Abstract

The paper constitutes an attempt to answer two questions:

1.      What are the philosophical bases of animal protection ethics?

2.      Why does the proposal of including animals into the human moral universum arouse so much controversy?

Answering the first question, the Author refers to the tradition of utilitarianism and presents the mail ideas concerning the ethics of animal protection, taking as an example the views expressed by Peter Singer and Tom Regan. An analysis of the dispute over the ethics of animal protection is carried out from the perspective of environmental ethics, oriented biocentrically. The Author claims that although the followers of utilitarian ethics try to overcome anthropocentrism and species chauvinism, they still remain within the confines of psychocentrism, because they include into the moral universum only those creatures who are able to feel pain and experience pleasure, i.e. the vertebrates. Presenting Tom Regan’s ethics, the Author tries to define natural and statutory laws, and discusses the traditional criteria that must be satisfied, both by moral subjects and objects of morality. Drawing such a distinction is crucial to the disputes concerning animal rights.

Answering the other question, the Author states that in the discussion about animal protection ethics an important role is played by deep-rooted (in West-European tradition) superstitions concerning two questions, namely: the attitude of man towards non-human living creatures and contrasting – within human nature – the elements that are considered noble, i.e. ‘human’, and those described as ‘animal-like’, i.e. mean. This question is discussed taking as an example Roman Ingarden’s views, presented in his Book about Man. The thesis of the paper is a statement that there exist different animal species, but there is nothing like ‘animality’. The concept of animality perceived as something primitive follows from human ignorance, combined with arrogance. So does the gap created between human beings and animals, which resulted in arousing much controversy over the question of granting animals their rights and, in consequence, treating them as objects of morality.

The Author also criticizes the attempts to ‘humanize’ animals, i.e. to grant them the status of a person to protect them. She claims that there is no need to do that in the case of dolphins, in order to introduce a ban on experiments upon them; it would be enough to adopt and obey the rule of non-intervention in relation to wild animals. She also indicates that the attempts to introduce human moral order into the world of nature are as dangerous as certain destructive activities. They are aimed at applying the same utilitarian principle of suffering minimization to both breeding animals (where this principle should be observed) and the ones living in natural ecosystems. Applying the above-mentioned principle in relation to wild animals would lead to absurd situations and require interference of man in natural order. It would entail ‘stopping a cat from catching mice’ or following the slogan which says the number of predators in natural ecosystems is to be reduced. Far-reaching effects of such interference are difficult to foresee – that is why it seems to be as dangerous as the destruction of the world around us.