Summary: Ppt - Laboratory Animal Course (Art.9)

Read the summary and the most important questions on PPT - Laboratory Animal Course (Art.9)

• 1 Dirk Hilbers - Ethical aspects animal experiments

  This is a preview. There are 23 more flashcards available for chapter 1
  Show more cards here

• What type of question is "Who would you RAT|HER see live"?

  It is a false dilemma question. 
  
  However, does the ethics of animal testing boil down to this question?

• What are the three types of descriptive research that ethics can be?

  Ethics can be
  

  • Descriptive (who says what and with what grounds)
  • Normative (building a solid argumentation for a right-wrong statement)
  • Evaluative (providing a method to with possible actions)

• Do you agree with this statement: Ill-treating animals is morally wrong, because it might offend the feelings of onlookers and thereby outrage public decency (1886)Express your opinion

  • Yes, on spot!
    
  • I agree with the conclusion (ill-treating animals is wrong) but not with the reason (because it offends the feelings of onlookers).
  • I disagree completely

• What is the scala naturae in Antropocentrism?

  The scala naturae is the natural law "moral absolut" of God being the highest

• What are the four anthropocentrism ethical foundations?

  1. Humans have naturally (or God-given) a higher status than animals
     
  2. Humans are the only beings that are rational (seeing cause and effect and weighing effects)
  3. Humans are the only beings able to communicate and come to agreements
  4. Humans are the only beings with a soul (animals are merely machines)

• What are the argument from animals to have the capacity to suffer (Peter Singer)

  1. Physical response that accompanies pain, stress, but also hoy and pleasure is similar in animals and humans
  2. Premise 1 is logical from evolutionary point of view (function of pain for example)
  
  
  Conclusion: Animals must feel pain as humans do
  
  3. All our ethics focuses on avoiding pain, stress and seeking joy pleasure
  
  Conclusion: Our ethics must cover non-human animals  

• What are the argument from animals to have the capacity to suffer (Tom Regan)

  Subject of a life (meaningful):
  

  • beliefs
  • desires
  • perception
  • memory
  • sense of future
  • emotional life
  • feelings of pain and pleasure

  
  
  A sense that their life fares ill or well, independently of their being an object of anyone else' interests

• What are the argument from marginal cases in zoocentrism

  Rationality as an argument from an anthropocentric world view is inconsistent
  

  • many people are not rational (babies, demented elderly)
  • people as such are not nearly as rational as we thought they are
  • animals are not nearly as irrational as we thought they are

• What are animal rights based on?

  • Capacity to suffer of animals
    
  • Integrity of life (being subject of a life)

  
  
  

  • Not granting rights would be mere 'speciesism' (results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals)
  • Singer: speciesism - only humans are important is based on us juste being human beings. Its the only argument they have (like racism, "white" humans are more important than black humans)

• What are the anthropocentrism strikes back?

  1. Argument of degree
     
  • Suffering and being subject of a life are matters of degree, not kind
  2. Discounting argument (Brody)
  • Difference between saying
  1. Human beings matter more than animals do: Humans > Animals
  2. Human beings matter more to human beings than animals matter to human Humans > to humans than animals
  • To human beings, the moral status of animals is "discounted" in relation to that of humans. (Note, this moves away from an observer-neutral ethic to an observer-specific ethic)