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Human relations with animals
Kants theory of deontology
Kants theory of deontology
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A deontologist believes that irrespective of consequences some acts are deemed intrinsically wrong (Flanagan, 2016b). Kant (Flanagan, 2016b) offers the following “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. Therefore, morality is determined by the principle of the action, rather than the action itself. From a deontological stance to cause “unnecessary suffering” is intrinsically wrong, thus animals as morally innocent, vulnerable and being able to feel pain (Linzey, 2013; Rollin, 2011) are owed moral obligations. Furthermore, “ a morally considerable being is a being who can be wronged in a morally relevant sense” (Gruen, 2014). Therefore, discussion of animal vivisection in
Capital punishment is most commonly known as the death penalty or punishment by death for a crime. It is a highly controversial topic and many people and great thinkers alike have debated about it. Two well-known figures are Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Although both stand in favor of capital punishment, their reasons for coming to this conclusion are completely different. I personally stand against capital punishment, but my own personal view on it incorporates a few mixed elements from both individuals as well as my own personal insight. Firstly, in order to understand why Kant and Mill support capital punishment, we must first understand their views on punishment in general.
Deontology diverges from consequentialism because deontology concentrates on the rightness or wrongness of the actions themselves instead of the consequences. There are different types of deontological theories. According to Kant, theoretical reasoning helps us discover what we should believe whereas the practical reasoning tells us what we should do. Morality falls under theoretical reasoning. In Kantian deontology, motives matter. Rather than consequences, it is the motive of an action makes that action morally right or wrong. Likewise, if an action intends to hurt someone, but eventually it benefits the other person, then it does not make that action morally right. All in all, deontology comes down to common-sense: whether it is a good action or a bad
Imagine a puppy spending his entire life in a locked cage where he is deprived of food and water, and force-fed chemicals from time to time. This is the life of animals in a laboratory. Live-animal experimentation, also known as vivisection, is not only unethical, but also cruel and unnecessary. In the article “Vivisection is Right, but it is Nasty- and We must be Brave Enough to Admit This”, Michael Hanlon claims vivisection is a moral necessity that without the use of animals in the laboratory, humans would not have modern medicine like antibiotics, analgesic, and cancer drugs (1). For example, Hanlon believes sewing kittens’ eyelids together can aid researchers to study the effects of amblyopia in children (1). Conversely, the use of animals
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 concern is still subject to much disagreement. The political, cultural and philosophical animal liberation movement demands for a fundamental transformation of humans’ present relations to all sentient animals. They reject the idea that animals are merely human resources, and instead claim that they have value and worth in themselves. Animals are used, among other things, in basic biomedical research whose purpose is to increase knowledge about the basic processes of human anatomy. The fundamental wrong with this type of research is that it allows humans to see animals as here for them, to be surgically manipulated and exploited for money. The use of animals as subjects in biomedical research brings forth two main underlying ethical issues: firstly, the imposition of avoidable suffering on creatures capable of both sensation and consciousness, and secondly the uncertainty pertaining to the notion of animal rights.
For this essay, I chose to look at Immanuel Kant’s and John Stuart Mill’s views on the human treatment of non-human animals, specifically in the case of animal testing. I will look at Kant’s and Mill’s views separately, then the issue of the testing of animals, and finally, the philosophers’ views on the issue. I believe that both philosophers would come to the same conclusion, that animal testing is unethical in most cases.
would be unfair to use the one to the side as a means to save the
With reason being an aspect of human nature that makes humans particularly unique and valuable, it is not surprising why Immanuel Kant chose to also consider the value of humans as rational beings when developing his ethical system. In fact, he describes that with this very rational nature, human beings may be able to discover unconditional and universal moral laws. One’s will must simply be influenced by their moral duties, rather than motivations from one’s emotions or inclinations to comply. Nonetheless, to uncover the strength of this ethical position, Kant’s perspective on human nature as the basis for these moral theories requires analysis. With this being done, in light of observations intended to analyze human moral behavior, there
Vivisections, medical research that harms the research subject without providing any benefits to them, is supported by philosophy professor R.G Frey on the basis that the using and killing of animals is morally permissible because humans' quality of life exceeds animals' quality of life. Frey does not disregard the fact that vivisections harm animals, he sees no difference in the pain felt by humans and animals; nonetheless, Frey does not believe that all members of the moral community have lives of equal value. He believes that sacrificing the lives of those with less value is better than sacrificing the lives of those with higher values. Therefore, Frey defends the act of vivisections on the basis that humans' lives are of greater moral value
An ongoing conflict among the human species is that of animal cruelty, whether it be by scientific experiments, tests, or research. I frequently wonder, do the individuals performing these atrocious tasks ask themselves if what he/she is doing is ethically correct? I believe that it is not right to treat animals in such an inhumane manner, but to treat them as our own kind, for they are clever, spirited beings. These helpless animals cannot defend themselves against abuse. In my opinion, it is morally appropriate to grant the same rights to animals as we human beings acquire and to end, or even just to minimize, animal cruelty in laboratories. Although there have been some benefits of animal testing for medical prospect, alternative methods exist and may even be more effective.
Grounding for the metaphysics of morals is a foundation of Kant’s philosophy, in this book, Kant wants to build up a moral kingdom of metaphysical. At first, Kant extracted categorical imperative from the concepts of goodness, will and obligation and enacted some rational principles, then, he plans to map out moral metaphysic through categorical imperative. However, he failed to do so owing to that his theory is founded on purely idealism. Mistakes in categorical imperative reveal the inherent contradiction of Kant's theory of motivation. Therefore, from the perspective of categorical imperative and its content and logic, we can better understand Kant's moral thoughts.
There are tremendous amount of debates that go on in this world on a daily basis. One of the most talked about debates of the century is that of animal rights and experimentations. This debate, also known in the animal rights community as vivisection, is one of the most difficult to understand. Individuals have numerous different outlooks on animals. Many individuals look upon animals as companions while others see animals as an object of advancing medical techniques. No matter what ones perception is of animals, the fact remains that animals are being exploited by research facilities and cosmetics companies all throughout the world. In spite of the fact that humans frequently benefit from successful animal experimentations, the pain, and occasionally death that often occurs is not worth the human benefit. Hence, animals should not be the use of research.
Should animals be harmed to benefit mankind? This pressing question has been around for at least the past two centuries. During the early nineteenth century, animal experiments emerged as an important method of science and, in fact, marked the birth of experimental physiology and neuroscience as we currently know it. There were, however, guidelines that existed even back then which restricted the conditions of experimentation. These early rules protected the animals, in the sense that all procedures performed were done so with as little pain as possible and solely to investigate new truths. Adopting the animals? perspectives, they would probably not agree that these types of regulations were much protection, considering the unwanted pain that they felt first followed by what would ultimately be their death. But, this is exactly the ethical issue at hand. For the most part, animal rights are debated in regards to two issues: 1) whether animals have the ability to rationalize or go through a logical thought process and 2) whether or not animals are able to experience pain. However, ?it will not do simply to cite differences between humans and animals in order to provide a rational basis for excluding animals from the scope of our moral deliberations? (Rollin 7). This, Bernard Rollin claims, would be silly. He says that to do this is comparable to a person with a full head of hair excluding all bald men from his moral deliberations simply because they are bald. The true ethical question involved is, ?do these differences serve to justify a moral difference?? (Rollin 7). Also, which differences between humans and non-humans are significant enough to be considered in determining the non-human?s fate?
whether it be the best rule if it became a general rule. If, in the
During the course of medical research, animals are being deployed in painful ways and used in many experiments to test new discoveries or treatments. It is morally wrong to harm and cause pain or distress to animals in any way during the course of medical research because animals are part of the moral society and therefore should be treated with equity and respect. According to the theory of utilitarianism, the act is moral if it yields the results of pleasure and no pain and produces the greatest goods for the greatest number of people where everyone counts equally in society. According to Jeremy Bentham’s version of utilitarianism, everyone is counted and valued equally in society and this includes animals as well. (Collier & Haliburton, 2011, p. 5-6) Even if the uses of animal testing in medical research produce goods for the society in terms of
A deontologist asserts that you should do your duty even if you or others suffer as a consequence. Deontology is seen as an obligation to protect regardless of the impact it has on others, whether it be people, animals, and/or the environment and so on. “Deontology focuses on the duties and obligations one has in carrying out actions rather than on the consequences of those actions” (Mosser, 2013). According to deontologist Immanuel Kant, when doing your duty as a deontologist there are “categorical imperatives” that should be followed. In other words there are exceptions for why one is not taking action. “All imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically” (Kant,