Animal Rights and Green Politics
Overview
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Animal Rights (Singer)
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The Principle of Utility
The Case for Animal Rights
Ecology: The Scope of the Crisis
The Greening of Political Theory
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“Liberal” Environmentalism
“Conservative” Environmentalism
“Deep Ecology”: Earth First!
Animal Rights
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Peter Singer (1946- )
Australian philosopher,
currently at Princeton
University
Animal Rights
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Arguments made to extend rights to other
human groups historically excluded from
liberal rights dialogue have all initially
appeared outrageous
For example: women’s rights, black rights
Animal Rights
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Yet in retrospect, it is the counterarguments
against those rights claims that now appear
outrageous and wrong-headed
Animal Rights
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What is the basis of human rights?
Why should we respect rights?
The Problem of Rights
Agent
Preference
Wants to do something
Patient
Preference
Preferences of those affected
by the act
The Problem of Rights
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The difficulty with rights talk is that we have
no real way of distinguishing the merit of
separate and conflicting rights claim
For example, let’s look at religious freedom –
freedom of conscience
Suppose my religious practice disgusts
everyone else in the surrounding community.
Should I continue to practice?
The Problem of Rights
Religious
Practice
Those
effected by
the
practice
How doWhy
we balance
should my
those
right
competing
to engageclaims?
in a specific religion
outweigh the collective right of the community?
The Problem of Rights
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Isn’t that making me – in effect – a dictator in
that the social decision is what I say it should
be, no matter how many votes to the contrary
We need to develop a higher order
principle/theory to decide the tough
questions
Utilitarianism is that theory
Utilitarianism
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Utilitarianism has 2 basic
premises:
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“Actions are right in proportion
as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong as they tend
produce the reverse of
happiness”
Greatest Happiness Principle
As Mill notes, it is an idea
deeply rooted in the Western
tradition, going back at least to
Epicurus (341 – 270 B.C.E.)
Utilitarianism
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As an ethical theory, it attempts to provide a rational
rather than a religious basis for morality
Which means we will be able to sanction and judge
acts as good or bad on something other than
religious grounds.
This is crucial since “common sense” morality
requires a religious premise
Utilitarianism
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Once we reject that religious premise, the
morality no longer has any hold over us
That is, if we’re not worried about getting
nailed in the afterlife, why bother being
moral?
Why should I care about how my actions
affect other people?
Utilitarianism
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Bentham’s original version rested on notion of
psychological hedonism:
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An act is good which sets off all the pleasure pods in my
head
As a social theory, then, Utilitarianism distinguishes
the morality between alternative states of affairs by
examining the amount of pleasure and pain it
produces
That act which produces the most pleasure is the
one to be preferred
Utilitarianism
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We shouldn’t count our own preferences for
more than we count others (since if we did so
we’d be dictating the social outcome)
Question that arises, then, is how do we
achieve utilitarian objectivity?
In rights based accounts, it is the notion of
moral sympathy – I wouldn’t want my rights
violated so I shouldn’t violate others’ rights
Utilitarianism
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If we are going to have to decide between
different social states, how can we make
sure the decision on which state to adopt is
an impartial (objective) one?
How do we become impartial?
Bentham formula:
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Everyone to count for one, no one to count for
more than one
Utilitarianism
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Two points to note
Democracy is integral to utilitarianism
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The way we determine what to do is to take a vote,
and whatever the majority wants, wins
It doesn’t matter where goods/bads happen
to fall, so long as en toto more pleasure is
produced than pain.
Utilitarianism
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Doesn’t matter, morally speaking, who is having
wants, just as long as we satisfy as many wants as
possible
Singer adds the corollary that we can extend the
argument to non human animals.
The idea is to act so as to produce the greatest
happiness for the greatest number
For our moral calculations, we need to view beings
as vessels of utility satisfaction
Utilitarianism
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What we most want is to
experience things in a
certain way (i.e., pleasure
over pain)
For Bentham, a want is a
want is a want
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No difference between
wanting to stay home and
watch Spongebob and
reading War and Peace
For Singer, no difference
between human and animal
wants in pleasure/pain
calculus
Animal Rights
“If a being suffers, there can
be no moral justification for
refusing to take that
suffering into consideration.
No matter what the nature of
the being, the principle of
equality requires that its
suffering be counted equally
with the like suffering-insofar as rough
comparisons can be made-of any other being…”
Animal Rights
“If a being is not capable of
suffering, or of experiencing
enjoyment or happiness, there is
nothing to be taken into account.
This is why the limit of sentience
(using the terms as a convenient, if
not strictly accurate, shorthand for
the capacity to suffer or experience
enjoyment or happiness) is the only
defensible boundary of the interests
of others…”
Animal Rights
“To mark this boundary by some
characteristic like intelligence or rationality
would be to mark it in an arbitrary way.
Why not choose some other characteristic,
like skin color?”
-- Peter
Singer
The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis
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Consequences of rapid human population
growth
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Increased energy demands
Increased food production demands
Increased employment
Increased education
Increased environmental stress
The Crisis
Water Pollution
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On 22 June 1969, the
Cuyahoga River caught
fire in Cleveland
Fire lasted 30 minutes
Water Pollution
“Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with
subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.
‘Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not
drown,’ Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. ‘He decays’.
. . The Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration dryly notes: ‘The lower Cuyahoga has
no visible signs of life, not even low forms such as
leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on
wastes." It is also -- literally -- a fire hazard.’”
-- Time magazine, 1 August 1969
Signs along the River
Water Pollution
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In the late 1960s, Lake Erie, was officially
declared “dead”
Too many chemicals, particularly nitrates
from fertilizer and phosphates from soap and
cleansers, led to huge algae blooms that
killed off the fish and other plant species.
Water Pollution
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On2/25/76 New York DEC
made it illegal to fish in the
upper Hudson from the Ft.
Edward Dam to the federal
dam at Albany
Closed Hudson River
commercial fisheries, and
warned people about
dangers of
eating
Hudson River fish.
General Electric dumped
Between 209,000 and
1.3 million pounds of PCBs
directly into Hudson
Water Pollution
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Since that time, the spread of PCBs
throughout the river and its food chain has
created an extensive toxic waste problem.
About 200 miles of the river is designated as
a Superfund site.
Water Pollution
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In August 1995, the Upper Hudson was reopened to fishing, but only on a catch and
release basis.
NY and NJ agencies recommend that people
eat no striped bass or blue crabs from the
Newark Bay area, and no more than one
meal a week from other areas in the New
York Harbor estuary.
EPA guidelines recommend no consumption.
New York City
1963 smog
2007 smog
The Response
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Clean Air Act (1970)
Creation of the
Environmental
Protection Agency
(1970)
Clean Water Act (1972)
Endangered Species
Act (1973)
Aldo Leopold
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Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
Born in Iowa, along the
Mississippi River
Gets degree in forestry from
Yale
After graduation he takes gig
with US Forestry Service in
Arizona
Transferred to US Forest
Products Laboratory in
Wisconsin
Aldo Leopold
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In 1933 he published
Game Management, a
groundbreaking study
on managing and
restoring wildlife
populations
Aldo Leopold
In 1949, he published A
Sand County Almanac,
a work that is viewed as
the beginning of the
modern land
conservation movement
Land Use
Land Use
“Conservation is a state
of harmony between
men and land”
-- Aldo Leopold
Land Use
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Conservation entails
recognizing that human
beings do not have
sufficient understanding
of the complexities of
nature to “govern” or
“conquer” nature
Rather, we need to
work with nature
Land Use
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Leopold introduces the idea of the “pyramid” instead
of the balance
The balance of nature implies that human and
natural worlds are distinct and separate entities
The pyramid is meant to convey the
interrelationships between the various parts of
creation
Soil
Plants
Soil
Insects
Plants
Soil
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Rodents and
small
mammals
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Large mammalian
carnivores
Birds and
Reptiles
Rodents and
small
mammals
Insects
Plants
Soil
Human beings
Rodents and
small
mammals
Large mammalian
carnivores
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Land Use
“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain
of energy flowing through a circuit of soils,
plants, and animals. Food chains are the
living channels which conduct energy
upward; death and decay return it to the soil.”
Human beings
Rodents and
small
mammals
Large mammalian
carnivores
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Land Use
“This interdependence between the complex
structure of the land and its smooth
functioning as an energy unit is one of its
basic attributes…When a change occurs in
one part of the circuit, many other parts must
adjust themselves to it.”
Land Use
“Change does not necessarily obstruct or
divert the flow of energy; evolution is a long
series of self-induced changes, the net result
of which has been to elaborate the flow
mechanism and to lengthen the circuit.”
Soil
Plants
Soil
Insects
Plants
Soil
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Rodents and
small
mammals
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Large mammalian
carnivores
Birds and
Reptiles
Rodents and
small
mammals
Insects
Plants
Soil
Human beings
Rodents and
small
mammals
Large mammalian
carnivores
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Evolution provides
a mechanism by
which new life forms
emerge and adapt
to environmental
conditions…
Human beings
Rodents and
small
mammals
Large mammalian
carnivores
Birds and
Reptiles
Insects
Plants
Soil
Evolution provides
a mechanism by
which new life forms
emerge and adapt
to environmental
conditions which
in turn shape
and change the
environmental
conditions
Land Use
However, human activities
have greatly altered the pace
by which environments
change and thereby have
impacted species beyond
anything found in nonhuman
natural conditions, with the
possible exception of
catastrophic events (meteor
strikes, volcanic eruptions,
tsunamis, etc.)
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology, a term coined
by Arne Naess (1912-2009) to
describe a view of human
relationships with nature that emphasizes a
complete equality between human and
nonhuman species.
Deep Ecology
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Dave Foreman (1946 - )
Co-founder, in 1976, of Earth First! a radical
environmental group
Deep Ecology
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Earth Liberation Front
(ELF)
Animal Liberation Front
(ALF)
Deep Ecology
The roots of both EarthFirst!
and the ELF are in Edward
Abbey’s The Monkey
Wrench Gang (1975)
The a novel describes a
group of environmental
activists who sabotage and
destroy various machines
that they believe are
enabling the destruction of
the American southwest
Deep Ecology
Foreman and friends realized that
“mainstream” environmental groups (e.g.,
Sierra Club) were unlikely to succeed and
prevent environmental degradation in time to
save endangered plants, animals, and
landscapes.
Deep Ecology: Basic Tenets
Human beings are not and should not be
the measure of all things
1.
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2.
Human beings are no more nor less than
another animal species.
All living creatures and communities have
value intrinsic to their own being, not based
on contributions or liabilities to human
beings
Deep Ecology: Basic Tenets
3.
4.
5.
Wilderness preservation is essential
Human populations are too large and
thereby threaten the existence of other
species
Questions about our understanding and
definition of “Progress” and “Technology”
Deep Ecology: Basic Tenets
Expand beyond traditional ideological
constraints and defend the earth as a
whole
Actions are more important
than philosophy
6.
7.
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8.
Monkey-wrenching is
legitimate political activity
Begin with changes in
personal lifestyle choices