Course Description
This planet is populated with many, many critters and forms of life, and humans are a small minority. With ever-expanding human population and technological innovation, we are continually faced with complex ethical challenges regarding our relationship with other animals. While some animals provide us with aesthetic pleasure, useful labor, models for experimentation, and companionship, many other animals do not serve any of our immediate or foreseen purposes. There is significant philosophical disagreement on the value of non-human animals and to what uses we can justifiably subject them. These ethical debates are especially pressing in medical and research contexts, since the potential for human benefit can be a compelling consideration.
In this course, we will begin by investigating ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophical positions on the value of animals. Do non-humans have intrinsic or merely instrumental value? What is their moral standing? We will study crucial philosophical distinctions among animals based on their intelligence, capacities, and ecosystemic functions. These distinctions inform what types of value are assigned to various forms of life. How animals are valued has important implications for how we ought to respect, protect, and relate to them. These reflections can also affect our understanding of humans’ place in the world and our worth or dignity.
With these philosophical discussions in mind, we will then move on to consider specific bioethical debates surrounding the use of animals. Is it ethically permissible to consume meat or to perpetuate factory farming? What are the reasons for and against adopting a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle? Eating ethics has ramifications not only for the treatment of animals but also for our environmental impact. Animal use in medical research raises a host of other ethical quandaries: Under what circumstances is it ethically problematic to experiment on non-human animals? Should high-level animals never be used for this purpose? Advances in technology have made possible new frontiers in animal use, such as the creation of genetically modified animals (such as chimeras) and xenotransplantation (when a non-human donor provides organs or tissue to a human recipient). What are the philosophical and ethical difficulties associated with these innovations? How can we proceed in our scientific and medical endeavors so as to give proper weight to animal interests?
In this course, we will begin by investigating ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophical positions on the value of animals. Do non-humans have intrinsic or merely instrumental value? What is their moral standing? We will study crucial philosophical distinctions among animals based on their intelligence, capacities, and ecosystemic functions. These distinctions inform what types of value are assigned to various forms of life. How animals are valued has important implications for how we ought to respect, protect, and relate to them. These reflections can also affect our understanding of humans’ place in the world and our worth or dignity.
With these philosophical discussions in mind, we will then move on to consider specific bioethical debates surrounding the use of animals. Is it ethically permissible to consume meat or to perpetuate factory farming? What are the reasons for and against adopting a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle? Eating ethics has ramifications not only for the treatment of animals but also for our environmental impact. Animal use in medical research raises a host of other ethical quandaries: Under what circumstances is it ethically problematic to experiment on non-human animals? Should high-level animals never be used for this purpose? Advances in technology have made possible new frontiers in animal use, such as the creation of genetically modified animals (such as chimeras) and xenotransplantation (when a non-human donor provides organs or tissue to a human recipient). What are the philosophical and ethical difficulties associated with these innovations? How can we proceed in our scientific and medical endeavors so as to give proper weight to animal interests?