Schmidtz on Species Egalitarianism

摘要

In 'Respect for everything', David Schmidtz illustrates and explains both the case for biocentrism and why different kinds of respect are in place toward creatures with different capacities (Schmidtz, this issue, pp. 127-138). On the one hand, all living creatures have a good of their own, and are to be respected as such. Yet on the other, some have the capacity to feel or even to think, while others have neither; and this means that treating them as warranting equal respect is inappropriate. Just because they all have a good of their own, it does not follow that there is equal value in their developing their very different capacities. So we should not follow Paul Taylor and be biocentric egalitarians.