Outdoor cats, bringing back pets

 Last time: should we have pets at all?

Today: how we treat our pets ... especially cats

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Ethical cat care

1. Is it ok to confine a cat indoors? (Cheryl Abbate)
2. Is it ok to spay/neuter a cat?
3. Is it ok to give a cat a longevity drug so they live for 30 years? (Hess)
4. Is it ok to clone your cat? (Hess)
5. Is it ok to dress you pet up for Halloween or artistic photography? (pictures in Hess)

Other questions

_________________________

Cheryl Abbate, "A Defense of Free-Roaming Cats from a Hedonist Account of Feline Well-being"

Standard "humane" view: cats should be kept indoors for their own safety and the safety of wildlife

Abbate's view: cat guardians have a duty to allow cats outdoors during the day, if the environment is suitable (should consider traffic, predators)

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Preliminaries

Roaming options for cats

1. Indoor only
2. Indoor plus free-roaming (during day, away from roads)
3. Community cats -- cats are free to come and go, but may have favorite places and people
4. Feral cats -- they avoid humans 

Duties of pet guardians (p. 455)

• We have a prima facie duty to promote the wellbeing of our pets
• Prima facie duty -- a duty that is overridable, not absolute

Harm  (p. 443-444)

• we can harm through deprivation -- the animal is denied something that would have been pleasurable -- e.g. the dog who never goes for a walk or never interacts with other dogs
• we can harm through infliction -- the animal actually suffers -- the dog demands a walk, sees other dogs through window

Animal wellbeing

• Animals have wellbeing to the extent that they have a positive balance of pleasure over pain AND their pleasures are diverse and include ethological pleasures (p. 442)
• Physiological pleasures: eating, drinking, sleeping
• Ethological pleasures: innate, adaptive, done regardless of external reward, and especially pleasurable

"Second, there are ethological pleasures, which refer to the pleasures of performing certain skilled and controlled behavior. Examples include the pleasures of foraging (for foraging animals), hunting (for predators), and rooting (for pigs). These pleasures involve active engagement, cognitive challenge, and control....Observations of animal behavior inform us that ethological pleasures are more pleasurable than bodily pleasures." (p. 450)

 "This all suggests that engagement, challenge, choice, and control are self-rewarding for most animals .... On the other hand, a lack of active engagement is identified as a primary cause of boredom, depression, and anxiety in animals .... Because the performances of certain natural behavior patterns are evidently especially pleasurable and are thus themselves necessary for well-being, promoting feline well-being requires more than just giving cats“the environmental endpoints” of their natural behaviors, i.e., their physiological needs; it requires that we moreover enable them to experience ethological pleasures..." (p. 450-451)

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Abbate's main claim

• cat guardians have a prima facie duty to give their cats time outdoors

Some key premises used to support

• Hunting and territorial behavior are ethological pleasures for cats
• The indoor cat has lower wellbeing
• The indoor cat is harmed by deprivation, not necessarily infliction
• The indoor cat may have a longer life, but has a worse life

What about the wildlife killed by cats?

• Housecats are not great hunters
• The animals they kill are weaker, were going to die anyway
• Cat food has a higher kill-rate per calorie

Is it part of her argument that your primary loyalty should be to your cat?

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What about human hunters

• hunting is not an ethological pleasure for humans -- not innate (p. 458)
• human hunters kill best specimens, not animals who are going to die anyway (p. 458)

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Spaying and neutering

What would/should Abbate say?

Statistics

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SMU's feral cat colony

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Hess, "What if you could give your dog a longer life?"

Loyal -- longevity treatments

Viagen -- cloning

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Costumes for pets?

Animal companions

Module 5: more uses of animals

1. Having animal companions (pets)  
2. Using animals for research 
3. Review Nov 2
4. Exam II Nov 4

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Should we keep domesticated animals as pets?

• NO
• Gary Francione & Anna Charlton, "The Case Against Pets" (Aeon)
• Francione is a professor of law at Rutgers University
• YES
• Donaldson & Kymlicka (response to Francione)
• Rowlands (contrast with Francione)

Wild animals as pets (they're not discussing)

• pet squirrels
• taming and forming a relationship with a hawk -- e.g. H is for Hawk

Domesticated animals as pets

What is domestication?

• Wikipedia definition
• two species coexist, one exerts influence on the other (doesn't have to be intentional)
• leads over time to modification of genes, appearance, behavior
• domesticated animals: not afraid of humans, socialize with humans, less aggressive, more dependent
• the grey wolf (canis lupus) --> dogs (canis lupus familiaris) 
• African wild cats (felis sylvestris lybica) --> house cats (felis sylvestris catus)

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What's the matter with having domesticated animals as pets?

1. Since animals are property under the law, the owner has many prerogatives that are harmful to animals.
2. Even if you could solve that problem, domesticated animals would sstill have impoverished lives because of their built-in limitations

• wild ancestors of cats and dogs: self-sufficient, skilled, fearful, avoid humans
• domesticated animals: docile, helpless, dependent, don't fear humans, can "read" humans, want our attention and praise, love us, can be obedient, like perpetual children

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What should we DO about domesticated animals?

1. Stop treating them as property
2. Rescue from shelters
3. Spay and neuter
4. Extinction is the ultimate goal

_________________________

CRITICS

D&K's response to Francione --

"dependency is not inherently degrading or undignified, and certainly not unnatural. What matters is how we respond to dependency, and in both the human and animal case, a central task of a citizenship perspective is precisely to uphold the dignity of those co-citizens who over the course of their lifetime exhibit various stages and degrees of dependence." (D&K p. 4)

Francione's response to D&K --

 RR quesion 2: what would Rowlands say to Francione and Charlton?

Animals at the Fair

Fair Topics (field trips)

Question for everyone. A lot of western culture and Texas culture is on display at the fair. Did you observe it as an insider or an outsider?

1. Rodeo (below)
2. Other animal events
• pig racing
• sheep dog herding
• equestrian
3. Judging of livestock
4. Animal farming practices
• the birthing barn
• cow milking
• sheep shearing
• etc.
5. Exotic animal petting zoo
• kangaroos

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RODEO

Bernard Rollin, "Rodeo and Recollection"

• Rollin--ethicist at Colorado State University, teaches future veterinarians, ranchers, cowboys
• Western ranch culture, rodeo as symbol of the west, critics seen as outsiders
• His admiration for ranchers, because they genuinely take care of animals
• How to talk ethics with cowboys? Respect, recollection (get people to realize what they already know)
• Minimal principle rodeo folks agreed on: should not harm animals for trivial reasons
• Particular rodeo events he objects to--tie down roping, should replace with break away roping; horse tripping; events that make use of animal fear

Rodeo videos

1. Rodeo events (bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding)
2. the flank strap
3. Tie down roping
4. Break away roping
5. horse tripping (outlawed in Texas and about 9 other states)

Defense 3: Freegan

Recap: sources of meat (and other animal products)

1. factory farms
• blog post
• also this-- new Nicholas Kristof column about slaughter of chickens -- undercover video 
• 22 killed per minute per person slaughtering -- 175 killed per minute by the whole line (increased speed proposed by Trump administration) -- these speed limits are based on human safety, not animal welfare
2. humane farms
• blog post
• how are they slaughtered? -- video of slaughter at polyface farm -- 4 killed per minute per person slaughtering
• exempt from federal regulations based on small size and on-site sales
3. rivers, oceans -- commercial fishing -- sport fishing (module 6)
4. wilderness -- hunting (module 6)
5. roads (roadkill)

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Arguments depend on source of animal products

Factory farm animal products

1. Rachels: wrong to consume
2. Budolfson: permissible to consume when (a) can't save animals and (b) harm inessential

Humane farm animal products

1. Zangwill: you should consume humanely raised animals -- being created is good for these animals, even if later killed
2. Replies
• What would Singer say?
• What would Regan/D&K say?
• Creating farm animals --> reduces habitat for wild animals --> fewer wild animals 
• Zangwill says that's ok, because farm animals are happier than wild animals ...we will discuss in Module 6

Road kill/Accidental meat

_________________________

Do people really eat roadkill?  Not in Texas. It's illegal here but legal in many states.

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Donald Bruckner, "Strict Vegetarianism is Immoral"

• Eating factory farmed meat is immoral
• Strict vegetarianism is immoral
• The moral diet = plant based plus some roadkill

Factory Harm argument (quotes on p. 2 and 3)

P1 "Factory farming causes extensive harm to animals." 

P2  "This harm is unnecessary. It is unnecessary in the sense that we humans do not need to cause it in order to gain adequate nutrition for healthy bodies and to preserve our lives." 

C1  "The practice of factory farming causes extensive, unnecessary harm to animals." 

P3   "It is wrong (knowingly) to cause, or support practices that cause, extensive, unnecessary harm to animals."

C2 "Purchasing and consuming meat from factory farms is wrong."

Note: easiest to follow argument assuming he thinks our food choices have efficacy. He discusses this issue later in article.

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What's wrong with a strict vegetarian (vegan) diet?

Problem: plant farming causes harm too

Steven Davis, "The least harm principle may require that humans consume a diet containing large hervibores, not a vegan diet" 

Bruckner

"Picking up road-killed animals does not harm any animals. Road-killed animals are already dead, so they are not harmed by picking them up as livestock are harmed by common husbandry practices. And no animals are killed in the process of picking up roadkill, as field animals are killed in the process of crop farming. So on the very standards of the Factory Harm Argument, we are obligated to collect and consume roadkill." (p. 9)

3 eaters

1. OMNIVORE (eats all foods)  -- most unnecessary harm
• causes deliberate deaths of food animals 
• PLUS causes accidental deaths of field animals
2. VEGAN (eats plants only)  -- less unnecessary harm than omnitore
• causes accidental deaths of field animals
3. FREEGAN (plants plus roadkill) - least unnecessary harm
• causes no deaths by picking up roadkill 
• PLUS causes fewer accidental deaths of field animals compared to vegan   

Conclusion: It's not just permissible to be a freegan; it's obligatory!

Objections/Questions/Comments

1. Would a freegan try to cause fewer accidental deaths of field animals by foraging in forests? Maybe.  Impact on wild animals might be an issue.
2. By taking roadkill off of roads, wouldn't that harm wild animals that eat them? Possibly they're removed before they're eaten because they're a danger to drivers.
3. What about animals accidentally shot? Bruckner would probably see them as similar to roadkill.
4. Wouldn't his reasoning lead to the idea that we should eat human roadkill? Not clear whether he would want to just say that's taboo or go along with it. 
5. Plant foods don't all have the same connection to accidental deaths of field animals. We could try to eat plant foods grown in greenhouses.  Bruckner would probably say we should, since he thinks we should cause the least possible unnecessary harm.
6. Should we just eat lab grown food if that causes the least unnecessary harm? That does seem to be where this view leads.
7. Roadkill seems worse than plant food because it's inherently bound up with death, whereas it just happens to be true that farm machinery kills field animals.  We could use Budolfson's concept of essential harm to express this idea.

Defense 2: Existence

Should you eat products produced in factory farms?

1. Rachels: no, your taste preferences are minor compared to the suffering of the animals
2. Budolfson: sometimes it's permissible, i.e. when (A) you can't prevent the suffering, AND (B)  the product is not essentially harmful

What about humane farms?

• traditional farms around the world -- sheep all over New Zealand, the UK, Iceland
• boutique farms in the US -- products sold at places like Whole Foods
• cattle ranches in Texas -- seemingly humane at least for the duration

• Our World in Data: amount of grazing land
• Our World in Data: animals killed per year for food

_____________________

Ranch field trip -- how humane is humane?

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Nick Zangwill, "Why You Should Eat Meat" -- the Existence Argument

• Henry Salt -- discusses and rejects
• Peter Singer -- discusses in many places including ALN
• a large literature about this argument
• Zangwill's version is particularly provocative

Zangwill's conclusion 

Not only is it permissible but we SHOULD eat animals

"If you care about animals, you should eat them. It is not just that you may do so, but you should do so. In fact, you owe it to animals to eat them. It is your duty. Why? Because eating animals benefits them and has benefitted them for a long time. Breeding and eating animals is a very long-standing cultural institution that is a mutually beneficial relationship between human beings and animals. We bring animals into existence, care for them, rear them, and then kill and eat them. From this, we get food and other animal products, and they get life. Both sides benefit. I should say that by ‘animals’ here, I mean nonhuman animals. It is true that we are also animals, but we are also more than that, in a way that makes a difference."

The whole existence argument in a nutshell

"Domesticated animals exist in the numbers they do only because there is a practice of eating them. For example, the many millions of sheep in New Zealand would not begin to survive in the wild. They exist only because human beings eat them. The meat-eating practice benefits them greatly and has benefitted them greatly. So, we should eat them. Not eating them is wrong, and it lets these animals down."

MAIN STEPS

1. Some farm animals have quite good lives

"Of course, the animals we eat should have good lives, and so the worst kind of factory farming is not justified by this argument, since these animals have no quality of life. Life is not enough; it must be life with a certain quality. But some farmed animals do have good lives overall, and sheep farming in New Zealand is an example."

"the pleasure and happiness of animals also matters, and it may outweigh pain and suffering – something usually overlooked by most of those who affect to care for animals. The emphasis among the defenders of so-called ‘animal rights’ on animal pain and suffering while ignoring animal pleasure and happiness is bizarre and disturbing"

"I suspect that the pleasure and happiness of animals is overlooked because they are not of our species. This is a kind of speciesism that particularly afflicts devotees of ‘animals rights’. All lives have their ups and downs; and this is true for animals as well as human beings. Both ups and downs are important."

2. Breeding animals for our food is mutually beneficial

"It is this ongoing history of mutual benefit that generates a moral duty of human beings to eat animals."

"Indeed, if many human beings became vegetarians or vegans, it would be the greatest disaster that there has ever been for animals since the time that an asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species."

Assumes: for a sheep, the good of existing for six months outweighs the harm of being killed at 6 months.

3. The argument doesn't lead to support for breeding and killing dogs

"It is because history matters that we should not eat dogs that were originally bred to be pets or for work. The dog-human institution licenses only the behaviour that is in accordance with its historical function. Eating dogs would violate that tradition."

4. The argument doesn't lead to support for breeding and killing humans

"In 1780, Jeremy Bentham said of animals: ‘The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?’ I agree that the suffering of animals is important, but, as I have complained, so is their pleasure and happiness. And I would also like to complain that just because suffering is important does not make reasoning unimportant."

Our rationality gives us rights that animals don't possess -- though a few higher animals might be exceptions.

Also: we would exist even if we weren't bred for food, but sheep wouldn't.

5.  Climate change isn't a good reason to abstain from meat

"However, the big negative, for many people is climate, and the effects, mostly, of cattle burping and farting. Does not climate give us reason to be vegetarian or vegan? Well, since the problem mostly comes from cows, one option would be to move to eating other kinds of animals in greater numbers. Moreover, the climate damage is mostly due to very intensive factory farming, which I do not defend because the animals do not have good lives. Indeed, the evidence is that small-scale farming in which animals have good lives does not harm the environment much, and it may even benefit it."

Animal agriculture and climate change

WORKBOOK

Defense 1: Inefficacy

 Recap: Using animals as food

Types of farming

• factory farming
• factory farming + reforms
• humane farming

Other ways to harvest animals for food

• commercial fishing
• sport hunting and fishing (later)

Arguments for vegetarianism

• Rachels:  Taste Argument (in a nutshell) 
• We need to justify inflicting suffering on animals and our taste preferences are not an adequate justification
• Also, arguments in moral status authors: Singer, Regan, D&K, Kagan

Defenses of using animals as food

• 3 defenses: Budolfson, Zangwill, Bruckner
• Also, arguments in moral status authors: Bible, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Carruthers

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Mark Budolfson,  “Is it wrong to eat meat from factory farms? If so, why?”

• focus: eating meat from factory farms
• Budolfson assumes: factory farming is really bad

Question: is it wrong for YOU to consume FF products? Do you have a duty to abstain?

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The issue of efficacy -- having an impact, making a difference

• can you actually prevent the suffering and death of food animals (in factory farms)?
• do you have "efficacy" when it comes to those animals?

Cases in which you DO have efficacy (p. 4)

• Jimmy’s You-Hack-It-Yourself
• Fishing, hunting
• Ordering a Thanksgiving turkey from small humane farm on January 1

Cases in which you DO NOT have efficacy

• Dumpster diving
• Eating meat that you didn't order at a restaurant 

When it comes to the suffering and death of food animals in factory farms, do you have efficacy?  

• Budolfson says no!

"it is virtually impossible for an individual’s consumption of animal products at supermarkets and restaurants to have any effect on the number of animals that suffer and the extent of that suffering, just as it is virtually impossible for an individual’s consumption of products acquired through dumpster diving to have any effect on animal welfare" (p. 4)

• Budolfson rejects Peter Singer's arguments about efficacy in Animal Liberation 

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Peter Singer's account of how you CAN make a difference

Assuming the numbers above, if I abstain, I have a
1 in 10,000 chance of saving 250,000 chickens

Singer: this is equivalent to a certainty of saving
25 chickens  (ALN p. 6-7)

Budolfson's response: there is no threshold effect like this

"many products we consume are delivered by a massive and
complex supply chain in which there is waste, inefficiency, and other
forms of slack at each link. Arguably, that slack serves as a buffer ... " (p. 5-6)

"Slack at each link" (p. 5-7)

• Ranchers are insensitive to demand 
• Growers of animals insensitive to demand 
• Livestock auctioneers insensitive to demand 
• Supermarkets insensitive to demand, don’t care about waste 

If you abstain from buying cheese at
Central Market will that prevent any
animal suffering at all?

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Budolfson: Is the efficacy objection just a "paradox of eating" like the "paradox of voting"...so should be dismissed? NO

• voting behavior does control the outcome of an election
• people vote for many reasons, not just to affect the outcome

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Budolfson -- part 2 of his argument (not in reading assignment)    

• "degree of essentiality of harm" (p. 12) 
• suppose harm was in fact involved in the production of a product
• that harm can be essential, necessary, inevitable
• that harm can be  contingent, accidental, potentially avoidable
• Harm in fact involved, but non-essential:  factory farmed eggs
• Harm involved, and essential:  foie gras -- produced by force-feeding geese to produce a fatty liver

Bottom line

• you have no duty to be a vegetarian to save animals from suffering and death, because through your food choices you can't save them
• nevertheless, you should avoid essentially harmful foods

Is meat essentially harmful?

The argument for vegetarianism

NO OFFICE HOURS TODAY

FIELD TRIP ADJUSTMENTS

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FINISH FARMING BACKGROUND

What about seafood? 

•     Animal welfare issues here

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James Rachels, "The Basic Argument for Vegetarianism" (2004)

DIET TERMINOLOGY

1. Omnivore -- literally means "eat everything"
2. Conscientious omnivore--no factory farmed animal products 
3. Reducetarian--Meatless Mondays, "vegan before 6" 
4. Pescatarian -- vegetarian with an exception for fish
5. Vegetarian/Ovo-lacto vegetarian--mostly plant based, diet includes dairy and eggs, no meat
6. Vegan/Strict Vegetarian--plant based diet, no animal products

HEALTH

Health Benefits of Vegetarian Diets  
Marion Nestle, "Are vegetarian diets ok?"

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RACHELS 

THE BASIC ARGUMENT (p. 70)

1.  "It is wrong to cause pain unless there is a good enough reason...justification is required"
2. "In the modern meat production business, animals are made to suffer terribly." 
3. "We could just as easily nourish ourselves in other ways" 
4.  We prefer an animal-based diet for the taste.
5. The taste of meat is not "a good enough reason to justify the amount of suffering that the animals are made to endure" THEREFORE,
6. "We should stop eating the products of this business. We should be vegetarians instead."

THE ARGUMENT IN PICTURES

_________________________

LIMITED APPLICATION

• Says nothing about "animals raised on old-fashioned family farms"
• Says nothing about "animals killed in hunter-gatherer societies" (for survival)
• Applies to people "in industrial countries"

SUPER SIMPLE

• Nothing about value of life, rights, nature of morality
• Doesn't presuppose utilitarianism or any other theory about ethics
• Derives from simplest possible principle

SOURCES OF RESISTANCE

1. Don't want to accept because they want to eat meat
2. Other people they know don't accept -- hard to be an outlier
3. Tendency to stress human-animal differences
4. Focussing on borderline animals like snails and leeches
5. Other: Republicans accusing Democrats of being vegans

RACHELS' ADVICE

• Becoming a vegetarian needn't be "all-or-nothing"
• Start with the foods that cause the most misery

Animals as food (reforms & humane farming)

REFORMS 

California regulations

Proposition 2 (California, 2008) each animal must have enough room to turn around 

Proposition 12 (California) - stipulates square feet, prohibits sale of products that don't comply, even if animals raised in other states, all laying hens cage-free, no gestation crates

Trump administration sues to overturn Prop 12 but judge rejects suit

Save our Bacon provision of farm bill would overturn Prop 12 

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Hog gestational stalls/crates 

Gestational stalls banned in some states (but not farrowing stalls)

• States that now prohibit: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon and Rhode Island (wikipedia) 

• But what are the big pork-producing states? 
• Smithfield farms (huge pork producers) reducing use of gestational stalls -- see video below

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HUMANE FARMING 

Doubts

• Reece, "There's no such thing as human meat, stop kidding yourself"

Whole Foods Humane Standards

• Levels

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Turkeys

Factory farmed turkeys

Humane alternative

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Laying hens

Factory farmed
Laying hens--in cages

Factory farmed 
laying hens--cage free
NYT article

Humane alternative

• Vital Farms Eggs  (Lo ranch) -- pastured raised

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Pigs

Factory farmed hogs (farrowing crate)

Humane alternative

• Niman ranch

 

---

Multiple species

• Polyface Farm (Follow link, scroll down, watch video)
• Shorter video (best one to watch)

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Slaughter

• USDA rules: pigs and cows must be sent to regulated slaughter houses
• Chickens can be killed locally
• Killing chickens at Polyface Farm

Animals as Food (factory farming)

Animals as food module

1. Factual background (today)
2. A simple argument for vegetarianism (Friday)
3. 3 defenses of meat eating
• inefficacy
• humane farming + existence
• freegan
4. State fair and rodeo

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Statistics

• About 10 billion land animals die annually in food production in the US (2021 USDA figures)
• 218 million are killed in the US by hunters, in animal shelters, research, product testing, dissection, and fur farms -- 2% of total killed (2001 source)
• About 80 billion land animals die annually in food production worldwide
• More numbers

Types of farming

1. Factory farming/CAFO -- confined animal feeding operation--this post
• animals grown in factory-like conditions
• indoors, very little space
• highly automated
• most animal products in the US, spreading to other countries
2. Factory farming + reforms (here)
3. Humane farming (here)

Animal welfare issues (below) vs. environmental issues

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Content alert -- a few brief videos with disturbing images -- close eyes if necessary!

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Higher and lower animals

Preview

1. Using animals as food -- RR18 food experiments
2. Finish Kagan
3. Animal ethics bracket

_________________________

Kagan recap

Unitarianism -- there's just one moral status, humans and animals both have it (Regan, Singer)

Hierarchy view -- there are many moral status, higher and lower

• common sense

Worrisome apparent implications that might make you doubt the hierarchy view

1. Superior beings (eg. wizards, Greek gods, superheroes, amazing aliens) have higher moral status than normal humans
2. Marginal cases have lower moral status than normal humans
3. Due to normal variation, different humans have many different moral statuses

Two ways Kagan can deal with these worrisome implications

1. AVOID.  Argue that the alleged implication isn't really an implication of the hierarchy view
2. LIVE WITH IT.  Argue that the implication is something you can live with; it's not actually worrisome.

We'll see what he says about the three worrisome implications.

_________________________

Practical realism -- correct principles and categories are understandable and motivating

Animal categories

• Not a continuum
• Not a hundred categories
• He says 5-6

Animal categories

1. Humans -- full persons (defined as conscious, intelligent, self-aware, moral, etc.)
2. Most intelligent, closest to personhood -- dolphins, whales, squid, great apes)
3. Highly intelligent -- like dogs, pigs, parrots
4. Midlevel -- rabbits, cows, squirrels
5. Lower -- birds, fish, reptiles
6. Lowest -- insects, spiders

Moral status depends on species, but also on whether the individual is a normal member of the species

1. Golden retriever who has taken a supervitamin and has the intelligence of a human--he's wroting poetry etc.
2. Snake that acts like a cat

_________________________

Implication 2: marginal cases have low moral status

Strategy:  avoid, live with it, or mixed?

1. They are "modal persons" -- non-persons who could have been persons
2. Practical realism -- correct principles and categories are motivating -- very low moral status for marginal cases wouldn't be motivating

   

   Kagan p. 14

_________________________

Implication 3: due to normal variation, humans will have lots of different moral statuses

Strategy: avoid, live with it, or mixed?

Kagan p. 15 

_________________________

Implication 1: superior beings would have higher moral status

Strategy: avoid, live with it, or mixed?

Kagan p. 7

_________________________

Why not ONE category for all humans and ONE for all animals?

1. Humans: high status, so deontological rules apply, like "killing is always wrong"
2. Animals: low status, so utilitarian/consquentialist rules apply, like "kill only when necessary to maximize happiness"

Kagan p. 16

_________________________

Hierarchy and advocating for animals

Kagan p. 6

Kagan p. 18

_________________________

Animal ethics bracket

https://PollEv.com/jeankazez843

Food choices

Diet terminology

1. Omnivore -- literally means "eat everything"
2. Budding conscientious omnivore--switch to a few more-humane products (what should your priorities be?)
3. Reducetarian--Meatless Mondays, "vegan before 6" 
4. Conscientious omnivore--no factory farmed animal products 
5. Pescatarian -- vegetarian with an exception for fish
6. Vegetarian--mostly plant based, diet includes dairy and eggs, no meat
7. Vegan/Vegetarian--plant based diet, no animal products

Health

Health Benefits of Vegetarian Diets  
Marion Nestle, "Are vegetarian diets ok?"

Higher and lower animals

 Shelly Kagan, How to Count Animals: More or Less

Some terminology

1. Unitarian view: every being with moral status has the same moral status
2. Hierarchy view: beings with moral status can have many different moral statuses (2, 3, 10, 20, innumerable)
3. Utilitarian ethics; the right action maximizes total good
• how to add hierarchy to Utilitarianism
  
  
  
4. Deontological ethics: ethics consist of a set of duties (e.g. duty to keep promises, duty to not harm for fun)
• how to add hierarchy to deontological ethics

  

  Sea lion shot 12 times (NYT Sept 25)

  
  
5. Practical realism: ethical principles and categories must be simple enough to be comprehensible and motivating
• will come into play in second half of article

_________________________

Kagan's hierarchy view: based on capacities of different species

• More capacities ---> higher moral status
• Fewer capacities ---> lower moral status

Which capacities count? He doesn't say. Which are plausibly relevant?

1. capacity to fly
2. capacity to run fast
3. capacity to survive under water
4. sentience
5. capacity to cooperate
6. capacity to be self-aware
7. sense of fairness
8. capacity to empathize
9. sheer intelligence
10. capacity to make art
11. capacity to appreciate beauty
12. capacity to migrate great distances

_________________________

Troubling implications of this capacity-based hierarchy view

1. Hierarchy leads to implication X
2. X is really bizarre and unacceptable
3. So hierarchy must be rejected

Three implications Kagan discusses:

1. Superior beings might have higher moral status than us
2. Marginal cases might have lower moral status than us
3. Given normal variation, different normal people might have different moral statuses

What is Kagan's response to each implications? He has two options:

1. Hierarchy doesn't really lead to that
2. That's not really so bizarre and unacceptable

We'll see what he says in part 2 of the article

Workbook--let's discuss superior beings