a philosophy paper

Equality for Animals?

PETER SINGER

Excerpted from Practical Ethics , Cambridge, 1979, chap. 3

In the previous chapter I gave reasons for believing that the fundamental principle of equality, on which the equality of all

human beings rests, is the principle of equal consideration of interests. Only a basic moral principle of this kind can allow us

to defend a form of equality which embraces all human beings, with all the differences that exist between t hem. I shall now

contend that while this principle does provide an adequate basis for human equality, it provides a basis which cannot be

limited to humans. In other words I shall suggest that, having accepted the principle of equality as a sound moral bas is for

relations with others of our own species, we are also committed to accepting it as a sound moral basis for relations with tho se

outside our own species - the nonhuman animals.

This suggestion may at first seem bizarre. We are used to regarding the o ppression of blacks and women as among the most

important moral and political issues facing the world today. These are serious matters, worthy of the time and energy of any

concerned person. But animals? Surely the welfare of animals is in a different cate gory altogether, a matter for old ladies in

tennis shoes to worry about. How can anyone waste their time on equality for animals when so many humans are denied real

equality?

This attitude reflects a popular prejudice against taking the interests of animal s seriously - a prejudice no better founded

than the prejudice of white slaveowners against taking the interests of blacks seriously. It is easy for us to criticize the

prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more dif ficult to distance ourselves from our

own beliefs, so that we can dispassionately search for prejudices among them. What is needed now is a willingness to follow

the arguments where they lead, without a prior assumption that the issue is not worth attendin g to.

The argument for extending the principle of equality beyond our own species is simple, so simple that it amounts to no more

than a clear understanding of the nature of the principle of equal consideration of interests. We have seen that this princip le

implies that our concern for others ought not to depend on what they are like, or what abilities they possess (although

precisely what this concern requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics of those affected by what we do). It

is on thi s basis that we are able to say that the fact that some people are not members of our race does not entitle us to

exploit them, and similarly the fact that some people are less intelligent than others does not mean that their interests may

be disregarded. But the principle also implies that the fact that beings are not members of our species does not entitle us to

exploit them, and similarly the fact that other animals are less intelligent than we are does not mean that their interests m ay

be disregarded.

We saw in the previous chapter that many philosophers have advocated equal consideration of interests, in some form or

other, as a basic moral principle. Few recognized that the principle has applications beyond our own species. One of the few

who did was Jeremy Bentham , the founding father of modern utilitarianism . In a forward -looking passage, written at a time

when black slaves in the British dominions were still being treated much as we now treat nonhuman animals, Bentham wrote:

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden

from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already di scovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a

human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that

the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for

abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of r eason,

or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full -grown horse or dog is beyon d comparison a more rational, as well as a more

conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would

it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffe r? In this passage Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that entitles a being to equal

consideration. The capacity for suffering - or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness - is not just another

chara cteristic like the capacity for language, or for higher mathematics. Bentham is not saying that those who try to mark

'the insuperable line' that determines whether the interests of a being should be considered happen to have selected the

wrong characteris tic. The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition

that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say that it was not in

the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer.

Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an

interest in not being torme nted, because it will suffer if it is.

If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter wha t

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. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment

or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. This is why the limit of sentie nce (using the term as a convenient, if

not strictly accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible

boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some characteristic l ike intelligence or rationality

would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin colour?

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is

a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. White racists do not accept that pain is as bad

when it is felt by blacks as when it is felt by whites. Similarly those I would call 'speciesists' give greater weight to the interests

of members of their own species when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of other species.

Human speciesists do not accept that pain is as bad when it is felt by pigs or mice as when it is felt by humans.

That, then, is really the whole of the argument for extending the principle of equality to nonhuman animals; but there may

be some doubts about what this equality amounts to in practice. In particular, the last sentence of the previous paragraph

may prompt some peopl e to reply: 'Surely pain felt by a mouse just is not as bad as pain felt by a human. Humans have much

greater awareness of what is happening to them, and this makes their suffering worse. You can't equate the suffering of, say,

a person dying slowly from c ancer, and a laboratory mouse undergoing the same fate.'

I fully accept that in the case described the human cancer victim normally suffers more than the nonhuman cancer victim.

This in no way undermines the extension of equal consideration of interests to nonhumans. It means, rather, that we must

take care when we compare the interests of different species. In some situations a member of one species will suffer more

than a member of another species. In this case we should still apply the principle of equal consideration of interests but the

result of so doing is, of course, to give priority to relieving the greater suffering. A simpler case may help to make this c lear.

If I give a horse a hard slap across its rump with my open hand, the horse may start, but it presumably feels little pain. Its

skin is thick enough to protect it against a mere slap. If I slap a baby in the same way, however, the baby will cry and

presumably does feel pain, for its skin is more sensitive. So it is worse to slap a baby than a h orse, if both slaps are administered

with equal force. But there must be some kind of blow - I don't know exactly what it would be, but perhaps a blow with a

heavy stick - that would cause the horse as much pain as we cause a baby by slapping it with our h and. That is what I mean

by 'the same amount of pain' and if we consider it wrong to inflict that much pain on a baby for no good reason then we must,

unless we are speciesists, consider it equally wrong to inflict the same amount of pain on a horse for no good reason.

There are other differences between humans and animals that cause other complications. Normal adult human beings have

mental capacities which will, in certain circumstances, lead them to suffer more than animals would in the same

circumstance s. If, for instance, we decided to perform extremely painful or lethal scientific experiments on normal adult

humans, kidnapped at random from public parks for this purpose, adults who entered parks would become fearful that they

would be kidnapped. The re sultant terror would be a form of suffering additional to the pain of the experiment. The same

experiments performed on nonhuman animals would cause less suffering since the animals would not have the anticipatory

dread of being kidnapped and experimented upon. This does not mean, of course, that it would be right to perform the

experiment on animals, but only that there is a reason, which is not speciesist, for preferring to use animals rather than

normal adult humans, if the experiment is to be done at al l. It should be noted, however, that this same argument gives us a reason for preferring to use human infants - orphans perhaps - or retarded humans for experiments, rather than adults, since

infants and retarded humans would also have no idea of what was going to happen to them. So far as this argument is

concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded humans are in the same category; and if we use this argument to

justify experiments on nonhuman animals we have to ask ourselves whether we are also pre pared to allow experiments on

human infants and retarded adults. If we make a distinction between animals and these humans, how can we do it, other than

on the basis of a morally indefensible preference for members of our own species?

There are many areas in which the superior mental powers of normal adult humans make a difference: anticipation, more

detailed memory, greater knowledge of what is happening, and so on. These differences explain why a human dying from

cancer is likely to suffer more than a mou se. It is the mental anguish which makes the human's position so much harder to

bear. Yet these differences do not all point to greater suffering on the part of the normal human being. Sometimes animals

may suffer more because of their more limited underst anding. If, for instance, we are taking prisoners in wartime we can

explain to them that while they must submit to capture, search, and confinement they will not otherwise be harmed and will

be set free at the conclusion of hostilities. If we capture a wil d animal, however, we cannot explain that we are not

threatening its life. A wild animal cannot distinguish an attempt to overpower and confine from an attempt to kill; the one

causes as much terror as the other.

It may be objected that comparisons of the sufferings of different species are impossible to make, and that for this reason

when the interests of animals and humans clash the principle of equality gives no guidance. It is probably true that comparis ons

of suffering between members of different spec ies cannot be made precisely. Nor, for that matter, can comparisons of

suffering between different be made precisely. Precision is not essential. As we shall see shortly, even if we were to preven t

the infliction of suffering on animals only when the inter ests of humans will not be affected to anything like the extent that

animals are affected, we would be forced to make radical changes in our treatment of animals that would involve our diet,

the farming methods we use, experimental procedures in many field s of science, our approach to wildlife and to hunting,

trapping and the wearing of furs, and areas of entertainment like circuses, rodeos, and zoos. As a result, a vast amount of

suffering would be avoided.

So far I have said a lot about the infliction of suffering on animals, but nothing about killing them. This omission has been

deliberate. The application of the principle of equality to the infliction of suffering is, in theory at least, fairly straig htforward.

Pain and suffering are bad and should be pr evented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that

suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pains of the same intensity and duration a re

equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals . When we come to consider the value of life, we cannot say quite so

confidently that a life is a life, and equally valuable, whether it is a human life or an animal life. It would not be specie sist

to hold that the life of a self -aware being, capable of a bstract thought, of planning for the future, of complex acts of

communication, and so on, is more valuable than the life of a being without these capacities. (I am not saying whether this

view is justifiable or not; only that it cannot simply be rejected a s speciesist, because it is not on the basis of species itself

that one life is held to be more valuable than another.) The value of life is a notoriously difficult ethical question, and w e

can only arrive at a reasoned conclusion about the comparative val ue of human and animal life after we have discussed the

value of life in general. This is a topic for a separate chapter. Meanwhile there are important conclusions to be derived fro m

the extension beyond our own species of the principle of equal considerat ion of interests, irrespective of our conclusions

about the value of life.

Speciesism in practice

A n i m a l s a s f o o d

For most people in modern, urbanized societies, the principal form of contact with nonhuman animals is at meal times. The

use of animals for f ood is probably the oldest and the most widespread form of animal use. There is also a sense in which it

is the most basic form of animal use, the foundation stone on which rests the belief that animals exist for our pleasure and

convenience.

If animals co unt in their own right, our use of animals for food becomes questionable - especially when animal flesh is a luxury

rather than a necessity. Eskimos living in an environment where they must kill animals for food or starve, might be justified

in claiming tha t their interest in surviving overrides that of the animals they kill. Most of us cannot defend our diet in this way. Citizens of industrialized societies can easily obtain an adequate diet without the use of animal flesh. The overwhelmin g

weight of medica l evidence indicates that animal flesh is not necessary for good health or longevity. Nor is it an efficient way

of producing food, since most of the animals consumed in industrialized societies have been fattened on grains and other

foods which we could h ave eaten directly. When we feed these grains to animals, only about 10% of the nutritional value

remains as meat for human consumption. So, with the exception of animals raised entirely on grazing land unsuitable for

crops, animals are eaten neither for h ealth, nor to increase our food supply. Their flesh is a luxury, consumed because people

like its taste.

In considering the ethics of the use of animal flesh for human food in industrialized societies, we are considering a situati on

in which a relatively m inor human interest must be balanced against the lives and welfare of the animals involved. The

principle of equal consideration of interests does not allow major interests to be sacrificed for minor interests.

The case against using animals for food is at its strongest when animals are made to lead miserable lives so that their flesh

can be made available to humans at the lowest possible cost. Modern forms of intensive farming apply science and technology

to the attitude that animals are objects for us to use. In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford,

our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the

entire duration of their lives. Animals are treated like mac hines that convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results

in a higher 'conversion ratio' is liable to be adopted. As one authority on the subject has said, 'cruelty is acknowledged on ly

when profitability ceases'. To avoid speciesism we must st op these practices. Our custom is all the support that factory farmers

need. The decision to cease giving them that support may be difficult, but it is less difficult than it would have been for a

white Southerner to go against the traditions of his societ y and free his slaves; if we do not change our dietary habits, how

can we censure those slaveholders who would not change their own way of living?

These arguments apply to animals who have been reared in factory farms - which means that we should not eat c hicken, pork

or veal, unless we know that the meat we are eating was not produced by factory farm methods. The same is true of eggs,

unless they are specifically sold as 'free range'.

These arguments do not take us all the way to a vegetarian diet, since s ome animals, for instance sheep and beef cattle, still

graze freely outdoors. This could change. In America cattle are often fattened in crowded feedlots, and other countries are

following suit. Meanwhile, back at the research station, scientists are tryin g out methods of raising lambs indoors, in wire

cages. As long as sheep and cattle graze outdoors, however, arguments directed against factory farming do not imply that we

should cease eating meat altogether.

The lives of free -ranging animals are undoubted ly better than those of animals reared in factory farms. It is still doubtful if

using them for food is compatible with equal consideration of interests. One problem is, of course, that using them as food

involves killing them - but this is an issue to whi ch, as I have said, we shall return when we have discussed the value of life in

the next chapter. Apart from taking their lives there are also many other things done to animals in order to bring them cheap ly

to our dinner table. Castration, the separation of mother and young, the breaking up of herds, branding, trans porting, and

finally the moments of slaughter - all of these are likely to involve suffering and do not take the animals' interests into account.

Perhaps animals could be reared on a small scal e without suffering in these ways, but it does not seem economical or practical

to do so on the scale required for feeding our large urban populations. In any case, the important question is not whether

animal flesh could be produced without suffering, but whether the flesh we are considering buying was produced without

suffering. Unless we can be confident that it was, the principle of equal consideration of interests implies that it was wron g

to sacrifice important interests of the animal in order to sati sfy less important interests of our own; consequently we should

boycott the end result of this process.

For those of us living in cities where it is difficult to know how the animals we might eat have lived and died, this conclus ion

brings us very close to a vegetarian way of life. I shall consider some objections to it in the final section of this chapter.

E x p e r i m e n t i n g o n a n i m a l s

Perhaps the area in which speciesism can most clearly be observed is the use of animals in experiments. Here the issue stands

out starkly, because experimenters often seek to justify experimenting on animals by claiming that the experiments lead us

to discoveries about humans; if this is so, the experi menter must agree that human and nonhuman animals are similar in crucial respec ts. For instance, if forcing a rat to choose between starving to death and crossing an electrified grid to obtain

food tells us anything about the reactions of humans to stress, we must assume that the rat feels stress in this kind of situ ation.

People som etimes think that all animal experiments serve vital medical purposes, and can be justified on the grounds that

they relieve more suffering than they cause. This comfortable belief is mistaken. Drug companies test new shampoos and

cosmetics they are intend ing to market by dripping concentrated solutions of tl1em into the eyes of rabbits. Food additives,

including artificial colourings and preservatives, are tested by what is known as the LD50 - a test designed to find the 'Lethal

Dose', or level of consumpt ion which will make 50% of a sample of animals die. In the process nearly all of the animals are

made very sick before some finally die and others pull through. These tests are not necessary to prevent human suffering: we

already have enough shampoos and f ood colourings. There is no need to develop new ones which might be dangerous.

Nor can all university experiments be defended on the grounds that they relieve more suffering than they inflict. Three

experimenters at Princeton University kept 256 young rats without food or water until they died. They concluded that young

rats under conditions of fatal thirst and starvation are much more active than normal adult rats given food and water. In a

well -known series of experiments that has been going on for more t han 15 years, H. F. Harlow of the Primate Research Center,

Madison, Wisconsin, has been rearing monkeys under conditions of maternal deprivation and total isolation. He found that in

this way he could reduce the monkeys to a state in which, when placed amo ng normal monkeys, they sat huddled in a corner

in a state of persistent depression and fear. Harlow has also produced monkey mothers so neurotic that they smash their

infant's face into the floor and rub it back and forth.

In these cases, and many others like them, the benefits to humans are either non -existent or very uncertain; while the losses

to members of other species are certain and real. Hence the experiments indicate a failure to give equal consideration to the

interests of all beings, irrespectiv e of species.

In the past, argument about animal experimentation has often missed this point because it has been put in absolutist terms:

would the opponent of experimentation be prepared to let thousands die from a terrible disease which could be cured by

experimenting on one animal? This is a purely hypothetical question, since experiments do not have such dramatic results,

but so long as its hypothetical nature is clear, I think the question should be answered affirmatively _ in other words, if o ne,

or e ven a dozen animals had to suffer experiments in order to save thousands, I would think it right and in accordance with

equal consideration of interests that they should do so. This, at any rate, is the answer a utilitarian must give. Those who

believe in absolute rights might hold that it is always wrong to sacrifice one being, whether human or animal, for the benefit

of another. In that case the experiment should not be carried out, whatever the consequences

To the hypothetical question about saving thous ands of people through a single experiment on an animal, opponents of

speciesism can reply with a hypothetical question of their own: would experimenters be prepared to perform their experiments

on orphaned humans with severe and irreversible brain damage if that were the only way to save thousands? ( I say 'orphaned'

in order to avoid the complication of the feelings of the human parents.) If experimenters are not prepared to use orphaned

humans with severe and irreversible brain damage, their readiness to use nonhuman animals seems to discriminate on the

basis of species alone, since apes, monkeys, dogs, cats and even mice and rats are more intelligent, more aware of what is

happening to them, more sensitive to pain, and so on, than many brain -damaged huma ns barely surviving in hospital wards

and other institutions. There seems to be no morally relevant characteristic that such humans have which nonhuman animals

lack. Experimenters, then, show bias in favour of their own species whenever they carry out expe riments on nonhuman animals

for purposes that they would not think justified them in using human beings at an equal or lower level of sentience, awarenes s,

sensitivity, and so on. If this bias were eliminated the number of experiments performed on animals would be greatly reduced.

O t h e r f o r m s o f s p e c i e s i s m

I have concentrated on the use of animals as food and in research, since these are examples of large -scale, systematic

speciesism. They are not, of course, the only areas in which the principle of equal c onsideration of interests, extended beyond

the human species, has practical implications. There ar( many other areas which raise similar issues, including the fur trade ,

hunting in all its different forms, circuses, rodeos, zoos and the pet business. Since the philosophical questions raised by these

issues are not very different from those raised by the use of animals as food and in research, I shall leave it to the reader to

apply the appropriate ethical principles to them. Some objections

This book is not the first occasion on which I have put forward the position for which I have argued in this chapter. On previous

occasions I have encountered a variety of questions and objections, some straightforward and predictable, some more subtle

and unexpected. In this final section of the chapter I shall attempt to answer the most important of these objections. I shall

begin with the more straightforward ones.

H o w d o w e k n o w t h a t a n i m a l s c a n f e e l p a i n ?

We can never directly experience the pain of another being, whe ther that being is human or not. When I see my daughter fall

and scrape her knee, I know that she feels pain because of the way she behaves - she cries, she tells me her knee hurts, she

rubs the sore spot, and so on. I know that I myself behave in a somewh at similar - if more inhibited - way when I feel pain,

and so I accept that my daughter feels something like what I feel when I scrape my knee.

The basis of my belief that animals can feel pain is similar to the basis of my belief that my daughter can feel pain. Animals

in pain behave in much the same way as humans do, and their behaviour is sufficient justification for the belief that they fe el

pain. It is true that, with the exception of those apes who have been taught to communicate by sign language, the y cannot

actually say that they are feeling pain_ but then when my daughter was a little younger she could not talk either. She found

other ways to make her inner states apparent, however, so demonstrating that we can be sure that a being is feeling pain

even if the being cannot use language.

To back up our inference from animal behaviour, we can point to the fact that the nervous systems of all vertebrates, and

especially of birds and mammals, are fundamentally similar. Those parts of the human nervous system that are concerned

with feeling pain are relatively old, in evolutionary terms. Unlike the cerebral cortex, which developed only after our ances tors

diverged from other mammals, the basic nervous system evolved in more distant ancestors common to ou rselves and the other

'higher' animals. This anatomical parallel makes it likely that the capacity of animals to feel is similar to our own.

It is significant that none of the grounds we have for believing that animals feel pain hold for plants. We cannot observe

behaviour suggesting pain --sensational claims to the contrary have not been substantiated -- and plants do not have a centrally

organized nervous system like ours.

A n i m a l s e a t e a c h o t h e r , s o w h y s h o u l d n ' t w e e a t t h e m ?

This might be called the Benjam in Franklin Objection. Franklin recounts in his Autobiography that he was for a time a

vegetarian but his abstinence from animal flesh came to an end when he was watching some friends prepare to fry a fish they

had just caught. When the fish was cut open, it was found to have a smaller fish in its stomach. 'Well', Franklin said to himself,

'if you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you' and he proceeded to do so.

Franklin was at least honest. In telling this story, he confesses that he convince d himself of the validity of the objection only

after the fish was already in the frying pan and smelling 'admirably well'; and he remarks that one of the advantages of bein g

a 'reasonable creature' is that one can find a reason for whatever one wants to d o. The replies that can be made to this

objection are so obvious that Franklin's acceptance of it does testify more to his love of fried fish than his powers of reas on.

For a start, most animals that kill for food would not be able to survive if they did n ot, whereas we have no need to eat animal

flesh. Next, it is odd that humans, who normally think of the behaviour of animals as 'beastly' should, when it suits them, u se

an argument that implies we ought to look to animals for moral guidance. The decisive point, however, is that nonhuman

animals are not capable of considering the alternatives open to them or of reflecting on the ethics of their diet. Hence it i s

impossible to hold the animals responsible for what they do, or to judge that because of their k illing they 'deserve' to be

treated in a similar way. Those who read these lines, on the other hand, must consider the justifiability of their dietary ha bits.

You cannot evade responsibility by imitating beings who are incapable of making this choice. Some times people point to the fact that animals eat each other in order to make a slightly different point. This fact suggests,

they think, not that animals deserve to be eaten, but rather that there is a natural law according to which the stronger prey

upon t he weaker, a kind of Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' in which by eating animals we are merely playing our part.

This interpretation of the objection makes two basic mistakes, one a mistake of fact and the other an error of reasoning. The

factual mistak e lies in the assumption that our own consumption of animals is part of the natural evolutionary process. This

might be true of a few primitive cultures which still hunt for food, but it has nothing to do with the mass production of

domestic animals in fac tory farms.

Suppose that we did hunt for our food, though, and this was part of some natural evolutionary process. There would still be

an error of reasoning in the assumption that because this process is natural it is right. It is, no doubt, 'natural' for women to

produce an infant every year or two from puberty to menopause, but this does not mean that it is wrong to interfere with this

process. We need to know the natural laws which affect us in order to estimate the consequences of what we do; but we do

not have to assume that the natural way of doing something is incapable of improvement.

D i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n h u m a n s a n d a n i m a l s

That there is a huge gulf between humans and animals was unquestioned for most of the course of Western civilization. The

basis of this assumption has been undermined by Darwin's discovery of our animal origins and the associated decline in the

credibility of the story of our Divine Creation, made in the image of God with an immortal soul. Some have found it difficult

to accept tha t the differences between us and the other animals are differences of degree rather than kind. They have

searched for ways of drawing a line between humans and animals. To date these boundaries have been shortlived. For instance

it used to be said that onl y humans used tools. Then it was observed that the Galapagos woodpecker used a cactus thorn to

dig insects out of crevices in trees. Next it was suggested that even if other animals used tools, humans are the only tool making

animals. But Jane Goodall foun d that chimpanzees in the jungles of Tanzania chewed up leaves to make a sponge for sopping

up water, and trimmed the leaves off branches to make tools for catching insects. The use of language was another boundary

line - but now chimpanzees and gorillas h ave learnt the sign language of the deaf and dumb, and there is evidence that whales

and dolphins have a complex language of their own.

If these attempts to draw the line between humans and animals had fitted the facts of the situation, they would still no t carry

any moral weight. That a being does not use language or make tools is hardly a reason for ignoring its suffering. Some

philosophers have claimed that there is a more profound difference. They have claimed that animals cannot think or reason,

and th at accordingly they have no conception of themselves, no self -consciousness. They live from instant to instant, and do

not see themselves as distinct entities with a past and a future. Nor do they have autonomy, the ability to choose how to liv e

one's life . It has been suggested that autonomous, self -conscious beings are in some way much more valuable, more morally

significant, than beings who live from moment to moment, without the capacity to see themselves as distinct beings with a

past and a future. Acc ordingly the interests of autonomous, self -conscious beings ought normally to take priority over the

interests of other beings.

Ishall not now consider whether some nonhuman animals are self -conscious and autonomous. The reason for this omission is

that I do not believe that, in the present context, much depends on this question. We are now considering only the application

of the principle of equal consideration of interests. In the next chapter, when we discuss questions about the value of life,

we shall s ee that there are reasons for holding that self -consciousness is crucial; and we shall then investigate the evidence

for self -consciousness in nonhuman animals. Meanwhile the more important issue is: does the fact that a being is self conscious

entitle it to some kind of priority of consideration?

The claim that self -conscious beings are entitled to prior consideration is compatible with the principle of equal consideration

of interests if it amounts to no more than the claim that something which happens to a self conscious being can cause it to

suffer more (or be happier, as the case may be) than if the being were not self -conscious. This might be because the self -

conscious creature has greater awareness of what is happening, can fit the event into the over all framework of a longer time

period, and so on. But this is a point I granted at the start of this chapter (pp. 52 -3, above) and provided it is not carried to

ludicrous extremes - like insisting that if I am self conscious and a veal calf is not, deprivi ng me of veal causes more suffering than depriving the calf of its freedom to walk, stretch and eat grass - it is not denied by the criticisms I made of animal

experimentation and factory farming.

It would be a different matter if it were claimed that, eve n when a self conscious being did not suffer more than a being that

was merely sentient, its suffering was more important because it was a more valuable type of being. This introduces non -

utilitarian claims of value - claims which do not derive simply from taking a universal standpoint in the manner described in

the final section of Chapter 1. Since the argument for utilitarianism developed in that section was admittedly tentative, I

cannot use that argument to rule out all non utilitarian values. Neverthel ess we are entitled to ask why self -conscious beings

should be considered more valuable and in particular why the alleged greater value of a self -conscious being should result in

preferring the lesser interests of a self -conscious being to the greater inte rests of a merely sentient being, even where the

self -consciousness of the former being is not itself at stake. This last point is an important one, for we are not now considering

cases in which the lives of self -conscious beings are at risk but cases in w hich self -conscious beings will go on living, their

faculties intact, whatever we decide. In these cases if the existence of self -consciousness does not affect the nature of the

interests under comparison, it is not clear why we should drag self -consciousn ess into the discussion at all, any more than we

should drag species, race or sex into similar discussions. Interests are interests, and ought to be given equal consideration

whether they are the interests of human or nonhuman animals, self -conscious or no n-self -conscious animals.

There is another possible reply to the claim that self -consciousness, or autonomy, or some similar characteristic, can serve to

distinguish human from nonhuman animals: recall that there are mentally defective humans who have less claim to be self -

conscious or autonomous than many nonhuman animals. If we use these characteristics to place a gulf between humans and

other animals, we place these unfortunate humans on the other side of the gulf; and if the gulf is taken to mark a diff erence

in moral status, then these humans would have the moral status of animals rather than humans.

This reply, which has been dubbed 'the argument from marginal cases' (because grossly defective humans are thought of as

being at the margins of humanity) is very forceful, because most of us find horrifying the idea of using mentally defective

humans in painful experiments, or fattening them for gourmet dinners. But some philosophers have argued that these

consequences would not really follow from the use o f a characteristic like self -consciousness or autonomy to distinguish

humans from other animals. I shall consider three of these attempts.

The first suggestion is that mental defectives who do not possess the capacities which mark the normal human off from other

animals should nevertheless be treated as if they did possess these capacities, since they belong to a species, members of

which normally do possess them. The suggestion is, in other words, that we treat individuals not in accordance with their

actu al qualities, but in accordance with the qualities normal for their species.

It is interesting that this suggestion should be made in defence of treating members of our species better than members of

another species, when it would be firmly rejected if it were used to justify treating members of our race or sex better than

members of another race or sex. In the previous chapter, when discussing the impact of possible differences in IQ between

blacks and whites, I made the obvious point that whatever the dif ference between the average scores for blacks and whites,

some blacks score better than some whites, and so we ought to treat blacks and whites as individuals and not according to

the average score for their race, whatever the explanation of that average m ight be. If we accept this we must reject the

suggestion that when dealing with mentally defective humans we grant them the status or rights normal for their species. For

what is the significance of the fact that this time the line is to be drawn around th e species rather than around the race or

sex? We cannot insist that beings be treated as individuals in the one case, and as members of a group in the other. Membersh ip

of a species is no more relevant in these circumstances than membership of a race or se x.

A second suggestion is that although mental defectives may not possess higher capacities than other animals, they are

nonetheless human beings, and as such we have special relations with them that we do not have with other animals. As one

reviewer of my book on this subject put it: 'Partiality for our own species, and within it for much smaller groupings is, like

the universe, something we had better accept . . . The danger in [an] attempt to eliminate partial affections is that it may

remove the source of all affections.'

This argument ties morality too closely to our affections. Of course some people may have a closer relationship with the most

gravely retarded human than they do with any nonhuman animal, and it would be absurd to tell them that they sh ould not

feel this way. They simply do, and as such there is nothing good or bad about it. The question is whether our moral obligatio ns to a being should be made to depend on our feelings in this manner. Notoriously, some human beings have a closer relati onship

with their cat than with their neighbours. Would those who tie morality to affections accept that these people are justified

in saving their cats from a fire before they save their neighbours? And even those who are prepared to answer this question

affirmatively would, I trust, not want to go along with racists who could argue that because white people have more natural

relationships with and greater affection towards other whites, it is all right for whites to give preference to the interests of

oth er whites over the interests of blacks. Ethics does not demand that we eliminate personal relationships and partial

affections, but it does demand that when we act we assess the moral claims of those affected by our actions independently

of our feelings fo r them.

The third suggestion invokes the widely -used 'slippery slope' argument. The idea of this argument is that once we take one

step in a certain direction we shall find ourselves on a slippery slope and shall slither further than we wished to go. In th e

present context the argument is used to suggest that we need a clear line to divide those beings we can experiment upon, or

fatten for dinner, from those we cannot. Species membership makes a nice sharp dividing line, whereas levels of self -

consciousness , autonomy or sentience do not. Once we allow that a grossly retarded human being has no higher moral status

than an animal we have begun our descent down a slope, the next level of which is denying rights to social misfits, and the

bottom of which is a to talitarian government disposing of anyone it does not like by classifying them as mentally defective.

The slippery slope argument is important in some contexts, but it cannot bear too much weight. If we believe that, as I have

argued in this chapter, the s pecial status we now give to humans allows us to ignore the interests of billions of sentient

creatures, we should not be deterred from trying to rectify this situation by the mere possibility that the principles on whi ch

we base this attempt will be misus ed by evil rulers for their own ends. And it is no more than a possibility. The change I have

suggested might make no difference to our treatment of humans, or it might even improve it.

In the end, no ethical line that is arbitrarily drawn can be secure. I t is better to find a line that can be defended openly and

honestly. When discussing euthanasia in Chapter 7 we shall see that a line drawn in the wrong place can have unfortunate

results even for those placed on the higher, or human side of the line.

It is also important to remember that the aim of my argument is to elevate the status of animals rather than to lower the

status of any humans. I do not wish to suggest that mentally defective humans should be force -fed with food colourings until

half of t hem die_ although this would certainly give us a more accurate indication of whether the substance was safe for

humans than testing it on rabbits or dogs does. I would like our conviction that it would be wrong to treat mentally defectiv e

humans in this wa y to be transferred to nonhuman animals at similar levels of self -consciousness and with similar capacities

for suffering. It is excessively pessimistic to refrain from trying to alter our attitudes on the grounds that we might start

treating mental defect ives with the same lack of concern we now have for animals, rather than give animals the greater

concern that we now have for mental defectives.

E t h i c s a n d r e c i p r o c i t y

In the earliest surviving major work of moral philosophy in the Western tradition, Plato 's Republic, there is to be found the

following view of ethics:

They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that there is more evil in the latter than good

in the former. And so when men have both done and suffered inj ustice and have had experience of both, any who are not

able to avoid the one and obtain the other think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither hence they

begin to establish laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This, it is

claimed, is the origin and nature of justice - it is a mean or compromise between the best of all, which is to do injustice and

not be punished and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the pow er of retaliation.

This was not Plato's own view; he put it into the mouth of Glaucon in order to allow Socrates, the hero of his dialogue, to

refute it. It is a view which has never gained general acceptance, but has not died away either. Echoes of it can be found in

the ethical theories of contemporary philosophers like John Rawls, Gilbert Harman and John Mackie; and it has been used, by

these philosophers and others, to justify the exclusion of animals from the sphere of ethics, or at least from its core . For if

the basis of ethics is that I refrain from doing nasty things to others as long as they don't do nasty things to me, I have n o

reason against doing nasty things to those who are incapable of appreciating my restraint and controlling their conduct towards me accordingly. Animals, by and large, are in this category. When I am surfing far out from shore and a shark attacks, my

concern for animals will not help; I am as likely to be eaten as the next surfer, though he may spend every Sunday afternoon

taking potshots at sharks from a boat. Since animals cannot reciprocate, they are, on this view, outside the limits of the

ethical contract.

In assessing this conception of ethics we should distinguish between explanations of the origin of ethical judgments , and

justifications of these judgments. The explanation of the origin of ethics in terms of a tacit contract between people for th eir

mutual benefit is quite plausible (though not more plausible than a number of alternative accounts). But we could accept this

account, as a historical explanation, without thereby committing ourselves to any views about the rightness or wrongness of

the ethical system that has resulted. No matter how self -interested the origins of ethics may be, it is possible that once we

have started thinking ethically we are led beyond these mundane premises. For we are capable of reasoning, and reason is

not subordinate to self -interest. When we are reasoning about ethics we are using concepts that, as we saw in the first chapter

of this book, take us beyond our own personal interest, or even the interest of some sectional group. According to the contract

view of ethics, this universalizing process should stop at the boundaries of our community; but once the process has begun

we may come t o see that it would not be consistent with our other convictions to halt at that point. Just as the first

mathematicians, who may have started counting in order to keep track of the number of people in their tribe, had no idea

that they were taking the fir st steps along a path that would lead to the infinitesimal calculus, so the origin of ethics tells us

nothing about where it will end.

When we turn to the question of justification we can see that contractual accounts of ethics have many problems. Clearly,

such accounts exclude from the ethical sphere a lot more than nonhuman animals. Since permanent mental defectives are

equally incapable of reciprocating, they must also be excluded. The same goes for infants and very young children; but the

problems of th e contractual view are not limited to these 'marginal cases'. The ultimate reason for entering into the ethical

contract is, on this view, self -interest. Unless some additional universal element is brought in, one group of people has no

reason to deal ethi cally with another if it is not in their interest to do so. If we take this seriously we shall have to revise our

ethical judgments very drastically. For instance, the white slave traders who landed on a lonely part of the African coast an d

captured blacks to sell in America had no self interested reason for treating blacks any better than they did. The blacks had

no way of retaliating. If they had only been contractualists, the slave traders could have rebutted the abolitionists by

explaining to them that ethics stops at the boundaries of the community, and since blacks are not part of their community

they have no duties to them.

Nor is it only past practices that would be affected by taking the contractual model seriously. Though people often speak of

the world today as a single community, there is no doubt that the power of people in, say, Chad, to reciprocate either good

or evil that is done to them by, say, citizens of the United States is very limited. Hence it does not seem that the contract

view provi des for any obligations on the part of wealthy nations to poorer nations.

Most striking of all is the impact of the contract model on our attitude to future generations. 'Why should I do anything for

posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?' would b e the view we ought to take if only those who can reciprocate are

within the bounds of ethics. There is no way in which those who will be alive in the year 2100 can do anything to make our

lives better or worse. Hence if obligations only exist where there can be reciprocity, we need have no worries about problems

like the disposal of nuclear waste. True, some nuclear wastes will still be deadly for a quarter of a million years; but as l ong

as we put it in containers that will keep it away from us for 100 ye ars, we have done all that ethics demands of us.

These examples should suffice to show that, whatever its origin, the ethics we have now does go beyond a tacit understanding

between beings capable of reciprocity, and the prospect of returning to such a bas is is not appealing. Since no account of the

origin of morality compels us to base our morality on reciprocity, and since no other arguments in favour of this conclusion

have been offered, we should reject this view of ethics.

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