Animal rights have been a heated issue for decades, argued by such philosophers as Tom Regan. Regan believes that any practice in which an “experiencing subject of a life” is used as a resource is unethical, not because of emotion, but because of reason. In this paper, I will provide a short reconstruction and evaluation of Regan’s argument for animal rights.
Tom Regan is a firm believer and strong supporter of animal rights. This includes the elimination of research experiments using animals, factory farming, and hunting or trapping. He is not just an animal rights’ advocate some of time – rather, he believes that using any animal as a resource is wrong all the time. This means that giving an animal more space to live and better food will not help the problem; he thinks that will only make it worse, because we will feel better about ourselves for helping the animal, and concentrate less on the real issue at hand. The only way Regan sees in eliminating the problem is to change the way we view animals, and change the way we teach our children to think of them.
First of all, to understand Regan’s argument, you must assume that some things are true. The first and most important thing you must understand is that “[plain is pain, wherever it occurs (Regan 401).” This means that each and every animal on this earth feels pain and suffering just as much as any other animal. It is just as wrong to inflict pain or suffering on a moral agent, someone with moral standing who can deliberate morally, as it is to a moral patient, something that has moral standing. but cannot deliberate morally. Every moral patient’s interests are weighed equally to those of moral agent’s. Therefore, we must not discriminate based on any characteristics such as size, color, nationality, religious or racial affiliation, gender, species, etc. We must only realize that moral agents and moral patients all have certain inherit value, and all have it equally.
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Another thing we have to realize in order to understand Regan’s argument is that all moral agents and moral patients are “experiencing subjects of life”. An experiencing subject of a life is a, “conscious creature having an individual welfare that has importance to us whatever our usefulness to others (405).” Regan goes on to explain that, as an experiencing subject of a life, “[w]e want and prefer things, believe and feel things, recall and expect things.” Since moral agents and patients all are experiencing subjects of life, and all experiencing subjects of life have inherit value equally, we can assume that all moral agents and patients have inherit value equally. Since it is assumed that using a moral entity as a resource is justified only if that moral entity has no inherit value, and we have already stated that moral entities all have inherit value, and have it equally, Regan’s argument concludes that using a moral entity as a resource is not morally justified.
The word “succeed” is defined in the dictionary, “to have the desired…conclusion,” and I think that is just what Regan’s argument does; he reaches his desired conclusion through logical reasoning and critical self-evaluation.
Regan’s description of our direct duties to animals illustrates the difference between his argument and most of his contractarian critics. It is hard to dispute the fact that animals don’t feel pain, as it is equally hard to argue the moral justification for causing pain and suffering to anyone or anything in this world. However, Regan says that supporting kindness to animals in no way guarantees the support of animal rights; I agree. Most people, kind people, would hold the door open for a woman whose hands are full of grocery bags. Does this necessarily mean that all of these people view women equally? What if the woman were black? Would every last person who held the door open for a woman hold the door open for a 300 pound Brazilian male Olympic power-lifter? These are the parallels Regan draws between racism, sexism, and speciesism.
Although many critics have trouble finding moral justification of animal abuse in average situations, they are quick to point out cases where the line between right and wrong is slightly blurred. For example, in the case of sometimes fatal scientific research experiments, is it morally permissible to kill an animal to benefit society? You must ask yourself, is it morally permissible to kill a human being to benefit society? I think not. This is where Regan’s argument succeeds once again. “A good end does not justify an evil means (404).” and I agree.
