The Animal Rights Debate

Rating:
Summary: Cohen needs to consult his logic text
Review: Cohen's incompetent, sophomoric handling of even the most elementary of potential reasons for rejecting "animal rights" talk (AR) makes a mockery of this debate (a surprising deficit, given his training and reputation as a logician). Regan, in contrast, is scholarly and thoughtful, though one suspects that his case for AR (and consequent absolutism)continues to faulter against his foundational assumption of the "equal inherent value of all subjects of a life" and rejection of all extrinsic ethical considerations.

Rating:
Summary: Cohen needs to consult his logic text
Review: Cohen's incompetent, sophomoric handling of even the most elementary of potential reasons for rejecting "animal rights" talk (AR) makes a mockery of this debate (a surprising deficit, given his training and reputation as a logician). Regan, in contrast, is scholarly and thoughtful, though one suspects that his case for AR (and consequent absolutism)continues to faulter against his foundational assumption of the "equal inherent value of all subjects of a life" and rejection of all extrinsic ethical considerations.

Rating:
Summary: And the Winner Is...
Review: I began reading The Animal Rights Debate with the expectation that debate between two philosophy professors might truly illuminate the issues at hand in the continuing, in fact, increasing, discussion regarding the relationship between humans and other animals.

Tom Regan is well known for his sharp and careful analysis, and I expected anyone paired with him in a book of this nature to be similarly prepared for the discussion. Mr. Cohen did write as if he knew what he was writing about, but unfortunately for the reader, he did not.

From the first pages of Mr. Cohen's article, errors of fact are rife. He says, "The Department of Agriculture recently estimated the number of animals used in medical and pharmaceutical research to be about 1.6 million, of which the vast majority, approximately 90%, were rats, mice, and other rodents." (p 14)

In fact, mice, rats, and birds are specifically excluded from the statistics Mr. Cohen cites; the Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures do not include mice, rats, or birds because the Animal Welfare Act excludes these animals from coverage under the act. This is very well known by all observers. Industry estimates suggest that at least 30 million mice and rats are used annually.

He also claims that "every" lab using animals is subject to "frequent" inspection by the Department of Agriculture to insure the humane use of the animals in those labs. The USDA, in fact, estimates that at least 2000 labs in the US are not inspected because they use only mice, rats, or birds, and these animals are not counted as animals under U.S. law. Humane use is not at issue even during the inspections of the labs that do fall within the purview of the agency.

I was shocked by Mr. Cohen's lack of command of the basic facts regarding animals used in U.S. laboratories, and more so by his claim that he was presenting the facts.

As far as Mr. Cohen's philosophical arguments are concerned, aside from his factual errors, I found his claims to be a mix of circular reasoning: only humans have rights, animals aren't human, so animals can't have rights; bait and switch: he makes the correct claim that most animals used in labs are rodents, and then calls attention to polio, the investigation of which almost eliminated rhesus monkeys from India; demonizing: he goes out of his way to paint rats as the ugliest and meanest creatures imaginable, and other similarly suspect techniques used commonly to confuse an audience.

But, this book thrilled me nevertheless. The arguments put forth by Mr. Regan are straightforward, fact driven, and polite. His logic is impeccable and his conclusions inescapable.

It is at once gladdening to see the best that each side in the debate can muster clearly displays the fact that animals do have inherent rights. Indeed, based on the arguments presented in this book, the debate is over. It remains painful to realize that the essentially failed attempt by Mr. Cohen is nevertheless the weak excuse for the continuing daily massive exploitation of other animals by us. If you have an interest in seeing an opponent of animal rights get thoroughly trounced, then I think you will like this book. If you are looking for reasoned debate, unfortunately, the defenders of the status quo have yet to muster a meaningful and cogent argument.

Rating:
Summary: Ethics Vs. Science...
Review: In this book Tom Regan does a wonderful job explaining his view of animal rights in a clear and logical way. He examines in detail a variety of issues, from food and clothes to entertainment and science. Carl Cohen, on the other hand, does not focus on the whole issue. His view is much smaller. He goes in detail of why he believes animals are needed in science, but ignores the other issues. He at some points even admits that there is no excuse or justification for the treament of animals in some situations, such as factory farms. If this book were more of a debate, it would be much more interesting. But I feel that Carl Cohen falls short. It is a shame, this book had real potential. At least Tom Regan's part makes it worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Ethics Vs. Science...
Review: In this book Tom Regan does a wonderful job explaining his view of animal rights in a clear and logical way. He examines in detail a variety of issues, from food and clothes to entertainment and science. Carl Cohen, on the other hand, does not focus on the whole issue. His view is much smaller. He goes in detail of why he believes animals are needed in science, but ignores the other issues. He at some points even admits that there is no excuse or justification for the treament of animals in some situations, such as factory farms. If this book were more of a debate, it would be much more interesting. But I feel that Carl Cohen falls short. It is a shame, this book had real potential. At least Tom Regan's part makes it worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: a good text for an Ethics and Animals course
Review: Regan's contribution is impressive. Regan's section is where to begin. He argues that whether a being has rights (and which rights it has) depends on its psychological capacities, not its biological species per se. Since babies and mentally challenged humans (who aren't rational or autonomous) have the right not to be eaten, worn, experimented on, chased down and shot and their heads hung on the wall, etc., so do non-human animals, since their psychologies are of comparable, if not often greater, levels. QED.

Objections to Regan concern his general theory of rights, NOT whether animals have them, if anyone does (many plausible moralities deny "rights" in the sense Regan defends).

According to Cohen, animals do not have rights because they animals cannot engage in moral deliberation, act on principles, and be moral agents.

Many humans cannot cannot engage in moral deliberation, act on principles, and be moral agents and hvae the capacities that Cohen seems to think are necessary for having rights. But, most of us think it would be wrong to experiment on them and kill them, even if doing so would greatly advance our interests. Cohen agrees. But since some humans lack these capacities yet have rights, this shows that these capacities are not necessary for rights. Cohen's denying rights to animals is arbitrary, a case of not treating beings with equal psychological capacities as equals: it is discrimination on the basis of species alone.

Cohen replies that objections like this "miss the point badly" because human infants, the senile, and the severely mentally disabled "have rights because they are human." He says that, "The critical distinction is one of kind." Earlier Cohen said that the "kind" needed for rights possession was a moral and psychological kind; now he says that the relevant kind is the biological kind Homo sapiens. No justification is given for this switch and why humans who (even permanently) lack moral capacities have rights yet animals do not.

Cohen's reply to this objection--the so called "argument from marginal cases"--is unsuccessful and his main argument that animals do not have rights fails. Appeals to thinkers ranging from Aquinas and Augustine to Marx and Lenin, as well as appeals to "immediate" and "certain" intuitions, do little to defend his view either. His repeated ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with him do not help either.

Cohen also argues that animals don't have rights because it's in our interest to use them. It's scientificaly dubious that using animals for food and research is in our best interest (both vegetarian diets and human-based research are superior for meeting our needs), but questions about morality shouldn't be decided by appeal to self-interest anyway. Cohen's case that animals do not have rights is a disappointment.