Animal ethics

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Cows in a rotary milking parlor

The animal ethics is a branch of bioethics . Its subject is the moral questions that arise from human interaction with animals. The focus here is on questions of the legitimacy of using animals for human interests. Since animals, like humans, certainly inflict pain on each other or consume and suppress each other, questions of animal ethics and bioethics also touch on questions about the role assigned to humans and other living beings within the world.

approaches

The starting point of animal ethics can be the anthropocentric view, according to which humans are the "measure of all things" , or the pathocentric position, according to which the ability of living beings to suffer should be the central criterion for their inclusion in the sphere of morality. Animal ethics can also be based on a biocentric conviction, according to which life itself, no matter what, has an intrinsic value that must be taken into account morally. In any case, ethics itself always remains anthroporelational - it is designed by people for people.

In anthropocentric ethics, non-human animals and non-human nature are treated as objects. Nevertheless, certain principles of action towards animals can also apply in anthropocentric concepts. For Immanuel Kant, cruel treatment of animals is not acceptable because it dulls people and thus also affects morality in relation to other people. With Kant there are only direct duties towards humans and only indirect duties towards other animals , which are derived from the duties towards humans.

If the question of whether there are moral obligations towards non-human animals is answered in the affirmative, a hierarchical and an egalitarian view can be distinguished. Representatives of the hierarchical position are of the opinion that including animals in the moral community in no way excludes the use of animals for human purposes. For representatives of an egalitarian position, on the other hand, the primacy of humans and the resulting inequality of treatment are equally unfounded. In this sense (inclusion of the animal as a subject in the moral community of values ​​while maintaining a hierarchical special position of humans) also argues the majority of the representatives of a Christian theological animal ethics.

Differentiation from animal protection and environmental ethics

In animal welfare , it is assumed that animals can be used for the benefit of humans, but should be treated more or less appropriately.

In the case of species , nature and landscape protection , overarching environmental-ethical aspects are assumed, from which a responsibility of humans for the entire environment is assumed, including plants, lower beings or cultural and geological features.

Animal ethics is understood as part of a comprehensive ecological ethics, as it is dedicated to the question of how to deal with non-human entities . The central question of ecological ethics, whether there are non-human carriers of intrinsic values, is at the same time a leading question in animal ethics.

history

Although animal welfare regulations can already be found in the Bible and animal ethics arguments in discussions of vegetarianism and animal sanity among ancient philosophers, an independent animal ethics only emerged in modern times.

In Ancient Greece there were four different views on the moral status of animals: the animists believed that humans and animals shared and exchanged souls ; the mechanists believed that neither animals nor humans had souls. The vitalists believed that humans and animals had souls, but that animal souls were inferior . The fourth and by far largest group of the ancient Greeks believed that animals existed for the benefit and use of humans.

Ethical considerations for dealing with animals are a product of modernity . In the wind of fundamental innovations such as the automation of looms or the improved efficiency of the steam engines by James Watt, industrialization picks up speed. The Enlightenment leads people out of their immaturity. Immanuel Kant's interpretation of “ sapere aude ” as “have the courage to use your own understanding” becomes the guiding principle of the Enlightenment. People belong to a moral community in which one does not harm anyone else that one does not want it to be done to one ( golden rule ). You shouldn't torture animals with Kant, because other people could get feelings of pity or disgust, feelings that you usually don't want to have yourself. Because a reckless handling of animals could have brutal consequences for people, which could have a negative effect on the way people treat each other. His approach puts people first. Animals have no intrinsic value and their protection depends solely on the assessment of the individual.

An important starting point in the debate about the moral questions of the human-animal relationship can be found with Jeremy Bentham . In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), with a view to the drifts of the French Revolution, he formulates that the day will come when not only all people but also animals will be accepted into the circle of the moral community. Bentham points out that the ability to suffer creates the crucial commonality between humans and animals: “the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? ".

Henry Stephens Salt was the first thinker to answer the question “Do animals have rights?” With the answer “No doubt if humans have them”. In his manifesto “Animal Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress”, published in 1892, he formulates an animal rights position that he understands as a necessary step in the further development of human society.

“While the English-language discussion of animal ethics, under the influence of Bentham's utilitarianism and Darwin's theory of evolution, emphasizes a natural relationship and the aspects of empirical equality between humans and animals and has argued according to the emancipation model since the late 18th century , German animal ethics in the 19th century is initially subordinate the influence of Kant , then under that of Schopenhauer's ethics of compassion. "

In 1926, Leonard Nelson placed the duty of the workers in law and the state to take action against the exploitation of animals in the context of a criticism of capitalism. As early as 1923, Albert Schweitzer made his cultural criticism based in particular on the human-animal relationship.

The debate and academic debate about animal rights did not establish itself in the 20th century until the 1970s. Since the publication of Animals, Men, and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-Humans (1971) by Godlovitch and Harris and Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (1975), animal ethics has gradually become institutionalized as a scientific discipline. Animal ethics has now become an integral part of academic debate and philosophical ethics.

The most important authors on animal ethics in German-speaking countries are currently Jean-Claude Wolf , Ursula Wolf , Richard David Precht and Helmut F. Kaplan . While the Australian Peter Singer and the American Tom Regan discuss the inclusion of animals in ethics in the tradition of utilitarianism and Kantian philosophy, Ursula Wolf's conception of generalized compassion is based on Schopenhauer's morality of compassion . Richard David Precht argues in Noahs Erbe (1997) and in Thinking Animals (2016) for an "ethics of ignorance". Kaplan's “simple ethics” cannot be assigned to any specific theoretical basic position and is designed to be as generally understandable as possible. Some philosophers also advocated extending John Rawls' approach to non-human beings.

subjects

The central task of animal ethics is to determine the ethical status of the animal. In doing so, the moral conceptions are fundamentally discussed, and the common moral intuitions are determined and checked for their appropriateness and justifiability in terms of moral philosophy. But the historical aspects of the human-animal relationship are also examined. It is criticized that this question has been neglected in Western philosophy .

A fundamental problem is whether the generalized term “ the animal”, which does not distinguish between low and highly developed organisms, is sustainable in its traditional form. Animal ethicists today mostly see it as an arbitrary construct which, in the classical occidental philosophical currents, served to enable a definition of "the" human being as a non-animal ex negativo .

The starting point for current approaches to animal ethics include a. concrete aspects of modern animal use that critics rate as "inhuman", for example in factory farming , animal transports or animal experiments as well as in breeding, in which "judging" value judgments are often made about "livable" creatures (cf. Sexen ). The possibilities of xenotransplantation or the breeding of human-animal hybrids are new topics that have arisen as a result of medical progress and that are being discussed from the point of view of animal ethics .

Animal rights

The term animal rights is a central term in animal ethics. It describes subjective rights for (non-human) animals . There is an extensive debate about which animals are or can be legal subjects , what rights they have, how this can be justified and what practical consequences result from this.

literature

An extensive list of literature is available from Information Philosophie : A – L and M – Z

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals. Second part. Metaphysical foundations of the doctrine of virtue, §17.
  2. ↑ See Klaus Peter Rippe: Animal Ethics . In: Marcus Düwell and Klaus Steigleder (eds.): Bioethics. An introduction. Frankfurt am Main 2003. pp. 405-412. Pp. 405/406.
  3. ↑ Cf. Clemens Wustmans: Animal ethics as ethics of species protection. Opportunities and Limits. Stuttgart 2015. pp. 93-96.
  4. ↑ Julian Nida-Rümelin : Tierethik I: To the philosophical and ethical foundations of animal protection . In: ders. (Ed.): Applied ethics. The area ethics and their theoretical foundation. A manual (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 437). 2nd updated edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-43702-3 , pp. 514-539.
  5. ↑ See Bernd Janowski / Ute Neumann-Gorsolke / Uwe Gleßmer (eds.): Companions and enemies of humans. The animal in the world of ancient Israel . Neukirchen-Vluyn 1993
  6. ↑ See Urs Dierauer: Animals and humans in ancient thought . Amsterdam 1977. Richard Sorabji: Animal Minds and Human Morals. The Origins of the Western Debate . London 1993
  7. ↑ Entry on animal ethics. In: Marcus Düwell, Christoph Hübenthal and Micha H. Werner (eds.): Handbook Ethics . 2nd Edition. Stuttgart 2006. pp. 288-291. P. 288.
  8. ↑ Gillespie, J. & Flanders, F. (2009): Modern Livestock and Poultry Production. Cengage learning.
  9. ↑ Immanuel Kant: What is Enlightenment? . In: Ernst Cassirer: What is Enlightenment? Selected small fonts . Felix Meiner Verlag 1999.
  10. ↑ See Herwig Grimm, Samuel Camenzind, Andreas Aigner: Tierethik . In: Roland Borgards (ed.): Animals . JB Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 2016, pp. 78–97
  11. ^ Jeremy Bentham: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789]. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. Ed. V. JH Burns, HLA Hart. London 1996, p. 283
  12. ^ Jeremy Bentham on the suffering of non-human animals. Retrieved January 8, 2020 .
  13. ^ Jean-Pierre Wils: Animal ethics. In: Jean-Pierre Wils and Christoph Hübenthal (eds.): Lexicon of Ethics. Pp. 362-370. P. 367.
  14. ↑ Heike Baranzke: animal ethics . In: Marcus Düwell, Christoph Hübenthal and Micha H. Werner (eds.): Handbook Ethics. 2nd Edition. Stuttgart 2006. pp. 288-291. P. 288.
  15. ↑ Cf. Leonard Nelson: Law and State [1926]. Hamburg 1972, p. 376
  16. ↑ See Albert Schweitzer: Kulturphilosophie [1923]. Munich 2007
  17. ↑ Stanley Godlovitch, Rosalind Godlovitch, John Harris: Animals, Men, and Morals. An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-Humans . London / New York 1971
  18. ↑ See Herwig Grimm, Samuel Camenzind, Andreas Aigner: Tierethik . In: Roland Borgards (ed.): Animals . JB Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 2016, pp. 78–97 (here: p. 79)
  19. ↑ See Donald VanDeVeer: Of Beasts, Persons, and the Original Position. The Monist 62, 1979, pp. 368-377.
  20. ↑ Hearing of the Ethics Council