VE- issues of non human life and death

• What did Aristotle think about animals?

  He developed the hierarchy of souls in which plants are for animal use and animals for human use. Cows eat grass and humans eat cows. Aristotle did dissect animals as part of his own investigation into animal behaviour but in his time there were no scientific procedures in the modern sense or factory farms. Aristotle's whole approach to animals is based on his teleological view that all things have a final end- a reason which governs their existence, what they do and what they can achieve.
• How would VE respond to the use of animals for food; intensive farming?

  -given his hierarchy of souls, Aristotle would have had no issue with eating meat, since he considered that animals existed for the sake of humans.

  -in a modern context, it is not clear how Aristotle would have responded to the methods of intense animal farming. A virtue to be considered however, would be compassion. Compassion cannot be compartmentalised so that we talk about compassion just for humans: you are either a compassionate person or you're not. If you are, compassion must apply to all animals, human and non-human. Factory-farming of animals is not evenly remotely compassionate.
• Describe why factory farming cannot be considered remotely compassionate using the example of chickens?

  These unfortunate animals live in crowded and filthy conditions. It is estimated around 60% of chickens are produced in industrial systems, in some of which they are fed drugs to encourage abnormal growth. They can become so heavy they are unable to bare their own body weight: they lay in their own body filth unable to turn around. Male chicks cannot produce eggs so are useless to the egg industry, so a common treatment is that they are thrown into trash bags and left to suffocate. This is only one part of the mass animal suffering caused by intensive farming.
• How would VE respond to the use of animals in scientific procedures; cloning?

  -Aristotle himself used animals in his own scientific researches, so quite clearly he would regard such procedures as compatible with a virtuous person.

  -Aristotle insisted the highest thing in us is reason, that is our intelligence. Using animals in scientific procedures extends our intellect and increases knowledge so is virtuous on that level.

  -the benefits of animal research include being able to develop drugs and medicines to control diseases e.g HIV/AIDS. The same is true with animal cloning, which has the potential for controlling specific diseases in animals. Compassion directed towards humans may therefore suggest that using animals for research is morally good.

  -animal pain is not always properly controlled in scientific procedures, a person of good character at the very least would insist on the control of pain by anaesthetics, since this should be a minimum requirement of the compassion felt for animal suffering.
• Why may some virtue ethicists object to the use of animals in scientific experiments?

  Other virtue ethicists may object that the use of animals in experiments is not compassionate at all. It is obviously done without the consent of the animals; there is no regulation to avoid experiments being duplicated in different parts of the world; and there are now a number of alternative technologies that are at least as effective as the use of research animals.
• What did Rosalind Hursthouse say about experiments on other animals?


  That they are generally unnecessary as the benefits of these experiments are out of proportion to the suffering they cause.
• How would VE respond to blood sports?

  -it would be difficult to find convincing arguments against blood sports in Aristotle's writings, since hunting was a common Greek pastime and was a source of food.

  -some may judge a person by his or her treatment of animals, e.g in terms of consideration shown to animals that cannot defend themselves. Participation in blood sports suggests some lack of consideration for animals.

  -some may appeal to the virtue of temperance, arguing that experiencing pleasure at the expense of other beings is not conductive to developing a good character. Rosalind Hursthouse argues that blood sports show the vice of 'callousness'- they are indifferent to the feelings of both the animals concerned and of those who sympathise with the animals.
• Who disagreed with Rosalind Hurthouses view that blood sports show the vice of callousness?

  Rodger Scruton has delivered several lectures in which he argues that blood sports are 'courageous.' For example, the matador who faces an enraged bull in the bullring takes his life into his hands.
• How would VE respond to animals being used as a source of organs for transplants?


  Most of the arguments concerning the use of animals in scientific experiments apply also to the use of animals as a source of organs for transplants:

  -Aristotle's approval for scientific research.

  -His emphasis on the development of useful knowledge.

  -the compassion shown to humans who might survive through organ transplants.

  -the callousness towards animals by judging that their lives are expendable.

  -the callousness shown towards those in society who are distressed at the prospect of using animals in this way.