Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
utilitarian perceives “human interest” as more important than the interests of anim-
als—will be quantified and set against the severe disutility to animals that all of the
above practices involve. The result would most probably suggest that the examined
practice needs to be eradicated.
How, then, does a nonutilitarian, non-rights-based approach respond to someone
saying that product safety, the advancement of science, or mere human pleasure over-
rides even intense harm done to animals? Specific responses will be taken up in fol-
lowing chapters. But it is important to acknowledge from the start, that no response
we can make can appease an opponent that insists on such claims. Like other areas
within ethics, basic assumptions, preferences, and sensitivities cannot be conclusively
proved. One cannot, for instance,
prove
that child molesting or rape is a wrong if the
assumptions underlying this judgment are consistently called into question. Someone
who, for example, genuinely refuses to see the child's potential suffering as offsetting
the molester's intense pleasure cannot be corrected via logically compelling arguments
that would enforce on him his mistake. Moral transformation in the past—banishing
slavery or the social subordination of women to men—has required curtailing one
group's privileges and pleasures relative to another. This process never involved (im-
possibly)
proving
that, say, a world that cultivates equality among men and women is
morally superior to a patriarchal system, or that a slaveless world is manifestly better.
The moral dimensions of such processes (setting aside the nonmoral factors) involved
an intensifying sense of moral disharmony within a growing number of people, sens-
ing that some forms of suffering or unequal treatment can no longer be justified, and
that these call for change. Moral reform in such domains is less a matter of offering
argument and more of creating and accommodating perception of hitherto unobserved
suffering, or of facilitating a vivid grasp of wrongs that have been superficially ra-
tionalized away. Such denaturalization of time-honored customs and institutions in turn
leads to their modification or replacement.
The role of philosophical argument in such a process is mostly limited to destabil-
ization and refutation of the justificatory basis of the existing institutions. They show
that certain deprivations and thwarting of interests cannot be upheld. They also appeal
to internal coherence within one's moral perceptions and judgments, claiming that
achieving such coherence entails reform. Finally, like abolitionism and feminism, an-
imal liberationists try to create a fairer world, one in which avoidable suffering is re-
duced or eliminated. They cannot modify the thinking of someone who is genuinely
unmoved by these sentiments and convictions. But in this regard, rights advocates and
pro-animal utilitarians are not on firmer ground than single-stage thinking. Consistent
antiliberationists can always insist that human interests override rights-possessing an-
