Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Respect for Animal Rights Key to Avoiding Treating Them as a Means to an End
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- Respect for Animal Rights Justified in Consequentialist Framework
- Respect for Animal Rights Justified by Precautionary Principle
Respect for Animal Rights Key to Avoiding Treating Them as a Means to an EndANIMALS MATTER AS INDIVIDUALS—THEY ARE NOT HUMAN COMMODITIES Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, 2003, The Animal Ethics Reader, eds. Armstrong & Botzler, p. 454 The rights view rests on a number of factual beliefs about those animals humans eat, hunt, and trap, as well as those relevantly similar animals humans use in scientific research and exhibit in zoos. Included among those factual beliefs are the following: these animals are not only in the world, but they are also aware of it—and of what happens to them. And what happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares experientially better or worse for the one whose life it is. As such, all have lives of their own that are of importance to them apart from their utility to us. Like us, they bring a unified psychological presence to the world. Like us, they are somebodies, not somethings. They are not our tools, not our models, not our resources, not our commodities. ANIMAL RIGHTS MEANS THEY CANNOT BE TREATED AS MEANS TO OUR ENDS Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, 2003, The Animal Ethics Reader, eds. Armstrong & Botzler, p. 455 To view nonhuman animals after the fashion of the philosophy of animal rights makes a truly profound difference to our understanding of what we may do to them. Because other animals have a moral right to respectful treatment, we ought not reduce their moral status to that of being useful means to our ends. LEGAL RIGHTS PROTECT THE INVIOLABILITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO SERVE THE GREATER SOCIAL GOOD (EVIDENCE IS SPECIES PARAPHRASED) Bernard E. Rollin, professor of philosophy, Colorado State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 208 In our democratic society, the consensus social ethic effects a balance between individuality and sociality, between what philosophers call deontology and teleology, more specifically between individual rights and social utility. While most social decisions and policies are made according to that which produces the greatest benefit for the greatest number, this is constrained by respect for the individual. Our ethic builds protective fences around the individual to protect the sanctity his or her human nature, or telos, from being submerged by the general or majority welfare. Thus we cannot silence an unpopular speaker, or torture a terrorist to find out where he has planted a bomb, or beat a thief into revealing where he has hidden his ill-gotten gains. These protective fences around the individual are rights; they guard fundamental aspects of the individual even from the general good. Specifically, they protect what is plausibly thought to be essential to being a human—believing what you wish, speaking what you wish, holding on to your property and privacy, not wanting to be tortured, etc. And they are fuelled by the force of law. Respect for Animal Rights Justified in Consequentialist FrameworkIF YOU CHOOSE TO EVALUATE THIS ROUND FROM A CONSEQUENTIALIST OR UTILITARIAN FRAMEWORK, THEN YOU MUST CONSIDER ALL THE CONSEQUENCES, INCLUDING THE SYSTEMATIC TORTURE AND MURDER OF OVER 10 MILLION NON-HUMAN ANIMALS A YEAR. Mark Bernstein, Professor of Philosophy @ the University of Texas, San Antonio, 2004, Terrorists of Freedom Fighters: reflections on the liberation of animals, eds. Best & Nocella, p. 97-8 We should take note that, at bottom, this is a utilitarian argument. It suggests that, given the situation in which we currently find ourselves, the consequences of animal liberation would be dire; we are incalculably better off if, at most, we tinker with the present system, making just minor concessions to the demands of pro-animal forces. Of course, the ‘we’ here conveniently refers to our human community. If we were to consider the interest of all the nonhuman animals that lie at the lifeblood of our institutions, the calculus would undoubtedly be quite different. Consider a similar argument purveyed by a slaveowner in early nineteenth-century Virginia. He rails against abolitionists, reminding them that the agricultural industry would suffer untold economic setbacks were the practice of slavery abandoned. He reminds his idealistic, tender-hearted opponents that cheap labor is what makes the cotton industry, among so many others, profitable. Being a kind and decent fellow, he is willing to make some minor modifications. He will provide his slaves with slightly larger living quarters and not beat them quite as severely if they fail to give him an honest day’s work. We need not belabor the analogy. If we want to employ a utilitarian or consequentialist criterion to determine the right course of action, we cannot, without being arbitrary and self-serving, limit the interests to be calculated to a group of persons or which we, mirabile dictum, happen to be members. The welfare of all must be considered, be it that of black slaves on colonial plantations or animals in contemporary institutions. Respect for Animal Rights Justified by Precautionary PrincipleSHOULD APPLY PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE TO RESOLVE SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTY ABOUT AN ANIMAL’S PRACTICAL AUTONOMY Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 40 For centuries, law followed an “exploitation principle” in its dealing with nonhuman animals. All nonhuman animals were erroneously thought to lack every sophisticated mental ability—desire, intentionality, self, probably even consciousness—and were categorized as legal things, mercilessly exploited. But evidence is clear that at least some do not lack basic mental abilities. In light of what we know, it is time to apply a precautionary principle to the law of nonhuman animals. Depriving any being possessed with practical autonomy of basic liberty rights is the most terrible injustice imaginable. When there is doubt and serious damage is threatened, we should err on the cautious side when some evidence of practical autonomy exists. And some evidence is required, for every version of the precautionary principle instructs “how to respond when there is some evidence, but not proof, that a human practice is damaging the environment.” Speculation is not enough.
Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 41 A kind of precautionary principle has been argued as a reason for not using seriously defective human beings in painful biomedical research. The reason, philosopher Christina Hoff wrote, is not because they are human, for Hoff concedes that is insufficient. It is because we cannot “safely permit anyone to decide which human beings fall short of worthiness. Judgments of this kind and the creation of institutions for making them are fraught with danger and open to grave abuse.” When rights for nonhuman animals are involved, there is a compelling reason to apply the precautionary principle, and it goes even beyond Hoff’s reasoning. However, it doesn’t yet exist in environmental law. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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