PHI 2396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Joel Feinberg, Siberian Tiger

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 2396
• Professor: Iva Apostolova

Document Summary

The author concludes that what the law reflects is that we have duties regarding animals but not necessarily to animals. The reason is that animals are not genuine moral agents, which means that animals do not have real rights and duties in the same way that humans have them. Let us explore the possibility that animals do not have rights and duties. The common reason to deny rights to animals is that they are intellectually incompetent, in other words, it cannot be reasoned with animals. And therefore, they cannot claim their own rights by making a motion, or appearing in court on their own. What is even more, animals do not understand whether any of their rights have been violated and they cannot respond adequately to that. Feinberg disagrees that the ability to understand your own rights and set the legal machinery toward protecting them, are necessary for the possession of rights.