Shafer-Landau Case

Shafer-Landau felt that Kant's emphasis on rationality and autonomy forces society to be very narrow minded on who is and is not accepted into the Moral Community. If only rational autonomous individuals are acceptable, then infants, mentally ill and animals are left out as none of them have a moral importance. If this is the case Kant felt we owe the rejected no moral concerns and can do as we please with them regardless of what that action may be. Shafer-Landau feels Kant is employing pure consequentialism.

If we look at just animals, if the principle of humanity is true, animals have no rights. We would have the right to torture them as it would be morally acceptable. This is not the case thus the principle of humanity is false.

Kant did believe that torturing or mistreating animals was not right but he did feel that rights require autonomy and that animals do not have it thus they lacked rights. This contradicts itself in my view. Kant believes that harming animals will have a negative effect on us as compassionate people so it would be wrong to harm animals. Kant felt this could lead to us harming people which many believe to be the case in our society today. The issue with this belief is that we are able to distinguish our behavior towards different groups we interact with in our daily lives such as how I would treat my parents vs. a stranger that looked dangerous to me or how one would treat a customer as compared to his or her peers.

If we accept the Kant's premise that humans really do possess infinitely greater moral importance than animals, we would resist hurting our fellow mankind even if we did not mind harming animals. If Kant is employing pure consequentialism, this does not make logical sense as his theory is based on the view that results are irrelevant to the morality of actions.

Shafer-Landau takes issue with Kant's view. He feels it offers no moral protection to wild animals and domesticated animals could be treated any way the owner sees fit including torture. Since Kant does not see animals as in the moral community, his argument can't be supported that torturing is wrong. Animals need to be viewed as possessions in Kant's eyes thus we can get rid of or destroy our animals at our discretion.

I agree with Shafer-Landau in that Kant's beliefs contradict themselves in full circle. You can't have it both ways. The animals either do or don't have rights