PP110 Lecture Notes - Hunger Strike, Tu Quoque, The Real News
Document Summary
Discussion of is a dolphin a person? - further expanded on. Justice or injustice going on in the world now. She begins her essay is a dolphin a person? by describing a court case: two people are prosecuted for releasing two dolphins from a marine research facility in hawaii. Vasseur, argued that he was morally bound to release them because they were clearly suffering and were emotionally damaged by the conditions of their captivity. The judge rejected vasseur"s defence on the grounds that a dolphin is a thing, as opposed to a person, and so there is no complication. Vasseur stole or lost a thing, someone"s property. Persons, the judged proclaimed, means human beings and nothing more. The judge, midgley concludes, used a legal fiction i. e- that dolphins are things (based on what law agrees on), which has no basis in fact.
