New Home Page

OK, so I got carried away with "the science of duty" theme (that is the literal meaning of deontology) by entitling my home page thus in recent days. It is perhaps funny because it is understandable that a deontological moral theoretician would do that even though nonscholars would never have heard of the idea. But we can speak of the science of ethics more generally, with other aspects than just duty. Also, as dramatic as it is to finally succeed in a science of duty unlike previous neo-Kantian frameworks (intuitionist as they are), a much more universal appeal for scholars and activists is predicted in the form of Winning the Animal Rights Debate, the new title of my website. I think this one, accompanied by new copy, is here to stay, and it is in keeping with my soon-to-be-published book, Universal Animal Rights: Winning the Ethical Debate. Enjoy!

Last in the Crisis Series: Transcending Logically Incoherent Definitions of Speciesism

As a side-note, some will have noticed my renaming my website "The Science of Duty," which is the meaning of "deontology." "Liberation Unlimited," the previous title, while a noble idea, does not reflect certain unavoidable limitations in the way that I would like. The new title also captures something distinctive in what I am doing.

Note that technically this would be Crisis #7 in the crises listed in blog entry (37). I am skipping Crisis #6, and reserve addressing that and the remaining crises I listed to my upcoming book, Universal Animal Rights.

Joan Dunayer, in her book, Speciesism, takes to task, for their inadequate definitions of speciesism, the two most well-known writers in animal ethics: Peter Singer and Tom Regan. Singer defines speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias towards the interests or members of one’s own species and against members of other species.” (Singer, 1990, p. 1) She rightly objects that this definition only allows favoring the human species over nonhuman species, but humans can also favor one nonhuman species over another, such as more humanlike creatures (e.g., chimpanzees) over other species, or domesticated animals over wild animals (Dunayer, 2004, p. 2)—or, I would add, wildlife over domesticates. She also observes that Singer defines speciesism in another context as a preference for humans simply on the ground of species, (Singer, 2003, p. 23) but this is like saying that racists only discriminate on the basis of so-called “race,” as opposed to (supposedly) associated characteristics such as skin color. (Dunayer, 2004, p. 2) She is right that it would be wrong to discriminate on the basis of skin color just as it may well be wrong to discriminate on the basis of characteristics supposedly associated with certain species, such as superior rationality. She notes that Regan also defines speciesism merely as favoring humans, (Regan, 2001, pp. 170, 181) although, as I readily concede, speciesism is not necessarily limited to that. I believe she is right that a precise and functional definition of speciesism is required for ethics, and she makes some good points against previous definitions. However, I do not find that her own attempt to define “speciesism” is always more successful or rigorous than the efforts of her intellectual predecessors.

Dunayer defines speciesism as: “A failure, in attitude or practice, to accord any nonhuman being equal consideration and respect.” (Dunayer, 2004, p. 5) I would mount five criticisms of this concept:

1. A stone is a “nonhuman being,” so according to this definition any granting of unequal consideration to a pebble is “speciesist.”
   
2. If she insists that stones are not of any living species and are therefore ruled out (although not, I would add, by her actual definition), it must be conceded that plants are nonhuman beings of different species, and so her definition logically requires that we not discriminate against them either (which is certainly not her actual position). In her book she routinely refers to “nonhuman rights” instead of animal rights when she means “nonhuman animal rights,” but again her language, on the face of it, refers to the rights of rocks and roses (which again she does not mean—but she should say what she means).
   
3. She observes, in agreement with the philosopher, Paola Cavalieri, that speciesism could “be used to describe any form of discrimination based on species.” (Cavalieri, 2001, p. 70). Yet veterinarians routinely discriminate treatments or foods for animals on the basis of species. It is unjust—and frequently harmful—discrimination that is the problem in oppression, not just any form of discrimination.
   
4. Her definition is oddly anthropocentric, or it only allows for speciesist discrimination against nonhumans. However, there are important cases of arbitrary and harmful discrimination against human animals:
   
   1. a misanthrope may revere nonhuman animals while detesting human beings and so discriminate against humans in a speciesist fashion; or
      
   2. a thought experiment sometimes used in animal ethics is that an alien species could conquer Earth and enslave humans or eat them, etc., which would also arguably be speciesist.
5. Finally, built into her definition is the strong presumption that all nonhuman beings, by which she actually means nonhuman sentient beings, morally need to be given equal consideration in all contexts, and she seems to imply that if it came to a choice between saving a human or a grasshopper, both would have to be equally weighted—however I develop this last line of criticism in my book.

I anticipate my book, which will be out there in about five months’ time, by defining speciesism simply as unjust discrimination on the basis of species or species-characteristics. These characteristics may be real or only alleged. This should capture all true cases of speciesism and not encompass other forms of discrimination that are not speciesist. Some will immediately question whether justice applies to those of other species. However, justice involves equitable allotments of benefits and protections (i.e., no one could coherently state that inequitable benefits/protections are just). Benefits and protections can fully meaningfully apply to nonhuman sentient beings, so a refusal to be equitable in this respect is therefore precisely the willful negation of equity, or inequitable—ergo unjust. Speciesism is not just a case of being nonequitable, as we may be in deciding the fate of rocks, since equity does not logically apply to stones. It is a category mistake to apply equity to stones. However, equity does apply to beings with interests, otherwise it could not apply to human interests. So negating equity for beings with interests is an arbitrary refusal or unwillingness to be equitable, or a negation of logically applicable equity, and so is inequitable. Being nonequitable to stones is not a vice, but being inequitable to sentient beings is. Justice does straightforwardly apply to beings of other species even if someone is simply unwilling to apply it.

Justice, or equitable allotment of protections and benefits (the highest form of justice on best caring is championing the best for each and every sentient being), is not the same as equal consideration, a concept favoured by Peter Singer, Gary Francione, and Joan Dunayer, for example. Equal consideration means treating like cases alike unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. However, any ethical theory can provide equal consideration, including ethical egoism, which also has an intrinsic reason to deny favorable treatment to animals—i.e., it is not in the interest of human egoists. We cannot deny this to be a “good” reason without simply begging the question against the theory. Yet ethical egoism, for all of its equal consideration, is unjust, since it is manifestly inequitable to seek to benefit and protect ego above all, and only to benefit/protect others in essentially self-serving ways. Ethical egoism is just only if inequity is justice.

It might be objected that speciesism is a form of oppression rather than injustice. However, oppression is conceptually linked to injustice. To oppress linguistically derives from “pressing down” upon others. Yet although defending against an attacker may “press down” upon that individual, it is not necessarily oppressive since it is not automatically unjust to defend against violence. Or it is not unjust to suffer unavoidable pain at the hand of a surgeon. So oppression is actually essentially linked not only to harm but also to injustice.

Speciesist discrimination need not even be harmful, at least in any straightforward sense, since it would also be speciesist to exercise favoritism in the dispensation of benefits. As well, not all harmful discrimination is unjust, such as when we punish a criminal. It may not be unjust, as well, to judge or discriminate arbitrarily, e.g., with respect to a medical patient’s line of treatment, which we might only be able to guess at, in trying to discriminate what is best, among other possible paths for treatment (note that guessing involves arbitrariness). My definition of speciesism, unlike Singer’s and Regan’s, accounts for:

1. unjustly favoring certain nonhuman species over others;
2. discrimination based on species characteristics;
3. ruling out as unacceptable, unlike Dunayer, equality for gravel and grass—let alone (in all contexts) grasshoppers;
4. rejecting speciesist misanthropy; and
5. ruling in as acceptable many forms of beneficial species-discrimination.

We therefore have, through careful thinking, a concept of speciesism that we can use in the animal rights debate which survives all known objections, unlike earlier conceptions.

Works Cited

Cavalieri, Paola. 2001. The animal question: why nonhuman animals deserve human rights. 2d ed. Translated by Catherine Woollard. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dunayer, Joan. 2005. Reply to a self-proclaimed speciesist. Vegan Voice 14 (September-November).

Dunayer, Joan. 2004. Speciesism. Derwood: Ryce Publishing.

Regan, Tom. 2001. The case for animal rights. In Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, The animal rights debate. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Singer, Peter. 2003. Animal liberation at 30. New York Review of Books, 15 May: 23-26.

Singer, Peter. 1990. Animal liberation, 2d ed. New York: Avon Books.

Two Announcements

I have two announcements.

First, the title of my book, now due out in October, is a secret no longer, nor is the name of my publisher. My book is announced on the website of Palgrave Macmillan (one of the most prestigious academic book publishers) dedicated to a new book series by the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. The title is: Universal Animal Rights: Winning the Ethical Debate.

Second, Part 2 of my essays on animals an normative sociology has been published. This essay has some special features:

1. The first ethical system ever truly to use the scientific method of gathering evidence for hypotheses, or so I argue. Best caring is given its most rigorous defence yet in print (the book will of course offer considerably more).
   
2. A very extensive critique of intuitionism (although the book goes further). Any ethic that relies on intuitionism is propaganda, or exploiting what people already believe. For example, Francione propagandizes that we ought to avoid unnecessary suffering, as countless laws state. However, this approach does nothing to justify this principle, making it propaganda, or comfortably getting people to extend what they already happen to believe IF the audience agrees. In fact, one of the overarching goals of philosophy is to justify beliefs, not play on them, as the form of propaganda persuasion goes. Of course the intuitionist approach can rationally leverage nothing against competing intuitions of other theories. This is a particularly apt example since Francione prejudicially appeals to an animal rights sense of "unnecessary suffering." He ignores the traditional, different sense of that phrase (see my blog entry for July 28, 2007). It is as though he is playing "peek-a-boo" and only sees the animal rights sense, covering his eyes against the other sense (recall his claim, cited in the earlier blog entry, that animal exploitation is unnecesary suffering in whatever sense one uses the phrase in question).
   
3. A hint of how I go about the task of answering skepticism in ethics; most animal ethics people do not even tackle this fundamental issue.
   
4. Showing how sociology can be done powered by a liberationist ethic.
   

Enjoy, and peace be with you!

Crisis # 5b: Failing to Object Decisively to Other Theories

It is a great problem not only when philosophers lack a sufficient justification of their own views. My earlier remarks on intuitionism in ethics, among others, suffice to illuminate this problem. It is also problematic when philosophers deal in unconvincing objections to other theories. Here I will use Tom Regan as an example. Many consider him to be the greatest animal rights philosopher, and admire The Case for Animal Rights (1983) not least of all since it considers views that compete with animal rights and tries to refute them.

Ethical Egoism

Regan objects specifically to ethical egoism, in The Case for Animal Rights, p. 190, in that such self-orientation involves no direct duty to mentally disabled humans. However, it merely describes ethical egoism to note that that it does not involve a direct duty to animals or mentally disabled humans. Someone who agrees with the theory would have no problem with this feature. Regan, then, is surreptitiously relying on the fact that many people would find such a result to be counterintuitive, and so his criticism is based on intuitions after all, with all of the problems that such an approach entails. Instead of showing that ethical egoism is mistaken, he is merely assuming as much.

Perfectionism

Consider now Regan’s objections to what he calls “perfectionism.” Perfectionism values above all those with talents or excellences. Regan notes, p. 234, that perfectionism may result in a caste-like system based on talents. However, that would not be offensive to perfectionists such as Nietzsche. Or, Ibid., Regan argues that favoring more perfect people means giving people credit for a “natural lottery”—no one has control over what talents they have. However, perfectionists might not care where talents come from, but admire them anyway, much as we favor certain kinds of weather regardless of its origin. He objects, Ibid., p. 262, that perfectionism does not treat others as if they have a welfare, and thus inherent value. However, a perfectionist such as Aristotle would acknowledge that “natural [human] slaves” have a welfare. Slaves are just entitled to less welfare, according to Aristotle, and on that view these slaves would have either no inherent value or else a lesser degree of it.

Regan gives two reasons for shifting gears and now favoring egalitarianism: (1) people with less virtue (or overall good as superiorism would have it) would be treated with “injustice” and would not be able to complain about it because they “deserve” it, and (2) it would be hard to judge degrees of inherent value. (pp. 236-237) He simply declares dogmatically, with no other justification offered: “Such an interpretation of justice is unacceptable.” (p. 237) However, (1) begs the question. The perfectionist would insist that yes, people with less virtue do deserve less moral consideration. As for (2), it may be true so far as it goes, but if it is the truth (and Regan is again begging the question assuming that perfectionism is not right) then the best we can do is to estimate degrees of inherent value and thus prefer to save humans over squirrels in dilemmas for example, without being able to pin any absolute numbers to such a preference.

Utilitarianism

Regan objects to Peter Singer’s utilitarianism, his greatest theoretical rival, and also his greatest competition for intellectual leadership of the animal liberation movement. However, Singer can easily reply to most of these criticisms. Regan objects that utilitarianism can justify racism, sexism, or speciesism (Case, pp. 227, 313). Singer can reply that these practices are ruled out because of the suffering and unequal consideration of interests that these forms of oppression cause. Regan objects that economic interests in exploiting animals are irrelevant, but this begs the question against utilitarianism’s consideration of this factor, and Singer can add that if meat-eating were banned, the overall stress of career changes would be outweighed by the immense suffering that is inflicted upon animals raised for flesh-eating. My own ethic’s ruling out of aggression—not based on intuitions as is Regan’s approach—does however suggest that certain professions are indeed unethical.

Regan takes exception to utilitarianism’s viewing of individuals as mere receptacles of value (p. 205), but Singer plausibly maintains that individuals are inseparable from their experiences, unlike wine in relation to a cup (Peter Singer, ‘Animal Liberation or Animal Rights?’ Monist 70 (January 1987): 8). Singer also concedes Regan’s key points in The Case for Animal Rights that animals are subjects-of-a-life with inherent value, are not mere things, have preferences and a welfare, and are not to be used as mere means. (Ibid., p. 6) A utilitarian can state that someone used in invasive experiments is not being used as a mere means because their interests are fully considered—they are simply outweighed. Sumner indicates that “utilitarians are committed to believing that it is a good thing (a gain) when an individual life goes well and a bad thing (a loss) when one goes badly.” (L. W. Sumner, review of The Case for Animal Rights, by Tom Regan, Nous 20 (September 1986): 431-32) However, Sumner also warns: “It is not obvious on the face of it that respect for the inherent value of individuals is entirely insensitive to global cost/benefit considerations. Regan simply makes this so by stipulation.” (L. W. Sumner, ‘Animal Welfare and Animal Rights’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 13 (May 1988): 167) Obviously I am not the only one to notice that Regan misfires objections at other theories. There are still more objections to utilitarianism that just don’t fly.

Regan alleges that Singer faces a dilemma: that the principle of equal consideration of interests is either a basic principle, or else is derived from the principle of utility. He claims that making the equality principle basic undermines the idea that the principle of utility is basic. Yet Regan’s contention overlooks the fact that the equal consideration of interests is part of what is constitutive of Singer’s utilitarianism, so, after all, the equality principle is perfectly consistent with utility as a basic principle. The other supposed horn of “Singer’s dilemma,” that it may not maximize utility to consider interests equally, is unintelligible, since given that the equality principle of Singer’s helps to constitute utilitarianism, one cannot even calculate maximal utility without presupposing an equal consideration of interests. If some interests are to be favored more than others in a given action according to utilitarian reckoning, that is a result that still depends on treating equivalent interests equally (for example, someone who really is interested in a course of study may be granted a seat in a course that is refused to someone who is known to have a much lesser preference for studying the given subject). Here Regan is confusing the equal consideration of interests in calculating which act maximizes utility (which is what the utilitarians assert and is untouched by Regan’s remarks), and whether it is most utile to equally promote all interests in the final analysis (inequality can be equitable, Singer would no doubt agree). Regan tediously elaborates this misguided criticism in pp. 211-218 of The Case for Animal Rights. Regan resists the idea that the equality principle could be a “formal principle” because it is possible to have moral principles, such as Kant’s, which do not include Singer’s equality principle. However, the formality requirement must be that Singer’s utilitarianism presupposes his equality principle (which it does), not that all moral theories presuppose it. Why must all ethical theories agree with Singer’s? This is never made clear because it cannot be: it is way off-base.

Regan’s main objection to rule utilitarianism in The Case for Animal Rights, p. 252-55, is that moral agent A might be envious if moral agent B is favored by rules against harming, but cognitively disadvantaged humans who are barely aware may not envy others because they would not know what they are missing. But rule utilitarianism is not based on envy. It seeks to maximize the welfare of everybody, including cognitively disadvantaged humans. So this objection is entirely beside the point.

In my blog entry for July 7, 2009, we have already seen that Regan has unsuccessful objections against medical vivisection, and that his theory actually seems unwillingly to conduce towards such a kind of practice.

Animal ethics does not just require justifying one’s own theory of animal ethics (although that in itself is a mighty task), but also ruling out the competition (another formidable challenge). This Regan and other philosophers fail to do in my opinion. I use Regan as an example, but could easily expand this study to look at the work of other thinkers. By contrast, good criticisms will show that the premises do not entail the conclusions drawn, or logically entail absurdities, or are essentially arbitrary or even unintelligible. Those are the sorts of criticisms that I mount in my forthcoming book on animal rights ethics.

Panel Discussion on Anti-Vivisection

Please see a panel discussion on anti-vivisection at the University of Toronto, from April 21, 2010 as broadcasted on YouTube. I am the first speaker on ethics, whereas Tracey Tiefenbach, biocehmist, and Nicholas Wright, lawyer, address other aspects of the topic. The linked page on my website orders the set of videos which YouTube oddly enough does not facilitate.

M. A. Fox's Advance Praise for My Book

Professor Michael Allen Fox is a very special person. (See background on this philosopher in my entry for January 15, 2010.) He has given me permission to quote freely from his Foreword. It brilliantly sets the stage for an in-depth discussion of the moral status of animals, and also gives the reader his estimation of the value of my book, which he describes as "excellent and original...so rich in insights and reasonings...David deserves enormous acclaim...David's "best caring ethics"..."advocate[s] what is best all beings considered," as the ideal by which we should always act. Expounding what this means, leads through a fascinating and incredibly wide range of topics, each of interest in itself and also for what it contributes to the argument of the book as a whole. David takes the reader through nothing less than a review of the entire field of ethics, various attempts to exclude animals from it or to include them within it, and finally to a result that embraces animals and nature and, in the best Hegelian sense, subsumes yet surpasses all other ethical views. This is no mean accomplishment...[this book] is a magnificent and provocative work that not only challenges us to abandon rigid thought-patterns and change our ethical view about animals, but also creates a new starting-point for the philosophical discussion of animal rights. In an equally significant achievement, David shows us that an ethics which includes animals is a better, stronger one for humans as well. One could hardly ask for more." [emphasis added]

I would like to clarify that I am not a Hegelian, as anyone familiar with my work would know. It would also be clear if my book will one day find its way into your hands. Dr. Fox is a Hegel scholar who wrote a book on said philosopher. He is referring to Hegel's theory of the historical progression of ideas, such that new ideas ideally will improve on the old while also capturing what is best about previous notions. Hegel himself is an intuitionist who believed that the highest state of knowledge is a kind of intuition. I am an anti-intuitionist as you might have gathered from my blog and other writings.

Michael Fox is no casual observer of ethics. He has been a professor of moral philosophy for some three decades at one of Canada’s top research institutions: Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Students are not even admitted there without an ‘A’ average. He has tried to articulate his own ethical view on various issues in a professional capacity, and has written many books and articles on well-known philosophers such as G. W. F. Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer, including a study of their moral thinking. Dr. Fox has plumbed the depths of moral skepticism, doing a book-length study on the existentialists. He has taught thousands of undergraduate and graduate students in classroom and seminar settings. He is esteemed as one of the leading scholars in animal ethics. Therefore we should really value what Professor Fox has to say about matters ethical in philosophy. Certainly it means a lot to me.

I hope this will enliven your curiosity to read this, my main life's work so far! Fox's comments surely encourage me as my next book is planned to be a book on ethical theory.

Singer Thanks Me for Setting the Record Straight

(Thank you for your patience if you had trouble accessing this site for the past week. I was the victim of a hacker.)

I wrote to Peter Singer to let him know about my exposing how Francione has been distorting the former's views. Singer personally thanked me for dispelling Francione's misconceptions and resulting misrepresentations. Francione purports to be an expert on animal personhood as the title of his latest book suggests, Animals as Persons, so it is disappointing that he gets wrong one of the main writers in animal ethics on the topic of personhood and killing. It is customary to acknowledge Peter Singer and Tom Regan as the two chief writers in animal ethics.