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Single Idea 4277
[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
]
Full Idea
I instinctively recoil from stepping on a spider or a forget-me-knot in my path, but neither of these responses expresses the fellow-feeling that forbids me to step on a rabbit or a mouse.
Gist of Idea
I may avoid stepping on a spider or flower, but fellow-feeling makes me protect a rabbit
Source
Roger Scruton (Animal Rights and Wrongs [1996], p.41)
Book Ref
Scruton,Roger: 'Animal Rights and Wrongs' [Demos 1996], p.41
A Reaction
It is fellow-feeling that makes us prefer mammals to reptiles. It seems wrong to build a moral system purely on empathy, because psychopaths don't even empathise with nice human beings. Externalism in morality.
The
33 ideas
with the same theme
[society's attitude to how animals are treated]:
8236
|
Avoid the animals you are going to eat, as it is hard once you have got to know them
[Mengzi (Mencius)]
|
6005
|
Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice
[Hermarchus, by Sedley]
|
20857
|
Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us
[Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
|
1779
|
We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us
[Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
|
1868
|
The world was made as much for animals as for man
[Celsus]
|
17215
|
Animals feel, but that doesn't mean we can't use them for our pleasure and profit
[Spinoza]
|
19753
|
Both men and animals are sentient, which should give the latter the right not to be mistreated
[Rousseau]
|
3730
|
Non-rational beings only have a relative value, as means rather than as ends
[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]
|
20280
|
Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer?
[Bentham]
|
21376
|
Philosophy treats animals as exploitable things, ignoring the significance of their lives
[Schopenhauer]
|
14882
|
Protest against vivisection - living things should not become objects of scientific investigation
[Nietzsche]
|
5915
|
Rights can be justly claimed, so animals have no rights, as they cannot claim any
[Ross]
|
4133
|
Speciesism isn't like racism, because the former implies a viewpoint which belongs to no one
[Williams,B]
|
20283
|
Killing a chimp is worse than killing a human too defective to be a person
[Singer]
|
21022
|
The Capabilities Approach sees animals as agents, not just as having feelings
[Nussbaum]
|
21023
|
We should respect animals in the way that we respect the animal nature in humans
[Nussbaum]
|
21024
|
It may be no harm to kill an animal which cannot plan for its future
[Nussbaum]
|
4295
|
We favour our own animals over foreign ones because we see them as fellow citizens
[Scruton]
|
4296
|
Brutal animal sports are banned because they harm the personality of the watcher
[Scruton]
|
4263
|
Many of the stranger forms of life (e.g. worms) interest us only as a species, not as individuals
[Scruton]
|
4268
|
Animals command our sympathy and moral concern initially because of their intentionality
[Scruton]
|
4276
|
An animal has individuality if it is nameable, and advanced animals can respond to their name
[Scruton]
|
4277
|
I may avoid stepping on a spider or flower, but fellow-feeling makes me protect a rabbit
[Scruton]
|
4278
|
Lucky animals are eaten by large predators, the less lucky starve, and worst is death by small predators
[Scruton]
|
4279
|
We can easily remove the risk of suffering from an animal's life, but we shouldn't do it
[Scruton]
|
4288
|
Many breeds of animals have needs which our own ancestors planted in them
[Scruton]
|
4289
|
Sheep and cattle live comfortable lives, and die an enviably easy death
[Scruton]
|
4291
|
Letting your dog kill wild rats, and keeping rats for your dog to kill, are very different
[Scruton]
|
4292
|
Concern for one animal may harm the species, if the individual is part of a bigger problem
[Scruton]
|
4293
|
Introducing a natural means of controlling animal population may not be very compassionate
[Scruton]
|
4294
|
Animals are outside the community of rights, but we still have duties towards them
[Scruton]
|