Jeff Moon
Professor Drexler
Philosophy 2300
8/3/2012
Environmental Ethics Position Paper: The Moral Circle
If we truly believe that animals are capable of thought and emotion, than it is our
obligation to include them in our Moral Circle. For my position paper for this class, I have
chosen to write on the subject of the moral circle, what it is and what beings should be included
in it, specifically the members of the animal kingdom. Over the course of the class we have been
exposed to the idea of the Moral Circle as well as individual philosopher’s views on the subject.
All these philosophers have sought to shape our views on the subject and educate us as to what it
really means to have intrinsic value, that is value that isn’t associated with what you can do for
someone else, but, rather, an individual’s own inherent value. Although these philosophers vary
on what metric they would use to determine an individual’s intrinsic value, they are all in
agreement that those deemed to have intrinsic value belong in the Moral Circle.
What does it mean to be a member of the Moral Circle? To answer this question we first
have to define just what the Moral Circle is. The Moral Circle is basically the group of
individuals that we see as being worthy of the same consideration as ourselves. This means that
we recognize they have feelings, needs and desires similar to ours and that they have just as
much a right to see these feelings, needs and desires fulfilled as we do.
We have seen our Moral Circle expand over the course of human history to the point that
it encompasses most all human beings, despite our individual differences. Peter Singer wrote
about this when he said “Equality is a moral idea, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no
logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people
justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and
interests. The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual
equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans.”(Singer, pg. 106)
What he is saying here is that although we are different in a lot of different ways as human
beings, this does not mean that we are unequal or should treat each other unequally. We should
respect the needs and interests of all human beings and give them equal consideration.
Singer later expanded this thinking to animals as we share a similar desire with them; the
desire to avoid pain. He goes on to say “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 – in so
far as rough comparisons can be made – of any other being.” (Singer, pg. 107-108) He is
basically saying that since animals are capable of suffering, they are also worthy of equal moral
consideration with human beings. That is to say, we should take animal suffering into account
when making decisions that may affect them, just as we would do with any decisions affecting
our fellow humans.
This is pretty much where we stand now on the subject. Most of the philosophers we
studied throughout the course agree that animals should be included in the Moral Circle,
although they don’t all share the same criteria for how they got there. On the flip side, we have
Rene Descartes, who doesn’t agree with his fellow philosophers that animals our worthy of our
moral consideration. He sees animals as machines, partly because, in his eyes, they cannot
communicate their thoughts in a way that is understandable to humans. He writes “…they could
never use speech or other signs as we do when placing our thoughts on record for the benefit of
others…..it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply
appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can
do.”(Descartes, pg. 14) He is saying that animals are beneath us and are not due our
consideration because they cannot record their thoughts down and pass them from generation to
generation like mankind can with literature and cave drawings. He is also saying that he doesn’t
see any real variation in how animals communicate with each other as man does so rhetorically
when speaking to different individuals.
He goes on to further cement his claim that animals are machines by saying “…it seems
reasonable, since art copies nature, and men can make various automata which move without
thought, that nature should produce automata, much more splendid than artificial ones. These
natural automata are the animals.”(Descartes, pg. 18) He is saying here that since mankind is
capable of making machines, that nature is equally capable of creating them and animals are
these machines.
So here we have the two point of views on the subject: either animals are sentient beings,
which means they are capable of thought and feeling, and, as a result, are due equal moral
consideration by humans or they are merely machines, void of any thought or feeling and,
therefore, due no extra moral consideration by mankind.
I have seen the arguments for both sides and have tried to be unbiased and open-minded
in how I received the information. Ultimately, after participation in this course, I have come to
the conclusion that animals are sentient beings and are worthy of equal consideration. I have seen
with my own eyes that they are capable of thought and emotion.
A case study discussion I participated in really helped to drive this home and that case
study was the one about Koko the gorilla. Even though she would appear to be a lesser being, as
Descartes would believe and as I honestly believed at first, it was clear that by the end of the
video there was so much more to her than I could have ever imagined. She was capable of
learning a version of sign language, for one, which shows that she is at least cognitive enough to
do so. This showed that she was capable of thought as she would need to pick-up the various
signals from her handler. That is one requirement of sentience right there.
As for the other requirement, she clearly displayed her emotions a couple of times in the
video. First, when her cat died and you could see that she was actually grieving the loss of her
companion and friend. Secondly, when they were trying to find her a mate and she became
excitable at the image of a male gorilla on a television screen that she was attracted to. Since she
was capable of both emotion and thought, I had to agree that she was a sentient being and
deserved inclusion in the Moral Circle.
That is not to say that all living things are included in the Moral Circle as far as I see it,
but I would include the animal kingdom. I wouldn’t include the insects as I don’t really believe
that they have sentience on the level of animals. Also, while I believe that plants should be
protected as a whole due to the role they play in ecosystems that support animals and, by
extension, us, I don’t believe that they are sentient, in and of themselves, and capable of thought
or feeling. I do, however, believe their protection is necessary to support all other life.
In conclusion, if we believe that animals are capable of thought and emotion, than we are
obligated to include them in the Moral Circle. We cannot really call ourselves a civilized society
if we don’t act in a compassionate manner towards those that we would consider our moral
equals. This includes members of the animal kingdom that are due our moral consideration. We
need to expand the idea of treating others the way we would like to be treated to the animals.
Works Cited.
Rene Descartes, “Animals are Machines,” in Animal Rights and Human Obligations,
Tom Regan and Peter Singer (eds). (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989),
p.13-19. ISBN 0-13-036864-4
Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal,” from Philosophic Exchange, Vol. 1, No. 5
(Summer 1974), 243-257.