{"agent_id":"rachels","agent_name":"James Rachels","slug":"moral-individualism-and-the-critique-of-speciesism","label":"Moral individualism and the critique of speciesism: does the bare fact that one is a member of the human species entitle one to special moral consideration, or does *moral individualism* — the position that how an individual should be treated depends on his or her own particular characteristics rather than on group-membership — replace the discredited doctrine of human dignity once Darwinism has removed its metaphysical supports?","topic":"Moral individualism and the critique of speciesism","question":"Does the bare fact that one is a member of the human species entitle one to special moral consideration, or does *moral individualism* — the position that how an individual should be treated depends on his or her own particular characteristics rather than on group-membership — replace the discredited doctrine of human dignity once Darwinism has removed its metaphysical supports?","position":"Traditional morality depends on the doctrine of *human dignity*: the idea that human life has a special, unique value, while non-human life has relatively little value. The doctrine has historically rested on two supports — that man is made in the image of God, and that man is a uniquely rational being. Darwinism does not formally entail that human dignity is false (the is/ought stricture forbids the inference from facts about evolution to conclusions about value); but Darwinism *undermines* the doctrine by removing the supports it has traditionally rested on. After Darwin, man is no longer a \"great work\" worthy of the interposition of a deity; he is a product of the same evolutionary forces that shaped the rest of the animal kingdom. The image-of-God conception fails. The uniquely-rational-being conception fails too: the empirical evidence on continuity (Chapter 4) shows that the differences between humans and other animals in the capacities traditionally invoked to ground human dignity are differences of degree, not of kind. The doctrine collapses. To replace it, *Created from Animals* offers *moral individualism*: the position that the bare fact that one is human entitles one to no special consideration. How an individual should be treated depends on his or her own particular characteristics, rather than on whether he or she is a member of some preferred group — even the \"group\" of human beings. The *Argument from Marginal Cases* establishes the position negatively: cognitively impaired humans don't possess the capacities traditionally invoked to ground human dignity, yet we accord them moral consideration; some non-human animals possess these capacities to a higher degree than some humans, yet we don't accord them comparable consideration; the asymmetry is unjustifiable on any criterion except species-membership, which moral individualism rejects.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Traditional morality depends on the doctrine of *human dignity*: the idea that human life has a special, unique value, while non-human life has relatively little value.","n":[1]},{"t":"The doctrine has historically rested on two supports — that man is made in the image of God, and that man is a uniquely rational being.","n":[]},{"t":"Darwinism does not formally entail that human dignity is false (the is/ought stricture forbids the inference from facts about evolution to conclusions about value); but Darwinism *undermines* the doctrine by removing the supports it has traditionally rested on.","n":[2,3]}],[{"t":"After Darwin, man is no longer a \"great work\" worthy of the interposition of a deity; he is a product of the same evolutionary forces that shaped the rest of the animal kingdom.","n":[]},{"t":"The image-of-God conception fails.","n":[]},{"t":"The uniquely-rational-being conception fails too: the empirical evidence on continuity (Chapter 4) shows that the differences between humans and other animals in the capacities traditionally invoked to ground human dignity are differences of degree, not of kind.","n":[4,5]}],[{"t":"The doctrine collapses.","n":[]},{"t":"To replace it, *Created from Animals* offers *moral individualism*: the position that the bare fact that one is human entitles one to no special consideration.","n":[]},{"t":"How an individual should be treated depends on his or her own particular characteristics, rather than on whether he or she is a member of some preferred group — even the \"group\" of human beings.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The *Argument from Marginal Cases* establishes the position negatively: cognitively impaired humans don't possess the capacities traditionally invoked to ground human dignity, yet we accord them moral consideration; some non-human animals possess these capacities to a higher degree than some humans, yet we don't accord them comparable consideration; the asymmetry is unjustifiable on any criterion except species-membership, which moral individualism rejects.","n":[]}]],"texts":"Primary works: *Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism* (Oxford 1990) entire book, especially Chapter 2 'How Evolution and Ethics Might be Related' (the is/ought stricture and the undermining-vs-entailing distinction), Chapter 4 'How Different are Humans from Other Animals?' (the empirical evidence on continuity), and Chapter 5 'Morality without the Idea that Humans are Special' (the positive moral-individualist account); *Can Ethics Provide Answers?* (1997) Chapter 6 'Do Animals Have Rights?', Chapter 7 'The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism', and Chapter 11 'Reflections on the Idea of Equality'; *The Legacy of Socrates* (2007) Chapter 1 'The Basic Argument for Vegetarianism', Chapter 2 'Darwin, Species, and Morality' (Stuart explicitly notes this overlaps with *Created from Animals*), and Chapter 3 'Drawing Lines'. Reception: Charles Darwin's own remarks on morality in *The Descent of Man* (1871); Peter Singer's *Animal Liberation* (1975) and *Practical Ethics* as the parallel utilitarian program in animal ethics; Tom Regan's *The Case for Animal Rights* (1983) as the parallel rights-based program; Carl Cohen's defense of speciesism in *The Animal Rights Debate* (with Tom Regan, 2001) as the canonical contemporary opponent; Stephen Jay Gould's repeated denial that Darwinism has moral implications (engaged in the *Created from Animals* Introduction); the *Argument from Marginal Cases* literature; the contemporary debate over the moral status of animals, severely cognitively impaired humans, and the species-membership criterion.","works":["Primary works: *Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism* (Oxford 1990) entire book, especially Chapter 2 'How Evolution and Ethics Might be Related' (the is/ought stricture and the undermining-vs-entailing distinction), Chapter 4 'How Different are Humans from Other Animals?' (the empirical evidence on continuity), and Chapter 5 'Morality without the Idea that Humans are Special' (the positive moral-individualist account)","*Can Ethics Provide Answers?* (1997) Chapter 6 'Do Animals Have Rights?', Chapter 7 'The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism', and Chapter 11 'Reflections on the Idea of Equality'","*The Legacy of Socrates* (2007) Chapter 1 'The Basic Argument for Vegetarianism', Chapter 2 'Darwin, Species, and Morality' (Stuart explicitly notes this overlaps with *Created from Animals*), and Chapter 3 'Drawing Lines'"],"reception":"Charles Darwin's own remarks on morality in *The Descent of Man* (1871); Peter Singer's *Animal Liberation* (1975) and *Practical Ethics* as the parallel utilitarian program in animal ethics; Tom Regan's *The Case for Animal Rights* (1983) as the parallel rights-based program; Carl Cohen's defense of speciesism in *The Animal Rights Debate* (with Tom Regan, 2001) as the canonical contemporary opponent; Stephen Jay Gould's repeated denial that Darwinism has moral implications (engaged in the *Created from Animals* Introduction); the *Argument from Marginal Cases* literature; the contemporary debate over the moral status of animals, severely cognitively impaired humans, and the species-membership criterion.","status":"Moral individualism is Rachels's most distinctive positive theoretical position and the most-debated. It has fellow-travelers — Peter Singer's preference utilitarianism arrives at similar practical conclusions; Tom Regan's rights-based animal ethics arrives at adjacent conclusions through different theoretical apparatus; the Argument from Marginal Cases is shared across the animal-ethics literature. It has serious opponents — Carl Cohen's defense of speciesism (the view that species-membership IS morally relevant in itself); the religious-dignity defenders (the Catholic and Protestant traditions); and the virtue-ethical / relationship-based critiques that argue moral consideration tracks relational ties rather than individual characteristics. The contemporary debate centers on whether \"moral individualism\" is a substantive normative position distinguishable from preference utilitarianism, or whether it is a methodological commitment to characteristic-based reasoning that leaves the substantive normative question open. The position defends moral individualism as the substantive replacement for human dignity that Darwinism makes necessary, and engages Cohen, the religious-dignity tradition, and the virtue-ethical critique by name.","era":"1941-2003","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism","page":"p. 13","canonical":"","quote":"Thus the purpose of morality is conceived to be, primarily, the protection of human beings and their rights and interests. This is commonly referred to as the idea of human dignity. But this idea does not exist in a logical vacuum. Traditionally it has been supported in two ways: first, by the notion that man is made in the image of God, and secondly, by the notion that man is a uniquely rational being.","label":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism, p. 13"},{"n":2,"work":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism","page":"pp. 203–204","canonical":"","quote":"There is, then, a sense in which moral individualism 'fits' well with evolutionary theory. We may wonder, however, exactly what this 'fit' consists in. The relation between the two is surely weaker than logical entailment. Darwinian theory does not strictly entail the truth of moral individualism. One could be a Darwinian, and reject moral individualism, without falling into self-contradiction.","label":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism, pp. 203–204"},{"n":3,"work":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism","page":"pp. 12–13","canonical":"","quote":"The feeling that Darwin's discovery undermines traditional religion, as well as some parts of traditional morality, will not go away, despite the nice logical points about what follows from what, and despite the fact that one might not want to side with evolution's enemies. I believe this feeling is justified.","label":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism, pp. 12–13"},{"n":4,"work":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism","page":"pp. 179–181","canonical":"","quote":"RECAPITULATION The main thesis of this book is that Darwinism leads inevitably to the abandonment of the idea of human dignity and the substitution of a different sort of ethic. In Chapter 2, I outlined the strategy that I would use in arguing for this claim.","label":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism, pp. 179–181"},{"n":5,"work":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism","page":"pp. 181–182","canonical":"","quote":"Therefore, any adequate defence of human dignity would Tequire some conception of human beings as radically different from other animals. But that is precisely what evolutionary theory calls into question. It makes us suspicious of any doctrine that sees large gaps of any sort between humans and all other creatures. This being so, a Darwinian may conclude that a successful defence of human dignity is most unlikely.","label":"Created from Animals - The Moral Implications of Darwinism, pp. 181–182"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"active-and-passive-euthanasia","label":"Active and passive euthanasia: is there a morally significant difference between killing a patient and letting a patient die, or is the *Equivalence Thesis* — that if passive euthanasia is sometimes permissible, active euthanasia must sometimes be permissible too — the precise conclusion the *Bare Difference Argument* establishes against the AMA's 1973 doctrinal distinction?"},{"slug":"biographical-life-vs-biological-life","label":"Biographical life vs biological life: is the moral rule against killing the protection of biological functioning (the traditional sanctity-of-life view) or the protection of *lives* in the biographical sense — the sum of a person's aspirations, decisions, activities, projects, and human relationships — that some humans (Mrs Florian, Quinlan, Baby Jane Doe) do not have and that some non-human animals do?"},{"slug":"cultural-relativism","label":"Cultural relativism: does the existence of moral disagreement across cultures entail that there is no objective moral truth, or is the *Cultural Differences Argument* invalid — with the apparent disagreement masking shared underlying values that any functioning culture must hold?"},{"slug":"ethical-egoism","label":"Ethical egoism: do the *Two Arguments Against Ethical Egoism* in *Elements* Chapter 5 and *Legacy of Socrates* Chapter 10 successfully refute the position that one ought always to act in one's own self-interest, given that the documented late-life qualification (Stuart's *Legacy* preface: in the 1990s Jim said he had lost confidence in the argument because he had changed his mind about the role of intuitions in moral theory) is treated as authorship-internal tension rather than retraction?"}]}