Erst das Fressen, dann die Moral?

Bachelorarbeit aus dem Jahr 2012 im Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaften – Allgemeines und Begriffe, Note: 1,0, Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: This BA thesis is discussing the arguments of the philosophers Prof. Dr. Peter Singer and Dr. Helmut F. Kaplan concerning animal ethics, based on their main works – both being advocates of the animal rights movement and vegetarians themselves. Singer and Kaplan have been cho-sen not only for their representative status within the anglophone and german-speaking area respectively, but also since Kaplan has based his theory on one major aspect of Singer’s argu-ments while strongly opposing another. On one hand Singer bases his vegetarianism on the grounds of equal consideration of interests which includes the extension of the moral circle to-wards all sentient beings that can feel pain – the one and only feature having moral relevance – thereby using the analogy of racism and sexism to give focus to speciesism, a discrimination or prejudice against non-humans based on physical differences that are given moral value. On the other hand Singer is a preference utilitarian and therefore promoting actions that fulfill the pref-erences (or interests) of beings involved which explicitely involves non-human animals. Whereas Kaplan agrees with Singer’s stance on the equal consideration of interests, he rejects all utilitarian ideas since these might not necessarily lead to vegetarianism. This thesis further-more gives a short review on the history of factory farming, its consequences and likewise the idea and history of vegetarianism, eventually concluding 1) that living a vegetarian lifestyle might likely proving to be the only ethical alternative in the future and 2) that there is a need for the formation of a steady and rational ethical theory which should be based both on Singer’s and Kaplan’s arguments and might already be existing in the shape of Richard D. Ryder’s the-ory of painism.