Speciesism and the Argument from Misfortune

Abstract

Is there a morally relevant difference between a brain-damaged human being and a nonhuman animal at the same cognitive and emotional level to justify, say, performing medical experiments on the animal but not the human being? Some hold that the misfortune of the human being allows us to distinguish between them. I consider the nature of misfortune and argue that an appeal to misfortune fails to distinguish between the human being and the nonhuman animal when the treatment at issue is equally morally serious, since the source of the limitation taken advantage of by performing the medical experiment, whether misfortune or natural vulnerability, is irrelevant.When moral deliberation is cast as a matter of recognising and assessing the competing interests that are at stake in a particular situation, how are we to assign weights to those various interests? The standard answer is this: unless a relevant difference can be found for assessing equivalent interests differently, rationality requires that we weigh them equally. The principle that we should treat likes alike thus entwines morality and rationality at a fundamental level.What counts as a relevant difference to justify departures from equal consideration of interests? This, of course, is the question so often in dispute. Moral disagreement is rarely a disagreement over the formal requirement of equality, but rather a disagreement over warranted versus unwarranted departures from it.One area where there is significant disagreement about the weight to accord the interests at stake involves comparisons of human interests and animal interests. Do human interests count for more than equivalent animal interests? The view that`humans are morally entitled to prefer the interests of fellow humans over equivalent interests of other animals,' is called speciesism [1]. On this view, membership in the species Homo sapiens is regarded as a morally relevant factor, one which justifies giving greater moral significance to a human interest over a similar animal interest. Consider an interest shared by sentient human beings and sentient animals; an interest in not suffering. The speciesist claims the human interest is more significant. Unless speciesism is to be dismissed as an irrational bias Ð as so many critics charge Ð the priority of human over equivalent non-human interests requires justification.A plausible defence for the priority of human interests turns on an appeal to the moral significance of persons [2]. The concept of a person plays a central role in our moral thinking, even if we are not entirely clear about what it is to be a person [3]. However, that persons have great moral significance is not in dispute. There are various accounts for why persons have such high moral status. These accounts explain the moral significance of persons by appealing to one or more of the following kinds of traits: rationality, autonomy, moral agency, self-awareness, capacity for enrichment, ability to lead meaningful lives, and

7th ERAZ Conference Proceedings (part of ERAZ conference collection)

“…The impacts of the opinion of haplessness which is considerably prevalent in a society (Jalan, Sinha & Ulus, 2014) are required to get evaluated in all aspects (Kaufman, 1998). Individuals desiring to gain a respectable status in a society (İnce, 2018) and get rid of the negative situations such as haplessness and those who consider themselves as hapless in terms of finding a job are able to apply for distinct ways of employment in business life.…”

Defining speciesism

“…The first one is that speciesism can discriminate in some cases against those who do not belong to a single species, such as Homo sapiens . In fact, the term “speciesism” has sometimes been used to name discrimination against nonhuman animals (Kaufman, 1998 or Waldau, 2002). 2 But accepting such a meaning would leave us with no word for other kinds of discrimination that partition the group of discriminatees and favorably treated individuals in different ways.…”

Human dignity and the creation of human–nonhuman chimeras

“… 10 The argument from marginal cases, or argument from species overlap, points out that “the criteria that are commonly used to deprive nonhuman animals of moral consideration fail to draw a line between human beings and other sentient animals, since there are also humans who fail to satisfy them.”(Horta 2014 , 142) For further discussion see: (Singer 2001 ; Horta 2014 ; Pluhar 2006 ; Dombrowski 2006 ; Kaufman 1998 ). …”