scholarly journals Liking but Devaluing Animals: Emotional and Deliberative Paths to Speciesism

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1080-1088
Author(s):  
Lucius Caviola ◽  
Valerio Capraro
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
Species Membership ◽  
Shed Light

We explore whether priming emotion versus deliberation affects speciesism—the tendency to prioritize certain individuals over others on the basis of their species membership (three main and two supplementary studies, four preregistered; N = 3,288). We find that the tendency to prioritize humans over animals (anthropocentric speciesism) decreases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberatively. In contrast, the tendency to prioritize dogs over other animals (pet speciesism) increases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberatively. We hypothesize that, emotionally, people like animals in general and dogs in particular; however, deliberatively, people attribute higher moral status to humans than animals and roughly equal status to dogs, chimpanzees, elephants, and pigs. In support of this explanation, participants tended to discriminate between animals based on likability when thinking emotionally and based on moral status when thinking deliberatively. These findings shed light on the psychological underpinnings of speciesism.

scholarly journals Liking but Devaluing Animals: Emotional and Deliberative Paths to Speciesism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucius Caviola ◽  
Valerio Capraro
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
Species Membership ◽  
Shed Light

We explore whether priming emotion versus deliberation affects speciesism—the tendency to prioritize certain individuals over others on the basis of their species-membership (three main and two supplementary studies; four pre-registered; N = 3,288). We find that the tendency to prioritize humans over animals (anthropocentric speciesism) decreases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberately. In contrast, the tendency to prioritize dogs over other animals (pet speciesism) increases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberately. We hypothesize that, emotionally, people like animals in general, and dogs in particular; however, deliberatively, people attribute higher moral status to humans than animals, and roughly equal status to dogs, chimpanzees, elephants and pigs. In support of this explanation, participants tended to discriminate between animals based on likability when thinking emotionally and based on moral status when thinking deliberately. These findings shed light on the psychological underpinnings of speciesism.

Aristotle's Wondering Children

Politeia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 68-81
Author(s):  
Ioannis Alysandratos ◽  
Dimitra Balla ◽  
Despina Konstantinidi ◽  
Panagiotis Thanassas ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
Imperfect State ◽  
The One ◽  
Shed Light

Wonder is undoubtedly a term that floats around in today’s academic discussion both on ancient philosophy and on philosophy of education. Back in the 4th century B.C., Aristotle underlined the fact that philosophy begins in wonder (θαυμάζειν), without being very specific about the conditions and the effects of its emergence. He focused a great deal on children’s education, emphasizing its fundamental role in human beings’ moral fulfillment, though he never provided a systematic account of children’s moral status. The aim of this paper is to examine, on the one hand, if, to what extent, and under what conditions, Aristotle allows for philosophical wonder to emerge in children’s souls, and, on the other hand, how his approach to education may shed light to the link between wonder and the ultimate moral end, i.e. human flourishing. We will, thus, 1) try to offer a unified outlook of the philosopher’s views on children’s special cognitive and moral state, and 2) illustrate how wonder contributes in overcoming their imperfect state of being.

The Theory and Politics of Recognition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Bird
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
Status Recognition ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter investigates the relationship between the so-called ‘politics of recognition’ and the philosophical discussion of principles of distributive justice. It argues that the literature has failed to distinguish clearly between three forms of recognition potentially relevant to distributive justice: status-recognition, authenticity-recognition and worth-recognition. Each of these forms of recognition is explored, and their various possible links to arguments about the requirements of justice are distinguished and critically discussed. Against much conventional wisdom, the chapter suggests that models of recognition built around the recognition of ‘equal status’ need not be problematically ‘difference blind’; that claims about authenticity-recognition have a more tenuous relation to discussion of (distributive) justice than many suppose; and that disadvantaged individuals’ need for respectful recognition is not reducible either to claims about their moral status or to demands that identity be authentically expressed in social discourse.

Moral Recognition and the Limits of Impartialist Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-138
Author(s):  
Udo Schuklenk
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Consideration ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Species Membership ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Self Learning ◽  
As If

‘Moral status’ is simply a convenient label for ‘is owed moral consideration of a kind’. This chapter argues that we should abandon it and instead focus on the question of what kinds of dispositional capabilities, species memberships, relationships etc., constitute ethically defensible criteria that justifiably trigger particular kinds of moral obligations. Chimeras, human brain organoids, and artificial intelligence do not pose new challenges. Existing conceptual frameworks, and the criteria for moral consideration that they trigger (species membership, sentientism, personhood) are still defensible and applicable. The challenge at hand is arguably an empirical challenge that philosophers and ethicists qua philosophers and ethicists are ill equipped to handle. The challenge that needs addressing is essentially whether a self-learning AI machine, that responds exactly in the same way to a particular event as a person or sentient being would, should be treated as if it was such a person or sentient being, despite doubts about its de facto lack of dispositional capabilities that would normally give rise to such responses.

scholarly journals Justified Species Partiality

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Ronald Sandler ◽  
John Basl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Species Differentiation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Practical Ethics ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Species Membership ◽  
Status Differences ◽  
Biological Group

AbstractA core question in practical ethics is ‘which entities do we need to consider in our decision-making?’ In this chapter we evaluate the justifications and motivations for defending species-membership views of human moral status. These are views on which human beings have a distinctive type of moral status grounded in their being human or possessing some property that almost perfectly correlates with being human. Many ethicists endorse species-membership views on moral status because they believe that moral status differences are needed to support widely held and purportedly well-justified beliefs about species differentiation in consideration and treatment. We argue against the need to adopt a species-membership or human-privilege view on moral status in order to justify species partiality in consideration and treatment. The sort of partiality with respect to consideration and treatment that motivates species-membership views is largely consistent with more egalitarian views about moral status, according to which an entity’s moral status depends on its own features, not the biological group to which it belongs. Given the traditional objections to species-membership views, to the extent that justified species partiality is consistent with alternative views of moral status, there is reason to reject the moral status significance of being human.

scholarly journals Does Being Human Matter Morally? Five Correctives to the Speciesism Debate

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Hopster
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Moral Relevance ◽  
Moral Treatment ◽  
Ethical Debate ◽  
Ethical Inquiry ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Species Membership ◽  
Equal Consideration

This article argues for five correctives to the current ethical debate about speciesism, and proposes normative, conceptual, methodological and experimental avenues to move this debate forward. Firstly, it clarifies the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests and points out limitations of its scope. Secondly, it disambiguates between ‘favouritist’ and ‘species-relative’ views about moral treatment. Thirdly, it argues that not all moral intuitions about speciesism should be given equal weight. Fourthly, it emphasizes the importance of empirical research to corroborate statements about ‘folk speciesism’. Fifthly, it disambiguates between the moral significance of species and the moral status of their individual members. For each of these issues, it is shown that they have either been overlooked, or been given inapt treatment, in recent contributions to the debate. Building on the correctives, new directions are proposed for ethical inquiry into the moral relevance of species and species membership.

scholarly journals Misadventures of Sentience: Animals and the Basis of Equality

Animals ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Zuolo
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Equal Consideration ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

This paper aims to put in question the all-purposes function that sentience has come to play in animal ethics. In particular, I criticize the idea that sentience can provide a sound basis of equality, as has been recently proposed by Alasdair Cochrane. Sentience seems to eschew the standard problems of egalitarian accounts that are based on range properties. By analysing the nature of range properties, I will show that sentience cannot provide such a solution because it is constructed as a sui generis range property. After criticizing the approaches seeking to ground animals’ equal status, I turn to Singer’s principle of equal consideration of interests. Despite its seeming non-controversiality, I argue that it cannot do without referring to the moral status of a being in order to determine the weight of a being’s interests. Moreover, it outlines a weak egalitarian basis because it relies on the presumption of equality of interests in virtue of our lack of knowledge of the weight of individuals’ interests. I conclude in a more positive tone by arguing that, irrespective of the troubles of range property egalitarianism, animal ethics can rely on other normative resources to defend the cause of animals.

Elucidating cyclic AMP signaling in subcellular domains with optogenetic tools and fluorescent biosensors

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1733-1747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Klausen ◽  
Fabian Kaiser ◽  
Birthe Stüven ◽  
Jan N. Hansen ◽  
Dagmar Wachten
Keyword(s):  
Cyclic Amp ◽  
Adenosine Monophosphate ◽  
Adenylyl Cyclases ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Fluorescent Biosensors ◽  
Subcellular Domains ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Hydrolysis Of ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Cyclic Amp Signaling

The second messenger 3′,5′-cyclic nucleoside adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) plays a key role in signal transduction across prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Cyclic AMP signaling is compartmentalized into microdomains to fulfil specific functions. To define the function of cAMP within these microdomains, signaling needs to be analyzed with spatio-temporal precision. To this end, optogenetic approaches and genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors are particularly well suited. Synthesis and hydrolysis of cAMP can be directly manipulated by photoactivated adenylyl cyclases (PACs) and light-regulated phosphodiesterases (PDEs), respectively. In addition, many biosensors have been designed to spatially and temporarily resolve cAMP dynamics in the cell. This review provides an overview about optogenetic tools and biosensors to shed light on the subcellular organization of cAMP signaling.

Sentence-Based Experience Logging in New Hearing Aid Users

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3S) ◽  
pp. 631-637
Author(s):  
Katja Lund ◽  
Rodrigo Ordoñez ◽  
Jens Bo Nielsen ◽  
Dorte Hammershøi
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Patient Experiences ◽  
Online Tool ◽  
Rehabilitation Process ◽  
Hearing Rehabilitation ◽  
Clinical Observations ◽  
Hearing Aid Use ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Shed Light

Purpose The aim of this study was to develop a tool to gain insight into the daily experiences of new hearing aid users and to shed light on aspects of aided performance that may not be unveiled through standard questionnaires. Method The tool is developed based on clinical observations, patient experiences, expert involvement, and existing validated hearing rehabilitation questionnaires. Results An online tool for collecting data related to hearing aid use was developed. The tool is based on 453 prefabricated sentences representing experiences within 13 categories related to hearing aid use. Conclusions The tool has the potential to reflect a wide range of individual experiences with hearing aid use, including auditory and nonauditory aspects. These experiences may hold important knowledge for both the patient and the professional in the hearing rehabilitation process.

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