Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (4):843-856 (2017)
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The meteoric rise of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology has ignited discussions of engineering agricultural animals to improve their welfare. While some have proposed enhancing animals, for instance by engineering for disease resistance, others have suggested we might diminish animals to improve their welfare. By reducing or eliminating species-typical capacities, the expression of which is frustrated under current conditions, animal diminishment could reduce or eliminate the suffering that currently accompanies industrial animal agriculture. Although diminishment could reduce animal suffering, there is a widespread intuition that it would be wrong. One attempt to justify this intuition has been to claim that inhibiting the development of species-typical functions is wrong, even if it improves welfare. This has often been couched in terms of violating an animal’s dignity. I argue that the dignity objection to diminishment fails. In the first place, it fails to apply to some of the most troubling cases of diminishment, the creation of so-called animal microencepahlic lumps. In the second place, dignity views misplace the normative relevance of species norms; I argue that considerations from evolutionary biology should lead us to treat species norms - such as the possession of typical capacities - as merely a heuristic for rendering judgments about welfare. But diminishment cases are precisely the cases where the heuristic breaks down, and becomes a bias. I close my discussion with a sketch of my Historical Injustices Approach to animal ethics, and how it may help us vindicate our intuition that diminishment is wrong without appeal to species norms.
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DOI | 10.1007/s10677-017-9828-8 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken Problem. [REVIEW]Paul B. Thompson - 2008 - NanoEthics 2 (3):305-316.
Knocking Out Pain in Livestock: Can Technology Succeed Where Morality has Stalled?Adam Shriver - 2009 - Neuroethics 2 (3):115-124.
Dignity and Animals. Does It Make Sense to Apply the Concept of Dignity to All Sentient Beings?Federico Zuolo - 2016 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (5):1117-1130.
Animal Disenhancement and the Non-Identity Problem: A Response to Thompson.Clare Palmer - 2011 - NanoEthics 5 (1):43-48.
Historical Injustice and Reparation: Justifying Claims of Descendants.Janna Thompson - 2001 - Ethics 112 (1):114-135.
View all 17 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
On Respecting Animals, or Can Animals Be Wronged Without Being Harmed?Angela Martin - 2019 - Res Publica 25 (1):83-99.
Is CRISPR an Ethical Game Changer?Marcus Schultz-Bergin - 2018 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (2):219-238.
From Welfare to Rights Without Changing the Subject.John Hadley - 2017 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (5):993-1004.
Using Breeding Technologies to Improve Farm Animal Welfare: What is the Ethical Relevance of Telos?K. Kramer & F. L. B. Meijboom - forthcoming - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics:1-18.
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