ADVICE
Use the study guide! (at tab above)
OVERVIEW
- Module 1 -- moral status of animals --Aristotle, Bible, Singer, Regan, Carruthers
- Module 2 -- animal minds, animal deaths -- pain, pleasure, morality, self-awareness, time travel, death -- Yong, Balcombe, DeWaal, McMahan
- Module 3 -- animals and society -- Donaldson & Kymlicka (D&K)
BASICS
- What is meant by "moral status" and "moral standing"?
- What is an animalist? Why are these all animalists: Singer, Regan, D&K
- The non-animalists: Bible, Aristotle, Kant, Carruthers
- What is sentience? What is a "subject of a life"?
- What are "marginal cases"?
- What's the difference between saying animals are our equals (Singer) and saying they have rights (Regan)?
- What is Utilitarianism?
- What is Contractualism?
- Other basics?
- Aristotle & Bible: mixed views, they defend meat-eating but not cruelty
- Kant: I have no duties to animals but I should be kind to my old dog. Is this contradictory?
- Singer: principle of equality vs. Utilitarianism
- Regan: argument for rights
- Carruthers: why marginal cases do have rights but animals don't.
- Carruthers: Astrid the astronaut
- Animal minds: nociception, feeling of pain, time travel, episodic memory, rudimentary morality
- McMahan: "time relative interest in continuing to live" & 8 reasons why humans have stronger TRICL
- D&K: political categories, not mental categories; equal basic rights
- D&K: the rights and responsibilities of animal citizens (no simple human-> animal extension)
- Others?