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Animals on Lifeboats: a Defense of a Sliding Scale Model of Moral Status

Beck, Daniel Phillip
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1240373673

Abstract Details

2009, Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, College of Arts and Sciences - Philosophy.
The vast majority of moral theorists either assumes or accepts that moral status is an all or nothing concept. One either has full moral status, or one has no moral status. The problem with having an all or nothing approach to moral status becomes apparent when one wants to open the moral community to non-humans. Although many people might agree that animals deserve moral consideration, a significant majority of even those sympathetic to animals’ suffering still resist putting animals and human beings on an equal moral footing. The “dog on the lifeboat” thought experiment lays bare this pro-human moral intuition. In this essay, I explore the ways in which Tom Regan, Peter Singer, R.G. Frey, and Ruth Cigman attempt to make sense of this pro-human moral intuition without denying the need for some moral consideration for animals. All of them justify the moral intuition that we must protect the life of a human over the life of an animal if forced into such a situation. They do this by arguing, in some way or another, that death is, generally speaking, more harmful for human beings. I reject this approach to justifying the pro-human moral intuition because I favor a view of the harmfulness of death where it makes little sense to make comparative judgments of death’s harmfulness across species lines. In contrast, I argue that the all or nothing concept of moral status needs to be revised. I argue that moral status should adopt a sliding- scale model based on the distinction between moral agents and moral patients. This approach does not deny moral status of some degree to many animals, and the implications of this approach are not as wide reaching as to justify much of the current ways humans treat animal beings. This project is important because it takes on the task of making coherent a strong animal rights position that still holds on to a limited pro-human view. Many people might initially view these two views as contradictory or in tension. I am arguing that one does not have to choose either one in exclusion of the other in order to maintain a consistent ethical outlook.
Asher Seidel, PhD (Advisor)
Gaile Pohlhaus, PhD (Committee Member)
Bryan Bannon, PhD (Committee Member)
100 p.
Animals; Philosophy
philosophy; ethics; animals; moral status; applied ethics; morality; animal rights; animal liberation; Peter Singer; Tom Regan; lifeboat ethics; deontology; utilitarianism; humane treatment; rights; duties; thought experiments; moral agency

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Beck, D. P. (2009). Animals on Lifeboats: a Defense of a Sliding Scale Model of Moral Status [Undergraduate thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1240373673

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Beck, Daniel. Animals on Lifeboats: a Defense of a Sliding Scale Model of Moral Status. 2009. Miami University, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1240373673.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Beck, Daniel. "Animals on Lifeboats: a Defense of a Sliding Scale Model of Moral Status." Undergraduate thesis, Miami University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1240373673

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

muhonors1240373673
831
© 2009, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Animals on Lifeboats: a Defense of a Sliding Scale Model of Moral Status by Daniel Phillip Beck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University Honors Theses and OhioLINK.