Ethics

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Ethics Engineering Nonhuman Animals

• Points for Discussion

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Ethical Frameworks

• Anti-Cruelty View
• Utilitarianism
• Rights

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Anti-Cruelty Statutes

• Idaho Code Title 25. Animals. Chapter 35.
  Cruelty to Animals
• Every person who is cruel to any animal, or
  causes or procures any animal to be cruelly
  treated and whoever, having the charge or
  custody of any animal, either as owner or
  otherwise, subjects any animal to cruelty, is,
  for every such offense, guilty of a misdemeanor
  and shall, upon conviction, be punished in
  accordance with section 25-3520A, Idaho Code.

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Anti-Cruelty View

• Long tradition in many religions
• Animal pain and suffering counts morally do you
  agree?
• Companion vs non-companion animals
• Human beings count for more than animals why?
• When is animal use necessary

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Utilitarianism

• Principle of Utility Pleasure is the only good
  pain is the only evil
• Greatest Happiness Principle One ought always
  to maximize happiness (or the good) for everyone
  affected by ones action
• Bentham It matters not whether a being can
  reason (think) or talk, but only whether it can
  suffer

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Rights

• A right is a trump against the common
  goodrights trump utility
• A right is a protection from the tyranny of the
  majority
• A right is a valid claim to the satisfaction of
  an interest, where interest means something
  which serves the well-being of the right-holder

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Who Has Rights?

• Select a paradigm class of those to whom we are
  certain we have obligations
• Humans with a normal body?
• Humans of normal intelligence and sanity?
• Humans who are useful (working for the common
  good)?
• Adults? Children? Babies? Fetuses?

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Who Counts?

• Do animals count?
• Which animals?
• Yes, but how much?
• Its wrong to be cruel to them
• Do they count equally with humans?
• Should they figure in the utilitarian calculus?
• Do they have rights?

Henry S. Salt. 1892. Animals Rights
Considered in Relation to Social Progress
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Equality the Moral Community

• Why should only humans count?
• Only humans are rational, and rationality is
  essential to membership
• Only humans are moral, and humans have duties
  only to other beings with moral responsibilities
• Only humans have souls, and we have duties only
  to those with souls
• Only humans have language
• Only humans think and are self-aware
• Only humans value their own lives
• Only humans are ends-in-themselves (Kant 1785)
• Only humans feel pain (Descartes)

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Speciesism

• Denying a member of another species access to the
  satisfaction of its well-being on the basis of
  its species alone (species loyalty)
• Using or exploiting a member of another species
  for purposes that the being would not permit were
  it not captive

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Engineering Animals

• If animals have inherent value or are
  ends-in-themselves
• Is it wrong to change their nature?
• Is it wrong to alter their genetic structure?
• Would it be wrong to change the nature of a human?

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