Human borderline argument

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The human borderline argument (AMG) describes a class of arguments in animal ethics literature.

It is assumed that no sharp dividing line can be drawn between humans and non-human animal species on the basis of criteria that can be used for moral evaluations. A preference for people on the basis of characteristics, such as the ability to perceive pain, fails because almost all non-human animals - at least all animals with a nervous system - have pain perception . On the other hand, supposedly specifically human abilities, such as the ability to draw up plans for the future or to make moral judgments, are not shared by all people. B. from particularly young children or people with certain disabilities.

With regard to a characteristic that is proposed for an ethical distinction, those people who do not have the characteristic or those animals that do have them are the "borderline cases".

requirements

The essential prerequisite of the AMG is an interpretation of the theory of the evolution of species , which is supposed to ensure the existence of "borderline cases" with any desired properties: According to this, there is a continuum in all ethically relevant abilities, the difference between the species is therefore gradual and not fundamental .

Richard Dawkins suggests a thought experiment : Imagine a human and a chimpanzee. Both take a direct ancestor by the hand one after the other. His interpretation of the theory of evolution is that it is always possible, if one visits direct ancestors often enough, to find a common ancestor. In this way he constructs a finite chain of individuals with a being with basic rights on one end and one without on the other. He concludes that there must then be at least one point in the chain where the “moral status” changes.

Examples

An AMG is mainly used to justify an animal rights position to argue for the basic rights of nonhumans. An application to less far-reaching moral demands can be found in the utilitarian Peter Singer .

He observes that the alleged suffering in many forms of animal use is disproportionate to the benefit that humans derive from it. With a principle of equal treatment, he concludes that, in principle, this suffering must be given appropriate consideration. This suffering cannot be ignored simply because of species affiliation. On the other hand, he justifies with an AMG that there cannot be any criteria different from the species affiliation that justify “ignorance”:

“(…) Whichever criteria we choose, we will have to admit that they are not exactly on the border of our own species. We can justifiably assume that certain living beings have characteristics which make their life more valuable than that of other living beings. But there will certainly be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by whatever standard, are worth more than the lives of some people. (...) So if we base the right to life on these characteristics, we must grant these animals an equally great, if not a greater right to life than such (...) humans. "

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Tom Regan uses a version of AMG to criticize various animal ethics, such as that of Kant or Narveson .

Kant and Narveson both propose a certain property as a necessary prerequisite for assigning an “ inherent value ” or “ human dignity ”: With Kant, these properties are rationality and with Narveson the ability “to make agreements, to assert claims based on one's own interests can and exert appropriate pressure to enforce these claims from social institutions ”. (Label this property *) Regan suggests the following syllogism in his criticism :

P1 : Based on certain criteria for assigning rights, not only all animals but also some marginal people are excluded from the class of rights holders.
P2 : However, people, especially marginal people, have rights and are therefore in the class of those who have rights.
K1 : Accordingly, every criterion for which P1 is true must be rejected as a criterion that is supposed to be a prerequisite for the possession of rights.

Regan also justifies why in the case of rationality (according to Kant) and for *(according to Narveson) the assumption P1 is true in his opinion. In his main work, Regan provides a possible classification of AMG in his animal rights theory: "A better understanding of the arbitrariness of this claim [that rationality is a necessary prerequisite for the allocation of basic rights] is not only the treatment of human or animal [...] [beings]. improve. But it seems to me to be a helpful and perhaps essential prerequisite for any progress in their treatment by us. "

A monograph on AMG is the work of Daniel Dombrowski , who, unlike Regan, considers an animal rights position to be derived from AMG alone.

Forms of AMG

Evelyn Pluhar distinguishes between two versions of the AMG:

  1. The biconditional AMG: It says that the moral status of non-human animals and "borderline cases", which are similar in the relevant properties, are equivalent. Such animals have rights if and only if the appropriate people have them. Whether this is the case remains open.
  2. The categorical AMG is based on a legal term for "borderline cases" and thus includes the rights of non-human animals. In terms of its logical structure, the argument then resembles a contraposition . ("Animal rights do not exist, human rights do not exist")

Tom Regan has the same distinction and uses the terms "strong" and "weak [Argument from marginal cases]". In his consideration of the weak argument, he adds a further distinction, on the one hand, between a critical version (reproduced in the above example) and a "constructive version" with the following syllogism:

P3 : People, especially marginal people, belong to the right-holder class.
P4 : The most sensible sufficient criterion for the ascription of basic rights, a criterion which also includes marginal people in the class of rights holders, forces us to include some (but not all) animals in this class.
K2 : If we attribute marginal humans to this class, we have to allow the same for some animals.

He justifies the name “constructive argument from marginal cases” with the fact that (a) the argument with P3 is based on the rights of marginal people and that (b), in contrast to the legal argument, is not a criticism of the proposed criteria, but of one of the “most sensible” criteria Criterion for the attribution of rights ”includes such an attribution also for some non-human animals. (K2) The "Critical Argument from Marginal Cases", on the other hand, "criticizes the adequacy of certain necessary criteria put forward for the attribution of (basic) rights."

Discussion and opposing positions

According to RG Frey and Allan Holland, the argument as such only shows a contradiction, but remains silent about its resolution. The rejection of human rights for "borderline cases" is completely unacceptable. Some defend such a resolution. (See also dam breach argument ) Proponents of the term “ speciesism ” see their thesis that discrimination on the basis of species affiliation exists and runs analogously to discrimination on the basis of gender or skin color, for example, which confirms this and a strength in the openness of the argument.

According to Steven F. Sapontzis , the AMG is misleading because the moral value of nonhumans or humans does not arise from similarities, but from a respect for the superior virtues that can be observed.

The AMG is unfair to people with disabilities : People who lose basic cognitive skills for any reason are distorted in their personality. People who do not have such abilities from birth are also disadvantaged because they cannot become “normal members of their species”. This represents a difference to non-human animals, which can definitely have this affiliation. This suggests a situation of moral superiority for people with disabilities. One answer of the animal rights activists is that the argument is circular : The concept of “disadvantage” or “unfairness” already contains the moral overriding value of people with disabilities towards all animals, while at the same time arguing for them.

Arthur Caplan points out that a human borderline case can differ from a non-borderline case through an emotional relationship and that ethical relevance can arise from this. James Lindemann Nelson rejects this point. Such relationships also exist between non-borderline cases and nonhumans. On the other hand, there would also be a meta-borderline case of people who are not in such a relationship to non-borderline cases.

Peter Caruthers represents Caplan's objection from a contractualist position. Human rights have the essential function of stabilizing societies. A denial of human rights in “borderline cases” would lead to their exploitation and subsequently to hatred and possibly violence by their relatives. The hatred and violence of some representatives of animal rights, such as the Animal Liberation Front , as well as the nature of the relationships between humans and non-humans are disproportionate to this. Animals therefore basically have no intrinsic values. Elizabeth S. Anderson argues similarly . As a social institution, rights are therefore fundamentally dependent on the type of relationship in which the members of society can stand with one another. (See Capabilities Approach ). In contrast to Caruthers, with Anderson social or emotional relationships beyond species boundaries can attain a meaning comparable to interpersonal relationships and corresponding rights can arise from them. However, this is not the case for all conscious animals.

literature

  • Daniel A. Dombrowski: Babies and beasts: the argument from marginal cases . University of Illinois Press, July 1997, ISBN 9780252066382 .
  • Evelyn B. Pluhar: Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman Animals , Ex Library. Edition, Duke University Press Books, July 21, 1995, ISBN 082231648X .
items
  • Elizabeth Anderson, MC Nussbaum & C. Sunstein (eds.): Animal Rights and the Values ​​of Nonhuman Life . In: Animal rights: current debates and new directions . Oxford University Press, USA, 2005, pp. 277-298.
  • Marc Bekoff: Marginal Cases . In: Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare , 1st Edition, Greenwood Press, June 30, 1998, ISBN 0-313-29977-3 , pp. 237-241.
  • M. Bernstein: Marginal cases and moral relevance . In: Journal of social philosophy . 33, No. 4, 2002, pp. 523-539.
  • Daniel A. Dombrowski: Is the Argument from Marginal Cases Obtuse? . In: Journal of Applied Philosophy . 23, No. 2, 2006, pp. 223-232. doi : 10.1111 / j.1468-5930.2006.00334.x .
  • F. Kaufman: Speciesism and the Argument from Misfortune . In: Journal of applied philosophy . 15, No. 2, 1998, pp. 155-163.
  • Alastair Norcross: Puppies, pigs, and people: eating meat and marginal cases . In: Philosophical perspectives . 18, No. 1, 2004, pp. 229-245.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ R. Dawkins: Gaps in the Mind . In: The great ape project . 1993, pp. 80-87.
  2. ^ Animal Liberation . P. 19 ff. Of the English-language edition Harper Collins 2002. P. 58 in the German-language: Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1996 (paperback)
    The "principle of equal treatment" is prescriptive for Singer , more precisely a requirement of "equal consideration of comparable interests."
  3. ^ For a more detailed exchange of words between Regan and Narveson on animal rights and human borderline cases, see T. Regan: Narveson on Egoism and the Rights of Animals . In: Canadian Journal of Philosophy . 7, No. 1, 1977, pp. 179-186. and Jan Narveson: Animal Rights . In: Canadian Journal of Philosophy . 7, No. 1, March 1977, ISSN  0045-5091 , pp. 161-178. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
  4. ^ T. Regan: An examination and defense of one argument concerning animal rights . In: Inquiry . 22, No. 1, 1979, pp. 189-219.
  5. ↑ Used in T. Regan: An examination and defense of one argument concerning animal rights . In: Inquiry . 22, No. 1, 1979, pp. 189-219. assumed by him and in T. Regan: The case for animal rights . Univ of California Pr, 2004, pp. 174-194. continued under Indirect Duty Views .
  6. ^ T. Regan: The case for animal rights . Univ of California Pr, 2004, p. 156.
  7. ↑ a b c According to Pluhar in Bekoff p. 264 ff. Of the file
  8. ↑ Tom Regan: An Examination and Defense of One Argument concerning Animal Rights . In: Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy . 22, No. 1, 1979, ISSN  0020-174X , p. 189. doi : 10.1080 / 00201747908601872 . Retrieved September 27, 2010.
  9. ^ RG Frey: Vivisection, Morals, and Medicine. (PDF; 808 kB) In: Journal of Medical Ethics. 9, pp. 95-104 (1983).
  10. ↑ Aubrey Townsend: Radical Vegetarians. In: Australian Journal of Philosophy. 57: 1, pp. 85-93 (1979).
    On the side of the representatives of animal rights, Peter Singer could be named, who proposes such a resolution. According to him, many animals have a common interest with all humans not to suffer. From this he concludes, among other things with an AMG, a rejection of factory farming , many animal experiments, animal use in entertainment, etc. Animals (with the exception of a few primates ) on the other hand have no "intellectual existence in the temporal continuum". Some people don't have this quality either. Therefore, a “painless killing ” (for any purpose, such as research) of both beings is morally justifiable.
    See G. L Francione: Introduction to animal rights: your child or the dog? . Temple Univ Pr, 2000, ISBN 1-56639-692-1 . Chapter 6.
  11. ↑ Steven F. Sapontzis: Are Animals Moral Beings ?. In: American Philosophical Quarterly. 17
    : 45-52 (1980) Steven F. Sapontzis: Speciesism. In: Between the Species. 4: 97-99 (1988).
  12. ↑ Arthur Caplan: Is Xenografting Morally Wrong? In: Transplantation Proceedings. 24: 722-727 (1992).
  13. ↑ In Beckoff S. 263 of the file
  14. ^ Peter Carruthers: The Animals Issues: Moral Theory in Practice. (PDF; 83 kB) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-43689-3 .
  15. ↑ Elizabeth S. Anderson : Animal Rights and the Values ​​of Nonhuman Life. In: Martha Nussbaum , Cass Sunstein (Ed.): Rights For Animals? Law and Policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002.
Remarks
  1. ↑ In animal rights literature, the term “non-human animals” is often used to refer to all animals except humans. Humans belong to the group of animals because of their evolutionary relationship.
  2. ↑ For the length of such a chain of direct ancestors he gives an estimate of 300 miles.
  3. ↑ In the original: "beings which are unable to enter into agreements, make sef-interested claims and, once having made them, bring appropriate pressure to bear to see that they are acknowledged by others".
  4. ↑ He actually suggests two syllogisms: Details on this in Regan's distinction in the section on forms of AMG . The syllogism carried out is the "critical form" of its argument.