Issues of non-human life and death

• 4 main issues:

  • use of animals as food, intensive farming
  • use of animals in scientific procedures
  • blood sports
  • animals as sources for organ transplants
• Arguments for animals having moral status:

  • exhibit rationality
  • have souls
  • conscious beings
  • can communicate
• Arguments for animals having no moral status:

  • not rational
  • no souls
  • not conscious beings
  • cannot speak
• Jeremy Benthem was a utilitarian philosopher
• Utilitarianism is the philosophy which finds the greatest happiness in situations
• "Moral status comes from the ability to feel pleasure and pain"- Jeremy Benthem
• Animals are self-aware, exhibit sentience and have consciousness
• Animals exhibit complex social and co-operative behavioural patterns, emotional responses and self-directed behaviour (can grieve and show empathy)
• Animals possess LTM and can surpass humans in STM tests
• It can be argued that animals are not as intelligent as humans (which is not necessarily true)
• It is hard to measure animal's intelligence as we can only make observations off of what we observe through a human point of view