As they were brought into the circle, those people won rights. My guess is that if all and only humans have the feature (e.g., human DNA), then it probably isn’t morally relevant. Alternatively, if it is morally relevant (e.g., intelligence), then it probably isn’t something that all and only humans have. It just means that even if humans are special, it doesn’t follow that they are the only things that deserve moral consideration.
Moral status of animals
That stunned numerous women, with Haggis then insisting on going to court against one who accused him of rape. He was then stunned to have three other women testify on her behalf, against his wife’s contention that he is “a gentleman.” The jury ruled against him. Singer’s counsel filed a demurrer, which is a motion to dismiss that says that even if the facts alleged in the complaint are true, no law has been broken.
Importantly, if one successfully appeals, the case goes back to the same judge. As we litigated, I had no idea that ours, Judge Donna Geck, appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, had faced a recall effort in 2022. She was accused by numerous plaintiffs of bias in favor of “well connected and well-funded” men against the women they battled in court. Without getting too heavily into trashing the judge, I will note my utter lack of surprise upon learning about the recall effort. If you visit my YouTube channel, you’ll find loads of media appearances, including a 40 minute interview with New Zealand’s most popular radio host, Kim Hill, which I would love you to listen to.
A moral classification of animals
I know all too well that he relies on the professional talents of the women in his life. Effective Altruism starves out the activists creating the sparks, and Peter Singer wonders why our movement isn’t lighting up the world. I argued that point at the very end of my book Thanking the Monkey, in a section entitled “Talk the Walk,” which shared Marianne Williamson’s inspiring take on a Dateline segment.
In times of sweeping change, clarity matters most.
- A prime focus on climate also opens the door to suggestions that we should invest in ways to make meat production more efficient “by reducing cow’s methane emissions,” as was recommended in a recent Washington Post piece, or to calls for methane as a potential energy source.
- When the editor asked whose byline should go first, Singer acknowledged privately to me that I had done the bulk of the work – twice – but said that because his name was more recognizable, the piece would be more widely read and thus be better for animals if his went first.
- I did not comment on it, though I know my readers expect me to weigh in on what I send.
- But I may be best known for bathing and blow-drying turkeys on TV.
- Obviously, there are forms of discrimination against disabled people that we should firmly reject.
- “Reason enables us to take the point of view of the universe,” he told me.
In some cases, that’s because the inventions take care of some of our more basic needs. Emanuela Cardia at the University of Montreal studied more than 3,000 censuses from the 1940s and found that household inventions — the washing machine, the refrigerator, the electric stove — were a major engine of liberation for women. Once the washing machine was invented and made widely accessible, for instance, women were freed up to do other things, like join the workforce.
- What is important is the capacity to suffer and to enjoy life.
- If that is ableist, then it isn’t always wrong to be ableist.
- We might face a judge who finds Singer’s overall conduct to have been reprehensible, and whose choices to censure or not, where there is leeway, will reflect that impression.
- Organisms can be arranged in a moral hierarchy in which the lowest group deserves no moral consideration at all, and the top group deserves more moral consideration than the second group.
- The easy way to solve the problem is to cheat and put human beings in an even higher moral category, and simply state that even human beings who aren’t self-aware and have no preference to go on living should be regarded as deserving full moral consideration.
- Similarly, other inventions have arguably catalyzed the expansion of the moral circle.
Should animals, plants, and robots have the same rights as you?
Plus, just as importantly, welfare campaigns show the shocking suffering caused by our food system; they wake people up. But seeing the bulk of animal advocacy funding flowing in that direction is distressing, and ironically we have the author of Animal Liberation Now to thank for much of that flow. This isn’t to say we should adopt a technologically deterministic view. Tech innovation isn’t necessarily the primary factor allowing the moral circle to expand (and in fact, it can often cause a lot of harm). But it’s one of several factors that can make a larger moral circle more likely.
Which animals deserve moral consideration?
They have worth and wonder of their own, which is becoming more frequently acknowledged in human society. Let’s remember that almost two-thirds of Californians voted in favor of Prop 2 and Prop 12, which banned the most egregiously cruel housing for farm animals, despite agribusiness’ massive advertising effort to warn them that meat and egg prices would rise. A prime focus on climate also opens the door to suggestions that we should invest in ways to make meat production more efficient “by reducing cow’s methane emissions,” as was recommended in a recent Washington Post piece, or to calls for methane as a potential energy source. Here at Vox, we’re unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.
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Because we are all products of our time, that intellectual humility is the healthiest posture we can adopt. Not having simple larabet casino answers may make us uncomfortable, but I tend to think it’s a productive discomfort. Psychologists have shown that we tend to feel more capable of extending moral concern to others if we’re not competing with them for scarce resources and if our own needs are already taken care of.
I am calling out pervasive, implicit, if not explicit, sexual harassment and clear sexual discrimination. His sexual interest should not be a requirement for his mentorship or the allotment of prestigious co-writing assignments to women, as it is not for men. Peter Singer’s dedication to that field, and his ability to attract animal advocacy donors to its biometrics, has bogged our movement down in welfare reforms when true change was on the horizon.
I had been hoping for help with funding, but, after demeaning my work, he gave me tips for adjusting my DawnWatch alert system in order to prove myself worthy of the funding for which he had happily recommended me just 18 months earlier, before the argument about our hurtful sexual history. I told him I could not move forward with that dynamic, and I filed suit. I filed under the single clause of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, because, as he well knows, I was unaware that California Civil Code Section 51.9 allows for sexual harassment outside of traditional employment situations. But that initial suit included the same facts as those in the amended complaint, which rightly included Sexual Harassment. As I was putting together this essay, another piece by Singer came out, this one in the Los Angeles Times, where the animal-concerned editors at that paper at least made sure Singer focused on animals rather than climate change. Singer notes “there is now strong evidence that fish can feel pain,” while nevertheless grammatically treating fish as objects with the pronoun “it.
If there are animals that have higher cognitive capacities than some humans, there’s no reason to say that the humans have more worth or moral status simply because they are human. Theories of moral considerability can help us answer a variety of practical ethical questions, but they can’t answer those questions by themselves. When a famous man, only tangentially involved in our movement at the time, puts his name on the work of women devoted to it, and puts his name first, he continues to get writing assignments on animal issues, as editors view him as the leading voice. We are currently hearing his actual voice on his book tour – a voice for animal welfare but not rights, for some animal experimentation, and for eating animal products and even some animals when veganism is inconvenient.