Contemporary Ethical Issues by Walter G. Jeffko

Author:Walter G. Jeffko
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633884427
Publisher: Prometheus Books

Plants, which merely have life, are all alike for animals, and all animals are for man. Wherefore it is not unlawful if man uses plants for the good of animals, and animals for the good of man….

Now the most necessary use would seem to consist in the fact that animals use plants, and men use animals, for food, and this cannot be done unless these be deprived of life: wherefore it is lawful both to take life from plants for the use of animals, and from animals for the use of men.10

Since animals exist for the sake of humans, the morality of our treatment of animals is determined solely by its effect on humans. Thus, for example, “he that kills another's ox, sins, not through killing the ox, but through injuring another man in his property. Wherefore this is not a species of the sin of murder but of the sin of theft or robbery.”11

Unlike Descartes, who thought of animals as machines, Aquinas, following Aristotle, sees animals as sentient organisms, capable of feeling pleasure and pain. At the same time, since the lower is for the sake of the higher, and since humans constitute the highest level of creation, animals have solely instrumental value. Their value is determined by the human ends or purposes for which God has created them. They lack any value in themselves, any intrinsic value. Still, animals may not be used for any human end whatsoever, but only for those that are grounded in rational and biological human nature.

Kant's position is similar to Aquinas's, except that, from a moral standpoint, he has only two levels of creation: humans and nonhumans. Humans are persons, and they constitute the higher level of creation. As we saw in chapter 3, for Kant, a person is a rational and self-conscious subject, capable of autonomy. As such, a person is an end-in-itself, having unconditioned (or intrinsic) value. Nonhumans include the rest of creation: animals, plants, and inanimate things. They are solely means to human ends and thus have merely instrumental value. Consequently, we have indirect duties to animals only insofar as they promote our direct duties to persons. As Kant writes:

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