Why Do Animals Have Inherent Value?

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As the article says, Regan’s theory requires us to divide all living things into two categories. Firstly, those that have inherent value have the same basic rights that humans have and secondly those do not have inherent value have no moral right. Personally, I disagree quite strongly with this notion, I feel that all animals, including humans have a combination of inherent value and instrumental value and that this combination is largely dependent on where the animals lies on the food chain. I say food chain because I strongly disagree with using animals for other reasons such as for fur and carpets as I feel it is immoral to gain utility from animals for decorative purposes. For example, a human would have close to 100% inherent value and …show more content…

Infant human beings do not have the same reasoning capabilities as a fully grown adult, and therefore do not have the same level of inherent value of mature humans. This does not mean that we should value them less, it only means that they must grow before they can have the same inherent value as us. Tiffany Ahn | December 8, 2014 at 9:10 pm | Log in to Reply

Saahil – nice job evaluating Regan’s theory on inherent values and where the distinction lies. I completely agree with you that there shouldn’t be any “correlation between age and inherent value.” In regards to Caroline’s comment about infant humans beings not having the same “reasoning capabilities as a fully grown adult, and therefore do not have the same level of inherent value of mature humans,” I disagree because the human beings have the potential to grow into the adult. Their inherent value does not grow, it remains constant in the being whether it is young or old. In the Abbate article, she emphasizes the need to cautious; it is not that these sentient beings aren’t fully developed yet, but that the gray lines that differentiate between things that should or shouldn’t be valued are too

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