Exam Summarize position and explain objections etc Cohen on animals continued Cohens aims is to argue against arguments like singers and Regan s that using animals as research subjects in medical experiments is immoral P1 only members od species with the capacity to make moral claims have rights P2 non human animal species do not have this capacity P3 p1 and P2 therefor the members of nonhuman animals species do not have rights C from P4 animal experimentation does not violate animals rights Cohen s argument implies that many humans do not have rights NPH non paratactic humans comas etc If this is true and if we really want to hold to one intuitions that NPH have rights hen there must be something wrong with the truth of at least one of Cohen s premises Cohen is valid Cohen attempts to include NPH in the class of entities with right by arguing as follows P1 Humans typically have moral rights P2 Non Paratactic Humans are humans C NPH have more rights One can also object against the inference from P4 to C There is a difference between the set of beings to which moral norms apply morality issues commands and the state of beings that deserve moral consideration It can be that RULES of morality apply only to more agents but that creatures other than moral agents deserve moral consideration Cohen addresses this objection by granting that even though animals don t have right we still have obligations to them Thus we cant o anything we want to animals Cohen appeals to a distinction between obligations and rights H point is that only humans have rights and the moral consideration animals deserve is in virtue of out obligations to them not in virtue of their right r their ability to suffer COHEN REFORMULATED P5 animals experimentation does not violate animal rights P6 our obligations to humans are more important than those of animals A similar objection against Cohen is directly to attack P1 one can have rights eve if unable to make moral claims babies potential people sleeping people This means that s the ability to enter into a social contract is not a necessary Strongest A big problem for contractitanism is that he social contracts can be unjust Now if contractitarianism is mistaken then the ability to enter in social contracts is not necessary for possession of rights contrary to what Cohen holds Then animals could have moral rights even though they cannot enter into social contracts Warren singer and Regan go too far when they say animal rights are just as strong as human rights Cohen goes to far when he says that animals do not have human rights P1 humans and animals have interests P2 Rights are accorded to protect interests P3 Animals require less to protect their interests C Therefore animals have less and weaker rights than humans Rights Ingeneral if you have a moral right it is wrong to deprive you with out moral justification Deprivation would then harm your interests Humans have the right to freedom because they have desires animals do not have long term goals and desires Truman show AGAINST WARREN no interest is curtailed Still it seems that a rigt is infringed point This a right can be violated even though no interest is infringed upon This goes against P2 Warren can go against this by potential interests should be taken to consideration If Truman knew he d want to get out Support warrens view with Cohen s Warren argues that humans are stronger than animals because humans respect each others sides We have a moral conversation Animals do not respect humans as equal because we cannot have a similar view Warren view However children and infants cannot engage in reciprocal relationship So do they have weak rights too Warren would agree that they have weak rights but will argue that we have obligations to protect tem because we value them But why cant the same argument be made for animals Furthermore some animals have more interests than some NPH compare a dog and a neonate Warren argues that NPH should be protected because we value them But we can say the same thing about animals as well This means tat she should defend not a spiciest position but animal liberationist one Warren gives three reasons why NPH should be given protections they are partially autonomous 1 2 we value them 3 moral and social system would collapse NPH we treat animals bad but then the social world does not collapse But if we used humans then the moral and social system would collapse by the issue that we would then go into war about race gender and other things
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