Abstract
Some animal defenders are committed to complete abstinence from animal products. However the strongest arguments for adopting veganism only seem to require that one avoid using animal products, where use or procurement of these products will harm sentient animals. As such, there is seemingly a gap between our intuition and our argument. In this article I attempt to defend the more comprehensive claim that we have a moral reason to avoid using animal products, regardless of the method of procurement. I argue that animal bodies give rise to properties which grant sentient animals’ moral status and in light of this, animal bodies possess final value in themselves. This final value gives us a moral reason not to commodify animal bodies, which means we have a defeasible reason to abstain from using animal products in almost all circumstances.
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Notes
See Cora Diamond, “Eating Meat and Eating People,” Philosophy 53, no. 206 (1978): p. 468. for a version of this challenge.
See Rom Harré, “Bodily Obligations,” Cogito 1, no. 3 (1987): p. 16 for this paperweight example.
See Geoffrey Scarre, “Archaeology and Respect for the Dead,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 20, no. 3 (2003): p. 15. for an account of posthumous harm relevant to using bodies.
See Dorothy Grover, “Posthumous Harm,” The Philosophical Quarterly 39, no. 156 (1989): p. 334; Ernest Partridge, “Posthumous Interests and Posthumous Respect,” Ethics, 1981, pp. 243–64; James Stacey Taylor, “The Myth of Posthumous Harm,” American Philosophical Quarterly 42, no. 4 (2005): pp. 311–22.
See Christine M. Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); and Elizabeth Foreman, “The Object of Respect,” Environmental Ethics 37, no. 1 (2015): pp. 57–73, https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics20153715 respectively.
See Philipp Balzer, Klaus Peter Rippe, and Peter Schaber, “Two Concepts of Dignity for Humans and Non-Human Organisms in the Context of Genetic Engineering,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 13, no. 1–2 (2000): pp. 7–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02694132; Suzanne Laba Cataldi, “Animals and the Concept of Dignity: Critical Reflections on a Circus Performance,” Ethics and the Environment 7, no. 2 (2002): pp. 104–26; David J. Chauvet, “Should Cultured Meat Be Refused in the Name of Animal Dignity?,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21, no. 2 (2018): pp. 387–411, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9888-4; Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); Sara Elizabeth Gavrell Ortiz, “Beyond Welfare: Animal Integrity, Animal Dignity, and Genetic Engineering,” Ethics & the Environment 9, no. 1 (2004): pp. 94–120; Bernard E. Rollin, Animal Rights and Human Morality (New York: Prometheus Books, 1981); Federico Zuolo, “Dignity and Animals. Does It Make Sense to Apply the Concept of Dignity to All Sentient Beings?,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19, no. 5 (November 1, 2016): pp. 1117–30, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9695-8.
See Ortiz, op. cit., p. 114.
See Balzer, Rippe, and Schaber, op. cit., p. 20.
See Balzer, Rippe, and Schaber, op. cit. p. 23; Zuolo, op. cit., p. 1121; Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice Disability, Nationality, Species Membership; Rollin, Animal Rights and Human Morality, p. 35.
See Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).
See Harré, op. cit., p. 16.
See Shelly Kagan, “Rethinking Intrinsic Value,” The Journal of Ethics 2, no. 4 (December 1, 1998): pp. 77–97; Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, “A Distinction in Value: Intrinsic and for Its Own Sake,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society., 2000, pp. 33–51, https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3846-1_10.
See Kagan, op. cit.
Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, op. cit. For an alternative view see Kagan, op. cit.
See Kagan, op. cit., p. 284.
See Kagan, ibid., p. 286.
Kagan, ibid.
References
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Diamond, Cora. 1978. Eating Meat and Eating People. Philosophy 53: no. 206. “.” ( : pp.465–79.
Foreman, Elizabeth. June 15, 2015. The Object of Respect. Environmental Ethics 37 (1): 57–73. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics20153715. “.” ( : .
Grover, Dorothy. 1989. Posthumous Harm. The Philosophical Quarterly 39: no. 156. “.” ( : pp.334.
Harré, Rom. “Bodily Obligations.” Cogito 1, no. 3. 1987. pp.15–19.
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Korsgaard, Christine M. 2018. Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2007. Frontiers of Justice Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Rollin, Bernard E. 1981. Animal Rights and Human Morality. New York: Prometheus Books.
Scarre, Geoffrey. 2003. Archaeology and Respect for the Dead. Journal of Applied Philosophy 20 (3): 237–249. “.” ( .
Taylor, James Stacey. 2005. The Myth of Posthumous Harm. American Philosophical Quarterly 42 (4): 311–322. “.” ( .
Taylor, Paul W. 2011. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Zuolo, Federico. “Dignity and Animals. Does It Make Sense to Apply the Concept of Dignity to All Sentient Beings?” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19, no. 5. November 1, 2016. pp.1117–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9695-8.
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Marc G, W. An Argument Against Treating Non-Human Animal Bodies as Commodities. J Value Inquiry (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-022-09910-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-022-09910-9