Yuleng Zeng
18 February, 2020
Recall the divide on abortion. We often disagree on what is morally right or wrong.
For centuries, ethical debates have foused on certain fundamental, inalienable rights (regardless of what you do or how evil you are). But should animals be granted similar protections?
Last November, an Argentine court endowed a chimp called Cecilia with the right to live in her natural habitat and ordered her release from Mendoza zoo. Six months later, a Canadian court upheld the notion that pigs are property that can be denied food, water or rest in transit for up to 36 hours.
Chimpanzees provide a salient example of the problem. They have had their rights championed more than most: it is now illegal in many countries to do scientific experiments on them, and efforts are under way to grant them personhood – effectively, human rights.
Jennifer Mather, an animal behaviour expert at the University of Lethbridge, Canada, sees no reason why chimps should receive such privileged status. “Animals from all taxa deserve consideration,” says Mather, although she admits others may disagree.
“I am all for working towards improved welfare of animals, but that doesn’t mean ascribing them rights,” says Steven Cooke at Carleton University in Canada. “I care far more about ensuring that we properly manage populations and habitats to ensure resilience and enable appropriate human use,” he says.
The truth is that most of modern life, from clothing manufacture to agriculture, relies on exploiting animals and treating them with less regard than humans – especially if they invade our space.
Would mosquito rights lead to the end of eradication programmes and thus the spread of malaria? Would horse or cattle rights force humans to take up gruelling physical labour?
Supporters:
Opponents:
“Imagine a pill or therapy capable of rewiring your neural circuitry so as to make you more empathetic: one that decreases aggression, and causes your capacity for moral reasoning and tendency to forgive to go through the roof. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we were all encouraged to have it? In fact, if human happiness lay on the other side of a tablet, why not embrace utopia and prescribe it by force?”
We will focus on utilitarianism and categorical imperative. Check here for more theories of moral philosophy.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
The late 18th and 19th centuries: a series of social upheavals.
Bentham and Mill were as revolutionary as the other two great intellectual innovators of the 19th century, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx.
Why it is so radical? (Divine Command Theory)
What do you know from the reading?
Classical Utilitarianism can be summed up in three propositions:
Here is a video by crash course on Mill and Utilitarianism.
Watch this: Would you sacrifice one person to save five?.
Additionally, When is Torture Justified?.
Most moral philosophers, however, reject the theory. Here are some objections.
- Is Pleasure All That Matters?
- Are Consequences All That Matter?
- Should We Be Equally Concerned for Everyone?Justice. In 1965, writing in the racially charged climate of the American civil rights movement, H. J. McCloskey asks us to consider the following case:
Suppose a utilitarian were visiting an area in which there was racial strife, and that, during his visit, a Negro rapes a white woman, and that race riots occur as a result of the crime. … Suppose too that our utilitarian is in the area of the crime when it is committed such that his testimony would bring about the conviction of [whomever he accuses]. If he knows that a quick arrest will stop the riots and lynchings, surely, as a utilitarian, he must conclude that he has a duty to bear false witness in order to bring about the punishment of an innocent person.
Rights. Here is an example from the U.S. Court of Appeals. In the case of York v. Story (1963), arising out of California:
Later that month, Story advised appellant that the pictures did not come out and that he had destroyed them. Instead, Story [made additional prints and] circulated these photographs among the personnel of the Chino police department.
The “tyranny of the majority”
Harry S. Truman: the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“The decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb,” Churchill later wrote, “. . . was never even an issue. There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table.” Truman said that he “slept like a baby” after signing the final order.
Harry Truman and Elizabeth Anscombe: 1956, Oxford University.
Anscombe wrote a pamphlet
Truman was a murderer because he had ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends,” she wrote, “is always murder.” To the argument that the bombings saved more lives than they took, she replied, “Come now: if you had to choose between boiling one baby and letting some frightful disaster befall a thousand people — or a million people, if a thousand is not enough — what would you do?”
Anscombe’s point: some things may not be done, no matter what.
For Kant, there are different “oughts.” What are they? What is the difference between Hypothetical vs. Categorical Imperative?
Categorical Imperative:
His main argument relies on the Categorical Imperative. We could not will a universal law that allows us to lie, Kant said, because such a law would be self-defeating.
Suppose it was necessary to lie in order to save someone’s life. Should you do it? How would Kant reason?
Although Anscombe agreed with Kant’s conclusion, she was quick to point out an error in his reasoning. The difficulty arises in step (2).
-Here is an intro by crash course on Kant and Categorical Imperative.
Many of Kant’s contemporaries thought that his insistence on absolute rules was strange. One reviewer challenged him with this example: Imagine that someone is fleeing from a murderer and tells you that he is going home to hide. Then the murderer comes by and asks you where the man is. You believe that, if you tell the truth, you will be aiding in a murder. Furthermore, the killer is already headed the right way, so if you simply remain silent, the worst result is likely. What should you do?
Under these circumstances, most of us believe that you should lie. After all, which is more important: telling the truth or saving someone’s life?
Kant responded in an essay with the charmingly oldfashioned title “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives.”
If justified in terms of consequences, what if the results are unexpectedly bad?
Potential problems:
White lies? When saving lives? This points to the main difficulty for the belief in absolute rules: Shouldn’t a rule be broken when following it would be disastrous?
As Alasdair MacIntyre (1929–) observes, “For many who have never heard of philosophy, let alone of Kant, morality is roughly what Kant said it was” — that is, a system of rules that one must follow from a sense of duty. Is there some basic idea underlying the Categorical Imperative that we might accept, even if we don’t believe in absolute moral rules?
Rational; good reasons
This insight has some important implications. It implies that a person cannot regard herself as special, from a moral point of view: She cannot consistently think that she is permitted to act in ways that are forbidden to others, or that her interests are more important than other people’s interests.
Kant went one step further and said that consistency requires rules that have no exceptions.
Treating people “as an end.”
What would an utilitarian say? How about a Kantian?
In America, the utilitarian view of punishment was once dominant. In 1954, the American Prison Association changed its name to “the American Correctional Association” and encouraged prisons to become “correctional facilities.” Prisons were thus asked to “correct” inmates, not to “punish” them. Prison reform was common in the 1950s and 1960s. Prisons offered their inmates drug treatment programs, vocational training classes, and group counseling sessions, hoping to turn them into good citizens.
Kant would have no part of utilitarian justifications. Instead, he believes that punishment should be governed by two principles.
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Social reformers
The utilitarians were not just philosophers. They also sought social changes.
An example: Nonhuman Animals
Theological justifications
Philosophical (secular justifications)