The Power of Pedagogy

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to teach my very first full-length (75 minute) college-level course. I guest lectured for an Introduction to Ethics course at Georgia State University, and I had the privilege of choosing to teach any topic. Given my interest and passion for animal ethics (among other things, surely!), I decided to lecture on Tom Regan’s “The Case for Animal Rights.” 

For those who are unfamiliar, there are several concepts that are extremely important to understand when grappling with Regan’s argument. The first is that ethical theories are required to be consistent. That is to say, what grounds moral worth cannot be wholly arbitrary and must be followed to its logical end for the sake of consistency. This is why we cannot rightly say something to the effect of, “white people are morally superior to black people because white people are white.” This is wholly arbitrary. Similarly, we cannot say “human beings are morally superior to nonhuman animals because humans are humans.” Wholly arbitrary. So we have to try to point out a relevant characteristic that can ground moral worth. 

Take, for example, the classic: “Humans are morally superior to nonhuman animals because humans are rational creatures.” The consistency requirement for ethical theories requires that we follow this argument to its logical end for the sake of consistency, though. So we must accept that human beings who are not rational creatures (infants, the senile, the severely mentally impaired) ought not be afforded moral consideration. 

Where does this leave us? Regan explores three avenues for according nonhuman animals before advancing his positive argument. The first is what Regan calls an indirect duty view. The moral consideration we afford nonhuman animals, on this view, is not a function of duties we owe them so much as it is that we have duties toward those who care for them. My kicking a dog is not wronging the dog; it is wronging the dog’s owner. Regan realizes this type of view is unsatisfactory because it requires that we take this same kind of attitude toward marginal cases for human beings (children, the senile, the severely mentally impaired). The indirect duty view does not take wrongs committed against nonhumans and marginal cases seriously in the right ways.

He then explores the cruelty-kindness view, which is a direct duty view. This view requires that we treat animals with kindness and abstain from treating them cruelly. Regan points out, however, that this view is unsatisfactory. Firstly, kind acts are not the same as right acts. My being kind to members of my own race while treating members of other races poorly is not the right thing to do, no matter how kindly I act toward the individuals I am concerned with. Secondly, uncruel acts are not the same as right acts. The parent who disciplines their child with a beating may not be cruel when acting toward their child in that way, but that does not exculpate them of wrongdoing they may be committing against their child.

Finally, Regan assesses and denounces utilitarianism, an ethical theory advanced by his longtime friend and academic adversary Peter Singer. On this view, we would seek to maximize the pleasures experienced by individuals capable of experiencing it and to minimize the pains experienced by individuals capable of experiencing it. Regan criticizes this theory for two reasons primarily. The first is that utilitarianism treats us not like we matter as individuals, but that our feelings do. Secondly, utilitarianism requires that we commit intuitively evil acts (killing an old woman who’s sitting on a pretty sum of money that I could inherit if I killed her without getting caught) for the sake of ends that maximize utility (donating that money to St. Jude’s, for example).

The view we are left with, on Regan’s account, is his rights view. It is a view that treats every subject of a life (or sentient being with an awareness of his or her welfare) as an end in themselves, never to be reduced to the status of mere means because of inherent value they possess. No matter a cow’s usefulness to others, their life is intrinsically valuable to them and for that reason ought not be disregarded.

This view is exceptionally radical, to say the least. This would require that we (1) prohibit scientific testing on animals, even for medical purposes, (2) dissolve commercial animal agriculture in its entirety, and (3) abolish sport hunting, trapping, etc. I had a lot of anxiety going into this classroom because of how radical this view is. People tend to get very defensive when you implicate their dietary preferences in ethics. But the students in the classroom were, on the whole, at the very least willing to entertain the ideas I was teaching them.

I never want to brainwash the students that I teach; I just want to get them to think in ways that they perhaps hadn’t thought before. And it was just an absolute pleasure to see how seriously these students were engaging with the material I was presenting them. As the class went on, they began to at least understand why Tom Regan was justified in holding his views. After class, several students asked me for more literature recommendations and asked very impressive clarifying questions. When I was walking back to the philosophy department after class, I felt as if I had accomplished something important.

If this is what it feels like to teach students of philosophy, I cannot wait to do it for the rest of my life. Seriously, I have never felt so sure of the path that I am on in my life.