Tom Regan Reading Questions
Tom Regan, "The Case for
Animal Rights' In Peter Singer, ed., In Defense of Animals.
New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 13-26 at http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/regan03.htm
and Page numbers according to the printed out pdf.
1. Regan begins by referring to the goals of the animal rights movement, mentioning three as examples:
the total abolition of the use of animals in science;
the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture;
the total elimination of commerncial and sport hunting and trapping. (p. 1)
What does he see as fundamentally wrong with the ways humans treat animals, with the practices these goals target? How will change come about in his view? What role does he see for philosophy?
2. Regan begins the summary of key arguments from his book, The Case for Animal Rights, on page 2. He starts by outlining and critiquing the views of “thinkers who deny that animals have rights.” (2) One view he calls the indirect duty view. What is this? According to Regan some easily dismissed bases for the indirect view are that animals don’t feel pain or they do, but only human pain matters. (2) He then discusses contractarianism. What is contractarianism? How do indirect moral obligations towards animals and children arise out of contractarianism? (2-3) Why does Regan hold “crude” contractarianism is not an adequate theory about the moral status of humans? Why does he reject more sophisticated contractarian views including those of Rawls? Do these weaknesses also eliminate contractarianism in relation to humans? Regan concludes that the indirect duties view fails and we, therefore, have some direct moral duties to animals. Does this follow?
3. Why does Regan reject the cruelty/kindness and the utilitarian direct duty to animals views? (4-5). What do his cup and Aunt Bea examples illustrate?
4. What is the inherent value or rights view? (5-6) What are the virtues of this view? Why is it a better competitor for our rational assent according to Regan?
5. Why, according to Regan, should we focus on similarities between humans and animals as individuals? What does it mean to be “an experiencing subject of a life”? (6) Why should this be the basis for moral consideration? How does Regan defend his rights view and its extension to animals? (6-7) Why is he agnostic about whether inherent value extends to those who are not experiencing subjects of a life? (7)
6. What are Regan’s four final points? He briefly sketches them. Why does he include them? (7-8)
7. Early in the essay, Regan states that the themes of his book touch on the foundations of morality (2). Is this true? If so, why?
Tom Regan 9. 3 " How to
Worry About Endangered Species," pp. 359-63 in The Case for Animal Rights. 2d
edition. University of California Press, 2004 or 1st ed. 1983.
1. Paragraph One. Regan opens with the statement: “The rights view is a view about the moral rights of individuals. Species are not individuals, and the rights view does not recognize the moral rights of species to anything, including survival. What it recognizes is the prima facie right of individuals not to be harmed, and thus the prima facie right of individuals not to be killed.” He then offers an example likely to freak out conservationists including environmental holists. Why would these folks find Regan’s statement and his example so troubling?
2. Paragraphs Two and Three ease back a little. Regan says the rights view supports efforts to save endangered species. The reason, however, is the inherent value of the animals involved, not because species are endangered. He also notes the rights view makes no distinction between wild and domestic animals in terms of individual rights. He worries that focus on animals who are members of endangered species sends the wrong message. Why?
3. Paragraph Four acknowledges human interests in endangered species and wild animals. However, Regan lists four items it denies. What are these? Why does he focus on “aggregation”? Which philosophical positions is he targeting?
4. In the section on “Rights and Environmental Ethics” Regan takes on Leopold’s land ethic and holism in general. Why does he label them “environmental fascism”? What is his wildflower example intended to accomplish?
5. Regan is agnostic about the inherent value of collections or systems such as “an undisturbed, ecologically balanced forest.” However, because they are not individuals he finds it “unclear how the notion of moral rights can be meaningfully applied.” On the other hand, he holds if one could make the case that individual inanimate objects had rights, then there could be a successful “rights-based environmental ethic”—avoiding the problem of “not seeing the trees for the forest.” Why does he think environmentalists should welcome such an ethic? Why does he think they should prefer it to a holistic ethic? What about a rights-based ethic do you think environmentalists might find attractive? What problematic? And, which environmentalists?