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This is the class blog for Phil 3377, Animal Rights, at SMU. Visit often to find material presented during class, including lecture notes, visuals, links to videos, etc.

10.05.2026

Higher and lower animals

Preview

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

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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.

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

Strategy: avoid, live with it, or mixed?

Kagan p. 15 
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Implication 1: superior beings would have higher moral status

Strategy: avoid, live with it, or mixed?

Kagan p. 7

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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

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Hierarchy and advocating for animals

Kagan p. 6


Kagan p. 18

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Animal ethics bracket