ANIMAL ETHICS
 How do we use animals? Is it morally indifferent,
right, bad?
Why to care for relationship to animals?
 1) We can´t wait till the problems in human ethics will
be resolved
 2) Matters are connected
 3) It is a matter of interest
Three basic disagreements about ethics:
1) Who shall we take into moral consideration?
2) How to apply the principles?
3) Why shall we behave morally?
Who shall we take into moral consideration?
In distant history:
 Our family, friends, tribe, fellow citizens x
strangers, aliens
Stoics
The idea of logos – reason, speech,
The uniqueness of humankind - we all share access to
reason (logos).
Reason: make us rational, is common to us
we are all citizenships of Cosmos
we are all brothers
we should take into moral consideration all
people
Christian ethics
 Stoics prepared the way for Christian thinking. We are
all part in one big family. Galatians 3.28: “There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
there is no male and female, for you are all one in
Christ Jesus.”
Immanuel Kant
 Man is: a legislating member in the universal kingdom of
ends.
a rationally self-conscious being
 Moral autonomy: a person is able to prescribe a law unto
him/herself
 Cruelty to animals: a violation of a duty in relation to
oneself
 Man has the imperfect duty to strengthen the feeling of
compassion, since this feeling promotes morality in
relation to other human beings. But, cruelty to animals
deadens the feeling of compassion in man. Therefore, man
is obliged not to treat animals brutally.
Utilitarianism
 A view that moral agents have one fundamental
obligation: to maximize nonmoral value.
 Value or utility is identified with happiness or
preference satisfaction.
Jeremy Bentham
 (1748-1832): is widely regarded as one of the earliest
proponents of animal rights, and has even been
called as "the first patron saint of animal rights".
 society’s goal ought to be the greatest happiness
for the greatest number of individuals
 Happiness x pain  animals can feel pain
 „The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can
they talk? but, Can they suffer?“
Albert Schweitzer
 „Reverence for life“
 „Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been
largely limited to the relations of man to man. But
that is a limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics,
which will include the animals also…. The time is
coming when people will be amazed that the
human race existed so long before it recognized
thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real
ethics.“
A contemporary situation
 We know that animals can suffer but we don´t take it
seriously and use animals as means in still more cruel
ways
 We traditionally believe that we are superior to
animals and thanks to this „fact“ we believe it is
morally permissible to use animals as we need
Using animals
Animal experimentation
 for medicine, psychological, military experiments
 testing of cosmetics
and household
products
 In 2011 almost
1,5 mil. of laboratory
animals were used
One example of the most absurd and most
useless experiments
In Sweden, in a bid to study the long-term effects of
nicotine exposure on the brain, 30 rats were injected with
nicotine 15 times over a three-week period. After a sevenmonth period of not receiving any nicotine, the rats were
injected with nicotine again every day for one week. The
animals were subjected to weekly behavior tests in which
their movements were monitored while they were put inside
a box for 30 minutes. At the end of the experiment all of the
animals were killed and their brains dissected. (Conducted at
the University of Gothenburg, supported by the Swedish
Medical Research Council).
Using animals as meal
 eggs
 meat
 milk
Using animals for entertainment
 fur
 hunting
 circuses
 zoos
Ethical position
Do any nonhuman animals have a prima facie right
to life or a prima facie right not to be made to suffer
at human hands?
Can we give any reason except for our feelings and
compassion?
How shall we behave to animals?
Ethical reasons for taking animal seriously
 (1) They can feel happiness and pain. Generally it
is wrong to cause pain (exceptions can exist).
 (2) We are not superior. The whole system of using
animals is in principle wrong despite the fact we
cause or not pain.
 (3) Capacities of animals
(1) Animals can feel happiness and pain.
Peter Singer:
•A Book “Animal
Liberation”
•preference utilitarianism
Peter Singer
 We should base our ethics on the interest of
sentient creatures.
 Pain is bad, it is wrong to cause intense pain
unnecessarily.
 Human are not superior to animals.
 We are different. Factual equality does not exist
even among humans. Equality is a moral ideal and
a moral norm.
 “Speciesmus”= assignment of moral consideration
to individuals solely on the basis of their species
membership.
(2) The whole system of using animals is in
principle wrong
 Tom Regan
 Book „The case for
Animal Rights“
Animals are
subjects-of-a-life
Tom Regan
 individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs
and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the
future, including their own future; an emotional life
together with feelings of pleasure and pain;
preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate
action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a
psychophysical identity over time; and an individual
welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares
well or ill for them, logically independently of their
utility for others and logically independently of their
being the object of anyone else's interests.
(3) Capacities of animals discovered by
ethologists
Animals are
able of:
Reciprocity
Fidelity
Love
 They have developed
social relationships,
friendships
 They can suffer from
loneliness, boredom,
fear, frustration, lost
of partners
 They miss their
families
Animals are in many ways more like us
Ethologist Marc Bekoff
„A close relationship is
critical to our own
well-being
and spiritual growth.“
 „Animals are subjective beings who have feelings
and thoughts, and they deserve respect and
consideration. We don´t have the right to subdue
or dominate them for our selfish gain – to make
our lives better by making animal´s lives worse.
Further, as self-conscious, sentient beings
ourselves, we are able to recognize suffering, and
we are obliged to reduce it whenever we can.“
Mark Bekoff
Consequences?
 Mark Bekoff: „Clearly, we know a lot about animal
emotions… we need to turn our knowledge into
action.“
 Two positions: one stronger, one weaker:
 (1) animal rights - animal liberation (movement)
 (2) animal welfare
Animal Rights and Animal Liberation
 Animal Rights is the idea that non-human animals
have similar interests as humans and that they
have at least a right not to suffer. We should take
animals as persons not as property
 Animal Liberation is a movement developed by
Australian philosopher Peter Singer.
Accepting the doctrine of animal rights
means:
 •No experiments on animals
 •No breeding and killing animals for food or clothes
or medicine
 •No use of animals for hard labour
 •No selective breeding for any reason other than the
benefit of the animal
 •No hunting
 •No zoos or use of animals in entertainment
Animal welfare
Well-being of animals:
 We can use animals but we should care for them
with passion.
 We should reduce the number of used animals.
Standards of animal welfare
 Longevity
 Disease
 Immunosuppressant
 Behaviour
 Physiology
 Reproduction
 Absence of boredom
Five freedoms
 1.Freedom from hunger or thirst by ready access
to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health
and vigour
 2.Freedom from discomfort by providing an
appropriate environment including shelter and a
comfortable resting area
 3.Freedom from pain, injury or disease by
prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment
 4.Freedom to express (most) normal
behaviour by providing sufficient space, proper
facilities and company of the animal's own kind
 5.Freedom from fear and distress by ensuring
conditions and treatment which avoid mental
suffering
Guiding principles for using animals for
experiments
„Three Rs“
 Replacement: alternative
methods
 Reduction
 Refinement: Animal distress
(i.e. pain/discomfort)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUZ1YLhIAg8
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pDCDdx4XuU&featu
re=iv&src_vid=kUZ1YLhIAg8&annotation_id=annotation_
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Thank you for your attention