Animal Ethics and Rights: Notes on Norcross and Frey

Animal Ethics / Animal Rights

Alastair Norcross

• Ph.D. from Syracuse University.
• Research primarily on normative ethics.
• Utilitarian: Advocates for scalar utilitarianism.
  • Rightness/wrongness of actions is a matter of degrees.
  • Ranking actions on a scale.
  • No need to seek the top solution; aim for something "all things considered" best.

R. G. Frey

• Ph.D. from Oxford.
• Known for writings on applied ethics, especially animal ethics.
• Died in 2012.

Norcross: Morality of Factory Farming

• Focuses on widespread industrial agriculture.
• Concerns:
  • Meat production from places like Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, and grocery stores.

The Fred Experiment

• Fred loses the ability to taste chocolate due to an accident.
• Neurologist explains his Godiva gland is damaged, not secreting cocommon (fictional).
• Puppies produce cocommon when stressed.
• Fred tortures puppies to get cocommon and taste chocolate.
• Norcross notes that most people would find Fred's behavior morally wrong.

Comparison to Meat Consumption

• Norcross likens Fred's behavior to societal meat consumption.
• Billions of animals endure suffering in intensive confinement facilities.
• Animals live in cramped, stressful conditions with unanesthetized mutilation.
• Benefits: Profits for agribusiness and gustatory pleasure for meat-eaters.

Potential Differences & Rebuttals

• We don't torture animals ourselves:
  • Norcross: Paying someone else to torture is effectively the same.
• Unawareness of Treatment:
  • Norcross: Most people are aware of the conditions in slaughterhouses.
• One Person's Impact:
  • Stopping Fred would end his practice, but one person not eating meat won't stop factory farming.
  • Norcross offers two responses:
    • If people knew puppies were tortured to produce a product, they wouldn't buy it.
    • A critical mass of vegetarians would lead to industry changes.
• Pain as a Byproduct:
  • Torture is a byproduct, while pain is an unintentional byproduct of agriculture practices.
  • Norcross contends that any good from factory farming doesn't outweigh the negative consequences.
• Caring More About Puppies:
  • Puppies are more valuable than other animals.
  • Norcross: This seems arbitrary; animals don't have a more developed moral sense than pigs.

Marginal Cases

• Human death/suffering is considered to carry more weight because humans are rational.
• Marginal cases: Infants, cognitively disabled, dementia patients, those in irreversible comas.
• Nonhuman animals: Dolphins, ravens, pigs, octopuses.
• Norcross questions where to draw the line so that infants do not deserve less moral consideration than an octopus.
• Two Responses to Marginal Cases Argument:
  • Marginal cases deserve more consideration due to the potential for rationality.
    • Norcross: Arbitrary and not morally relevant.
  • Marginal cases have no moral standing, but there are practical reasons to treat human beings with equal status unlike nonhuman animals.
    • Norcross: Arbitrary and not a moral argument

Frey: Including Nonhuman Animals in the Moral Community

• Goal: Include nonhuman animals in the moral community.
• Frey argues using animals in experiments is permissible since they are less valuable than humans.
• Three claims:
  • Animal life has value.
  • Not all animal life has the same value.
  • Human life is more valuable than nonhuman animal life.
• Cruelty to a child and cruelty to a dog are both wrong because inflicting any pain is bad.
• However, If human lives are more valuable than non-human animal lives then scientific research is justified.

Why Human Lives are More Valuable

• Humans can:
  • Love.
  • Have relationships.
  • Educate children.
  • Pursue hobbies.
  • Have careers.
• Cultural and intellectual development.
• Regrets are about uniquely human activities.
• Frey: Autonomy is key; humans can live out their conception of the good life.
• He thinks it is obvious that humans have richer lives than nonhuman animals.

Speciesism

• Frey acknowledges concerns about speciesism.
• The value of life is impacted by species membership.
• Claims that some humans (infants without a brain, Alzheimer's patients) do not have the same value as typical adults.
• Healthy nonhuman animals may have more value than some humans.
• Frey would accept using humans in medical experimentation instead of nonhuman animals in some cases.
  • The Considerations for determining if the prior is morally permissible:
    • The nature and size of the benefit to be achieved
    • The side effects that any decision to use humans in preference to nonhuman animals may invoke
    • The degree to which education and explanation can dissipate any of those side effects
    • The projected reliability of nonhuman animal results for the human case
• Frey considers this view and acknowledges it makes his case for using nonhuman animals harder.

Objections to Frey's argument

• Participates in indirect speciesism using human criteria.
• Frey responds using Mill's distinction between higher and lower quality pleasures.
• Animal experiences are based only on the five senses, and don't seem to be what makes a life valuable.