RELG 270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Red Meat, Jeremy Bentham, Exceptionalism

• School: McGill University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELG 270
• Professor: Eliza Rosenburg

Document Summary

A person has rights, moral standing and consideration. Species membership is insufficient (cells, culture etc are human, but not persons) Species traits are often used as criteria for personhood. Cognitive/linguistic capacity, memory/sense of time, artistic abilities, social nature, self recognition/awareness, self-control. Ethical conduct means acting in accordance with a universalized principle. Ethical criteria is a guiding principle and true intention of the act. Peter singer advocates equal consideration of interests, but not rights. There is no prescriptive quality that all humans share. All beings with the capacity for suffering have interests. Vital interests always outway trivial interests (research on aids, cancer) Tom regan- animals have biographical and biological existence. Animals are ends in themselves, and must not be treated as means. Categorical speciesism (belonging to homo sapiens, humans have intrinsic value, non-humans have only instrumental value) Modified speciesism (h. sapiens have highest inherent value, and non-humans with human-like traits have inherent value- based on culture, emotion etc)