Singer's Argument For Equality In Society

Singer’s argument in favor of the claim that speciesism is false can be formulated as follows. Singer prefaces his argument with examples of how minority groups have in the past presented their respective (yet similar) arguments for their equality in society. He continues to explore the idea that the differences between races and genders should not be discerning factors in the decision of who get which rights; because all subcategories fall under the same grand category (the species they belong to), they should all have the same rights. However, as Singer points out, for most people, the differences between humans and other beings are significant enough to be reflected in the set of rights that each cohort has [doesn’t]. Singer’s argument largely functions on the

Cohen argues that if we follow the basic principle of equality, we have to assume the following consequences: (1) both humans and animals don’t have rights, (2) animals have the same rights as humans do. Cohen right out states that these two consequences are utterly absurd and therefore the basic principle of equality is false thereby making Singer’s argument unsound. Cohen’s objection [partly] relies on Immanuel Kant’s idea that in order to be able to possess rights, a being must have the moral ability to do i.e. be able to use the right(s) to govern itself and others. Because animals are unable to do this, they do not have rights. However, Cohen adds that just because animals don’t have rights doesn’t mean we have to be careless in our regards towards them. Cohen continues to add that we have a moral obligation to not inflict any unnecessary suffering on animals. To further build his argument, he also takes on a possible objection that claims that because some human might be unable to be autonomous or be morally able, they don’t. He rebuts this objection by saying his statements apply to members of species as whole, therefore, all humans would have