Buxqi wrote:
On 18 Mar, 23:36, Rupert wrote:

When my thesis is finished I
plan to start working on a writing project in animal ethics, exploring
the question of whether speciesism can be justified.

Rudy Canoza recently made the interesting point that AR is
speciesist assuming that you would lock up a human who
harmed other humans but had a brain condition whereby he
was incapable of making moral judgements and therefore should
be considered a moral patient.

If you are willing to lock him up yet unwilling to lock a predator
animal up to prevent him from doing harm to non-human animals
then you are guilty of speciesm. Can you refute that premise?

My specific point that "ar" is speciesist is not really
based on what we require of human moral patients,
although that certainly reinforces my claim. My point
is that "ar" demands a behavior of moral actors -
humans - based on the fact that humans are uniquely
viewed by most, at least until recently, as moral
actors. It's sort of like requiring your seven-foot
tall neighbor to assist you in getting things down from
or up onto the top shelves of your kitchen cabinets
merely because he is tall.

An interesting development is that some ethnologists or
ethno-biologists now think humans may not be the only
moral actors; there is some scant evidence that
chimpanzees may have some rudimentary moral sense. If
that is the case, and if it eventually comes to pass
that chimps have a limited but identifiable capacity
for moral agency, then are we required to prevent them
from killing colubus monkeys and other animals?