Browsing by Author "Tiisala, Katja"
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Tiisala, Katja (2020)This master’s thesis defends the moral equality and rights of sentient animals. The investigation covers equal deontological moral rights to freedom, bodily integrity, life and not to be treated as a mere means: that is, equal negative basic rights to respectful treatment and freedom from harm. Tom Regan’s Rights View stands as the groundbreaking defence of these rights for human and nonhuman subjects-of-a-life. Subjects-of-a-life are equally and inherently valuable animals who have an experiential welfare, agency, preferences and cognitive abilities like memory. All psychologically paradigmatic mammals, birds and fishes at least are subjects-of-a-life. Regan’s chief work, "The Case for Animal Rights" published in 1983, presents the subject-of-a-life criterion as the sufficient criterion for rights possession and leaves the necessary criterion open. This research examines the sufficient and necessary criterion for equal negative basic rights in Regan’s Rights View. The most plausible criterion is sentience according to the research results. All sentient beings feel pleasure and pain. At the minimum, all vertebrates and certain invertebrates are sentient right-holders, possibly all animals with a nervous system qualify. "The Case" and Regan’s other publications are focal sources for this primarily intra-theoretical scrutiny. Subsequent literature in animal ethics supplements the analysis, inter alia the writings by Gary Francione, Christine Korsgaard and Joan Dunayer who defend the sentience criterion for deontological rights. Critical disability studies literature supports the equality of the rights in this research. This thesis justifies both the equality and the scope of negative basic rights. In what comes to the scope, the sufficient and necessary criterion is sentience, because all and only sentient beings are vulnerable to harmful actions. I argue that this vulnerability grounds rights possession. Vulnerability to harming coexists with experiential welfare and is the morally relevant similarity shared by right-holders, according to my interpretation of Regan’s arguments. Sentience means affective individuality and having an experiential welfare. No sentient being should prima facie be harmed, which implies protection through negative basic rights. Non-sentient entities lack an experiential welfare. They can neither be literally harmed nor possess the rights. In what comes to the equality, these rights are equal in order to avoid ableism (i.e. discrimination based on abilities), speciesism (i.e. discrimination based on species) or any other arbitrary discrimination based on coincidental factors out of an individual’s control. Applying the subject-of-a-life criterion as the necessary condition for the rights and the sentience criterion for lower moral standing would epitomise ableism. Hence, I conclude that only experiential welfare is relevant for rights possession instead of the abilities mentioned in the subject-of-a-life criterion or any other abilities. All sentient beings have rights to respectful treatment and freedom from harm equally. Notwithstanding, the right to freedom can belong solely to sentient beings who are intentional agents. The sentience criterion entails a duty to transform societies fundamentally for the sake of abolitionist justice in the Reganian sense. Instead of regulating the use of sentient nonhumans, we should universally eradicate the disrespectful commercial utilisation of them. Sentient nonhumans and humans are equal, inherently valuable individuals who have an affective inner world. They should never be treated as mere means, resources, property or commodities.
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Tiisala, Katja (2022)Sustainability is a normative concept embedding ethical commitments. A central ethical issue in the sustainability debate and sustainability science regards moral standing. Moral standing is a philosophical concept that means that a being matters morally for their own sake and that there are direct duties owed to the being. It is widely accepted in contemporary ethics that, in addition to humans, at least some sentient nonhuman animals have moral standing. However, the dominant academic and political discourse of sustainability has hitherto focused only on the moral claims of humans without a critical examination of this anthropocentrism. In anthropocentrism, a view of moral standing, only humans have moral standing or they have a much higher moral standing than any nonhumans. Animal and environmental ethicists have questioned anthropocentrism through philosophical arguments. Nevertheless, the academic discourse of sustainability has been disconnected from the philosophical research on moral standing. There is, thus, a research gap in examining moral standing within sustainability science by drawing also on ethical research. This master’s thesis integrates the two distinct fields of knowledge, that is, sustainability science and ethical research on moral standing. The aim is to answer the following research questions: (1) What kind of anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric conceptions of sustainability are there in sustainability literature? (2) What kind of conceptions of sustainability ensue from the main philosophical views of moral standing? (3) How plausible are the different anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric conceptions of sustainability? The thesis applies the philosophical method for investigating the plausibility of alternative views. With animal ethical arguments, I defend the plausibility of a sentiocentric and unitarian conception of sustainability that considers the interests of all sentient beings equally. Also, I present a typology of the main anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric conceptions of sustainability based on philosophical literature on moral standing. My typology characterises the key features of what I call the strong variety of anthropocentric sustainability, the weak variety of anthropocentric sustainability, sentiocentric sustainability, biocentric sustainability and ecocentric sustainability. In addition, this research employs interdisciplinary literature related to the topic and reviews the anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric conceptions of sustainability in sustainability literature. Based on my analysis, I contend that the dominant conceptions of sustainability maintain anthropocentric speciesism, that is, discrimination according to species classification within an anthropocentric worldview. This bias is present, for example, in the conceptions of sustainability of the Brundtland Report, the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, the planetary boundaries framework as well as IPCC reports examined in this thesis. Some non-anthropocentric conceptions of sustainability are starting to emerge in academic discourses: interspecies sustainability, posthuman sustainability, ecocentric sustainability, multispecies sustainability, what I call multicriterial sustainability and defences of the animal ethical dimensions of sustainability. Hitherto, the discourse of sustainability has, still, rarely questioned anthropocentric speciesism. I argue that the anthropocentric conceptions of sustainability lack plausibility for five reasons. Firstly, it is morally wrong to engage in speciesist discrimination. It is wrong to disregard sentient nonhuman animals’ interests and equal duties owed to these creatures in the context of sustainability. Secondly, anthropocentric speciesism is connected to discrimination against certain animalised and marginalised humans, such as indigenous peoples. Thirdly, normative claims require ethical justification, which makes it unacceptable to assume anthropocentrism without critical examination. Sustainability science should consider ethical research on moral standing and aim at overcoming the speciesist bias through critical reflection. Fourthly, from a psychological perspective, it is valuable to oppose oppressive systems that, according to research by Melanie Joy, distance humans from reality and their authentic experience. Fifthly, the sentiocentric equality of all sentient beings protects environment and wellbeing by opposing the animal industry. Also the biocentric and ecocentric conceptions of sustainability lack plausibility, despite their non-anthropocentrism, as only sentient beings have interests. I conclude that there is a duty to embrace the sentiocentric and unitarian conception of sustainability that commits to the equality of all sentient beings, which eliminates discrimination. This conclusion entails a duty to transform the paradigm of sustainability science and the discourse of sustainability. In future research, it is essential to further develop this sentiocentric conception of sustainability, examine its possible challenges and how societies and the academic world could implement it.
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