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160-425: Tom Regan ( / ˈ r eɪ ɡ ən / ; November 28, 1938 – February 17, 2017) was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University , where he had taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2001. Regan was the author of numerous books on the philosophy of animal rights, including The Case for Animal Rights (1983), one of

320-469: A brain-damaged human could not make moral judgments, moral judgments cannot be used as the distinguishing characteristic for determining who is awarded rights. Cohen writes that the test for moral judgment "is not a test to be administered to humans one by one", but should be applied to the capacity of members of the species in general. Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for

480-638: A central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century. The anti-vivisection movement in the 19th and early 20th century in England and the United States was largely run by women, including Frances Power Cobbe , Anna Kingsford , Lizzy Lind af Hageby and Caroline Earle White (1833–1916). Garner writes that 70 per cent of the membership of the Victoria Street Society (one of the anti-vivisection groups founded by Cobbe) were women, as were 70 per cent of

640-426: A certain manner by being wholeheartedly committed to this manner. Virtues contrast with vices , which are their harmful counterparts. Virtue theorists usually say that the mere possession of virtues by itself is not sufficient. Instead, people should manifest virtues in their actions. An important factor is the practical wisdom, also called phronesis , of knowing when, how, and which virtue to express. For example,

800-428: A certain standpoint. Moral standpoints may differ between persons, cultures, and historical periods. For example, moral statements like "Slavery is wrong" or "Suicide is permissible" may be true in one culture and false in another. Some moral relativists say that moral systems are constructed to serve certain goals such as social coordination. According to this view, different societies and different social groups within

960-399: A characterization of what is good and then define what is right in terms of what is good. For example, classical utilitarianism says that pleasure is good and that the action leading to the most overall pleasure is right. Consequentialism has been discussed indirectly since the formulation of classical utilitarianism in the late 18th century. A more explicit analysis of this view happened in

1120-424: A comparable way given a certain course of action, we should mitigate the situation of those who would be worse-off. Thus, if the harm of a few innocent beings is greater than the harm to many innocent beings, the right action is to override the rights of the many. As this relates to animal rights, Regan asserts the harm in the death of an animal is not tantamount to the harm in the death of a normal, healthy human. This

1280-470: A diversity of viewpoints. A universal moral norm is seen as valid if all rational discourse participants do or would approve. This way, morality is not imposed by a single moral authority but arises from the moral discourse within society. This discourse should aim to establish an ideal speech situation to ensure fairness and inclusivity. In particular, this means that discourse participants are free to voice their different opinions without coercion but are at

1440-502: A fantasy, a world of escape. Scruton singled out Peter Singer , a prominent Australian philosopher and animal-rights activist, for criticism. He wrote that Singer's works, including Animal Liberation , "contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about

1600-473: A general standpoint of what is objectively right and wrong. In a slightly different sense, the term ethics can also refer to individual ethical theories in the form of a rational system of moral principles, such as Aristotelian ethics , and to a moral code that certain societies, social groups, or professions follow, as in Protestant work ethic and medical ethics . The English word ethics has its roots in

1760-406: A gradation or spectrum with other types of sentient rights, including human rights and the rights of conscious artificial intelligences (posthuman rights). According to sociologist David Nibert of Wittenberg University , the struggle for animal liberation must happen in tandem with a more generalized struggle against human oppression and exploitation under global capitalism . He says that under

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1920-456: A handful of studies that have significantly influenced the modern animal rights movement . In these, he argued that non-human animals are what he called the "subjects-of-a-life", just as humans are, and that, if we want to ascribe value to all human beings regardless of their ability to be rational agents, then to be consistent, we must similarly ascribe it to non-humans. From 1985, Regan served with his wife Nancy as co-founder and co-president of

2080-508: A lack of practical wisdom may lead courageous people to perform morally wrong actions by taking unnecessary risks that should better be avoided. Different types of virtue ethics differ on how they understand virtues and their role in practical life. Eudaimonism is the original form of virtue theory developed in Ancient Greek philosophy and draws a close relation between virtuous behavior and happiness. It states that people flourish by living

2240-811: A legitimate sacrifice of interests can vary considerably. Certain forms of animal-rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and of animal laboratories by the Animal Liberation Front , have attracted criticism, including from within the animal-rights movement itself, and prompted the U.S. Congress to enact laws, including the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act , allowing the prosecution of this sort of activity as terrorism . The concept of moral rights for animals dates to Ancient India , with roots in early Jain and Hindu history, while Eastern, African, and Indigenous peoples also have rich traditions of animal protection. In

2400-510: A means to an end, a view that places him firmly in the abolitionist camp. His theory does not extend to all animals, but only to those that can be regarded as subjects-of-a-life. He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify: ... 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;

2560-540: A means to promote their self-interest. Ethical egoism is often criticized as an immoral and contradictory position. Normative ethics has a central place in most religions . Key aspects of Jewish ethics are to follow the 613 commandments of God according to the Mitzvah duty found in the Torah and to take responsibility for societal welfare . Christian ethics puts less emphasis on following precise laws and teaches instead

2720-483: A mistake to portray animal rights activists as homogeneous." Even though around 90% of US adults regularly consume meat, almost half of them appear to support a ban on slaughterhouses: in Sentience Institute 's 2017 survey of 1,094 U.S. adults' attitudes toward animal farming, 49% "support a ban on factory farming, 47% support a ban on slaughterhouses, and 33% support a ban on animal farming". The 2017 survey

2880-440: A more egalitarian democratic socialist system, one that would "allow a more just and peaceful order to emerge" and be "characterized by economic democracy and a democratically controlled state and mass media", there would be "much greater potential to inform the public about vital global issues—and the potential for "campaigns to improve the lives of other animals" to be "more abolitionist in nature." Philosopher Steven Best of

3040-611: A more general principle. Many theories of normative ethics also aim to guide behavior by helping people make moral decisions . Theories in normative ethics state how people should act or what kind of behavior is correct. They do not aim to describe how people normally act, what moral beliefs ordinary people have, how these beliefs change over time, or what ethical codes are upheld in certain social groups. These topics belong to descriptive ethics and are studied in fields like anthropology , sociology , and history rather than normative ethics. Some systems of normative ethics arrive at

3200-421: A particular situation". The idea that nonhuman animals are worthy of prima facie rights is to say that, in a sense, animals have rights that can be overridden by many other considerations, especially those conflicting a human's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Garry supports his view arguing: ... if a nonhuman animal were to kill a human being in the U.S., it would have broken

3360-532: A patriarchal society: both are "the used"; the dominated, submissive " Other ". When the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Thomas Taylor (1758–1835), a Cambridge philosopher, responded with an anonymous parody, A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (1792), saying that Wollstonecraft's arguments for women's rights could be applied equally to animals,

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3520-550: A person should tell the truth even in specific cases where lying would lead to better consequences. Another disagreement is between actual and expected consequentialism. According to the traditional view, only the actual consequences of an act affect its moral value. One difficulty of this view is that many consequences cannot be known in advance. This means that in some cases, even well-planned and intentioned acts are morally wrong if they inadvertently lead to negative outcomes. An alternative perspective states that what matters are not

3680-429: A philosophical context, a prima facie (Latin for "on the face of it" or "at first glance") right is one that appears to be applicable at first glance, but upon closer examination may be outweighed by other considerations. In his book Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory , Lawrence Hinman characterizes such rights as "the right is real but leaves open the question of whether it is applicable and overriding in

3840-401: A pleasurable experience has a high value if it has a high intensity and lasts for a long time. A common criticism of Bentham's utilitarianism argued that its focus on the intensity of pleasure promotes an immoral lifestyle centered around indulgence in sensory gratification. Mill responded to this criticism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. He stated that higher pleasures, like

4000-479: A position he intended as reductio ad absurdum . In her works The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990) and The Pornography of Meat (2004), Carol J. Adams focuses in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals. Some transhumanists argue for animal rights, liberation, and "uplift" of animal consciousness into machines. Transhumanism also understands animal rights on

4160-494: A positive view of universal healthcare, favor reducing discrimination against African Americans, the LGBT community and undocumented immigrants, and expanding welfare to aid the poor. Two surveys found that attitudes towards animal rights tactics, such as direct action , are very diverse within the animal rights communities. Near half (50% and 39% in two surveys) of activists do not support direct action. One survey concluded "it would be

4320-609: A prejudice as irrational as any other. They maintain that animals should not be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or beasts of burden merely because they are not human. Multiple cultural traditions around the world such as Jainism , Taoism , Hinduism , Buddhism , Shinto and Animism also espouse forms of animal rights. In parallel to the debate about moral rights, law schools in North America now often teach animal law , and several legal scholars, such as Steven M. Wise and Gary L. Francione , support

4480-561: A radical new theory of ethics , but that it follows from a consistent application of moral principles and insights that many of us already hold with respect to the ethical treatment of human beings; however, others criticize the lack of certainty with which Regan's "inherent value" or "subject-of-a-life" status can be determined, and note that the sufficient conditions he lists—for example, having sense-perceptions , beliefs , desires, motives , and memory —in effect reduce to "similarity to humans". According to Regan, it follows from

4640-411: A right to life, some control over their environment, company, play, and physical health. Stephen R. L. Clark , Mary Midgley , and Bernard Rollin also discuss animal rights in terms of animals being permitted to lead a life appropriate for their kind. Egalitarianism favors an equal distribution of happiness among all individuals, which makes the interests of the worse off more important than those of

4800-790: A single principle covering all possible cases. Others encompass a small set of basic rules that address all or at least the most important moral considerations. One difficulty for systems with several basic principles is that these principles may conflict with each other in some cases and lead to ethical dilemmas . Distinct theories in normative ethics suggest different principles as the foundation of morality. The three most influential schools of thought are consequentialism , deontology , and virtue ethics . These schools are usually presented as exclusive alternatives, but depending on how they are defined, they can overlap and do not necessarily exclude one another. In some cases, they differ in which acts they see as right or wrong. In other cases, they recommend

4960-464: A situation, regardless of their specific role or position. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most well-known deontologists. He states that reaching outcomes that people desire, such as being happy, is not the main purpose of moral actions. Instead, he argues that there are universal principles that apply to everyone independent of their desires. He uses the term categorical imperative for these principles, saying that they have their source in

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5120-425: A society construct different moral systems based on their diverging purposes. Emotivism provides a different explanation, stating that morality arises from moral emotions, which are not the same for everyone. Moral nihilists deny the existence of moral facts. They reject the existence of both objective moral facts defended by moral realism and subjective moral facts defended by moral relativism. They believe that

5280-512: A view summarised by the philosopher Roger Scruton , who writes that only humans have duties, and therefore only humans have rights. Another argument, associated with the utilitarian tradition, maintains that animals may be used as resources so long as there is no unnecessary suffering; animals may have some moral standing, but any interests they have may be overridden in cases of comparatively greater gains to aggregate welfare made possible by their use, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or

5440-557: A virtuous life. Eudaimonist theories often hold that virtues are positive potentials residing in human nature and that actualizing these potentials results in leading a good and happy life. Agent-based theories, by contrast, see happiness only as a side effect and focus instead on the admirable traits and motivational characteristics expressed while acting. This is often combined with the idea that one can learn from exceptional individuals what those characteristics are. Feminist ethics of care are another form of virtue ethics. They emphasize

5600-429: A worse outcome. There are a number of positions that can be defended from a consequentalist or deontologist perspective, including the capabilities approach , represented by Martha Nussbaum , and the egalitarian approach , which has been examined by Ingmar Persson and Peter Vallentyne . The capabilities approach focuses on what individuals require to fulfill their capabilities: Nussbaum (2006) argues that animals need

5760-479: Is a collection of essays that were originally published between 1897 and 1903, none of which Moore himself anthologized. Regan argues that these papers reveal Moore's early taste for speculative metaphysics; in "The Nature of Judgment", for example, Moore maintains that "the world consists of concepts", including existence, "which is itself a concept ... Thus, all that exists ... is composed of concepts necessarily related to one another in specific manners, and likewise to

5920-497: Is a moral intuition of many, probably most, Americans. We realize that animals feel pain, and we think that to inflict pain without a reason is bad. Nothing of practical value is added by dressing up this intuition in the language of philosophy; much is lost when the intuition is made a stage in a logical argument. When kindness toward animals is levered into a duty of weighting the pains of animals and of people equally, bizarre vistas of social engineering are opened up. Roger Scruton ,

6080-487: Is a moral obligation to refrain from lying. Because it relies on consent, contractualism is often understood as a patient-centered form of deontology. Famous social contract theorists include Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , and John Rawls . Discourse ethics also focuses on social agreement on moral norms but says that this agreement is based on communicative rationality . It aims to arrive at moral norms for pluralistic modern societies that encompass

6240-476: Is better than an unequal distribution even if the aggregate good is the same. There are disagreements about which consequences should be assessed. An important distinction is between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism. According to act consequentialism, the consequences of an act determine its moral value. This means that there is a direct relation between the consequences of an act and its moral value. Rule consequentialism, by contrast, holds that an act

6400-410: Is between naturalism and non-naturalism. Naturalism states that moral properties are natural properties accessible to empirical observation . They are similar to the natural properties investigated by the natural sciences , like color and shape. Some moral naturalists hold that moral properties are a unique and basic type of natural property. Another view states that moral properties are real but not

6560-456: Is embedded in and relative to social and cultural contexts. Pragmatists tend to give more importance to habits than to conscious deliberation and understand morality as a habit that should be shaped in the right way. Postmodern ethics agrees with pragmatist ethics about the cultural relativity of morality. It rejects the idea that there are objective moral principles that apply universally to all cultures and traditions. It asserts that there

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6720-492: Is exemplified by Peter Singer , and the latter by Tom Regan and Gary Francione . Their differences reflect a distinction philosophers draw between ethical theories that judge the rightness of an act by its consequences (consequentialism/teleological ethics, or utilitarianism), and those that focus on the principle behind the act, almost regardless of consequences (deontological ethics). Deontologists argue that there are acts we should never perform, even if failing to do so entails

6880-532: Is found in Jainism , which has non-violence as its principal virtue. Duty is a central aspect of Hindu ethics and is about fulfilling social obligations, which may vary depending on a person's social class and stage of life . Confucianism places great emphasis on harmony in society and sees benevolence as a key virtue. Taoism extends the importance of living in harmony to the whole world and teaches that people should practice effortless action by following

7040-736: Is no one coherent ethical code since morality itself is irrational and humans are morally ambivalent beings. Postmodern ethics instead focuses on how moral demands arise in specific situations as one encounters other people. Ethical egoism is the view that people should act in their self-interest or that an action is morally right if the person acts for their own benefit. It differs from psychological egoism , which states that people actually follow their self-interest without claiming that they should do so. Ethical egoists may act in agreement with commonly accepted moral expectations and benefit other people, for example, by keeping promises, helping friends, and cooperating with others. However, they do so only as

7200-651: Is not interested in which actions are right but in what it means for an action to be right and whether moral judgments are objective and can be true at all. It further examines the meaning of morality and other moral terms. Metaethics is a metatheory that operates on a higher level of abstraction than normative ethics by investigating its underlying assumptions. Metaethical theories typically do not directly judge which normative ethical theories are correct. However, metaethical theories can still influence normative theories by examining their foundational principles. Metaethics overlaps with various branches of philosophy. On

7360-446: Is one of the earliest forms of consequentialism. It arose in the 5th century BCE and argued that political action should promote justice as a means to increase the welfare of the people. The most well-known form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. In its classical form, it is an act consequentialism that sees happiness as the only source of intrinsic value. This means that an act is morally right if it produces "the greatest good for

7520-428: Is one of the main branches of philosophy and investigates the nature of morality and the principles that govern the moral evaluation of conduct , character traits , and institutions . It examines what obligations people have, what behavior is right and wrong, and how to lead a good life. Some of its key questions are "How should one live?" and "What gives meaning to life ?". In contemporary philosophy, ethics

7680-422: Is primarily concerned with normative statements about what ought to be the case, in contrast to descriptive statements , which are about what is the case. Duties and obligations express requirements of what people ought to do. Duties are sometimes defined as counterparts of the rights that always accompany them. According to this view, someone has a duty to benefit another person if this other person has

7840-438: Is right if it follows a certain set of rules. Rule consequentialism determines the best rules by considering their outcomes at a community level. People should follow the rules that lead to the best consequences when everyone in the community follows them. This implies that the relation between an act and its consequences is indirect. For example, if telling the truth is one of the best rules, then according to rule consequentialism,

8000-418: Is right. "The holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty governing all, including themselves. In applying such rules, [they] ... must recognize possible conflicts between what is in their own interest and what is just. Only in a community of beings capable of self-restricting moral judgments can the concept of a right be correctly invoked." Cohen rejects Singer's argument that, since

8160-477: Is supposedly because the ending of an animal life entails the loss of fewer opportunities when compared to the loss of a normal, healthy human. According to Regan, there would be more harm in the death of a normal, healthy dog than there would be in the death of a person who was irreversibly comatose , as the dog would have more opportunities for satisfaction than the irreversibly comatose human. Supporters argue that Regan's argument for animal rights does not rely on

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8320-512: Is that an adequate understanding of Moore's ethical philosophy can be achieved only when seen against the backdrop of Bloomsbury—the avant-garde group of free spirits (among whom were Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, and John Maynard Keynes) who met weekly in London between 1905 and 1920. When seen in that light, Regan argues, Moore's thought as expressed in Principia Ethica is a "radical defense of

8480-434: Is that codes of conduct in specific areas, such as business and environment, are usually termed ethics rather than morality, as in business ethics and environmental ethics . Normative ethics is the philosophical study of ethical conduct and investigates the fundamental principles of morality . It aims to discover and justify general answers to questions like "How should one live?" and "How should people act?", usually in

8640-519: Is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy , it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics , applied ethics , and metaethics . Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act. Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such as abortion , treatment of animals , and business practices . Metaethics explores

8800-422: Is the only thing with intrinsic value is called ethical or evaluative hedonism . Classical utilitarianism was initially formulated by Jeremy Bentham at the end of the 18th century and further developed by John Stuart Mill . Bentham introduced the hedonic calculus to assess the value of consequences. Two key aspects of the hedonic calculus are the intensity and the duration of pleasure. According to this view,

8960-414: Is the right never to be treated merely as a means to the ends of others. In Regan's view, not to be used as a means entails the right to be treated with respect, which includes the right not to be harmed. This right, however, is not absolute, as, there are times when to respect someone' s right not to be harmed, another' s right not to be harmed must be overridden. His philosophy employs principles such as

9120-437: Is to have a good will. A person has a good will if they respect the moral law and form their intentions and motives in agreement with it. Kant states that actions motivated in such a way are unconditionally good, meaning that they are good even in cases where they result in undesirable consequences. Divine command theory says that God is the source of morality. It states that moral laws are divine commands and that to act morally

9280-481: Is to obey and follow God's will . While all divine command theorists agree that morality depends on God, there are disagreements about the precise content of the divine commands, and theorists belonging to different religions tend to propose different moral laws. For example, Christian and Jewish divine command theorists may argue that the Ten Commandments express God's will while Muslims may reserve this role for

9440-411: Is usually divided into normative ethics , applied ethics , and metaethics . Morality is about what people ought to do rather than what they actually do, what they want to do, or what social conventions require. As a rational and systematic field of inquiry, ethics studies practical reasons why people should act one way rather than another. Most ethical theories seek universal principles that express

9600-421: Is wrong to break a promise even if no harm comes from it. Deontologists are interested in which actions are right and often allow that there is a gap between what is right and what is good. Many focus on prohibitions and describe which acts are forbidden under any circumstances. Agent-centered deontological theories focus on the person who acts and the duties they have. Agent-centered theories often focus on

9760-399: Is wrong. This observation is sometimes taken as an argument against moral realism since moral disagreement is widespread in most fields. Moral relativists reject the idea that morality is an objective feature of reality. They argue instead that moral principles are human inventions. This means that a behavior is not objectively right or wrong but only subjectively right or wrong relative to

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9920-645: The Ancient Greek word êthos ( ἦθος ), meaning ' character ' and ' personal disposition ' . This word gave rise to the Ancient Greek word ēthikós ( ἠθικός ), which was translated into Latin as ethica and entered the English language in the 15th century through the Old French term éthique . The term morality originates in the Latin word moralis , meaning ' manners ' and ' character ' . It

10080-759: The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection by Cobbe in London in 1898; the Animal Welfare Board of India by Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1962; and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , co-founded by Ingrid Newkirk in 1980. In the Netherlands, Marianne Thieme and Esther Ouwehand were elected to parliament in 2006 representing the Parliamentary group for Animals. The preponderance of women in

10240-587: The Sharia . This recognition is based on both the Qur'an and the Hadith . The Qur'an contains many references to animals, detailing that they have souls, form communities, communicate with God, and worship Him in their own way. Muhammad forbade his followers to harm any animal and asked them to respect animals' rights. Nevertheless, Islam does allow eating of certain species of animals. According to Christianity , all animals, from

10400-492: The University of Texas at El Paso states that the animal liberation movement, as characterized by the Animal Liberation Front and its various offshoots, "is a significant threat to global capital." ... Animal liberation challenges large sectors of the capitalist economy by assailing corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers. Far from being irrelevant to social movements, animal rights can form

10560-402: The medieval period , ethical thought was strongly influenced by religious teachings. In the modern period , this focus shifted to a more secular approach concerned with moral experience, reasons for acting , and the consequences of actions. An influential development in the 20th century was the emergence of metaethics. Ethics, also called moral philosophy, is the study of moral phenomena. It

10720-479: The 1986 film We Are All Noah , which is available on VHS videotape. In The Case for Animal Rights , Regan argued that non-human animals bear moral rights . His philosophy aligns broadly within the tradition of Immanuel Kant , although he rejects Kant's idea that respect is due only to rational beings. Regan points out that we routinely ascribe inherent value , and thus the right to be treated with respect , to humans who are not rational, including infants and

10880-532: The 20th century, virtue ethics experienced a resurgence thanks to philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe , Philippa Foot , Alasdair MacIntyre , and Martha Nussbaum . There are many other schools of normative ethics in addition to the three main traditions. Pragmatist ethics focuses on the role of practice and holds that one of the key tasks of ethics is to solve practical problems in concrete situations. It has certain similarities to utilitarianism and its focus on consequences but concentrates more on how morality

11040-404: The 20th century, when the term was coined by G. E. M. Anscombe . Consequentialists usually understand the consequences of an action in a very wide sense that includes the totality of its effects. This is based on the idea that actions make a difference in the world by bringing about a causal chain of events that would not have existed otherwise. A core intuition behind consequentialism is that

11200-411: The British philosopher, argued that rights imply obligations. Every legal privilege, he wrote, imposes a burden on the one who does not possess that privilege: that is, "your right may be my duty." Scruton therefore regarded the emergence of the animal rights movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he argued, distinctive to

11360-524: The Cartesian view of animals. Darwin noted the mental and emotional continuity between humans and animals, suggesting the possibility of animal suffering. The anti-vivisection movement emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, driven significantly by women. From the 1970s onward, growing scholarly and activist interest in animal treatment has aimed to raise awareness and reform laws to improve animal rights and human–animal relationships. For some

11520-522: The Culture and Animals Foundation, a nonprofit organization "committed to fostering the growth of intellectual and artistic endeavors united by a positive concern for animals". The Vegan Society remembers him as "a stalwart vegan and activist". Regan graduated from Thiel College in 1960, receiving his M.A. in 1962 and his PhD in 1966 from the University of Virginia . He taught philosophy at North Carolina State University from 1967 until 2001. Regan directed

11680-465: The Development of His Moral Philosophy , represents Regan's major contribution to Moorean scholarship. Representative reviews include E. D. Klemke writing that Bloomsbury's Prophet is "a marvelous book", while Aurum Stroll writes "[t]he portrait of the man Moore that Regan gives us is not only unique ... but it is well done, indeed." In this book, Regan relies on a trove of unpublished material, housed in

11840-629: The Law (1995) was the first extensive jurisprudential treatment of animal rights. In it, Francione compares the situation of animals to the treatment of slaves in the United States , where legislation existed that appeared to protect them while the courts ignored that the institution of slavery itself rendered the protection unenforceable. He offers as an example the United States Animal Welfare Act , which he describes as an example of symbolic legislation, intended to assuage public concern about

12000-796: The Moore Archive at the University of Cambridge, including Moore's two dissertations, on Kant's moral philosophy; correspondence, consisting of letters that Moore wrote as well those he received; scores of papers he read at meetings of the Cambridge Conversazione Society , also known as the Apostles, and at the Sunday Essay Society; and a diary Moore kept throughout his formative years, breaking off on April 19, 1916. Using these materials, Regan argues that Principia ' s primary purpose

12160-560: The Seventh Circuit debated the issue of animal rights in 2001 with Peter Singer. Posner posits that his moral intuition tells him "that human beings prefer their own. If a dog threatens a human infant, even if it requires causing more pain to the dog to stop it, than the dog would have caused to the infant, then we favour the child. It would be monstrous to spare the dog." Singer challenges this by arguing that formerly unequal rights for gays, women, and certain races were justified using

12320-549: The Special Collections Research Center in NC State University Libraries. The Special Collections Research Center at NC State University set up an annual fellowship in memory of Regan. Animal rights Many advocates of animal rights oppose the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone. They consider this idea, known as speciesism ,

12480-458: The US before 1989 were taught to ignore pain, he writes, and at least one major veterinary hospital in the 1960s did not stock narcotic analgesics for animal pain control. In his interactions with scientists, he was often asked to "prove" that animals are conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" evidence that they could feel pain. Scientific publications have made it clear since the 1980s that

12640-539: The Western world, Aristotle viewed animals as lacking reason and existing for human use, though other ancient philosophers believed animals deserved gentle treatment. Major religious traditions, chiefly Indian or Dharmic religions , opposed animal cruelty. While scholars like Descartes saw animals as unconscious automata and Kant denied direct duties to animals, Jeremy Bentham emphasized their capacity to suffer. The publications of Charles Darwin eventually eroded

12800-628: 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. Whereas Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, in some hypothetical scenarios, individual animals might be used legitimately to further human or nonhuman ends, Regan believes we ought to treat nonhuman animals as we would humans. He applies

12960-494: The ability to suffer, nothing more, and once it is established that a being has interests, those interests must be given equal consideration. Singer quotes the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900): "The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view ... of the Universe, than the good of any other." Singer argues that equality of consideration is a prescription, not an assertion of fact: if

13120-430: The actual consequences but the expected consequences. This view takes into account that when deciding what to do, people have to rely on their limited knowledge of the total consequences of their actions. According to this view, a course of action has positive moral value despite leading to an overall negative outcome if it had the highest expected value , for example, because the negative outcome could not be anticipated or

13280-529: The agent. It is controversial whether agent-relative moral theories, like ethical egoism , should be considered as types of consequentialism. There are many different types of consequentialism. They differ based on what type of entity they evaluate, what consequences they take into consideration, and how they determine the value of consequences. Most theories assess the moral value of acts. However, consequentialism can also be used to evaluate motives , character traits , rules, and policies . Many types assess

13440-565: The animal rights movement; indeed, the terms "animal protection" and "protectionism" are increasingly favored. His position in 1996 was that there is no animal rights movement in the United States. Mark Rowlands , professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, has proposed a contractarian approach, based on the original position and the veil of ignorance —a "state of nature" thought experiment that tests intuitions about justice and fairness—in John Rawls 's A Theory of Justice (1971). In

13600-429: The ascription to animals of the basic right to be treated with respect that we should abolish the breeding of animals for food , animal experimentation , and commercial hunting . Starting as a leather-wearing, circus-visiting meat eater, a series of musings, experiences, and insights led him to conclude he was morally unable to use animals for meat, clothing, or any other purpose that does not respect their rights. Reagan

13760-531: The attitude of individuals regarding the treatment of animals and animal rights. These include gender, age, occupation, religion, and level of education. There has also been evidence to suggest that prior experience with pets may be a factor in people's attitudes. According to some studies, women are more likely to empathize with the cause of animal rights than men. A 1996 study suggested that factors that may partially explain this discrepancy include attitudes towards feminism and science, scientific literacy, and

13920-570: The basic assumptions underlying moral claims are misguided. Some moral nihilists conclude from this that anything is allowed. A slightly different view emphasizes that moral nihilism is not itself a moral position about what is allowed and prohibited but the rejection of any moral position. Moral nihilism, like moral relativism, recognizes that people judge actions as right or wrong from different perspectives. However, it disagrees that this practice involves morality and sees it as just one type of human behavior. A central disagreement among moral realists

14080-530: The basis for a broad coalition of progressive social groups and drive changes that strike at the heart of capitalist exploitation of animals, people and the earth. R. G. Frey , professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, is a preference utilitarian. In his early work, Interests and Rights (1980), Frey disagreed with Singer—who wrote in Animal Liberation (1975) that the interests of nonhuman animals must be given equal consideration when judging

14240-483: The basis of animal rights is in religion or animal worship (or in general nature worship ), with some religions banning killing any animal. In other religions animals are considered unclean . Hindu and Buddhist societies abandoned animal sacrifice and embraced vegetarianism from the 3rd century BCE. One of the most important sanctions of the Jain , Hindu, and Buddhist faiths is the concept of ahimsa , or refraining from

14400-417: The best action for someone with a good salary would be to donate 70% of their income to charity, it would be morally wrong for them to only donate 65%. Satisficing consequentialism, by contrast, only requires that an act is "good enough" even if it is not the best possible alternative. According to this view, it is possible to do more than one is morally required to do. Mohism in ancient Chinese philosophy

14560-452: The better off. Another approach, virtue ethics , holds that in considering how to act we should consider the character of the actor, and what kind of moral agents we should be. Rosalind Hursthouse has suggested an approach to animal rights based on virtue ethics. Mark Rowlands has proposed a contractarian approach. Nussbaum (2004) writes that utilitarianism, starting with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill , has contributed more to

14720-598: The concept of existence." In another paper, "Freedom", Moore enthusiastically affirms his agreement with F. H. Bradley, writing: "I can only say that the arguments by which Mr. Bradley has endeavoured to prove the unreality of Time appear to me perfectly conclusive." Regan's second book, The Elements of Ethics , is a series of ten lectures Moore delivered in 1898. Large parts of these lectures were carried over by Moore into Principia Ethica and, Regan maintains, these lectures cast important light on Principia 's pages. Regan's third book, Bloomsbury's Prophet: G. E. Moore and

14880-399: The consequences of an act—on the grounds that animals have no interests. Frey argues that interests are dependent on desire, and that no desire can exist without a corresponding belief. Animals have no beliefs, because a belief state requires the ability to hold a second-order belief—a belief about the belief—which he argues requires language: "If someone were to say, e.g. 'The cat believes that

15040-421: The consequences. A related approach is to characterize consequentialism not in terms of consequences but in terms of outcome, with the outcome being defined as the act together with its consequences. Most forms of consequentialism are agent-neutral. This means that the value of consequences is assessed from a neutral perspective, that is, acts should have consequences that are good in general and not just good for

15200-423: The deficient state of cowardice and the excessive state of recklessness . Aristotle held that virtuous action leads to happiness and makes people flourish in life. Stoicism emerged about 300 BCE and taught that, through virtue alone, people can achieve happiness characterized by a peaceful state of mind free from emotional disturbances. The Stoics advocated rationality and self-mastery to achieve this state. In

15360-516: The destruction of life. According to Buddhism, humans do not deserve preferential treatment over other living beings. The Dharmic interpretation of this doctrine prohibits the killing of any living being. These Indian religions' dharmic beliefs are reflected in the ancient Indian works of the Tolkāppiyam and Tirukkural , which contain passages that extend the idea of nonviolence to all living beings. In Islam, animal rights were recognized early by

15520-469: The door is locked,' then that person is holding, as I see it, that the cat holds the declarative sentence 'The door is locked' to be true; and I can see no reason whatever for crediting the cat or any other creature which lacks language, including human infants, with entertaining declarative sentences." Carl Cohen , professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, argues that rights holders must be able to distinguish between their own interests and what

15680-410: The equality of the sexes were based only on the idea that men and women were equally intelligent, we would have to abandon the practice of equal consideration if this were later found to be false. But the moral idea of equality does not depend on matters of fact such as intelligence, physical strength, or moral capacity. Equality therefore cannot be grounded on the outcome of scientific investigations into

15840-582: The extension of basic legal rights and personhood to non-human animals. The animals most often considered in arguments for personhood are hominids . Some animal-rights academics support this because it would break the species barrier, but others oppose it because it predicates moral value on mental complexity rather than on sentience alone. As of November 2019 , 29 countries had enacted bans on hominoid experimentation ; Argentina has granted captive orangutans basic human rights since 2014. Outside of primates , animal-rights discussions most often address

16000-449: The extent to which it satisfies the preferences (interests) of those affected. His position is that there is no reason not to give equal consideration to the interests of human and nonhumans, though his principle of equality does not require identical treatment. A mouse and a man both have an interest in not being kicked, and there are no moral or logical grounds for failing to accord those interests equal weight. Interests are predicated on

16160-462: The form of the rules of morality, requires. Regarding virtues: a truly scientific ethic should promote the private virtues of prudence, temperance, and industry (the only virtues Moore discusses in Principia ), not the (so-called) virtues of beneficence, charity, civic-mindedness, social justice, patriotism, piety, reverence, or altruism. Such an ethic should promote the virtues of the creative self, not

16320-413: The form of universal or domain-independent principles that determine whether an act is right or wrong. For example, given the particular impression that it is wrong to set a child on fire for fun, normative ethics aims to find more general principles that explain why this is the case, like the principle that one should not cause extreme suffering to the innocent , which may itself be explained in terms of

16480-519: The formation of character . Descriptive ethics describes the dominant moral codes and beliefs in different societies and considers their historical dimension. The history of ethics started in the ancient period with the development of ethical principles and theories in ancient Egypt , India , China , and Greece . This period saw the emergence of ethical teachings associated with Hinduism , Buddhism , Confucianism , Daoism , and contributions of philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle . During

16640-615: The freedom of the individual to choose," rather than a defense of conformity to the status quo, as is usually assumed. Written with the verve appropriate to its subject, and yet philosophically scrupulous, this book deserves a place in philosophy and cultural history collections in both public and academic libraries." Regan and his wife Nancy had two children, Bryan and Karen. Regan died of pneumonia at his home in North Carolina on February 17, 2017. Regan's papers including correspondence, research files and audiovisual materials are stored at

16800-405: The future should be shaped to achieve the best possible outcome. The act itself is usually not seen as part of the consequences. This means that if an act has intrinsic value or disvalue, it is not included as a factor. Some consequentialists see this as a flaw, saying that all value-relevant factors need to be considered. They try to avoid this complication by including the act itself as part of

16960-429: The greatest number" by increasing happiness and reducing suffering. Utilitarians do not deny that other things also have value, like health, friendship, and knowledge. However, they deny that these things have intrinsic value. Instead, they say that they have extrinsic value because they affect happiness and suffering. In this regard, they are desirable as a means but, unlike happiness, not as an end. The view that pleasure

17120-421: The human mind and culture rather than as subjective constructs or expressions of personal preferences and cultural norms . Moral realists accept the claim that there are objective moral facts. This view implies that moral values are mind-independent aspects of reality and that there is an absolute fact about whether a given action is right or wrong. A consequence of this view is that moral requirements have

17280-558: The human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species. He accused animal rights advocates of "pre-scientific" anthropomorphism , attributing traits to animals that are, he says, Beatrix Potter -like, where "only man is vile." It is within this fiction that the appeal of animal rights lies, he argued. The world of animals is non-judgmental, filled with dogs who return our affection almost no matter what we do to them, and cats who pretend to be affectionate when, in fact, they care only about themselves. It is, he argued,

17440-415: The importance of interpersonal relationships and say that benevolence by caring for the well-being of others is one of the key virtues. Influential schools of virtue ethics in ancient philosophy were Aristotelianism and Stoicism . According to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), each virtue is a golden mean between two types of vices: excess and deficiency. For example, courage is a virtue that lies between

17600-411: The intellectual satisfaction of reading a book, are more valuable than lower pleasures, like the sensory enjoyment of food and drink, even if their intensity and duration are the same. Since its original formulation, many variations of utilitarianism have developed, including the difference between act and rule utilitarianism and between maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism. Deontology assesses

17760-406: The intelligence of nonhumans. All that matters is whether they can suffer. Commentators on all sides of the debate now accept that animals suffer and feel pain, although it was not always so. Bernard Rollin , professor of philosophy, animal sciences, and biomedical sciences at Colorado State University, writes that Descartes's influence continued to be felt until the 1980s. Veterinarians trained in

17920-519: The judgment of individuals who, taking due precautions, ask themselves what things would be good if they were the only things to exist in the world. Regarding rules of conduct: a truly scientific ethic can at most establish that "a very few rules" ( Principia , xxii, italics in the original) ought always to be followed. Not even all the rules commended by Common Sense qualify: only "most of those most universally recognized by Common Sense" are possible candidates, and even in their case Moore maintains only that

18080-591: The laws of the land and would probably get rougher sanctions than if it were a human. My point is that like laws govern all who interact within a society, rights are to be applied to all beings who interact within that society. This is not to say these rights endowed by humans are equivalent to those held by nonhuman animals, but rather that if humans possess rights then so must all those who interact with humans. In sum, Garry suggests that humans have obligations to nonhuman animals; animals do not, and ought not to, have uninfringible rights against humans. Women have played

18240-609: The level of ontology , it examines whether there are objective moral facts. Concerning semantics , it asks what the meaning of moral terms are and whether moral statements have a truth value . The epistemological side of metaethics discusses whether and how people can acquire moral knowledge. Metaethics overlaps with psychology because of its interest in how moral judgments motivate people to act. It also overlaps with anthropology since it aims to explain how cross-cultural differences affect moral assessments. Metaethics examines basic ethical concepts and their relations. Ethics

18400-482: The lives of others in whom one has "a strong personal interest" ( Ibid ., XX) instead of attempting to satisfy the demands of "a more extended beneficence," as in "the greatest good for the greatest number." And of the goods to be aimed at, the more immediate are generally to be preferred to the more distant. In short, in virtually all our activities in our day-to-day life we are at liberty to live and choose without troubling ourselves about whether we are doing what duty, in

18560-473: The majority of researchers do believe animals suffer and feel pain, though it continues to be argued that their suffering may be reduced by an inability to experience the same dread of anticipation as humans or to remember the suffering as vividly. The ability of animals to suffer, even it may vary in severity, is the basis for Singer's application of equal consideration. The problem of animal suffering, and animal consciousness in general, arose primarily because it

18720-701: The membership of the British RSPCA in 1900. The modern animal advocacy movement has a similar representation of women. They are not invariably in leadership positions: during the March for Animals in Washington, D.C., in 1990—the largest animal rights demonstration held until then in the United States—most of the participants were women, but most of the platform speakers were men. Nevertheless, several influential animal advocacy groups have been founded by women, including

18880-433: The miniride principle (a.k.a. minimize overriding) and the worse-off principle to deal with these situations. The miniride principle is that when faced with overriding the rights of many innocent beings versus the rights of few innocent beings—when each individual involved would be equally harmed—we should override the rights of the few. The worse-off principle states that, when individuals involved are not harmed in

19040-434: The mistreatment of animals, and in many countries there are laws that seem to reflect those concerns, "in practice the legal system allows any use of animals, however abhorrent." The law only requires that any suffering not be "unnecessary". In deciding what counts as "unnecessary", an animal's interests are weighed against the interests of human beings, and the latter almost always prevail. Francione's Animals, Property, and

19200-569: The moral rightness of actions based on a set of norms or principles. These norms describe the requirements that all actions need to follow. They may include principles like telling the truth, keeping promises , and not intentionally harming others. Unlike consequentialists, deontologists hold that the validity of general moral principles does not directly depend on their consequences. They state that these principles should be followed in every case since they express how actions are inherently right or wrong. According to moral philosopher David Ross , it

19360-690: The moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain cognitive abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some nonhuman animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal-case humans, such as infants, and at least some nonhumans must have the status of "moral patients". Moral patients are unable to formulate moral principles, and as such are unable to do right or wrong, even though what they do may be beneficial or harmful. Only moral agents are able to engage in moral action. Animals for Regan have " intrinsic value " as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as

19520-477: The moral value of acts only depends on the pleasure and suffering they cause. An alternative approach says that there are many different sources of value, which all contribute to one overall value. Before the 20th century, consequentialists were only concerned with the total of value or the aggregate good. In the 20th century, alternative views were developed that additionally consider the distribution of value. One of them states that an equal distribution of goods

19680-431: The motives and intentions behind people's actions, highlighting the importance of acting for the right reasons. They tend to be agent-relative, meaning that the reasons for which people should act depend on personal circumstances. For example, a parent has a special obligation to their child, while a stranger does not have this kind of obligation toward a child they do not know. Patient-centered theories, by contrast, focus on

19840-408: The movement has led to a body of academic literature exploring feminism and animal rights, such as feminism and vegetarianism or veganism , the oppression of women and animals, and the male association of women and animals with nature and emotion, rather than reason—an association that several feminist writers have embraced. Lori Gruen writes that women and animals serve the same symbolic function in

20000-469: The natural flow of the universe . Indigenous belief systems, like Native American philosophy and the African Ubuntu philosophy , often emphasize the interconnectedness of all living beings and the environment while stressing the importance of living in harmony with nature. Metaethics is the branch of ethics that examines the nature, foundations, and scope of moral judgments , concepts, and values. It

20160-415: The original position, individuals choose principles of justice (what kind of society to form, and how primary social goods will be distributed), unaware of their individual characteristics—their race, sex, class, or intelligence, whether they are able-bodied or disabled, rich or poor—and therefore unaware of which role they will assume in the society they are about to form. The idea is that, operating behind

20320-430: The people affected by actions and the rights they have. An example is the requirement to treat other people as ends and not merely as a means to an end. This requirement can be used to argue, for example, that it is wrong to kill a person against their will even if this act would save the lives of several others. Patient-centered deontological theories are usually agent-neutral, meaning that they apply equally to everyone in

20480-440: The person possesses and exercises certain capacities or some form of control . If a person is morally responsible then it is appropriate to respond to them in certain ways, for example, by praising or blaming them. A major debate in metaethics is about the ontological status of morality, questioning whether ethical values and principles are real. It examines whether moral properties exist as objective features independent of

20640-411: The person would want everyone to follow the same maxim as a universal law applicable to everyone. Another formulation states that one should treat other people always as ends in themselves and never as mere means to an end. This formulation focuses on respecting and valuing other people for their own sake rather than using them in the pursuit of personal goals. In either case, Kant says that what matters

20800-471: The practice of selfless love , such as the Great Commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself". The Five Pillars of Islam constitute a basic framework of Muslim ethics and focus on the practice of faith , prayer , charity , fasting during Ramadan , and pilgrimage to Mecca . Buddhists emphasize the importance of compassion and loving-kindness towards all sentient entities. A similar outlook

20960-453: The presence of a greater emphasis on "nurturance or compassion" among women. A common misconception on the concept of animal rights is that its proponents want to grant non-human animals the exact same legal rights as humans, such as the right to vote . This is not the case, as the concept is that animals should have rights with equal consideration to their interests (for example, cats do not have any interest in voting, so they should not have

21120-415: The real distinction between persons and animals." Tom Regan countered this view of rights by distinguishing moral agents and moral patients. According to a paper published in 2000 by Harold Herzog and Lorna Dorr, previous academic surveys of attitudes towards animal rights have tended to suffer from small sample sizes and non-representative groups. However, a number of factors appear to correlate with

21280-407: The recognition of the moral status of animals than any other ethical theory. The utilitarian philosopher most associated with animal rights is Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University . Singer is not a rights theorist, but uses the language of rights to discuss how we ought to treat individuals. He is a preference utilitarian , meaning that he judges the rightness of an act by

21440-515: The requisite type of justification "may be possible" (p. xxii, italics in the original). That being so, almost all our decisions will need to be made without relying on any rule: in almost all cases, Moore writes, "rules of action should not be followed at all" ( Ibid ., p. xiii). In all cases of this sort, individuals should guide their choice "by a direct consideration of the effects which the action may produce" (p. XX), doing what one thinks will promote one' s own interests, as these are enlarged by

21600-522: The respondents who were strong Christian fundamentalists and believers in creationism were less likely to advocate for animal rights than those who were less fundamentalist in their beliefs. The findings extended previous research, such as a 1992 study which found that 48% of animal rights activists were atheists or agnostic . A 2019 study in The Washington Post found that those who have positive attitudes toward animal rights also tend to have

21760-468: The right to receive that benefit. Obligation and permission are contrasting terms that can be defined through each other: to be obligated to do something means that one is not permitted not to do it and to be permitted to do something means that one is not obligated not to do it. Some theorists define obligations in terms of values or what is good . When used in a general sense, good contrasts with bad . When describing people and their intentions,

21920-406: The right to vote). A 2016 study found that support for animal testing may not be based on cogent philosophical rationales, and more open debate is warranted. A 2007 survey to examine whether or not people who believed in evolution were more likely to support animal rights than creationists and believers in intelligent design found that this was largely the case—according to the researchers,

22080-417: The same course of action but provide different justifications for why it is right. Consequentialism, also called teleological ethics, says that morality depends on consequences. According to the most common view, an act is right if it brings the best future. This means that there is no alternative course of action that has better consequences. A key aspect of consequentialist theories is that they provide

22240-401: The same ontological status as non-moral facts: it is an objective fact whether there is an obligation to keep a promise just as it is an objective fact whether a thing is rectangular. Moral realism is often associated with the claim that there are universal ethical principles that apply equally to everyone. It implies that if two people disagree about a moral evaluation then at least one of them

22400-635: The same set of intuitions. Posner replies that equality in civil rights did not occur because of ethical arguments, but because facts mounted that there were no morally significant differences between humans based on race, sex, or sexual orientation that would support inequality. If and when similar facts emerge about humans and animals, the differences in rights will erode too. But facts will drive equality, not ethical arguments that run contrary to instinct, he argues. Posner calls his approach "soft utilitarianism", in contrast to Singer's "hard utilitarianism". He argues: The "soft" utilitarian position on animal rights

22560-423: The same time required to justify them using rational argumentation. The main concern of virtue ethics is how virtues are expressed in actions. As such, it is neither directly interested in the consequences of actions nor in universal moral duties. Virtues are positive character traits like honesty , courage , kindness , and compassion . They are usually understood as dispositions to feel, decide, and act in

22720-623: The severely mentally impaired . The crucial attribute that all humans have in common, he argues, is not rationality, but the fact that each of us has a life that matters to us; in other words, what happens to us matters to us, regardless of whether it matters to anyone else. In Regan's terminology, we each experience being the " subject-of-a-life ". If this is the true basis for ascribing inherent value to individuals, to be consistent we must ascribe inherent value, and hence moral rights, to all subjects-of-a-life, whether human or non-human. The basic right that all who possess inherent value have, he argues,

22880-537: The smallest to the largest, are cared for and loved. According to the Bible, "All these animals waited for the Lord, that the Lord might give them food at the hour. The Lord gives them, they receive; The Lord opens his hand, and they are filled with good things." It further says God "gave food to the animals, and made the crows cry." The two main philosophical approaches to animal ethics are utilitarian and rights-based. The former

23040-410: The status of mammals (compare charismatic megafauna ). Other animals (considered less sentient) have gained less attention— insects relatively little (outside Jainism ) and animal-like bacteria hardly any. The vast majority of animals have no legally recognised rights. Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract , and thus cannot have rights,

23200-520: The strict Kantian ideal (which Kant himself applied only to humans) that they ought never to be sacrificed as a means to an end, and must be treated as ends in themselves. Gary Francione, professor of law and philosophy at Rutgers Law School in Newark, is a leading abolitionist writer, arguing that animals need only one right, the right not to be owned. Everything else would follow from that paradigm shift . He writes that, although most people would condemn

23360-409: The structure of practical reason and are true for all rational agents. According to Kant, to act morally is to act in agreement with reason as expressed by these principles while violating them is both immoral and irrational. Kant provided several formulations of the categorical imperative. One formulation says that a person should only follow maxims that can be universalized . This means that

23520-591: The teachings of the Quran . Contractualists reject the reference to God as the source of morality and argue instead that morality is based on an explicit or implicit social contract between humans. They state that actual or hypothetical consent to this contract is the source of moral norms and duties. To determine which duties people have, contractualists often rely on a thought experiment about what rational people under ideal circumstances would agree on. For example, if they would agree that people should not lie then there

23680-455: The term evil rather than bad is often employed. Obligations are used to assess the moral status of actions, motives , and character traits . An action is morally right if it is in tune with a person's obligations and morally wrong if it violates them. Supererogation is a special moral status that applies to cases in which the agent does more than is morally required of them. To be morally responsible for an action usually means that

23840-492: The treatment of animals, but difficult to implement. He argues that a focus on animal welfare, rather than animal rights, may worsen the position of animals by making the public feel comfortable about using them and entrenching the view of them as property. He calls animal rights groups who pursue animal welfare issues, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , the " new welfarists ", arguing that they have more in common with 19th-century animal protectionists than with

24000-450: The truth and keeping promises. Virtue ethics sees the manifestation of virtues , like courage and compassion , as the fundamental principle of morality. Ethics is closely connected to value theory , which studies the nature and types of value , like the contrast between intrinsic and instrumental value . Moral psychology is a related empirical field and investigates psychological processes involved in morality, such as reasoning and

24160-444: The underlying assumptions and concepts of ethics. It asks whether there are objective moral facts, how moral knowledge is possible, and how moral judgments motivate people. Influential normative theories are consequentialism , deontology , and virtue ethics . According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere to duties , like telling

24320-399: The value of consequences based on whether they promote happiness or suffering. But there are also alternative evaluative principles, such as desire satisfaction, autonomy , freedom , knowledge , friendship , beauty , and self-perfection. Some forms of consequentialism hold that there is only a single source of value . The most prominent among them is utilitarianism , which states that

24480-578: The veil of ignorance, they will choose a social contract in which there is basic fairness and justice for them no matter the position they occupy. Rawls did not include species membership as one of the attributes hidden from the decision-makers in the original position. Rowlands proposes extending the veil of ignorance to include rationality, which he argues is an undeserved property similar to characteristics including race, sex and intelligence. American philosopher Timothy Garry has proposed an approach that deems nonhuman animals worthy of prima facie rights. In

24640-463: The virtues of the conscientious citizen. On this basis Regan argues that Moore genuinely is "Bloomsbury' s prophet," advocating, as he does, the values, the rules of conduct, and the virtues that are synonymous with the name, "Bloomsbury." As Regan notes, "theirs was an anarchy of the bedroom, not the streets." Writing in the Library Journal, Leon H. Brody assessed the work as follows. "Regan's thesis

24800-468: Was (as Moore wrote) to "humble the Science of Ethics" by exposing the "lies" told by "would-be scientific ethicists" ("Art, Morals, and Religion": May 5, 1901). In Moore's view, a truly scientific ethic is able to prove very little concerning values, rules, duty, and virtues. Regarding values: such an ethic cannot establish anything concerning what has intrinsic value—what is good in itself. That must be left to

24960-694: Was argued that animals have no language . Singer writes that, if language were needed to communicate pain, it would often be impossible to know when humans are in pain, though we can observe pain behavior and make a calculated guess based on it. He argues that there is no reason to suppose that the pain behavior of nonhumans would have a different meaning from the pain behavior of humans. Tom Regan, professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, argues in The Case for Animal Rights (1983) that nonhuman animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life", and as such are bearers of rights. He writes that, because

25120-542: Was introduced into the English language during the Middle English period through the Old French term moralité . The terms ethics and morality are usually used interchangeably but some philosophers distinguish between the two. According to one view, morality focuses on what moral obligations people have while ethics is broader and includes ideas about what is good and how to lead a meaningful life. Another difference

25280-858: Was replicated by researchers at the Oklahoma State University , who found similar results: 73% of respondents answered "yes" to the question "Were you aware that slaughterhouses are where livestock are killed and processed into meat, such that, without them, you would not be able to consume meat?" In the U.S., many public protest slaughters were held in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the National Farmers Organization . Protesting low prices for meat, farmers killed their animals in front of media representatives. The carcasses were wasted and not eaten. This effort backfired because it angered television audiences to see animals needlessly and wastefully killed. Moral philosophy Ethics

25440-448: Was unconcerned with the prospects of humans possibly dying from diseases which might be cured from animal research, saying, “ “If it [abolition of animal research] means there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it. We have no basic right not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to.” In the 1980s, Regan published three books on G. E. Moore 's philosophy. The first book, G. E. Moore: The Early Essays ,

25600-475: Was unlikely. A further difference is between maximizing and satisficing consequentialism. According to maximizing consequentialism, only the best possible act is morally permitted. This means that acts with positive consequences are wrong if there are alternatives with even better consequences. One criticism of maximizing consequentialism is that it demands too much by requiring that people do significantly more than they are socially expected to. For example, if

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