The expressions “animal rights” and “animal liberation” have both become unfortunately associated in a large part of public opinion with what the public considers, rightly or wrongly, terroristic tactics, intimidation and violence.
A Google site search of many media websites will reveal that this is the case: “animal rights” will come up almost always followed by “terrorists”.
“Animal equality” is perhaps a better name, because it encompasses all the internal, sometimes little more than semantic, differences among the various philosophers, activists and organizations who are, after all, fighting for the very same cause.
These distinctions may appear more important than they actually are. For example, moral philosophers of different schools of thought might provide different justifications to outlaw human slavery, but in the end they agree on the most fundamental principles.
Something similar happens within the animal equality movement.
Showing posts with label Ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethics. Show all posts
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Animal equality
Ethics (or moral philosophy: the two are synonims, the only difference being that the former is a word of Greek origin, the latter of Latin) is the rational exploration of what is right and wrong, what ought to be and what we ought to do.
Any moral theory must have a theory of moral status, defining moral agents (beings who act on moral grounds) and moral patients.
Not all beings are moral patients, ie not all beings should be considered when we make moral decisions. Some beings, like inanimate objects, don’t pertain to the moral sphere because they don’t have the characteristics that would make them affected by an action in a subjective sense: in a word, they experience nothing. They, therefore, have no interests.
So, what beings belong to the sphere of moral concern and why?
Animals, both human and non-human, both as individuals and species, possess a very high number of characteristics.
The overwhelming majority of these characteristics have no effect on the moral status of their owner: having a certain hair colour, or thickness of fur, or being able to fly, walk or swim, are examples of such characteristics.
What characteristics are relevant to ethics, then?
Although there is no absolute agreement on this among moral philosophers, there are several characteristics which are generally recognised as the likely candidates.
Moral philosophers may disagree on their specific lists of characteristics, but most characteristics will appear on most philosophers’ lists. That is: the school of moral philosophy A, utilitarianism for instance, will give more importance to sentience, whereas the school of thought B might give more importance to rationality. But basically, the characteristics of moral relevance are a circumscribed number.
Sentience will appear on almost every philosopher’s list. Sentience is defined as awareness of sensation and the ability to feel pleasure and pain.
Other candidate characteristics include memory, self-consciousness, oral language, a sense of justice, intelligence, ability to communicate, concern for others, playfulness.
Almost all these characteristics are variable. Different individuals have them in various degrees.
Human beings, too, greatly differ in their possession of them. Some human beings don’t possess some of them at all.
Newborn, mentally retarded, severely senile, brain-damaged humans fall into this category.
On the other hand, many capacities that have been proposed as a demarcation line between humans and non-humans have turned out, on closer scrutiny and as our knowledge of animals progresses, not to be unequivocally unique to humans.
Many other animals possess them in some degree. Examples of these behaviours and characteristics are the development of complex family ties, a system of morality, advanced social rules, problem solution, the expression of emotions, wars, sex for pleasure, abstract thought.
If we wish to restrict our definition of what is necessary to be included in the sphere of moral concern to higher characteristics, such as self-consciousness, oral language or a sense of justice, then not all human beings possess them, so some human beings will be excluded from the moral sphere of consideration.
If, on the other hand, we decide to broaden our definition so as to admit characteristics like capability of feeling pain, then non-human animals must be included into the moral sphere too.
There is no way to escape this iron logic.
Any moral theory must have a theory of moral status, defining moral agents (beings who act on moral grounds) and moral patients.
Not all beings are moral patients, ie not all beings should be considered when we make moral decisions. Some beings, like inanimate objects, don’t pertain to the moral sphere because they don’t have the characteristics that would make them affected by an action in a subjective sense: in a word, they experience nothing. They, therefore, have no interests.
So, what beings belong to the sphere of moral concern and why?
Animals, both human and non-human, both as individuals and species, possess a very high number of characteristics.
The overwhelming majority of these characteristics have no effect on the moral status of their owner: having a certain hair colour, or thickness of fur, or being able to fly, walk or swim, are examples of such characteristics.
What characteristics are relevant to ethics, then?
Although there is no absolute agreement on this among moral philosophers, there are several characteristics which are generally recognised as the likely candidates.
Moral philosophers may disagree on their specific lists of characteristics, but most characteristics will appear on most philosophers’ lists. That is: the school of moral philosophy A, utilitarianism for instance, will give more importance to sentience, whereas the school of thought B might give more importance to rationality. But basically, the characteristics of moral relevance are a circumscribed number.
Sentience will appear on almost every philosopher’s list. Sentience is defined as awareness of sensation and the ability to feel pleasure and pain.
Other candidate characteristics include memory, self-consciousness, oral language, a sense of justice, intelligence, ability to communicate, concern for others, playfulness.
Almost all these characteristics are variable. Different individuals have them in various degrees.
Human beings, too, greatly differ in their possession of them. Some human beings don’t possess some of them at all.
Newborn, mentally retarded, severely senile, brain-damaged humans fall into this category.
On the other hand, many capacities that have been proposed as a demarcation line between humans and non-humans have turned out, on closer scrutiny and as our knowledge of animals progresses, not to be unequivocally unique to humans.
Many other animals possess them in some degree. Examples of these behaviours and characteristics are the development of complex family ties, a system of morality, advanced social rules, problem solution, the expression of emotions, wars, sex for pleasure, abstract thought.
If we wish to restrict our definition of what is necessary to be included in the sphere of moral concern to higher characteristics, such as self-consciousness, oral language or a sense of justice, then not all human beings possess them, so some human beings will be excluded from the moral sphere of consideration.
If, on the other hand, we decide to broaden our definition so as to admit characteristics like capability of feeling pain, then non-human animals must be included into the moral sphere too.
There is no way to escape this iron logic.
Friday, May 12, 2006
The origin of moral judgements
A user of this blog posted a comment saying:
"Psychologist Jonathan Haidt (at the University of Virginia) argues that people make moral judgements not through rational thinking but through the same sort of intuitive process by which they make aesthetic judgments. Rational reasons are generated after-the-fact as a plausible 'cover'."
I'm not convinced that the hypothesis of psychologist Jonathan Haidt, although it has some merits, can serve as a total explanation. It seems to me that such a complex question as the origin of moral judgements is unlikely to be resolved by means of a single, simple cause (eg intuition).
I am more inclined to believe that there are several factors at work.
Reason and emotion often work together, subjectively, as mental faculties, and ethics is an area where this happens more frequently than in other areas.
I think that it is only our idea that reason and emotion should be in opposition.
In fact, I would say that it is a measure, if not of mental health, at least of mental well functionality how much reason and emotion can influence and complement each other.
The more dysfunctional a mind is, the more conflict there is in that mind between reason and emotion.
It seems to me that Haidt has chosen for his experiments particular cases of ‘scenarios’ which are bound to provoke disgust, and consequently ‘moral’ rejection with or without a reason.
(Actually, I’m not even sure whether we could call a condemnation of ‘wiping your toilet with a national flag’ a ‘moral judgement’ at all. It’s more akin to an aesthetical appraisal.)
But it’s doubtful that all moral judgement adhere to that pattern of following from disgust or similar feelings.
So, it’s impossible to generalize from his experiments, because they portray only a sub-class of moral judgement, a special sub-class to which his theory may find suitable application.
His examples of moral judgement are not the ones that you would find philosophers debate about in ethics books.
That he is blurring the line between moral and aesthetic judgements he is aware himself, as one can see from the following quote from his interview:
“Now, by moral judgment I mean any time you have a sense that someone has done something good or bad. Think of how often you have that sense. If you live in a city and you drive, you probably have that sense many times a day. When I read the newspaper, I think unprintable thoughts, thoughts of anger. So I think moral judgment is ubiquitous. Not as ubiquitous as aesthetic judgments. As we walk around the world we see many beautiful and ugly things. But we don’t deliberate about them. We just see things as beautiful or ugly. My claim is that moral judgment is very much like aesthetic judgment. In fact, whenever I’m talking with philosophers who are trying to get me to clarify what I’m saying, if I ever feel confused, I just return to aesthetic judgment, and that saves me.“
He seems to define ‘moral judgement’ in emotional terms (‘you have a sense’, ‘I think thoughts of anger’ and so on), so it’s not surprising that he finds that moral judgements, as he defined them, have a non-rational source.
QED. It is rather circular.
"Psychologist Jonathan Haidt (at the University of Virginia) argues that people make moral judgements not through rational thinking but through the same sort of intuitive process by which they make aesthetic judgments. Rational reasons are generated after-the-fact as a plausible 'cover'."
I'm not convinced that the hypothesis of psychologist Jonathan Haidt, although it has some merits, can serve as a total explanation. It seems to me that such a complex question as the origin of moral judgements is unlikely to be resolved by means of a single, simple cause (eg intuition).
I am more inclined to believe that there are several factors at work.
Reason and emotion often work together, subjectively, as mental faculties, and ethics is an area where this happens more frequently than in other areas.
I think that it is only our idea that reason and emotion should be in opposition.
In fact, I would say that it is a measure, if not of mental health, at least of mental well functionality how much reason and emotion can influence and complement each other.
The more dysfunctional a mind is, the more conflict there is in that mind between reason and emotion.
It seems to me that Haidt has chosen for his experiments particular cases of ‘scenarios’ which are bound to provoke disgust, and consequently ‘moral’ rejection with or without a reason.
(Actually, I’m not even sure whether we could call a condemnation of ‘wiping your toilet with a national flag’ a ‘moral judgement’ at all. It’s more akin to an aesthetical appraisal.)
But it’s doubtful that all moral judgement adhere to that pattern of following from disgust or similar feelings.
So, it’s impossible to generalize from his experiments, because they portray only a sub-class of moral judgement, a special sub-class to which his theory may find suitable application.
His examples of moral judgement are not the ones that you would find philosophers debate about in ethics books.
That he is blurring the line between moral and aesthetic judgements he is aware himself, as one can see from the following quote from his interview:
“Now, by moral judgment I mean any time you have a sense that someone has done something good or bad. Think of how often you have that sense. If you live in a city and you drive, you probably have that sense many times a day. When I read the newspaper, I think unprintable thoughts, thoughts of anger. So I think moral judgment is ubiquitous. Not as ubiquitous as aesthetic judgments. As we walk around the world we see many beautiful and ugly things. But we don’t deliberate about them. We just see things as beautiful or ugly. My claim is that moral judgment is very much like aesthetic judgment. In fact, whenever I’m talking with philosophers who are trying to get me to clarify what I’m saying, if I ever feel confused, I just return to aesthetic judgment, and that saves me.“
He seems to define ‘moral judgement’ in emotional terms (‘you have a sense’, ‘I think thoughts of anger’ and so on), so it’s not surprising that he finds that moral judgements, as he defined them, have a non-rational source.
QED. It is rather circular.
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