Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher who is perhaps the most important theorist behind the animal rights movement. His view is in between Guthrie's and Taylor's; all animals are morally equal -- at least with regard to their suffering -- but because plants are not sentient, Singer does not argue for extending moral consideration to them.

Singer begins his essay by pointing out that the case for women's rights was once parodied on the grounds that similar arguments would entail rights for animals. Since this conclusion was absurd, the argument for women's rights must be mistaken.

In these days of PETA and vegetarian airline food, this seems more than a bit ironic. But it was also an intellectual confusion, Singer argues. A dog can't understand what voting means; this is a relevant difference between men (i.e., males) and dogs, and counts against the right to vote for a dog. But women are capable of understanding what voting means; denying them the vote is arbitrary; is sexist.

There are differences between humans and various animals. This tells us human and animals can't have the same detailed sets of rights. Equally, since men can't bear children, for example, the right to abortion is not even an issue for men. But the basic principle of equality doesn't require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. And "[e]qual consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights."

Singer then examines the cases against racism and sexism to see what light it sheds on the case against what he will call "speciesism." He begins by asking: when we say that all human beings are equal, regardless of their race or sex, what do we mean? He points out: we don't mean that all of them are equal in fact -- in intelligence or ability, for example.

Suppose someone insisted on pressing the case that equality is founded in factual equality -- in something abut equality of ability. They might say that even though individual men and women, or individual members of different races, may sometimes be unequal, nonetheless "on average" these differences wash out; on average, the argument might go, there are no interesting differences of ability between men and women, or among people of different races.

Singer insists that this won't do. First, this way of reasoning provides no defense against a scheme that says people with above average IQs should get more consideration than people with IQs at or below average. Such a scheme would not amount to racism or sexism; it would relay only on individual differences. But most of us recognize that there is something wrong with it. It is both arbitrary and morally confused.

Notice: it's important to be clear that Singer agrees: your abilities are relevant to how you should be treated. People who can't do brain surgery shouldn't be allowed to perform it. But when we say that people are entitled to equal treatment, we don't mean that relevant differences should be ignored; we mean that irrelevant differences should be ignored. If you are smarter than me, that doesn't mean that it is less serious to cause me pain or to thwart my legitimate plans, for example. Intelligence is not relevant to such things.

Equally important in assessing the relevance of the "average" abilities of the sexes and/or races is this: for all we can say for certain, there are significant differences on average between people of different races or sexes with respect to ability. Singer's point isn't that this is likely to be true. His point is that the case of equality shouldn't depend on merely assuming that it's false. Even if it turns out that one race is, on average, more intelligent than another (whatever exactly "race" and "intelligence" means) this would not provide a justification for treating members of different races differently without regard to individual differences. In fact, the overall point is this, in Singer's words:

[E]quality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact. Equality is a moral idea, not an assertion of fact.

The point made above is common to very many approaches to morality. But Singer's own perspective is quite specifically utilitarian and this shows up in the way he makes his case. He quotes some important utilitarians on the idea of equality.

"Each to count for one and none for more than one." (Jeremy Bentham)

"The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other." (Henry Sidgwick)

Note that interests are what matter here. And interests are understood in terms of the capacity for suffering and enjoyment. This capacity is "a prerequisite for having any interests at all." The differences between creatures may call for quite different treatment in satisfying their interests. A child requires much in the way of care; a pig very little. But "the limit of sentience... is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others."

In other words: if a creature can suffer, then insofar as it can suffer, its suffering is every bit as important as any other creature's.

Singer is not a sentimentalist. He understands that the amount of suffering an action produces depends on the creature. A slap on a horse's rump causes little pain. The same slap would cause an infant much pain. On the other hand, there is an amount of pain we could cause a horse (say, by hitting it with a large stick) that would equal the pain an infant would feel on being slapped. If it is wrong to slap the infant for no reason, it is equally wrong to hit the horse with a stick for no reason, and it is wrong for the same reason in both cases: because of the suffering caused.

Still, it may be argued that something is being overlooked here. We normally think that mental capacities are important for our moral view of beings. Singer points out that this is in large part because these capacities affect the degree of suffering associated with various actions. For example: if we kidnapped people from a park to perform experiments, the terror this would create in the population would be an additional source of suffering, making this even worse than doing the same thing to animals. On the other hand, sometimes an animal's lack of understanding makes it suffer more; you can't calm it by explaining what is going on.

So far, Singer has concentrated on suffering. What of life itself? Is killing an animal the equivalent of killing a person? This is a more complicated issue. Singer notes that there is much controversy both about just what makes killing a human wrong and about what circumstances permit killing. But he considers a strong view, that goes with the phrase "the sanctity of human life." Suppose it is held that human life is utterly sacrosanct. To hold that only human life is sacrosanct is speciesism. He illustrates the difficulty with the example of a child born with such massive brain damage that it will always be a vegetable. Suppose we hold that it is nonetheless wrong to kill the child. Since other animals have far greater capacities for suffering, enjoyment, relationship, independent action, etc. than such a child ever will, to claim that it would be more acceptable to kill these other creatures is unjustifiable, and is speciesism.

Does it follow that it is as wrong to kill a dog as to kill a normal human being? No, according to Singer. What is unacceptable is to draw the line so that it corresponds exactly with species boundaries, quite apart from any questions about the creatures themselves. "To avoid speciesism, we must allow that beings that are similar in all relevant respects have a similar right to life." And species membership per se is not a morally relevant criterion. But consistent with all this, we might well say that it is worse to kill a normal, "typical" human being than to kill a mouse.

In fact, Singer notes, everything he has said is consistent with the view that killing higher animals -- dogs, pigs, etc. -- is a grave moral wrong -- as wrong as killing a retarded human. It is also consistent with the view that killing a retarded human is as trivial as killing a dog. The best position, Singer suggests, lies between these extremes: "What we need is some middle position that would avoid speciesism but would not make the lives of the retarded and senile as cheap as the lives of pigs and dogs now are, nor make the lives of pigs and dogs so sacrosanct that we think it wrong to put them out of hopeless misery."

However the details are worked out, Singer allows that not all lives are of equal worth. Intelligence and other cognitive/emotional traits that typically distinguish humans from other animals may be relevant to the value of life itself. What they are not relevant to is the evil of suffering. If two creatures are suffering equally, the fact that one is much more intelligent than the other does not make its suffering of more moral importance. As Singer puts it, "the evil of pain is, in itself, unaffected by the other characteristics of the being that feels the pain; the value of life is affected by these other characteristics." But even here, the comparison is not made on the basis of species membership.

What are the detailed consequences of Singer's view for the treatment of animals? That is a long and complicated story that Singer works out elsewhere. It seems clear, however, that if he is right, a great many practices that we take for granted would turn out simply to be unacceptable.

What of eating meat? Singer believes, in particular, that his position requires vegetarianism. However, he doesn't make that case here.

© copyright Allen Stairs, 1997

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