PHLA11H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Speciesism, Moral Agency
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Phla11 lecture 19 treatment of animal. Primates, cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, mice, rats, rabbits, and others. Two arguments against the use of animals in biomedical research: Using animals in research wrongly violates the rights of animals . Using animals in research wrongly imposes on sentient creatures much avoidable suffering. Cohen"s aim: refute both of these arguments. This much is clear about rights in general: they are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a community of moral agents. Rights arise, and can be intelligibly defended, only among beings who actually do, or can, make moral claims against one another. Whatever else rights may be, therefore, they are necessarily human; their possessors are persons, human beings. (p. 1) One has rights as a member of a community of moral agents. To be a moral agent one needs to be capable of exercising and responding to moral claims, to lay down general moral rules and self-legislate. (p. 2)