Most people believe that animals matter morally, but human beings matter significantly more than animals. This belief, which is supported by important intuitions, fundamentally shapes our lives. It places us at the center of the moral universe, and it explains why we put animals in cages, conduct pain-inducing experiments on them, and eat them for dinner. However, the belief that there are degrees of moral status also raises the possibility that robots and genetically enhanced human beings could become significantly more important than the rest of us, in which case, they might be justified in putting us in cages, experimenting on us, and eating us for dinner. Despite the importance of these issues, there have been no systematic assessments of whether, in fact, there are degrees of moral status: Are some individuals more important morally than others? The goal of this book is to answer this vital question.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction: Why Should We Care?
- I.1 Reasons to care
- Figure I.1: Degrees of moral status I
- I.2 Examples and intuitions
- Example 1: Experimentation
- Example 2: House on fire
- Figure I.2: Degrees of moral status II
- I.3 How many levels are there?
- Figure I.3: Degrees of moral status III
- I.4 The approach we will take
- I.5 A brief overview
- Chapter 1: Our Place in the Universe and in the Analysis
- Introduction
- Text box 1.1: What is it like to be a bat?
- 1.1 Our place in the physical universe
- 1.2 Our place in the moral universe
- 1.3 Moral status and degrees of moral status
- 1.4 Being more important versus having more at stake
- 1.5 Three morally significant harms and wrongs
- Summary
- Chapter 2: The Possibility of Degrees of Moral Status
- Introduction
- 2.1 Can we reject degrees of moral status out of hand?
- 2.2 Three types of morally relevant properties
- Text box 2.1: A catalog of morally relevant properties
- 2.3 Why degrees of moral status require moral status enhancing properties
- Summary
- Chapter 3: Are Some Properties Moral Status Enhancing?
- Introduction
- 3.1 An excess of candidates
- 3.2 The improbability of moral status decreasing properties
- 3.3 Do capacities speak louder than actions?
- 3.4 The problem of relevance
- 3.5 The nature of thresholds
- Summary
- Chapter 4: Is it Really Worse to Kill Humans than Animals?
- Introduction
- 4.1 The differences between killing, dying, and being dead
- 4.2 Why is it bad to die?
- 4.3 Why is it wrong to kill?
- Summary
- Chapter 5: Are Pain and Suffering Really Worse in Humans than Animals?
- Introduction
- 5.1 (Not) feeling the pain of others
- 5.2 Downplaying the suffering of others
- 5.3 Assuming animals are less important
- 5.4 (Not) ignoring the consequences
- Summary
- Chapter 6: Does Respect Really Apply to Humans but not Animals?
- Introduction
- 6.1 Do animals deserve respect as individuals?
- 6.2 Should animals decide how their lives go?
- 6.3 The connection between sentience and respect
- Summary
- Chapter 7: Should We Believe in Degrees of Moral Status Anyway?
- Introduction
- 7.1 Degrees of moral status as a rule of thumb
- 7.2 Degrees of moral status as proper partiality
- Summary
- Chapter 8: Life without Degrees of Moral Status
- Introduction
- 8.1 What's the difference?
- 8.2 Do we have to spend all our time helping animals?
- 8.3 Do rabbits have rights?
- 8.4 The ethics of raising animals and eating them
- 8.5 The ethics of animal experimentation
- 8.6 Humans who lack superior cognitive capacities
- 8.7 Superbeings
- Summary
- Conclusion: A Future without Hierarchies
- C.1 Summary of the argument
- C.2 Implications of the conclusion
- Photograph C.1: Learning to walk with animals
- Appendix 1: Commonly cited superior cognitive capacities
