Analysis Of Gary Varner 's ' The Biocentric Individualism '

Question of Identity: What does it mean to be human? Are humans more important than animals?

I am going to argue in support of Peter Singer’s claims against speciesism. It is right to claim that human suffering and animal suffering should be given equal considerations. Both humans and nonhuman species suffer both physically and emotionally and both deserve equal considerations on the basis of morality.

In Peter Singer’s article, All Animals are Equal, Singer claims that animals deserve the same equal rights and respect that the human lives get. His strongest argument is defined by all animals, human or non-human shall be defined as equal. Singer makes some very strong arguments within his article, but I feel some of his statements are humanist. As an animal lover and mother to two pets, I disagree that not all animals or living things endure the same amount. However, I do agree that animals do deserve the rights to live lives as animals should. This paper will analyze Singer’s argument in relation to the specific issue of animal equal rights. It will also include the counterarguments I have against his claims of his article.

A highly popularized and debated topic in our modern society is the promotion of animal equality or animal rights. Many people, philosophers included, have a wide range of opinions on this topic. Two of the philosophers studied in class who discussed animal rights were Peter Singer and Carl Cohen. Singer, who has the more extreme view on animal rights, believes that all animals are equal and that the limit of sentience is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interest of others (Singer, 171). While Cohen, who’s view is more moderate than that of Singer’s, believes that animals do not have rights, stating that to have rights one must contain the ability for free moral judgment. Though, he does believe that we as

The question of the correct ethical treatment of animals has been a topic of many heated debates. The basis of this discussion arises numerous premises that justifies the treatment of animals. Whether animal do in fact have a sentient? And what is distinctive about humanity such that humans are thought to have moral status and non-human do not? Providing an answer to the correct ethical treatment of animals has become increasingly paramount among society as well as philosophers.

The good of an “individual nonhuman organism” is realized to the extent that it is “strong and healthy” (Taylor 103). An entity is said to be “strong and healthy” to Taylor if it “possesses

In “Speciesism and Moral Status”, Peter Singers argument is that when it comes to the value of life, we should not discriminate in regards to species, and cognitive ability should play some role in moral status. In comparison to humans with “profound mental disabilities” (Singer 569), the use of the gorilla Koko’s higher IQ score, not needing constant supervision, or border collies being able to provide useful work to society, serves as a strong logos appeal regarding the relationship between cognitive ability and moral status. Singer is effectively able to support his claims by continuously referencing respected philosophers and individuals such as Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and even Pope John Paul II. Validity and integrity are very much solidified in Singers article with the use of counter arguments as well as alternate views to his own arguments. The structure and information Singer provides is clear and organized, and does not leave his audience confused due to the strong use of factual, relevant support of his argument.

The idea that all humans are born equal has been something that has been almost installed in our minds. However, in the eyes of Peter Singer, we as humans are constantly violating our own moral code in the way we treat animals. Singer refers to this as speciesism and compares our treatment of animals to the same way sexists and racists treat those who they deem inferior. He also argues that the grounds on which they base their prejudice on are equally fragile. He illustrates this by comparing speciesists to racists. He recalls, “The racists violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of his own race…similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of another species” (53.) He initiates this argument by explaining how our willingness to declare all humans as equal when the opposite is fundamentally true. Singer writes, “Like it or not, we must face the fact that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with differing moral capacities, differing intellect…if the demand for equality was based on the actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop demanding equality” (51). Singer seeks to establish that our push for equality ends once the being in question is no longer human. Once he establishes this, he can quickly draw parallels between our unequal treatment of animals and humans. He evolves what initially begins as a far-fetched claim to a nuanced and

Personhood is a central issue within ethics and natural rights debates. For any theory of ethics or system of declaring natural rights which purports how man should be treated and/or to what rights he is so entitled must begin with what ‘man’ is. There is no doubt man has an inherent value that entities such as flies and trees lack. This value does not come from mere physical form, but from what comprises personhood; because these things can be separated from our physical form they can fail to be developed or instantiated within man’s physical form. Natural rights, and the debate about what they are and where they come from, have been long-standing issues in the philosophical as well as political communities. One thing that does seem clear

Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

In Stanley Benn’s “Egalitarianism and Equal Consideration of Interests”, it is explained that animals and human imbeciles are distinguished not because of fundamental inequality, but solely on the basis that the two subjects are of different species. In regard to animals’ moral rights and the infringement of those rights due to the practice of speciesism, Singer employs a utilitarian style of argument to defend animals’ moral rights; in short, the interests of each being which is involved should be taken into consideration and said interests should be given the same weight as that of another being. Speciesism is morally wrong because it attempts to assign undeserved weight to the interests of beings of separate species, solely based off the difference of species. Naturally, or rather unnaturally, human beings have always awarded themselves the utmost importance due to the idea of human dignity, as in humans occupy the central spot within any earthly ranking. Logically, Singer argues that the practice of speciesism is wrong because the conditions in which it exists are synonymous to the conditions which facilitate racism and sexism, before they had been recognized as

According to James Rachel, an author of “Elements of Moral Philosophy,” there two main arguments exist against psychological egoism.

In his article “All Animals Are Equal,” Peter Singer discusses the widely-held belief that, generally speaking, there is no more inequality in the world, because all groups of formerly oppressed humans are now liberated. However, it often goes without notice that there are groups of nonhuman animals that continue to face unequal treatment, such as those that are consumed or used as scientific test subjects. Singer’s article criticizes the belief that because humans are generally more intelligent than nonhuman animals, then all humans are superior to all nonhuman animals. Singer argues that intelligence is an arbitrary trait to base the separation of humans and nonhumans, and declares that the only trait that one can logically base moral value is the capacity to have interests, which is determined by a creature’s ability to suffer. Singer explains that in order to stay consistent with the basic principle of equality, anything that has the capacity to suffer ought to have its needs and interests recognized, just as humans’ needs and interests are currently recognized through what he calls “equal consideration.” In this paper, I will explain Singer’s notion of equal consideration as the only relevant sense of equality and why it applies to the rights of both human and nonhuman species that are

Experiencing subjects of a life, in the eyes of Regan, are argued to have an inherent value, a basic right that is equal amongst individuals. Regan believes that because an individual is a subject experiencing life, said subject has an inherent value. Regan notes that critics argue that only humans have inherent value, but if such delegation of species takes place, speciesism, a form of discrimination, the fact of the matter becomes essentially immoral. The reduction of a subject’s inherent value based on grouping of species is indeed a form of inequality…of speciesism. He argues that in order for inherent value to be portrayed equally, discrimination of the sort cannot be morally acceptable, nor tolerated. Regan accepts that simply saying that humans have more inherent value than animals is not a rational justification. One can say that an individual’s mother has more worth than a dog’s mother; however, on what grounds does this argument lie? This is merely an irrational and immoral statement that degrades an individual. In turn, the justification of which individual has more