Peter Singer's Argument On The Moral Status Of Nonhuman Animals
Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals
Peter Singer is a utilitarian philosopher that believes we should accept the principle of equal consideration of interests. This principle states that all beings, both human and nonhuman animals should have their interests considered with the same weighting. Singer believes this principle must be adopted to avoid becoming speciesist: defined as the preference of one species over another species. He compares this practice to racism and sexism but instead of discriminating by race or sex, we discriminate by species. Through careful consideration of Singer’s argument and objections, we are able to reject his claim that a nonhuman animal has the same interests as a human.
Singer’s argument is based on two pillars – the belief that speciesism is wrong, and by extension, the only fair way to base equal interest is not by race or sex but some other factor such as the ability to suffer or feel pleasure. Singer argues that it is wrong for us to privilege our species just as it is wrong to privilege whites over blacks or males over females. He states that there are
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If humans wanted to test beauty product that give us marginal benefits we would find some “suffering sponge” that feels no pleasure and suffers less than any other sentient creature. We are now justified to test products solely on that one species because it suffers the least. This is a bad outcome for Singer’s case. Singer wishes all sentient animals to have the same consideration of interests. In the case of the suffering sponge, the species becomes subservient to those of other species: the interests of the suffering sponge become lesser than those of other species. Again, Singer could either accept this as a bad outcome of his argument or contest by saying the suffering sponge is not sentient. The counter would again be that his argument against the sentience of the sponge is
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