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Single Idea 21424

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights ]

Full Idea

Cruel treatment of animals is intimately opposed to man's duty to himself; ...for it dulls his shared feeling of their pain and so weakens and gradually uproots a natural predisposition that is very serviceable to morality in relations with other men.

Gist of Idea

Cruelty to animals is bad because it dulls our empathy for pain in humans

Source

Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 443 I.I)

Book Ref

Kant,Immanuel: 'The Metaphysics of Morals', ed/tr. Gregor,Mary [CUP 1991], p.238

A Reaction

This idea is quite shocking. Kant's rough contemporary Bentham was far more enlightened. If we could be certain that our feelings of empathy for pain were not dulled by cruelty to animals, then it would be fine.

The 29 ideas from 'Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue'

21408 For any subject, its system of non-experiential concepts needs a metaphysics [Kant]
21409 Moral principles do not involve feelings [Kant]
21410 That a concept is not self-contradictory does not make what it represents possible [Kant]
21411 A duty of virtue is a duty which is also an end [Kant]
21412 Humans are distinguished from animals by their capacity to set themselves any sort of end [Kant]
21413 Virtue is strong maxims for duty [Kant]
21414 The supreme principle of virtue is to find universal laws for ends [Kant]
21415 Duty is impossible without prior moral feeling, conscience, love and self-respect [Kant]
21416 Philosophers should not offer multiple proofs - suggesting the weakness of each of them [Kant]
21417 How do we distinguish a mean? The extremes can involve quite different maxims [Kant]
21418 There is one principle of virtues; the virtues are distinguished by their objects [Kant]
21419 If virtue becomes a habit, that is a loss of the freedom needed for adopting maxims [Kant]
21420 If virtue is the mean between vices, then virtue is just the vanishing of vice [Kant]
21421 Within nature man is unimportant, but as moral person he is above any price [Kant]
21422 Moral self-knowledge is the beginning of all human wisdom [Kant]
21423 Men can only have duties to those who qualify as persons [Kant]
21424 Cruelty to animals is bad because it dulls our empathy for pain in humans [Kant]
21425 We can love without respect, and show respect without love [Kant]
21427 Respect is limiting our self-esteem by attending to the human dignity of other persons [Kant]
21430 Disrespect is using a person as a mere means to my own ends [Kant]
21428 Respect is purely negative (of not exalting oneself over others), and is thus a duty of Right [Kant]
21426 Love urges us to get closer to people, but respect to keep our distance [Kant]
21429 The duty of love is to makes the ends of others one's own [Kant]
21431 The love of man is required in order to present the world as a beautiful and perfect moral whole [Kant]
21433 Violation of rights deserves punishment, which is vengeance, rather than restitution [Kant]
21434 We must respect the humanity even in a vicious criminal [Kant]
21435 Man is both social, and unsociable [Kant]
21436 We are obliged to show the social virtues, but at least they make a virtuous disposition fashionable [Kant]
21437 All morality directs the will to love of others' ends, and respect for others' rights [Kant]