Philosophy 20: Ethics

Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lecture Notes for Singer's "All Animals are Equal"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singer: the elimination of racial and sexual oppression does not equate to the elimination of all forms of class oppression or discrimination. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons and an extension or reinterpretation of the basic moral principle of equality."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we have reinterpreted the principle of equality, we can uncover "unjustifiable prejudice."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We need to learn how to adopt alternative perspectives, both emotionally and intellectually:

 

"We need to consider them from the point of view of those most disadvantaged by our attitudes, and the practices that follow from these attitudes. If we can make this unaccustomed mental switch we may discover a pattern in our attitudes and practices that consistently operates so as to benefit one groupÐusually the one to which we ourselves belongÐat the expense of another."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singer's Project:

 

"My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our ownÐor, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singer's Project Re-Stated:

 

"In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worth NotingÐNegative:

 

There are important differences between humans and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have."

 

We can recognize that humans and nonhuman animals may not have the same rights. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Since a man cannot have an abortion, it is meaningless to talk of his right to have one."

 

"Since a pig can't vote, it is meaningless to talk of its right to vote."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Equality:

 

"The extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic Principle:

 

"The basic principle of equality, I shall argue, is equality of consideration; and equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facts

If one pins their argument against those who are against equality on facts, then one must appeal to science (the study of facts), but the sciences have not determined if differences in ability stem from genetic or environmental factors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ideals over Facts

"Fortunately, there is no need to pin the case for equality to one particular outcome of this scientific investigation."

 

"[T]he claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact."

 

"Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact."

 

"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."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Principle of Equality

"The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bentham: "'Each to count for one and none for more than one.'"

 

Singer on Bentham: "In other words, the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being."

 

Sidgwick: "'The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other.'"

 

"It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern for others ought not to depend on what they are like, or what abilities they possessÐalthough precisely what this concern requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics of those affected by what we do."

 

"It is on this basis that the case against racism and the case against sexism must both ultimately rest; and it is in accordance with this principle that speciesism is also to be condemned."

 

"If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans?" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suffering

In line with Bentham, Singer considers the role of suffering.

 

It is the capacity to suffer that "gives a being the right to equal consideration." 

 

Having the capacity to suffer and be happy "is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language, or for higher mathematics."

 

Those capacities are prerequisites for "having interests at all." 

 

"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."

 

Animals have interests in "not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suffering

"If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration."

 

It is for this reason, Singer argues, that suffering is the only non-arbitrary way to mark out a boundary of non-consideration:" This is why the limit [the ability to suffer or be happy] ... is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Racists and sexists violate the principle of equality "by giving greater weight to the interests of members of" their own groups. 

 

"Similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other species."

 

Speciesists most frequently violate other species' equality with their mouths. 

 

Some speciesists violate other species' equality by condoning experiments on those species. 

 

Philosopher-speciesists violate other species' equality by not questioning the basic assumption of our times, anthrocentrism. 

 

(In the interest of time we'll focus on the third violation.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philosophers and the Ignorance of Non-Human Animal Interests

Singer asserts that philosophy "ought to question the basic assumptions of the age" so that what is taken for granted can be discovered as just that. 

 

But philosophers are the products of their culture, and they too can be blind to their own presuppositions. 

 

"[P]hilosophy as practiced in the universities today does not challenge anyone's preconceptions about our relations with other species."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic Philosophers

Singer focuses in on the failure of academic philosophy to uncover its own unwarranted speciesism within its focus on equality.  

 

Philosophers try and invent ways to show that humans are morally distinct from nonhuman animals. 

 

"They resort to high-sounding phrases like 'the intrinsic dignity of the human individual;' they talk of the 'intrinsic worth of all men' as if men (humans?) had some worth that other beings did not, or they say that humans, and only humans, are 'ends in themselves,' while 'everything other than a person can only have value for a person.'"

 

"[W]hen one thinks only of humans, it can be very liberal, very progressive, to talk of the dignity of all human beings."

 

"In so doing, we implicitly condemn slavery, racism, and other violations of human rights."

 

"We admit that we ourselves are in some fundamental sense on a par with the poorest, most ignorant members of our own species."

 

But the elevation of our entire species as equal lowers the "relative status of all other species." 

 

"The truth is that the appeal to the intrinsic dignity of human beings appears to solve the egalitarian's problems only as long as it goes unchallenged."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singer's Gonna Sing:

But why should it be that all humans including "mental defectives, psychopaths, Hitler, Stalin, and the restÐhave some kind of dignity or worth that no elephant, pig, or chimpanzee can ever achieve?"

 

When we ask that question, Singer argues that we see that answering it is as difficult as answering the original question:

 

What is the "relevant fact that justifies the inequality of humans and other animals"?

 

Singer argues that these two questions boil down to one: if there is some intrinsic human dignity, then "some relevant capacities or characteristics that all and only humans possess" would need to be identified and argued for. 

 

Consider the existence of humans "who quite clearly are below the level of awareness, self-consciousness, intelligence, and sentience, of many non-humans." 

 

Their existence challenges "those who still think it may be possible to find some relevant characteristic that distinguishes all humans from all members of other species ... ."

 

Singer has in mind "humans with [non-self inflicted] severe and irreparable brain damage," amongst other types of humans. 

 

First off, the philosophers that seek to in part explain human equality by excluding nonhuman animals "rarely" lump such brain-damaged humans "in with the other [nonhuman] animals." 

 

If such humans were lumped in with other animals, that would "entail that we have the right to perform painful experiments on retarded humans for trivial reasons; similarly it would follow that we had the right to rear and kill these humans for food."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benn is one of the philosophers that seek to in part explain human equality by excluding nonhuman animals, but Benn does not avoid considering the problem brain-damaged humans present. 

 

Benn's notion of equality admittedly has "only [to do with the] 'equal consideration of human interests.'"

 

Benn: "' . . . not to possess human shape is a disqualifying condition. However faithful or intelligent a dog may be, it would be a monstrous sentimentality to attribute to him interests that could be weighed in an equal balance with those of human beings . . . if, for instance, one had to decide between feeding a hungry baby or a hungry dog, anyone who chose the dog would generally be reckoned morally defective, unable to recognize a fundamental inequality of claims.'"

 

Benn: "'This is what distinguishes our attitude to animals from our attitude to imbeciles. It would be odd to say that we ought to respect equally the dignity or personality of the imbecile and of the rational man . . . but there is nothing odd about saying that we should respect their interests equally, that is, that we should give to the interests of each the same serious consideration as claims to considerations necessary for some standard of well-being that we can recognize and endorse.'"

 

Singer: "Benn's statement of the basis of the consideration we should have for imbeciles seems to me correct, but why should there be any fundamental inequality of claims between a dog and a human imbecile?"

 

"Benn sees that if equal consideration depended on rationality, no reason could be given against using imbeciles for research purposes, as we now use dogs and guinea pigs." 

 

 

 

Benn: "The answer he gives is this: ' . . . we respect the interests of men and give them priority over dogs not insofar as they are rational, but because rationality is the human norm. We say it is unfair to exploit the deficiencies of the imbecile who falls short of the norm, just as it would be unfair, and not just ordinarily dishonest, to steal from a blind man."

 

Benn: "'If we do not think in this way about dogs, it is because we do not see the irrationality of the dog as a deficiency or a handicap, but as normal for the species.'"

 

Benn: "'The characteristics, therefore, that distinguish the normal man from the normal dog make it intelligible for us to talk of other men having interests and capacities, and therefore claims, of precisely the same kind as we make on our own behalf.'"

 

Benn: "'But although these characteristics may provide the point of the distinction between men and other species, they are not in fact the qualifying conditions for membership, to the distinguishing criteria of the class of morally considerable persons; and this is precisely because a man does not become a member of a different species, with its own standards of normality, by reason of not possessing these characteristics.'"

 

Singer argues that the problem can be seen in that last sentence. 

 

Benn:  " ... a man does not become a member of a different species, with its own standards of normality, by reason of not possessing [those] characteristics."

 

Singer's interpretation of Benn:  "An imbecile ... may have no characteristics superior to those of a dog; nevertheless this does not make the imbecile a member of 'a different species' as the dog is. Therefore it would be 'unfair' to use the imbecile for medical research as we use the dog."

 

Singer points out that neither the brain damaged person nor other nonhuman animals are "responsible for their mental level." 

 

"If it is unfair to take advantage of an isolated defect, why is it fair to take advantage of a more general limitation?" 

 

Singer argues that Benn's argument is actually just an expression of interests in one's own species merely because they are of one's own species. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To those not yet convinced Singer proposes the following substitution exercise. 

 

Assume: "it has been proven that there is a difference in the average [I.Q.] for two different races, say whites and blacks." 

 

Substitute: 

 

"'white'" for "'men'"

"'black" for "'dog'"

"'high I.Q.'" for "'rationality'"

"'imbeciles'" for "'dumb whites'"

"'species'" for "'race'"

 

"It has become a defense of a rigid, no-exceptions division between whites and blacks, based on l.Q. scores, not withstanding an admitted overlap between whites and blacks in this respect."

 

But that is outrageous, according to Singer. 

 

"If the original did not, at first reading strike us as being as outrageous as the revised version does, this is largely because although we are not racists ourselves, most of us are speciesists."