[Extra Material]
Passage 1
Our treatment of animals reflects a distinction that we make between humans, whom we regard as persons, and nonhumans,
whom we regard as something not as a person like goods. Although we may regard some animals as having certain ‘interests,’
we regard all those interests to be tradable and dependent on our judgment that the sacrifice of the interests will benefit
humans. Such trade is permissible generally, even when the animal interest involved is significant and the human interest is
admittedly trivial, as is the case of the use of animals for entertainment purposes, such as pigeon shoots, rodeos, or circuses.
Animals are normally not objects either in moral theory or under the law; they are property in that they exist solely as means
to human ends. They, as themselves, have no interests that can never be sacrificed, even when the ‘benefit’ to be gained by
humans is mere amusement at the cost of great pain or death to the animal. That is precisely what it means to be property. At
this point, animal rights theory generally seeks to move at least some nonhumans from the ‘not-a-person’ side in the ‘personand-goods’ dualism over to the ‘person’ side. Those who support animal exploitation argue that animals are qualitatively
different from humans so animals can and should be kept on the ‘goods’ side of the ‘person-and-goods’ dualism. Animal
rights dissenters argue that there are interspecific distinctions because at least some animals will not possess the supposedly
exclusive characteristic. It is enough to argue that a specific difference alone is morally or politically correct; after all, to rely
on species alone as morally or politically correct is to assume a distinction that is proved by those who hold neuroscientific
evidence of intelligence.
Passage 2
As the offering of the life of a child to a deity, child sacrifice can usually be related to the recognition of young blood as the
sacred life force. Bloodless forms of killing children, however, such as strangulation and drowning, also have been used or
observed. This has often been part of an attempt to doctrinally commune with a god and to participate in the divine life, from
a perspective that human life may be offered in an attempt at expiation. There are two primary types of child sacrifice: the
offering of a child to a god and the entombment of a child or children who were born of or raised by the deceased. The first
practice was attested only in a few cultures. In what is now Mexico the belief that the sun needed human nourishment led to
the sacrifice of thousands of youth victims annually in the Aztec and Nahua calendrical maize (corn) ritual. The Inca confined
such a kind of wholesale sacrifice to the occasion of the accession of a ruler. The second practice was much more common,
which was intended in order for the entombed to accompany the deceased into the afterlife together. For example, in various
places in Africa and Asia, where child sacrifice was connected with ancestor worship, some of the children of the deceased
were buried alive with him or her, or they were killed and laid beneath him or her in his or her grave. Considering that
accusations of child sacrifice in ancient and modern times had been far more widespread throughout almost every civilization
from Eastern to Western, it is hard to confirm such sacrifice as a part of savage beliefs or local myths in particular regions.
Write an essay on the relationship between Passage 1 and Passage 2, based on the statement: “Not all humans are persons”,
as proposed by Peter Singer. He views humans as an animal species and defines the range of personhood as applicable to
entities capable of feeling, thinking, and judging. Your essay should address the following points:
A. Do nonhuman animals or children have interests equivalent to those of humans or non-children? If they do, what are
the reason(s) for this equivalency, and how could it be determined that they possess these interests? If they do not,
how may be the interests of humans or non-children different from those of nonhuman animals or children?
B. If you were a policymaker, would you consider it necessary to create a policy guaranteeing rights for nonhuman
animals or children? If so, what would you consider the most important values in drafting such a law? If not, why
would you hold the position?