www.NathanNobis.com
"Carl Cohen's 'Kind' Argument For
Animal Rights and Against Human Rights",
Journal of Applied Philosophy, March 2004, vol. 21,
no. 1, pp. 43-59.
Download the PDF here:
http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/nobis/papers/Journal-of-Applied-Phil-Cohen.pdf
And a reply here.
Abstract: Carl Cohen’s arguments against animal rights are shown to be
unsound. His strategy entails that
animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent
implications. His main premise
seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet
easily pass if one’s peers are passing and that one can become a convicted
criminal merely by setting foot in a prison.
However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses
of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek
philosophical consolations elsewhere. I
note that some other philosophers’ arguments are subject to similar objections.
Carl Cohen is one of the most prominent
philosophical advocates of the view that non-human sentient animals (hereafter,
‘animals’), do not, and cannot, have moral rights. Many who enjoy and profit from the infliction of pain, suffering
and death on animals, especially those in the vivisection industry, strongly
applaud his efforts at attempting to defend the moral propriety of their
outlook and deeds [[1]].
Any plausible argument against animal rights
must provide an explanation why humans with mental lives less sophisticated
than animals’ mental lives have rights.
Very few are willing to argue that it would be (and, in historical
cases, has been) morally permissible to subject these humans to experiments
that animals are subject to (e.g., drowning, suffocating, starving,
burning; blinding them and destroying their ability to hear; damaging their
brains, severing their limbs, crushing their organs; inducing heart attacks,
ulcers, paralysis, seizures; forcing them to inhale tobacco smoke, drink
alcohol, and ingest various drugs, such as heroine and cocaine, etc.) [[2]].
Cohen agrees these humans (regrettably, often
called ‘marginal’ humans) have rights.
I will argue that his explanation why these humans have rights
entails, surprisingly (and contrary to his intentions), that animals have
rights as well. His strategy also has
the surprising consequence that no humans
have rights. Furthermore, his
strategy supports the negations of these conclusions, so it has inconsistent
and other false implications. Rescuing
these arguments depends on, among other things, solving a seemingly intractable
problem in probability theory and metaphysics, so it is highly doubtful that
they can be salvaged. A number of other
philosophers’ arguments are similar to Cohen’s and are subject similar objections.
These conclusions will likely be upsetting
for those who see Cohen as their moral advocate. What might be more upsetting for them, however, is that Cohen’s
stated moral principles imply that nearly all uses of animals are wrong
anyway. Thus, his position provides, in
a certain sense, a moral defense of animals: his views are fundamentally
contrary to those who appeal to him to try to defend their harmful uses of
animals [[3]].
Some philosophers reject talk of ‘rights,’ but here I will presume that
the true morality includes moral rights.
What does Cohen mean by ‘rights’?
This must be understood in order to evaluate his arguments that humans
have rights but animals have none.
Cohen briefly explains his concept:
A right, properly understood,
is a claim, or potential claim, that one party may exercise against
another. The target against whom such a
claim may be registered can be a single person, a group, a community, or
(perhaps) all humankind [[4]].
Here, the question is whether animals have a claim to their most
fundamental interests – in avoiding pain and suffering, bodily and mental
integrity, and in life itself [[5]] –
being respected, even if failing to do so would benefit humans. As Cohen puts it, the question is whether
animals have ‘the right not to be used like inanimate tools to advance human
interests . . . no matter how important we think those human interests to be’ [[6]].
Cohen’s conception of rights is consistent
with Tom Regan’s brief explanation of what it is to have rights:
To have a right is to be in a position to
claim, or to have claimed on one's behalf, that something is due or
owed, and that the claim that is made is a claim against somebody, to do or
forbear what is claimed as due [[7]].
Here what is ‘due’ or ‘owed’ is respectful
treatment. Cohen and Regan agree that
if animals are due this respect, then all industries and practices that exploit
animals for their instrumental value ought to be abolished, and the individuals
involved in this exploitation should be stopped. And this is true, regardless of the possible losses to the
exploiters: they have no right to ill-gotten gains. Thus, the picture of rights is that of invisible ‘No Trespassing’
signs and moral ‘trump’ cards, an exceedingly non-utilitarian and non-aggregative
moral outlook. Rights impose the duty
that justice is done, as the saying goes, ‘though the heavens fall.’
These characterizations are
rough and raise many difficult theoretical questions about the nature of rights
[[8]]
but are sufficient for our purposes.
Let us agree that humans have moral rights in the sense that Cohen
specifies. If humans have rights and
animals have none, this must be explained by some difference between humans and
animals. Cohen must hold that there is
some necessary condition for having
rights that humans meet but that all animals fail to satisfy.
To identify this condition, Cohen seems to
makes an important set of observations about humans [[9]]. He notes that only humans are able to
conceive of their actions using moral concepts; only we are able to believe
that we can do right and wrong and choose to act in accordance with (or in
violation of) the moral law: only we can freely restrict our own behavior out
of respect for others. These remarks
strongly suggest that, on Cohen’s view, whether an individual has rights depends
on whether that individual has these properties, which he calls the
‘capacity for free moral judgment’ [[10]]. This seems especially clear since he claims
that, ‘holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of
duty, governing all including themselves.
. . [H]olders of rights must recognize possible conflicts between
what is in their own interest and what is just’ [[11]].
Although there is some controversy on these
empirical matters, let us agree with Cohen that only humans possess the
capacity for moral judgment. This forms
the basis of a common interpretation of Cohen’s argument that animals have no
rights. It proceeds as follows:
(i) If an individual lacks the capacity for free
moral judgment, then he or she does not have moral rights.
(ii) All animals lack the capacity for free moral
judgment.
(iii) Therefore, animals do not have moral rights.
Given Cohen’s words, this is a plausible interpretation. However, a critic will quickly point out that premise (i) has a false implication that shows it to be false. Cohen fairly states the critics’ objection:
If having rights requires being able to make
moral claims, to grasp and apply moral laws, then many humans — the
brain-damaged, the comatose, the senile — who plainly lack those capacities
must be without rights. But that is absurd. This proves (the critic concludes)
that rights do not depend on the presence of moral capacities [[12]].
Cohen agrees that it is ‘absurd,’ or, at least, mistaken, to think that
the brain-damaged, the (presumably, non-permanently) comatose, and the senile
do not have rights. He agrees that this
objection refutes premise (i) above and shows this argument to be unsound.
But Cohen can reply that the above argument is not his argument. He explicitly announced that the ‘core’ of
his argument against animals having rights is this:
Animals (that is, nonhuman animals, the
ordinary sense of that word) lack this capacity for free moral judgment. They
are not beings of a kind capable of
exercising or responding to moral claims. Animals therefore have no rights, and
they can have none [[13]].
The critics’ objection addresses only the first sentence in this quote,
which, if taken to suggest a necessary condition for having rights, is mistaken
(and Cohen agrees). But the critics’
objection overlooks the second sentence.
His argument, therefore, is this:
(1)
If an
individual is of a kind that lacks the capacity for free moral judgment,
then he or she does not have moral rights.
(2)
Each animal is of
a kind that lacks the capacity for free moral judgment.
(3)
Therefore,
animals do not have moral rights.
Call this ‘the “kind” argument against animal rights.’ Cohen’s remark suggests a separate argument
for the bolder conclusion that animals not only do not have rights, but
that they cannot have rights,
but that argument that is worth serious attention only if Cohen shows that, as
things actually are, animals do not have rights.
These arguments are improvements over the Understandable
Misinterpretation in that, at least, they do not obviously appear to be subject to objections from cases of
‘marginal’ humans. But Cohen’s case against animals can succeed only if he is
able to show why these humans have rights, despite their lacking the capacity
for moral judgment and (apparently) failing to meet his stated necessary
condition for rights. Cohen thus has
another ‘kind’ argument to attempt to circumvent that objection:
(1*)
If an
individual is of a kind that
possesses the capacity for free moral judgment, then he or she has moral
rights.
(2*)
Each ‘marginal’
human is of a kind that possesses the
capacity for free moral judgment.
(3*)
Therefore,
‘marginal’ humans have moral rights.
Cohen’s ‘kind’ arguments are not easy to evaluate since Cohen does not
explain his premises. In particular, he
does not explain what he means by his use of the term ‘kind.’ What ‘kinds’ are and what it is to be ‘of a
kind’ is not obvious or clear. Since
his arguments depend on ‘marginal’ humans being of a kind that animals are not
of (and could not be of) and moral principles that appeal to ‘kinds’, it is
doubly unfortunate that he does not explain what he means.
Thus, some interpretation is necessary. I will first attempt to understand why the
second premises of the ‘kind’ arguments, (2) and (2*), might be true: why are
we supposed to think that animals are not of a kind that has the
capacity for free moral judgment but marginal humans are, even though
they are unable to make moral judgments?
After some discussion of the problematic nature of these premises
(including an argument that [2*] is necessarily false), I settle on an
interpretation that allows for them to be true. But I then argue that this interpretation has, given Cohen’s
moral principles (1) and (1*), implications that are surprising: first, that
animals have rights, and, second, the false and inconsistent implications
that humans do and do not have rights and that even everything
does and does not have rights.
These consequences show that Cohen’s strategy is seriously and
irredeemably flawed.
For the sake of this first set of arguments I
accept Cohen’s moral principles (1) and (1*) as true. I later argue, however, that they are false because they are
instances of an obviously false general principle.
5.
An
Unkind Objection: ‘Kinds’ Lack Moral Properties
Let me first present a perhaps unkind
objection. Cohen claims that animals
are not of a kind capable of exercising or responding to moral claims and that
‘marginal’ humans are. To me, these are
odd claim because, strictly speaking, kinds are never capable of
exercising or responding to moral claims anyway. ‘Kinds’ are abstract objects, classificatory devices, or
metaphysical entities. Individuals are
members of kinds in virtue of what properties they have. Perhaps all individuals of a particular kind can respond to moral claims, but
the kind itself does not. To see
this, consider this case:
Benjamin,
Jennifer and Joshua encounter a mother in financial distress who desperately
needs money to buy medicine for her sick child: she makes a ‘moral claim’ for
their financial assistance. They go
with her to buy the medicine and split the cost three ways.
Here the three individuals responded to the moral claim:
although though they are of that kind ‘beings able to respond to moral
claims,’ the kind itself provided no financial assistance. Since there are no kinds capable of
responding to moral claims, nothing can be of such a kind. So premise (2) is true: each animal is of a
kind that lacks the capacity for moral judgment. But it’s true since all
kinds lack this capacity. But since
all kinds lack this capacity, Cohen’s premise (2*) – that ‘marginal’ humans are
of a kind that possesses the capacity
for free moral judgment – is false.
Furthermore, that premise would seem to be necessarily false since there probably is no possible
world where kinds, as abstract objects, have moral capacities. Thus, Cohen’s
argument’s dependence on kinds in this way results in it being either unsound
or necessarily unsound: it fails to show that ‘marginal’ humans have
rights.
But perhaps I’ve been too uncharitable (or dense)
in failing to understand what a kind is.
Let us then overlook this possible refutation. Cohen needs to retain some interpretation of what it is to be of
a kind that might allow him to respond to the objection from cases of
‘marginal’ humans. I will develop a
number of responses and show that they all fail for Cohen’s purposes.
6. What
Kind Are You? What Kind
Are Animals?
To see why premise (2) might be true, i.e., why animals are not of a kind that possesses the capacity
for free moral judgment, it might be helpful to see why (2*), the analogous
premise, is supposedly true for ‘marginal’ humans.
Let us then consider a case: suppose
scientists were, in secret, to perform painful and lethal experiments on some
orphaned and permanently severely mentally challenged human infants which they
know will greatly improve the lives of many other humans. Cohen is no utilitarian and he denies that
anyone has a ‘right’ to his or her life being improved at the serious expense
of others. So, as far as I can tell, he
would judge this experiment as seriously wrong because it would greatly violate
these infants’ rights.
Let us agree, but ask why. Again, Cohen says this is so because these
humans are of a kind that possesses the capacity for free moral judgment. That’s just premise (2*). He explains:
Persons
who are unable, because of some disability [or age], to perform the full moral
functions natural to human beings are certainly not for that reason ejected
from the moral community. The issue is
one of kind. Humans are of such a kind that they may be the subjects of
experiments only with their voluntary consent. . . Animals are of such a kind
that it is impossible for them, in principle, to give or withhold voluntary
consent or make a moral choice. What
humans retain when disabled, animals never had [[14]]
Although interesting, these remarks still do not explain why ‘marginal’
humans are of such a rights conferring kind and animals are not. We are not
told what it is about them that determines their kind memberships. We must, therefore, speculate on what these
reasons might be.
6. 1. Kinds Depend on What’s ‘Normal’?
First, it might be said that (2*) is true because since ‘normal’ human
beings (i.e., adults) are of the kind ‘possesses moral capacities,’ ‘marginal’
humans are also of that kind. Roger
Scruton might endorse this suggestion when he writes, ‘Infants and imbeciles
belong to the same kind as you or me: the kind whose normal instances
are also moral beings’ [[15]].
Here ‘normal’ seems to be understood in a
statistical sense: if most human beings have some characteristic, then it’s
normal. But this defense of (2*)
succeeds only if this general principle is true: if ‘normal’ human beings are
of some kind K, then ‘marginal’ humans are of that kind K as
well. But this principle seems clearly
false: ‘normal’ human beings are of the kinds ‘able to make pasta’, ‘able to
reproduce’, and ‘able to solve math problems and drive cars’ but ‘marginal’ humans
can do none of these: they are not of the kind ‘pasta-maker’ or
‘equation solver.’ Most ‘normal’ human
beings are also of the kind ‘over four feet fall’, but most ‘marginal’ humans
(i.e., infants) are quite short: they are not of that kind.
Thus, in general, that fact that it is
normal for some humans to be of some kind (or have some property) does not
entail that non-normal humans are also of that kind (or have that
property). So these considerations
provide no straightforward reason to think that humans who are statistically abnormal
have the capacity for moral judgment or are of that kind. [[16]].
6. 2. Kinds Depend on What’s ‘Natural’?
Similar responses would also be directed to the charge that since it’s
‘natural’ for humans to have some specific capacities or abilities, ‘marginal’
humans have them as well and so are of the corresponding kind. (Below we will
see that Cohen uses the term ‘natural’, perhaps to suggest just this).
While the meaning of ‘natural’ is often
obscure, this principle is refuted by the fact that although it’s ‘natural’ for
humans to have two arms and IQ scores greater than 90, obviously, there are
humans without two arms or with quite low IQ scores. These humans are, of course, of the kind ‘human,’ but they are
obviously not of the kinds ‘having two arms’ or ‘having average IQ.’ So the fact that some characteristic is
‘natural’ does not entail that all humans (including ‘marginal’ humans) have
it. So appeals to what’s ‘natural’
again provide no reason to think that marginal humans are of the kind ‘possess
moral capacities.’
6. 3. Kinds Depend on ‘Potentials’ and Logical Possibilities?
A third suggestion for thinking that ‘marginal’ humans are of a kind
that possesses the capacity for moral judgment is to (apparently) disagree with
Cohen and argue that ‘marginal’ humans do, in fact, possess the
capacity for moral judgment and, therefore, they are of that ‘kind.’ It might be said that they have this
capacity because they are potential moral agents, or could be moral
agents, and so are of that kind. This
response has some initial plausibility, perhaps, since there are unrealized
capacities, i.e., abilities that are never exercised: maybe even though
‘marginal’ humans do not make moral judgments, in some sense they could,
so they are of that kind.
This response is problematic in many ways:
first, given moral principle (1*), it implies that human fetuses are also of
that kind, so all abortions violate their rights, as does any ‘terminal’
experimentation on human cells or tissues that could become moral
agents. This would include not just fertilized eggs and (frozen or fresh)
embryos, but any other (human or non-human) cells that could be
cultivated into moral agents were certain technologies (eventually) applied to
them. It also might imply that
contraception and even abstinence violate rights if, like a
table-and-set-of-chairs can be considered one thing, an egg-and-a-sperm-that-could-fertilize-it
is one thing as well, since that mereological sum has the potential to become a
moral agent (as it often does). If this
case against animal rights entails that all abortions, contraception, and all
other activities that prevent potential moral agents from existing violate
rights, then at least some of these consequences might rightly be seen as a reductio
of this response.
Second, this response doesn’t seem to cover
all actual ‘marginal’ humans since, for some who are very seriously damaged or
incapacitated, a medical professional might truly judge (and Cohen would agree)
that they even lack the potential to become moral agents since, given
their biological condition, that is medically impossible for them: in
their lives they will never make moral judgments. One might respond, however, that there is a broader sense of
‘potential’ that applies to these humans.
Alan White suggests this response; he says that ‘marginal’ humans ‘may
be for various reasons empirically unable to fulfill the full role of a
rights-holder. But . . they are logically
possible subjects of rights to whom the full language of rights can
significantly, however falsely, be used’ [[17]]. While advocates of ‘marginal’ humans do not
want to agree that these rights ascriptions are false, if the suggestion
is that since it’s logically possible for these humans to be moral
agents, they are of that kind and thereby have rights, then since it’s also logically possible for animals
to be moral agents (i.e., that’s not formally contradictory), then animals are
of that kind and have rights as well.
So I presume that the foe of animal rights does not endorse this defense
of (2*).
Finally, it’s not at all clear what motivates
this response anyway. Although it doesn’t seem to presume the false principle
‘if something potentially or could have property P, then it has property P now’,
it’s not clear how it works. Some moral
agents are mass murders: does that mean that all ‘marginal’ humans are potential
mass murderers and so are of the kind ‘mass murderer’? Some are firefighters: are all humans
thereby of the kind 'firefighter'? Or
does this response apply only to ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ characteristic and so
only these are ones that ‘marginal’ humans have as ‘potentials’? If so, then this response seems subject to
the objection above. Either way, given
this response’s problematic implications and its obscure motivations, it is
clear that this appeal to potential is not the way to make a strong case that
‘marginal’ humans have rights and animals do not.
6. 4. Kinds and the Grouping Response
Finally, it might be said that (2*) is true – ‘marginal’ humans are of
a kind that possesses the capacity for moral judgment – simply because
they are human. Many people, especially
non-philosophers, would think that this is the obvious reason why they have rights. Cohen, in fact, says this: ‘Human children, like elderly adults
have rights because they are human’ [[18]]. I aim to show that the most plausible
defense of this claim has disastrous implications for Cohen’s perspective.
Recall that the claim isn’t that being human
is sufficient for having moral capacities (since Cohen agrees that there are
humans who lack these capacities); rather it is that being human is sufficient
for being of a kind that possesses the capacity for moral judgment. But ‘being human’ is multiply ambiguous: on
the one hand, it might mean ‘biologically human,’ ‘being of the species homo
sapiens,’ or ‘having human DNA.’
But on that meaning, human cells and tissues are of that kind and so
have rights. Cohen doesn’t appear to
think this, so I presume that when he says that ‘marginals’ are human, he means
something like that they are human organisms who are living, intact, and have
achieved sufficient development so they are sometimes conscious. This description is imperfect, but the
question still remains: how is it that all beings like that of a kind
that possesses the capacity for free moral judgment?
Cohen’s never asks or
answers a question like this, but I suspect his complete answer would be
something like this:
To have rights, something (or someone) must
be of a kind that possesses moral capacities: being of a kind that possesses
moral agency is necessary for having rights. ‘Marginal’ humans are of a kind
that possesses moral capacities because they are human. Being human makes them a member of
the kind that possesses moral capacities.
This is because all moral agents are of that kind: all moral
agents are human. Since moral agents and ‘marginal’ humans are both of the kind ‘human’ [[19]]
– they share a property –
‘marginals’ are also of a kind that possesses moral capacities as well. Therefore, they have moral rights.
If this is Cohen’s strategy (and it seems that this, or something very much like it, is), then the animal rights advocate can play that game to ‘demonstrate’ that, pace Cohen, animals are also of the kind that has moral capacities and, therefore, have rights.
Why are animals of such a rights-generating
kind? For Cohen-esque reasons exactly
parallel to those given in defense of ‘marginal’ humans. The reasoning will run like this: first,
most humans are moral agents and so, on Cohen’s view, have rights; second,
there is a kind that both moral
agents and animals are members of,
e.g., the kind ‘sentient being,’ ‘conscious being,’ ‘subject of a life’, or
‘being with preferences’ (in fact, there are many kinds that animals and humans
share membership in); and third; since animals and moral agents are both of a
kind, e.g., the kind ‘sentient being’ – i.e., they share a property
– animals are also of a kind that possesses moral capacities and,
therefore, they have rights.
This method of reasoning can also be used to
falsely ‘demonstrate’ that, from Cohen’s perspective, humans have no
rights. Consider all the various
objects on earth: most of them are of the kind ‘lacking moral capacities’ and
so, on Cohen’s view, they don’t have rights.
But humans are of a kind with these various objects, e.g., the kind
‘thing on earth’ or ‘earthly specimen’ or an ‘object quite far from the sun.’ Since most members of these kinds lack the
capacity for free moral judgments and humans are members of these kinds, this
fact and Cohen’s premise (1) – if an individual is of a kind that lacks the capacity for free moral judgment then it
does not have moral rights – imply that humans do not have rights. But, perhaps I’ve got it backwards: since
all these non-conscious material objects are of a kind with normal humans since they share properties with these
humans, they all have rights too. Since
all these inconsistent conclusions (and more) are warranted on Cohen-esque
reasoning, these are devastating implications.
Cohen might object and claim that not just
any old shared property will do the trick to get an individual into a kind that
possesses moral capacities. He might
claim that the only relevant shared property, or common kind, is biological:
only that can provide the proper, right-conferring relation to moral agents [[20]]. But he provides no reason why this is
so. He can pick biological or genetic
kinds to try to suit his purposes, but the defender of animal rights can grant
Cohen’s strategy and just pick other relations and shared properties to justify
her contrary conclusions. Different
kinds of properties are equally shared between animals, ‘marginal’ humans and
moral agents. And, as we’ve seen, Cohen’s strategy can be adopted to support
any conclusion and its negation. Cohen
provides no reason to side with any perspective on this issue: they are all
equally plausible on his account and, thus, it is highly implausible.
Making the issue ‘one of kind’ is highly
problematic since humans and animals are all members of infinitely many kinds
or classes: we are all ‘tokens’ of many ‘types.’ It is very difficult (if not impossible) to identify what kind
one is in a non-arbitrary manner since no one group or kind can reasonably
be said to be ‘the’ group or kind that someone is a member
of. Most who work in probability theory
and metaphysics concede that this problem, sometimes called the ‘reference
problem,’ is a highly intractable.
Cohen does not explain how one picks what kind of thing something is or
which kind, of the many kinds any one thing is, best suits that thing. On the one hand, he claims that being of the
kind ‘possesses moral capacities’ is necessary for having rights, but on the
other hand he claims that being of the kind ‘human’ is sufficient for being of
a kind that possesses moral capacities.
Any attempt to get from the former to the latter kind is going to
require an arbitrary and indefensible pick of the kind.
In sum, to return to the ‘kind’ arguments, if
we grant that (2) and (2*) are true, on what I have suggested is the
best explanation for why they are true, animals are also of a kind that possess the capacity for moral judgments
it and humans are of kinds that lack it. This is because animals are members of
groups where some (or most) of the members have moral capacities and humans
(‘marginal’ or not) are members of groups where none (or few) of the members
have moral capacities. Given Cohen’s
moral principles (1) and (1*), this implies that animals and humans both have
and don’t have rights, as well as other obviously false and
inconsistent conclusions. Cohen’s
arguments are clearly deeply flawed.
Perhaps there is another way to interpret them, but nothing suggests
itself in Cohen’s writings.
8. Partners in ‘Kind’
Cohen’s ‘getting-rights-by-association-in-a-kind’ strategy is not unique. As mentioned above, Scruton seems to invoke it. Michael Allen Fox suggested it: he claimed that that ‘human beings have basic moral rights because they are beings of the requisite kind, that is, autonomous beings, persons, or moral agents.’ In response to the objection that some humans aren’t autonomous moral agents, he claimed that ‘membership in our own species ought to count for something’ [[21]]. But explaining how human biology might, in itself, ‘count’ for being of the kind ‘moral agent’ is obviously difficult. And it’s not clear why our memberships in the kinds ‘sentient-being’ or ‘subject-of-a-life’ aren’t more obviously rights-relevant anyway. Fox agrees; he later rejected his original position against animals calling it arrogant, complacent and arbitrary.
David Schmidtz suggests that a speciesist could respond to objections from
‘marginal’ cases this way:
Of course, some chimpanzees lack the characteristic features in virtue of which chimpanzees command respect as a species, just as some humans lack the characteristic features in virtue of which humans command respect as a species. It is equally obvious that some chimpanzees have cognitive capacities (for example) that are superior to the cognitive capacities of some humans. But whether every human being is superior to every chimpanzee is beside the point. The point is that we can, we do, and we should make decisions on the basis of our recognition that mice, chimpanzees, and humans are relevantly different types. We can have it both ways after all [[22]].
While mice, chimpanzees, and humans are of different types, they are also of
some same types since they share many properties. The problem for this speciesist would be specifying, in a
plausible and defensible manner, why being of the type ‘biologically human’ is, in itself, a morally relevant
type. It appears not to be since human
biology seems neither necessary nor sufficient for having rights: friendly
space aliens could have rights and dead, human cells in a Petri dish do
not. This speciesist would also need to
explain why a psychological type such
as sentience or being-the-subject-of-a-life is not relevant (or is not as
relevant). She cannot have it both
ways: either she has a theory of rights that appeals to plausible,
psychological types as the basis for rights (which overlap between species), or
she appeals to types that are not in themselves morally relevant, like DNA
possession.
Leslie Pickering Francis and Richard Norman
might provide some help: they suggest that ‘what are important are the
relations in which human beings stand to one another’ [[23]]. They base these relations on shared
biological properties, but no reason is given why shared psychological
properties are not the basis of an equally, or at least very, important
relation. Finally, Robert Wennberg
suggests that, ‘a fundamental difference in kind
[between humans and animals] can be found in the religious capacity
possessed by humans’ [[24]]. True, some humans have these capacities, but
not all. And if ‘marginals’ humans’ rights depends on these capacities, any
attempts to secure them by a relation are likely subject to Cohen-esque
objections all over again.
So, Cohen’s not alone in his kind arguments,
but other philosophers’ attempts are as unsuccessful as his are. ‘Kind’ strategies are often suggested, but
never carefully developed or defended.
9.
Cohen’s False Moral Principles
Until now, my focus has been on premises (2)
and (2*). I will now argue that Cohen’s
moral principles (1) and (1*) are instances of a false principle, although one
we might sometimes (and sometimes not) wish they as true. I will call it the ‘Getting a Property by
Association Principle.’ Much of my
discussion has already alluded to it: it is a more general formulation of the
motivating idea behind Cohen’s moral principles:
If
(1) an individual A is a member of some kind K and (2) some, most or all of the
other members of that kind K have some property C and (3), on the basis of
having property C, they have property R, then individual A has property R as
well, even though A lacks property C.
Something like this principle seems to be the
driving force behind Cohen’s response to the argument from marginal cases: even
though each marginal human (A) lacks moral capacities (C), since each is a
member of a group or kind (K) where the other members possesses moral
capacities (C) and so have rights (R) because of their moral capacities (C),
marginal humans have rights (R), roughly, by association.
Consider a case where you’d wish this
principle were true: you are a student (A) in a class who has failed the exams
and done none of the homework so, on your own merits, you are failing. However, fortunately for you, the rest of
the students have the properties of ‘passing the exams and done well on the
homework’ (C) and, on that basis, have the property (R), passing the
course.’ If Cohen’s principle were
true, you too would have the property of passing the class as well because you
are a member of the kind (K) ‘students taking this class’ and the properties
from the majority transfer to you. Unfortunately
for you, this property you would possess only on your own merits (which you
lack since you have failed the exams and have done none of the work), so
Cohen’s principle is false.
A
case were you’d be glad that this principle were false would be one where you
(A) visit a friend who has been convicted of a heinous crime (C) and, on that
basis, is now serving a life sentence in prison (R). Let’s suppose that most people in this prison have these two
properties. However, upon entering the
prison as a visitor you become a member of the kind (K) ‘a person who is physically located in the prison’ and you
are part of this kind or group along with the prisoners. However, fortunately for you, even though
you are now of that kind, their properties of (C) ‘being convicted of a
heinous crime’ and (R) ‘now serving a life sentence’ do not transfer to
you. Now you are glad that Cohen’s
principle is false and that you can’t get these properties by association.
Since Cohen’s moral premises
(1) and (1*) reply on the false ‘Getting a Property by Association Principle,’
this is yet another reason to reject Cohen’s arguments.
10.
Cohen’s Other Arguments
Cohen offers suggestions for other arguments against
animal rights. Most are not ideally
clear and are underdeveloped, but they deserve comment. He claims that,
Rights arise, and can be
intelligibly defended, only among beings who actually do, or can, make moral
claims against one another. Whatever
else rights may be, therefore, they are necessarily human; their possessors are
persons, human beings [[25]].
To reply roughly in reverse order of the quote;
first, from the fact that human persons possess rights it does not follow that
animals do not; second, since rights themselves clearly are not human, they are not ‘necessarily
human.’ Perhaps Cohen means to point out the obvious truth that the concept of
rights is a concept that, as far as we know, only humans have. Maybe he wanted
to make the bold suggestion that, necessarily, only humans have that
concept. But even if those claims were
true, that does not show that animals don’t have rights: animals not having the
concept of p does not entail that they lack the property of p. Animals lack the concept of ‘being an
animal’, but they still are animals: like us they have many properties for
which they lack related concepts.
To continue, third; the
only beings who will ‘intelligibly defend’ rights will be beings who are
intellectually sophisticated enough to grasp the concept of rights: they will
likely have rights themselves, but this implies nothing for beings who cannot
defend their rights; fourth, animal advocates agree with Cohen that
animals have rights only against moral agents: were there no moral agents then
no one, including animals, would have rights; and, fifth, again while the concept
of rights was developed by, or ‘arose’ among, intelligent moral agents,
this does not show that animals don’t have the property of having rights: the
concept of ‘DNA’ arose among moral agents, but animals have a genetic code. Thus, nothing here gives any plausible
reason to think animals do not or cannot have rights.
Cohen
also claims that,
Animals cannot be the
bearers of rights because the concept of rights is essentially human; it is rooted in, and has force
within, a human moral world [[26]].
There is much unclear about these claims. What is it for a concept to be
‘essentially human’ is not said. But if
the concept of rights is ‘essentially
human’ and so animals therefore
cannot have the property of having
rights, since the concept of humane treatment
seems to be as ‘essentially human’ as the concept of rights is, it would seem
that Cohen should think animals cannot have the property of being such that we’re obligated to treat them humanely
either [[27]]. Since Cohen does think that animals should
be treated humanely [[28]], he
can’t think that animals need to have that concept in order for us to be
obligated to treat them that way. So,
on Cohen’s own view, the fact that animals lack the concept of rights is
irrelevant to whether they might have rights.
If the suggestion is that something can have a property only if it (or things of its kind, to muddy the waters)
possesses the correlated concept, this is clearly false since we all have
properties for which we lack the related concepts [[29]]. Again, the fact that the concept of rights
applies to humans and is ‘rooted in’ and has ‘force within’ human communities
again does not imply that animals do not or cannot have rights.
Cohen
also suggests that having rights is an ‘essential’ property of humans: this
would correspond to his ‘kind’ conclusion that it’s impossible for
animals to have rights [[30]]. On a common view, if an individual has a
property ‘essentially’ then is it metaphysically impossible for that individual
to exist without that property. Since
Cohen’s suggestion raises too many deep metaphysical questions, which he has
not yet addressed, I will not speculate on what the arguments that might be
developed from this suggestion would look like. However, even if it were true that humans (or all rights-bearers
in the actual world) essentially, or necessarily, have rights (which seems to
be false given the logical possibility of a Planet of the Apes-like
scenario where humans have the mental sophistication of apes and so, on Cohen’s
view, do not and can not have rights), that wouldn’t imply that animals can’t
have rights either.
While others have shown that Cohen’s arguments are defective, I hope
that I have shown that they are even worse than anyone suspected since, for
one, any argument against animal rights that can be converted to an argument for animal rights and against human rights (and other false
and inconsistent conclusions) is a great blunder. While critics often claim that animal advocates care more about
animals than humans, and are sometimes even called ‘human haters’, if
Cohen-esque arguments imply that humans don’t have rights, these critics have
missed their true target.
To defend his arguments, Cohen will have to
solve the ‘kind’ problem I have identified above: for deep reasons beyond moral
philosophy, this is likely to be very difficult, if not impossible. To respond
to the objection from ‘marginal’ humans, he will have to adequately explain
what properties humans possess that makes
them have rights since it isn’t the relation that he suggests since, if
it is, there are other relations that defeat his position and his strategy
results in stalemate. He will have to
explain why the presumption, which he rejects, that ‘rights are tied to some identifiable
individual abilities or sensibilities’ [[31]] is
mistaken even though the denial of this claim lead to a first, a vicious
regress (since if an individual’s rights aren’t tied to her abilities and
sensibilities, but are tied to another individual’s, but her’s are tied to
someone else’s whose are tied to someone else’s, ad infinitum, then there is no basis for rights) and, second,
epistemological skepticism about rights (if they’re not tied to identifiable
abilities, are they tied to unidentifiable
abilities? If so, we can’t identify
them).
Of course, to refute Cohen’s arguments is not
to show that the conclusions he advocates – that animals do not and
cannot have rights – are not true: it is only to show that Cohen has provided
no rational support for them whatsoever.
Anyone who accepts Cohen’s conclusions can concede his defeat: to
rationally retain his or her view, however, she need only then base her belief
that animals do not have rights on stronger reasons than those like Cohen
offers. If she has these reasons, then
she should not be troubled; if not, she needs to develop them or find someone
who can, if she wishes to rationally maintain her view. Thus, the animal exploitation industries and
community needs to find a new philosophical defender of the moral propriety of
their practices. The likelihood that
their search will be successful is grim [[32]].
Were Cohen’s arguments salvageable, however,
that would not really help animal exploiters defend themselves. After all,
Cohen’s also claims that ‘We have a universal obligation to act humanely, and
this means that we must refrain from imposing pain on sentient creatures so far
as we reasonably can,’ and he states that animals ‘ought not be made to suffer
needlessly’ (whether he would allow for animals to have a right to not
be made to suffer needlessly is unclear) [[33]]. But all, or nearly all, uses of animals for
food, fashion, education, entertainment and product ‘testing’ cause needless
pain and suffering that we can reasonably refrain from imposing since we don’t
need any of the products from this exploitation in order to have happy and
healthy lives. So these uses of animals
are morally condemnable on Cohen’s view [[34]]. Cohen also expresses ‘repugnance for the
hunting of animals for mere amusement,’[[35]]
but, ultimately, nearly all other uses of animals come to mere amusement as
well since they’re only for the merely aesthetic pleasures of
experiencing certain tastes, wearing certain clothing, being entertained in
certain ways and using certain cosmetics and personal and household products
(all of which can be experienced in cruelty-free manners or easily gone
without). Thus, given what follows from
the empirical facts and Cohen’s own moral principles, his views are, in a
certain sense and concerning the issues that affect most animals, those of an
animal rights advocate after all.
As for vivisection, neither Cohen nor anyone
else has shown that it is
‘necessary’ for medical progress: nobody has shown that some specified amount
of vivisection is (likely) indispensable
for bringing about the greatest possible overall medical benefits. Nobody has argued that, despite all the
other research methods available (and, more generally, methods of improving
people’s health, most of which are just the implementation and distribution of
existing medical knowledge anyway, not new research), no other possible use of
funds, time and talent could (or likely would) bring about a greater
improvement in health for humans than animal research [[36]].
Few advocates of vivisection accept
utilitarianism, but they often they appeal to it to try to justify their
actions [[37]]. But, again, no one has done anything close
to the conceptual and empirical work that would be needed to make a serious attempt
as justify any animal research on utilitarian grounds: no advocate of
vivisection has provided any method for calculating and comparing (actual)
animal harms to (merely possible) human benefits, calculated direct human harms
that are consequence of vivisection, calculated indirect harms and opportunity
costs that result from funds being directed towards vivisection and not towards
producing other benefits (and utilitarianism has no bias for medical benefits),
and somehow added it all up to reasonably conclude that the calculation favors
using animals. Even if some benefits were lost were some or all
vivisection stopped, that’s not enough to justify it on utilitarian grounds,
since one has to show that there is no alternative course of action that would
yield greater benefits. Perhaps this
case can be made, but nobody has tried.
Until this is done, the most reasonable attitude might be a skeptical
one.
12.
What
Kind We Are
In conclusion, it is sometimes said that we should first look after or
take care of ‘our own kind.’ It used to
be thought that ‘our kind’ was our race, or sex, or ethnic group, or social
class. Outsiders were judged ‘not of our kind’ and that justified
inconsiderate, often exploitive, treatment.
Fortunately, those responses are now seen as the unjustified prejudices
they were. But we are of many kinds and
the pressing challenge is to identify the morally relevant ones. Since it seems that ‘marginal’ humans have
rights, moral agency is not necessary for rights: to think we are responsible
only to other moral agents – that they are our unique kind and due preferential
treatment – would be another unjustifiable prejudice. But since being of the kind ‘biologically human’ is neither logically
sufficient nor conceptually necessary for having rights, biological kinds are
not in themselves morally relevant either. Furthermore, we share little,
morally, with human cells in flasks or organs in an icepack: bare biology
doesn’t count for much. Insofar as
Cohen’s case appeals to both those kinds, it is flawed.
So, if Cohen is mistaken, what kind is
morally relevant? If it were true that
we should take care of our own kind, who would that be? The simplest answer,
with the most explanatory power, is that the boundary of our kind is not marked
by species or moral agency. What kind
are we? We are conscious, sentient
beings, and many human and non-human animals are like us in that. Being of that kind is what’s fundamentally
morally relevant, vast practical consequences follow from this, and Cohen
provides no reason to think otherwise.
[[1]] David DeGrazia reports that Cohen’s arguments against animal rights and in favor of speciesism, not giving animals’ interests even serious (not necessarily equal) consideration and the human utility of vivisection have been ‘much praised by the medical community but severely criticized by philosophers.’ DeGrazia, D. (1996) Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), p. 36, footnote 2. He references some articles that contain such praise and comments that ‘It is a sad statement about prevailing levels of intellectual integrity that uncomprehending, automatic dismissal of the possibility of equal consideration [of animals’ interests] is deemed worthy of publication in many medical journals’ (p. 49, footnote 21). Casual perusal of the World Wide Web reveals animal agribusiness, hunters, and trappers expressing praise for Cohen’s arguments as well.
[[2]] For a contrary view, see Frey, R.G. (2001) ‘Justifying Animal Experimentation: The Starting Point’ in E.F. Paul and J. Paul (eds.) Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research (London, Transaction Publishers), pp. 197-214. This list of experimental procedures is from Regan, T. (2002) ‘Empty Cages: Animal Rights and Vivisection’, in Ryder, R., Matfield, M., Derbyshire, D., and Regan, T. Animal Experimentation: Good or Bad? (London, Hodder & Stoughton Educational). Michael Allan Fox provides a similar catalogue of procedures, noting that anesthesia is often not used, in Fox, M.A. (1986) The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspectives (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 97.
[[3]] For clarity, animal advocates have no quarrel with research that does not harm animals at all (e.g., observational studies in the wild), research with non-conscious, non-sentient animals, and therapeutic research where the individual animal subjects also benefit (or will likely benefit) from the research. It, of course, is inadequate to claim that since ‘the species’ benefits, some vivisection is justified: ‘the species’ of humans, i.e., some humans, might benefit from human vivisection, but that presumably wouldn’t justify it. For discussion, see DeGrazia, D. (1999) ‘The Ethics of Animal Research: What Are the Prospects for Agreement?’ Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 8, pp. 23-34.
[[4]] Cohen, C. (1986). ‘The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 315, 14, October 2, pp. 865-870, p. 865.
[[5]] For animals who have interests, since being alive is a necessary condition for the satisfaction of those interests, these animals have, at least derivatively, an interest in their lives continuing.
[[6]] Cohen (2001), p. 22, in Cohen, C. and Regan, T.(2001) The Animal Rights Debate (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).
[[8]] For example, one theoretical concern is what rights views (for animals and humans) imply for cases of conflict, e.g., ‘lifeboat’ cases. These puzzles are philosophically challenging, but, they no more need to be solved to answer many current practical questions concerning animals than they need to be solved to address analogous questions concerning humans: e.g., despite controversies and unsatisfactorily answered questions about rights (and ethical theory in general), few are skeptical about (or practically paralyzed by the question of) whether humans (‘marginal’ or not) should be vivisected or not. For discussion of lifeboat problems, see Taylor, A. (2003) Ethics and Animals (Calgary: Broadview Press), pp. 134-135.
[[9]] Cohen, C. (1986), p. 866; Cohen, C. (1997)
‘Do Animals Have Rights?’ Ethics &
Behavior, 7, 2, 91-102, pp. 94-98; Cohen., C. (2001), pp. 30-40 in Cohen,
C. and Regan, T. (2001). Cohen’s
arguments are quite similar in all his writings: more recent discussions are
not more developed.
[[10]] Although Cohen’s discussion strongly suggests that rights possession depends on moral agency, it is not clear that he thinks this since he says that he will not even attempt to explain the foundations of rights: see Cohen, C (2001), p. 32 in Cohen, C. and Regan, T. (2001). DeGrazia reports that Cohen ‘never really argues that humans have rights, instead [he relies on] appealing to the authority of philosophical tradition’ to support his claim that humans have rights. DeGrazia, D. (2003) ‘Review of Cohen, Carl and Regan, Tom. The Animal Rights Debate’ Ethics 113, 3, pp. 692-695, p. 692. Regan argues that Cohen ‘fails to offer any explanation [of] what makes claims to rights valid. . . Why we should accept his assertion that rights are valid claims, and what he means when he says that they are, thus are and, in his hands, must remain matters of pure conjecture, lacking anything by way of requisite explanation let alone thoughtful justification,’ Regan (2001), p. 273 in Cohen, C. and Regan, T. (2001).
[[12]] Cohen, C. (1986), p. 866. This response is also in Cohen, C. (2001), pp. 36-37 in Cohen, C. and Regan, T. (2001).
[[13]] Cohen, C. (1986), p. 866. This response is also in Cohen. C., (2001), pp. 36-37, in Cohen, C. and Regan, T. (2001).
[[15]] Scruton continues, ‘It is this that causes us to extend to them the shield that we consciously extend to each other and which is built collectively through our moral dialogue.’ Note the conflation between what might cause us to believe that such ‘marginal’ humans have such rights and the moral justification for such rights. Scruton, R. (2000) Animal Rights and Wrongs (London, Demos), p. 55.
[[16]] James Rachels interprets Cohen’s claim that ‘the issue is one of kind’ as the claim that what’s morally relevant is what’s statistically normal for most individuals of a species. He then argues that this approach is mistaken since it falsely implies that a statistically abnormal intelligent, thoughtful chimp who could engage us in conversation couldn’t have rights. Rachels, J. (1990) Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (Oxford, Oxford University Press), p. 186-187.
[[17]] White, A. (1984). Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Reprinted in Regan, T. and Singer, P. (1989) Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall), pp. 119-121, p. 120. Emphasis mine.
[[19]]
Although he does not quite say, presumably the kind that Cohen has in mind is
the biological kind homo sapiens
since he does advocate ‘speciesism.’
See Cohen, C. (2001) ‘The Moral Inequality of Species: Why ‘Speciesism’
is Right,’ pp. 59-68 in Cohen, C. and Regan, T. (2001). I should note that Cohen misunderstands what
is typically meant by ‘speciesism.’ He
mistakenly thinks that if one rejects speciesism then one will treat all
animals exactly the same, irrespective of their different needs and
dispositions. But those who reject
speciesism reject the view that for comparable harms to a human and a
non-human, the harms to a human are, considered in themselves, necessarily
morally worse. But of course they
think animals should be treated according to their different interests.
[[20]] James Rachels objects to Cohen’s denying ‘moral individualism,’ the thesis that how an individual should be treated depends on his or her own characteristics, not others’ characteristics or what groups that individual is a member. This objection isn’t quite successful since one’s own characteristics include one’s relations to others and group or kind memberships. Rachels surely thinks that the fact that ‘marginal’ humans and animals are members of the ‘group’ or ‘kind’ sentient being is morally relevant (although we would typically just say that it’s because they are sentient, rather than the wordier, but equivalent, claim that they are of that group or kind). So there is nothing necessarily problematic in appealing to kinds or groups: the problem is appealing to morally irrelevant ones and failing to defend one’s views. See Rachels, J. (1990), pp. 173-174, 187.
[[21]]
Fox, M.A. (1986), p. 56, 60, emphases mine; Fox, M.A. (1987) ‘Animal
Experimentation: A Philosopher’s Changing Views’ Between the Species 3, 55-60, 75, 80, 82.
[[22]] Schmidtz, D. (1998) ‘Are All Species Equal?’ Journal of Applied Philosophy 15, 1, pp. 57-76, p. 61. Emphasis mine.
[[23]] Francis, L.P. and Norman, R. (1978) ‘Some Animals Are More Equal than Others’ Philosophy 53, pp. 507-527, p. 518.
[[24]] Wennberg, R. (2003) God, Humans and Animals: An Invitation to Enlarge our Moral Universe (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Publishing), p. 120. He argues that animals’ interests should be given very serious consideration, but retains a higher moral status for humans. Surprisingly, however, he seems to also argue that obligations to ‘marginal’ humans are only indirect and pragmatically justified, pp. 221-222.
[[28]] Cohen, (2001), p. 29 in Cohen, C. and Regan, T. (2001). Cohen advocates the humane treatment of animals and sees this obligation as a direct duty to animals because they are sentient.
[[32]] Peter Carruthers argues on contractualist grounds that animals lack moral status and so most uses of them are morally permissible (he has also agued that animals do not feel pain in any morally significant sense, but seems to reject that position now). See Carruthers, P. (1992) The Animals Issue (New York, Cambridge University Press). For effective criticism, see Wilson, S. (2001) ‘Carruthers and the Argument from Marginal Cases’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 18, 2, pp. 135-147 and Wennberg, R. (2003), pp. 132-137. Tibor Machan claims, for Cohen-esque reasons, that humans’ use of animals is permissible because doing so makes ‘the best use of nature for our success in living our lives.’ Machan, T. (2002) ‘Why Human Beings May Use Animals’, Journal of Value Inquiry, 36, 1, pp. 9-14, p. 11. He notes that we also might benefit from using (marginal) humans, but does not explain why that would be wrong. He merely states that ‘as far as infants or the significantly impaired among human beings are concerned, they cannot be the basis for a general account of human morality, of what rights human beings have. Borderline cases matter in making difficult decisions but not in forging a general theory.’ That might be true, but these remarks provide no reason to think that marginal humans have rights and animals don’t, so Machan’s views remain incomplete and undefended. Some vivisectors and philosophers attempt to argue that it is permissible or obligatory to use animals in E.F. Paul and J. Paul (eds.) (2001), but their attempts fail. See Nobis, N. ‘So Why Does Animal Experimentation Matter? Review of Ellen Franken Paul and Jeffrey Paul (eds.) Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research’ American Journal of Bioethics 3, 1 (available only online at www.bioethics.net).
[[34]] For a similar style of argument, see Engel, M. (2001) ‘The Mere Considerability of Animals’, Acta Analytica, 16, pp. 89-108. Engel argues that the Lawrence Becker, Bonnie Steinbock, and Peter Caruthers’s moral premises that require myn-consideration (minimal-yet-non-negligible) entail the same practical conclusions regarding the morality of eating meat, trapping or raising animals for fur, vivisection, and nearly all (if not all) experimental uses of animals.
[[36]] For
development of these arguments see Fink, C. (1991) ‘Animal Experimentation and
the Argument from Limited Resources’, Between
the Species Spring 90-96. He argues
that ‘the medical establishment is actually quite selective in its compassion
for humanity since the vital interests of most people would be better served if
animal research were abolished and our limited resources devoted to other forms
of humanitarian aid, such as providing food and basic medical care to the
poor.’ See also Greek C. and Greek J.
(2000) Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on
Animals (New York: Continuum).
[[37]] For discussion of utilitarian arguments for vivisection see Gregory, T.R. (2000) ‘The failure of traditional arguments in the vivisection debate’, Public Affairs Quarterly 14, 2, pp. 159-182; Kaufman, S. (1995) ‘Does vivisection pass the utilitarian test?’ Public Affairs Quarterly 9, pp. 127-137; LaFollette, H. and Shanks, N. (1998) ‘Utilitarian Assessment of Animal Experimentation’ in Bekoff, M. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press); LaFollette, H. and Shanks, N. (1995) ‘Util-izing Animals’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 12, pp. 13-25; LaFollette, H. and Shanks, N. (1996) Brute Science: Dilemmas of Animal Experimentation (New York, Routedge); and Regan, T. (2002) ‘Empty Cages: Animal Rights and Vivisection’.