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Self and Society. Who or What Can Have Rights? The Case of Animals. Who or What Can Have Rights?. Raised this question when considering case of abortion. Does a fetus have rights? Issues discussed then will apply also to the debate about whether animals have rights.
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Self and Society Who or What Can Have Rights? The Case of Animals
Who or What Can Have Rights? Raised this question when considering case of abortion. Does a fetus have rights? Issues discussed then will apply also to the debate about whether animals have rights. How we answer this question will affect our views on controversial moral questions: • Should we rear and kill animals for food? • Should animals be used for laboratory experiments? • Should fox-hunting be banned?
Do animals have rights? Bernard Rollin, Animal Rights and Human Morality Defends view that animals have rights such as a right to life. Their right to life is not an absolute right, but can be overridden only by very strong moral reasons.
Rollin’s argument for animal rights “There are no defensible grounds for excluding animals from moral concern…if we grant…that people are legitimate objects of moral concern… There is no difference between people and animals that is relevant to excluding animals from moral discussion… Entrance into the moral arena is determined by something’s being alive and having interests in virtue of that life…To put our conclusion in the language of ‘rights’, we have established that animals have a very basic right…, the right to be dealt with as moral objects by any person who has moral principles.”
Rollin’s argument for animal rights If (1) humans have moral rights such as a right to life, and (2) there is no morally relevant difference between humans and animals, then (3) animals have moral rights such as a right to life. An ‘extensionist’ argument. A valid argument. (3) follows logically from conjunction of (1) and (2). So if want to reject (3), have to deny either (1) or (2) or both. Can we deny (2)? What would be a plausible candidate for a ‘morally relevant difference’?
Is there a morally relevant difference between humans and animals? Possible candidates: • Consciousness? • Self-consciousness? • Reason? • Language? Problem: either the relevant feature is not possessed by all humans, or, if it is possessed by all humans, it is possessed by at least some animals as well.
Is there a morally relevant difference between humans and animals? What features might be relevant to having rights? Recall contrast between • interests view of rights • agency view of rights. Rollin subscribes to ‘interests’ view. But ‘agency’ view might be more plausible in explaining distinctive character of rights. Beings possess rights in virtue of being a certain kind of agent – capable of a certain kind of activity.
Why might animals not have rights?Some ‘agency’ views of rights • Animals are not capable of having the desires which correspond to the relevant rights. (Recall Tooley on abortion and infanticide – but he thinks animals may well have some rights) • Animals are not capable of making claims on us or on one another. • Animals are not capable of taking part in a contract to establish moral rules. (Carruthers)
Peter Carruthers, The Animals Issue Extends Rawls’s contract theory of justice to a general theory of morality and rights: “According to Rawls, we are to think of morality as the set of rules that would be agreed upon by rational agents choosing from behind a veil of ignorance… Morality is here pictured as a system of rules to govern the interaction of rational agents within society. It therefore seems inevitable, on the face of it, that only rational agents will be assigned direct rights on this approach. Since it is rational agents who are to choose the system of rules, and choose self-interestedly, it is only rational agents who will have their position protected under the rules. There seems no reason why rights should be assigned to non-rational agents. Animals will, therefore, have no moral standing under Rawlsian contractualism, in so far as they do not count as rational agents.”
A contract theory of morality and rights Problem: it also seems to entail that some humans (new-born babies, the senile, the mentally disabled) do not have rights. Look at how Carruthers tries to deal with this. A possible response: Distinguish having rights and having moral status. (Neither Rollin nor Carruthers makes a clear distinction between the two.) Having moral status = being an appropriate object of moral concern.
Do animals have moral status? How could animals have moral status without having rights? A possible answer: • Rights for (normal adult) humans • Utilitarianism for animals (and some humans?)
The utilitarian argument for why animals have moral status Bentham: what is it that makes a being an appropriate object of moral concern? “Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
The utilitarian argument for why animals have moral status Peter Singer: “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 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.”
The utilitarian argument for why animals have moral status Singer: “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration… This is why the limit of sentience (using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others.”
Rights, utilitarianism and animals Bentham and Singer are both utilitarians. But could we combine a rights theory and a utilitarian theory? • Rights for (normal adult) humans • Utilitarianism for animals (and some humans) Why might this be a plausible position?
Rights, utilitarianism and animals What makes it morally wrong to end someone’s life? Recall discussion of euthanasia: Respect for life is closely linked with respect for autonomy. Respect for their choices about what to do with their life. To end someone’s life is to cut short their hopes and aspirations and plans for their future. Plausible to formulate this in the language of rights.
Rights and utilitarianism Even if talk of a new-born baby having a right to life is inappropriate, there are very strong utilitarian reasons why it would normally be very wrong to kill a new-born baby: • It would prevent all the happiness which that person could go on to experience. • It would cause terrible grief and suffering for the parents and others.
Rights, utilitarianism and animals Are their similar utilitarian reasons for not killing animals (e.g. for food)? Perhaps. But: • Farm animals would not enjoy any pleasure at all if we did not rear them. • The interests of the animal which is killed can be outweighed by the greater good of others.
Rights, utilitarianism and animals We think it wrong to sacrifice the lives of innocent human beings for the greater good. A theory of rights seems to capture this idea. We might think it acceptable to sacrifice the lives of some animals for the greater good – e.g. deer-culling. A utilitarian theory seems to fit this idea.
Rights, utilitarianism and animals A utilitarian view of the moral status of animals would focus not on the ‘right to life’ but on their suffering. A matter for empirical enquiry whether our treatment of animals (e.g. rearing them for food) causes suffering which is not outweighed by any greater good.
Rights, utilitarianism and animals Questions to consider: If animals have a right to life, what are the practical implications for • our use of animals for food, and • our use of animals for laboratory experiments? What are the practical implications of utilitarianism for • our use of animals for food, and • our use of animals for laboratory experiments?
Rights and moral status We distinguished between having rights and having moral status. Is there a different view of the moral status of animals, which is neither rights-based nor utilitarian? A different view of the value of life (human and animal)? Cf. discussions of abortion and euthanasia, idea of ‘the sanctity of life’. Albert Schweitzer, ‘reverence for life’ – a feeling of kinship with all living things?
Schweitzer on ‘reverence for life’ “...a system of values which concerns itself only with our relationship to other people is incomplete and therefore lacking in power for good. Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits of our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us… Through reverence for life, we come into a spiritual relationship with the universe. The inner depth of feeling we experience through it gives us the will and the capacity to create a spiritual and ethical set of values that enable us to act on a higher plane, because we then feel ourselves truly at home in our world.”
Reverence for life Is this a better way of making sense of the idea of moral concern for animals? Unlike utilitarianism, a valuing of life as such. But not dependent on the idea of ‘rights’ - not vulnerable to the objection that it makes no sense to ascribe rights to animals. But what does it mean, and what are its practical implications?
