SE-issues on non human life and death

• What does SE think about animals?

  Fletchers SE is concerned with persons (personalism being a key presupposition), agape love in the Bible is also primarly concerned with persons so human interests will generally be put first. Many who agree with SE do see animals as being included in Gods love since agape love is inclusive rather than exclusive and there is no intrinsic reason why it should not apply to animals as objects of human care. In life or death situations, however, most situation ethicists would put human life before animal life.
• How may different followers of situation ethics respond to the issue of using animals as food; intensive farming?

  -some who follow situation ethics would argue that the most loving thing to do in this global situation is to increase intensive animal farming and the mechanisms of agriculture, since this puts persons first. They might argue that the spectacle of starving children is worse than the practice of intensive animal farming.

  -other situation ethicists could argue that this in not loving, because the calculations maximise misery rather than love, and look for a short-term rather than long-term solutions to the problem. The fact is that meat industry contributes to human starvation, since cattle consume around 15x more grain than they can produce as meat and so it could be seen as more loving to abandon intensive animal farming for more productive methods. Factory farming should therefore be abandoned in favour of the production of crops or new technologies should be developed for growing meat in laboratories. This solution would be pragmatic and treat animals as objects of loving concern.
• How would situation ethics respond to the use of animals in scientific procedures; cloning?

  -Fletcher himself was involved in cloning and had clear views on bio-ethics. He advocated the use of animals in scientific procedures as a means to the end of human welfare and as a pragmatic way of saving lives by the development of vaccines for the major diseases that cause humans so much suffering.

  -most of those who support situation ethics would support using animals for scientific experiments but would also stress adequate control of pain for the animals concerned. This is the most practical, effective and agapeic ways of addressing the general problem of human disease.

  -the agapeic end of human welfare is achieved by the means of animal testing. The end justifies the means.

  -some argue however that it can never be loving to subject an animal to the kinds of test that the experimentation requires.

  -public opinion is generally not in favour of animal cloning, because of the effects on the animal itself and because of the uncertainty about where animal cloning will lead.
• How would situation ethics respond to blood sports?

  -blood sports may damage someone's character, perhaps leading to other forms of violence and desensitises people into allowing people to inflict pain for pleasure.

  -there is arguably nothing agapeic about blood sports, Oscar Wilde described the occupation of the English country Gentleman galloping after a fox as, 'the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.' Its ban in England, Scotland and Wales would appear to support the view that fox-hunting is unethical. Limitations on blood sports have been enacted in many parts of the world.

  -a situationist could construct a case that fox hunting is agapeic, e.g on the grounds that foxes repeatedly do great damage to stocks of chicken and lamb; hunting is part of the human make up and is less unloving than factory farming; and fox hunting conserves the environment. You should make your own agapeic judgement.
• How would situation ethics respond to animals as a source of organs for transplants?

  -answers to questions about the use of animals as a source of organs for transplants will depend on the situation and on what the individual thinks about the status of animals.

  -transplantation from animals to humans would help persons.

  -an agapeic calculus here needs to be future looking since the technology does not yet exist in useable form. The most likely donors are pigs, since their body organs are of a similar size to ours. The calculations would have to consider the possibility of transmitting infections from donor to recipient.

  -some situationist ethicists would of course insist that as beings with social and cognitive functions, other animals qualify as persons, so donors should be dead or consenting humans. However this doesn't solve the problem as there will never be sufficient human donor organs available to meet demand. At the moment, humans are the only pragmatic source of donor organs, so the most loving thing might be to pursue other technologies as they are developed.