TAKING LIFE: ANIMALS

Killing and Persons

• person defined
• a rational being capable of deliberate choice
• being self-conscious: i.e., aware of themselves as distinct beings with a future and a past
• person not =df  human (i.e., member of the species homo sapiens)
• nonhuman persons: apes; dolphins & whales
• human non-persons: embryos, fetuses, infants, very young children; mentally incapable adults who are comatose, profoundly retarded, etc.
• especial wrongness of killing persons due to their self-consciousness
• hedonistic utilitarianism: strikes fear into other persons
• preference utilitarianisn: frustrates plans for own future
• Tooley: self-consciousness confers a right to life
• respect for autonomy implies a right to life

Killing Non-Human Persons

• Especially wrong just as with human persons
• great apes: chimps, gorillas, etc.: almost certainly
• whales & dolphins: very likely
• other mammals: dogs, pigs, etc.: likely
• birds & reptiles: probably
• Replaceability Issue: Prior existence vs. Total view
• the sacrifice of an existing individual's interests be counterbalanced by creation of a new individual
• with persons the irreplaceablity a self-conscious being's life to itself argues for the prior existence view.

Killing Other Animals

• Merely sentient animals: conscious but not self-conscious
• fish - invertebrates
• Wrongfulness due to pain inflicted pleasure prevented.
• Replaceablity Argument
• for each animal we kill
• we breed (or make room for) a replacement
• their pleasures replace pleasures lost to individuals killed
• so the sum total of pleasure is not diminished
• Singer's rejoinders
• cannot justify factory farming (since the replacement lives are not pleasant)
• cannot justify hunting (unless the species population is maxed out for the habitat).

Conclusion: as a Practical Matter

• killing animals for food reinforces the speciesist attitudes toward nonhuman animals: meat eaters habitually
• put their own interests in "mere enjoyment"
• above their profound interests in
• avoiding the pain of slaughterhouse & factory farm
• pleasures they might derive from the rest of their lives
• "[T]o foster the right attitudes of consideration for animals . . . it may be best to make it a simple principle to avoid killing them for food." (134)