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Animals and Ethics

The issue of animals and ethics is a philosophical issue mainly due to the fact that common

sense thinking is deeply divided on it. Animals exist on the borderline of our moral

concepts; the result is that we sometimes find ourselves according them a strong moralstatus, while at others denying them any kind of moral status at all. For example, public

outrage is strong when knowledge of such operations as puppy mills is made available; the

thought here is that dogs deserve much more consideration than the operators of suchplaces give them. However, when it is pointed out that the conditions in a factory farm are

as bad as, if not much worse than, the conditions in a puppy mill, the usual response is that

those affected are "just animals" after all, and do not merit our concern. This disparity ofthought gives rise to a philosophical question: what place should animals have in an

acceptable moral system

1. Indirect Theories

On indirect theories, animals do not warrant our moral concern on their own, but may

warrant concern only in so far as they are appropriately related to human beings. The

various kinds of indirect theories to be discussed are Worldview/Religious Theories,Kantian Theories, Cartesian Theories, and Contractualist Theories. The implications these

sorts of theories have for the proper treatment of animals will be explored after that.

Finally, two common methods of arguing against indirect theories will be discussed.

Back to Table of Contents

a. Worldview/Religious Theories

Some philosophers deny that animals warrant direct moral concern due to religious or

philosophical theories of the nature of the world and the proper place of its inhabitants. Oneof the earliest and clearest expressions of this kind of view comes to us from Aristotle (384-

322 B.C.E.). According to Aristotle, there is a natural hierarchy of living beings. The

different levels are determined by the abilities present in the beings due to their natures.While plants, animals, and human beings are all capable of taking in nutrition and growing,

only animals and human beings are capable of conscious experience. This means that

plants, being inferior to animals and human beings, have the function of serving the needs

of animals and human beings. Likewise, human beings are superior to animals becausehuman beings have the capacity for using reason to guide their conduct, while animals lack

this ability and must instead rely on instinct. It follows, therefore, that the function of

animals is to serve the needs of human beings. This, according to Aristotle, is "natural andexpedient" (Regan and Singer, 1989: 4-5).

Following Aristotle, the Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argues that

since only beings that are rational are capable of determining their actions, they are the only

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beings towards which we should extend concern "for their own sakes" (Regan and Singer,

1989: 6-12). Aquinas believes that if a being cannot direct its own actions then others mustdo so; these sorts of beings are merely instruments. Instruments exist for the sake of people

that use them, not for their own sake. Since animals cannot direct their own actions, they

are merely instruments and exist for the sake of the human beings that direct their actions.

Aquinas believes that his view follows from the fact that God is the last end of the universe,and that it is only by using the human intellect that one can gain knowledge and

understanding of God. Since only human beings are capable of achieving this final end, all

other beings exist for the sake of human beings and their achievement of this final end ofthe universe.

Remnants of these sorts of views remain in justifications for discounting the interests of

animals on the basis of the food chain. On this line of thought, if one kind of being

regularly eats another kind of being, then the first is said to be higher on the food chain. Ifone being is higher than another on the food chain, then it is natural for that being to use the

other in the furtherance of its interests. Since this sort of behavior is natural, it does not

require any further moral justification.


b. Kantian Theories

Closely related to Worldview/Religious theories are theories such as Immanuel Kant's

(1724-1804). Kant developed a highly influential moral theory according to whichautonomy is a necessary property to be the kind of being whose interests are to count

direclty in the moral assessment of actions (Kant, 1983, 1956). According to Kant, morally

permissible actions are those actions that could be willed by all rational individuals in thecircumstances. The important part of his conception for the moral status of animals is his

reliance on the notion ofwilling. While both animals and human beings have desires that

can compel them to action, only human beings are capable of standing back from their

desires and choosing which course of action to take. This ability is manifested by our wills.Since animals lack this ability, they lack a will, and therefore are not autonomous.

According to Kant, the only thing with any intrinsic value is a good will. Since animals

have no wills at all, they cannot have good wills; they therefore do not have any intrinsicvalue.

Kant's theory goes beyond the Worldview/Religious theories by relying on more general

philosophical arguments about the nature of morality. Rather than simply relying on thefact that it is "natural" for rational and autonomous beings to use non-rational beings asthey see fit, Kant instead provides an argument for the relevance of rationality and

autonomy. A theory is a Kantian theory, then, if it provides an account of the properties that

human beings have and animals lack that warrants our according human beings a verystrong moral status while denying animals any kind of moral status at all. Kant's own

theory focused on the value of autonomy; other Kantian theories focus on such properties

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as being a moral agent, being able to exist in a reciprocal relation with other human beings,

being able to speak, or being self-aware.


c. Cartesian Theories

Another reason to deny that animals deserve direct concern arises from the belief that

animals are not conscious, and therefore have no interests or well-being to take intoconsideration when considering the effects of our actions. Someone that holds this position

might agree that if animals were conscious then we would be required to consider their

interests to be directly relevant to the assessment of actions that affect them. However,

since they lack a welfare, there is nothing to take directly into account when acting.

One of the clearest and most forceful denials of animal consciousness is developed by Rene

Descartes (1596-1650), who argues that animals are automata that might act as if they are

conscious, but really are not so (Regan and Singer, 1989: 13-19). Writing during the timewhen a mechanistic view of the natural world was replacing the Aristotelian conception,

Descartes believed that all of animal behavior could be explained in purely mechanistic

terms, and that no reference to conscious episodes was required for such an explanation.

Relying on the principle of parsimony in scientific explanation (commonly referred to asOccam's Razor) Descartes preferred to explain animal behavior by relying on the simplest

possible explanation of their behavior. Since it is possible to explain animal behavior

without reference to inner episodes of awareness, doing so is simpler than relying on theassumption that animals are conscious, and is therefore the preferred explanation.

Descartes anticipates the response that his reasoning, if applicable to animal behavior,

should apply equally well to human behavior. The mechanistic explanation of behavior

does not apply to human beings, according to Descartes, for two reasons. First, humanbeings are capable of complex and novel behavior. This behavior is not the result of simple

responses to stimuli, but is instead the result of our reasoning about the world as we

perceive it. Second, human beings are capable of the kind of speech that expressesthoughts. Descartes was aware that some animals make sounds that might be thought to

constitute speech, such as a parrot's "request" for food, but argued that these utterances are

mere mechanically induced behaviors. Only human beings can engage in the kind of speechthat is spontaneous and expresses thoughts.

Descartes' position on these matters was largely influenced by his philosophy of mind andontology. According to Descartes, there are two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive

kinds of entities or properties: material or physical entities on the one hand, and mentalentities on the other. Although all people are closely associated with physical bodies, they

are not identical with their bodies. Rather, they are identical with their souls, or the

immaterial, mental substance that constitutes their consciousness. Descartes believed that

both the complexity of human behavior and human speech requires the positing of such animmaterial substance in order to be explained. However, animal behavior does not require

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this kind of assumption; besides, Descartes argued, "it is more probable that worms and

flies and caterpillars move mechanically than that they all have immortal souls" (Regan andSinger, 1989: 18).

More recently, arguments against animal consciousness have been resurfacing. One method

of arguing against the claim that animals are conscious is to point to the flaws of argumentspurporting to claim that animals are conscious. For example, Peter Harrison has recentlyargued that the Argument from Analogy, one of the most common arguments for the claim

that animals are conscious, is hopelessly flawed (Harrison, 1991). The Argument from

Analogy relies on the similarities between animals and human beings in order to support

the claim that animals are conscious. The similarities usually cited by proponents of thisargument are similarities in behavior, similarities in physical structures, and similarities in

relative positions on the evolutionary scale. In other words, both human beings and animals

respond in the same way when confronted with "pain stimuli"; both animals and humanbeings have brains, nerves, neurons, endorphins, and other structures; and both human

beings and animals are relatively close to each other on the evolutionary scale. Since they

are similar to each other in these ways, we have good reason to believe that animals areconscious, just as are human beings.

Harrison attacks these points one by one. He points out that so-called pain-behavior is

neither necessary nor sufficient for the experience of pain. It is not necessary because the

best policy in some instances might be to not show that you are in pain. It is not sufficientsince amoebas engage in pain behavior, but we do not believe that they can feel pain.

Likewise, we could easily program robots to engage in pain-behavior, but we would not

conclude that they feel pain. The similarity of animal and human physical structures isinconclusive because we have no idea how, or even if, the physical structure of human

beings gives rise to experiences in the first place. Evolutionary considerations are not

conclusive either, because it is only pain behavior, and not the experience of pain itself, that

would be advantageous in the struggle for survival. Harrison concludes that since thestrongest argument for the claim that animals are conscious fails, we should not believe that

they are conscious.

Peter Carruthers has suggested that there is another reason to doubt that animals areconscious Carruthers, 1989, 1992). Carruthers begins by noting that not all human

experiences are conscious experiences. For example, I may be thinking of an upcoming

conference while driving and not ever consciously "see" the truck in the road that I swerve

to avoid. Likewise, patients that suffer from "blindsight" in part of their visual field have noconscious experience of seeing anything in that part of the field. However, there must be

some kind of experience in both of these cases since I did swerve to avoid the truck, and

must have "seen" it, and because blindsight patients can catch objects that are thrown atthem in the blindsighted area with a relatively high frequency. Carruthers then notes that

the difference between conscious and non-conscious experiences is that conscious

experiences are available to higher-order thoughts while non-conscious experiences are not.(A higher-order thought is a thought that can take as its object another thought.) He thus

concludes that in order to have conscious experiences one must be able to have higher-

order thoughts. However, we have no reason to believe that animals have higher-order

thoughts, and thus no reason to believe that they are conscious.

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d. Contractualist Theories

Contractualist Theories of morality construe morality to be the set of rules that rational

individuals would choose under certain specified conditions to govern their behavior in

society. These theories have had a long and varied history; however, the relationship

between contractualism and animals was not really explored until after John Rawlspublished hisA Theory of Justice. In that work, Rawls argues for a conception of justice as

fairness. Arguing against Utilitarian theories of justice, Rawls believes that the best

conception of a just society is one in which the rules governing that society are rules thatwould be chosen by individuals from behind a veil of ignorance. The veil of ignorance is a

hypothetical situation in which individuals do not know any particular details about

themselves, such as their sex, age, race, intelligence, abilities, etc. However, theseindividuals do know general facts about human society, such as facts about psychology,

economics, human motivation, etc. Rawls has his imagined contractors be largely self-

interested; each person's goal is to select the rules that will benefit them the most. Since

they do not know who exactly they are, they will not choose rules that benefit any oneindividual, or segment of society, over another (since they may find themselves to be in the

harmed group). Instead, they will choose rules that protect, first and foremost, rational,

autonomous individuals.

Although Rawls argues for this conception as a conception of justice, others have tried to

extend it to cover all of morality. For example, in The Animals Issue, Peter Carruthers

argues for a conception of morality that is based largely on Rawls's work. Carruthers notes

that if we do so extend Rawls's conception, animals will have no direct moral standing.Since the contractors are self-interested, but do not know who they are, they will accept

rules that protect rational individuals. However, the contractors know enough about

themselves to know that they are not animals. They will not adopt rules that give specialprotection to animals, therefore, since this would not further their self-interest. The result is

that rational human beings will be directly protected, while animals will not.


e. Implications for the Treatment of Animals

If indirect theories are correct, then we are not required to take the interests of animals to be

directly relevant to the assessment of our actions when we are deciding how to act. This

does not mean, however, that we are not required to consider how our actions will affectanimals at all. Just because something is not directly morally considerable does not imply

that we can do whatever we want to it. For example, there are two straightforward ways in

which restrictions regarding the proper treatment of animals can come into existence.Consider the duties we have towards private property. I cannot destroy your car if I desire

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to do so because it is your property, and by harming it I will thereby harm you. Also, I

cannot go to the town square and destroy an old tree for fun since this may upset manypeople that care for the tree.

Likewise, duties with regard to animals can exist for these reasons. I cannot harm your pets

because they belong to you, and by harming them I will thereby harm you. I also cannotharm animals in public simply for fun since doing so will upset many people, and I have aduty to not cause people undue distress. These are two straightforward ways in which

indirect theories will generate duties with regard to animals.

There are two other ways that even stronger restrictions regarding the proper treatment of

animals might be generated from indirect theories. First, both Immanuel Kant and PeterCarruthers argue that there can be more extensive indirect duties to animals. These duties

extend not simply to the duty to refrain from harming the property of others and the duty to

not offend animal lovers. Rather, we also have a duty to refrain from being cruel to them.Kant argues:

Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity. Animal

nature has analogies to human nature, and by doing our duties to animals in respect

of manifestations of human nature, we indirectly do our duty to humanity. Wecan judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals (Regan and Singer, 1989:

23-24).

Likewise, Carruthers writes:

Such acts [as torturing a cat for fun] are wrong because they are cruel. They betray

an indifference to suffering that may manifest itselfwith that person's dealingswith other rational agents. So although the action may not infringe any rightsit

remains wrong independently of its effect on any animal lover (Carruthers, 1992:

153-54).

So although we need not consider how our actions affect animals themselves, we do need to

consider how our treatment of animals will affect our treatment of other human beings. If

being cruel to an animal will make us more likely to be cruel to other human beings, we

ought not be cruel to animals; if being grateful to animal will help us in being grateful tohuman beings then we ought to be grateful to animals.

Second, there may be an argument for vegetarianism that does not rely on considerations of

the welfare of animals at all. Consider that for every pound of protein that we get from an

animal source, we must feed the animals, on average, twenty-three pounds of vegetableprotein. Many people on the planet today are dying of easily treatable diseases largely due

to a diet that is below starvation levels. If it is possible to demonstrate that we have a duty

to help alleviate the suffering of these human beings, then one possible way of achievingthis duty is by refraining from eating meat. The vegetable protein that is used to feed the

animals that wealthy countries eat could instead be used to feed the human beings that live

in such deplorable conditions.

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Of course, not all indirect theorists accept these results. However, the point to be stressed

here is that even granting that animals have no direct moral status, we may have (possiblydemanding) duties regarding their treatment.


f. Two Common Arguments Against Indirect Theories

Two common arguments against indirect theories have seemed compelling to many people.The first argument is The Argument from Marginal Cases; the second is an argument

against the Kantian account of indirect duties to animals.

i. The Argument From Marginal Cases

The Argument from Marginal Cases is an argument that attempts to demonstrate that if

animals do not have direct moral status, then neither do such human beings as infants, thesenile, the severely cognitively disabled, and other such "marginal cases" of humanity.

Since we believe that these sorts of human beings do have direct moral status, there must be

something wrong with any theory that claims they do not. More formally, the argument is

structured as follows:

(1) If we are justified in denying direct moral status to animals then we are justified

in denying direct moral status to the marginal cases.

(2) We are not justified in denying direct moral status to the marginal cases.

(3) Therefore we are not justified denying direct moral status to animals.

The defense of premise (1) usually goes something like this. If being rational (orautonomous, or able to speak) is what permits us to deny direct moral status to animals,

then we can likewise deny that status to any human that is not rational (or autonomous, able

to speak, etc.). This line of reasoning works for almost every property that has been thoughtto warrant our denying direct moral status to animals. Since the marginal cases are beings

whose abilities are equal to, if not less than, the abilities of animals, any reason to keep

animals out of the class of beings with direct moral status will keep the marginal cases out

as well.

There is one property that is immune to this line of argument, namely, the property of being

human. Some who adhere to Worldview/Religious Views might reject this argument and

maintain instead that it is simply "natural" for human beings to be above animals on any

moral scale. However, if someone does so they must give up the claim that human beingsare above animals due to the fact that human beings are more intelligent or rational than

animals. It must be claimed instead that being human is, in itself, a morally relevant

property. Few in recent times are willing to make that kind of a claim.

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Another way to escape this line of argument is to deny the second premise (Cf. Frey, 1980;

Francis and Norman, 1978). This may be done in a series of steps. First, it may be notedthat there are very few human beings that are truly marginal. For example, infants, although

not currently rational, have the potential to become rational. Perhaps they should not be

counted as marginal for that reason. Likewise, the senile may have a direct moral status due

to the desires they had when they were younger and rational. Once the actual number ofmarginal cases is appreciated, it is then claimed that it is not counter-intuitive to conclude

that the remaining individuals do not have a direct moral status after all. Once again,

however, few are willing to accept that conclusion. The fact that a severely cognitivelydisabled infant can feel pain seems to most to be a reason to refrain from harming the

infant.

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