Sassafras54 is online now Sassafras54 — Advice Official Moderator Post #1  November 17,2009, 6:15am
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I am spawning this thread in response to awol71's post in The God Delusion thread answering my suggestion that he read "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer:

The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian idea that 'the greatest good of the greatest number' is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour. Singer argues that there is no reason not to apply this to other animals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_(book)

I'm not sure I can help you. I might even be tempted to agree with this Singer guy. I'm worried.

I didn't recall utilitarianism being part of Singer's arguments in favor of animal rights, but I am not a philosopher and it might have escaped me; and it's been years since I read the book.

I became an animal rights supporter after reading this book in 1988 and being unable to deny its arguments. 20 years later I want to take another look. Omigod, what if I don't have to believe this stuff anymore!

So I decided to re-read it. I thought as I go through I will post parts of Singer's arguments here and hope that people will argue with it, or at least find it interesting!

(My cat is doing her best to interfere with my typing this so perhaps she thinks it's not such a good idea ...)
 
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DennisWisconsin is offline DennisWisconsin Post #2  November 17,2009, 8:21am
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I think in the future that animal rights will be much more important than they are today. Most of us still think of animals as food...

If Americans saw what animals go through in slaughter houses and how they are treated leading up to the slaughter houses they might think differently when eating that next hamburger.

Old habits die hard for sure but that isn't an excuse. We can't even get all people equal rights, how do we get rights for animals? Especially when religious people believe that animals were put here for their use? I think the Bible is where animal abuse starts... IMHO
 
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ming_on_mongo is offline ming_on_mongo Post #3  November 17,2009, 8:41am
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DennisWisconsin wrote :
I think in the future that animal rights will be much more important than they are today. Most of us still think of animals as food...

If Americans saw what animals go through in slaughter houses and how they are treated leading up to the slaughter houses they might think differently when eating that next hamburger.

Old habits die hard for sure but that isn't an excuse. We can't even get all people equal rights, how do we get rights for animals? Especially when religious people believe that animals were put here for their use? I think the Bible is where animal abuse starts... IMHO
Oh yeah, and not to mention the whole impact on dealing with environmental issues, of thinking that, "nuthin' else matters... 'cuz we're just waitin' for Armageddon & the Rapture"!
Last edited by ming_on_mongo; November 17,2009 at 9:20am.
 
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Sassafras54 is online now Sassafras54 — Advice Official Moderator Post #4  November 17,2009, 11:16am
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Great! Just to give some background, here's who Peter Singer is:

Peter Singer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chapter 1:

"All Animals Are Equal ... or why the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too"

"When Mary Wollstonecraft ... published her Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, her views were widely regarded as absurd, and before long an anonymous publication appeared entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satirical work (now known to have been Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft's arguments by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If the argument for equality was sound when applied to women, why should it not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? The reasoning seemed to hold for these 'brutes' too; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd. Therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case."

"In order to explain the basis of the case for the equality of animals, it will be helpful to start with an examination of the case for the equality of women. Let us assume that we wish to defend the case for women's rights against the attack by Thomas Taylor. How should we reply?

One way ... is by saying that the case for equality between men and women cannot validly be extended to nonhuman animals." ... "There are many ... obvious ways in which men and women resemble each other closely, while humans and animals differ greatly. So ... men and women are similar beings and should have similar rights, while humans and nonhumans are different and should not have equal rights."

Summary:

- Wollstonecraft wrote a pro-womens' rights book.
- Taylor refuted it by saying you could use its reasoning to extend rights to nonhumans, which is manifestly absurd, so the reasoning must be flawed.
- Singer wants to refute Taylor, and starts by saying that maybe it's not valid to extend Wollstonecraft's case for womens' rights to the question of animal rights, as Taylor does, because while men and women are similar, humans and nonhumans are very different from each other.

Let's stop here ...

Questions:

A. Is it philosophically sound to say that if we can establish that an ethics principle applies to one group, then we can apply it to another group because the groups are 'similar'? How similar do they have to be?

B. Singer assumes as an axiom that human men and women should have equal rights. Not everyone agrees with that. It's possible it's a minority viewpoint, actually. Is it valid to go ahead and assume it?
 
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notyet is offline notyet Post #5  November 17,2009, 1:09pm
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Sassafras54 wrote :
"All Animals Are Equal ... or why the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too"
this would be the natural conclusion of atheistic darwinianism
 
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shoelace is offline shoelace Post #6  November 18,2009, 9:27am
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Sassafras54 wrote :
Questions:

A. Is it philosophically sound to say that if we can establish that an ethics principle applies to one group, then we can apply it to another group because the groups are 'similar'? How similar do they have to be?

B. Singer assumes as an axiom that human men and women should have equal rights. Not everyone agrees with that. It's possible it's a minority viewpoint, actually. Is it valid to go ahead and assume it?
Okay, I'll give it a shot. (B) Equality of men and women. They must ethically be treated the same (logically, if we "must" have an argument for it) because of the existence of hermaphrodites. Male and female can exist in the same body, this is a fact (we don't fully understand how this occurs, but it occurs nonetheless). Therefore whatever ethical treatment is given to the hermaphrodite is the ethical treatment that should be given to mere males and mere females, as it seems these are lesser beings (to stretch the point) than the hermaphrodite which represents in a single body the full expression of what it means to be "human" as opposed to being merely "male" or "female."

Unfortunately, I think many people might view an hermaphrodite as a lesser human (malformed, deficient, etc.) But I would disagree. Whether something went wrong in the hermaphrodite's fetal development, or whether completely natural processes led to its state of being, cannot be declared emphatically without complete knowledge of all biological processes involved. However, the latter view, that only natural processes occurred, is consistent with evolutionary theory and with scientific understanding overall -- namely that only natural processes take place in the universe, and no "designed" or "divinely intended" processes have ever or can ever occur.

There is no attached calling card to any procreated life forms that begin with the union of two human gametes that states one particular "human" entity has greater rights than another. There is nothing in nature which states this, anywhere, for anything. And so, if a distinction is to be made, it must be made by an individual mind, which must necessarily belong to one of the three "kinds" of humans: male, female, or hermaphrodite (there are actually 2 kinds of hermaphrodite, those with a male chromosome and those without; this really makes for 4 kinds of human, or 4 sexes.)

What would give this "deciding" individual the right to declare that some humans have lesser rights than others? His level of education or her intelligence can't be his authority, as I or any of a number of others (sex unspecified) could conceivably outclass him in both areas.

Male, female, midgets, dwarfs, ignoramuses, deformed individuals, those missing appendages, those with deficient senses, tall, short, outspoken, shy, strong, weak, and on and on. If strong, aggressive males grant to themselves all authority (as in religion), then who has the right to oppose them and say there is no "naturally occurring" calling card that states they and they alone should have this authority? Not even evolution would support this, for if I can provide just one example of a strong, aggressive female contrasted with an example of a weak, non-aggressive male, then the predominance of strong males as a "natural" signifier of authority is shot down and proved wrong (I point you to my ex who outclasses most men I have ever met...thus men, even by evolutionary standards, are not the ones who "naturally" get to make the rules).

Ethics, then, cannot come from authority (there is no naturally occurring authority). Ethics are a collective effort on behalf of all thinking humans. Ethics exist when they are acted upon, or when they are acted out as demonstrations of belief. We can oppose what we see as unfair actions by others and through our numbers we can thereby change the beliefs which led to those unfair actions.

We grant rights to ourselves because we are able to do so, and because enough of us see the bigotry, greed, and selfishness in creating less deserving classes vs. greater deserving classes of humans (a common super-class to which we all belong).

Evolution does not state that the strongest and most aggressive are the most fit to survive (and by extension, make the rules). The most fit can be and often is NOT the strongest and loudest (if that were the case, there would be no ants or bacteria, only giant dinosaurs, and only one kind of dinosaur at that, and all the same size...ooops, how would the weak helpless newborns make it? It looks like that idea would lead to only one dinosaur standing, having eaten all the lesser dinosaurs, then it would die of starvation and there would be no life left on earth.) The survival of mammals during the Mesozoic as weak, scared, non-confrontational animals is evidence enough for the fallacy of the strongest being the fittest.

That leaves the question, Can we or should we extend rights to animals that are not human?

I'm going to stop here. (I haven't read Singer, but I'll see what I can do about that.)
Last edited by shoelace; November 18,2009 at 9:34am. Reason: added a phrase for clarity
 
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Sassafras54 is online now Sassafras54 — Advice Official Moderator Post #7  November 18,2009, 10:30am
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Shoelace! What an interesting argument! Would never have occurred to me look at genders other than male/female in considering the question. That really takes the whole men vs. women dynamic out of the argument, which I find to be clarifying! You even managed to be entertaining! Thank you!

I like your argument that there is no naturally occurring authority...it is not for example men's choice whether to grant women rights, or not to. All 4 genders have an equal say.

If we assume there is no naturally occurring authority, then even if in the modern world we live in, a majority of men -- through political or economic or social power -- have formed laws that grant greater rights to men than to the other 3 genders, we can still assume that all 4 genders should have equal rights. As Singer assumes.

I find your argument compelling enough to answer question B: yes, it's valid to take as axiomatic that men and women should have equal rights.
 
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Sassafras54 is online now Sassafras54 — Advice Official Moderator Post #8  November 18,2009, 11:20am
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notyet wrote :
this would be the natural conclusion of atheistic darwinianism
Notyet, I'm not sure what you mean by that. That a person who is an atheist and believes in evolution would naturally believe in animal rights? That's clearly not true, isn't it?

I think it's possible that a higher % of atheists than theists would support animal rights, simply because atheists don't take God as an authority, and many theists will point to God giving man dominion over animals as meaning animals can't have rights...but I don't think most atheists are animal rights people.

Or are you saying that all atheists should support animal rights?
 
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ming_on_mongo is offline ming_on_mongo Post #9  November 18,2009, 11:37am
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BTW, what are we talking about when we say "animal rights"..... voting, driving cars, inheriting money, pets becoming "emancipated", what...?

Even among humans, it still mostly boils down to "which" rights.
 
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Sassafras54 is online now Sassafras54 — Advice Official Moderator Post #10  November 18,2009, 11:59am
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ming_on_mongo wrote :
BTW, what are we talking about when we say "animal rights"..... voting, driving cars, inheriting money, pets becoming "emancipated", what...?

Even among humans, it still mostly boils down to "which" rights.
Well, Ming, funny you should ask, because that's where Singer's argument goes next.

I think question A above, about how similar do groups have to be, for us to be able to extend ethics we believe apply to one group to a similar group, was premature -- it gets addressed in the next paragraphs in the book. And I think we've answered question B. So let's go on from here.

Singer says Taylor's reasoning is invalid because while men and women are similar, humans and nonhumans are very different, so it's not logical to try to refute Wollstonecraft by extending her argument for womens' rights to animals and finding that to result in an absurdity. He gives the example of the right to vote:

"Women have the right to vote ... because they are just as capable of making rational decisions ... as men are; dogs, on the other hand, are incapable of understanding the significance of voting, so they cannot have the right to vote."

From this he concludes that:

"...men and women and we would add hermaphrodites are similar beings and should have similar rights, while humans and nonhumans are different and should not have equal rights."

Singer then says "this reply to Taylor's analogy is correct up to a point, but it does not go far enough. There are obviously important differences between humans and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have. ...this ... is no barrier to the case for extending the basic principle of equality to nonhuman animals."

In support of this, Singer talks about how there are obvious differences between men and women; that these differences can lead to having different specific rights. He gives the example of the right to abortion -- you can believe that women should have the right to abortion without asserting that men must also have that right. (Whether or not abortion should be a right is a separate issue -- just used as an example here.) He applies this logic to nonhumans:

"Since a man cannot have an abortion, it is meaningless to talk of his right to have one. Since dogs can't vote, it is meaningless to talk of their right to vote." ... "The extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups." ... "The basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration."

Summary:

- We have established that all human genders should have equal rights, even if that is a minority viewpoint.
- Singer asserts that the basic principle of equality is not that 2 groups must be granted exactly the same set of rights, but that they must be granted equal consideration.

Question:

1. What does "equal consideration" mean here? Philosophers --- what does this mean?
 
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