Current Theories And Models Of Leadership Management Essay

Current Theories And Models Of Leadership Management Essay According to Adair a leader needs to exhibit certain attributes/qualities/characteristics in order to effectively exercise their leadership functions. These are: Group Influence a leader must generate willingness to achieve desired goal or objective. Command a leader must decide upon a course of action as quickly as the situation demands and to carry through with a firmness and strength of purpose. Coolness a leader must remain composed under testing or trying conditions. Judgment a leader must possess the ability to arrange available resources and information in a systematic and commonsense way to produce effective results. Application/ Responsibility a leader must demonstrate sustained effort combined with a degree of dependability in order to complete a task or achieve an objective (Kermally 2005). Although leadership trait theories are popular, it is viewed by many as very simplistic. There are those that argue that trait theories attribute the success of leadership solely to his or her personality and physical traits or characteristics without regard to the situational context. The trait approach is considered too simplistic as an explanation of the complex leadership phenomenon. Transformational Leadership Theory One of the most popular theories of leadership is Transformational Leadership theory, which was the focus of the works done by Bennis and Nanus (1985), Tichy and Devanna (1986) and Kouzes and Posner (1987). These writers were interested in leaders involved in major changes, operating from the top of the organization. All three pairs utilized relatively small, nonsystematic and non-representative sampling. Evidence has accumulated that transformational leadership can move followers to exceed expected performance. Tesco is considered as the most successful retail company in the United Kingdom. The success of Tesco was heralded by the appointment of Terry Leahy as the Chief Executive Officer. Leahy is considered as a visionary leader who led the company into a series of organizational changes that aimed for the company to become more customer-focused and to develop the companys workforce. Terry Leahy is revered as an excellent leader. Leahy was reported to say that he believes that the success of a leader depends upon maintaining a happy workforce. According to him, there are four things that a leader must provide to his workers and followers to satisfy and motivate them. These are: v  Ã‚  A job that is interesting to do v  Ã‚  A chance to get on in life v  Ã‚  To be treated with respect v  Ã‚  A boss who is some help and not their biggest problem Leadership Model: Bases of Power One of the most popular models of leadership is bases of power. The five bases of power model was introduced by French and Raven in 1959. There are basically two groups of power bases according to French and Raven (1959). These are personal (expert and referent) and position (legitimate, reward and coercive). The French-Raven model attempts to answer the question: What is it that gives an organization, group or individual influence over others (Shannon, 1996). Coercive power this refers to the idea that power can be wielded in a manner that creates fear. Reward power this is the ability to control rewards or positive reinforcers within an organization. Expert power this is power that stems from the leaders possession of special knowledge or expertise. Legitimate power this power stems from the leaders position that gives him or her right to exercise power. Referent power this power stems from the subordinates respect, liking or a feeling that the leader can provide psychological rewards or advancement. Among the five bases of power, there are three bases in which the success of Terry Leahys leadership is founded. These are legitimate power, expert power and referent power. Legitimate power stems from an individuals position within an organization and their right to require and demand compliance from subordinate. Legitimate power is a formal authority delegated to the holder of the position. Legitimate power was achieved by Leahy when he ascended as the CEO of Tesco. Through his position, he is able to lead the companys people. Expert power may include communications, interpersonal skills , scientific knowledge and so on. Such expertise is very valuable but specific to a task. It is based on the perception of the leaders ownership of distinct superior knowledge, expertise, ability or skill. Terry Leahy immediately joined Tesco straight after graduating from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1979. He entered the supermarket chain as a marketi ng executive, was appointed to Tescos board of directors in 1992 and by the time he was 40 he had worked his way up to become chief executive in 1997. His wide experience in the company makes him very knowledgeable of the company, its customers, and its operations. His years of experience in the company makes him a possessor of valuable knowledge of the company, its operations, customers and industry. Referent power is based on group members identification with, attraction to, or respect for the leader. It is a leaders charisma and interpersonal skills which causes subordinates to gain a sense of intrinsic personal satisfaction from the identification of being an accepted follower. Leahy is a very popular leader among his follower. This is because he motivates them and constantly empowers them. He is also charismatic. Leadership Model: Action-Centered Leadership John Adair is one of the most influential leadership gurus. He became the worlds first Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Surrey and is regularly cited as one of the worlds most influential contributors to leadership development and understanding. Adairs leadership work is written in a hugely rich, detailed and insightful manner that reflects his string academic interest in both modern and classical history. Adair is most famous for his Action Centred Leadership (ACL) model of leadership. The ACL model is represented by three interlocking circles encompassing the following: 1. Achieving the task 2. Building and maintaining the team 3. Developing the individual (Thomas 2005). Two of the main strengths of Adairs concept are that it is timeless and not culture or situation-dependent. A third strength of Action-Centered Leadership is that it can help the leader to identify which dimension of the organization or team needs to be strengthened in order to achieve its goals (Kermally 20005). One major criticism of Action-Centred Leadership is that it takes little account of the flat structures that are now generally advocated as the best organizational form. Action-Centred Leadership is also criticized for being authoritarian, applicable in a rigid, formal, military-type environment, but less relevant to the modern workplace, where the leadership emphasis is on leading change, empowering, enabling, managing knowledge and fostering innovation (Chartered Management Institute 2003). Perhaps one of the weaknesses that the critics of the Action-Centred Leadership is that it does not fit the modern organizations. Action-Centred Leadership tends to focus on the hierarc hical structure of the organization. It is applicable in organizations that are highly authoritarian. Impacts of Leadership Styles on the Organization and Its Sub-Units   Leadership style according to Rosen (1989) refers to the characteristic pattern exhibited by a leader on the process of decision-making and exercising authority. There are two types of leadership that I want to discuss. These are autocratic and participative leaderships. In an autocratic style of leadership, the group or organization is managed under the authoritarian leader. The participative leader on the other hand, possesses the same power as the autocratic one. However, a participative leader chooses to exercise his power differently during the policy-making and work-role assignment phases of the group action.   The appointment of Terry Leahy as the CEO of Tesco marked a new era for the company. Leahy adapted a participative style of leadership wherein the employees are given voice in the decision-making process. The CEO also gives emphasis on the importance of appointing many leaders to handle organizational process. The organizational structure therefore became more flat where the roles and responsibilities of everyone are clearly stated. Leahy delegates leadership roles to individuals in the organization in order to ensure that the company, with more than 300,000 employees, operates effectively. The leadership style that is manifested by Terry Leahy and is imitated by the leaders in the company has changed the structure of the company. The company has adapted an organic for of organization. An organic system is characterized by low to moderate use of formal rules and regulations, decentralized and shared decision making, broadly defined job responsibilities, and a flexible authority s tructure with fewer levels in the hierarchy. An organic structure is more appropriate to those organizations where there is a need to be innovative. The pressure of innovation suggests a structure that can respond to environmental variations rapidly so it is necessarily loosely defined and flexible. The organization tends not to be formalized nor are roles too closely structured (Salaman 2001, p.106). Organic organizations are stratified primarily in terms of expertise, and leadership accrues to those who are the best informed and capable. There is much more commitment to the organization, with the result that formal and informal systems become indistinguishable. A framework of values and beliefs, much like those characterizing a profession, develops that becomes an effective substitute for formal hierarchy (Miner 2002, p. 449). The company has adapted a simpler and flatter organizational structure. Task 2: Current and Future Requirements Current Requirements  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In order to remain successful in todays highly competitive business environment, many organizations are coming up with strategies to tap the full potential of their human resources. A companys people can be a source of competitive advantage. This is philosophy behind employee empowerment and participative management. Employees are now seen as partners. Because of this, organizations are giving more power and responsibilities to their people. Employee empowerment and participative management will increase productivity, give rise to better decisions, improve employee morale and job satisfaction, elicit greater commitment among employees, encourage flexibility, make employees adapt to changes faster, improve communication and increase employee trust.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the current requirements of leadership in Tesco is the development of participative management skills in leaders. The leaders at Tesco need to possess the necessary skills in order for them to practice participative leadership properly. The skills that the leaders must possess are: 1. Interest and concern 2. Communication 3. Conflict resolution 4. Negotiation 5. Compromise 6. Synergy 7. Flexibility   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Participative leadership is a leadership style which involves members of a group, sub-unit or organization identifying essential goals and developing procedures or strategies to reach those goals. Implementing participative management will also help the company to develop people in the organization to become leaders. Through participative management, people in the organization are encouraged to take part in decision-making, express their ideas and to showcase their talents and skills. The discovery of hidden talents and skills will not only help the group, sub-unit or organization reach their goals it will also alert the organization to people within the organization who have the potential to become leaders. Future Requirements   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One famous contemporary writer on leadership is Warren Bennis (1994). He believes that a leader must have a direction, he must earn the trust of his followers, he must kindle hope and optimism, and he must be results-driven. On the other hand, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner (1987) believes that a leader must   seek to challenge and improve the process, inspire a share vision, enable other to act, act as s role-model, and encourage the heart of the followers. The future leader must not only focus of achieving the task. He must also learn to develop his people. He needs to learn the value of motivation. The future leader must know how to motivate using monetary rewards and he must also use psychological and emotional rewards to motivate his people. The future leader must find the balance between task-orientation and relationship-orientation. On the one hand, he needs to lead his people in achieving their shared goals and objectives an d on the other hand, he must be able to build strong relationships with the people around him. The importance of emotions must also be recognized.   Task 3: Proposals for the Development of Leadership 1. On-the-Job Learning The company must recognize that the primary place for leaders to learn is on the job and on the line. In order to the company to help leaders learn within the organization, educational facilities must be established inside the organization. The company needs to appoint educators that will educate and develop leaders in various countries and places where Tesco is operating. The organization must institute a Corporate Education department that will be under the HRM department. Within the Corporate Education, a Business Leadership Development (BLD) must be established. This group will focus on executive development and overall leadership development, and it will also be responsible for all training specific to leadership. Business Leadership Development should be used to come up with systematic ways to build the capabilities of Tescos business leaders. The emphasis of the BLD process must be to provide development opportunities at key transition points in individuals careers. To accompl ish this goal, a curriculum must be designed and must be operate under the following principles: Based on real problems and strategic initiatives Linked to business objectives and company values Segmented by customer needs Sponsored by CEO and senior executives Comprised of global content and delivered worldwide Based on validated competencies for success 2. Leader Sponsorship Another strategy to effectively develop leaders is through sponsorship. Through sponsorship, senior executives in Tesco will sponsor and will actively participate in leadership development. Example of leader sponsorship activities are involvement of senior executives in management conferences and facilitating dialogue sessions after a leadership development program. Senior executives can also facilitate panel discussions. Through sponsorship, Tescos successful leaders will be able to share and to instil the characteristics, skills and attributes of effective leaders to the future generation of leaders. 3. Leadership Development and Review In order to identify, evaluate, and develop future leaders, Tesco needs to come up with a list of competencies that is needed to become an effective Tesco leader. These competencies can be used as criteria in leadership development. These criteria will also be helpful in providing content for the leadership and management assessment processes, through activities like self-assessment, multi-score feedback, and assessment simulations. They will help identify and qualify external executive development resources. 4. Corporate Universities It is important for Tesco to realize that their most important assets are human capital and the know-how that reside in the minds of the employees. With this realization, the company needs to establish a corporate university. A corporate university links employee learning to overall company strategy, and as a result a corporate university will become a connective tissue for the organization. 5. Developing Emotional Intelligence among Leaders One important development area which must be focused on is emotional intelligence. Future successful leaders need to recognize and learn to influence the emotions of the people around them. An effective leader must have a high level of Emotional Intelligence. Dubrin et al (2006) identifies five factors of emotional intelligence. These are: 1. Self-awareness the leader of the future must be able to understand his or her emotions and how these affect other people. 2. Self-regulation the leader of the future must be able control his emotions and react with appropriate emotion in every given situation. 3. Motivation money or status is not the only motivating factor for a successful leader in the future. He finds fulfillment and satisfaction in performing his tasks. 4. Empathy the leader of the future responds to the unspoken feelings of others. 5. Social skills having effective social skills is important. The leader of the future must build relationships and networks of support. He must build positive relationships with the people around him or her.

Insufficient Amount Of Insulin Health And Social Care Essay

Type-1 diabetes occurs when the organic structure produces an deficient sum of insulin. It is besides known as juvenile diabetes or early-onset diabetes because it normally develops before the age of 40. Type-1 diabetes is less common than type-2 diabetes, which occurs when the organic structure producesA excessively small insulin or when the cells in the organic structure do non respond decently to insulin. Peoples with type-1 diabetes make up merely 10 % of all people with diabetes, of which there are 2.9million in the UK. The symptoms of holding type-1 diabetes are increased thirst and frequent micturition, Extreme hungriness, Weight loss, Fatigue, and blurred vision. If left untreated type-1 diabetes can take to decease. This human death can be due to several grounds ; people with diabetes have a higher than mean hazard of holding a bosom onslaught or Stroke. Peoples who are unfortunate plenty to endure from either signifier of diabetes are more than twice every bit likely as peo ple without diabetes to endure a shot or bosom onslaught. Harmonizing to ( diabetes.org ) two out of three people with diabetes die from bosom disease or shot besides called cardiovascular disease. There is besides a hazard of a diabetic coma which is frequently fatal. No affair the cause, every bit shortly as the islet cells have been destroyed, sick persons of type 1 diabetes will bring forth small to no insulin, if this happened in a healthy individual the liver would change over stored animal starch back into glucose maintaining the individual ‘s blood glucose degree within a healthy scope. In a type 1 sick person the latter would non happen as there would be no insulin in their organic structure to assist glucose into the cells, because of this the sugar would construct up in the blood stream ( alternatively of being transported into the cells ) where it could do major harm if non decease.What is insulin?Insulin is a endocrine that comes from the pancreas and helps glucose enter the cells ( to supply energy ) without insulin glucose can non come in the cells and so blood glucose degrees can be low ( hypoglycemia ) if this happens a individual can experience an array of side effects and even travel into a diabetic coma hypertext transfer protocol: //urbanext.illinois.edu/diabetes2/illustrations/glucose_insulin1.jpgPrevalence of diabetes in the UK 2011Prevalence of diabetes in the UK 2006The two above tabular arraies shows merely how huge the addition has been in the sum of people enduring from diabetes, nevertheless the study that I found these tabular arraies from said that they found that the per centum of sick persons with type-1 stayed reasonably changeless and that it was type-2 that had showed the big addition.Insulin pump therapyhypertext transfer protocol: //docnews.diabetesjournals.org/content/1/1/15/F7.medium.gif Insulin pump therapy is non a remedy to either signifiers of diabetes, nevertheless it is the most efficient, effectual and good intervention for sick persons at this clip and because of this is the chief solution I have chosen for my coursework. I chose to concentrate on the company Medtronic as their work with insulin pumps is shown to be to a great extent favoured by many independent sites and by persons posting on the web site. I have chosen non to compose about any possible remedies, due to the fact that at this clip there are no definite cures merely ‘possible ‘ remedies.How does the Medtronic MiniMed Paradigm Veo pump work?The Veo insulin pump differentiates its ego from the many other types of insulin pump due to its new and alone characteristics, most pumps merely supplies certain sums of insulin at regular intervals throughout the twenty-four hours, and are frequently able to be programmed to infix more insulin around repast times when there is the largest sum o f glucose come ining the organic structure. The Veo pump nevertheless has an array of advanced characteristics that improve the wellness both at the clip and in the hereafter. These characteristics include: A uninterrupted glucose proctor that automatically detects how low the sick persons blood glucose degrees are A low blood glucose degree response system ( LGS ) that can react to the above state of affairs by curtailing or halting the sum of insulin released so as to raise the blood glucose degrees An ability to record and proctor blood glucose degrees all twenty-four hours every twenty-four hours Show the user their blood glucose degrees The system warns the user when their glucose degrees stray towards unsafe degrees Most pumps including the Medtronic work on a repast by meal footing with little sums of insulin being injected in between these periods, this is shown on the graph belowhttp: //dtc.ucsf.edu/images/graphs/graph_pump_regimen.gifConsequenceshypertext transfer protocol: //www.medtronicdiabetes.ca/en/images/fingersticks.jpg The above graph shows the difference between the mean insulin pump which uses fingersticks to demo a few points in the rhythm of high and low blood sugar degrees, whereas the Veo uses CGM ( uninterrupted glucose supervising ) to demo all the points where the user is above, below or within their mark zone, the web site describes the differences â€Å" fingersticks being a few scenes, with CGM being the full film † Below are three graphs that compare glycaemic control and insulin dose in people with type 1 diabetes treated by insulin extract pump therapy or optimized insulin injections. The graphs compare three different factors Blood Glucose Level = ability to maintain blood glucose degrees healthy Glycated Haemoglobin = ability to maintain sum of glycated hemoglobin at a healthy degree, e.g. non to high Insulin dose = the positive consequence of holding insulin infused by either insulin pump or through injection Blood glucose control The graph below shows that glycaemic control was better during pump intervention than in injection therapy. hypertext transfer protocol: //www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/408723/field_highwire_fragment_image_m/0/F1.medium.gifGlycated hemoglobinThe graph below shows that the per centum of glycated hemoglobin was lower during pump therapyhttp: //www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/408741/field_highwire_fragment_image_m/0/F2.medium.gif Insulin dose hypertext transfer protocol: //www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/408755/field_highwire_fragment_image_m/0/F3.medium.gifCogency of consequencesIt is likely that the consequences are dependable, as the consequences were taken from a big figure of indifferent beginnings. The consequences were taken under the undermentioned conditions: 301 people with type 1 diabetes allocated to insulin extract and 299 allocated to insulin injections for between 2.5 and 24 months. To happen information that met the standards, the researches searched through Medline ( 1975 to 2000 ) and Embase ( 1980-2000 ) for documents on different insulin infixing systems. In the terminal they merely selected surveies that were randomized controlled tests of pump therapy compared with optimized insulin injection. Data was so extracted from text, tabular arraies, and graphs. This information was so assessed and reviewed by two independent individuals ; they assessed glycaemic control with each method as average blood glucose concentration and per centum of Glycated hemoglobin. They so took note of the entire day-to-day insulin dosage on the two governments. Equally good as this the type of pump, the type of insulin, and the insulin injection regimen were recorded. Beginnings of heterogeneousness ( the quality of being diverse and non comparable in sort ) were assessed with a random effects arrested development analysis with age, continuance of diabetes and intervention, and twelvemonth of survey being the independent variables. They tested their hypothesis by ciphering the ratio of the minimal discrepancy weighted geometric agencies of the SDs of blood glucose concentrations on the two regimens. This reinforces that the consequences are likely to be valid due to the huge figure of groups that underwent the experiment and the conditions under which the consequences were taken.Deductions of solutionAdvantagesThe intervention has shown to straight lower and even extinguish the opportunities of acquiring hypoglycemia due to the LGS characteristic Allows the user to drive and execute hazard filled undertakings with comfort cognizing that they will be warned if they have a low Blood Sugar degree Ensures the user that they can execute strenuous undertakings such every bit exercising as they will cognize if they are at hazard of fainting or holding low energy degreesDisadvantagesWhile the insulin pump is a antic intervention, it is non a remedy and so requires care This intervention can be rather expensive in states such as America that do non supply a national insurance, unless said sick person attains fundingEconomic and ethical effectsEthically there are n't truly any complications with this intervention, unless you have spiritual expostulations which do non let you to accept it. Economically this intervention provides many occupations to the industries of the pump and the manufacturers of the insulin Unless you live in a state where there is a national insurance, this intervention can be highly expensive so means some people have to utilize more basic interventionsAlternate TreatmentsNanotechnologyâ€Å" Another possible remedy may one twenty-four hours come from the microscopic, Nano technological spectrum. In this case, bantam insulin implants could meter out insulin to blood glucose degrees as and when it is required. This type of remedy is theoretically possible, and several scientists are working towards this hereafter. However as with other signifiers of possible diabetes cure this remains merely a distant potency † Bantam capsules can be implanted into the organic structure to make an unreal pancreas. When blood sugar flows inside the capsule, it stimulates the cells to bring forth insulin to command sugar degrees. The device has nano pores, pores so little that the organic structure ‘s antibodies can non acquire in to assail the cells, but big plenty that the insulin can flux out and into the organic structure. If nanotechnology can go cost effectual it is a feasible solution to diabetes. hypertext transfer protocol: //www.autokinematics.com/resource/nanotech-1.jpgBring arounding Diabetes with Our Own Stem Cells!In October 2011 scientists at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba Science City, Japan stated that they had found a possible remedy to diabetes. The extracted nervous root cells from rats via the olfactory organ were turned into pancreatic cells that can fabricate insulin to handle diabetes.http: //t0.gstatic.com/images? q=tbn: ANd9GcQ-Z8c26wx5B0PQflux1yHgFHlngRkkpHt7qBb7lecGzlLvIrxRSg First, they extracted a bantam sum of tissue from the portion of the encephalon which deals with odor through the rhinal pit, they so extracted nervous root cells an exposed them to a human protein that switches on insulin production every bit good as an antibody that blocks the natural inhibitor of insulin production. After two hebdomads the scientists placed the cells on thin sheets of collagen ( which acted as a scaffold ) leting them to put the sheets on top of the rats ‘ pancreas without damaging the organ. Within a hebdomad the concentrations of insulin in the blood of the rats that received the intervention matched those in the non-diabetic rats. This intervention had a 100 % success rate in all rats due to the 0 % rejections as the cells were their ain. The cells successfully tackled diabetes for 19 hebdomads until research workers halted the intervention by taking the sheets of cells, after which the rats ‘ diabetes returned.

Why has it been difficult to obtain peace in Northern Ireland?

There is a large variety of social, political and religious reasons why it has been hard to obtain peace in Northern Ireland; there have also been many events that occurred in Northern Ireland that seriously hindered peace progress talks. These are four events that seriously effect peace in Northern Ireland right up to the current day, the Civil Rights Movement, Bloody Sunday, Hunger Strikes and Peace Movements. All these events will be described in my piece of work, I will identify why they happened and who was involved. I will also explain how a power sharing agreement took so long to be put into place because of the impact these events had on the prejudice between Catholic Nationalists and Protestant Unionists. The Civil Rights Movement was a series of Nationalist Catholic marches held between 1967 and 1972 in Northern Ireland, these marches were organised to protest against the discrimination Catholics faced at that time. This discrimination came in many forms for example Catholics found it harder to get houses and some families were on the waiting list for years while single Protestants were placed in homes before them. They also found it hard to get their children good education, or even get themselves a job because many employers would only take on Protestants. It even effected voting as not every Catholic was aloud to take part in the election campaign. So the Nationalist Catholics organised many marches demanding equal rights and to stop prejudice against them. Though these marches were organised with peaceful intent they often turned into mass riots and conflict between Catholic and Protestant civilians. Sometimes it was suspected terrorists had infiltrated peaceful marches and caused violence that often escalated into riots and these caused innocent people to get seriously injured. One of the most famous riots was the Battle of Bogside; this riot took place in Derry and lasted from 12-14 August 1969. The riot saw over five hundred women and children evacuated out of the area and caused over 1000 casualties. It was clear the Irish police and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) alone could not deal with mass violence on this scale so to try and stop the riots the British Government sent paratroopers in to try and obtain peace. The paratrooper's main objective was to try and destroy the IRA which was quickly reforming. But many Irish people saw the paratroopers as occupational forces and because of this they where largely hated by Catholics. This led to a lot of tension in and around the country and even led to a slight collapse in the Northern Irish government as they only half met the demands of the people involved with the Civil Rights Movement. This caused uproar as Nationalist Catholics still felt discriminated against so they continued to act out violently in public protests, this lead to one of the most tragic days in the history of Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was the 30th of January 1972, it began as a march Londonderry organised by the Civil Rights Movement to protest against internment. Internment began in 1971, this was a law passed by the British Government allowing suspected terrorist in Northern Ireland to be arrested and imprisoned without charge. Catholic Nationalist was strongly against internment as most of the people arrested where Catholic, when there where almost equal amounts of terrorist on both sides. Some of the Catholics that were imprisoned became subject to torture like lack of sleep, this lead to national outrage. Pre-organised marches at this point by British Government 15,000 Catholics still congregated in the middle of the city on the 30th of January 1972 and began a protest march. But later that day violence began as Catholics began to throw rocks and other objects at British paratroopers who responded by opening fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians and killed thirteen of them, some of which were shot in the back. This did not help the peace process at all; the nation was again outraged, the little trust between Nationalist and paratroopers had now been totally destroyed and the deaths of those thirteen civilians were considered murders, the people that died were considered martyrs to the Nationalist cause. This strengthened the IRA's cause and they began to get funding and weaponry from other countries, such as the USA, they seemed to many to have proven their point that they needed to attack the Unionists and paratroopers and not just defend the Nationalist. It also affected power sharing talks between Nationalists and Unionists, Nationalist Catholics across the country saw the paratroopers as murders, and what added insult to injury was the fact that the paratroopers were not disciplined in any way for they had done, so hatred between Catholics and paratroopers and Catholics And Protestants (who by many were blamed for the deaths on Bloody Sunday) severely escalated. Catholics began to say there was no way they would ever share power with murderers, how could they ever trust the Government and Protestants to not make the same mistakes, how could they be sure there would not be a second event as catastrophic as Bloody Sunday, this meant any peace agreement between Nationalists and Unionists would be delayed. If one was put into place just after the Civil Rights Movement it would have lead to a national outrage as the hatred and violence between Nationalists and Protestants that many did not see peace as an option and many would refuse to stop the violence. The Civil Rights Movement and all its marches, including Bloody Sunday still have a big impact on peace today. Even though in 2007 a power sharing agreement was reached there is still a lot of prejudice and anger between the Nationalist and Unionist. Nationalists look back at events such as Bloody Sunday or the Battle of Bogside with hatred towards Unionists and Unionists will do likewise, it is very difficult for the people involved to forget the past and forgive their opponents. People still do not trust the British Government after the paratroopers murdered those thirteen men and this has made it difficult for the British Government to make any major decisions influencing Northern Ireland as they would widely be discredited and not accepted. Another factor that has made it difficult to obtain peace in Northern Ireland is the Hunger Strikes of 1980-1981. Members of the IRA that had been imprisoned were treated like everyday criminals, but they wanted to be recognised as prisoners of war. Prisoners of war were treated differently than normal prisoners, they got to wear there own clothes, aloud to organise their own activities in the prison, they would have freedom of association, they would serve less time for their crimes then a normal prisoner and they would not have to participate in prison work. The members of the IRA that were inside the prison believed they should be know as prisoners of war and get their privileges for a variety of reasons, for one they were jailed from a court without a jury, they felt the situation in Ireland was a war whether the Government would admit it or not and also members of the IRA that had been in the jail before them had these privileges but they were taken away as time progressed. But the British Government refused to grant them these privileges and did not allow them to be known as prisoners of war, this caused uproar with the IRA members that were imprisoned and other splinter groups. A while before the hunger strikes were put into place members of the IRA in the jail went on a thing known as the ‘Dirty Protest' this is were prisoners would cover the walls of there cell with their own excrement, though it caused extra work for the prison workers and made the jail generally filthy it did not have a large effect on the outside world. It did not bring much attention to the prisoner's situation and it was clear a larger demonstration would have to come to place to have a big enough impact to affect the outside world, the prisoners felt hunger strikes were the best way to achieve their goal. The leader of the very first hunger strikes was called Brendan Hughes, but he was not seen as a good leader at the time and made a vital mistake by calling the strike of when he thought the British Government would give in to their demands but they did not. So weeks after the first attempt at a hunger strike Bobby Sands took over as the leader and developed a plan were a new person would go on strike every week, this was so there would be roughly a death a week if the British Government did not give up to their demands, a death a week would have the ultimate shock factor on the public. Even when the hunger strikes began and Bobby Sands, who opted to be the first strikers, was about to die Margaret Thatcher refused to intervene, she did not want to admit to the situation in Northern Ireland as being a war and that meant not allowing the prisoners on strike to be know as prisoners of war, she also did consider there crimes any different as the crimes of the over prisoners, she famously declared ‘crime is crime is crime; it is not political. This sparked outrage across Northern Ireland as there was huge support for what Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers were doing, such support that Bobby Sands was elected as an MP while he was starving in jail. When Booby Sands was announced dead May 5, 1981, he was aged 27 and was on strike 66 days, he was known as a martyr for the Nationalist cause and for the IRA. The national outcry that occurred after his death resulted in more people joining the IRA and a big increase in their activity. The British Government and Unionist were once again considered murderers by the majority of Nationalist people. Over 100,000 people attended Bobby Sands funeral, which was over one fifth the Catholics population in Northern Ireland at the time. The media coverage of Bobby Sands death sparked a wave of support and sympathy around the world for him, the other hunger strikers, and what the IRA were trying to achieve. There were huge protests on the street and violence around the country in support of what the strikers were doing. The Unionist and British response to the hunger strike was reactionary, they tried their best to stop the hunger strikes by trying to half meet the prisoners demands but they did not solve the root of the problem, the peoples pride and passion and their believe that they were correct. Eventually ten prisoners died as a result of the hunger strikes and the British Government proposed that prisoners from the IRA and other terrorist organisations were given many advantages that prisoners of war were given but they still had to participate in prison work and were not presented with the term prisoners of war. After the hunger strikes Margaret Thatcher boasted that that they had not cave in to the demands of the hunger strikers and it was a victory for the British Government. But the political effect of the hunger strikes was huge, the British government and what they stood for were resented hugely again by the Nationalist in Northern Ireland, people saw them as murders and lyres and with the events of Bloody Sunday still on peoples mind the British and Unionist were hated more then ever by Catholics. This effected peace in the long run as well power sharing was not accepted for so long because of events such as this and the passion behind them. Nationalist do not want to share power with the murders of one of there heroes Bobby Sands, and do not want to share power with people that they considered caused through there unfair democracy such violence and disorder in Northern Ireland for so many years, that caused so many lives to be lost. There have been many peace talks based around Northern Ireland over the years, most were to do with power sharing but many broke down because of events like the Civil Rights Movement and hunger strikes. The first major peace talk was the 1973-1974 power sharing executive; this was agreed between the major political parties and William Whitelaw the Northern Ireland secretary. The power sharing executive, known as the Sunningdale Agreement, suggested that a new power sharing assembly was elected to govern Northern Ireland and that a power sharing executive represented the main political parties and guaranteed to share power between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Although this agreement was well received by most parties, the DUP opposed the agreement and refused to join. A general strike was organised in May 1974 by the Unionist Ulster workers council brought Northern Ireland to a halt. This caused the power sharing executive to resign and as a result of this direct rule from Westminster returned, the Sunningdale Agreement had failed. The next attempted peace agreement was the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement; this was between Margaret Thatcher and the Irish Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald. They agreed to an intergovernmental conference that would be held regularly, they would keep cross border co-operation on political legal and security matters, the British Government accepted the possibility of a united Ireland in the future, but only if the majority of Northern Ireland consented and the Republic of Ireland accepted the existence of partition and the principle of consent. Nationalist across Northern Ireland were divided in their reactions, the SDLP saw it as a big chance for progress but Sinn Fein saw it as enforced partition and did not approve. Unionist resented this agreement and would not coincided with what it was saying, big strikes and demonstrations followed the release of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the violence of the people and paramilitaries was worse then ever, the agreement had little effect and therefore failed. One of the most major peace talks was the 1998 Good Friday Agreement; also know as the Belfast Agreement. It was signed in Belfast in April 1998 by the British and Irish governments and was approved by most Northern Ireland parties, the only major party to disapprove of the agreement was the DUP. It was though approved by most of the voters of Northern and the Republic of Ireland. The final Agreement was posted to every household in Northern Ireland and put to a vote in May it included plans for a Northern Ireland assembly with a power sharing executive and new cross border structures involving the Republic of Ireland. There were also controversial plans on paramilitary's giving up their weapons and the early release of paramilitary prisoners. A vote was also held in the Irish Republic, the result was staggering with 71% of people in Northern Ireland and 94% in the Republic voted that the agreement should be accepted. Throughout the first three years of the agreement, Unionists said the Government and major Nationalist parties were failing to live back up the rule for decommissioning of arms, as many paramilitaries such as the IRA were simply not handing over their guns. Moreover, Sinn Fein said the British Government did not demilitarise quickly enough, they stated they could not force anyone to give up arms and that the agreement only stated that the parties should use all their power to make paramilitary's give up their guns, they had discovered a bit of a loophole and arguments quickly started. Eventually after much debating a power sharing agreement has been signed recently in 2007 that the Republic and Northern Ireland are both happy to consent to, it took so long to come to a power sharing agreement that all parties are happy with because of all the complications along the way, a lot of these from the ‘battles' Unionists and Nationalist have fort with one another down the years, this caused a lot of hate and prejudice between Catholics and Protestants which lead to events such as Bloody Sunday and the hunger strikes that represented what the Irish people stood for at the time and there pure passion for what they believed in. All these events left such an aftermath that people would not consent to any peace agreements or power sharing until the situation had cooled down, we can only hope that the 2007 agreement brings peace to a troubled Northern Ireland and the civilians that live there. But will the peace last, and will all the political parties and paramilitaries be able to keep peace and settle down, we can only wait and see what the future holds for Northern Ireland.

Nonhuman Animals - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 32 Words: 9627 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Statistics Essay Did you like this example? Early Modern Perspectives on the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals: Descartes, Kant, and Bentham The trajectory of our anthropocentric thinking on the moral status of nonhuman animals has its roots in classical antiquity and has been guided along by the relatively unchallenged assumption that cognitive inferiority is a relevant measure of moral inferiority. The ancient Stoics and Epicureans, for example, were notoriously dismissive of the commonalities between human and animal nature, and their doctrines are equally emphatic on drawing the moral dividing line at the distinctiveness of human reason. The Stoic and Epicurean doctrines differ in principle on what they define as the source of justice, but the implications for animals are essentially the same: nonrational beings possess merely instrumental value for the sake of human ends and are categorically excluded from the sphere of moral consideration. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Nonhuman Animals" essay for you Create order Although we modern types have occasion to distance ourselves from the unenlightened views of remote thinkers, our current attitudes toward animals have been shaped by an unfortunate history of anthropocentric thinking of which we are scarcely aware. In this connection, forming a clear conception of the overall spirit of early modern perspectives on animals is aided by considering them against the essential background of their philosophical antecedents. The focus of the present chapter is to demonstrate that early modern thinkers argue against animals on grounds that suggest a basic commitment to the criteria originally set down by the Stoic and Epicurean orthodoxies. What should hopefully become apparent in the pages to follow, then, is the ease with which even the greatest of minds succumb to the prejudices of a prevailing ideology. Introduction One reason to deny that we have moral obligations to animals is to maintain that animals are not conscious and therefore have no well-being or interests to take into account. One such denial was developed by Ren Descartes, whose strict dualism and mechanistic view of nature led him to conclude that because animals lack language, they must be biological machinesdevoid of any mental awareness whatsoever. In my discussion of Descartes, I draw attention to two important points. First, despite recent attempts to exonerate Descartes from the charge of holding such an implausible view, I will show that his estimation of animals as insensate automata is made clear and unequivocal by his writings. Second, I challenge a certain conventional wisdom surrounding Descartes, which holds that his principal move against animals is based on his conviction that animals are incapable of feeling pain. Descartes did not begin by looking for reasons to deny animal consciousness and pain; rather, he was dri ven to this conclusion by his reflections on certain philosophical problems that arose between his mechanistic science and Christian convictions. Descartes bases his commitment to the moral inferiority of animals most decisively on the application of his dualist ontology to the Stoic principle of oikeiosis, according to which nature exists for the sake of its rational componentsthe gods and human beings. Descartes conception of animals as pure mechanism, coupled with his fundamental conviction that human beings, as rational souls, have a moral imperative to render themselves the lords and possessors of nature, is entirely in keeping with the anthropocentric spirit of Stoic cosmology.[1] Another reason to deny that we have moral obligations to animals is to maintain that animals warrant our moral concern only insofar as their welfare is indirectly related to the interests of human beings. In other words, we may have duties regarding animals, owing to some human interest involved, but because animals lack the relevant property that would render their interests morally significant, such duties are never discharged out of a direct concern for the animals themselves. The moral system developed by Immanuel Kant, according to which rational autonomous agents are the only kinds of beings to whom we owe direct moral obligations, holds that animals, as things, have only relative value and exist merely as means to human ends. In addition to critiquing Kants account of indirect duties, I draw attention to those elements of his moral system that reflect an implicit commitment to the core assumptions of Epicurean contractualism. I conclude with the suggestion that, despite these unfortunate elements, the second formulation of Kants categorical imperative can be revised to render his system amenable to the inherent value and moral personhood of nonhuman animals. One thinker for whom the Stoic and Epicurean doctrines had little implication for the moral status of animals was Jeremy Bentham, the chief architect of the Humane Treatment Principle, which states that we have moral obligations we owe directly to animals not to cause them unnecessary suffering. Bentham holds that sentience, rather than the capacity for abstract reasoning or language, is a sufficient condition for having ones interests taken into account in the moral assessment of the consequences of our actions. The failure of previous thinkers to figure animal interests into the utilitarian calculus, according to Bentham, degrades animals into the class of things.[2] The major shortcoming of Benthams position, however, stems from his belief that it is not whether we use animals, but how we treat them in the course of that use that should command our ethical curiosity. In my discussion of Bentham, I argue that the aforementioned classification of animals that his theory purports to reject is nonetheless retained by his uncritical acceptance of the property status of animals. I also argue that Bentham is mistaken is his assertion that because animals lack an autobiographical sense of self-consciousness and are therefore subject to a lesser range of psychological afflictions, they cannot have an interest in their continued existence. In this connection, I draw attention to the insights of Plutarch, who, as an outspoken critic of the Stoics, defended the idea that sentienceproperly understood as a means to an endnecessarily implies that animals have a basic interest in both the quality and duration of their lives. Mechanistic Science and Cartesian Substance Dualism Descartes beliefs concerning the mental life and moral status of nonhuman animals arose, in part, from a combination of his mechanistic science, his Christian convictions, and his strict dualism. Often regarded as the father of modern philosophy and chief architect of the scientific revolution, Descartes wrote during a time when the mechanistic view of the natural world was beginning to overturn the unquestioned authority of Aristotelian scholasticism. According to mechanistic science, the workings of the physical universe are governed by the same mechanical principles that govern a clock. If you want to understand an object and explain how it works, you simply break it down into its constituent parts, analyze its properties, and conduct a series of experiments. One problem faced by this view is that consciousness, by its very nature, does not seem to fit very comfortably into a purely mechanical world. Added to this difficulty is the influence of Christian doctrine, which holds tha t human beings are not merely physical but are invested by God with immaterial, immortal souls. If the implication is that human beings are mere machines, then mechanistic science is faced with the problem of circumventing the heretical view that human and animal nature are of the same ontological kind, and that the human mind or soul (Descartes uses these terms interchangeably) has its genesis in the potentiality of inert matter. The dualist view of nature that Descartes develops seeks a solution to the problem of locating human consciousness in a wholly materialistic universe. According to this view, there are two ontologically distinct and irreducible kinds of substances in the world, namely, physical bodies and immaterial minds, and that human beings are composite entities consisting of a mind and a body. Human beings may have a close association with their corporeal bodies, but they are not identical to their bodies; rather, as embodied entities created in Gods image, humans are identifiable with the immaterial souls that constitute their consciousness, thought, and rational nature. By identifying the soul with consciousness, Descartes avoids the reduction of human existence to pure mechanism and provides for the coherence of the soul after bodily death.[3] The human body and the material world it occupies is only a transitory stage in the immortal souls journey to eternal bliss in the afterlife. In keepi ng with the terms of Christian doctrine, Descartes declares in a letter addressed to Plempius that his theory not only distinguishes human from animal nature but provides a better argument against the atheists and establishes that human minds cannot be drawn out of the potentiality of matter.[4] Descartes strict dualism creates a sharp and unbridgeable gap between the human soul and natural world, thereby ensuring humanitys privileged position over the rest of brute creation. Thoughtless Brutes If consciousness is strictly identifiable with the human soul, what are the implications for animal nature? In a letter addressed to the Marques of Newcastle, Descartes explicitly rejects the notion that animals possess souls: it is more probable that worms, flies, caterpillars and other animals move like machines than they all have immortal souls.[5] To even talk about animals as besouled beings is a serious misnomer, since their souls are nothing but their blood.[6] Descartes assertion that animals lack consciousness because they lack immaterial souls does not provide an adequate reason in support of his position, however, since it merely appeals to his religious convictions. Descartes most explicit and systematic denial of animal consciousness relies on the application of the principle of parsimony, commonly referred to as Occams razor, which states that the most reasonable and preferred explanation is the one that provides the simplest account of observable phenomena under the fewest possible assumptions. An adequate scientific theory of animal nature, then, will not deny any facts regarding animal behavior, but will successfully predict and intelligibly explain those facts under the fewest assumptions possible. If we have two competing theories that explain an equal range of facts, but which differ according to the number of assumptions they make, parsimony demands that we accept the simpler of the two. Since it is possible, in Descartes estimation, to explain animal behavior without positing any mental awareness, such an explanation provides us with the preferred account of animal nature. The fact that animal behavior can be explained adequately in terms of mechanical processes and without reference to internal episodes such as consciousness or thought makes it unnecessary to attribute any mental awareness to animals whatsoever. The commonsensical belief that animals are conscious beings is a prejudice to which we are all accustomed from our earliest years.[7] In a letter addressed to Reneri, Descartes expresses great confidence in his denial of animal consciousness, hypothesizing that if a human being raised in isolation from animals (and stripped of any anthropomorphic prejudices concerning their behavior) was suddenly confronted by one, he would no doubt conclude that animals were automatons made by God or nature.[8] Despite appearances, then, animals lack any sort of conscious awareness. Animal nature is governed only by mechanical principles, since it is nature which acts in them according to the disposition of their organs, in the same way that a clock, consisting only of wheels and springs, can count the hours and measure time more accurately than we can with all our wisdom.[9] Indeed, animals are organic clocks, complex clocksclocks created by Godbut clocks all the same. Descartes reduction of animal nature to pure mechanism is best understood in terms of the stimulus-response explanatory model that we normally apply to inanimate objects. Suppose I were to provide a stimulus by running an electrical current through a wire that is attached to a bell. The bell rings. Did the bell-wire apparatus have a subjective experience? Doubtful. We can adequately explain the causal chain that led to the ringing of the bell without attributing a mental life to the apparatus. Similarly, the stimulation of the various humors and spirits coursing through an animals bloodstream can cause mechanically induced behavioral responses that we normally associate with pain, fear, hunger or excitement; however, absent further evidence, we have no grounds for making the inference that animals consciously experience these states. Insensate Brutes If animals lack consciousness, can they still have sensations? Can they still feel their pain, hunger, excitement, and so forth? According to the terms of Descartes strict dualism, the mind, as an immaterial substance, is a thing which thinks, and a thing which thinks understands, affirms, denies, imagines and has sensory perceptions.[10] These conscious intentional states are different ways of thinking, and they all have their source in the rational human soul.[11] Human thought is governed by the operations of the soul, so that not only meditations and acts of will, but the activities of seeing and hearing and deciding on one movementalso depend on the soul.[12] In a letter addressed to Henry More, Descartes acknowledges that animals are certainly alive and have sensations, provided that the former is regarded as consisting simply in the heat of the heart, and the latter insofar as it depends on a bodily organ.[13] These passages should dispel any lingering doubts concerning Descar tes unequivocal denial of animal sentience. Animals are purely mechanical and corporeal, completely lacking in thought; they have no experiential or perceptual capacities whatsoever. Although human and animal bodies are essentially the same, the reason why human beings feel pain and animals feel none is that human reactions to sensations are associated with the immaterial mind and are therefore accompanied by inner conscious experiences, whereas animal bodies under similar circumstances experience nothing but the mechanistic motion of the various humors and spirits that stimulate the corporeal organs effected. This is the case because animals, being no different from clocks or bell-wire apparatuses, are wholly incapable of thought. On this assumption, then, human sensation exists solely in the thinking mind and is different in kind from animal sensation. We have been misled by our anthropomorphic prejudices to draw analogies between human and animal nature and to make the erroneous inference that animal automata are sentient beings with subjective lives. The textual support for Descartes unequivocal denial of both animal consciousness and pain is abundant and unm istakable. Speechless Brutes Descartes underlying assumption that the faculties of abstract reasoning and language constitute the outward marks of the mental and therefore provide the essential distinction between human and animal nature is made apparent in an exchange with two of his critics, Pierre Gassendi and Julien Offay de La Mettrie, both of whom challenge the explanatory power of the mechanistic view when applied to animal nature. Gassendi raises the objection that animals not only experience some awareness but exhibit a kind of reasoning that is peculiar to their species.[14] The differences between human and animal nature are primarily differences of degree, not kind. In response, Descartes mostly reiterates his conviction that none of the outward behaviors of animals lead him to posit mind or reason animals; that animals sometimes act in accordance with reason rather than through or for it is entirely consistent with his hypothesis.[15] Reason is a universal instrument that enables the human agent to respond to the contingencies of life with complex and novel behavior; animal machines, in contrast, act not through reason but from the disposition of their organs.[16] La Mettrie challenges Descartes by arguing that the mechanistic view casts us into a greater skeptical bog than Descartes realizes.[17] Since the physiological processes in virtue of which humans and animals react to various stimuli are essentially the same, parsimony demands that we explain human nature by applying the same mechanistic principles we use to explain animal behavior. Of course, the implication that human mental life consists of nothing more than the mechanical motion of animal spirits in the human nervous system is absurd. If La Mettrie is correct, the mechanistic explanation is self-defeating; it undercuts its own authority and proves itself inadequate as the most reasonable explanation of human and animal behavior. Descartes comments in Discourse V anticipate this objection to his reasoning. The main reason why the mechanistic explanation of behavior applies to animals but not to human beings is because humans exhibit one behavioral characteristic that is most expressive of an inner mental life: a developed and communicable language. Language is the faculty in virtue of which human beings can communicate their detailed thoughts and experiences of pain to one another, whereas animals are incapable of arranging various words together and forming an utterance from them in order to make their thoughts understood.[18] Although animals may produce gestures and utterances that function to express their reactions to various stimuli, and although magpies and parrots have speech-organs that can mimic our language, declarative speech, which is unique to humans, is fundamentally different in kind. For Descartes, the absence of declarative speech in animals is explainable only in terms of the absence of ani mal thought. Since the faculties of abstract reasoning and language are coextensive with the possession of the rational soulthe source of consciousness and sensationand since animals exhibit neither faculty, they must, on Descartes account, be mindless machines. The difference between Descartes estimation of animal nature and those of his critics who attribute mind to animals does not arise from any disagreement regarding the observable facts of animal behavior; rather, Descartes commitment to mechanistic science and his strict dualism return us to the principle of parsimony and his hypothesis that animal nature, understood as pure mechanism, provides the most sensible and impartial explanation of the facts. If Descartes is correct that animals are no different from inanimate objects, then inquiring into their moral status would be pointless; therefore, we should briefly consider whether his view of animal nature is the least bit plausible by contemporary standards. First, we have no reasonable grounds for assuming that the capacity for declarative speech is a necessary condition for consciousness; to argue otherwise, in light of what we now know, simply begs the question. Second, the implication that human infants lack minds prior to acquiring a language borders on the perverse. Indeed, any argument that proposes otherwise must intelligibly explain how infants come to learn a language. Third, we have good reasons to believe that animal consciousness obtains independently of the ability to use language. The obvious structural similarities between humans and animals, coupled with evolutionary theory and a wealth of ethological evidence, demonstrates that we have no reason to lack confiden ce in our inference that animals are sentient beings. Reason over Passions and Lordship over Nature The standard interpretation of Descartes principal move against the moral status of animals can now be summarized as follows: since animals lack language, they cannot be conscious; since they lack consciousness, they cannot feel; and since they cannot feel, they cannot have sensations, including pain; animals are mindless machines, and their cries are nothing more than mechanically induced responses to aversive stimuli. In a letter addressed to Henry More, Descartes remarks that my opinion is not so much cruel to animals as indulgent to mensince it absolves them from the suspicion of crime when they eat or kill animals.[19] Accordingly, we are morally justified in using animals without any concern for the pain we might be causing them and can perform all sorts of hideous experiments on them in order to advance our scientific knowledge. Descartes vivid descriptions of vivisection on live animals, and the enthusiastic tone with which he recounts his findings, suggest not only that he p erformed such experiments, but did so without any moral qualms whatsoever.[20] But however advantageous the reduction of animal nature to pure mechanism might have been for such purposes, the standard interpretation is wrong to imply that Descartes bases his commitment to the moral inferiority of animals most decisively on his belief that animals are incapable of feeling pain. As previously stated, Descartes was driven to this conclusion by his reflection on certain philosophical problems that arose between his mechanistic science and strict dualism, and his reduction of animal nature to pure mechanism is one attempt at a solution. Although the standard interpretation correctly traces the line of reasoning for Descartes denial of animal pain, his emphasis on moral maturation in The Passions of the Soul, coupled with his uncritical acceptance of the Stoic criterion of reason, form the fundamental basis for his principal move against the moral status of animals. One key passage in the Passions of the Soul reveals a glimpse of Descartes conception of morality: I see only one thing in us which could give us good reason for esteeming ourselves, namely, the exercise of our free will and the control we have over our volitionsit renders us in a way like God by making us masters of ourselves.[21] To qualify as a being of moral worth is to have the self-determination to overcome ones bodily passions, which, in turn, requires the sophisticated conceptual ability to bring ones volitions in alignment with what rational principles demand. The possession of the rational soul is what enables human beings to supplant their passions, contemplate the divine, and pursue moral truths.[22] The ontological status of humans as embodied rational souls is directly related to their superior moral status, since their nature most resembles the perfected nature of God in whose image they were created. Irrational animals, in contrast, as pure mechanism or corporeality, are of the lowest order of being and are not worthy of moral respect. Since every man in indeed bound to do what he can to procure the good of others, and since one who is of no use to anyone else is strictly worthless, it follows that animals are categorically excluded from the moral community and may be used as mere means for human ends. This is so because all and only human beings, by virtue of their free-will, can gain complete mastery over their passions and promote the general good. By circumscribing human reason as the moral boundary against which everything else is rendered worthless, Descartes view is entirely in keeping with those of his philosophical forebears. Human beings have the prerogative to manipulate nature and exploit animals as resources to promote the general welfare.[23] Descartes is explicit in his conviction that it is incumbent on human beings, as moral agents, to render themselves the lords and possessors of nature, which is the chief good of human life.[2 4] Stoic Oikeiosis The parallelism between Descartes mastery of nature ideology and Stoic cosmology is considerable, indicating that his commitment to the criterion of reason as a necessary condition for moral worth is but another instance of a tradition of anthropocentric thinking that hearkens back to classical antiquity. Both Descartes and the Stoics subscribe to a kind of perfectionism according to which the purpose of the moral life is to perfect ones soul and exercise ones reason to the fullest extent possible. The Stoics developed their doctrine of the logos, whereby nature advances in hierarchical degrees toward human rationality and its contemplation of the divine, and according to which animal nature, situated far below this pinnacle, occupies a fundamentally inferior place in the cosmic scheme. The logos is a rational cosmic principle that only beings capable of reasoning have the ability to contemplate. Irrational animals, in contrast, whose lives are oriented exclusively on self-preservat ion and whose natures are ruled by the passions, take no part in the logos. This fundamental asymmetry between human and animal nature entitles human beings to use animals to satisfy their material needs. Both Descartes and the Stoics appeal to a conception of divine providence, according to which God, or the gods, created the world for the sake of human beings. Irrational animals, like any other resource, have merely instrumental value for the satisfaction of human ends. Just as the Stoics declare that our mastery over nature furthers its teleological design, so Descartes declares that rendering ourselves the lords and possessors of nature fulfills our God-ordained prerogative to advance the sciences, especially medicine, for the sake of the general good.[25] The Cartesian conception of the cosmos and our place in it, like the Stoic conception, views humanity as fundamentally discontinuous with the natural orderas quasi-divine agents thrust into an alien medium. Descartes remark in The Passions of the Soul that all and only rational beings are worthy of esteem reflects the Stoic principle of oikeiosis, a process whereby human beings come to regard one another as kin and equal recipients of justice in virtue of their shared rational nature. We can extend justice only to those beings with whom we share kinship relations, and since no beings apart from humans possess reason, it follows that we have no moral duties to animals whatsoever. Kants Deontology The main project of Kants Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is to develop a clear understanding of our ethical duties by establishing a supreme moral principle as the basis for morality. Principles based on empirical considerations, such as self-interest or the best aggregate consequences, cannot provide a secure foundation for morality, since they are dependent on particular situations and have only limited applicability. The supreme principle must be a priori in the sense that it must obtain independently of experience, be based solely on the concepts of reason, and command obedience from rational agents at all times in all places. Moral principles are universally valid only if they are based on the intrinsic authority of a priori concepts that all and only rational beings can ascertain. With these stipulations in mind, Kants criteria for moral duties can be summarized as follows: the moral quality of an action is judged not according to the actions consequences, but accordi ng to the motives that caused the action; therefore, an action is moral if and only if it is undertaken with pure motives in mind; that is, from a sense of duty and respect for the moral law alone. The general formula that best meets these criteria is the categorical imperative, which states that we should: act in such a way that we could will that the maxim of our action become a universal law.[26] The second formulation of the categorical imperative states that one should act in such a way that he treat humanity, whether in his own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.[27] Rational agents violate the categorical imperative when they apply a standard to their own actions that they would not endorse as a universal law for the actions of everyone else. They must not treat other rational agents as mere means to their own purposes, but acknowledge their independent value as ends-in-themselves. Willing, Autonomy, and Inherent Value Kants perspective on the moral status of animals is based most decisively on his conception of the faculty of willing: a rational being has the power to act according to his conception of laws; i.e., according to principles, and thereby has he a willthe derivation of actions from laws requires reason.[28] Having a will is what enables rational agents to choose courses of action in pursuit of those predetermined goals that render them citizens in the kingdom of ends. Both humans and animals have desires that compel them to action, but only rational agents, by means of the freedom of their will, can withhold their desires and bring general principles to bear in considering their maxims. The ability of rational agents to stand back at a reflective distance from their situations and universalize the maxims of their actions in accordance with the categorical imperative forms the basis of their autonomy and inherent dignity: Every rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will..beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature have, nevertheless, if they are not rational beings, only a relative value as means and are therefore called things..rational beings are called persons inasmuch as their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves.[29] Kants conception of personhood identifies a category of morally considerable beings who have inherent value as ends-in-themselves. Since all and only human beings have an autonomous will, it follows that all and only human beings are persons. By drawing the moral dividing line at the faculty of reason, Kant follows in the tradition of reducing animals to the status of thingsas mere means to the satisfaction of human ends. Indirect Duties to Animals In the Lectures on Ethics, Kant explicitly rejects the notion that animals warrant our moral concern in any straightforward sense; rather, animals are morally considerable only insofar as their welfare is indirectly related to the interests of human beings. Kant is not implying that we should never figure animals into the moral assessments of our actions, but he does make it clear that our duties regarding animals are never discharged out of a direct concern for their interests: If a man has his dog shot, because it can no longer earn a living for him, he is by no means in breach of any duty to the dog, since the latter is incapable of judgment, but he thereby damages the kindly and humane qualities in himself, which he ought to exercise in virtue of his duties to mankind. ..when anatomists take living animals to experiment on, that is certainly cruelty, though there it is employed for a good purpose, because animals are regarded as mans instrumentsour duties toward animals, then, are indirect duties toward humanity.[30] Kant acknowledges that animals are sentient beings with interests of their own, but because they lack self-consciousness and are incapable of making moral judgments, they exist merely as a means to an end. That end is man.[31] Any restrictions regarding our proper use and treatment of animals come into existence only when our actions carry adverse effects for other rational agents. To better understand Kants account of indirect duties and its implications for the moral status of animals, consider some examples of our duties regarding public and private property. I have a moral obligation not to deface the memorial statue in your town square, since doing so might upset you and offend public sentiments. I also have a moral obligation not to destroy your car, since doing so would violate your property rights and thereby do you harm. According to Kant, our indirect duties regarding animals come into existence for precisely the same reasons. I have a moral obligation to refrain from harming your pet, since doing so would damage your animal property and exhibit those traits of character that society does not wish to promote. I cannot directly wrong your pet, however, anymore than I can directly wrong your car. Both are merely things, according to Kant, so I have not failed in my duties toward either; rather, I have harmed you, or harmed society, or degraded my own mo ral character. By mistreating animals for fun, I incline myself toward violence in my dealings with others humans. Although there can be little doubt that fostering kindness toward animals cultivates moral character, Kants indirect duty theory ultimately denies any meaningful moral status to animals. Incoherence and Marginal Cases There is an uneasy tension between Kants explicit denial of our direct duties toward animals and his circuitous attempt to grant them something like a moral standing. This tension indicates that he finds something deeply wrong with the notion that we can treat sentient beings like inanimate objects, but he is committed to the idea that only rational agents warrant our direct moral concern. Indeed, the moral distinction he draws between what is inherently wrong and what is cruel seems arbitrary rather than rationally grounded. If animals, as things, are not the objects of our moral concern, then how is our mistreatment of them any more cruel than kicking inanimate objects? Kant claims that such behavior is cruel because it displays those traits of character that society disvalues and discourages. This is incoherent. We cannot simultaneously hold in any meaningful way that animals are our resources and that our mistreatment of them has moral consequences for human beings. Furthermore, a convincing argument could be made that the enjoyment we derive from eating animals is as cruel as the enjoyment we derive from forcing them to fight one another. On the assumption that there is no morally relevant distinction between the two, Kants indirect duty theory turns out to be nothing more than an endorsement of the status quo. The restrictions we impose on the proper use and treatment of animals are generated by whatever society happens to regard as an unacceptable form of animal exploitation. Kants theory cannot have it both ways: either the mistreatment of animals is immoral because it wrongs animals directly, or such mistreatment raises no ethical concerns whatsoever. The fact that Kant even addresses the problem of animals suggests that he sees something deeply disturbing in the notion that we can completely disregard their interests, but because his moral theory presupposes that animals are things, he is unwilling to concede that we can wrong them in any straightforw ard sense. Another difficulty faced by Kants theory concerns the question of how moral standing is to be extended on an equal basis to marginal cases, such as human infants and the mentally impaired, who lack rationality and are incapable of moral choice. The Argument from Marginal Cases can be schematized as follows: 1. If we have no direct moral obligations to animals, then we have no direct moral obligations to marginal cases. 2. We do have direct moral obligations to marginal cases. 3. Therefore, we do have direct moral obligations to animals. Opponents to the argument from marginal cases can attempt to refute it in two ways. First, they can deny premise (1) by arguing that all and only human beings possess some property (reason, self-consciousness, language, etc.) that renders their interests directly morally considerable; however, it is not the case that all and only human beings possess these properties, nor is it clear why these properties should be considered morally relevant. Second, opponents can deny premise (2) by maintaining that marginal cases are not directly morally considerable and may be treated as we currently treat nonhuman animals. Virtually no one accepts this conclusion, and for those few who do, I doubt there is much I could offer them by way of persuasion. When we harm an infant or mentally impaired human, we have failed in our moral duties, not because we have frustrated the interests of their caretakers, but because we have wronged them directly by degrading them to the status of things. Some oppone nts claim that when the actual number of marginal cases is realized, it is not so counterintuitive to conclude that the remaining individuals have no moral status. I reject this view. The number of marginal cases has no direct bearing on the moral matter. The claim that harming marginal cases is of vanishing moral significance because they are few in number is both unconvincing and unpleasant. It is a refusal to acknowledge the problem. Once the argument from marginal cases is appreciated, Kants account of our indirect duties to animals turns out to be a serious flaw in his theory. Epicurean Contractualism In her book The Three Frontiers of Justice, Martha Nussbaum states that the social contract tradition conflates two questions that are in principle distinct: by whom, and for whom, are societys basic principles of justice designed?[32] Having dispensed with any concept of pre-political rights, the tradition has created a general image of society as a contract for mutual advantage and personal gain.[33] I will now attempt to demonstrate the following two points: although Kant rejects the contractualist conception of morality, his theory reflects an implicit commitment to its core assumptions in connection with the moral status of animals; second, I will diagnose the categorical imperative as suffering from the same conflation quoted above and venture to provide a viable alternative. The contractualist conception of morality as wholly conventional and grounded in calculating self-interest is one that Kants theory categorically rejects. Fundamental for Kant is the conviction that our duties be discharged without any considerations of mutual advantage or personal gain. Contractualists do not undertake their actions from a sense of duty and respect for the moral law alone; rather, the only significance contractualists attach to mutual agreements, and to social justice generally, is how effectively they advance their interests. Indeed, if the situation between two parties is so asymmetrical as to disallow mutually advantageous cooperation, contractualism places no constraints on the stronger party from dominating the weaker. Kantian agents elevate themselves above the state of nature when they embrace the demands of morality unconditionally and discharge their duties without consideration for what they stand to gain from the outcome. When Kant considers the place of animals in his theory, however, the conclusion he reaches returns us to the state of nature that the kingdom of ends seeks to overcome. By applying a different standard to ourselves when the objects to which our actions are directed are beings with whom we cannot procure some mutual advantage, we violate the categorical imperative by accepting the self-serving terms of Epicurean contractualism.[34] Rethinking the Categorical Imperative Epicurean contractualism and its philosophical successors assume that the subjects for whom the basic principles of justice are designed are strictly identifiable with the contracting parties who design the principles. The principles of justice are designed to secure the interests of those subjects whose capacities lie within normal range with those of the contracting parties (rational beings). Contractualism thereby conflates the devisers of the principles with the objects to which the principles ought to apply. The categorical imperative suffers from a similar conflation. Kant confuses the subjects of the categorical imperative with the objects to which the categorical imperative ought to apply. Despite this considerable flaw, Kants moral theory still provides the firmest foundation for the basic right of all sentient beings not be treated exclusively as means to an end. In particular, I suggest the following revision for the second formulation of the categorical imperative: always act in such a way that you treat sentience, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means. Personhood therefore identifies a category of morally considerable sentient beings who possess value in their own right. Benthams Utilitarianism In An Introduction the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham presents his greatest happiness principle as the correct standard for determining the moral quality of our actions in every situation. The happiness principle holds that our moral choices are right or wrong according to the consequences of our actions alone, and that we should choose that action which results in the greatest happiness for all those individuals whose interests are affected by the outcome.[35] Since pleasure is inherently good, and since pain is inherently bad, whatever motives we may have for our actions are judged only according to the consequences they produce. The moral quality of an action, therefore, is determined by its utility alone. In a pivotal passage confined to a footnote, Bentham outlines the basis for the Humane Treatment Principle, which establishes that we have moral obligations we owe directly to animals not to cause them unnecessary suffering: What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?[36] In contrast to previous thinkers, Bentham holds that sentience (the capacity to experience pain and pleasure) is the only characteristic that is necessary for having ones interests taken into account in our moral reflections. He rejects the view that language and abstract reasoning are morally relevant, since neither faculty is linked to suffering. The notion that animals should be excluded from the moral community simply because they are not rational is arbitrary and degrades animals into the class of things. In recognizing the odious link between human slavery and our mistreatment of animals, Bentham distinctly has in mind the principle of equal consideration, which demands that we treat like cases alike and balance their interests accordingly unless there is a morally sound reason not to do so.[37] Self-Consciousness and Continued Existence Benthams position on the moral status of animals signaled a historical turn against the traditional prejudice that only rational beings warrant our direct moral concern; however, in the same passage in which he claims that the capacity for suffering is the moral baseline for inclusion in the utilitarian calculus, Bentham draws considerable limits on the extent to which the lives of animals ultimately matter: If the being eaten were all, there is very good reason why we should be suffered to eat such of them as we like to eat: we are the better for it, and they are never the worse. They have none of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery which we have. The death they suffer in our hands commonly is, and always may be, a speedier, and by that means a less painful one, than that which would await them in the inevitable course of nature. If the being killed were all, there is very good reason why we should not be suffered to kill such as molest us: we should be the worse for their living, and they are never the worse for being dead. But is there any reason why we should be suffered to torment them? Not any that I can see.[38] Lacking the capacity for abstract reasoning, animals have no sense of identity over time and possess a mental awareness that is confined to a continuous present. They have no recollections of their past and no aspirations for the future. In short, they cannot have an interest in their continued existence. They are wholly indifferent to the durations of their lives and care only for how well they are treated by human beings. When we kill animals for food and other uses, we do them a favor of sorts, since we provide for their needs in the short-term and spare them the harms that await them in nature (it evidently did not occur to Bentham that the domesticated animals we routinely exploit were not removed from the wild but were bred by human beings). Since animals have no interest in remaining alive, we may use them as we use any resource, provided that the suffering we impose on them is minimized. For Bentham, the moral question turns not on whether we can use animals, but on how we sh ould treat them. There are some serious flaws in Benthams assumption that because animals cannot desire, anticipate, or plan for their future, they cannot have an interest in their continued existence. Although science cannot give us a definitive answer on the precise nature of animal mentation, some of the behaviors we observe in animals cannot be adequately explain without reference to something like long-term desires. However, for the moment, let us suppose that Bentham is correct; that is, let us suppose that no animals apart from human beings have the sophisticated conceptual ability to desire, anticipate, or plan for their future. The conclusion Bentham draws from this consideration is that animals cannot have an interest in their continued existence; rather, they can only have an interest in avoiding unnecessary suffering. In the discussion to follow, I give three reasons for why I believe Bentham is mistaken. The first reason concerns the nature of what it means to have an interest. One common understanding of interests appeals to the close connection between desires and interests. In other words, if I have a desire to remain alive, then it follows that I have an interest in remaining alive. Animals, in contrast, cannot desire or anticipate the future; therefore, animals cannot have interest in remaining alive. We might call this the desire-based theory of interests. Fortunately, there is another common way of understanding interests, call it the recognition-based theory of interests, that makes no appeal to desires or aspirations. If Jane has an interest in x, we normally acknowledge that Jane desires x; however, we do speak of some things being in Janes best interests, whether she desires those things or not. In other words, we typically recognize that an individuals life, bodily integrity and mental well-being are in his or her best interests, even if these things are not desired by them. Similarly, our pets may not possess the sophisticated conceptual ability to desire or plan for their futures in the sense that we do, but, all other things being equal, we still typically recognize that it is in their best interest to remain alive. The recognition-based theory demonstrates that interests can obtain independently of and are not necessarily derived from desires. Having an interest in ones continued existence does not necessarily require that one have the ability to understand calendars and contemplate future events. One immediate objection that might be raised is that the recognition-based theory of interests lands us into a slippery slope. If all it takes for something to have morally considerable interests in the sense I have articulated it is our recognition, then certainly plants have an interest in remaining alive, and even cars have an interest in remaining well-oiled. But no one would maintain that plants and cars warrant our direct moral concern; therefore, the recognition based-theory is indefensible. This objection misses one key distinction between animals, plants, and inanimate objects: animals have an experiential welfare in virtue of being sentient. To be a sentient being is to be the subject of an experiential welfare that can be enhanced or frustrated by pleasures, afflictions, and deprivations. Sentience is the minimal prerequisite for having interests at all. If a being is not sentient, then there is nothing to take into account. Plants and cars are things. Keeping in mind the recognition-based theory of interests, consider the following example, which expands on the preceding point. John suffers from a condition known as transient global amnesia. [39] He has no recollection of his past and no thoughts about his future. He is mystified by his own reflection. John lives in a continuous present. However peculiar Johns condition might seem, virtually no one would maintain that he has no interest in remaining alive, or that it is morally acceptable to exploit him for whatever purpose we see fit. Although Johns condition may justify differential treatment in some situations, we would not be justified in treating him exclusively as a means to our ends. We recognize that John has an interest in his continued existence, even though he is incapable of desiring or planning for the future. Third, consider a line of argument advanced by Plutarch. We have good reasons to believe that sentience, by its very nature, logically implies having an interest in remaining alive, since nature, which they rightly say, does everything with some purpose and to some end, did not create the sentient creature merely to be sentient when something happens to itthere are in the world many things friendly to it, many also hostile.[40] Plutarch understands that sentience is not an end-in-itself, but is a means to the end of remaining alive. Sentience logically implies the possession of some perception, hearing, seeing, imagination, and intelligence, which every creature receives from Nature to enable it to acquire what is proper for it and to evade what is not.[41] Sentient animals use their sensations to escape those situations that threaten their lives and pursue those situations that enhance their lives. What Bentham fails to acknowledge is that not all harms hurt. Death is the greatest p ossible harm that one can inflict on the experiential welfare of any sentient being because it forecloses all opportunities for satisfaction, and that is why sentient beings have a basic interest in both the quality and duration of their lives. Gary Francione, who also views sentience as a means to an end, advances a contemporary version of Plutarchs argument: Sentience is not an end-in-itself; it is a means to the end of staying alivesentience is what has evolved in order to ensure the survival of complex organism. To deny that a being who has evolved to develop a consciousness of pain and pleasure has no interest in remaining alive is to say that conscious beings have no interest in remaining conscious.[42] Regardless, common sense tells us that if an animal struggles against a threat to its life and pursues situations that enhance its life, then that animal does desire to remain alive, even if that desire cannot be expressed or thought about through human language. The Property Status of Animals Although Bentham changed our moral thinking about animals and urged the enactment of animal welfare laws, such as anticruelty statutes, that attempt to regulate our use and treatment of animals, the operation of those laws have failed to provide any meaningful protection for animal interests. The human treatment principle, which incorporates the principle of equal consideration, and which requires that we balance the supposed conflicts between human and animal interests to determine whether their suffering is necessary, is rendered meaningless by the fact that welfare laws presuppose the property status of animals. The balancing choice to be made between human and animal interests is illusory, since their fates have already been predetermined by their property status. Animals are commodities that we own in the same way that we own inanimate objects, and they have no value aside from that which their property owners choose to given them. To say that some humans regard their pets as me mbers of their families is to say that they regard them as having a higher than market value, pure and simple. Since animals are regarded as human property, their interests may be disregarded whenever it is in the interests of the property owner to do so. To the extent that Benthams theory asks whether the pain and suffering we impose on animals is necessary, the inquiry is limited to whether the particular use is in compliance with the customs and practices of property owners who, we assume, will not inflict more pain and suffering on than is required for the purpose.[43] Our infliction of suffering on animals raises moral and legal concerns only when it does not conform to our socially accepted forms of institutionalized animal exploitation. Although Benthams theory expresses its disapproval of the unnecessary suffering of animals, virtually none of our uses of animals, for reasons of pleasure, amusement, and so forth, can be characterized as necessary in any meaningful sense. The animal welfare laws that were intended to protect animal interests have managed only to facilitate our exploitation of animals in a more socially acceptable and economically efficient way. From both a logical and practical standpoint, then, Bentham is fundamentally mistaken in his conviction that the principle of equal consideration can apply to animals even if they are our property. Benthams theory simply cannot provide meaningful protection for animal interests. Conclusion The grounds on which early modern thinkers argue against the moral status of animals represent a continuity and adherence to the traditional prejudices of the Stoic and Epicurean doctrines. Descartes inherits from his Stoic and Christian forebears the idea that the world exists for the sake of its rational componentsan idea which informs the terms of his strict dualism as regards the moral status of animals. By conflating the authors of the categorical imperative with the objects to which the categorical imperative ought to apply, Kant inherits the core assumptions of the contract tradition that his theory purports to reject. Bentham comes close to meriting animals a meaningful moral status, but his criterion of self-consciousness and indifference to the property status of animals reflects his adherence to the underlying assumption that cognitive inferiority is a relevant measure of moral inferiority. Combining the utilitarian view that moral status comes from sentience with the rev ised version of the second formulation of the categorical imperative provides the firmest foundation for our duties of justice toward animals. Seeing this mission through will require shifting the paradigm away from treatment and toward the abolition of their property status. References Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Hafner/MacMillian, 1948. Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Edited by John Cottingham et al. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984-1991. Francione, Gary L. Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. -Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981. -Lectures on Ethics. Edited by Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind, translated by Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Nussbaum, Martha C. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, and Species Membership. Belknap Press: Mass, 2006. Plutarch. Moralia Volume XII. Trans. Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals. Trans. Gillian Clark. New York: Cornell University Press, 2000. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 2004. Steiner, Gary. Anthropocentrism and its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. [1] Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Edited by John Cottingham et al. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984-1991, (I: 142). [2] Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Hafner/MacMillian, 1948, p. 310. [3] Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Edited by John Cottingham et al. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984-1991, (I: 141). 3 Ibid, (III: 62). [4] [5] Ibid, (III: 366). [6] Ibid, (III: 362). [7] Ibid, (III: 365). [8] Ibid, (III: 99). [9] Ibid, (I: 141). [10] Ibid, (II: 19). [11] Ibid, (III: 56). [12] Ibid, (III: 54). [13] Ibid, (III: 366). [14] Ibid, (II: 189). [15] Although many animals show more skill than we do in some of their actions, yet the same animals show none at all in many others; so what they do better does not prove that they have intelligence, for if it did then they would have more intelligence than any of us and would excel in anything. It proves rather that they have no intelligence. Ibid, (I: 141). [16] Ibid, (I: 140). [17] Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 2004, p. 9. [18] Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, (I: 140). [19] Ibid, (III: 366). [20] Ibid, (III: 80-2). [21] Ibid, (I: 384). [22] Ibid, (I: 348). [23] Ibid, (I: 145). [24] Ibid, (I: 142-3). [25] By morals I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom. Now just as it is not the roots or the trunk of a tree from which one gathers fruit, but only the ends of the branches, so the principal benefit of philosophy depends on those parts of it which can be learnt last of all (I: 186). The philosophical fruits of the metaphorical tree are mechanics, medicine, and morals, which, for Descartes, are taken to be coextensive. Humanitys technological imperative to gain complete mastery over nature for the sake of scientific progress has an unmistakable moral dimension. [26] Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981, p. 36. [27] Ibid, p. 36. [28] Ibid, p. 29. [29] Ibid, p. 35 [30] Lectures on Ethics. Edited by Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind, translated by Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 212-13. [31] Ibid, p. 212. [32] Nussbaum, Martha C. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, and Species Membership. Belknap Press: Mass, 2006, p. 16. [33] Ibid, p. 14 [34] Now if people had been able to make a contract with other animals, as with other human beings, not to kill and to be killed indiscriminately by us, it would have been fine to push justice to that point, because it would tend to safety. But since it was an impossibility for that are not receptive to reason and share in law, this method could not be used to secure our advantage in respect of safety from other animate creaturesthat is why the only way to achieve such safety as is possible is to take license which we now have to kill them. Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals. Trans. Gillian Clark. New York: Cornell University Press, 2000, (1.12. 6-7), p. 36. [35] Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Hafner/MacMillian, 1948, p.1. [36] Ibid, p. 310. [37] Francione, Gary L. Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000, p. xxv. [38] Ibid, p. 310. [39] Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 144. [40] Plutarch. Moralia Volume XII. Trans. Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995, (960E), p.329. [41] Ibid, (960E), p. 329. [42] Francione, Gary L. Introduction to Animal Rights, p. 157. [43] Ibid, p. 36.