Basic Principles Of Equality In Peter Singer's All Animals Are Equal

Improved Essays
In All Animals Are Equal, the philosopher Peter Singer argues that we should extend the basic principle of equality to non-human animals. In order to justify this claim, the author examines the foundations of the basic principle of equality, establishing a moral system that takes into account the equal consideration of interests of living beings. Peter Singer states that in order for a being to have interests at all, one must take into account the capacity of suffering and enjoyment, or in other words, sentience. Throughout this chapter, Singer makes his readers see that if one rejects racism and sexism, one must also reject the idea of giving special consideration to the interests of one species over another one. In this essay, I will firstly reconstruct the arguments used by Singer to arrive at the conclusion that all animals are equal. Secondly, I will evaluate the justifications that he uses to arrive at such claim. Finally, I will argue that humans …show more content…
While non-human animals devote most of their time to satisfy instinctual needs, humans have the ability to write intricate pieces of literary fiction or thinking about what party candidate best represents their ideology and social needs. Why should we extend the principle of equality to non-human animals if there are a plethora of differences between the humankind and other species? Peter Singer argues that there “is no barrier to the case of extending the basic principle of equality to nonhuman animals” (Singer, 1989, p. 149), for the differences between humans and other animals can be addressed by providing different treatment and rights to the needs of each group. When Singer says that we need to extend the basic principle of equality, he specifies that he will consider this principle to be equality of consideration. What the author means is that we ought not to give greater weight to the interests of one group over

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In his essay Animal Liberation, Peter Singer advocates for a basic principle of equality, regardless of differences between humans and non-humans. When postulating this approach, Singer compares the suffering of historically oppressed people such as African Americans and Women to that of animals today. To expand, Singer advocates for a liberation movement for animals, a movement that will help us explore our moral horizons, then leading us to acknowledge unethical and unjustifiable practices. Basically, what was once regarded as natural, will now be seen as unjustifiable prejudice (Singer Pg. 802)…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In order to understand Peter Singer's article "All Animals Are Equal", one has to look at his viewpoint and perspective. Singer is viable, which is somebody who trusts that best result is something that causes that most prominent measure of joy (or minimal measure of pain) for the best number of individuals. Nevertheless, in this definition the word individuals means just people. This is the point that Singer is attempting to contend. Is to state that animals do not feel agony or expertise happiness.…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article “An Animal’s Place,” by Michael Pollan, he contemplates the ethnics of consuming meat. One of the most significant points that Pollan mentions is the idea of moral consideration or the belief “… that everyone’s interest ought to receive equal consideration” (Pollan363). Peter Singer, the author of Animal Liberation, believes that both animals and humans try to avoid pain. If what Singer says is true, that means animals have feelings and lives that matter to them and to deny them moral consideration just because they are a different species is a form of discrimination. Another valuable argument Pollan makes is about animal suffering throughout factory farming before they are butchered.…

    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the spirit of deliberating between right and wrong, we can attest to this type of bias and attitude of prejudice towards others as having the ability to cause much suffering to its victims. In light of the monster’s ability to experience suffering and happiness or joy, is he not entitled to experience the same equality as all other humans and nonhumans, regardless of the deformity in his looks or even his membership to a newly invented species? In Peter Singer’s essay, All Animals are Equal, he contends that, “equality is a moral idea, not an assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to their needs and interests.” (Singer 5)…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ought animals have rights, or ought they fall under the category of being morally considerable? I argue that there is no single framework in which to address the moral treatment of animals. A careful blend of these two ideas, moral rights and…

    • 1538 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Even though Singer’s main argument may seem to be more about rights of animals compared to humans, the argument could be transferred to just about any living thing. In Animal liberation, Singer states that “the extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way.” This shows that Singer is saying that we should all have equal rights, whether its an animal, woman, man race, etc. but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be the same exact rights. For example, singer talks about humans voting, it is understandable for a man to vote but if one should give a dog the right to vote, it wouldn’t make any sense and would be meaningless.…

    • 249 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    A right is a well-established moral principle that is shared among members of a social community. Rights can develop, but they require bilateral understanding. Humans can understand and develop shared moral principles that can build into rights. All other animals are unable to develop moral principles in the same way. This means that the human-created notion of a right can only apply to humans.…

    • 1642 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Meat the Dilemma In Peter Singer’s essay Animal Liberation, examines the defense of animal rights by comparing animals and historically discriminated groups such as African Americans and women. He argues that under the principle of utilitarianism the discrimination of animals cannot be considered less important than that of African Americans and women. Utilitarianism suggests that when making decisions the entire population’s welfare must be taken into account so that every individual counts as one vote but no one’s vote counts more than another. This suggests that an individual must consider the interests of others before they make their decision so that every individual is guaranteed equal consideration before the decision is made.…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The first point that Singer makes is that people should always be aware of the last form of discrimination. He explains that Black Liberation movement was and still is the example for other minorities, and its success gives hope to other movements. Discrimination makes people change their attitudes and pretend to be someone else in order not be oppressed. The author suggests that if we look at those who are being oppressed from their point of view, we might find another form of discrimination we might want to point out.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    That is to say, for any being that has interests, these interests must be taken as equally morally important with similar interests of another being. However, Singer notes that equal consideration of interests does not imply identical treatment. Instead, Singer argues that the principle of equality is equality of equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and rights (Singer 50). Extending to nonhuman animals the same moral consideration we extend to human beings means that we give the interests of nonhuman animals the same weight as comparable interests of human beings (Singer…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As we humans continue to grow in both numbers and intelligence, we start to claim domination and appear superior over other creatures. Not only we breed livestock for food in horrible conditions and find ways to make livestock as profitable as possible, we also use them for more than food such as biomedical experimentation and cosmetic testing. Even though the treatments are so devastatingly inhumane that many people have an unwillingness to cause animals suffering, people still hold different views on the issue of animal rights. Humanism, a system of thought that tends to put the needs of human beings first, suggests that animals do not reason the same way as human. On the other hand, posthumanism argues that human should not have privilege over animals because they can actually empathize, cooperate, and form reciprocal relationships.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Second, Singer states that we should think animals are suffering the pain as human begin when we use violent behavior to treat them. “If I slap a human baby in the face with a little bit of force, and I slap a horse on its rear with the same amount of force, then I've hurt the baby more than I've hurt the horse, and so I've done something worse to the baby than I've done to the horse”. Singer uses this example to illustrate that the human and non-human have the same feeling of pain when they get same damage. It is unfair concept for the animals and human because both them suffer same violent treatment. Both them suffer “the same amount of pain”.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For the purposes of this paper, the word ‘person’ will be used to define someone or something who has moral status. The question being asked is whether animals have moral status or not. To determine whether animals have moral status, one must define what characteristics are necessary to be considered a person. One could make the argument that only homo-sapiens are considered persons, therefore no animals have moral status. The idea that a certain species should have its considerations considered for over those of another species is speciesism, which follows the same arbitrary thinking that racism and sexism undergo.…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    At the beginning of the essay, the writer Peter Singer introduces a form, speciesism, which means the “attitude of bias toward the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species”(204). Singer raises the largest problem which is most people are speciesists, who do not propose the principle of equal consideration of interests to other species as well as their own. He compares it with sexism and racism in order to show they apply equally. Singer agrees with Bentham’s statement that the capacity for suffering and enjoyment is the prerequisite for having all interests. The limit of sentience of animals is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    . . view non-human animals as resources we are entitled to employ . . . in order to satisfy our needs and desires. ”(Steiner 848).…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays