Less Able Humans
This version of the Argument from Less Able Humans is a slight adaptation from the slides of a philosophy professor who has given permission to use them. He teaches this as an argument for the Principle of Equal Consideration, then allows that even if we weaken that substantially, the case for veganism follows from empirical reality.
Many carnists assume that, although we have strong moral reasons not to harm (and to benefit) sentient humans, we lack (at least in many contexts) strong moral reasons not to harm (or to benefit) sentient non-human animals. The most natural attempts to justify this assumption invoke certain intellectual abilities that typical human adults have and sentient non-human animals lack, such as abstract reasoning ability, the ability to think about ethics, the ability to enter into agreements, moral agency, etc. The basic idea of the argument from less able humans (aka "marginal cases") is that these justifications fail, because there are many sentient humans who lack these fancy intellectual abilities, but we have still have strong moral reasons not to harm (and to benefit) them. The only other potentially relevant difference between these intellectually less able humans and sentient non-human animals is bare biological species membership, but when we distinguish bare biological species membership from its typical psychological accompaniments, we can see that it is simply something like the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, shared history of phylogenetic descent, or gross morphology. But these bare biological or historical features are as obviously irrelevant to our basic moral reasons not to harm or to benefit someone as other bare biological and historical features like her gamete size or chromosomal configuration (sex) or her skin color, hair texture, and facial features as a result of her ancestors' area of ancestry (ethnicity or race). So we really should conclude that, just as lesser intellectual ability does not make the well-being of intellectually less able humans in itself less morally important than ours, lesser intellectual ability also does not make the well-being of sentient non-human animals in itself less morally important than ours.
It is important to clarify what it means to hold that someone's well-being is not "in itself less morally important" than ours in virtue of her lesser intellectual abilities. This is not to deny that intellectual ability has derivative moral relevance, insofar as it affects how much a being might be harmed or benefited by a certain form of treatment, or how much others might be affected by her condition (for instance if she is an emergency medic capable of saving others). Indeed, a certain minimal amount intellectual ability is likely to be precondition for being phenomenally conscious states (i.e. capable of having states that feel a certain way from the inside) or being sentient (capable of experiencing pleasure or enjoyment and pain or suffering) at all, which is a plausible necessary condition for being harmed or benefited at all. (This necessity of phenomenal consciousness or sentience for being harmed and benefited is supported by almost all leading theories of well-being, including hedonism, which holds that the only things that are beneficial or harmful in themselves and apart from their further effects are pleasure/enjoyment and pain/suffering; desire fulfillment theory, which holds that what is beneficial/harmful in itself is getting what we want/are averse to in itself; and most objective list theories, which agree with hedonism that pleasure and suffering are among the things that are good or bad in themselves, but add to the list of inherent good things such as friendship, achievement, and knowledge).
Moreover, intellectual ability might affect the extent to which one experiences inherently good or bad states as a result of certain things, and perhaps (in part because of this) how much one benefits from continued existence. Thus, although the view can certainly be challenged, many hold that intellectually less able humans and non-human animals inevitably benefit less from ordinary life than typical humans, and are thus harmed to a lesser extent by death. (Perhaps the most famous proponent of the argument from less able humans, Peter Singer, himself at least at one time held a view somewhat like this, according to which (roughly) death harms us by frustrating our current desires, so if intellectually disabled humans and infants lack future-directed desires, they are not harmed by death. This view is extremely dubious: there seems to be no good reason to think that someone is not harmed by missing out on things that she does not currently want if she will appreciate and benefit from them in the future, and it seems implausibly myopic to care only about someone's current desires and neglect the desires she will have in the future. But Singer's view illustrates just how much the view that intellectually less able beings' well-being is in itself just as morally important as that of intellectually more able beings can be consistent with the view that these beings benefit differently from continued existence). On such views it is consistent with an intellectually disabled child's well-being being in itself just as morally important as a typical human adult's for us to choose to save the adult over the child if we can only save one (or for us to, as is common in many jurisdictions, not invest the same resources to save the life of the a newborn who will be profoundly intellectually disabled as we would to save the life of an adult). Because on these views the adult would benefit more from living, we should, if we give equal importance to the well-being of the adult and the child, give more weight to this greater benefit to the adult, since to care just as much about what is (on these views) a lesser benefit to the child would be to treat the well-being of the child as though it had more moral importance in itself than that of the adult. Intellectual ability might also affect the extent to which others are harmed or benefited as a result of one being harmed or benefited. Thus, if an emergency medic can save the lives of two wounded children if but only if she survives, and we must choose between preventing the medic from being killed and saving the life of a third child, protecting the life of the medic is quite in line with treating her interests as no more morally important in itself than that of the third child (even assuming that they will benefit equally from continued existence). Considered in themselves, there is no reason to save the medic over the child, but because saving the medic in effect saves three individuals (her own and that of two others), equal inherent concern for the well-being of all four of the individuals requires that we save the medic (and save the three) rather than save the child (and save only one). What it is for someone's well-being to be in itself just as important as someone else's is for us to have equally strong moral reasons to not inflict (or to prevent) equally sized harms - e.g. equally intense amounts of suffering - on each of them, independent of their further effects.
With that in mind, we can formalize the argument from less able humans as follows:
The Argument from Less-Able Humans ("Marginal Cases")
P1. Some sentient humans (infants, young children, profoundly intellectually disabled) are intellectually comparable to sentient non-human animals
P2. If the well-being of sentient non-human animals (e.g. their avoiding a given amount of suffering, their benefiting from a given quality of life) is in itself less morally important than ours (in virtue of these lesser intellectual abilities), then the well-being of these sentient humans is in itself equally less morally important (in virtue of their lesser intellectual abilities)
P3. But the well-being of these sentient humans isn’t in itself less morally important than ours
Therefore, C1. The well-being of sentient non-human animals is not in itself less morally important than ours
This entails (if you like in conjunction with P4. Our well-being is morally important) the
Principle of Equal Consideration: human and non-human animal well-being is of equal intrinsic moral importance (i..e moral importance in itself and apart from its further effects) - e.g. all else held equal, the fact that an act would inflict a given amount of harm (e.g. a given amount of suffering) on a human or a non-human animal is an equally strong moral reason against it.
Defense of P3: It is deeply implausible that intellectual ability affects the intrinsic importance of one's well-being once we distinguish (i) its role in making one a moral agent who owes duties vs. a moral patient who is owed duties, (ii) its role in affecting the instrumental importance of one's well-being for others, and (iii) its role in determining how beneficial or harmful certain things are for you (including how much typical human adults benefit from living vs. how much non-human animals and profoundly intellectually disabled humans benefit from living).
Defense of P2: The only relevant thing that distinguishes non-human animals from intellectually comparable humans is bare biological species membership, but it's deeply implausible that bare biological species membership is relevant to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being once one we focus on what it really is: something like potential to interbreed to produce fertile offspring, psychology-independent morphology, phenotype-independent genotype, history of phylogenetic descent. It's no more plausible that these matter to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being than someone's ethnicity / continent of ancestry and consequent facial features, hair texture, and skin colour (race), or her chromosomes and relative gamete size (sex).
The weakening: Even if somehow intellectual ability or biological species membership per se mattered to the moral importance of someone's well-being they couldn't matter very much. Since they seem utterly devoid of moral importance; surely it is safe to at least conclude:
C2. Principle of Minimal Consideration: We should / are morally required to avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves.
Empirical considerations about factory farming, human health, environmental effects, and, if you like, further philosophical considerations about what makes death a harm, the potential relevance of the fact that future farmed animals won't exist unless we buy animal products, and the probabilities that one's purchasing decisions will make a difference of various kinds and to what extent this matters, we get:
P5. To avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves, we must be vegan.
Finally, C2 and P5 entail:
C3. We should / are morally required to be vegan.
Comparison to the Argument from Less Able Humans
The Argument from Less Able Humans
See main entry on the Argument from Less Able Humans
Many carnists assume that, although we have strong moral reasons not to harm (and to benefit) humans, we lack (at least in many contexts) strong moral reasons not to harm (or to benefit) non-human animals. The most natural attempts to justify this assumption invoke certain intellectual abilities that typical human adults have and non-human animals lack, such as abstract reasoning ability, the ability to think about ethics, the ability to enter into agreements, moral agency, etc. The basic idea of the argument from less able humans (aka "marginal cases") is that these justifications fail, because there are many sentient humans who lack these fancy intellectual abilities, but we have still have strong moral reasons not to harm (and to benefit) them. The only other potentially relevant difference between these intellectually less able humans and non-human animals, but when we distinguish bare biological species membership from its typical psychological accompaniments, we can see that it is simply something like ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, shared history of phylogenetic descent, or gross morphology. But these bare biological or historical features are as obviously irrelevant to our basic moral reasons not to harm or to benefit someone as her her gamete size or chromosomal configuration (sex) or her skin color, hair texture, and facial features as a result of her ancestors' area of ancestry (ethnicity or race). So we really should conclude that, just as lesser intellectual ability does not make the well-being of intellectually less able humans in itself less morally important than ours, lesser intellectual ability also does not make the well-being of non-human animals in itself less morally important than ours.
This is not to deny that intellectual ability has derivative moral relevance, insofar as it affects how much a being might be harmed or benefited by a certain form of treatment, or how much others might be affected by her condition (for instance if she is an emergency medic capable of saving others). Indeed, a certain minimal amount intellectual ability is likely to be precondition for being phenomenally conscious states (i.e. capable of having states that feel a certain way from the inside) or being sentient (capable of experiencing pleasure or enjoyment and pain or suffering) at all, which is a plausible necessary condition for being harmed or benefited at all. Illectual ability might affect the extent to which one experiences inherently good or bad states as a result of certain things, and perhaps (in part because of this) how much one benefits from continued existence. What it is for someone's well-being to be in itself just as important as someone else's is for us to have equally strong moral reasons to not inflict (or to prevent) equally sized harms - e.g. equally intense amounts of suffering - on each of them, independent of their further effects.
With that in mind, we can formalize the argument from less able humans as follows:
The Argument from Less-Able Humans ("Marginal Cases")
P1. Some sentient humans (infants, young children, profoundly intellectually disabled) are intellectually comparable to sentient non-human animals
P2. If the well-being of sentient non-human animals (e.g. their avoiding a given amount of suffering, their benefiting from a given quality of life) is in itself less morally important than ours (in virtue of these lesser intellectual abilities), then the well-being of these sentient humans is in itself equally less morally important (in virtue of their lesser intellectual abilities)
P3. But the well-being of these sentient humans isn’t in itself less morally important than ours
Therefore, C1. The well-being of sentient non-human animals is not in itself less morally important than ours
P1 is empirical, while premises P2 and P3 are extremely plausible substantive ethical ideas supported by reasoning like that above:
Defense of P3: It is deeply implausible that intellectual ability affects the intrinsic importance of one's well-being once we distinguish (i) its role in making one a moral agent who owes duties vs. a moral patient who is owed duties, (ii) its role in affecting the instrumental importance of one's well-being for others, and (iii) its role in determining how beneficial or harmful certain things are for you (including how much typical human adults benefit from living vs. how much non-human animals and profoundly intellectually disabled humans benefit from living).
Defense of P2: The only relevant thing that distinguishes non-human animals from intellectually comparable humans is bare biological species membership, but it's deeply implausible that bare biological species membership is relevant to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being once one we focus on what it really is: something like potential to interbreed to produce fertile offspring, psychology-independent morphology, phenotype-independent genotype, history of phylogenetic descent. It's no more plausible that these matter to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being than someone's ethnicity / continent of ancestry and consequent facial features, hair texture, and skin colour (race), or her chromosomes and relative gamete size (sex).
This argument from less able humans is clearly what Tobias Leenaert has called a "full Monty" defense of the strong ethical ideas held by many (but certainly not all) ethical vegans [citation needed]. Even if the argument is impeccable, it is still a lot for many individuals to swallow. It effectively entails (if you like in conjunction with P4. Our well-being is morally important) what Peter Singer calls the
Principle of Equal Consideration: human and non-human animal well-being is of equal intrinsic moral importance (i..e moral importance in itself and apart from its further effects) - e.g. all else held equal, the fact that an act would inflict a given amount of harm (e.g. a given amount of suffering) on a human or a non-human animal is an equally strong moral reason against it.
This is *far* more than one needs to defend ethical veganism. It is thus advisable in the context of arguments for veganism to consider the argument for less able humans as decisively supporting an idea that is logically much weaker. The idea would be that, since it seems that, on reflection, intellectual ability and species membership are completely irrelevant to the inherent moral importance of someone's well-being
The weakening: Even if somehow intellectual ability or biological species membership per se mattered to the moral importance of someone's well-being they couldn't matter very much. Since they seem utterly devoid of moral importance; surely it is safe to at least conclude:
C2. Principle of Minimal Consideration: We should / are morally required to avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves.
Empirical considerations about factory farming, human health, environmental effects, and, if you like, further philosophical considerations about what makes death a harm, the potential relevance of the fact that future farmed animals won't exist unless we buy animal products, and the probabilities that one's purchasing decisions will make a difference of various kinds and to what extent this matters, we get:
P5. To avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves, we must be vegan.
Finally, C2 and P5 entail:
C3. We should / are morally required to be vegan.
Comparison Between The Argument from Less Able Humans and #NameTheTrait (Putting this here because I don't think it's relevant to the NTT article)
The Argument from Less Able Humans is most commonly presented in works of philosophy intended for both professional and popular audience (including perhaps its canonical presentation by Peter Singer in the first chapter of his book, Animal Liberation, entitled "All Animals are Equal"). While its core ideas are often used in discussions and debates (and this is one way to understand what is going on with #NameTheTrait), the forgoing sort of full-dress presentation of the argument was never intended for these purposes.
As we have seen, while the argument from less able humans may be suitable to presentation in public talks and lectures that have the luxury of seeking to seriously challenge pervasive ethical assumptions, it has various substantive and rhetorical drawbacks in many other contexts of arguments for veganism. The first part which argues full-out for the Principle of Equal Consideration is extremely challenging, and far more than one needs to establish the truth of veganism - so much so that its ideal use in many contexts is to motivate logically weaker principles. This part at least of the argument from less able humans wears its "full Monty" status on its sleeve, directly challenging the view that equally great benefits to humans should - further effects aside - take any priority over equally benefits to non-human animals. Even moving on to try to weaken the force of this challenge as at least defending a weaker and more readily accepted principle (viz. the principle of minimal consideration, which presumably is the best defense of what is wrong with things like causing wanton cruelty to and neglecting animals who are members of companion animal species, which most individuals will find intuitively abhorrent). The argument also foregrounds a comparison between profoundly intellectually disabled humans and non-human animals. Some may think that because this leverages our commitments to individuals who actually exist it has more persuasive force than simply, for instance, imagining oneself coming to lack one's current intellectual abilities. But many animal advocates worry about the extent to which such a direct comparison between non-human animals and profoundly intellectually disabled humans can be offensive and off-putting (even if the offense does stem from an unjustifiable attitude of "speciesism," or thinking that bare biological species has underivative moral relevance when it does not, the attitude is real and pervasive, and a fact on the ground that effective vegan advocates must take into account). Although the above presentation of the argument clearly defends the moral importance of the well-being of intellectually disabled humans in the course of defending that of non-human animals, a comparison is still made. It is also raised to salience that, if we are to defend the lesser importance of preserving the lives of non-human animals in virtue of e.g. their enjoying a lower quality of life due to their lesser intellectual abilities (which many proponents of even the principle of equal consideration do believe [much like Singer, although for Singer the relevant consideration is not quality of life but future-directed desires), this will equally justify the lesser importance of preserving the lives of intellectually comparable humans. The view that lesser intellectual ability entails lesser quality of life can and has certainly been challenged, as much by animal ethicists (see e.g. David Degrazia's Taking Animals Seriously) as by disability rights activists [citation needed]. But then the implications of the argument for how much we should be concerned about preserving the lives of non-human animals are that much stronger, and difficult for many to accept.
It is the view at least of the alternative editors that, given these rhetorical drawbacks of the first part of the argument from less able humans (which defends the principle of equal consideration), the first part of #NameTheTrait (which defends non-human animal moral value) actually has important rhetorical advantages. First, because its second premise simply considers hypothetically what we should think if traits were not present in humans (or simply not present in ourselves), there is no foregrounding of a potentially offensive comparison between non-human animals and profoundly intellectually disabled humans. Moreover, although #NameTheTrait has certain "full Monty"-like elements, the conclusion of its first part is nowhere near as radical as that of the argument from less able humans, and it does not defend anything like equal consideration at any stage of its presentation. If one wanted one could formulate a version of the argument from less able humans that is similarly less committal - with in the premises and conclusion considering something like whether the well-being of intellectually less able humans and non-human animals is "in itself radically less morally important" rather than "in itself less morally important." Perhaps this would be a good idea for some contexts, and perhaps it has been done [citation needed?]. But it seems fair at least to say that #NameTheTrait has the advantage of not at any stage advancing the radical and difficult to accept views about the moral importance of non-human animals' well-being advanced by the first part of standard presentations of the argument from less able humans like the foregoing.
There is at least one very significant advantage that standard presentations of the first part of the argument from less able humans has over certain presentations of the first part of #NameTheTrait (at least by Brown). This is that standard presentations of the argument from less able humans recognize that its crucial ethical premises P2 and P3 are substantive ethical claims, and seek to justify them by the sort of reasoning about what is plausible after reflectively scrutinizing whether certain factors should have certain kinds of moral importance, once we carefully analyze what the factors are (e.g. being a biological human vs. being able to engage in ethical reasoning) and distinguish various possible roles that the factors might play (e.g. affecting the extent to which oneself or others are harmed or benefited from certain things as opposed to making equally sized benefits or harms more or less morally important in themselves). There is no reason why premises P1 and P2 of the first "for animal moral value" part of #NameTheTrait could not be defended in a similar way. But at least certain presentations of #NameTheTrait (e.g. by Brown) have seemed to assume that they follow simply from one's desire not to be harmed by others, which is not the case (see section on independence from substantive ethical ideas).
The foregoing presentation of the argument from less able humans is deductively valid as it stands (the canonical presentation by Singer in "All Animals are Equal" is presented in English text, not premise-conclusion form; the foregoing is a natural formulation of the argument in this way) without the need to add any additional premises. As will be shown below, #NameTheTrait needs additional premises to make it deductively valid. It is presumably the view of the main editors that this is a great advantage of the argument from less able humans over #NameTheTrait. Their justification for thinking this is. [Insert here the main editors justification for caring so much about the deductive invalidity of arguments in premise-conclusion form with extremely plausible suppressed premises that the author and audience both accept - especially when such arguments are made by young advocates without formal backgrounds in philosophy who do not know about deductive validity but are trying to present their ideas as clearly as they can] Because (as we will see) the additional premises are so plausible and widely and tacitly accepted by proponents of #NameTheTrait and their audience (including most carnists to whom the arguments are addressed), the alternative editors do not regard this in itself as an advantage at all. Indeed, they would regard the courtesy of those who know about deductive validity adding the missing premises to #NameTheTrait in discussing it to be little more than the courtesy of formulating an argument from Singer's English text that is deductively valid.
That said there may be an interaction between the suppressed premises needed to make #NameTheTrait deductively valid and the foregoing issue about certain presentations of #NameTheTrait not realizing that they need to appeal to substantive ethical ideas to defend the arguments' premises. If a proponent of #NameTheTrait things that P1 and P2 (of the first part of the argument) follow simply by one's wanting not to be killed in various situations rather than any substantive ethical assumptions, then the need for a suppressed premise might be threatening. If the idea was that one can justify concern for animals by what one is committed to simply by valuing oneself, any further substantive ethical ideas, no matter how plausible or widely accepted, might ruin the idea. Perhaps this is why the main editors think that the need for suppressed premises to make #NameTheTrait deductively valid is such a problem, even if the premises are so plausible and widely accepted [main editors: can you confirm if this is your idea?]. If so, the alternative editors would seek to clarify that this should be seen, not so much as a problem for #NameTheTrait itself considered as an argument, but with a certain approach to #NameTheTrait, which includes particular views about how its premises should be justified. While some existing proponents of #NameTheTrait (like presumably Brown) may have this view of how its premises can be justified, #NameTheTrait is logically independent of this view about its justification, and there may indeed be young vegan advocates who are using the argument without anything like this view about how its premises should be justified.
There is, finally, the advantage of the above formulation of the argument from the conclusion of the argument from less able humans (viz. the principle of equal consideration), or its weakening into the principle of minimal consideration, to the view that we should be vegan, over the less widely discussed second part of #NameTheTrait "for veganism from animal moral value". The argument from the principle of minimal consideration to veganism relied upon a premise informed by empirical considerations about the extent of suffering in animal agriculture and how vegan diets are at least as healthy as non-vegan diets (as well perhaps as further philosophical considerations about what makes death a harm and how this applies to non-human animals [e.g. Singer is wrong that death per se can only harm us by frustrating our current desires; non-human animals can be harmed by death in virtue of it depriving them of future goods even if they lack future-directed desires], the potential relevance of the fact that future farmed animals won't exist unless we buy animal products, the environmental effects of animal agriculture in harming wild animals and harming other humans, and the probabilities that one's purchasing decisions will make a difference of various kinds and to what extent this matters). As discussed further below in the section on the second part of #NameTheTrait, this has clear substantive advantages over #NameTheTrait's invocation of a dubious notion of "exploitation" and apparent assumption that empirical considerations are irrelevant to the case for veganism from the moral considerability of non-human animals.
Because substantive issues about the second part of #NameTheTrait are considered below, we can restrict consideration here to rhetorical issues. In fairness to #NameTheTrait it could be argued that quick talk about "exploitation" may be able to quickly communicate a plausible idea about how moral value should influence treatment, without having to get into a lot of thorny and time-consuming empirical issues. One might with some justification complain that this is a kind of stand-in for a more detailed ethical-cum-empirical idea about inflicting enormous harm for relatively trivial benefits, some of which will have to be defended empirically. In response there is a serious concern that couching the case for veganism and concerns about non-human animals more generally in terms of "exploitation," rather than in terms of serious suffering, harm, or deprivation, can seem extremely off-putting and easy for carnists to dismiss. Such worries about "exploitation" - without further clarification - can sound to some ears as though what one is worried about per se is using animals even if this is not harmful - as if spinning the fur one's canine companion sheds into thread and knitting a sweater out of it for one to wear is as morally abhorrent as searing off a chicken's beak without anesthetic, grinding him up alive, or depriving him of all future goods by slitting his throat and allowing him to bleed to death while he is still conscious. As discussed below, concerns about non-harmfully "exploiting" or using psychologically typical adult humans without their consent, or taking advantage of the power one has over them in a way that leaves them no worse off, can seem to make a lot more sense than parallel concerns about doing so with non-human animals. The point is certainly not that proponents of #NameTheTrait hold any absurd views about the moral importance of the non-harmful use or exploitation of non-human animals - hopefully none of them do. The point is that this is the sort of absurd view about what one is concerned about with non-human animals that one can communicate to carnists (who, we must remember, are psychologically motivated to interpret vegan advocates in the least charitable way possible) if one talks without further explanation about "exploitation".
It is worth noting that both the argument from less able humans and at least the first part of #NameTheTrait are quite non-committal about broader issues in ethical theory, such as whether consequentialism, or the thesis that one is always permitted and required to bring about the most good for all concerned, is true. The above argument for veganism from the principle of minimal (or equal) consideration remains neutral on these issues, while, as discussed below, the second part of #NameTheTrait (for veganism from animal moral value) arguably is not so neutral, as it may seem to invoke the deontological view that it is much harder to justify inflicting harm (or just "exploitation") than it is to justify failing to benefit someone. Since neutrality as to these broader issues is always desirable, as it enhances an argument's ability to convince others, this seems to be an advantage of the argument from minimal consideration to veganism over the second part of #NameTheTrait (particularly if there is additional resistance on the part of some carnists to thinking that there is an asymmetry between harms and benefits in the case of non-human animals, especially if this sounds too much like a strong "animal rights" position).
