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Animal Suffering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 1978

Donald Vandeveer
Donald Vandeveer*
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University at Raleigh
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Extract

The problem of ascertaining whether there is a justification for the imposition of suffering and premature death on nonhuman animals is important in itself. Examination of the problem also promises to force philosophers to rethink widespread assumptions about what is proper treatment of less than normal human beings, the basis for attributing rights to humans, the value of life, the “intrinsic worth of all human beings,” and certain egalitarian principles. In what follows my primary concern will concern the justification of imposing suffering on animals. In particular I shall try to sort out and examine some arguments set forward by Tom Regan in a recent essay.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 463 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1980

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References

1 See Regan, Tom “Narveson on Egoism and The Rights of Animals” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (March 1977), pp. 179–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Singer, Peter Animal Liberation (New York: The Hearst Corporation, 1975).Google Scholar

3 Regan, op. cit., p. 185.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 I later focus on a difficulty raised by the expression “suffer gratuitously.”

7 Regan, op. cit., p. 185.

8 Ibid.

9 While I think that defenders of what is indeed trivial research on animals (I quite agree with Singer and Regan here) too glibly invoke the desirability of finding a cure for cancer or some other dread condition in an effort to Justify experimentation on animals, such cases must not be ignored. Such experiments hardly seem “gratuitous” even if they promise no compensating benefits to the subjects of the experimentation.

10 Regan, op. cit., p. 185.

11 See Thomson, Judith “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 7 (1971), pp. 47–66.Google Scholar

12 Singer, op.cit., pp. 22, 244.

13 Regan, op.cit., p. 186.

14 Singer, op. cit., Chapter One.

15 The interests I have in mind I would describe as basic or welfare interests; thus, I am not focusing on the fact that it may be in a human's interest to have a martini but not in a pig's interest. An unrelated point I should like to make here is that while I have taken issue with some of Regan's views, I have profited from his thoughtful remarks on numerous occasions.