June 13: are animals people?
Are Animals People?
Well, are they?
Most people automatically say "no, they aren't people because they aren't human." Interestingly enough, though, a "person" is defined in philosophy as something that is its own moral agent and is deserving of fair treatment.
In class today, we came up with some "Criteria for personhood":
- Emotions
- Reasoning
- Sentience
- Communication
- Self-Awareness
- Morality
These criteria are great, but there is one question: how many of these criterion do you have to meet?
In my opinion, you must meet all of them to be a person, but you don't need to meet all of them to deserve some rights.
One classic center for this debate is happy the elephant. She has been kept in what is essentially solitary confinement for 13 years, and some animal rights activists are trying to have her moved to a preserve. She does not meet all of the criteria listed above, but she does meet some of them. She has emotionality and self-awareness, and that means that we should spare her from solitary so that she can have good emotions once again,
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