Animal Rights and Metaphysics of Mind Exam (Final)

For the essay prompts I broke them each down into separate points (in a numbered list) to be able to answer them more easily!

Moral agents

Something that is capable of doing right or wrong.

Moral patients

Something that is capable of being wronged.

What feature grants anything moral
patiency according to Kant?

Our capacity to calculate whether an action is moral or immoral (reason).

What feature grants anything moral
patiency according to Singer?

Our capacity for suffering and joy.

What feature grants anything moral
patiency according to Fox?

Membership in a moral community.

3 features of a moral community

Members must:

1. Be autonomous (have critical self awareness and the ability to manipulate complex concepts).

2. Have complex language abilities.

3. Recognize autonomy in others.

What feature grants anything moral
patiency according to Regan?

Be the experiencing subject of a life.

Mind-Body Dualism

The mind is not the brain or any other physical object; mental events may be caused by physical brain events, but are not identical to them.

What must Dualists believe about the nature of mental states and their relation to the physical world?

Dualists think that mental states must be distinct from physical states, since they are states of the mind, and the mind is not a physical object. However, some mental states are caused by physical states of the brain.

Mind-Body Identity Theory

Mental events just are physical brain events.

What must Identity Theorists believe about the relationship between mental terms and terms we use to describe the physical world?

Physical “words” and mental “words” are really just descriptions of the same physical brain event, using different terms.

1. Explain Kant’s view that humans have intrinsic moral worth and the moral theory that follows from that view.

2. Explain how it follows from Kant’s theory that non-human animals do not have moral worth.

3. What kind of objection is given by Singer and Regan that Kant cannot be correct about the moral value of humans? Is their objection sufficient to defeat Kant’s criteria for moral value?

1. In order for a being to have moral worth, they must be able to understand what will result from their actions (moral reasoning).

2. Animals cannot reason in the same way that humans can, nor are they autonomous enough to recognize the best moral course of action for themselves and others.

3. Singer’s objection lies in the fact that not all humans have the ability of moral reasoning. Since this is the case, Singer believes that there must be some other feature that pertains to all humans but does not pertain to any animals.

   Similarly, Regan believes that animals must be included in the group of beings that deserve moral consideration because they contain humanlike qualities (and are the experiencing subjects of a life).

1. Describe Peter Singer’s argument that all animals are equal.

2. Describe at least one radical consequence of his view.

3. Does the fact that Singer’s theory contains such radical consequences for our treatment of animals count as a reason to reject his argument?

4. Describe what you take to be the most devastating criticism of Singer’s argument. Is this criticism adequate to defeat Singer’s argument (why or why not?)

1. All animals are equal to humans because humans and animals share the capacities to suffer and feel joy.

2. If there is one feature that all humans have and all animals lack, we could possibly justify the argument that humans have more intrinsic moral worth than humans. However, there appears to not be a feature that does this. Example: Intelligence? Some animals are more intelligent than some humans.

3. No. The radical consequences for Singer’s argument simply call into question our prejudices against animals and reinforce the idea that these same kind of prejudices between groups of humans—gender, race, etc—would be wrong and therefore we cannot have these prejudices against animals.

4. One criticism of Singer’s argument targets that Singer’s argument would make us responsible to consider human and animal lives in equal measure. For example, if we have the choice to save one baby or two puppies from a burning building, Singer’s view would instruct us to save the puppies because it would mean less death.

   Most people would be horrified by this conclusion, but it both fits within the utilitarian calculus and shows humans’ tendency towards speciesism.

1. According to Fox, where do moral obligations come from?

2. Why would this view make it impossible for us to have moral obligations to animals?

3. How does Fox deal with the objection that not all humans are autonomous (in his sense)?

4. Is his defense against this kind of criticism adequate?

1. Membership in a moral community (a group of people that recognize a commonality amongst themselves).

2. Animals are not autonomous (self aware), they do not have complex language abilities, and they cannot recognize autonomy in others.

3. In the case of those who are not currently autonomous but will be someday (infants), or those that were once autonomous but never will be again (as a result of old age or accident), we must acknowledge that we all were once in this situation and will someday day be in this situation again.

   In the case of those who have never been autonomous and never will be, we must acknowledge that could have been us and we must empathize.

   The adequacy of this argument depends upon the view of the reader (specifically regarding animal rights), but Fox claims that all humans are distantly related (he calls this argument mutual relation), whereas the same cannot be said about all humans and animals.

4. No. There is no reason to discount animals—many of whom share qualities that humans have and/or a similar level of intelligence with humans—because that is blatant speciesism.

Contractarianism

Morality is a set of rules agreed upon by society (and can even apply to seemingly immoral principles as long as they are part of the contract).

Utilitarianism

The right action is whichever option results in the most overall happiness when we add up the effect of our choice on everyone.

1. Give Tom Regan’s account of what gives something intrinsic value.

2. Why does he think his view is better than Contractarianism and Utilitarianism?

3. What radical consequences follow from Regan’s view? Does the fact that Regan’s theory contains such radical
   consequences for our treatment of animals count as a reason to reject his argument?

1. Regan states that anything that is the experiencing subject of a life has intrinsic value (having value in its own right, not because it has utility for anyone else).

2. Contractarianism - Animals cannot be part of the moral contract because they are not autonomous and cannot give consent to the contract; animals should also be allowed to sign off on the contract, or the contract could favor solely human interests.

   Utilitarianism - Regan’s view places importance on intrinsic moral worth rather than viewing humans and animals alike as mere receptacles for sadness or joy.

3. According to Regan’s Rights View, we cannot carry out any testing or other unfair treatment of animals because they cannot consent to it. Humans and animals should be afforded the same rights (and protection from cruel treatment) on the same basis of inherent moral value.

1. Why is it impossible for you to doubt whether you think, or whether you exist?

2. How does Descartes use this fact to argue that his body is not identical to his mind in Meditation 2?

3. Make the critical flaw in that argument absolutely clear to your reader (using, if you like, what Carruthers says against such arguments).

1. The capacity for thought - The ability to doubt in itself would not be possible if we did not exist. (“I think therefore I am.”)

2. The certainty argued in (1) cannot be applied to the body or brain because our minds could be inventing a physical world that does not exist in actuality—the only thing we can be certain of is the existence of our mind.

3. The conclusion does not follow from the premises. Just because we are certain of the properties of one thing does not mean we can claim something else does not have those identical properties (meaning they are the same thing). Descartes, while certain that his mind exists, could be falsely assuming that the brain is separate from the mind. For example, in the case of Oedipus wanting to marry Jocasta but not wanting to marry his mother, he is certain of one thing (wanting to marry Jocasta) and but not certain about another (not wanting to marry his mother). This is not because his mother and Jocasta are the not the same person (they are)—Oedipus is simply mistaken in his belief. So, because Descartes may simply be lacking crucial information, his argument in Meditation 2 neither proves nor disproves Mind-Body Dualism.

1. Make the argument for mind-body dualism given by Descartes in Meditation 6 as convincing and clear as possible for your reader using Gertler’s original formulation of the argument.

2. Now give the most serious criticism of the argument.

3. How does Gertler alter the argument to avoid the problem? Does Gertler’s revision of the argument succeed?

1. Premise 1: I can conceive of pain without any physical brain event.

   Premise 2: Anything I can conceive of is at least logically possible.

   So, pain without any physical brain event is at least logically possible.

2. Premise 2 is false because there are many things we can be misinformed about that we can conceive of that are not logically or physically possible. (Example: a child that can conceive of a married bachelor because he doesn’t actually know the definition of a bachelor; the solution to this issue would simply be to learn the definition of the word bachelor and is not a good example of conceiving of impossible things.)

3. Gertler makes the revision of adding “sufficiently comprehensive concepts” onto the existing premises. (Her revision to premise 2: Anything I can conceive of using sufficiently comprehensive concepts is at least logically possible.) This would alleviate the issue of having misinformation, but does not prevent identity theorists from criticizing mind-body dualism. Epiphenomenalism is still an issue because the complete separation of mind and body can lead to the belief that everything that happens in the mind can only be caused by other physical events.

1. Explain the mind/brain identity theory.

2. What is the most notable theoretical benefit of such a view?

1. The mind is the brain and mental events just are physical brain events.

2. I.T. is the only theory of mind that allows us to simultaneously believe:

   1. Mental states can cause things to happen in the world.

   2. Everything that happens in the physical world has a purely physical cause.

3. Now describe one of the following problems for the view in detail: (a) the problem of ‘felt qualities’ (or qualia), (b) the problem of ‘complete knowledge’, or (c) the problem of intentionality; whichever you think is the most difficult problem for identity theorists to overcome.

4. Now explain Carruthers’ defense against the problem you described. Is Carruthers’ defense adequate (why or why not?).

3. The problem from felt quality (qualia) argues that some mental states have distinctive qualia, yet no purely physical brain states have distinctive qualia. It follows from these premises that some mental states are not merely physical brain events. This argument is made more clear if we give it a simple revision: instead of having these qualities, some brain states simply are these qualities.

4. This means that Carruthers cannot prove identity theory using the problem of felt quality because the second premise would disprove identity theory: “No purely brain states are distinctive qualia.” This statement contradicts I.T. because in this case a physical brain state would require a mental state in order to have a distinctive felt quality (which implies the brain and mind are separate).