The comparison that Peter Singer makes between racism and sexism, on the
one hand, and so-called 'discrimination' against non-human animals, on the
other, is ill-founded. Racists and sexists discriminate against people who
are fundamentally equal. So called 'speciesists' assert something that is
factually true: that there is a fundamental moral distinction between humans
and other animals.
Humans are clearly animals, evolved beings with evolved minds. But humans
are also distinct from all other animals by virtue of being subjects: rational,
autonomous, moral beings who are, in Kant's phrase, self-willing. Equal rights
derive not from a common capacity to suffer but from a universal ability to
act as moral agents, capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, acting
on that distinction and being held accountable for such actions.
It is true that children and the severely mentally disabled may be neither
rational nor autonomous. But children normally grow up to be full members
of the moral community. And the severely mentally are of the kind that, but
for an accident of nature, would have been rational, autonomous beings. They
are of the kind whose normal instance is a moral being. Non-human animals
are not. They do not have, never have had, and never will have, the potential
to belong to a moral community. That is why we must treat humans as ends but
can treat animals as means - for instance to farm them for food or experiment
on them to develop scientific knowledge and medical treatments.
I believe that in certain circumstances infants born with painful, terminal
conditions should be allowed to die. However, the implication of Peter Singer's
argument is that it is morally acceptable to kill any child who is not cognitively
more advanced than a non-human animal. But why should the cognitive ability
of non-human animals provide the benchmark for determining the moral principles
by which we decide whether human infants should live or die?
Humanity is not invested in a single person, but is a collective label, describing
our existence as social beings. It derives not from our individual selves
but from our membership of the human collective. We only exist in relation
to others, and it is only in relation to others that we make sense of every
individual's humanity. A severely disabled person in human because the notion
of humanity would become meaningless if we did not extend it to the severely
disabled too.
Peter Singer suggests that he provides 'a critique of long-standing prejudices
against those beyond boundaries'. But the meaning of boundaries depends on
context. From an evolutionary viewpoint Homo sapiens is just another
animal. From a moral viewpoint, however, there is a profound distinction between
humans and other animals. The fundamental point with Peter Singer's argument
is the same with any utilitarian philosophy: it may be logical in some abstract
way, but it is not rational within the framework of actually-lived human lives.
A philosophy which deems it immoral to cage a chicken but acceptable to kill
a child makes little sense given the kinds of beings that humans are and the
kinds of lives we aspire to live.