Eden Curd
Student ID: 1155485
The Moral Case of Animal Rights- Through Tom Regan’s Lens
This Environmental Ethics paper is concerned with ethical and moral questioning around the relationship of humans to the natural world. This includes exploring the value and rights of the non-human world. In this assignment I explore Tom Regan’s position on the moral case of animals in regards to Val Plumwood’s account of surviving a crocodile attack. I will be using Tom Regan’s deontological stance to defend the claim that we should leave large predators unharmed, but also critiquing his position.
Tom Regan’s position comes from a Kantian, deontological point of view. This rights view is concerned with the ideology to always treat others as ends in …show more content…
Her reasoning for this is that the media will sensationalise the story to the point where mass murder will be committed against the animal. Regan states that it is not the varying treatment of animals from cases to case, it is the system that allows this treatment of animals and to view them as our resources that is the fundamental wrong (Regan, 1993). In the crocodile’s case, if the media portrayed the crocodile as a bloody-thirty beast, this could lead to a culling of the species. To put this into perspective, albeit an exaggerated one, if a mentally ill human being was to attack another human, you would not go and slaughter every individual that suffers from a mental illness, as this would be morally wrong. You would not do this to humans so in turn you should not do this to …show more content…
She has given the crocodile other qualities, suggesting it has feelings and thoughts similar to a human. Regan (1993) implies it is these similarities that are important, not the differences. Animals too, must be viewed as the subjects of a life with equal inherent value as humans. We should not hold the view that we have indirect duties regarding animals; instead we should hold direct duties to
Student ID: 1155485
The Moral Case of Animal Rights- Through Tom Regan’s Lens
This Environmental Ethics paper is concerned with ethical and moral questioning around the relationship of humans to the natural world. This includes exploring the value and rights of the non-human world. In this assignment I explore Tom Regan’s position on the moral case of animals in regards to Val Plumwood’s account of surviving a crocodile attack. I will be using Tom Regan’s deontological stance to defend the claim that we should leave large predators unharmed, but also critiquing his position.
Tom Regan’s position comes from a Kantian, deontological point of view. This rights view is concerned with the ideology to always treat others as ends in …show more content…
Her reasoning for this is that the media will sensationalise the story to the point where mass murder will be committed against the animal. Regan states that it is not the varying treatment of animals from cases to case, it is the system that allows this treatment of animals and to view them as our resources that is the fundamental wrong (Regan, 1993). In the crocodile’s case, if the media portrayed the crocodile as a bloody-thirty beast, this could lead to a culling of the species. To put this into perspective, albeit an exaggerated one, if a mentally ill human being was to attack another human, you would not go and slaughter every individual that suffers from a mental illness, as this would be morally wrong. You would not do this to humans so in turn you should not do this to …show more content…
She has given the crocodile other qualities, suggesting it has feelings and thoughts similar to a human. Regan (1993) implies it is these similarities that are important, not the differences. Animals too, must be viewed as the subjects of a life with equal inherent value as humans. We should not hold the view that we have indirect duties regarding animals; instead we should hold direct duties to