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Making Better Sense of Animal Disenhancement: A Reply to Henschke

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Abstract

In "Making Sense of Animal Disenhancement" Adam Henschke provides a framework for fully understanding and evaluating animal disenhancement. His conclusion is that animal disenhancement is neither morally nor pragmatically justified. In this paper I argue that Henschke misapplies his own framework for understanding disenhancement, resulting in a stronger conclusion than is justified. In diagnosing his misstep, I argue that the resources he has provided us, combined with my refinements, result in two new avenues for inquiry: an application of concepts from political theory to disenhancement, and an inquiry in to the mode of valuation that underlies industrial animal agriculture and disenhancement proposals.

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Notes

  1. I would like to thank an anonymous referee for encouraging me to explore this issue in more detail.

  2. In particular, various studies have shown a link between the affective dimension of pain and the AC1 and AC8 enzymes, the peptide P311, and the SCN9A gene [34, 31, 3].

  3. The assumption, noted explicitly by Shriver in reference to a personal communication with one of the scientists working with the ‘knockout mice’ is that at least some of the genes, peptides or enzymes relevant to the affective dimension of pain in mice will ‘play a similar role in all mammals.’ [27: 118]

  4. I would like to thank an anonymous referee for encouraging me to note some of the underlying assumptions at work in these proposals that may be making it easier to reach the conclusion that disenhancement is justified.

  5. It should be noted, as indicated to me by an anonymous referee, that disenhancement has also been discussed in the context of companion animals, but of course the reasons are likely much different in such cases.

  6. Interestingly, the success of this argument depends on it taking quite a bit of time to travel the hundreds of kilometers to Chicago, and an assumption that the paperclips are not worth such a journey. Were there to be a very quick mode of transportation that took Jack to Chicago in, say, 5 min, then it is possible that buying paperclips would make sense of the action. This seems to strengthen Henschke and Korsgaard’s claim that context matters, but even the wider context matters—that our modes of transport are such that hundreds of kilometers is a lengthy journey is relevant to determining which reason makes sense of the action.

  7. It is important to note here that there is not a clear settled position on what the ideal/non-ideal distinction is, but rather a family of various ways to deploy the distinction. So I do not intend to claim that this is the ideal/non-ideal distinction, but is rather one version of that distinction. For more on the complexities and vagueness of the ideal/nonideal distinction see, e.g., [28].

  8. This is clear from Shriver’s deployment of Singer’s argument. Shriver’s argument for disenhancement takes the basic principle of reducing unnecessary suffering that Singer uses, but combines it with the empirical claim that meat consumption will continue in order to justify his conclusion. However, Ferrari has offered an alternative reading of Singer’s view that she believes avoids this result [5: 71]. I have my doubts about animals having the conceptual capacity to have a preference for a ‘Peopled Universe’ rather than a ‘Nonsentient one’, and thus disagree with Ferrari’s analysis on this point.

  9. Of course this does not mean that all-things-considered the racist’s preference wins out.

  10. Ferrari [5] has rightly noted that Regan does discuss his own ‘kingdom of ends’—a regulative ideal of what the world would look like if we interacted with animals appropriately [22]. It looks as though such an ideal could work exactly as I am discussing here, but I am skeptical that Regan’s theory provides any resources for us to use that regulative ideal when deciding whether or not an action such as disenhancement is permissible. For Regan, as for most deontologists, it seems we evaluate such an action not based on how close it is to the ideal but rather whether any wrongs are committed in a more narrow sense. This is especially true given the agent focus of most deontological theories.

  11. To clarify: we often reflect on historical instances of oppressed peoples fighting an unjust system and evaluate their actions (or at least some of them) positively, even if they include violence or other actions that would not be approved of in circumstances that do not involve oppression or injustice. So my point is much like Henschke’s regarding a soldier fighting a just war—an action that is generally evaluated negatively may be positively evaluated once certain contextual features are brought to light.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tatiana Gracyk, Ben Bryan, Scott Simmons, and Alexander Francis for comments on earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to acknowledge the helpful feedback of two anonymous referees. Finally, I need to thank John Basl, Richard Chappell, and Matthew Pianalto for their varied assistance in my formulation of the arguments in this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University, 320 Shatzel Hall, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, USA

    Marcus Schultz-Bergin

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Schultz-Bergin, M. Making Better Sense of Animal Disenhancement: A Reply to Henschke. Nanoethics 8, 101–109 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-014-0190-1

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