Ethics issues of non human life and death

• What does Jeremy Bentham argue about the moral status of animals?


  He argues that having a moral status comes from the ability to feel pleasure and pain; animals can feel pleasure and pain, therefore according to Bentham they have a moral status.
• What are the facts about animals?

  -animals have consciousness and are self aware (sentient).

  -animals exhibit complex social organisation and behavioural patterns, emotional responses and self-directed behaviour. They can grieve and show empathy.

  -animals possess cognitive skills, the most intelligent animals possess long-term memory.
• What are the four ethical issues that arise from these facts?

  The use of animals for food; intensive farming. Use of animals in scientific procedures; cloning. Blood sports. Animals as a source of organ transplants.
• What is intensive farming and the ethical issues that arise from it?

  Intensive farming can include farming animals in tiny crates for fur, animals being skinned alive for the benefit of humans who wish to wear fur. In the food industry, most animals live in crowded/filthy conditions, and suffer painful procedures e.g dehorning, debeaking, having their tails cut off, often without anaesthetic.

  Ethical issues involve: the moral right of humans to inflict pain and suffering on other animals who possess sentience, social organisation and cognitive skills. The issue of whether animals have a right to life. The fact that the meat industry contributes to human starvation as e.g cattle consume around fifteen times more grain than they can produce as meat. It may be ethically preferable then to decrease meat production and increase that of grain and other crops.
• What does using animals in scientific procedures and cloning mean? What are the ethical issues that arise from it?

  'Scientific procedures' refers to, for example, using animals to develop drugs and medicines to treat human condition and diseases; using animals as test subjects. E.g penicillin was developed from research on mice. Animals are widely used in oncology (study of the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer/tumours).

  Cloning refers to the process of producing genetically identical copies of animals. This technology has a number of applications like preserving endangered species, 'improving' animals to make them disease-resistant or to increase meat/fur yield, therapeutic cloning of cells in order to understand diseases and test medicine.

  Ethical issues involve the moral right of humans to do research without consent on other animals who possess sentience, social organisation and cognitive skills. The fact that some scientists use no anaesthetic on animals at all. Duplication of experiments in different countries. For cloning, where technology might lead e.g human-animal hybrids.
• What is blood sports and the ethical issues involved?

  Sports that involve animal bloodshed/death of the animal. E.g hunting, fishing, bull-fighting. Blood sports are for the entertainment of those who participate.

  Ethical issues: the moral right of humans to kill animals who possess sentience, social organisation and cognitive skills, for their own entertainment. The negative effect on human psychology as those who participate can become desensitised to animal suffering and can transfer it to their treatment of humans.
• What is animals as a source of organ transplant for humans and it's ethical issues?

  The technical term for this is 'xenotransplantation' which is the transfer of cells/tissues/organs from one species to another. For example: the transplantation of human tumour cells into mice for research on tumours/cancers. Our aim is to use pig hearts that have been genetically engineered to give life saving heart transplants to humans.

  Ethical issues: the moral right of humans to use and kill animals who possess sentience, social organisation and cognitive skills as sources of body parts for humans. The risks of the various procedures, particularly the transfer of disease from animals to humans.