never be seen as resources for our use and consumption. Thus, on the rights view, even totally painless meat production would still be unacceptable.

Vegetarianism

There are degrees of vegetarianism. All vegetarians avoid eating animals, although some may eat eggs, dairy products, or even fish. Vegans avoid consuming both animals and animal products, including eggs, dairy, and in some cases honey. Some people observe vegetarian diets for health reasons, for example, because of a food allergy or in an effort to follow a high-fiber, low-fat diet. Medical studies have shown that eating meat is not necessary for human health. This is especially true in much of the developed world, where nutritious alternatives are easily found in the typical supermarket. Apart from health issues, a significant proportion of vegetarians avoid eating animals also for ethical reasons.

Increasing numbers of healthy vegetarians is adding to the medical evidence that eating animals is unnecessary and even detrimental to our health. Eating animals leads to higher risks of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. One in six Americans contracts a food-borne disease each year. In 54 percent of these cases, and 77 percent of fatal cases, the culprit is an animal product. Also worrying is that about 80 percent of antibiotics produced in the U.S. are given to farm animals, leading to antibiotic resistance that poses a serious public health risk.

The issues extend beyond public health. Raising animals for food is recognized by the United Nations as “a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole” and “one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases.” The process of converting calories from plant-based to animal-based foods is inherently inefficient and makes it more difficult to feed a hungry and growing global population. It would be more efficient and less wasteful to feed the growing human population if we ate lower on the food chain. In short, if we were to raise fewer farm animals for meat, we could grow more crops and feed more humans. This would leave a smaller ecological footprint and help to fight human hunger around the world.

The deeper ethical question is whether there are good moral reasons to avoid meat and animal products or whether the consumption of animals is morally justified. Most meat eaters think that there is nothing wrong with consuming animals and animal products. Meat eating is deeply rooted in custom and tradition. One traditional idea holds that animals are given to us by God for our use. A related idea maintains that there is a hierarchy of beings, with humans at the top, and this entitles us to use the animals below us. Others may argue, from a philosophical point of view, that animals are not moral “persons” because they do not have the sort of cognitive capacity that would give them an interest in living.

Supporters of meat eating may argue that the vast populations of cows, pigs and chickens exist only because we raise them for food. A world of vegetarians would be a world without such animals because there would be no economic reason to raise them. But the claim that non-existence is morally preferable to ending up on someone’s dining table seems, at the least, debatable. Vegetarians might retort that factory-farmed animals often experience an entire lifetime of pain and suffering. The conditions in which the animals are raised may be so inhumane that it would be better if these animals had never existed at all.

Animal Experimentation

The Humane Society estimates that some twenty-five million animals in total are used in animal experiments each year in the United States. Opponents of animal research argue that this is too much cruelty in the name of research. Groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and the Humane Society continue to question the need for animal research and argue that alternatives are being neglected. In view of the strong opposition from these organizations, are we still justified in using animals for medical and other scientific research?

In the twentieth century, research with animals played an important role in making advances in medicine possible. For example, in 1921 an Ontario doctor and his assistant severed the connection between the pancreases and digestive systems of dogs in order to find the substance that controlled diabetes. In so doing, they isolated insulin and thus opened the possibility for treating the millions of people who have that disease. In the development of a polio vaccine, hundreds of primates were killed, but as a result of these experiments, polio is now almost eradicated in the developed world.

Although animal experimentation is often viewed as a “necessary evil” given its benefits for human and non-human health or well-being, it can cause severe harm and suffering to the animals involved. Suffering is arguably still commonplace in areas such as toxicology (testing of chemicals such as medicines, household cleaners, cosmetics, and pesticides for their toxic effects), cancer research (in which cancers are induced artificially in animals by means of genetic modification or chemical stimulation), and neurological research (in which brain damage may be inflicted on animals by mechanical or chemical means).

Animal rights activists argue that most animal research is no longer necessary because alternative methods of investigation are available, or because it yields results that cannot be reliably extrapolated to cases involving human beings. Other sources of information can now be used, including population studies or epidemiology, monitoring of human patients, noninvasive medical imaging devices, autopsies, tissue and cell cultures, in vitro tests, and computer models. Opponents of animal research also draw attention to cases in which the use of animals as experimental subjects has actually impeded the progress of science and medicine, for example, the misleading animal experiments deliberately conducted to play down the health risk of cigarette smoking.

As is well known, there are problems involved in extrapolating results obtained from studies on animals to humans. Prescription drugs are often tested extensively on animals before being made available to consumers, but there have been many instances of chemicals that are not toxic for test animals turn out to be highly toxic for human beings. The data obtained would therefore be far more reliable if the test subjects were human beings rather than animals. As experiments routinely involve thousands of animals with uncertain benefits to humans, there is good reason for thinking that such experiments should not be conducted.

Defenders of animal experimentation claim that the practice can be justified on utilitarian grounds as long as the benefits outweigh the harms. Strictly speaking, performing similar experiments on humans may also be justified on utilitarian grounds, and yet we are unlikely to find utilitarians advocating experimenting on humans for the general good (unless they are volunteers in drug trials or experimental treatment programs). Peter Singer raises a pertinent question: “Why do we lock up chimpanzees in appalling primate research centers and use them in experiments that range from the uncomfortable to the agonizing and lethal, yet would never think of doing the same to a retarded human being at a much lower mental level?”

In the name of consistency, if we believe that it is moral impermissible to perform medical experiments on mentally retarded persons, it would also be unacceptable to use non-human animals of comparable mental capacity as test subjects in similar experiments. To think otherwise would be to disregard the principle of formal equality, which requires that like cases be treated alike. Thus, refusal to extend moral protection against cruel treatment to animals can be seen as a symptom of speciesism, a bias in favor of our own species that prevents us from recognizing the moral worth of other animal species.

Suggested Readings:

1. Barbara MacKinnon & Andrew Fiala (2015) Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues (8th edition), Cengage Learning, Chapter 17.

2. Bonnie Steinbock, ‘Speciesism and the Idea of Equality’ (online)

3. Peter Singer, ‘All Animals Are Equal’ (online)

4. Tom Regan, ‘The Case for Animal Rights’ (online)

5. ‘Animal Ethics’ (online) in BBC Ethics Guide,

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