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Animal Rights and Wrongs
A revised and improved edition of a book in continuing demand.
Do animals have rights? If not, do we have duties towards them? If so, what duties?
These are myariad other issues are discussed in this brilliantly argued book, published in association with the leading think-tank Demos.
Why are animal-rights groups so keen to protect the rights of badgers and foxes but not of rats mice or even humans? How can we bridge the growing gap between rural producers and urban consumers? Why is raising animals for fur more heinous than raising them for their meat? Are we as human beings driving other species either to extinction or to a state of dependency? This paperback edition is fully updated with new chapters on the livestoick crisis, fishing and BSE and a layman's guide introduction to philosophical concepts, the book presents a radical response to the defenders of animal rights and a challenge to those who think that because they are kind to their pets, they are therefore good news for animals.
Do animals have rights? If not, do we have duties towards them? If so, what duties?
These are myariad other issues are discussed in this brilliantly argued book, published in association with the leading think-tank Demos.
Why are animal-rights groups so keen to protect the rights of badgers and foxes but not of rats mice or even humans? How can we bridge the growing gap between rural producers and urban consumers? Why is raising animals for fur more heinous than raising them for their meat? Are we as human beings driving other species either to extinction or to a state of dependency? This paperback edition is fully updated with new chapters on the livestoick crisis, fishing and BSE and a layman's guide introduction to philosophical concepts, the book presents a radical response to the defenders of animal rights and a challenge to those who think that because they are kind to their pets, they are therefore good news for animals.
224 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2003
6 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Roger Scruton
139 books1,348 followersSir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C.
In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.
In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).
In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.
In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 9, 2013
Scruton Scrutinized
Animal Rights and Wrongs: a review
In his 107 page "pamphlet" Scruton offers 4 components of moral thinking, most of which he conveniently ignores when considering the actual question at issue. He therefore begs the entire question.
The question is whether or not animals have rights; the most basic of which, many might argue, is a right to life. But Scruton ignores this most basic right and dispatches with it as if it were a side-note, treating it briefly and only after relatively weighty sections on Metaphysics, Personhood, Sympathy, Virtue Ethics, and Public Piety. How does he do this? He says: "Most of the animals which graze in our fields are there because we eat them...It seems to me, therefore, that it is not just permissible, but positively right, to eat these animals whose comforts depend upon our doing so"(p. 81).
Huh?
I read on thinking he must have more of an argument than that. And as I read I found some interesting points which were in fact helpful in clarifying easily muddled ideas about rights, duties, suffering, and pity. But I found no more from him on the most basic question which surely must underlie all thinking whatsoever on animal "rights" so-called. He does embellish his point a bit by gesturing at the fact that some livestock animals have arguably better lives, and deaths, than many humans. He points to the fact that these animals are often well cared for (a point more than a few might quibble with) and are "despatched in ways in which human beings, if they are rational, must surely envy" (p. 81). But his most basic argument is the same, logically, as the pining southern plantation master's who point out how lovingly they provided shelter, food, and occupation for those poor dumb black folk. It's as if Scruton were considering the question of slavery by considering only under what conditions, when and how slaves should be treated.
In his opening salvo on Metaphysics and his subsequent discussion of the vacuity of much of Utilitarianism, he argues extensively for the exclusion of animals from the moral realm, or from the status of "persons". And only once he has safely denied them inherent moral significance does he complete his mighty structure of THE 4 COMPONENTS OF MORAL THOUGHT consisting ultimately of Reason, Sympathy, Virtue and Piety. Only after this does he deign to mention the magnanimity we humans extend towards animals by eating them. So to be fair I will treat his opening section on personhood as somehow underlying or supporting his stated argument for why its OK to eat animals, namely that their comfort depends on our doing so.
He argues that animals cannot be moral subjects because they cannot enter into the moral realm of asking for and giving reasons for their actions. Nor can they be expected to act morally towards others. He concludes that we nevertheless have duties towards them, one of which seems to be to eat them. Most importantly for him, animals cannot be bound by the reciprocal duties incumbent on those who do have rights and so cannot be admitted into the community of rights holders. For him a right is "an interest that is given special protection, and cannot be overridden or cancelled without the consent of the person who possesses it". But if the flailing, kicking, screaming, and writhing of an animal in the midst of slaughter is to be taken as anything but the opposite of "consent", surely it is at least grounds for considering that this creature's demand for "special protection", or "rights", is the same as ours, at least with respect to life. That is, the notion of the right to life gets going before questions of reciprocal duties and the asking for and giving of reasons for actions. I'm not even convinced that talk of "rights" is particularly useful when it comes to how we treat animals but Scruton's entire effort here seems to be aimed at comforting those who already think its OK to eat animals and want to make themselves feel better by feeling they have read some weighty philosophical insights into the matter.
I think Scruton has largely evaded discussing the very issue at the heart of the matter and is even in jeopardy of committing what he himself calls the "vice of sentimentality". He says, "for the sentimentalist it is not the object but the subject of the emotion which is important"(p. 100). By ignoring or glossing over the crucial issue of whether animals have a right to life, Scruton can only provide a pseudo-philosophical and emotional haven for the sentimentality that caudles free-range chicken buying and pampers the notion that its OK to kill Bessie so long as she got to go outside sometimes.
Finally, I have a deep objection to Scruton's metaphysics of emotion. He says over and over again that emotion depends on thoughts and he seems eager to use this to "pump the intuition" (ala Dennett and Hofstadter) that human beings are special in some unnamed yet significant way. Had this Kantian read Nietzsche a bit more closely (rather than dismissing him on a logically fallacious appeal to authority; p. 35) he might have encountered the notion that thinking is derivative upon emotions and actions and not, at least not always, the other way around. At minimum this may have given him pause in his exuberant dance towards his, I'm sure deliciously salacious and tantalizing conclusion that we not only can eat animals but have a duty to do so!!!
I think I can agree with Scruton on one point though: That "that which can be done only by a callous person, ought not to be done" (p. 86) when qualified with the further notion that it is callous to bring a being into existence only to kill them and eat them.
Animal Rights and Wrongs: a review
In his 107 page "pamphlet" Scruton offers 4 components of moral thinking, most of which he conveniently ignores when considering the actual question at issue. He therefore begs the entire question.
The question is whether or not animals have rights; the most basic of which, many might argue, is a right to life. But Scruton ignores this most basic right and dispatches with it as if it were a side-note, treating it briefly and only after relatively weighty sections on Metaphysics, Personhood, Sympathy, Virtue Ethics, and Public Piety. How does he do this? He says: "Most of the animals which graze in our fields are there because we eat them...It seems to me, therefore, that it is not just permissible, but positively right, to eat these animals whose comforts depend upon our doing so"(p. 81).
Huh?
I read on thinking he must have more of an argument than that. And as I read I found some interesting points which were in fact helpful in clarifying easily muddled ideas about rights, duties, suffering, and pity. But I found no more from him on the most basic question which surely must underlie all thinking whatsoever on animal "rights" so-called. He does embellish his point a bit by gesturing at the fact that some livestock animals have arguably better lives, and deaths, than many humans. He points to the fact that these animals are often well cared for (a point more than a few might quibble with) and are "despatched in ways in which human beings, if they are rational, must surely envy" (p. 81). But his most basic argument is the same, logically, as the pining southern plantation master's who point out how lovingly they provided shelter, food, and occupation for those poor dumb black folk. It's as if Scruton were considering the question of slavery by considering only under what conditions, when and how slaves should be treated.
In his opening salvo on Metaphysics and his subsequent discussion of the vacuity of much of Utilitarianism, he argues extensively for the exclusion of animals from the moral realm, or from the status of "persons". And only once he has safely denied them inherent moral significance does he complete his mighty structure of THE 4 COMPONENTS OF MORAL THOUGHT consisting ultimately of Reason, Sympathy, Virtue and Piety. Only after this does he deign to mention the magnanimity we humans extend towards animals by eating them. So to be fair I will treat his opening section on personhood as somehow underlying or supporting his stated argument for why its OK to eat animals, namely that their comfort depends on our doing so.
He argues that animals cannot be moral subjects because they cannot enter into the moral realm of asking for and giving reasons for their actions. Nor can they be expected to act morally towards others. He concludes that we nevertheless have duties towards them, one of which seems to be to eat them. Most importantly for him, animals cannot be bound by the reciprocal duties incumbent on those who do have rights and so cannot be admitted into the community of rights holders. For him a right is "an interest that is given special protection, and cannot be overridden or cancelled without the consent of the person who possesses it". But if the flailing, kicking, screaming, and writhing of an animal in the midst of slaughter is to be taken as anything but the opposite of "consent", surely it is at least grounds for considering that this creature's demand for "special protection", or "rights", is the same as ours, at least with respect to life. That is, the notion of the right to life gets going before questions of reciprocal duties and the asking for and giving of reasons for actions. I'm not even convinced that talk of "rights" is particularly useful when it comes to how we treat animals but Scruton's entire effort here seems to be aimed at comforting those who already think its OK to eat animals and want to make themselves feel better by feeling they have read some weighty philosophical insights into the matter.
I think Scruton has largely evaded discussing the very issue at the heart of the matter and is even in jeopardy of committing what he himself calls the "vice of sentimentality". He says, "for the sentimentalist it is not the object but the subject of the emotion which is important"(p. 100). By ignoring or glossing over the crucial issue of whether animals have a right to life, Scruton can only provide a pseudo-philosophical and emotional haven for the sentimentality that caudles free-range chicken buying and pampers the notion that its OK to kill Bessie so long as she got to go outside sometimes.
Finally, I have a deep objection to Scruton's metaphysics of emotion. He says over and over again that emotion depends on thoughts and he seems eager to use this to "pump the intuition" (ala Dennett and Hofstadter) that human beings are special in some unnamed yet significant way. Had this Kantian read Nietzsche a bit more closely (rather than dismissing him on a logically fallacious appeal to authority; p. 35) he might have encountered the notion that thinking is derivative upon emotions and actions and not, at least not always, the other way around. At minimum this may have given him pause in his exuberant dance towards his, I'm sure deliciously salacious and tantalizing conclusion that we not only can eat animals but have a duty to do so!!!
I think I can agree with Scruton on one point though: That "that which can be done only by a callous person, ought not to be done" (p. 86) when qualified with the further notion that it is callous to bring a being into existence only to kill them and eat them.
January 31, 2025
Scruton in una frase: mangiare animali è legittimo; la tauromachia e la caccia alla volpe sono pie attività, ma la ricerca sugli animali è un gesto di arrogante hybris contro la Natura.
Per stabilire se gli animali facciano parte della comunità morale, ricorre a Kant e Descartes: gli animali non hanno facoltà razionali, i diritti sono di chi li capisce e li reclama, gli animali non hanno diritti. Ne consegue che la Legge Morale non si applica agli animali.
Ciò implicherebbe -obbietta Rosalind Hursthouse- che bambini, dementi, e ignoranti non hanno diritti. Scruton non si pone il problema.
Tuttavia, continua Scruton, un uomo virtuoso non maltratta gli animali. Abbiamo dei doveri verso alcuni animali: quelli che scegliamo di accudire. Animali da compagnia, animali da lavoro, e animali utili per l'alimentazione. Prendersi cura di loro vuol dire trattarli con umanità, ma essi rimangono a disposizione per la soddisfazione dei nostri bisogni. E non si parla di bisogni fondamentali, come la nutrizione. Anche la Tauromachia è un bisogno: sociale, ebbene sì. E poi, dice lui, meglio morire combattendo, da eroi, contro un torero, che essere sgozzati da vitelli.
È altrettanto peculiare il modo in cui si pone nei confronti degli animali selvatici. Gli animali non sono persone, dice lui, quindi abbiamo doveri nei confronti della specie, non del singolo: la specie va tutelata nel contesto dei doverosi sforzi di preservare l'ambiente.
Ma il singolo animale può essere perseguitato, purché l'azione risponda a un principio di pietas. Infatti, mentre nel caso dei cagnolini e dei vitelli l'uomo virtuoso compariva per porsi il problema dell'inutile sofferenza, nel caso degli animali selvatici l'uomo virtuoso si eclissa e compare l'uomo pietoso, che non è "chi ha pietà", ma chi ha pietas. Pietas è venerazione delle Tradizioni dei Padri (l'uso delle maiuscole diventa mandatorio) e rispetto dell'Ordine Naturale.
Prendiamo ad esempio la caccia alla volpe: è giusta? Scruton dice: sarebbe ingiusto portare le volpi all'estinzione, ma il sacrificio cruento della singola volpe è moralmente ineccepibile; essa è infatti una venerabile e antica tradizione dei padri, ha un rilevante ruolo sociale, e infine risponde alla necessità di preservare l'agricoltura dai danni procurati dalle volpi.
Quindi: la sofferenza della volpe è meno importante delle venerabili tradizioni, dei passatempi dei dannati socialites. E la pratica dei vignaioli dell'Oltrepo' di mettere una maledetta rete elettrificata, che scoraggia ma non nuoce, è troppo tecnologica.
Il culmine si raggiunge quando discute l'uso di ratti e topi per la ricerca scientifica. L'avrei immaginato favorevole, me ingenuo! Sono pratiche disdicevoli in quanto mirate al raggiungimento di saperi tecnico-scientifico di dubbia utilità. La ricerca biomedica pecca di hybris, in quanto cerca di prolungare la vita e manipolare il corpo umano oltre i limiti imposti dalla Natura.
Quindi è giusto macellare un maialino da latte, è giusto torturare un toro, è giusto far inseguire una volpe da un branco di cani (che poi la fanno a brandelli -ma velocemente, sia chiaro), ma è sbagliato prendere organi da un topo anestetizzato, perché così facendo siamo arroganti prometei che sfidano gli dei.
Mi ha sorpreso molto che due filosofi della stessa generazione come Roger Scruton e Rosalind Hursthouse, appartenenti alla stessa corrente (Virtue Ethicists), possano divergere così tanto: il primo delinea ragionamenti lineari che rispondono a un modello di realtà che sembra la casa di Barbie, la seconda discute la complessità delle scelte etiche e le inevitabili contraddizioni in cui si cade; il primo inscalfibile nelle sue ovvietà, la seconda piena di dubbi; il primo ancorato alle sue venerate tradizioni secolari, la seconda intravede una prospettiva per l'umanità futura.
Il primo è morto dentro e vede il mondo come un immenso museo delle cere, la seconda a novant'anni è una ragazza che sogna il futuro.
Per stabilire se gli animali facciano parte della comunità morale, ricorre a Kant e Descartes: gli animali non hanno facoltà razionali, i diritti sono di chi li capisce e li reclama, gli animali non hanno diritti. Ne consegue che la Legge Morale non si applica agli animali.
Ciò implicherebbe -obbietta Rosalind Hursthouse- che bambini, dementi, e ignoranti non hanno diritti. Scruton non si pone il problema.
Tuttavia, continua Scruton, un uomo virtuoso non maltratta gli animali. Abbiamo dei doveri verso alcuni animali: quelli che scegliamo di accudire. Animali da compagnia, animali da lavoro, e animali utili per l'alimentazione. Prendersi cura di loro vuol dire trattarli con umanità, ma essi rimangono a disposizione per la soddisfazione dei nostri bisogni. E non si parla di bisogni fondamentali, come la nutrizione. Anche la Tauromachia è un bisogno: sociale, ebbene sì. E poi, dice lui, meglio morire combattendo, da eroi, contro un torero, che essere sgozzati da vitelli.
È altrettanto peculiare il modo in cui si pone nei confronti degli animali selvatici. Gli animali non sono persone, dice lui, quindi abbiamo doveri nei confronti della specie, non del singolo: la specie va tutelata nel contesto dei doverosi sforzi di preservare l'ambiente.
Ma il singolo animale può essere perseguitato, purché l'azione risponda a un principio di pietas. Infatti, mentre nel caso dei cagnolini e dei vitelli l'uomo virtuoso compariva per porsi il problema dell'inutile sofferenza, nel caso degli animali selvatici l'uomo virtuoso si eclissa e compare l'uomo pietoso, che non è "chi ha pietà", ma chi ha pietas. Pietas è venerazione delle Tradizioni dei Padri (l'uso delle maiuscole diventa mandatorio) e rispetto dell'Ordine Naturale.
Prendiamo ad esempio la caccia alla volpe: è giusta? Scruton dice: sarebbe ingiusto portare le volpi all'estinzione, ma il sacrificio cruento della singola volpe è moralmente ineccepibile; essa è infatti una venerabile e antica tradizione dei padri, ha un rilevante ruolo sociale, e infine risponde alla necessità di preservare l'agricoltura dai danni procurati dalle volpi.
Quindi: la sofferenza della volpe è meno importante delle venerabili tradizioni, dei passatempi dei dannati socialites. E la pratica dei vignaioli dell'Oltrepo' di mettere una maledetta rete elettrificata, che scoraggia ma non nuoce, è troppo tecnologica.
Il culmine si raggiunge quando discute l'uso di ratti e topi per la ricerca scientifica. L'avrei immaginato favorevole, me ingenuo! Sono pratiche disdicevoli in quanto mirate al raggiungimento di saperi tecnico-scientifico di dubbia utilità. La ricerca biomedica pecca di hybris, in quanto cerca di prolungare la vita e manipolare il corpo umano oltre i limiti imposti dalla Natura.
Quindi è giusto macellare un maialino da latte, è giusto torturare un toro, è giusto far inseguire una volpe da un branco di cani (che poi la fanno a brandelli -ma velocemente, sia chiaro), ma è sbagliato prendere organi da un topo anestetizzato, perché così facendo siamo arroganti prometei che sfidano gli dei.
Mi ha sorpreso molto che due filosofi della stessa generazione come Roger Scruton e Rosalind Hursthouse, appartenenti alla stessa corrente (Virtue Ethicists), possano divergere così tanto: il primo delinea ragionamenti lineari che rispondono a un modello di realtà che sembra la casa di Barbie, la seconda discute la complessità delle scelte etiche e le inevitabili contraddizioni in cui si cade; il primo inscalfibile nelle sue ovvietà, la seconda piena di dubbi; il primo ancorato alle sue venerate tradizioni secolari, la seconda intravede una prospettiva per l'umanità futura.
Il primo è morto dentro e vede il mondo come un immenso museo delle cere, la seconda a novant'anni è una ragazza che sogna il futuro.
June 16, 2016
Roger Scruton writes a very sane and balanced essay as to how we are to treat and relate to animals. Animals do not have rights, but we do have duties and obligations toward animals, and that accordingly, to different kinds of animals in their different relations to us. . Scruton addresses each relation with careful arguments.
The book lacks any reference to man the image of God, but the reader will find solid secondary arguments they balance obligations of care, and our freedom to use, keep, hunt and eat animals.
The book lacks any reference to man the image of God, but the reader will find solid secondary arguments they balance obligations of care, and our freedom to use, keep, hunt and eat animals.
August 12, 2017
A thoughtful analysis on whether animals should be assigned with rights or not.
Roger Scruton makes a simple yet broad review on the necessary previous assessments of metaphysics, morality, ethics and law which are crucial to an approach on animal rights. He tackles the distinction between sentiental, emotional, rational, moral and non-moral beings, consciousness and self-consciousness, and much more. Only to touch the surface of all, or even some of the metaphysical subjects dealt with, would require a transcription of much of the book, if not all of it. For that it's better to read it.
After a well done review on those subjects, Scruton starts to unreavel the distinction between humans and the rest of the beings taking into account those developed concepts. He comes to conclude, and
in my view, correctly, that while some animals are conscious, have desires, intensionality and are capable of joy and suffering, they are not capable of self-consciousness, and hence their inhability to relate to one other in the very moral stances humans do. In that view, attributing rights to animals is not only wrong but vicious, since it would imply a consenquent imposition of duties between them, which they cannot hold due to their inexistent morality. However, Scruton continues, one cannot dismiss our duties and responsabilities towards them. Animals don't have rights. It is we that have duties and responsabilities towards them.
While continuing to develop his arguments, Roger Scruton further distinguishes various problematic issues on the table nowadays, such as angling, hunting, farming, animal related sports, petting and medical experiments on animals. But evaluating them only on moral law would be wrong due to the reasons stated above. Hence, Scruton defines a framework on how to deal with cases which fall out of moral law, namely describing other means to approach it: whether the act is vicious, if it is in accordance with sympathy and if it is pious.
And here appeared the complicated part, and it was here where I felt that the subtraction of a star in its evaluation was meritted. Although I agree that vicious attitudes and behaviours are to be condomned for he weel functioning of society, one firstly has to define their sphere, namely by referring at least to the virtues opposing them. But this is to hard of a task, one that occupied the spirits of some of the most intelligent men for millenia, without no conclusive and cohesive response. Virtues change by culture, by religion, by decades even. What is today considered a virtue can tomorrow be viewed as an hideous vice to be condomned. Although most of us can come to an agreement over some virtues and vices, and some may remain constant for a while, the interdiction of commiting those vicious acts penetrates the private sphere of the individual, stating that no one should be able to be immoral if those virtues and vices were to be well known. This is highly prone to enable authoritarian societies to rise, where the dictatorial machine says what is vice and virtue, punishing those who fall out of their framework, for the sake of society. Although permissable when raising a child, it doesn't seem to me reasonable to affirm as judicial law those questions which fall out of moral law, for it would be to deny those basic rights to the growned up human, capable of being entitled with rights and duties, which the children is not yet capable of. As long as the assessment of virtuosity remains in the sphere of appraisal, and vicious acts are only condomned and not interdicted, all is well. But once laws are made in the name of viciousness, one can rightfully be fearful. This is the problem posed by the disappearence of the authority of religion, because that assessment of virtuosity vanishes once we cut our moral chains with religion. The moral base disappears and we are left with gigantic dillemas to solve. Besides the comprehensible omition of the problem, Scruton could at least acknowledged its importance and admitted his inability to solve it.
However, the case is very well delivered, casting a light on a very clouded and debated subject. Although not definitive, it can at least prompt us to discuss it less ignorantly, and by going to the complicated sources incites us to an attempt at solving it.
Roger Scruton makes a simple yet broad review on the necessary previous assessments of metaphysics, morality, ethics and law which are crucial to an approach on animal rights. He tackles the distinction between sentiental, emotional, rational, moral and non-moral beings, consciousness and self-consciousness, and much more. Only to touch the surface of all, or even some of the metaphysical subjects dealt with, would require a transcription of much of the book, if not all of it. For that it's better to read it.
After a well done review on those subjects, Scruton starts to unreavel the distinction between humans and the rest of the beings taking into account those developed concepts. He comes to conclude, and
in my view, correctly, that while some animals are conscious, have desires, intensionality and are capable of joy and suffering, they are not capable of self-consciousness, and hence their inhability to relate to one other in the very moral stances humans do. In that view, attributing rights to animals is not only wrong but vicious, since it would imply a consenquent imposition of duties between them, which they cannot hold due to their inexistent morality. However, Scruton continues, one cannot dismiss our duties and responsabilities towards them. Animals don't have rights. It is we that have duties and responsabilities towards them.
While continuing to develop his arguments, Roger Scruton further distinguishes various problematic issues on the table nowadays, such as angling, hunting, farming, animal related sports, petting and medical experiments on animals. But evaluating them only on moral law would be wrong due to the reasons stated above. Hence, Scruton defines a framework on how to deal with cases which fall out of moral law, namely describing other means to approach it: whether the act is vicious, if it is in accordance with sympathy and if it is pious.
And here appeared the complicated part, and it was here where I felt that the subtraction of a star in its evaluation was meritted. Although I agree that vicious attitudes and behaviours are to be condomned for he weel functioning of society, one firstly has to define their sphere, namely by referring at least to the virtues opposing them. But this is to hard of a task, one that occupied the spirits of some of the most intelligent men for millenia, without no conclusive and cohesive response. Virtues change by culture, by religion, by decades even. What is today considered a virtue can tomorrow be viewed as an hideous vice to be condomned. Although most of us can come to an agreement over some virtues and vices, and some may remain constant for a while, the interdiction of commiting those vicious acts penetrates the private sphere of the individual, stating that no one should be able to be immoral if those virtues and vices were to be well known. This is highly prone to enable authoritarian societies to rise, where the dictatorial machine says what is vice and virtue, punishing those who fall out of their framework, for the sake of society. Although permissable when raising a child, it doesn't seem to me reasonable to affirm as judicial law those questions which fall out of moral law, for it would be to deny those basic rights to the growned up human, capable of being entitled with rights and duties, which the children is not yet capable of. As long as the assessment of virtuosity remains in the sphere of appraisal, and vicious acts are only condomned and not interdicted, all is well. But once laws are made in the name of viciousness, one can rightfully be fearful. This is the problem posed by the disappearence of the authority of religion, because that assessment of virtuosity vanishes once we cut our moral chains with religion. The moral base disappears and we are left with gigantic dillemas to solve. Besides the comprehensible omition of the problem, Scruton could at least acknowledged its importance and admitted his inability to solve it.
However, the case is very well delivered, casting a light on a very clouded and debated subject. Although not definitive, it can at least prompt us to discuss it less ignorantly, and by going to the complicated sources incites us to an attempt at solving it.
December 23, 2009
By far the most charming defense of animal exploitation. Ultimately unsuccessful but thoughtful nonetheless.
September 24, 2016
What did I just read?! This book is so bad. Speciesist ramblings.
October 3, 2020
I accidentally stumbled upon this book today and when I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It is a very short book, 100 pages, but oh boy he packs a punch. I've been reading the animal liberation philosophy literature and it all seems very incomplete to me but Scruton has a way of not being autistic about philosophy: He puts context into arguments, when should they have moral weight and when not?
I didn't like his other books because he has this way of writing big paragraphs that are not concise but after this book I kind of better understand him, he has a goal in mind, he isn't only here to pass arguments, there is a certain aesthetic vision he has in mind and it is his goal to communicate it. The richness of his erudition truly comes across, Scruton is already to be missed. 2 years before his death I had considered paying the fee to go spend some time in his estate and learn some philosophy but opted not to... I now deeply regret it.
I didn't like his other books because he has this way of writing big paragraphs that are not concise but after this book I kind of better understand him, he has a goal in mind, he isn't only here to pass arguments, there is a certain aesthetic vision he has in mind and it is his goal to communicate it. The richness of his erudition truly comes across, Scruton is already to be missed. 2 years before his death I had considered paying the fee to go spend some time in his estate and learn some philosophy but opted not to... I now deeply regret it.
July 8, 2017
Un misto di banalità in ambito filosofico, di errori in ambito biologico, di saccenza e anche di sciovinismo britannico. In alcuni punti il libro si illumina, ma si tratta davvero di gocce nel mare. Di sicuro il libro fallisce nel suo intento principale e anzi credo che la tortuosità di alcune argomentazioni ottenga l'esatto contrario. Peccato.
September 6, 2023
Insoddisfacente. Per cominciare lo stile è poco divertente, che è strano vista la briosa verve polemica dello Scruton (non escludo potrebbe trattarsi di una conseguenza della traduzione). Da un punto di vista più sostanziale gli argomenti mi convincono poco. Apprezzo l'approccio sistemico che identifica un ordinato organigramma di prescrizioni da seguire in ordine per determinare il bene o il male di un'azione, ma non torna il principio per cui tutti gli uomini costituiscono il mondo morale (le "persone") mentre gli animali no. Soprattutto la poca attenzione dedicata agli individui "ai margini" non aiuta, sembra quasi che in ultima istanza il paziente comatoso o la persona con ritardi cognitivi estremi meriti dignità morale solo perché appartenente alla specie umana. Nondimeno, questa è precisamente la dottrina specista condannata da Singer, i cui argomenti mi sembrano, tutto sommato, molto più lineari: ciò che conferisce dignità è la senzienza, dunque la comunità morale unisce gli uomini e grand parte delle specie. E' vero però, come osserva Scruton, che non torna l'assegnazione di diritti senza l'attribuzioni di pari doveri, e forse su questo si sarebbe dovuto approfondire. Poi, in relazione all'argomento per cui gli animali preferirebbero la cattività, credo potrebbe essere solo difficilmente accettati: sicuramente anche molti esseri umani migliorerebbero le loro condizioni materiali in caso di protezione in cambio di servizio di qualche ricco padrone, ma non per questo si prende in considerazione questa possibilità.
November 27, 2008
Gli animali hanno diritti?
Cortina Raffaello, 2008
Cortina Raffaello, 2008
Read
February 25, 2010None
May 14, 2012
By far the most charming defense of animal exploitation. Ultimately unsuccessful but thoughtful nonetheless.
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