Ethics

Ethics Study Guide

©2018 Achieve Page 69 of 116 includes the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. Animal rights activists argue that all animals are sentient in that they can feel pleasure and pain. This, in turn, entails the presumption of certain moral rights and ought to entail some legal rights. According to Princeton University professor Peter Singer, the sole criterion for moral standing is sentience. Singer further states that equal consideration does not imply equal treatment. He does not claim that any animal’s life is as valuable as any human’s life. According to bioethicist Bonnie Steinbock, there are morally good reasons humans are more important than animals, affirming speciesism . Although she does think that the issue of pain in animals should be considered, the issue is not as important as that of human pain. She claims animals Biocentrism (Eco-centrism) The opposite of anthropocentrism is biocentrism (eco-centrism). While anthropocentrism argues in favor of a worldview centering solely on humans and only recognizes value in human beings, biocentrism states that everything in nature has value. The Judeo-Christian tradition is blamed by most eco-centrics as the primary source of anthropocentric thought. They are also highly critical of the notion that we should have a greater understanding of nature in order to have greater power over nature. They reject the implication that nature is subservient to man. Paul Taylor described the three fundamental points of biocentrism in his book Respect for Nature . His arguments are integral to the philosophy of deep ecology : 1. People must not harm any part of nature that has inherent value. 2. People must not try to control or change natural ecosystems. 3. People must respect and protect animals. When applied, these ideas oppose hunting and fishing, and would call for vegetarianism. Taylor diverges from some environmentalists by not placing value on non-living objects in nature. In 1970, Richard Ryder coined the term speciesism , which refers to the widely held belief that the human species is inherently superior to other species. Based on this premise, humans have rights and privileges that are otherwise denied to other sentient animals. Ryder purposely used the term as a wake-up call to challenge the morality of the current practices where non-human animals were exploited in research and farming, domestically and in the wild. Ryder drew a conscious parallel with the terms racism and sexism when coining the term, pointing out that all such prejudices are simply based on physical differences that have little moral relevance. He further asserts that the moral implication of Darwinism is that all sentient animals, humans included, should retain a similar moral status. Many distinguishing features of humanity (extreme intelligence, complex languages, etc.) are not apparent in marginal cases such as the young or mentally disabled. Because of this, it is apparent that the only distinction for humans to retain superiority over other sentient animals is based on species alone. Sentience