It is not every day that a moral philosopher declares war on the work of his academic colleagues. It happened 25 years ago, on the steps of the Federal Building in Los Angeles, just a couple of blocks from UCLA. “We are here today to declare war on vivisection!” were Tom Regan’s opening words in … Continue reading Tom Regan’s War Declaration: the 25th Year Anniversary
Tag: Tom Regan
The moral relevance of human intelligence
Animal rights proponents often assert that “sentience” is the only morally relevant characteristic. In their view, we owe the same moral consideration to all sentient living beings, which must include the same basic rights to life and freedom. The animal rights philosopher asks -- Why does it matter if humans can compose a violin concerto … Continue reading The moral relevance of human intelligence
Cat Helicopter Exposes Moral Confusion Among Animal Rights Activists
Animal rights theorists argue that our moral consideration for a living being must rest exclusively on its intrinsic properties -- the notion of moral individualism. I explained earlier that accepting such an idea would imply our use of human or animal remains for an art project in school would be equivalent to using play-dough or … Continue reading Cat Helicopter Exposes Moral Confusion Among Animal Rights Activists
Objections to the Marginal Case Argument
Scientists are often challenged with the so-called marginal case argument. We are asked to spell out the criteria that make our experiments justifiable in animals but not in humans with comparable abilities and therefore comparable interests. These criteria, we are told, must be evaluated for each individual separately (so-called moral individualism). The resulting argument against … Continue reading Objections to the Marginal Case Argument
Speaking of Research 