Volume I · Discussing Speciesism · chapter 11
If Ethics Is an Invention, Is It Just to Disadvantage Animals?
Before you read study layer, not part of the original text
Even if ethics is a human invention, that doesn't make all positions equally arbitrary: math and science are also created activities, and in them some positions are better and some worse.
Someone invented soccer, but that doesn't mean any rule goes: a rule that let one team use their hands and not the other would be unfair. In ethics, too, there are fair and unfair ways of thinking.
Medicine was created by humans, and that doesn't make “treating a fever with bloodletting” as good as “treating it with fever medicine.” Being created doesn't make everything equal.
- P1 An activity having been invented doesn't imply that all positions within it are arbitrary.
- P2 In ethics, there are biased positions and positions that aren't, such as the principle of equal consideration.
- P3 Speciesism is a biased position.
- C Therefore, ethics being an invention doesn't justify disadvantaging animals.
The chapter’s central argument in logical form. If the premises are true, the conclusion follows. To disagree, you have to show which premise is false.
They say “Morality was invented by humans, so we can do whatever we want with animals.”
Answer By the same reasoning, we could do whatever we wanted with other humans. Nobody accepts that. The origin of ethics doesn't tell us which positions within it are fair.
More objections and answers in Debunking objections.
Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume I, p. 35 of the PDF edition · English translation
11.1. The claim that ethics is an invention
It is sometimes claimed that ethics is an invention. What is meant by this is that it is not something that has always existed in the universe, since rational agents must exist in order to reflect on what they should do. Ethics as an activity, therefore, seems to have arisen with the appearance of rational beings. From this observation it is sometimes said that, since ethics is an invention, all criteria in ethics are equally arbitrary, and that we therefore have no good reason to reject speciesism.
11.2. If an activity is an invention, is it necessarily arbitrary?
The main problem with this argument is that it presupposes that, if an activity is an invention, then the criteria for studying the subject of that activity are all equally arbitrary. Yet every human activity is, in the sense the argument points to, also an invention. Before the first scientists appeared, there was no activity of science. Before the first mathematicians appeared, there was no activity of mathematics. And so on. But this does not imply that things in science and mathematics are therefore arbitrary and that all views are equally plausible.
The same happens in ethics, however. For example, there are moral positions based on relevant criteria and others based on criteria that are irrelevant to what is at stake35. For example, suppose we want to know whether or not someone can be held responsible for what they choose. In that case, what seems relevant is whether or not that someone is capable of reflecting on how they should decide. Now suppose we want to know to whom we should give (that is, whom we should avoid harming and seek to benefit). In that case, what seems relevant is knowing who can be harmed or benefited (since that is why someone needs consideration). However, it is sometimes argued that nonhuman animals should not be considered because they do not understand the notion of ethics. In that case, what is being done is confusing what is relevant for someone to be held responsible with what is relevant for someone to be considered.
Moreover, there are positions that are arbitrary and others that are not. For example, the principle of equal consideration36 is not arbitrary. According to this principle, avoiding greater harms is more important than avoiding lesser harms, regardless of the race, gender, species, capacities, and so on of whoever would suffer those harms. The aim is precisely not to be biased with respect to anyone. There are, on the other hand, completely arbitrary positions, which hold, for example, that only harms to humans should be avoided, or that we should give greater importance to avoiding harms to humans even when the harm to the nonhuman animal is of the same magnitude (or even when the nonhuman animal would suffer a greater harm, according to some views). That being so, it is false that in ethics all views are equally arbitrary. In fact, what we saw above shows that some views are arbitrary and others are not.
Finally, there are also positions that are partial and others that are impartial. There are positions we would consider just if we did not know what position we would occupy among those affected by them. These positions pass the impartiality test. On the other hand, there are other positions that are defended only because those who defend them know they will not be harmed by them. Speciesism is an example. If we did not know what species we belonged to, we would consider it completely unjust to privilege humans37. This position, therefore, does not pass the .
All of this seems to show that it is false that, if ethics is a human activity, then all positions in ethics are equally arbitrary.
Practice
Study layer. The answers are based on the chapter’s text.
Is the principle of equal consideration arbitrary?
“Ethics is an invention, so all positions are equally arbitrary.” The mistake is...
Food for thought
If everything in ethics were arbitrary, could you complain about an injustice done to you?
Author’s notes 3
- 35 For a discussion of what is relevant to questions of moral consideration, see (2018a) and (2021, p. 57-61). ↩
- 36 The best-known formulation of this principle can be found in (2002[1979], p. 29-35). However, it is a principle that appears in every ethical theory that is not arbitrary. On this, see Cunha (2022b). ↩
- 37 On this, see (1998, 2009 [1998]). ↩
Sources cited in this text 6
The full list for the volume is in the Volume I references.
- CUNHA, L. C. A igualdade, suas várias interpretações, e a ética interespécies. In: BARBOSA-FOHRMANN, A. P.; LOURENÇO, D. B.; AUBERT, A. C. P. (orgs.). Estudos e direitos dos animais: teorias e desafios. Porto Alegre: Editora Fi, 2022b, p. 104-128.
- CUNHA, L. C. Uma breve introdução à ética animal: desde as questões clássicas até o que vem sendo discutido atualmente. Curitiba: Appris, 2021.
- HORTA, O. Moral Considerability and the Argument from Relevance. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, v. 31, n. 3, p. 369-388, 2018a.
- ROWLANDS, M. Animal Rights: A Philosophical Defense. London: MacMillan Press, 1998.
- ROWLANDS, M. Animal rights: Moral, theory and practice. 2. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 [1998].
- SINGER, P. Ética Prática. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2002 [1979].
This chapter in Volume XII
How the author sums up this debate in The Essentials of Animal Ethics.
Ethics is a human creation. Therefore, all views are equally arbitrary, and we do not need to justify what we do. (I, ch. 11).
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