Better Socrates Dissatisfied (was Re: Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Mar 6 23:58:50 PST 2000


Ken H.:


>3) Members of the human species who are persons. For simplicity sake. I
>will just
>take the suggested criteria in the quotes below as setting forth the
>requirements for
>being a person: rationality, autonomy,
>and consciousness. As noted earlier this is hardly utilitarian. It sounds
>more like
>Kant than Bentham.
>Only humans who are also persons may have a right to life since such a right
>presupposes that one could envision ones future existence and desire
>future happiness
>etc.

While J.S. Mill doesn't explicitly define personhood as Peter Singer does, his distinction of higher and lower pleasures (defined against simple hedonism of the Benthamite sort) does point to a conception of personhood close to Singer's:

***** It is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs....It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides. (Mill, "Utilitarianism") *****

Singer in fact quotes this passage in _Practical Ethics_ (p. 108) and discusses its implications for his argument against speciesism when considering who is to have personhood:

***** Mill's argument for preferring the life of a human being to that of an animal (with which most modern readers would be quite comfortable) is exactly paralleled by his argument for preferring the life of an intelligent human being to that of a fool. Given the context and the way in which the term "fool" was commonly used in his day, it seems likely that by this he means what we would now refer to as a person with an intellectual disability. With this further conclusion some modern readers will be distinctly uncomfortable; but as Mill's argument suggests, it is not easy to embrace the preference for the life of a human over that of a non-human, without at the same time endorsing a preference for the life of a normal human being over that of another human at a similar intellectual level to that of the non-human in the first comparison. (Singer 108) *****

Unlike "some modern readers" who are put off by Mill's unabashed elitism, Singer wants to endorse it, while squaring it with his argument against "speciesism." How does Singer manage to pull off this seemingly paradoxical act? Singer predicates the worth of personhood upon autonomy, rationality, and self-consciousness (which are more Kantian than Benthamite criteria, as Ken H. correctly notes, but are also very much Millian preferences). By first extending moral considerations to all sentient life forms & then refusing to accord personhood to a being just because the being happens to belong biologically to the species Homo Sapiens, Singer thinks he can avoid "speciesism" while at the same time reserving the judgement of highest worth for lives that offer the promise of intellectual fulfillment. According to Singer's hierarchy of values, we ought to privilege human beings who are persons above both animals who are persons and human beings who are non-persons (and between the latter two, intelligent animal persons are more important than dumb human non-persons, other things being equal). In other words, Singer's simultaneous assault on "speciesism" and preference for intellectual life serves to underscore the stark distinction between human persons and human non-persons. Also, recall that Singer's view of "equal consideration of interests" which does not dictate "equal treatment" is built upon the acceptance of a view that, even among human persons, there are genetically-based intellectual differences of significance between races and sexes. Intelligence matters a lot in Singe's philosophy, despite his concern for all sentient life.

Singer thinks, like Mill, that it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied; it's just that Singer would add that it might be better to be a self-conscious pig dissatisfied than a merely alive fool satisfied, in the interest of equal consideration for animals.

Yoshie



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