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What's the Point of Self-consciousness? A Critique of Singer's Arguments against Killing (Human or Non-human) Self-conscious Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2016

FEDERICO ZUOLO
FEDERICO ZUOLO*
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg [email protected]
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Abstract

Singer has argued against the permissibility of killing people (and certain animals) on the grounds of the distinction between conscious and self-conscious animals. Unlike conscious animals, which can be replaced without a loss of overall welfare, there can be no substitution for self-conscious animals. In this article, I show that Singer's argument is untenable, in the cases both of the preference-based account of utilitarianism and of objective hedonism, to which he has recently turned. In the first case, Singer cannot theoretically exclude that a self-conscious being's stronger preferences may only be satisfied by killing another self-conscious being. In the second case, he fails to demonstrate that the rules of ordinary morality, demanding that killing be strictly forbidden, could not frequently be overruled by the principles of esoteric morality. In both cases, his theory cannot solve the classical utilitarian problem of prohibiting the killing of people in secret.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 465 - 487
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 I will focus in particular on the second edition of Singer, P., Practical Ethics (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar, rather than on the third edition (2011), because the second edition represents the most coherent attempt to develop a preference-based argument, whereas the latest version is a mix of a preference-based argument and hedonistic argument. This latter approach has been fully defended in de Lazari-Radek, K. and Singer, P., The Point of View of the Universe (Oxford, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a reconstruction of the ambiguity of Singer's arguments in the third edition of Practical Ethics, see Kagan, S., ‘Singer on Killing Animals’, The Ethics of Killing Animals, ed. Višak, T. and Garner, R. (Oxford, 2015), pp. 136–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to clarify this point.

3 Višak, T., ‘Do Utilitarians Need to Accept the Replaceability Argument?’, The Ethics of Killing Animals, ed. Višak and Garner, pp. 117–35Google Scholar. For a critique of Višak, see Holtug, N., ‘The Value of Coming into Existence’, The Ethics of Killing Animals, ed. Višak and Garner, pp. 101–14Google Scholar.

4 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 94.

5 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 125.

6 Singer is not clear on where we ought to draw the line. He says that for precautionary reasons we could at least include chickens but probably not fish, thus ruling out the possibility of rearing most animals typically eaten by humans.

7 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 95.

8 I draw on Rabinowicz, W. and Österberg, J., ‘Value Based on Preferences: On Two Interpretations of Preference Utilitarianism’, Economics and Philosophy 12 (1996), pp. 1–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for the formulation of the first two alternatives with slight modifications.

9 For the distinction between the first two types of preferences, I elaborate on the hints sketched by Višak, T., Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics (Houndsmill, 2013), p. 37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 130.

11 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 107.

12 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 129.

13 Singer, Practical Ethics, pp. 129-31.

14 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 130.

15 ‘The implication of the objection to killing as the prevention of future preference fulfilment is that the strength of any preference will be an objection to extinguishing it only if that preference would otherwise be fulfilled. Where a preference would otherwise be fulfilled, its strength can indicate the amount of future positive value that its extinction depletes. But the strength of a preference that will not be fulfilled indicates the negative value that its contravention would constitute. Thus, to extinguish a slight or a moderate preference that would otherwise be fulfilled depletes future positive value. To extinguish an intense preference that would otherwise be contravened does not deplete future positive value. On the contrary, it prevents future negative value’ ( Uniacke, S., ‘A Critique of the Preference Utilitarian Objection to Killing People’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2002), pp. 209–17, at 213Google Scholar).

16 Singer, P., ‘Life's Uncertain Voyage’, Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in Honour of J. J. C. Smart, ed. Pettit, P., Sylvan, R. and Norman, J. (Oxford, 1987), pp. 154–72, at 168Google Scholar.

17 Singer, ‘Life's Uncertain Voyage’, p. 69.

18 Uniacke, ‘A Critique of the Preference Utilitarian Objection to Killing People’, p. 216.

19 It is worth remarking that my critique of Singer's argument against the killing of self-conscious beings considers only the strength of the preferences of possible individuals. It does not rely on the idea that Singer's act-utilitarianism is self-defeating or on the ideal case of a whole society following act-utilitarianism. On this, see Singer, P. ‘Is Act-Utilitarianism Self-Defeating?’, The Philosophical Review 81 (1972), pp. 94–104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Guerrero, A., ‘Don't Know, Don't Kill: Moral Ignorance, Culpability and Caution’, Philosophical Studies 136 (2007), pp. 59–97, at 78–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Singer, Practical Ethics, p. 133.

22 Singer, ‘Life's Uncertain Voyage’, p. 164.

23 Singer, ‘Life's Uncertain Voyage’, p. 164. On the same page, Singer says that in fact we already have such a critical attitude because ‘we do not generally think the same efforts should be put into keeping seriously ill people alive irrespective of their age’.

24 Arneson, R., ‘What, if Anything, Renders All Humans Morally Equal?’, Singer and his Critics, ed. Jamieson, D. (Oxford, 1999), pp. 103–28Google Scholar.

25 Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA, 1971)Google Scholar; Carter, I., ‘Respect and the Basis of Equality’, Ethics 121 (2011), pp. 538–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Kagan, ‘Singer on Killing Animals’, p. 149.

27 de Lazari-Radek and Singer, The Point of View of the Universe, p. 216.

28 de Lazari-Radek and Singer, The Point of View of the Universe, p. 213.

29 de Lazari-Radek and Singer, The Point of View of the Universe, p. 265. Here we may ask about the fate of merely sentient animals on this account. ‘For the hedonist, the distinction between beings with self-awareness and those without it is not intrinsically significant. Perhaps it can be argued that self-aware beings are capable of greater pleasure than beings lacking in self-awareness, but presumably they are also capable of greater misery. . . . In explaining why killing humans is generally worse than killing animals (though not in all cases), the hedonist can once again appeal to indirect reasons: killing humans is likely to produce greater unhappiness among those close to the victim, and greater anxiety among others who fear being killed’ (de Lazari-Radek and Singer, The Point of View of the Universe, p. 265). As is plain to see, on a hedonistic account replaceability is even more clearly endorsed.

30 Goldman, A. I., ‘Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?’, Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, ed. Goldman, A. I. and Whitcomb, D. (Oxford, 2011), pp. 109–33Google Scholar.

31 de Lazari-Radek, K., and Singer, P., ‘Secrecy in Consequentialism: A Defence of Esoteric Morality’, Ratio 23 (2010), pp. 34–58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 For this reason, the considerations I put forward are not liable to Eggleston's critique against the necessity of the publicity condition. See Eggleston, B., ‘Rejecting the Publicity Condition: The Inevitability of Esoteric Morality’, The Philosophical Quarterly 63 (2013), pp. 29–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On this see also Hooker, B., ‘Publicity in Morality: A Reply to Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer’, Ratio 23 (2010), pp. 111–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 de Lazari-Radek and Singer, The Point of View of the Universe, pp. 305-6.

34 The research for this article has been supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research – FIRB 2010 – ‘Feeding Respect: Food Policies and Minority Claims in Multicultural Societies’, and by the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship ‘Politics and Animals: Addressing the Disagreement about the Treatment of Animals’. I am grateful to Francesco Ferraro and Peter Niesen for their helpful comments on previous versions of this article.