Wk 3 Applying Deontology in Speciesism Essay

This week, you will consider how deontology applies to a controversy, dilemma, event, or scenario selected by your instructor. It is a chance for you to discuss together the ethical issues and questions that it raises, your own response to those, and whether that aligns with or does not align with a deontological approach. The aim is not to simply assert your own view or to denigrate other views, but to identify, evaluate, and discuss the moral reasoning involved in addressing the chosen issue.

Your posts should remain focused on the ethical considerations, and at some point in your contribution you must specifically address the way someone with a deontological view would approach this issue by explaining and evaluating that approach.

If you have a position, you should strive to provide reasons in defense of that position.

The topic to be discussed in this symposium is speciesism. Speciesism is the view that human animals (human beings) have more moral value than (that is, are more important than) non-human animals. Using deontology, and following the symposium instructions above, evaluate speciesism. That is, evaluate the ethical responsibilities human animals have to non-human animals. For example, do human animals have a duty not to eat the flesh of non-human animals? From the perspective of speciesism, the answer is no. From the perspective of speciesism, humans can eat the flesh of non-human animals because humans have more moral value than (are more important than) non-human animals. How would deontology come out on this subject? Be sure to provide reasons (rooted in Kant’s actual theories as found in the textbook and in Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals) for any position or point of view you post here and for any response to your peers or to myself. Remember: this prompt is not asking for your opinion on the topic. It is asking how deontology would process this question.