Animals in Society Test 2

A collection of flashcards discussing key terms and concepts regarding animal welfare and rights, including major philosophies and ethical considerations.

Animal Welfare

A movement aimed at improving the treatment of animals, focusing on their physical and mental health, especially when used for human needs.

The Five Freedoms associated with Animal Welfare

1) Freedom from hunger and thirst, 2) Freedom from discomfort, 3) Freedom from pain, injury, and disease, 4) Freedom to express normal behavior, 5) Freedom from fear and distress.

Natural Selection

The process where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

Artificial Selection

The intentional breeding of organisms to produce desired traits.

David DeGrazia

Animals Rights: A Very Short Introduction

1. Moral Status of rights 

2. Equal- consideration sense of rights 

3. Utility-trumping sense of rights 

Moral Status of Rights

Beings are entitled to rights based on their moral status.

Sliding Scale of Rights

Different levels of moral rights, where the severity of harm can vary between different species or situations. (pigeon vs chickens example)

Sentience

The capacity to have feelings, sensations, or emotions; an important factor in the moral consideration of animals.

Gary Francione

Animal Abolitionism: A critique of animal rights approaches that focus solely on welfare and calls for an end to all forms of exploitation and killing of nonhuman animals.

Regan and Francione

Animal Rights proper

Rollin and Grandin

Animal Welfare

Peter Singer

Animal Liberation / Utilitarianism: Advocating for equal consideration of nonhuman interests and maximizing everyones interest. Not really about rights. Right and wrong based on consequences, maximize pleasure, minimize pain: giving equal consideration.

Critique of Utilitarianism

Its better to be alive but in constant pain than to be dead.

Temple Grandin

Autistic professor focused on revolutionizing livestock handling and animals welfare. If we keep animals happy and unstressed before slaughter, the meat will be better.

Tom Regan

Nonhuman animals have awareness, feelings, and life apart from us, we have a moral obligation to treat the with the same consideration as nonhuman animals

Animal Rights

Challenges basic assumptions about nonhuman animals and their treatment

1. Three increasingly strong senses of animal rights 

1. The moral status sense

2. Equal consideration

3. Utility trumping sense

What's the difference between utilitarianism and rights?

Utilitarianism is about maximizing overall well-being were Rights emphasizes the inherent rights of individuals

Utility trumping rights

Actions what maximize overall utility are prioritizes over individual rights even if rights are violated. Right to be alive is an inherent value in moral stats.

Tom Regen

The Graduation Hypothesis

Evidence supporting the notion that animal abuse leads to human-directed violence

Youthful violence towards animals

is often seen as an early indicator of potential future violent behavior in humans. Study can reveal the conditions under which abuse does predict human violence

Dirty Play

1. Boundary pushing

2. Ambiguity of shared intentions

3. children attempt to live up to adult standards of behavior and address issues from which they had been excluded.

Deep Play

Involves intense engagement in activities that carry significant risks and challenges, pushing boundaries. Dirty play is a form of deep play.

Caring - Killing Paradox

Moral schizophrenia of being in a profession where the job is caring for animals, but they also kill animals (ex. Vet techs, agriculture jobs)

Emotion management

1. Dealing with a wide range of emotions, good and bad, to maintain mental well being 

2. Specifically for shelter workers, most learn ways to distance themselves from their acts and lessen their feelings of guilt

Emotional Labor

Managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job.

Emotional Work

The monetary work people do to understand their perspective toward animals and how that perspective is influenced by situational norms

Virtual Pets

Between the categories of pet and object

Allows them to maintain a safe distance from animals while not entirely detaching themselves from them

Using the animal

Shelter workers were more at ease with euthanasia if they focused on making the animals feel secure and calm as they were killed

Using the human

Rather than shelter workers questioning the morality of their own acts and feeling guilty, workers came to see owners and not themselves, as wronging the animals

Dirt

Matter out of place 

Dirt is not dirty outside, but once it occupies human spaces it is dirty 

Dirty Work

Involvement with those who are socially stigmatized, activities that are ‘sinful’ or ‘immoral’ or physical contact with filth and death

Frontstage/Backstage

Front stage: adheres to social expectations, the actions professionals perform when interacting with others 

Backstage: backstage is where front stage separation begins, actions professionals take when not in public eye 

If the boundary is breached between front and backstage, you have dirt

Presentation of Self

Goffman, refers to how individuals manage their identity, presenting themselves in ways that adhere to social norms and expectations.

Emotional dirty work 

Dirty work involves feelings that are “deemed out of place, contextually inappropriate, burdensome or taboo”

Emotional labor done by vet techs

Alternative compensation for vet techs

Rewarding.

Interpersonal dynamics

Diversity in work

Telos

Animals must be kept under conditions which fit their natures.

Protective fences around the individual are rights; they guard the fundamental aspects of the individual even from the general good

A new “monkey trial”

“I am thus envisioning a new 'monkey trial', at least as spectacular in its appeal and implications as the Scopes trial, which tested the Tennessee law against the teaching of evolution. Such a trial would be extraordinarily salubrious in just the same sense. The Scopes trial forced a public airing of our scientific, conceptual and educational commitments, as well as a dialectical examination of the roles of science and religion in a democratic society. This trial would force an examination of our moral and attendant legal commitments, and illuminate areas too long left in the dark.” (P. 9 Rollin the Ascent of Apes”

Laws and Morality

Ultimately, the rights of animals, protecting the fundamental aspects of their telos, must be clearly and officially recognized in the legal system (writ large) if the systematic violation is to end

Emerging ethic: animals deserve rights and legal recognition based on their own inherent value

Agricultural Industrial Complex

Farms have increased in size but decreased in production.

Strategic inefficiency - eating animals is an inefficient way to produce food

Horizontal Integration

The consolidation of production at the first stage

Monopolizing

Vertical Integration

Seek to control everything along the production line

Farm gate - Dinner plate

Online Safari

A hunter in Texas named John Lockwood, who has just pioneered the online safari which allows hunters to hunt animals remotely through the internet. This allows users to control firearms through a computer, killing animals without being physically present.

Obligation vs. Rights

If our responsibility to be compassionate towards animals because we have dominion and a God given responsibility over them.

Human compassion toward animals is an obligation of humans. NOT an entitlement or rights for animals.

Dominion

God has given people dominion over animals

Zoo Reform

Movements or initiatives aimed at improving the conditions and practices in zoos to better support animal welfare.

Blackfish

A documentary that highlights the ethical issues surrounding the captivity of orcas and its effects on their wellbeing.

Caring-Killing Paradox

The conflict experienced by individuals in professions that require caring for animals while also being responsible for euthanasia or their killing.

Obligation vs Rights

The moral discussion regarding the responsibilities humans have towards animals versus the rights animals possess.

Human compassion toward animals is an obligation of humans, not an entitlement for animals