Summary Animal Life Issues - Key Scholars / Quotes
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Course
Applying Normative Ethical Theories - Animal Life
Institution
AQA
A list of key philosophers and their views in relation to animal life issues - this document should be used to support the other revision notes for the topic 'Application of Normative Ethical Theories - Animal Life'.
It is essential to refer to academic scholars in your essays to strengthen argu...
Scholars’ Views on Animals Issues
Fox
1. We have no moral obligation to animals
2. Animals do not have the same moral capability as humans -> not part of moral community
However: not all humans display the faculties requires for moral responsibility e.g. young
children, mentally ill, yet we still regard them as part of the moral community.
Williams
1. It is natural for us to favour own own species
2. Morality is a human invention -> should not inflict pain unnecessarily as it lowers our morality
3. We should use animals to learn how to act morally
Kant - ‘Animals […] are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man’
Scruton
1. Animals have a lower moral status than humans / do not receive equal preference to humans
2. Animals lack rationality, self-consciousness and personality -> non-moral beings
Singer
1. Animals can suffer and feel pain -> sentient beings
2. Speciesism - discriminatory to use animals to benefit humans rather than using own species
3. To carry out experiments on a chimpanzee, people must be willing to do the same to a less
mentally capable human being
Regan
1. It is wrong to view animals as our resource - argues for total abolition animals use in science
2. However, concludes that the death of a human is a greater loss than animal death
Pythagoreans
1. Transmigration of souls -> souls of the dead enter animals bodies as well as humans’
2. By eating meat we risk devouring in the souls of our ancestors
Hursthouse
1. Experiments on other animals are generally unnecessary
2. Need to consider the good of other animals, not just oneself
3. Mistreatment of animals can lead to development of poor characteristics (Link VE and vice)
Major / Minor Interest Argument (Singer)
An animals should not lose life (major) for the purpose of human pleasure (minor)
Pragmatic Dismissal Argument
1. Animals have a moral status, but it is lower than humans’ moral status
2. Animals deserve equal respect to humans, but if human life is at risk, animal status lowers
Proportionalism
1. We should give animals rights / respect them unless their is a proportionate reason to not
2. Does the suffering outweigh the benefits of animal testing / experiments?
3. Pragmatism -> consider cost / benefit analysis
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