Nasty, brutish, and short: The illiberal intuition that animals don't count
✍ Scribed by Angus Taylor
- Book ID
- 104650228
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 814 KB
- Volume
- 30
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-5363
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In short," says Jan Narveson, "animals do not fundamentally count. People do. People come first. ''1
In this essay I argue that Narveson's contractarian view of morality contradicts his professed liberalism, and that a consistently liberal ethic must recognize many (non-human) animals as members of the moral community. A liberal ethic views as ends-in-themselves all who are subjectively concerned for their own good, and who have the ability in some way to choose what is best for themselves. It thus enjoins us to refrain from interfering with the actions of any being that is competent to manage its life, except where such interference is necessary to protect us from harm. In this light I proceed to argue that all sentient beings have inherent value, and I contend that a modified version of the deep-ecology principle of vital needs helps explain why, even though people sometimes come first, many animals have rights that may be overridden only in unusual circumstances. What the liberal imperative comes down to, roughly, is this: if another creature doesn't want you to interfere with it, then you shouldn't, if you don't have to.