ARE WE THE ONLY BEINGS WORTHY OF RESPECT?

People, human beings, we have dignity, we are worthy of respect. The reasons for deserving it derive from our intellectual and emotional characteristics, and which we can summarize by saying that we are moral agents . As moral agents we deserve special protection, and we can also deserve admiration and recognition or rejection and criticism.

But are we people the only beings worthy of respect?

Every moral agent is a morally valuable being, but perhaps not every morally valuable being is a moral agent.

Are there other beings who, without being moral agents, also deserve our protection and therefore we have certain moral obligations towards them?

Exercise after watching both videos

• What other beings deserve our respect, besides who we are moral agents?

• Why do these beings deserve our respect? Do they have any common characteristics?

• What obligations do moral agents have with whom they deserve our respect?

• Are all morally valuable beings equally valuable or is there a hierarchy?

• What is "speciesism"? Why is it open to criticism?

SHOULD WE RESPECT ANIMALS?

Human beings and non-human animals relate to each other in multiple ways. There are hardly any human activities in which animals do not intervene in one way or another. Consider the following activities:

• Animals for fun :

  • Popular festivals: cockfighting, bullfighting, etc.

  • Shows: circuses, racetracks, dog tracks, etc.

    • Hunting

    • Zoos, aquariums, water parks.

    • Animals in the home: dogs, cats and other pets.

  • Animals for beauty

  • Animals to dress

  • Animals in the cosmetic industry:

• Animales para curación:

  • Científicos a favor de la experimentación con animales.

  • Igualdad animal: razones en contra de la experimentación con animales.

  • Cirugía experimental con animales

    • Transplantes: el caso del doctor Barnard. 

La experimentación con animales es un dilema moral, porque en ella entran en conflicto dos bienes que deberíamos proteger, pero parece que no podemos protegerlos los dos a la vez. Por un lado, tenemos el avance del conocimiento y la esperanza de curar algunas enfermedades que afectan a seres humanos y también a otras especies de animales. Se trata de la esperanza de salvar vidas, como bien lo expresó María Gálvez, directora de la Federación Española de Parkinson. Para cualquier persona que sufra un problema de salud, y para sus familias, la investigación científica es absolutamente prioritaria. Y sabemos que el uso de animales ha contribuido al avance de la medicina y también de la veterinaria.

Por otro lado, tenemos las vidas de los animales que se usan en experimentación científica, que sufren y mueren para producir esos avances, y que no podrán beneficiarse de ellos. ¿Es moralmente correcto sacrificar animales para lograr avances científicos? Es una pregunta difícil, porque los animales no son seres que existan para nosotros, no son propiedad nuestra, no son meras herramientas que se reducen a su valor instrumental. Los animales son seres que existen para sí mismos, para vivir sus propias vidas, y a los que hay que reconocer un valor intrínseco, como afirma la Directiva 2010/63/UE del Parlamento Europeo relativa a la protección de los animales utilizados para fines científicos.

Lo terrible de este dilema es que parece que, tomemos la decisión que tomemos, siempre hay alguien que pierde. O bien sufren los animales, o bien no vamos a poder curar alguna enfermedad. Parece que no haya manera de proteger esos dos bienes al mismo tiempo. Precisamente por ello, la solución que se ha adoptado en Europa y en buena parte de Occidente es una solución intermedia: se acepta el uso de animales, pero garantizándoles un cierto grado de bienestar. La clave es el principio de las 3R [Reducir, Reemplazar, Refinar] que explicaba anteriormente. En ese principio se basa la Directiva europea de 2010, y en ella a su vez se basa la legislación de los países europeos como España.

• Animales para alimentación:

  • Condiciones de vida en las granjas

  • Condiciones de muerte en los mataderos

Exercise on animal rights

• 1. Are all uses of animals for fun equally reprehensible? Is it possible to make distinctions or make a gradation?

  2. Are all uses of animals for aesthetic purposes reprehensible? Is it possible to make distinctions or qualifications?

  3. Is the use of animals for healing always permissible? Should there be limits? Is it a lesser evil?

  4. Present the question and the arguments contained in the video "Is it morally correct to kill animals for food?"

  5. What reasons does the speaker in the second video give for being a "part-time" vegetarian? Do you agree with him?

SHOULD WE RESPECT SOME MACHINES?

So far, human beings have not created machines that make us wonder if we have any moral obligation to them. But we already create machines (artificial intelligences) to which we entrust our lives:

In certain dangerous situations, we may even rely more on a machine than a human expert:

Some machines ( vocaloid , Idoru , chatbots ) begin to be able to produce small artistic works . Doubts about the human or robotic authorship of the works are the order of the day :  Espasa desmiente que el ganador de su premio de poesía sea un robot.

Also, there are robots that pretend to have feelings :

But for the moment, even in fiction they lack emotional intelligence. Like the robot girl in the movie Eva , who ends up seriously harming her "mother" (with whom her creator is in love) because she is unable to control her emotional reactions.

It is possible to think that in the future there will be machines like those currently imagined in science fiction, capable of thinking and feeling and aware of their own existence:

At that time, the question about the rights of robots and artificial intelligences will be inevitable :

Exercise on obligations with machines

• 1. If works of art deserve greater respect than other manufactured objects (e.g. a screwdriver or a furnace), then if a machine were capable of creating a work of art, would that machine deserve greater respect than other machines?

  2. Moral agents have an obligation to safeguard any morally valuable being. It is common to think that we contract a special obligation with those beings who have saved our lives. If an intelligent machine saves our lives, do we have a moral obligation to try to save it from destruction?

  3. Is it necessary to be intelligent to be morally valuable? Or be aware? Or have feelings? What implications do these questions have for the moral worth of some machines?