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Consider Ethics: Theory, Readings, and Contemporary Issues Third Edition Bruce N. Waller Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Chapter 12 The Scope of Morality Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Who Is Due Moral Consideration? • Social Contract Ethics – Those who enter into the social contract are the people who count morally • If you haven’t agreed to the contract, you are in a state of nature without moral rules – But since there is no literal contract, who is covered by it? • Includes people who can understand and follow the rules • Does not propose other meaningful limits on who is included – What about animals? The rest of nature? Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Who Is Due Moral Consideration • Kantian Ethics – Under the Kantian model, admission to the moral community requires that you use the power of reason to understand and follow moral law • You recognize the moral law as an imperative • But you are useless to Kant if you are outside the moral community – Ex. There is nothing immoral about torturing an animal, since they have no moral standing, except any negative effect it might have on the person doing the torturing Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Who Is Due Moral Consideration • Tom Reagan’s Kantian Account of Animal Rights – Proponent of animal rights who developed a Kantian theory to defend animal rights: • In order to possess inherent worth, you need only be a “subject of a life,” not necessarily a rational lawmaker • You must be conscious of having a life (have selfawareness) that can go well or poorly – Reagan’s model makes the moral community far more inclusive – But the model has no dividing line. Are all animals the same? Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Who Is Due Moral Consideration • Utilitarians and the Moral Community – Utilitarian ethics has been seen as a better environment for broadened ethical consideration of animals • Casts a wide moral net • Maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain applies to everyone affected (human and animal) • All suffering and pleasure is morally significant – Peter Singer: attempting to count animals’ suffering as less significant is gross prejudice Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Who Is Due Moral Consideration • Eastern Views – The most inclusive moral systems come from the East • Buddhist morality emphasizes the personal moral development of the individual, which requires concern for the entire community – The Buddhist community includes all living things • Jainism believes that we must have uncompromising reverence for all living things Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Moral Agents • Moral Agency and Intent – Genuine moral behavior requires more than good results – Motives, not reasons, must be examined. To act morally, I must genuinely intend to do the moral act. But motives do not have to include deliberation. • Many animals (human and nonhuman) can form and act upon intentions they cannot conceptually order and explain • Michael Bradie – “Animals can act on the basis of altruistic motives but they do not and cannot form intentions to do act.” Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Moral Agents • An Experiment in Moral Agency – If eating food (when your starving) led to another’s suffering, would you eat? • This experiment was done with monkeys, many of whom chose not to eat • Arguments Against Nonhuman Moral Agency – An animal is not human, and so its behavior cannot be moral • An animal mother comforting an infant is responding to her desire to stop the crying, not an intention to comfort the infant • Daniel Batson – “altruism” experiments Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Darwin and the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals • Being pro-animal rights is not being antiresearch. Rather, animal rights proponents recognize the value of experimenting on animals, but reject the suffering that it causes. – Likewise, they acknowledge that human testing would have helpful results, but are unwilling to cause human suffering for gains in research • Michael Ruse – Darwin posited that features evolve gradually. Morality must exist, at least in traces, in animals. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. The Scope of Morality • Charles Darwin – Developed the “theory of evolution,” which built off of earlier evolutionary theories – Created the “theory of natural selection,” which provided a mechanistic account of how evolution proceeds – The Descent of Man Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. The Scope of Morality • Frans de Waal – Ethologist – Writes about primate behavior and social relations – “The Tower of Morality” From Primates and Philosophers Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.