Kant, Anderson, Marginal Cases

1. Kant, Anderson, Marginal Cases • Kant • Marginal Cases • Anderson • Three Views • AMC • Essentialism • Contextual Rights • For Next Time: Read Singer “Famine Affluence and Morality”

2. Kant Recap • We must always respect rational agents by never treating them merely as a means in our maxims • Our duties can be direct or indirect • All duties relate to rational agents (ourselves or others) • Non-human animals are not rational agents; we owe them only indirect duties

3. Kant and PET • Kant seems to be arguing that we can point to a morally relevant difference between human beings and non-humans: • The ability to set our maxims and constrain them to principles of reason • We do not owe any direct duties to beings that are not capable of setting maxims in this way • Some philosophers argue that this commits Kant to undesirable moral conclusions

4. Marginal Cases • Kant’s argument appears to imply that non-rational agents do not deserve any direct moral consideration • Marginal agents (infants, comatose persons, patients with severe dementia, etc) are not rational agents in Kant’s sense • Does this imply we only have indirect duties to them?

5. Elizabeth Anderson • The Argument from Marginal Cases (AMC) assumes that rights are derived from individual capacities • Rights only make sense in a human social context • The degree to which species goods are compatible with integration into human society matters

6. Three Views • Anderson begins by outlining the three most common types of theories offered to grant equal moral standing to non-humans • Welfarist Views: The only morally relevant property is ability to feel pain. We have a moral duty to minimize the amount of pain in the world and all pain is weighed equally • Rights-Based Views: All beings with a point of view (the ability to have experiences, desires, emotions, and a life that can go better or worse) deserve rights. These rights can not (ordinarily) be violated

7. Three Views (2) • Environmental Views: Biodiversity and eco-systems are intrinsically good. Individuals are only good insofar as they are a part of a natural eco-system • Anderson does not argue that these views are necessarily false. She believes that each does accurately capture something of value but that each view is incomplete or too simplistic • Although all three views accord non-humans moral consideration they do so in different ways, to different degrees, and for different reasons

8. Example • The Cane Toad was introduced into Australia in 1935 • Without any natural predators, toad populations exploded and the Cane Toad has destroyed several habitats that are unique to Australia • How might the Welfare, Rights, and Environmental views respond to this?

9. Argument from Marginal Cases • Anderson does argue that the welfare and rights views commit the same error: • They both assume that the equality of human rights must be grounded only on a capacity all humans share • This assumes that individual rights are grounded on individual capacities, it ignores the social context that makes rights meaningful

10. The Problem with the AMC • Anderson argues that the AMC fundamentally misunderstands and misrepresents the nature of rights • Human rights are not derived purely from our capacities • AMC leaves out the background social context in which human rights make sense in order to secure equality but this is a mistake • Our shared human social context is not shared with all other non-humans • An important aspect of this shard context is membership in the human species

11. Essentialism / Species-Level goods • Anderson argues that what is good for a being partially depends on things that are good for its species as a whole • There are goods that are essential to a species (essential for that species to have a good life) and these must be taken into account • Several non-humans have demonstrated the capacity for at least rudimentary language but this capacity does not grant them a right to be taught a language • These species-level goods work differently than AMC would require

12. Species-Level Good • Homo-sapiens, as a species, are social creatures • It is good for us, all things considered,to live in communities and to be seen by and interact with other members of our species • This species-level good applies to all members of the species irrespective of the particular capacities of any member of that species • Species-level goods can generate duties that we owe to human beings (a right to be taught a language) that are not owed to non-humans with similar cognitive capacities

13. Dignity • Human dignity is a species-level good. Dignity consists of the requirements necessary to be presentable in human society • Dignity is a species-relative property • The dignity of a cat is the species-specific way of making cats presentable in human society

14. Rights • Rights are generated from (they only make sense in), Anderson argues, a human social context • Rights must be recognizable and enforceable. Only humans can be enforcers of rights (though non-humans can be recipients) • Rights do not derive directly from capacities but instead from the way a non-human’s species-level goods interact with human species-level goods • Some non-humans may have more rights than other non-humans even if both non-humans are the same species

15. Context and Rights • Rights only make sense in a human social context but our history with a non-human can affect the type (and amount) of rights it has • Wild dogs and domesticated dogs are members of the same species but they have different rights, according to Anderson, because domesticated dogs have been purposefully incorporated into human society • The degree of incorporation into society matters • A dog’s species-level goods are also compatible with our own

16. Rights (2) • Rights can vary for reasons beyond context: • Wild: a wild animal’s species-level goods are satisfiable without human interaction. Wild animals typically have a right to non-interference for this reason • Domesticated: we can domesticate a species by incorporating it into human society. This grants domesticated members significant rights • Vermin: the species level good of vermin are incompatible with our own. Vermin only have minimal rights, they can be painfully killed but not wantonly

17. A Schema for Rights + / -

18. For Next Time • Monday is a university holiday • For next Wednesday read Peter Singer’s “Famine Affluence and Morality”