Matheny's Arguments Against Utilitarianism

Celeste Assi
NetID: Celesteassi
1. Utilitarians believe that morality exists to maximize happiness/pleasure and minimize sadness. Bentham, Mill, Matheny, and singer are all Utilitarians that claim that non-human animals should be taken into consideration on the moral realm. They believe that the concerns of animals should be valued equally to the concerns of humans. Matheny strongly believes that non-human animals should be given the opportunity to have their interests considered. Utilitarians are confident that non-human animals are sentient. Sentience is having the ability to experience both pleasure and pain. Matheny conveys his feelings towards meet eaters, the experimental use of animals, and humans’ treatment of wildlife by listing

This principle enforces the idea that the interests of all parties are taken into equal consideration. Utilitarianism considers the interests of anyone who is impacted by an action. For this reason, Utilitarianism is universalist because it doesn’t take gender, race, or color into account. A reason that these Utilitarian’s believe animals feel pain is because non-human animal and humans both adapt from past generations. It is very possible that non-human animals acquired pain sensory abilities through adaptation because it would teach them to not make the same mistake twice. Utilitarians argue that the fastest and most efficient way to equally consider non-human animals in the moral realm is to either become vegan or vegetarians. Finally, this argument exists because Utilitarians believe that most human actions have some type of

Speciesism is when one species shows prejudice towards another species. Anthropocentrism is an act committed by humans where they believe they are central to the moral realm. Speciesism and anthropocentrism are both categorized as morally unfair discrimination. Anthropocentrism goes hand in hand with sexism and racism. This is true because both sexist and racist humans believe that they’re more central and superior to the world than the other sex or race. However, this is different than someone taking part in sexist or racist actions. A great example of speciesism if both a cat and a child are trapped in a house, most people wouldn’t think twice about saving the child’s life over the cat’s. When someone doesn’t hesitate to save the child over the cat they are being acting speciesist. Speciesism now corresponds with the way humans treat non-human animals. Sexism and racism are still prevalent even in modern day society. Singer main focus in his work is to inform people about everyone’s imperfect perspectives. Singer also makes it clear that favoring one type of a species over another type is not considered speciesism. In addition, Regan agrees with the argument that animals should be considered on the moral realm. He believes that non-human animals deserve to have rights and be treated with respect. Eating chicken while expressing that eating fish is immoral is a fantastic example of a speciesist act. According to anthropocentric, non-human animal do not deserve respect