: Peter Albert David Singer
: Adriano Mannino, Marina Moreno
: All Animals are Equal / Alle Tiere sind gleich. Englisch/Deutsch [Great Papers Philosophie] - Singer, Peter - zweisprachige Ausgabe; philosophische Bücher - 14062
: Reclam Verlag
: 9783159619705
: Reclams Universal-Bibliothek
: 1
: CHF 4.80
:
: 20. und 21. Jahrhundert
: English
: 143
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Mit einigem Recht kann man Peter Singer als einen der umstrittensten Philosophen der Gegenwart bezeichnen - doch mit ebensolcher Berechtigung auch als einen der einflussreichsten und originellsten Denker. Sein früher Aufsatz von 1974 stellt unangenehme Fragen: Mit welchem Recht maßen wir uns an, Tiere als uns grundsätzlich unterlegen zu verstehen, sie als Verfügungsmasse zu behandeln? Unser Vorurteil, die menschliche Spezies sei als solche immer vorzuziehen, steht auf tönernen Füßen. Der Band bietet eine Neuübersetzung des einflussreichen Textes, rekonstruiert den Argumentationsverlauf und zeichnet dessen Wirkungsgeschichte nach. E-Book mit Seitenzählung der Originalpaginierung.

Peter Singer , geb. 1946, streitbarer australischer Philosoph, lehrt in Princeton. Sein Hauptwerk Practical Ethics ist bei Reclam unter dem Titel Praktische Ethik lieferbar. Adriano Mannino ist Philosoph und Sozialunternehmer. Er forscht an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitä im Bereich der Ethik und Entscheidungstheorie und leitet das Solon Center for Policy Innovation der Parmenides Stiftung in München-Pullach. Marina Moreno studiert am Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitä Logik, Wissenschaftstheorie und formale praktische Philosophie. Sie ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Solon Center for Policy Innovation der Parmenides Stiftung in München-Pullach.

All Animals are Equal1


[103] In recent years a number of oppressed groups have campaigned vigorously for equality. The classic instance is the Black Liberation movement, which demands an end to the prejudice and discrimination that has made blacks second-class citizens. The immediate appeal of the black liberation movement and its initial, if limited, success made it a model for other oppressed groups to follow. We became familiar with liberation movements for Spanish-Americans, gay people, and a variety of other minorities. When a majority group – women – began their campaign, some thought we had come to the end of the road. Discrimination on the basis of sex, it has been said, is the last universally accepted form of discrimination, practiced without secrecy or pretense even in those liberal circles that have long prided themselves on their freedom from prejudice against racial minorities.

One should always be wary of talking of “the last remaining form of discrimination.” If we have learnt anything from the liberation movements, we should have learnt how difficult it is to be aware of latent prejudice in our attitudes to particular groups until this prejudice is forcefully pointed out.

A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons and an extension or reinterpretation of the basic moral principle of equality. Practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result of an unjustifiable prejudice. Who can say with confidence that all his or her attitudes and practices are beyond criticism? If we wish to avoid being numbered amongst the oppressors, we must be prepared to re-think even our most fundamental attitudes. We need to consider them from the point of view of those most disadvantaged by our attitudes, and the practices that follow from these attitudes. If we can make this unaccustomed mental switch we may discover a pattern in our attitudes and practices that consistently operates so as to benefit one group – usually the one to which we ourselves belong – at the expense of another. In this way we may come to see that there is a case for a new liberation movement. My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own – or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species.

All this may sound a little far-fetched, more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective. In fact, in the past the idea of “The Rights of Animals” really has been used to parody the case for women’s rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of later feminists, published herVindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her ideas were widely regarded as absurd, and[104] they were satirized in an anonymous publication entitledA Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satire (actually Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Wollstonecraft’s reasonings by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If sound when applied to women, why should the arguments not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? They seemed to hold equally well for these ‘brutes’; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case.

One way in which we might reply to this argument is by saying that the case for equality between men and women cannot validly be extended to nonhuman animals. Women have a right to v