Moral Significance of Humans & Animals

Philosophers have considered the question of the moral significance of animals as opposed to the moral significance of human beings for centuries, and the issue has become more potent in the scientific age with concerns about animal experimentation along with other issues related to the treatment of animals for food, as work animals, and in any situation which could be classified as captivity and not as the natural state of the animal.

In examining the moral significance of human beings, many philosophers differentiate between human beings and animals, emphasizing those qualities which separate human beings from animals, implying that these qualities prove moral significance and thus that the absence of these qualities would deny such significance. Inherent in the discussion of the moral significance of animals is that human actions will be determined by the outcome of the argument. Human beings tend to view animals as a resource that exists for human use:

Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in one way or another, what harms them really doesn't matter--or matters only if it starts to bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy. . . (Regan 47).

If animals have moral significance, we have to think beyond our personal needs and beyond the idea of animals as a resource.

As noted, the argument often centers on what attributes separate human beings from animals. Among the uniquely human attributes usually evoked in such discussions are reasoning ability, complex langu

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Category: Psychology - M