Is the Argument from Marginal Cases Obtuse? 223

Is the Argument from Marginal Cases Obtuse? 223
© Sociietty ffoorr AApppplliieedd PPhhiilloossoopphhyy,, 22000066, Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2006
Is the Argument from Marginal Cases Obtuse?
DANIEL A. DOMBROWSKI
 Elizabeth Anderson claims that the argument from marginal cases is ‘the central
argument’ behind the claim that nonhuman animals have rights. But she thinks, along with
Cora Diamond, that the argument is ‘obtuse’. Two different meanings could be intended here:
that the argument from marginal cases is too blunt or dull to dissect the reasons why it makes
sense to say that nonhuman animals have rights or that the argument from marginal cases
is insensitive regarding nonrational human beings (the marginal cases of humanity). The
purpose of the present article is to argue that, despite Anderson’s and Diamond’s nuanced and
perceptive treatments of the argument from marginal cases, this argument is not obtuse in
either sense of the term.
I. Introduction
Elizabeth Anderson claims that the argument from marginal cases (hereafter: AMC) is
‘the central argument’ behind the claim that nonhuman animals (hereafter: animals)
have rights (p. 279).1 But she thinks (along with Cora Diamond) that the argument is
‘obtuse’ (p. 296). Two different meanings could be intended here. The first meaning
follows closely the Latin obtusus, which refers to something that is blunt or dull. The
idea here seems to be that the AMC is not sufficiently sharp so as to dissect the reasons
why it makes sense to say (in some limited cases, on Anderson’s account) that animals
have rights. The second meaning of ‘obtuse’ is a derivative one, but it leads to an
accusation that is more negative. The second sense of the term refers to insensitivity.
Here the accusation is not merely that the AMC is not a sharp enough instrument in
the analysis of animal rights. Rather, to say that the AMC is obtuse is to say that it
implies an insensitivity regarding nonrational human beings.
The purpose of the present article is to argue that, despite Anderson’s and Diamond’s
nuanced and perceptive treatments of the AMC, this argument is not obtuse in
either sense of the term.
II. The Argument from Marginal Cases
A useful summary of the AMC is given by Lawrence Becker.2 There is little danger of
special pleading in using his version of the argument in that he is one of the best
known opponents of the AMC:
1. It is undeniable that [members of ] many species other than our own have ‘interests’
— at least in the minimal sense that they feel and try to avoid pain, and feel and
seek various sorts of pleasure and satisfaction.
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2. It is equally undeniable that human infants and some of the profoundly retarded
have interests in only the sense that members of these other species have them —
and not in the sense that normal adult humans have them. That is, human infants
and some of the profoundly retarded [i.e. the marginal cases of humanity] lack the
normal adult qualities of purposiveness, self-consciousness, memory, imagination,
and anticipation to the same extent that [members of] some other species of animals
lack those qualities.
3. Thus, in terms of the morally relevant characteristic of having interests, some
humans must be equated with members of other species rather than with normal
adult human beings.
4. Yet predominant moral judgments about conduct toward these humans are dramatically
different from judgments about conduct toward the comparable animals.
It is customary to raise the animals for food, to subject them to lethal scientific
experiments, to treat them as chattels, and so forth. It is not customary — indeed it
is abhorrent to most people even to consider — the same practices for human
infants and the [severely] retarded.
5. But absent a finding of some morally relevant characteristic (other than having
interests) that distinguishes these humans and animals, we must conclude that
the predominant moral judgments about them are inconsistent. To be consistent,
and to that extent rational, we must either treat the humans the same way
we now treat the animals, or treat the animals the same way we now treat the
humans.
6. And there does not seem to be a morally relevant characteristic that distinguishes all
humans from all other animals. Sentience, rationality, personhood, and so forth all
fail. The relevant theological doctrines are correctly regarded as unverifiable and
hence unacceptable as a basis for a philosophical morality. The assertion that the
difference lies in the potential to develop interests analogous to those of normal
adult humans is also correctly dismissed. After all, it is easily shown that some
humans — whom we nonetheless refuse to treat as animals — lack the relevant
potential. In short, the standard candidates for a morally relevant differentiating
characteristic can be rejected.
7. The conclusion is, therefore, that we cannot give a reasoned justification for the
differences in ordinary conduct toward some humans as against some animals.
Tom Regan puts the AMC in the following deontological terms: if an animal has
characteristics a, b, c, . . . n but lacks autonomy (or reason or language) and a human
being has characteristics a, b, c, . . . n but lacks autonomy (or reason or language), then
we have as much reason to believe that the animal has rights as the human.3 Peter
Singer’s somewhat different (and problematic, as we will see) utilitarian approach to
the AMC is as follows:
The catch is that any such characteristic that is possessed by all human beings
will not be possessed only by human beings. For example, all humans, but not
only humans, are capable of feeling pain; and while only humans are capable
of solving complex mathematical problems, not all humans can do this. So it
turns out that in the only sense in which we can truly say, as an assertion of
fact, that all humans are equal, at least some members of other species are
also ‘equal’ — equal, that is, to some humans.4
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III. The Bluntness Charge Regarding Species Membership
Anderson’s skepticism regarding the AMC in general — whether it be Becker’s, Singer’s,
or Regan’s version — does not stem from a commitment to the claim that animals
are valuable in a strictly instrumental way. That is, she admits that they have ‘intrinsic
value’ (p. 277). But her view that animals have instrinsic value does not lead her to
defend an animal welfarist stance similar to Peter Singer’s position (pp. 277–278). Nor
does it lead her to defend the stronger animal rightist stance made famous by Tom
Regan (p. 278). She rejects the animal welfare and animal rights positions of Singer
and Regan, respectively, largely because she rejects the AMC, which, once again, she
sees as the central argument behind these positions.
Anderson thinks that the appeal of the AMC lies in its striking simplicity, wherein
principles of justice are immediately derived from the possession of valuable capacities,
such as sentience, which supplies a sufficient condition for moral considerability.
According to Anderson, the problem with the AMC is that it rejects the idea that
species membership can be a morally relevant feature. Species membership, she
argues, does not have to be seen as morally arbitrary in that the rich complexity of
animal and human lives is often bound up with the social relations these beings have
with fellow members of their own species. That is, principles of justice ought not to be
derived solely on the basis of the intrinsic capacities of moral patients (pp. 279–280,
289).
However, even animal rightists acknowledge that the species that an animal belongs
to can make a difference regarding its capacities: pigs obviously are capable of experiencing
pain, but it is questionable if clams can do so in that, lacking a central nervous
system, they only have a cluster of ganglia to enable them to respond to stimuli in a
rudimentary way. We have seen that animal rightists influenced positively by the AMC
nonetheless think that ‘individuals must earn entitlements on their own merits’, to use
Anderson’s language (p. 281). Presumably what she means here is that a defender of
the AMC would not automatically see a particular pig as an inferior moral patient
when compared to a particular human being if the individual pig in question were as
sentient and rational (or more so) as the individual human being. Likewise regarding
an individual clam and an individual pig, were ( per impossible) a superior clam or a
nonsentient pig to be found.
Anderson has a different view. She thinks that no fine-tuning of the AMC will make
it sharp enough to deal, say, with the issue of development of language skills. Any
human who can learn language has the right to be taught a language, whereas chimpanzees
that can learn language have no such right. Why? Anderson’s response seems
to be that it is no disadvantage to a chimpanzee not to be taught language because the
characteristic species life of chimpanzees does not require linguistic communication,
whereas the characteristic species life of human beings does require linguistic communication.
Chimpanzees do not need to learn a language to flourish; human beings do.
Is the AMC too blunt here? A defender of the AMC can readily admit that the
interests of an individual depend on its capacities. Further, these capacities may very
well be a combination of idiosyncratic and species dependent properties. The point
to be emphasized is that the sharpness of the AMC starts to cut when individuals are
not treated fairly. Hence James Rachels rightly refers to the AMC as a type of moral
individualism.5 Despite what Anderson thinks about the matter, the AMC is perfectly
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consistent with her attempt to ascertain the interests of individuals, including the
species dependent component of such interests (p. 282).
For example, a pig has an interest in avoiding pain and in continuing to enjoy its life,
but it does not have much of an interest, if any, in cleanliness. (Granted, when pigs roll
in the mud they may be more interested in cooling off than in the ‘pleasure’ that comes
from the mud itself.) A marginal human being has the same interests regarding pleasure
and pain as the pig, but in addition it has a species dependent interest in cleanliness.
Or better, in order to fit in the human community, it is in the marginal human being’s
interest that its hygiene needs be attended. The defender of the AMC would not object
if it were claimed that a marginal human being has a right to cleanliness that a pig does
not have, but the defender of the AMC would object if the marginal human being’s
right to cleanliness was played as a trump card against the pig’s right not to have
unnecessary pain inflicted on it.
To put the point metaphorically, one could imagine a knife (the AMC) that could
carve both melons and pumpkins (the moral patient status of individual animals and
marginal human beings, respectively); Anderson has correctly emphasized that pumpkins
weigh more than melons (due to the species dependent properties of human
beings in general); but this does not establish that pumpkins are worth more per pound
than melons. That is, there is nothing blunt about the AMC.
Likewise a defender of the AMC could agree with Anderson that it is not a good
idea to provide food and shelter to wild animals like bears, which get noticeably bored
in zoos, for example. That is, we do not need to exaggerate the concept of speciesdependent
needs in order make Anderson’s point: the good of individual bears is
attenuated when they are not allowed to forage for food over a wide area. At times
Anderson seems to agree with this assessment: ‘I would argue that the deprivation of
opportunities to exercise healthy species-typical behaviors, or even tempting them
away from such exercise, is, other things being equal, bad for the animal’ (p. 284 —
emphasis added). The definite article here is worthy of notice.
Anderson moves too quickly from the automatic inclusion of human beings into the
realm of moral considerability and moral rights, which is understandable enough, to
the troublesome conclusion that only species membership or social relations that are
peculiar to human beings could vindicate these rights (pp. 284–285). The point to the
AMC is that even the marginal cases of humanity have intrinsic capacities that can
vindicate these rights. These marginal cases of humanity can indeed have their rights
enhanced or expanded on the basis of social membership in the human species, but
such enhancement is not required for moral patient status or for moral rights.
Consider premise 5 in the extended version of the AMC summarized in section II
above. R. G. Frey seems to defend the former (negative) alternative, wherein, in order
to be consistent, we should treat marginal human beings the unfavorable way we now
treat animals.6 Most of the other defenders of the AMC, including myself, argue for
the latter (positive) alternative, wherein, in order to be consistent, animals should be
treated the favorable way we now (finally!) treat the marginal cases of humanity, who
are at least sentient and who have lives that can go well or ill for them, quite apart from
how their lives affect conspecifics.
Singer, however, seems to defend a stance between these two. As he sees things, our
attitudes toward both animals and the marginal cases of humanity should change, such
that our treatment of animals should be more generous and our treatment of the
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marginal cases of humanity should be less generous, especially regarding medical experimentation,
where aggregative considerations seem to encourage us to sometimes
experiment on both animals and marginal human beings.7
Some rapprochement with Anderson can be reached when she implies that, at least
with respect to ‘protection from wanton cruelty’ (p. 289). the intrinsic capacity to be
sentient is enough to deserve protection regardless of which species membership the
sentient being in question has. This is precisely the point that the defender of the
AMC would like to make! However, Anderson is more impressed with the way that
additional protections that apply to domesticated animals, and not wild ones, depend
on proximity to, and care from, human beings. These social conditions depend on
historically contingent facts regarding the particular needs of modern city-dwellers as
opposed to those of hunter-gatherers, etc. (p. 290).
That is, some human beings have historically depended on the killing and eating of
animals, hence it was permissible for them to do so as long as they avoided cruelty in
the way they raised and slaughtered animals. Anderson’s position is becoming clearer:
she defends animal rights, but she thinks that the AMC is a simplistic way of offering
such a defense. She thinks that there is no single criterion of moral considerability in
that, in addition to its intrinsic capacities, an animal’s species nature and its social
relations with moral agents have to be addressed. Different social contexts yield different
animal rights.
We can conclude this section by noting three points. First, despite what Anderson
thinks, the AMC is perfectly consistent with the attempt to ascertain the interests of
individuals, including the species dependent component of such interests. Second,
Anderson is correct to include automatically all human beings into the realm of moral
considerability and to defend the latter alternative in premise 5 above (contra Frey and
Singer). But she is incorrect in assuming automatically that such inclusion can only be
due to species membership or social relations that are peculiar to human beings. As we
have seen, the point to the AMC is that even the marginal cases of humanity have
intrinsic capacities that can vindicate these rights. Third, Anderson is nonetheless
insightful regarding why even marginal human beings have more rights than animals
at comparable levels of sentiency and rationality (due to the special social relations
the marginal human beings have with conspecifics). But having more rights is not
the same as having more secure rights, say the rights not to be forced to suffer or be
killed unnecessarily or gratuitously. That is, the defender of the AMC can appeal to
the age-old idea in moral theory that negative duties have a certain priority over
positive ones; this in no way, however, is meant to eradicate or even trivialize the
positive duties.
IV. The Insensitivity Charge
Frey’s utilitarian view that we should, in order to be consistent, treat the marginal
cases of humanity the way we now treat animals with comparable cognitive and affective
abilities constitutes a throwing out of the baby with the nonhuman bath water (the
metaphor is Evelyn Pluhar’s). But what is objectionable in Frey is not the AMC, but
the familiar utilitarian view that the interests of sentient individuals can be sacrificed
for an aggregative good.
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This criticism applies to the animal welfarist view of Singer as well. Whereas an
animal rightist defender of the AMC may retain our present attitudes toward the
marginal cases of humanity and try to change our attitudes toward animals, utilitarians
like Frey and Singer do something quite different. They either retain our present
attitudes toward animals and try to change our attitudes toward the marginal cases of
humanity (Frey) or change our present attitudes toward both the marginal cases of
humanity and animals (Singer). That is, Anderson and Diamond can rightly fear that
Frey and Singer are obtuse (in the insensitivity sense of the term) toward the marginal
cases of humanity.
To be precise, Singer’s view is that mentally developed animals (e.g. chimpanzees)
should be given the same consideration and treatment as marginal human beings at the
same cognitive and affective levels, and mentally undeveloped animals (e.g. chickens)
should be given the same consideration and treatment as (the most marginal of)
marginal human beings at the same cognitive and affective levels. In fact, the implication
of Singer’s view is that the mentally undeveloped animals and comparable human
beings are replaceable: they can be raised for the table (in the case of animals) or used,
say, in lethal medical experiments that have aggregative benefits (in the cases of both
mentally undeveloped animals and marginal human beings at the same cognitive
and affective levels) as long as their lives are as pleasant as possible, they are killed
humanely, and they are replaced with comparable beings.8
The point I wish to emphasize is that Anderson and Diamond would be correct to
think that the views of Frey and Singer are obtuse (in the insensitivity sense of the
term) regarding marginal human beings. But I also wish to emphasize that this obtuseness
is not due to the AMC, but to the implications of Frey’s and Singer’s utilitarianism
and to the latter’s belief that utilitarian reasoning not only permits, but entails,
a commitment to the replaceability argument.
Note that we all have a strong intuition (indeed an extremely strong intuition) that
killing and eating marginal human beings is grossly immoral. Diamond correctly emphasizes
this point (e.g. p. 95). In this regard Diamond is even more emphatic than
Anderson, hence they ought not to be lumped together in every respect. That is,
Diamond more than Anderson emphasizes the claim that our refusal to eat cognitively
impaired human beings is not the result of our consideration of moral patient status,
but is rather the result of our shared human (Wittgensteinian) practices, especially
linguistic ones. Consider, however, Regan’s different way of handling the intuition that
killing and eating human beings is grossly immoral:
1. Humans, including those who are marginal, have rights and therefore belong in the
class of right-holders.
2. However, given the most reasonable criterion of the possession of rights, one that
enables us to include marginal humans in the class of right-holders, this same
criterion will require us to include some (but not all) animals in this class.
3. Therefore, if we include these marginal humans in the class of right-holders, we
must also include some animals in this class.9
This version of the AMC is obviously daring in the sense that it reaches the radical
(for some) conclusion that animals with central nervous systems have rights, but
it should also be noted that it is intellectually conservative in the sense that it works
on the assumption that we all share (including Anderson and Diamond) that it is
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unconscionable to kill and eat marginal human beings. This epistemological conservativism
should impress Anderson and especially Diamond (in that the latter emphasizes
that human beings are not to be eaten) more than it does.
The rights that we acknowledge in marginal cases of humanity cannot be accounted
for on the basis of rationality, sophisticated language use, etc. If we say that marginal
cases of humanity have these rights merely because we stipulate that we do (the
apparent view of Anderson and Diamond), however, we account for neither the existence
of, nor the strength of, our intuition that they can be violated. If sentiency is a
sufficient condition for having rights, as I think it is, then sentient animals have them
as well. It is on this basis that we can explain both why we think that marginal human
beings can be the victims of gross injustice (hence a defender of the AMC need not be
insensitive to them) and why morally reflective people (including meat-eaters!) cringe
when they imagine cows being cut down in the abattoir.
One of the reasons why Singer is open to Anderson’s and Diamond’s charge of
obtuseness is that his replaceability argument is overly atomistic in a Humean sense.
This is because as long as the moment of death is painless, Singer is willing to consider
moral replaceability of animals and marginal human beings. On my view, however,
influenced positively by Regan and Rachels, marginal human beings and animals are,
albeit short of being Aristotelian substances, nonetheless the sorts of beings who to
varying degrees have memories of the past and expectations or hopes or possibilities
regarding the future. By avoiding this atomism one can avoid the charge of obtuseness
in the insensitivity sense. As Regan has famously put the point, both marginal cases of
humanity and animals have lives of their own, rather than lives that are valuable in a
strictly instrumental sense. We have seen that even Anderson argues against the strictly
instrumental status of marginal cases of humanity and animals.
Some might object at this point that Regan-like defenders of the AMC are more
than willing to take seriously their pretheoretical intuition that it is impermissible to
harm marginal cases of humanity, but not that it is permissible to experiment painfully
on animals if data valuable for human beings cannot be obtained otherwise. There is
no necessary inconsistency here, however, for whereas the former intuition is considered,
the latter is largely unconsidered. That is, on reflection and after dialectical
examination, we certainly do not want to give up the pretheoretical intuition that we all
have that it is wrong to harm marginal cases of humanity, but once examined critically
it is by no means clear that we can with equanimity hold onto our pretheoretical
intuition regarding the permissibility of painful experimentation on animals. Surely
some people can assent to this pretheoretical intuition, but only with a nervous twitch.
The twitch is due to the fact that we all agree that the infliction of pain is morally
relevant if anything is morally relevant.
One of the problems with the criticisms of the AMC offered by Anderson and
Diamond is that they place too much importance on actually existing moral communities
and their ability to legislate into existence moral boundaries; ideal moral communities
as discovered by rational analysis (e.g. through consideration of the AMC)
are ignored or denigrated. The danger here is that this view could lead to the reification
of certain traditional prejudices. It is true that if I can save only my child or a stranger
but not both in some in extremis situation like a burning building, then I should save
my child. Nonetheless, this hierarchy of judgment or partiality of affection does not
license tyranny such that I may kill the stranger so as to benefit my child. Likewise,
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partiality of affection perhaps enables us to justify saving a conspecific rather than an
animal in an in extremis or triage situation (although even here the issue is complicated
if the animal has more sophisticated cognitive and affective traits than the conspecific),
but it does not enable us to justify killing an animal so as to benefit a conspecific, much
less to satisfy one’s taste for meat.
Anderson and Diamond are to be thanked, however, for highlighting the fact that,
once the minimal rights that the AMC affords to marginal cases of humanity and
animals are acknowledged (e.g. the right not to receive gratuitous suffering or the right
to life), it is still permissible to put in place additional protections regarding marginal
cases of humanity. That is, as I see things in contrast to Anderson and Diamond,
partial affections are legitimate in morality as long as they are ancillary to, rather than
replacements for, impartial ascription of basic rights.
A defense of the AMC does not have to be based on the idea that there are
independently existing facts out there that dictate our morality, as in some versions of
natural law theory. Rather, our values and obligations can legitimately be derived from
facts if the facts to which they refer are the relevant ones and if the values derived from
these facts are defensible ones.10 Or again, a defender of the AMC need not commit to
the naïve view that facts wear their relevance on their face and that values can be
immediately (Anderson’s word) derived from them. That is, the AMC is an argument
that gives reasons for the defensibility of the claims that animals have basic rights due
to their sentiency and that species membership is irrelevant when considering moral
patient status itself.
By way of contrast, critics of the AMC like Anderson and Diamond seem to move
illegitimately from the claim that human decision-making is a necessary condition for
there being rights to the claim that it constitutes a sufficient condition for there being
rights. Another way to put the point is to say that Anderson’s and Diamond’s views
are overly nominalistic when they hold that beings acquire status as moral patients
(entirely?) because we say that they deserve such status. Human beings on this view
have the Orpheus-like ability to bring moral patient status to life merely by saying that
it should be so. The remedy to such an approach does not run to the other extreme,
where it is assumed that moral patient status is a fact ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered.
Rather, human beings are the measurers of nature, but not necessarily the
measure; they are the primary beholders of value in nature, but not necessarily the only
holders of such value, to use Holmes Rolston’s language.11
It should now be apparent that, despite my criticisms of Anderson’s and Diamond’s
rejections of the AMC, I think that they are helpful in identifying the problems associated
with Singer’s and especially Frey’s uses of the AMC. Once again, these problems
are not due to the AMC itself, but to familiar difficulties with utilitarianism. Neither
Anderson, Diamond, nor I share Singer’s and especially Frey’s view that certain
human beings and animals can be used for the aggregative benefit of others. In the
present context there is no need to repeat all of Regan’s, Pluhar’s, and Clark’s quite
legitimate arguments against the aggregative logic of utilitarianism.12 To put the point
cautiously, if there are problems with performing experiments on certain human beings
without their consent for the good of other human beings, as Anderson and Diamond
understandably assume, then Singer’s and Frey’s positions exhibit these problems.
However, it is possible to defend the AMC without relying on a theory that devalues
the worth of cognitively impaired human beings.
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V. Conclusion
In is quite understandable why some people are sensitive to the possibility that others
might exhibit insensitivity regarding marginal cases of humanity. This is because
marginal cases of humanity have been treated deplorably in the past and because,
for example, a United Nations statement declaring intellectually disabled beings to
be morally equal to the rest of humanity did not occur until the 1970s, with other
historically marginalized groups receiving attention years before. In that my wife and I
have a thirty-year old adopted son who is developmentally delayed, I especially appreciate
this sensitivity.13
But as philosophers we must be on the alert to continue the Aristotelian project of
treating like cases alike and different cases differently in proportion to the differences.
James Rachels is on the mark regarding the AMC (he calls it ‘moral individualism’) in
the following quotation:
Aristotle knew that like cases should be treated alike, and different cases
should be treated differently; so when he defended slavery he felt it necessary
to explain why slaves are ‘different’. Therefore, if the doctrine of [anthropocentrism]
was to be maintained, it was necessary to identify the differences
between humans and other animals that justified the difference in moral
status. . . .Moral individualism is . . . nothing but the consistent application of
the principle of equality to decisions about what should be done . . . about our
relation to the other creatures that inhabit the earth.14
In short, Anderson and Diamond do not adequately enough tell us how animals are
different in morally relevant ways from some members of our own species.
I would like to end on a conciliatory note. It seems to me that my own defense of the
AMC and the criticisms of this argument made by Anderson and Diamond are both
compatible with the method of reflective equilibrium made famous by Rawls regarding
theory of justice, but which is of use in ethics generally. The idea is that we should first
carefully examine all of the relevant intuitions that we have and the judgments that we
make, asking which are the most basic or which are the considered judgments. Then
we should investigate different theories that claim to organize these intuitions and
judgments. Nothing is held to be fixed. The goal is to seek consistency and fit among
both intuitions/judgments and theory when all are taken together as a whole.
It is crucial in this method that we be able to revise our considered judgments, and
even our intuitions, if such revision is required by a powerful theory. It is also possible
that we might revise, or even reject, a theory in the face of considered judgments or
intuitions. Neither component is fixed in advance. It is my hope that some small, yet
real, contribution to ethics can be made by the AMC. As a result of this theoretical
argument, which has as its aim the familiar goal of logical consistency, closer attention
should be paid to our common sympathetic intuition in the face of the suffering of
both animals and the marginal cases of humanity. Both Anderson and Diamond should
be seen by animal rightists as dialectical partners rather than as antagonists. That is,
animal rightists can deliberate together with them, from the Latin deliberare: to weigh
in mind, to ponder, to thoroughly consider.
Daniel A. Dombrowski, Seattle University Seattle, WA 98122. USA.
DDOMBROW@seattleu.edu
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NOTES
1 See Elizabeth Anderson, ‘Animal rights and the values of nonhuman life’, in C. Sunstein and M. Nussbaum
(eds.) Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Also see
Cora Diamond’s essay in the same volume: ‘Eating meat and eating people’. Numbers in parentheses in
the text refer to page numbers in these two articles. It should be noted that Diamond’s essay originally
appeared in Philosophy 53 (1978). It should also be noted that, despite Anderson’s understandable claim
that the AMC is the central argument for animal rights, a claim shared by Dale Jamieson and others, some
animal rightists oppose the AMC. See, e.g. Steve Sapontzis, Morals, Reason, and Animals (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1987). Finally, see Richard Arneson, ‘What, if anything, renders all humans
morally equal?’, in D. Jamieson (ed.) Singer and His Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 103–128.
2 See Lawrence Becker, ‘The priority of human interests’, in H. Miller and W. Williams (eds.) Ethics and
Animals (Clifton, NJ: Humana, 1983), pp. 226–227. Also see my Babies and Beasts: The Argument from
Marginal Cases (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997).
3 See Tom Regan, ‘Fox’s critique of animal liberation’, Ethics 88 (1978): 126–133. Also see Regan’s The
Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
4 See Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (NY: New York Review, 1975), p. 265.
5 See James Rachels, Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990).
6 See R. G. Frey, Rights, Killing, and Suffering (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), pp. 115–116. Also see
L. P. Francis and Richard Norman, ‘Some animals are more equal than others’, Philosophy 53 (1978):
especially 509–511.
7 See Peter Singer, ‘Animals and the value of lLife’, in Tom Regan (ed.) Matters of Life and Death (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1980), pp. 239–240.
8 See my ‘The replaceability argument’, Process Studies 30 (2001): 22–35.
9 Tom Regan, ‘An examination and defense of one argument concerning animal rights’, Inquiry 22 (1979):
196.
10 See Mary Midgley, ‘The absence of a gap between facts and values’, Aristotelian Society: Supplementary
Volume 54 (1980).
11 See Holmes Rolston, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1988), e.g. p. 32.
12 On Regan’s work, see notes 3 and 9 above. Also see Evelyn Pluhar, Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance
of Human and Nonhuman Animals (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995); and Stephen
R. L. Clark, The Moral Status of Animals (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), as well as Clark’s Animals and Their
Moral Standing (London: Routledge, 1997).
13 It does not escape notice that several scholars (e.g. Stephen R. L. Clark, Steve Sapontzis) have criticized
the language regarding ‘marginal cases’. These thinkers find this language offensive because they think it
implies that certain cognitively impaired individuals are on the margins of humanity and hence do not
require moral consideration from us. But this runs completely contrary to the spirit of the argument as I
defend it. Because the language regarding marginal cases offends some scholars, however, I would be
willing to change it were it not the lingua franca of much of the contemporary philosophical literature
regarding animal rights. This has been the case since Jan Narveson coined the phrase ‘argument from
marginal cases’ in ‘Animal rights’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1977). Perhaps a better label would
be ‘argument from species overlap’, but it is unlikely that, at this late date, this improved label would
replace the one that is currently in use.
14 Rachels, op. cit., pp. 196–197.