Episode 99, Animal Rights (Part IV - Further Analysis and Discussion)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Courses

4.8 • 612 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Introduction

It cannot have escaped your attention that there is a small contingent of our nation that poses a threat to our way of life.

They want us to stop farming our most prized delicacy on the grounds of their 'moral concerns'. We must not let them push us around. As you well know, it has always been an important part of our culture. Why should we assume that this small group of radicals have got it right and that our ancestors have all been wrong? Think of all the memories we've shared when eating the meat around the table with our families. It is a wonderful thing.

Secondly, I have yet to come across anyone who doesn't gain great satisfaction from the delicious taste of the meat. Whether it is in patties, ground mince or slices, it is enjoyed by billions every day. Imagine the backlash if we showed sympathy to the radicals! Think about all the businesses that rely on meat for their income. It would be political suicide.

Finally, and most importantly, we must always remember the natural order of things. We are top of the food chain, and it is our right to exercise our dominion. Every test we have conducted on the creatures have proven them to be inferior, be it intelligence, strength, or a capacity to live what we'd all say is a fulfilling life.

I know that you must feel the same; all I ask is for permission to deal with the radicals. Eating human meat should never be up for debate.

Contents

Part I. History

Part II. Fellow Creatures

Part III. Mere Instruments

Part IV. Further Analysis and Discussion

Links

Carl Cohen, 'Why Animals Have No Rights'.

David DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals.

Lori Gruen, Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals.

Christine M. Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals.

Philip Lymbery, Farmageddon in Pictures: The True Cost of Cheap Meat.

Mary Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter.

Matthieu Ricard, A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion.

Peter Singer, Animal Liberation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan
0:07.2	Scicast
0:08.2	Part 4 Further analyses and discussion.
0:25.6	Welcome back to the show. You've managed to listen to three installments on animal rights.
0:30.6	It hasn't been easy, but sure enough, we've got some exciting and more fun and less depressing stuff to talk about in this installment.
0:39.2	Andrew, would you like to kick us off?
0:41.3	Yeah, so there's a really quite cool thought experiment.
0:44.6	Well, maybe not thought experiment.
0:45.9	Maybe some people would genuinely think that this is a brilliant idea.
0:49.1	First buy-in here would be that you would assume that the description that we gave in the previous episodes is
0:55.3	like a bad thing and that you think that we should reduce animal suffering. So I'm going to just
0:59.6	at least take that premise for granted for right now. And so Jeff McMahon in 2010, an editorial for
1:05.6	the New York Times wrote a piece called The Meat Eaters. And he suggests this scenario that might be like an extreme solution to the problem of animal suffering.
1:16.0	And just to quote him here, it would be to arrange for the gradual extinction of carnivorous species and replacing them with new herbivores.
1:24.1	Or perhaps intervene genetically so that currently carnivorous species would gradually evolve into herbivores.
1:29.9	And so it would be this huge project of taking away all of the predators so that all animals could, I guess, live in harmony in this Garden of Eden that we would have created.
1:38.9	And that, and I assume the extra layer to that is that the biggest predator of all, us, would stop using them too,
1:46.0	so that animals could just coexist in one sort of big, happy kingdom of ends where everybody
1:51.5	is treated as ends in themselves, including the animals. Now, you'd think that Causeguard would
1:56.5	say, yes, absolutely excellent idea. And Singer as well, yeah. Yeah, maybe even singer. Now, the reason why I say that this is, clearly even Jeff McMahon doesn't say that this is the thing he would definitely opt for is for reasons that you might already be suspicious of us.
2:11.6	If we mess around with the natural order of things, do we know the knock-on effects there?
2:15.6	Maybe all sorts of problems might occur.
	...

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