Nathan Nobis

Should people who believe in animal rights think that abortion is wrong? Should pro-lifers accept animal rights? If you think it’s wrong to kill fetuses to end pregnancies, should you also think it’s wrong to kill animals to, say, eat them? If you, say, oppose animal research, should you also oppose abortion? Some argue ‘yes’ and others argue ‘no’ to either or both sets of questions. The correct answer, however, seems to be, ‘it depends’: it depends on why someone accepts animal rights, and why someone thinks abortion is wrong: it depends on their reasons.

. . Tom Beauchamp and David DeGrazia's principles do improve upon the 3Rs which don’t mention the need for benefits from animal experimentation, the need to compare these benefits to animal harms, and provide no hard limits on experimentation. However, they present their principles as “useful” for people engaged in animal research and as a “philosophically sound” (p. 4) framework for a new ethic for animal research. Regrettably, I have doubts about both these overall claims and so am pessimistic about the book.

"Nobis argues that Singer's consequentialist approach is inadequate for defending the moral obligation to become a vegetarian or vegan. The consequentialist case rests on the idea that being a vegetarian or vegan maximizes utility -- the fewer animals that are raised and killed for food, the less suffering. Nobis argues that this argument does not work on an individual level -- my becoming a vegetarian makes no difference to the overall utility of reducing animal suffering in a context of a huge industry and market unaffected by my actions. Nobis merges the insights of virtue ethics with consequentialism to argue that individuals can bring about more goodness if they have the virtues of compassion, care, and sensitivity to unnecessary cruelty and suffering. If one ought to be compassionate, sensitive to cruelty, resist injustice, and be morally integrated, then, Nobis argues, one ought to be a vegetarian or vegan.".

In his reply to the Nobis-Graham review of Tibor Machan's book, Putting Humans First, John Altick defends Machan's and Rand's theories of moral rights, specifically as they relate to the rights of non-human animals and non-rational human beings. Nobis and Graham argue that Altick's defense fails and that it would be wrong to eat, wear, and experiment on non-rational—yet conscious and sentient—human beings. Since morally relevant differences between these kinds of humans and animals have not been identified to justify a difference in treatment or consideration, it is wrong to harm animals for these purposes also.

Carl Cohen's arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one's peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek philosophical consolations elsewhere. I note that some other philosopher's arguments are subject to similar objections.

In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (2007) and an earlier article in this journal, "Defending Abortion Philosophically"(2006), Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are, from conception, prima facie wrong to kill. His arguments are based on what he calls a "metaphysics of the human person" known as "The Substance View." I argue that Beckwith’s metaphysics does not support his abortion ethic: Moral, not metaphysical, claims that are part of this Substance View are the foundation of the argument, and Beckwith inadequately defends these moral claims. Thus, Beckwith’s arguments do not provide strong support for what he calls the "pro-life" view of abortion

There are at least two models of what it is to be a feminist ethicist or moral philosopher. One model requires that one accept a distinctively feminist ethical theory. I will argue against this model by arguing that since the concept of a feminist ethical theory is highly unclear, any claim that ethicists who are feminist need one is also unclear and inadequately defended. I will advocate what I call a "minimal model" of feminist ethics, arguing that it is philosophically and practically sufficient to meet feminist goals.

right. Unlike incoherent positive rights , such as the “right” to education or health care, the animal right is, at bottom, a right to be left alone . It does not call for government to tax us in order to provide animals with food, shelter, and veterinary care. It only requires us to stop killing them and making them suffer. I can think of no other issue where the libertarian is arguing for a positive right—his right to make animals submit to any use he sees—and the other side is arguing for a negative right!

Elizabeth Harman has presented a novel view on the moral status of early fetuses that she calls the “ Actual Future Principle” : An early fetus that will become a person has some moral status. An early fetus that will die while it is still an early fetus has no moral status. This view is said to justify a "very liberal" position on abortion, that "early abortion requires no moral justification whatsoever," and show this position to be "more attractive than has previously been thought." Harman concedes that the AFP "may appear to be incoherent or be plainly wrong on its face." I argue that she does not defeat this appearance: strong arguments are not given in its favor. I will undercut Harman's main argument for the AFP by showing that no defender of abortion needs to accept the AFP to reasonably retain her views. Since the AFP is not adequately defended, Harman does not provide a strong argument for her view on abortion. I will note, however, that Harman's liberal view on abortion may, in fact, imply very little about the morality of most actual abortions.

To many, it seems like the debate of "when life begins" is irresolvable. This is unfortunate since this failure to make progress is largely a result of people not asking what the question means, or clarifying what is being asked, and listening carefully to try to understand the range of answers. As a philosophy professor who teaches logic and critical thinking, I suggest that asking the simple, but powerful, question, "What do you mean?" and seeking to understand different answers could help us move past this debate to more important, and challenging, ethical and legal questions about abortion.

As a medical ethicist, I want to explain why college vaccination requirements decidedly do not violate the core principles of medical ethics which include avoiding or lessening harms, promoting benefits, respecting people and their informed and free choices, and promoting justice and fairness. In particular, vaccine requirements do not violate the respect-related requirement to not selfishly “use” and abuse others as “means” for someone else’s benefit. Since false claims on important issues often have dire consequences, it’s important to explain why medical ethics supports vaccinating college students.

Ayer and Stevenson advocated ethical emotivisms, non-cognitivist understandings of the meanings of moral terms and functions of moral judgments. I argue that their reasons for ethical emotivisms suggestanalogous epistemological emotivisms. Epistemological emotivism importantly undercuts any epistemic support Ayer and Stevenson offered for ethical emotivism. This is because if epistemic emotivism is true, all epistemic judgments are neither true nor false so it is neither true nor false that anyone should accept ethical emotivism or is justified in believing it. Thus, their perspectives are epistemologically self-undermining and, truthfully, should be rejected. Unlike Ayer and Stevenson, Gibbard explicitly endorses ethical and epistemological emotivism, or expressivism; I criticize his views in detail elsewhere

Many people involved in the life sciences and related fields and industries routinely cause mice, rats, dogs, cats, primates and other non-human animals to experience pain, suffering, and an early death, harming these animals greatly and not for their own benefit. Harms, however, require moral justification, reasons that pass critical scrutiny. Animal experimenters and dissectors might suspect that strong moral justification has been given for this kind of treatment of animals. I survey some recent attempts to provide such a justification and show that they do not succeed: they provide no rational defense of animal experimentation and related activities. Thus, the need for a rational defense of animal experimentation remains

The problem of infant suffering and death has remained one of the most intractable problems for theists. Andrew Chignell has attempted to develop a theodicy for this problem that is based on Marilyn Adam’s paradigm for theodicy. However, his discussion repeatedly avoids the argument that, traditionally, most have thought to be the basis of this problem of evil. Thus, his theodicy provides the traditional theist with no adequate response to the problem. I argue that since infant suffering is a serious (and inadequately addressed) problem for any theodicy, animal torture and death is a serious problem as well. I note that few theodicies have addressed animal suffering in a manner that takes their pain seriously.

Frey sets the challenge for the other authors: to explain why, morally, no humans can be subject to the kinds of experiments that animals are subject to and to explain how researchers can reliablyuse animal models to understand and cure human disease. He thinks that the first challenge has not been met; the second challenge is, unfortunately, not directly addressed in this book. Adrian Morrison states that he “abhors” positions like Frey’s, Peter Singer’s and Tom Regan’s. He asserts that all “human beings stand apart in a moral sense from all other species” and that all are worthy of “special consideration”. Regrettably he fails to defend his view by identifying the morally-relevant characteristics that all humans possess and all animals lack that might make his claim true. That omission prevents him from rationally criticizing opposing views

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus.

In Principles of Animal Research Ethics, Tom Beauchamp and David DeGrazia (hereafter B&D) aim to replace the well-known “3Rs”—Replacing animal research with non-animal methods, Reducing the numbers of animals, and Refining experiments to reduce harms and improve welfare—as the guiding principles regulating animal research. . . B&D present their principles as “useful” for people engaged in animal research and as a “philosophically sound” (p. 4) framework for a new ethic for animal research. Regrettably, I have doubts about both these overall claims and so am pessimistic about the book.

Is banning trans fat a bad policy? Resnik (2010) offers two general reasons for thinking so. First, because trans fat bans could lead to the government’s placing other objectionable restrictions upon food choices. Second, that, because we can adequately reduce trans fat consumption through education and mandatory labeling, bans are unnecessary. There are good reasons to reject both claims. First, since any slippery slope towards further restrictions on food choices is easily avoided, trans fat bans do not give the cause for worry that Resnik suggests they do; second, trans fat bans are necessary, in the sense of “necessary” that is relevant to public health policy debates.

BackgroundTo determine whether the public and scientists consider common arguments in support of animal research convincing.MethodsAfter validation, the survey was sent to samples of public, Amazon Mechanical Turk, a Canadian city festival and children’s hospital), medical students, and scientists. We presented questions about common arguments to justify the moral permissibility of AR. Responses were compared using Chi-square with Bonferonni correction.ResultsThere were 1220 public [SSI, n = 586; AMT, n = 439; Festival, n = 195; Hospital n = 107], 194/331 medical student, and 19/319 scientist [too few to report] responses. Most public respondents were <45 years, had some College/University education, and had never done AR. Most public and medical student respondents considered ‘benefits arguments’ sufficient to justify AR; however, most acknowledged that counterarguments suggesting alternative research methods may be available, or that it is unclear why the same ‘benefits arguments’ do not apply to using humans in research, significantly weakened ‘benefits arguments’. Almost all were not convinced of the moral permissibility of AR by ‘characteristics of non-human-animals arguments’, including that non-human-animals are not sentient, or are property. Most were not convinced of the moral permissibility of AR by ‘human exceptionalism’ arguments, including that humans have more advanced mental abilities, are of a special ‘kind’, can enter social contracts, or face a ‘lifeboat situation’. Counterarguments explained much of this, including that not all humans have these more advanced abilities [‘argument from species overlap’], and that the notion of ‘kind’ is arbitrary [e.g., why are we not of the ‘kind’ ‘sentient-animal’ or ‘subject-of-a-life’?]. Medical students were more supportive of AR at the end of the survey.ConclusionsResponses suggest that support for AR may not be based on cogent philosophical rationales, and more open debate is warranted.