Environmental Ethics
March 7, 2001
Reading Summary
Regan: The Case for Animal Rights, Chapter 6
In this chapter, Tom Regan considers ethical theories which claim that humans have direct duties to non-human animals. The first, which he names the "cruelty-kindness" view, states in vague terms that we as humans should avoid acts of cruelty toward animals; rather, we should be kind to them. Second, he considers the direct duties toward animals which can be derived from hedonistic utilitarianism. Next he discusses preference utilitarianism, which attempts to correct some of the weaknesses of classic hedonistic utilitarianism. Finally, Regan looks specifically at Peter Singer’s arguments for vegetarianism, which are an application of hedonistic utilitarianism.
The first view Regan considers is not so much a well-developed philosophical position as it is a commonsense moral intuition. According to this intuition, we have direct duties to animals both negative (not to treat them cruelly) and positive (to be kind to them). Regan defines cruelty according to the mental/emotional states of the person performing the act. An action toward an animal (or any moral patient or agent) is cruel on this view if the actor feels either pleasure while performing the act (sadistic cruelty) or feels no emotion whatsoever (brutal cruelty). Cruelty also includes both acts of commission and omission. Regan grants that all types of cruelty—active or passive, sadistic or brutal—should be condemned as immoral. Would cruelty then be a sufficient ground for our negative duties toward animals? No, says Regan. The mental states of the person performing an act, he argues, are logically distinct from the consequences of the act. What is morally significant is that the animal suffers, not the emotions of the agent. On this view, one could torture animals, as long as one had the decency to feel guilt or shame while performing the act. This concept of cruelty cannot account for what is wrong about such torture.
Regan makes a similar argument about the positive duties toward animals that can be derived from the cruelty-kindness view, i.e., that we should act kindly toward them. Regan defines kindness as acting with the intention of forwarding others’ interests out of love, affection, or compassion. The key part of this definition is the intentional state of the actor; this is what differentiates kind from unkind acts. Again Regan points out that an actor’s intentions or character are logically distinct from any benefit which might accrue to the animal as the result of those acts; a duty to act out of kindness cannot guarantee animals beneficial treatment. A second criticism Regan has of grounding direct duties in kindness is that such a duty cannot tell us what we owe to animals. Regan believes a moral theory should be able to tell us what our due to animals is; any account of such obligations would have to be based in justice, rather than kindness.
The class took issue with Regan’s definitions of cruelty and kindness as merely intentional states or aspects of the agent’s character. If cruelty, for example, can be adequately described as an agent-centered phenomenon, then perhaps Regan’s criticisms are valid. But several members of the class felt this was not the case. Any satisfactory definition of cruelty would also have to say something about the nature of the act itself, not just the mental states or intentions of the agent. Regan’s views on the nature of character were also criticized.
After disposing of the cruelty-kindness view, Regan goes on to consider the direct duties which can be derived from classic, hedonistic utilitarianism. That we have such duties can be traced back to Jeremy Bentham, who argued that the key criterion for inclusion in the moral community is not whether a creature can reason or speak, but whether it can suffer. Because many species of animals can suffer, both physically and psychologically, they are at least moral patients. Our duty, then, is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for the entire moral community, including sentient animals, with the interests of each individual counting equally. Only the aggregate balance of pleasure over pain is of any moral significance.
Regan has two criticisms of hedonistic utilitarianism, neither of which is particularly original. First, classic utilitarianism allows the interests of the majority to override those of minority groups or individuals; if it increases the aggregate balance of pleasure over pain to kill a moral agent, then such a killing is not only not morally wrong, but possibly morally obligatory. If the killing of moral agents can be justified, then poor treatment of moral patients can be even easier to justify, especially if it is done painlessly. Second, the hedonistic utilitarian view reduces both moral agents and moral patients to, in Singer’s words, "mere receptacles" of pleasure and pain which can easily be replaced. Regan uses the analogy of a cup which can be filled with either a sweet liquid (pleasure) or a bitter brew (pain); it is the balance of sweet and bitter of all the cups under consideration which is morally significant. On Regan’s view, this is an impoverished view of both moral agents and patients. Because preference utilitarianism claims to provide answers to these criticisms by renouncing hedonism, Regan considers it next.
According to Singer’s preference utilitarianism, we should not act so as to maximize the balance of pleasure over pain, but rather to maximize the preference satisfaction of all members of the moral community. Among the most basic of these preferences is (usually) the preference to go on living; this preference can be attributed to self-conscious animals, but not to merely conscious animals. A fish wriggling on the end of a hook, for example, is not expressing a preference to go on living because it is not conscious of its own mortality. It is simply reacting to the immediate situation. The killing of a self-conscious animal is a direct wrong to the animal killed, however, if it violates that animal’s preference to go on living. Thus preference utilitarianism seems to account for the prima facie wrongness of killing.
Regan argues, however, that the preference version of utilitarianism does not solve the receptacle problem. Singer has merely substituted receptacles of preferences for receptacles of pleasure/pain. If it increases the aggregate total of preference satisfaction to kill a moral agent, or to replace one moral agent with another, then this is still morally acceptable, even obligatory. Acting contrary to the preferences of the agent killed may be prima facie wrong, but those preferences can be overridden by the group. Preference utilitarianism also does not provide any additional protection for moral patients; because they are merely conscious, Singer admits they are mere receptacles. Some might appeal to our moral intuitions for ammunition at this point, but Regan points out that Singer cannot consistently do this.
The final criticism that Regan levels at utilitarianism, both classic utilitarianism but particularly Singer’s articulation of utilitarianism, is that it contains two principles which are not consistent, the principle of utility and the principle of equality. If Singer takes the equality principle—in his own words, that "the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being"—to be a basic, prescriptive moral principle, one presupposed by utilitarianism, then he can no longer refer to his theory as utilitarianism, argues Regan. Singer’s only other option, according to Regan, is to ground the principle of equality in the principle of utility. To do so one must warp the idea of equality; considering the interests of each individual equally, Regan argues, is inconsistent with measuring those interests by their importance to the interest holder. If A’s interest in obtaining a certain object is much greater than B’s interest in obtaining the same object, then one cannot consider their interests equally without falling into incoherence. So this is no way to derive the principle of equality from the principle of utility.
Regan then considers whether one could consider equality as a formal, rather than substantive, moral principle, i.e., make it a condition for a principle’s qualifying as a moral principle. This option is quickly rejected, however, because even as fundamental a view as Kant’s would fail this condition. Regan finally concludes that utilitarians could consistently consider the equality principle only as a conditional formal principle. In other words, if I as a moral agent wish for my interests to be taken seriously, I agree to take others’ interests just as seriously; this would guarantee that everyone’s interests are given equal consideration. Even if one accepts the principle of equality only as a conditional formal principle, however, this is consistent with not only the principle of utility but other principles as well. Regan concludes that because he cannot find a way to make the principle of equality consistent with only utilitarianism, the utilitarian view simply fails.
Dr. Nolt considered this entire line of argument about consistency to be unnecessary because he does not agree with Regan’s quick rejection of what was called the first option, that considering the principle of equality to be a basic principle, a precondition of the principle of utility, renders utilitarianism inconsistent. On Nolt’s view, the principle of utility implies the principle of equality; once the mechanism for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is fleshed out, the principle of equality simply falls out. They are not two separate principles, but rather parts of a single whole. Regan might reply by saying that the principles of equality and utility are indeed two separate principles. The principle of equality does not imply anything about utility, about how to calculate happiness; the business about acting so as to maximize the aggregate of pleasure over pain is an entirely separate matter. The principle of equality simply mandates that the interests of each individual are to be given equal consideration; it does not tell one what to do with them. It was also pointed out in the discussion that the principle of utility need not imply the principle of equality; versions of utilitarianism can be imagined in which maximizing happiness might involve not giving each individual’s interests equal consideration. These examples would suggest that the principles of utility and equality are not necessarily as unified in utilitarian theory as they might seem.
In the final section of the chapter, Regan considers Singer’s hedonistic utilitarian argument that humans have a moral obligation to be a vegetarian, an argument of which he is highly critical. Regan first makes clear that, by Singer’s own admission, this argument makes no appeal to rights. It is strictly utilitarian. He then raises what he sees as several problems for Singer’s argument. For one thing, the argument dismisses as "trivial" the taste pleasure humans derive from eating meat; this triviality is simply assumed rather than argued for. Regan also argues that considering the purpose for which factory farming acts—to satisfy taste pleasures—is irrelevant for a utilitarian argument; utilitarians should consider only consequences, not motivations. Singer never considers the interests of the tens of thousands of humans employed by the farming industry, Regan says. Regan also points out that Singer’s own preference utilitarianism tends to have a conservative bias, making arguing for any type of change more difficult. While not divulging the content of the criticism, Regan notes that Garrett Hardin has disputed Singer’s claims about the positive global economic consequences of reduced factory farming.
Singer’s appeal to our moral intuition that it would be wrong to treat human moral patients the way we treat animals is also weak, Regan says; Singer’s own equality principle admits that equal interests do not require equal treatment. A separate argument would have to be made that treating animals differently from human moral patients would have negative consequences, an argument that Singer never makes. Regan argues that Singer has caught himself in a paradox when he says that the vegetarian movement will only have positive effects when it forces the factory farming industry to change its practices; does this mean that until critical mass is reached, vegetarianism is morally neutral? What if meat eaters increase their consumption to counteract the growing number of vegetarians? Finally, Regan argues that utilitarianism can be used to defend speciesism, just as it can be used to defend racism and other discriminatory practices.
Regan did some of his weakest work here; he has not even attacked Singer’s strongest arguments. The criticisms that make mention of preference utilitarianism are irrelevant and inappropriate, for example, since Singer limits himself to a hedonistic utilitarian argument in Animal Liberation. The criticism he calls Singer’s paradox has been answered by Singer in the latest version of the book. And the speciesism argument simply falls flat; while Regan suggests that utilitarianism could be used to defend speciesist practices, he offers no arguments or examples to show how this would be the case. All in all, the final section of the chapter is not the strongest.
Comments by John Nolt
As Bill pointed out in class, Regan's dismissal of the cruelty-kindness view is in effect a dismissal of a virtue ethic for animals, for he says, "No view can provide an adequate account of these duties [to animals] if it requires that we make reference to the mind of the agent (to either the agent's motives or intentions)." (199) Any virtue ethic would make such a reference, I think. Regan does not, so far as I can see, give an argument for this claim, though he does argue for the related but logically distinct claim that no adequate account can refer solely to the agent's intentions.
Lara sees Regan as offering two distinct criticisms of act utilitarianism: (a) it allows a majority to kill or harm a minority just to increase utility, and (b) it treats both moral agents and patients as "mere receptacles." I interpreted Regan as offering a single criticism (a), for which he then provided an explanation (b): that is, it is because act utilitarianism treats individuals as mere receptacles of utility that it has this untoward implication.
I don't think Singer admits (in Animal Liberation, at least) that individuals are mere receptacles. He explicitly leaves open the question of whether the life of an individual has intrinsic value in addition to the utility it "contains" (pp. 17 ff.).
I agree with Lara that the principle of equality does not imply the principle of utility, but I still think that the principle of utility—as understood by Bentham, Mill and Singer—implies the principle of equality. Lara questions this: "It was also pointed out in the discussion that the principle of utility need not imply the principle of equality; versions of utilitarianism can be imagined in which maximizing happiness might involve not giving each individual’s interests equal consideration." As I understand the principle of utility (or in Mill's terms, the Greatest Happiness Principle), it is this: An action is right to the extent that it maximizes utility, i.e., brings about a greater balance of pleasure over pain, without regard to whose pleasure or pain it is. It is the italicized phrase that embodies the equality principle, since this phrase implies that my pain is to be counted equally with a similar pain that anyone else might have. This is just the equality principle, which Singer expresses as follows: the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of every other being—and Singer defines interests in terms of pain.
Lara mentions that in his 1990 edition, Singer addresses Regan's claim that his view involves the paradox that vegetarianism can have no good effects unless large numbers of people take it up, but Lara doesn't say how. Singer's point is that even one person refraining from eating meat will reduce the demand for factory farmed animals and hence reduce the suffering.