Animal Ethics: John Stuart Mill And Immanuel Kant

Ethics and Values Term Paper In this essay, I will be discussing the topic of animal ethics and how we ought to treat animals from the viewpoints of philosophers John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant. I will introduce each philosopher by detailing their philosophical beliefs. I will introduce the topic of animal ethics, illustrating in detail the specifics of the subject, and then apply the subject to the philosophies of Mill and Kant. I will then give my own views as to which of the philosophers I believe most appropriately address the topic.

John Stuart Mill is known for his study into the philosophy of utilitarianism which is outlined in his book titled “Utilitarianism” respectively. The basis of utilitarianism is that one should weigh

Most of the animals we use are treated with neglect and cruelty and often die painful deaths. To give some statistics, 50 million animals are killed for their fur each year through methods such as poisoning, severing the spinal cord, clubbing, and electrocution (most often through the anus and the mouth). 10 billion land animals are killed annually on U.S. soil for food alone. When it comes to animal ethics and how we are to treat animals, we need to determine the basis of treating animals humanely and what connects us with animals. To answer that, we need to address the issue of human equality. According to philosopher Peter Singer, human equality is idealistic and not factual, since all humans are not equal to one another in a myriad of ways. Instead, all humans are equal in regards to moral consideration of interests. Therefore, we should give equal moral consideration to the interests of all those affected by our actions. In comparing humans to animals, the one interest that both share is the interest to avoid suffering. Therefore, this principle of equality applies to non-humans as well. If one can suffer, in any degree, there is no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into

It is difficult for me to be swayed by Kant’s version of deontology since 1) strict adherence to law and personal duty is indifferent to the resulting amount of suffering and pleasure and 2) his deontology doesn’t apply to animals anyway, therefore making his views irrelevant. Admittedly though, if it was applicable to animals, Kant’s deontology would be much more effective at solving the issues of animal ethics than utilitarianism considering how absolute it would be. Utilitarianism on the other hand depends on the sum happiness of both human and non human individuals. On one hand it’s a win win, but on the other hand it wouldn’t necessarily mean all animals would be relieved from suffering, just enough that would result in the total sum of happiness. Therefore, a rat probably wouldn’t get off the hook of being a test subject. Nevertheless, applying Mill’s philosophy could allow for greater creativity in formulating solutions to reduce pain and increase pleasure without too much