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按，在哲学版看到有人提问，借题灌水一篇。纯粹灌水，不要太认真哟。

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友人提问:

人类把自己的幸福建立在动物的痛苦上对不对，若对，那么人把自己的幸福建立在别人的痛
苦上有何不对？动物与人同样有生命，有痛苦，故有此一比。请高手指点。

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The mainstream approach is that human beings are different from animals, thus different set of moral philosophy should be employed accordingly; human-centrism is taken as a prima facie value which normally requires no defence or justification.

The capacity to feel pain does not alone distinguish human beings from animals. For example, whilst animals live arguably purely according to their instincts and basic impulses, human beings have a far richer intelligence and intellectuality which enable them to the undertakings of rational thinking and moral reasoning, by virtue of which they can develop conceptions of the good and lead a life to pursue the values and beliefs they choose, but animals have no capacity of these. The fact that human beings as a particular creature capable of moral reasoning and moral life, renders them moral status and significances that dictates due moral respect.

The liberal tradition will surely reject the view that people could establish their utility based upon other persons’ suffering, because individuals are born with equal moral weight and moral significance, and no individuals should be subordinate and become a resources of others. All persons, as separate individuals, should be treated with equal respect and concern, and the Kantian formula stipulates that we should treat people as ends in themselves, rather than means to ends of other people.

The natural/human right tradition whould simply say that people are born with inalienable and inviolable rights, and subordinating some people (let alone imposing pain) to satisfy other people’s preferences or ends are often infringement of such rights.

This, however, does not apply to animals, because animas are not human beings and they do not have rights.

However, traditional utilitarianism would justify sacrificing some people’s happiness and interests to others, if this promotes the general good and welfare, for the Benthamian utilitarianism is dedicated to maximise the happiness of greatest number of people. If by sacrificing a minority people’s utility, the overrall welfare of a community is increased, then such sacrifice is justifiable. And in such circumsntaces the majority people’s happiness is indeed legitimately based upon the sufferings of the minorities.

But this is somehow too extreme and contemporary utilitarians tend to rectify this inherent problem of utilitarianism by excluding some irrational, ‘anti-social’ external preferences. the implication is that the premise that some people’s utility can be based on other people’s sufferings will be rejected, in order to mediate the problem that utilitarianism is often counter-intuitive to our daily moral beliefs, and take the philosophy closer to contemporary mainstream ethics.

But animal rightists would argue that animals have natural rights, too: if human beings have rights, why not animals? And apparently animals can feel pain, and even capable of reasoning and thinking (e.g. some high intelligent animals like chimpanzee and dolphin etc). The imposition of pain upon these animals cannot be unquestionably just. As Peter Singer in his Animal Liberation has argued for animal rights from a utilitarian point of view: those which can experience pain and pleasure, should have rights, and should become candidates for preference counting and utilitty calculation.

The perfectionist tradition (a form of consequentialist philosophy which holds that what matters is life flourishing and we should promote flourishing) would say that normally it is human beings who are capable of flourishing, thus they are a candidate of rights and moral respect, but this needs not be the case because some animals might be capable of flourishing, too. This gives the conclusion that animals should not be subordinate to the utility of human beings, since the action necessarily infringe animals’ welfare and flourishing. It is not completely irrelevant to consider the moral status of animals from a reasonable prospective.

Animals rightists thus can take two positions, either to make an deontological argument by saying that animals have rights or moral weight, thus need to be respected and treated with due concern; or take a consequentialist approach (such as utilitarianism and perfectionism), by saying animals can experience pain and thus are candidates of some from of rights and/or welfare concern. Both arguments can be used to justify the position that human beings should not establish their welfare based upon the sufferings of animals (At least some high intelligent animals, if not all)