animals

Billy or BoBo?

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.

J.S. MillUtilitarianism

If I tread wantonly on a woodlouse, I do wrong… But it is only a very small wrong, and… Little wrongs have to be done, in order that greater wrongs may be avoided. If I kill a Colorado beetle, I do wrong by the beetle; but, if I fail to kill it, I do wrong by all the growers and consumers of potatoes, and their interests are vastly more important.

AM MacIver“Ethics and the Beetle”

It seems generally to be held that human life is infinitely more valuable than animal life: there is no number of animals, however, great, that is worth the sacrifice of even one human being.

T Goodrich“The Morality of Killing”

First Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are intelligent (or have the potential for intelligence).

But there is no prejudice to which we are all more accustomed from our earliest years than the belief that dumb animals think. Our only reason for this belief is the fact that we see that many of the organs of animals are not very different from ours… [so] we believe that there is a single principle within us which causes these motions— namely the soul, which I have defined as a thinking substance. I soon saw clearly that they could all originate from the corporeal and mechanical principle, and I thenceforward regarded it as certain and established that we cannot at all prove the presence of a thinking soul in animals.

Rene DescartesDiscourse on Method

First Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are intelligent (or have the potential for intelligence).

First Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are intelligent (or have the potential for intelligence).

Second Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are self-aware (or have the potential for self-awareness).

It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, if by this term it is implied that he reflects on such points, as whence he comes or whither he will go, or what is life and death, and so forth.

Charles DarwinThe Descent of Man

In a series of experiments, the elephants first explored the mirror -- reaching behind it with their trunks, kneeling before it and even trying to climb it -- gathering clues that the mirror image was just that, an image. That was followed by an eerie sequence in which the animals made slow, rhythmic movements while tracking their reflections. Then, like teenagers, they got hooked...

…all three conducted oral self-exams. Maxine, a 35-year-old female, even used the tip of her trunk to get a better look inside her mouth. She also used her trunk to slowly pull her ear in front of the mirror so she could examine it -- "self-directed" behaviors the zookeepers had never seen before… Moreover, one elephant, Happy, 34, passed the most difficult measure of self-recognition: the mark test. The researchers painted a white X on her left cheek, visible only in the mirror. Later, after moving in and out of view of the mirror, Happy stood directly before the reflective surface and touched the tip of her trunk to the mark repeatedly -- an act that, among other insights, requires an understanding that the mark is not on the mirror but on her body.

The Seattle TimesOctober 31st 2006

Third Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans have a soul.

Third Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans have a soul.