Argument from marginal cases
Encyclopedia
The Argument from Marginal Cases is a philosophical argument regarding the moral
status of animal
s. Its proponents hold that if members of society such as infants, the senile, the comatose
, and the cognitively disabled
do have direct moral status, animals do have a direct moral status, too, since there is no known morally relevant ability that those marginal-case humans have that animals lack. The "moral status" may refer either to a right
not to be killed or made to suffer, or to a general moral
requirement to be treated in a certain way.
Consider a cow. We ask why it is acceptable to kill this cow for food – we might claim, for example, that the cow has no concept of self
and therefore it cannot be wrong to kill it. However, many young children may also lack this same concept of "self." So if we accept the self-concept criterion, then we must also accept that killing children is acceptable in addition to killing cows, which is considered absurd. So the concept of self cannot be our criterion.
The arguer will usually continue on by saying that for any criterion or set of criteria (e.g. language, consciousness, ethics) there exists some "marginal" human who is mentally handicapped in some way which would also meet the criteria for having no moral status. Peter Singer
phrases it this way:
claims it can be traced back to Porphyry
in the third century AD. James Rachels
has argued that the theory of evolution
implies that there is only a gradient between humans and other animals, and therefore marginal-case humans should be considered similar to non-human animals.
David Graham interprets this to mean that if most of a species' members are moral agents then any member has the same rights
and protections as the species. In brief, "The moral status of an individual depends on what is normal for that individual’s species."
A related counterargument from Roderick Long
is that a being can obtain moral agency by developing a rational
capacity, and from thereon has full moral agency even if this capacity is lost or diminished:
James Rachels
has responded to Machan that if one adopts the idea that individuals of a species must be treated according to what is normal for that species, then it would imply a chimp that somehow acquired the ability the read and write should not enter a university since it is not "normal" behavior for a chimpanzee.
Ex-vegan writer Rhys Southan argues that the Argument from Marginal Cases fails because it requires us to treat "like cases alike," yet those who fight for animal rights
do not seek to provide animals with the same protections that infants and the cognitively disabled have. Southan claims that most of us feel society
has an obligation to care for infant and cognitively impaired orphans; in order to treat animals equally, then, humans would be required to feed and shelter all animals who are unable to fend for themselves. According to the Argument from Marginal Cases, animal euthanasia
, spaying and neutering
pets
, and failing to rescue and raise abandoned baby animals are all forms of speciesism
since we wouldn't do those things to infants or the cognitively impaired. Yet few animal advocates propose that we abolish animal population control
and take care of every animal that cannot survive otherwise.
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
status of animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s. Its proponents hold that if members of society such as infants, the senile, the comatose
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
, and the cognitively disabled
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
do have direct moral status, animals do have a direct moral status, too, since there is no known morally relevant ability that those marginal-case humans have that animals lack. The "moral status" may refer either to a right
Right
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
not to be killed or made to suffer, or to a general moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
requirement to be treated in a certain way.
Overview of the argument
The argument from marginal cases takes the form of a proof by contradiction. It attempts to show that you cannot coherently believe both that all humans have moral status, and that all non-humans lack moral status.Consider a cow. We ask why it is acceptable to kill this cow for food – we might claim, for example, that the cow has no concept of self
Self (philosophy)
The philosophy of self defines the essential qualities that make one person distinct from all others. There have been numerous approaches to defining these qualities. The self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of consciousness. Moreover, this self is the agent responsible for the...
and therefore it cannot be wrong to kill it. However, many young children may also lack this same concept of "self." So if we accept the self-concept criterion, then we must also accept that killing children is acceptable in addition to killing cows, which is considered absurd. So the concept of self cannot be our criterion.
The arguer will usually continue on by saying that for any criterion or set of criteria (e.g. language, consciousness, ethics) there exists some "marginal" human who is mentally handicapped in some way which would also meet the criteria for having no moral status. Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
phrases it this way:
Proponents
In recent times it has been famously put forward by Peter Singer, however Daniel DombrowskiDaniel Dombrowski
Daniel A. Dombrowski is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. He is the author of seventeen books and over a hundred articles in scholarly journals in philosophy, theology, classics, and literature...
claims it can be traced back to Porphyry
Porphyry (philosopher)
Porphyry of Tyre , Porphyrios, AD 234–c. 305) was a Neoplatonic philosopher who was born in Tyre. He edited and published the Enneads, the only collection of the work of his teacher Plotinus. He also wrote many works himself on a wide variety of topics...
in the third century AD. James Rachels
James Rachels
James Rachels was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics.-Biography:Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studying under Professors W. D. Falk and E. M. Adams...
has argued that the theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
implies that there is only a gradient between humans and other animals, and therefore marginal-case humans should be considered similar to non-human animals.
Criticisms
A counterargument is the Argument from Species Normality (a term coined by David Graham), which is propounded by Tibor Machan. In considering the rights of children or the disabled, Machan uses the analogy of a broken chair:- ...classifications and ascriptions of capacities rely on the good sense of making certain generalizations. One way to show this is to recall that broken chairs, while they aren’t any good to sit on, are still chairs, not monkeys or palm trees. Classifications are not something rigid but something reasonable. While there are some people who either for a little or longer while – say when they’re asleep or in a coma – lack moral agency, in general people possess that capacity, whereas non-people don’t. So it makes sense to understand them having rights so their capacity is respected and may be protected. This just doesn’t work for other animals.
David Graham interprets this to mean that if most of a species' members are moral agents then any member has the same rights
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
and protections as the species. In brief, "The moral status of an individual depends on what is normal for that individual’s species."
A related counterargument from Roderick Long
Roderick Long
Roderick Tracy Long is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and libertarian anarchist blogger. He also serves as a senior scholar for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an editor of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, director and president of the Molinari Institute, and an advisory panel...
is that a being can obtain moral agency by developing a rational
Rationality
In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...
capacity, and from thereon has full moral agency even if this capacity is lost or diminished:
- That is why a cow has no rights, though a human being reduced to the mental level of a cow does have them. There's something wrong with the human; there's nothing wrong with the cow. One might say that in the case of the cow-minded human, there's a blank spot where her moral agency is supposed to be, and someone else can step into that blank spot and act as an agent on her behalf. But in the cow there's no blank spot.
James Rachels
James Rachels
James Rachels was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics.-Biography:Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studying under Professors W. D. Falk and E. M. Adams...
has responded to Machan that if one adopts the idea that individuals of a species must be treated according to what is normal for that species, then it would imply a chimp that somehow acquired the ability the read and write should not enter a university since it is not "normal" behavior for a chimpanzee.
Ex-vegan writer Rhys Southan argues that the Argument from Marginal Cases fails because it requires us to treat "like cases alike," yet those who fight for animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
do not seek to provide animals with the same protections that infants and the cognitively disabled have. Southan claims that most of us feel society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
has an obligation to care for infant and cognitively impaired orphans; in order to treat animals equally, then, humans would be required to feed and shelter all animals who are unable to fend for themselves. According to the Argument from Marginal Cases, animal euthanasia
Animal euthanasia
Animal euthanasia is the act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die, as by withholding extreme medical measures, an animal suffering from an incurable, especially a painful, disease or condition. Euthanasia methods are designed to cause minimal pain and distress...
, spaying and neutering
Neutering
Neutering, from the Latin neuter , is the removal of an animal's reproductive organ, either all of it or a considerably large part. The process is often used in reference to males whereas spaying is often reserved for females. Colloquially, both terms are often referred to as fixing...
pets
PETS
PETS may be an acronym for:* Pet Travel Scheme, which allows animals to travel internationally without quarantine* Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act...
, and failing to rescue and raise abandoned baby animals are all forms of speciesism
Speciesism
Speciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...
since we wouldn't do those things to infants or the cognitively impaired. Yet few animal advocates propose that we abolish animal population control
Population control
Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
and take care of every animal that cannot survive otherwise.
Further reading
- Dombrowski, Daniel. Babies and Beasts: The argument from marginal cases University of Illinois Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0252066382.
- Animal LiberationAnimal Liberation (book)Animal Liberation is a book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, published in 1975.The book is widely considered within the animal liberation movement to be the founding philosophical statement of its ideas...
: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals, Peter SingerPeter SingerPeter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
, New York Review/Random House, New York, 1975; Cape, London, 1976; Avon, New York, 1977; Paladin, London, 1977; Thorsons, London, 1983. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, New York, 2009. - Articles by James Lindemann Nelson and Eveyn Pluhar in Pages 237–241 (printed version) or 262–266 (linked file)
External links