What is Norcross argument?
Since there is so much needless suffering associated with factory farming, Norcross argues that morality requires giving up eating factory-farmed meat. Perhaps the primary reason that one should cease to eat meat is because, by doing so, one can help stop the suffering that animals on factory farms endure.
What does Norcross think is the relationship between being a moral agent and being a moral patient?
What does Norcross think is the relationship between being a moral agent and being a moral patient? a. All moral agents are moral patients, but not all moral patients are moral agents.
What is Alastair Norcross’s example of Fred’s basement?
Abstract: In “Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases,” Alastair Norcross uses a thought experiment he calls “Fred’s Basement” to argue that consuming factory-farmed meat is morally equivalent to torturing and killing puppies to enjoy the taste of chocolate.
What is the speciesist’s central confusion?
Therefore, the moral status of marginal humans should be based on something objectively morally relevant. Agent and Patient—the Speciesist’s Central Confusion: Why is rationally taken to be so morally relevant in the first place? -Cohen: asserts human differences entail moral superiority.
What is Norcross’s main point in his essay?
Norcross believe that one should not eat meat that is raised in a factory. He uses an argument about torturing puppies and eating their brains. Although his argument about Fred and his extreme cruelty to feel the sensation of eating chocolate is cruel, it puts one in a state of mind to pay close attention to his point.
Why does Norcross think that nonhuman animals are moral patients?
Because humans are rational and non-human animals are not. Humans have different mental capacities that animals don’t have. – According to Norcross, we should reject the traditional view because of the marginal cases that are involved.
What is the difference between a moral agent and a moral patient?
Only moral agents can function as the bearers of moral obligations towards others, while moral patients can be the objects of the moral obligations of others, but need not themselves be capable of moral agency.
How is the case of Fred morally analogous to our consumption of meat produced in factory farms according to Norcross?
Conclusion: Norcross concludes that there are no morally relevant differences between Fred’s behavior and our own when we purchase meat raised in the brutal conditions of factory farms (i.e., nearly ALL meat). But, then, it is seriously morally wrong to purchase (most) meat.
Does Norcross’s argument imply that we should never eat meat if not what meat eating would be morally OK?
What is a moral agent according to Norcross?
Are non-human animal’s moral agents, moral patients, or both, according to Norcross. – Moral agent: if you have moral obligations or apart of the species that can have moral obligations.
What does Frey think about value of animals lives?
Human life and animal life are always equally valuable. According to Frey, why does the absence of agency diminish the value of a life? a. It forestalls making one’s life into the life one wants to live.
Are humans moral agents?
Moral personhood It makes sense to hold them morally responsible for their intentional actions. Ordinarily, human beings are considered moral agents and moral persons. Nonhuman animals, such as dogs, cats, birds, and fish, are commonly held not to be moral agents and not moral persons.
Why human are the only moral agents?
Only Human Beings Can Act Morally. Another reason for giving stronger preference to the interests of human beings is that only human beings can act morally. This is considered to be important because beings that can act morally are required to sacrifice their interests for the sake of others.
What are some differences between Fred and the puppies and eating factory-farmed meat that Norcross argues are irrelevant?
Fred’s behavior is immoral; gustatory pleasure is no grounds for treating puppies that way. Those who eat factory-farmed meat, however, seem to behave in relevantly similar ways, since they eat animals who endure similar treatment merely because they enjoy the taste of meat.
Is it wrong to be speciesist?
But then, it might also be morally admissible to discriminate between humans and other animals, or between dogs and pigs, on the basis of the species to which they belong respectively. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with speciesism even though it is a form of discrimination.
What is the purpose of vivisection?
Vivisection (from Latin vivus ‘alive’, and sectio ‘cutting’) is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure.