Ethics of Animal Rights: Debates & Perspectives

1. Chapter 17: Animal Rights • Background - Animals in research and experimentation - Proper treatment of animals • Sentience • Causing pain • Relieving pain

2. Chapter 17: Animal Rights • Animal Rights • Rights as legitimate claims • Legal rights and moral rights • Animals have interests • Arguments for animals rights • Sentetience

3. Chapter 17: Animal Rights • Animal Experimentation • History of the practice • History of the opposition • Is it really necessary? • Questions about the extent of the pain • The positions on the use of nonhuman animals on research

4. Chapter 17: continued • Endangered Species • Examples • Anthropocentric • Can a species have moral standing, intrinsic value rights? • What is a species?

5. Chapter 17: continued • Reading: All Animals are Equal • The example of the equality of women • The nature of human equality • The rejection of factual equality • The advocacy of moral equality • Undermining racism and sexism

6. Chapter 17: continued • Speciesism and Jeremy Bentham • “Each to count for one and none for more than one.” • If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. • Equality vs. rights • When are experiments justifiable?

7. Chapter 17: continued • Reading: Speciesism and the Idea of Equality • Only relevant differences can justify a difference in treatment. • Why racism and sexism are different from speciesism

8. Chapter 17: continued • Various views on equality and rights-ascription • Do certain capacities entitle their possessors to privileged position in the moral community? • Is all suffering equal? • Responsibility and reciprocation

9. Chapter 17: continued • Animals lack the minimum level of intelligence necessary to acquire full moral status • What about human beings who also do not meet this minimum?