Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics (Article Critique Sample)

The Moral Patient Name Professor Course Date Sagoff (1984) points out that for a being to be termed as a moral patient there has to be mutual respect between these higher vertebrates and human beings with regards to how they are treated including an element of equality based on their interests in the environment that is shared. This means that such beings, in this case animals are considered to have utilities that need to be treated on an equal level to those of human beings. As human beings evolve morally, the author states that for higher beings to be termed as moral patients they should be able to evoke empathy in human beings in a similar manner to the manner in which individuals over time have recognized the rights of liberation movements over time. This according to Sagoff is the only way through which animals will gain liberation and fully begin to be recognized as moral patients. The author points out a number of factors that should be considered in achieving animal liberation and considering them as moral patients. Primarily he points out that cruelty to animals is offensive based on the premise that it is unethical to inflict pain that is not necessary for financial gain to human beings with the main focus being on the manner in which the pain is inflicted on human beings. Additionally, he purports that human beings as well have an obligation to prevent and also to reduce or relieve suffering caused to animals both those that are domesticated and those that are in the wild with the aim of protecting animal lives while respecting and upholding their interests. Animals form part of the moral community which is mainly constituted of the human beings in the eco system. Their differentiating factor from plants who do not fall into this group according to the author is due to the fact that plants do not have a conscience through which they are able to relate to human beings with. The author therefore points out that in viewing animals as part of the moral community it is imperative to understand that the humanitarian approach and the ecological approach will always be in collision since ecologists are proponents of natural selection whose brutal mechanism of achieving an eco-system does not protect wild animals as they struggle to survive including starvation and predation among others. Humanitarians also would rather have all animals surviving without a control mechanism in place as to their population whose increase without being checked will adversely affect the ecosystem. Sagoff therefore proposes various control mechanisms geared towards eliminating the hypocrisy that comes with people purporting that they have a moral ob...