Sapience

We take it as a given that we ought to treat all human beings equally, i.e. that we must give equal consideration of interests to all human beings. Singer argues that we should extend our moral principle of equal consideration of interests to animals. Excluding them on the grounds of species difference is parallel to the reasoning behind racist and sexist attitudes and hence morally impermissible. Furthermore, Singer argues that there is no moral feature exclusive to humans which could grant our interests additional moral consideration. If Singer is right, then practices which carry out painful experiments on animals (rather than humans) in order to improve the lives of humans, such as finding cures for certain diseases, are morally unjustified. We would have no moral grounds for arguing that the animal interest to not suffer should be placed below a human’s. In this essay, I will focus my examination on the part of Singer’s claim where he argues that there is no moral quality within humans that isn’t also found within animals. I will defend Singer’s claim by arguing that even the most promising argument, the argument from misfortune, leads to the unsavoury implication of excluding certain human beings from our equality principle. Overview of Essay: In section 1, I explicate Singer’s position on treating alike interests differently between animals and humans. In section 2, I briefly examine the future like ours argument as a counter-response but ultimately agree with Singer…

Dolphins and Personhood Personhood can be a very controversial topic and in this case, it can be hard for someone to think of a dolphin as a person. A person does not only have to be a human being. A person can be defined as an independent intelligent being who is able to make life decisions while being self aware. A being that is able to establish connections with other beings and have those connections turn to relationships can be a person. They can also experience pain and feel different…

The monster is morally responsible for his actions Throughout the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, there are many factors that influence the monsters motifs which shape him into the kind of monster he is. There could be many different people to blame for his actions but looking closely at the book it is easy to see that the results of the monsters actions are his own responsibilities. The monster kills three different people himself but also indirectly kills two other people and he is morally…

Chris Ahmad Phil 116 Paper #1 Human embryos are organisms in early stages of life, typically the first to eighth week of development, and are created by the fertilization of an egg with a sperm. In terms of the argument at hand, early embryos are of interest (14 days after fertilization). They can be obtained in numerous ways and are useful in many types of research, especially medical treatment, due to the fact that they are a source of pluripotent stem cells that are able to divide into many…

It is no secret that over the course of many years, medical techniques, resources and knowledge has advanced greatly. What some people may not realize is that a lot of this knowledge has come from the use of non-human animals in experimentation and research. Whether the use of non-human animals is warranted for such experiments or not, is a large topic of debate, and has many different positions, ranging from opposition, to agreement, to somewhere in between the two extremes. Disregarding of…

Although Jamie Brindle’s short story seems to be focused on issues that humanity will not have to face for many years, it is primarily designed to spread a message of what it means to have an identity and what it means to be human. People don’t always have a solid concept of who they are or what their purpose is. Sometimes people choose to cling onto something they consider solid and tie their whole identity to it. John Price AD can’t accept that he is one and the same with the person he is…

I found that this chapter really made a connection with the kind of person I am and how I think. It is something that I already knew in a way but put into words. The self is extremely important and I find it to be a major part when being involved with interpersonal communication. There must be a certain balance in a conversation that uses this interpersonal rhetoric and having a high self esteem always improves the situation immensely. The chapter was very descriptive but I found the last…

The debate over the rights of an unborn fetus has raged throughout recent history with many good arguments both upholding and criticizing the legality of abortion. Is legal abortion considered murder? What is murder and how do you define when killing is or is not a murder? This debate is a moral and ethical one. Early term abortions should not be considered murder; nevertheless, people disagree about abortion because essentially we disagree about what defines human nature (Head, 2015).…

Josh Villaflor Phil 110 Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence the advancement of human technology that allows a machine to achieve what living organism have a conscious. Immediately the thought of machines with a conscious of a human is straight from science fictions, as bring people to both sides of the argument on if we should advance to allow machines to have a conscious or no we shouldn't as it is the act of having machines should not be able to be on par with humans…

The Technology Revolution: Why Artificial Intelligence Will Surpass Human Intelligence Technological advancements are nothing new to the twenty-first century. The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is the most innovative accomplishment in modern technology. This intelligence is used in almost every technology sold on the market today, and engineers have only scratched the surface of what machines can do. Allowing these advancements to continue will not only diminish the requirement for human…