What I am trying to show here is that I think this belief is probably fairly widely held already, and is very intuitive. Western conventional wisdom about animal ethics is that killing an animal is not the problem; the problem is making the animal suffer. If we believed our future was not a valuable one, such as in the cases of terminally ill patients discussed above, we may no longer desire to live and may form the rational desire to die. The harm of death is unlike many paradigmatic cases of harm such as experiencing pain or distress. A person is an individual who is rational, capable of forming long term goals and acting for reasons. In this case, someone who was an ethical vegan on the grounds of reducing suffering may decide to begin eating eggs and dairy again. Why is killing animals wrong? Now, this does not establish that the belief that my dog’s death is bad for her is true. But this would imply that killing an elderly person with very little future left or killing a person who will lives a largely miserable life are not as wrong as killing a younger person or someone who will live a very happy life. Having established W with the above argument, I will now try to provide further support for this principle through it’s coherence with other considered judgements. It is partly because my dog’s death would be bad for her that I worry over her dying and take steps to avoid it. Effects of Hunting. Natural predators help maintain this balance by killing only the sickest and weakest individuals. Though there are differences between the valuable futures of humans and animals, I do not think these differences are significant enough or sufficiently relevant to justify differential treatment. In fact, W does not in itself imply that eating an animal is wrong. In order to keep cows lactating they must become pregnant once per year, leading to large numbers of calves being born each year. Thus, consideration of what we judge to be better or worse for animals provides further support for (15), which in turn supports W. Another point of support is how W coheres well with our beliefs about when it is acceptable to euthanize an animal. 2. For example, perhaps killing a child is wrong because it deprives them of a long, valuable future. What I want to emphasize is that all these cases seem intuitively permissible, but this intuitive permissibility can be backed up with a justification. Health problems are common, such as untreated infections and wounds, missing limbs, cannibalism, dead animals left to rot between living animals and lack of (clean) drinking water. It is an indisputable fact that animals have sentience and complex nervous systems. But what would make this principle true? Besides the basic endangering species and destroying the natural balance, there is so much more that we ignore when answering this question. However, (5) fails to explain H as not all human beings referred to by H are persons. We could use symbolic communication; they couldn’t. Sentience is a means to the end of continued existence. Good reasons can be provided for why killing the animal is acceptable, and reasons need to be given for this if the killing is prima facie wrong. Think about the experiment done with monkeys where if one monkey ate food, the other monkey would get an electric shock. ( Log Out / This premise alone could have been used to argue for W, but I chose to set out an indirect argument to better show the similarities between considerations at play in killing humans and killing animals. Chickens are debeaked at an early age, typically live in overcrowded conditions and are prevented from exhibiting natural behaviors. Discussions of the impact psychological unity makes to the badness of animal death can be found in David DeGrazia’s “Sentient Nonpersons and the Disvalue of Death”. Neonates and those who are mentally disabled do not fall into this category, so are not persons. Why would hunting be a bad thing? To examine these arguemnts, I would recommend reading Robert Nozick on moral constraints, David DeGrazia “Taking Animals Seriously” and Tom Regan “The Case for Animal Rights”. I think I have given decent justifications for each step, though I realize that a lot of what I assert is contestable. In a previous post, I discussed an article presented arguments for believing that it is wrong to painlessly kill non-human animals (from here on, I will simply use the term “animal” as synonymous with “non-human animal”). However, if a person also accepts W, this would render the happy farm situation unethical, because now killing the animal would be wrong. However, seeing as we do not need to eat animal products to live a healthy life and most people living in Western Industrialized countries have easy access to other sources of food, this seems like an inadequate justification. The final belief that W coheres well with concerns our reasons for thinking pain and suffering are bad. Anna E. Charlton is adjunct professor of law at Rutgers University and the co-founder of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic. In the 19th century, a paradigm shift occurred, and the animal welfare theory was born. This belief coheres well with (15) and W, which only assert the prima facie wrongness and badness of animal deaths and base this upon the value of an animal’s future. The killing of animals is animal euthanasia (for pain relief), animal sacrifice (for a deity), animal slaughter (for food), hunting (for food, for sport, for fur and other animal products, etc. But the hunting is not just hurting the animals themselves, it's hurting us all. Thus, lying is generally accepted to be prima facie wrong, as most people think it is wrong to lie unless you have a good reason to do so (e.g. I have seen animals shot dead in front of other animals, they notice that that animal’s behaviour isn’t what they expect from a functional m Suppose my dog has some kind of disease that is causing her a minimum amount of pain at the moment, such as ingesting a lethal dose of chocolate. If we saw killing an animal – however painlessly – as raising a moral issue, perhaps that might lead us to start thinking more on whether animal use is morally justifiable. They may justify the wrongness of consuming animal products by appeal to the terrible conditions in which animals are typically kept in modern agriculture, or the problematic environmental impact of animal agriculture. I pointed out what I thought were serious flaws in the author’s arguments, and thus concluded that the author failed to adequately support their conclusion. The reason it is wrong to deprive humans of a valuable future is because doing so harms the person: it prevents them from enjoying future good experiences and activities. This strengthens the case for W, especially since the badness of an animal’s death is what explains W. W gains further indirect support by other beliefs that cohere with (15). But seeing as the harm of death was grounded in the individual being deprived of a valuable future, it would seem that the harm of death is a function of how valuable the future is. This means that the person accepts that pain and suffering is bad for an animal, they just reject that a painless death could also be bad. However, if we accept that mammals and birds feel pain and this capacity likely evolved to regulate behaviour and enhance survival, it seems implausible that these animals would not also have evolved the capacity for having pleasurable mental states and desires as well. I presented the outline of this argument, and did not rigorously justify each step, so it is open to criticism. In these cases it seems like it would be permissible to end the individual’s life: to euthanize them. I have also tried to show how accepting W has practical implications, for someone who believes that killing animals is wrong should conclude that it is still wrong to eat animal products originating from a humane farm as these farms will still involve animal deaths. (5), (6) and (7) all seem to provide intuitive accounts of why killing is wrong in certain cases, though they all have their flaws. Most important among these was (15): an animal’s death is typically bad for the animal. If my dog dies I will no longer be able to enjoy all the activities I love to do with her. Thus animals can have experiences that are good or bad for them, and will often engage in activities that cause them pleasure or that they have a strong desire to perform. However, what I want to emphasize is that I am not arguing that it is always wrong to kill animals. You are putting someone through pain and suffering for no reason other then your own pleasure, Whether that is the fun of killing them, Or … Just like the example of lying there seem to be clear cases in which killing is permissible, or even obligatory. We could have obligations that concerned animals, such as an obligation not to damage our neighbour’s cow, but that obligation was owed to our neighbour as the owner of the cow, not to the cow. These are individuals, real or hypothetical, who accept our arguments about the wrongness of causing pain and suffering and accept that because the modern agricultural industry causes pain and suffering we should not consume it’s products. A natural and plausible suggestion is this: killing an animal that would otherwise have an overall pleasant future prevents it from experiencing the pleasure it would otherwise get. Hunters, however, kill any animal whose head they would like to hang over the fireplace—including large, healthy animals who are needed to keep the population strong. Let's Ask PETA. The problem is making them suffer. This principle is further supported by it’s coherence with other beliefs we hold. ), blood sports, or roadkill (by accident). Once it is clear what is wrong with killing on some occasions it should become possible to explain why it is not wrong on others. For example, neonates and the severely mentally disabled may lack the capacity to conceive of their own death or the future to any significant degree. However, (7) is not without flaws. Singer claims that ‘the absence of some form of mental continuity’ makes it difficult to … I reasoned to this conclusion from considerations of why it is wrong to kill humans, wherein I claimed that the wrongness in this case is partly explained by the harm done to a human by ending their life. This is because animals possess valuable experiences similar to that of humans and because many animals have a future of which they can be deprived if they are killed. Thus, to say killing an animal is prima facie wrong just means that unless there is a good justification, we ought not to kill an animal. Killing an animal harms the animal. I will also lay out some background information and assumptions that I will draw upon. I have found all of these explanations to have flaws, and have tentatively concluded that the correct account is a combination of three of the proposed explanations. Thus I will turn to examining them. Another major issue I did not discuss is how the badness of death for animals compares to that for humans. They may argue that I am mistaken in identifying the source of my motives and feelings, and in fact the sorrow is only directed at my own loss, not the dog’s. This is actually a position held by Peter Singer, the Princeton philosopher who authored Animal Liberation. More needs to be said to fully refute the benign carnivores position, but I leave that for another time. In the second section, I will give a short discussion of possible explanations of the principle that killing a human being is wrong, and conclude that at least one reason why it is wrong to kill a human being is because doing so deprives them of a valuable future, which I term the DVF principle. I then provided further support for W by showing how it is supported by and supports many of our considered judgments, which together form a coherent set of beliefs. This principle would be true even if another, more unitary explanation is given of why killing human beings are wrong. Kant: That’s because it hardens one and makes them more likely to inflict pain on humans. I have talked to many people who accept this line of argument, and I can see why. Many different explanations have been offered over time, and the options I will discuss are in no way exhaustive. Killing a human is wrong because you are basically killing your own species and that is something that even many animals can't do. So in part my concern for her safety is directed towards protecting my own interests, as I wish to continue having enjoyable experiences with my dog. His most recent book, together with Anna E. Charlton, is Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach (2015). I wish to emphasize that “animals” here must be restricted to those animals who are sentient, and thus capable of valuable experiences, and animals who have a future in the sense of psychological continuity. This is further backed up by the fact that our will to live is often one of the strongest desires we have, and thus frustrating it would be extremely wrong, which squares well with our intuition that murder is one of the worst offences. Yes, Hunting is a great thing. I think they are incorrect on this count, but this is an issue I will need to discuss another time. If we are committed to W, then even without causing significant amounts of suffering and pain these industries will still involve significant wrongdoing. Only if it is wrong independent of it hardening us towards humans would it harden us. Killing animals is not the problem. This essay aims to establish the following claim: W: It is prima facie wrong to kill an animal. In the third section, I will examine whether this account of the wrongness of killing can be applied to animals and will conclude that it can. Now that I have concluded that it is wrong to deprive humans of a valuable future, I will consider whether this is also true of animals. Dairy cows suffer from high rates of laminitis, mastitis and metabolic conditions due to the strong selective breeding for high milk producers and management practices that are employed on dairy farms. I think it would bring me great happiness. In addition, the combination of these claims may together explain why we have a right to life, as asserted in (1). However, I think it would be implausible to think that all of my concern or grief is self directed. Furthermore, I assume that this moral considerability involves direct duties to animals: we have duties to animals, not just involving them. Just as with the death of a good friend or family member, some of my grief is due to me feeling sorry for myself but a large part is sadness that the individual’s life was cut short and as such they were deprived of a valuable future. H seems intuitively true: it seems prima facie wrong to kill a human being, and this belief is recognized as intuitive and forceful by most people. If I choose to euthanize her, her death will be swift and painless and will occur before the deleterious affects of eating chocolate set in. None of the monkeys knew each other yet they eventually stopped eating despite being hungry, only for the safety of the other one. Animals in traps will chew their paws or limbs off and thereby inflict excruciating suffering on themselves in order to continue to live. Thus, we can conclude that all three explanations seem reasonable, and perhaps are all true. Visiting this person, I find out that they took care of my dog for ten more years before she died peacefully in her sleep. That’s why killing it is wrong. However, pain is also extrinsically bad: it is bad because of it’s affect on something else. But, why should it harden someone? Singer claims that ‘the absence of some form of mental continuity’ makes it difficult to understand why killing an animal is not ‘made good by the creation of a new animal who will lead an equally pleasant life’. To say that we thought of animals as things didn’t mean that we denied that they were sentient, or subjectively aware, and had interests in not experiencing pain, suffering or distress. However, many of the valuable states of affairs we are denied by our death would be more simple pleasures such as eating, playing, having sex, basking in the sun or simply enjoying the freedom to move around. If the good contained in a future outweighs the bad, then I will say that the individual has a valuable future or future of value. An example would be killing an animal virtually instantaneously (with a gun or captive bolt) without it realizing what is happening.
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