SBU Brooklogue

by Eli Olevsky, May 3, 2023

The rights of animals and those of disabled people have long been an area of ethical discussion. While some argue that humans have an ethical duty to respect and safeguard the interests of the disabled and animals, others contend that human interests must always come first and resort to the degradation of others. Eva Kittay and Peter Singer have contributed significantly to this debate as philosophers. Kittay emphasizes the need to prioritize people with disabilities, while Singer advocates for a level playing field between the rights of humans and the rights of animals. Both positions have their own set of merits, but also each contains some controversial elements I will discuss in this essay. Ultimately, Kittay’s argument is more reasonable and morally comprehensible than Singer’s ethically questionable argument because it warrants a more accepting environment in which all living things are equally loved and appreciated. 

 Kittay argues that part of the job of a mother of a disabled child is to ensure that they are cared for. She asserts, “For her, socialization for acceptance means that you have both to help the child make her way in the world given her disabilities and to help shape a world that will accept her.” (Kittay 398). Kittay believes that mothers have this responsibility because disabled children deserve this kind of care and to be seen by the world as valued. This is apparent in her distress of opposing views, stating, “What are the specific challenges facing someone in my position? There are essentially two. The first is to overcome the anger and revulsion that one feels when encountering the view that one’s disabled child–or child with a particular disability–is less worthy of dignity, of life, of concern or justice than others.”  (Kittay 398-399). Her perspective challenges the ableist assumption that those with disabilities are less valuable or worthy of consideration than their non-disabled counterparts. The importance of this particular position of Kittay’s is necessary to understand the virtuous aspect of her argument. 

A potential critique of Kittay is her biased focus on the value of a disabled person as more valuable than a nonhuman. She portrays this perspective when sharing how she feels about her child being compared to animals, saying, “For a mother of a severely cognitively impaired child, the impact of such an argument is devastating. How can I begin to tell you what it feels like to read texts in which one’s child is compared…how corrosive those comparisons are, how they mock those relationships that affirm who we are and why we care?”(Kittay 397). However, Kittay clarifies she does indeed love animals, although still believing they cannot be compared to children, stating, “I am no stranger to a beloved animal. I have had dogs I have loved, dogs I have mourned for. But as dog lovers who become parents, can tell you, much as we adore our hounds…there is also no comparison when that child has intellectual disabilities.” (Kittay 397). This humanizes Kittay’s perspective of animals, and although she does not see them as deserving of the same love as a disabled child, I believe it is understandable why she feels this way as no mother would ever want their child compared to an animal, which has been used as a derogatory insult for millennia. Kittay’s stance may not be morally perfect in an ideal world that places equal importance on every living thing. Still, it is far closer to perfection when compared to Singer’s general position. 

Peter Singer offers a different take on the ethical nature of personhood than Eva Kittay. Singer bases his notion of morality towards sentient beings on what is known as “The principle of equality,” which is “not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.” (Singer 33). He uses this principle and extends its validity past just human beings, reasoning, “It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern for others and our readiness to consider their interests ought not to depend on what they are like or what abilities they may possess…But the basic element–the taking into account of the interests of the being, whatever those interests may be–must, according to the principle of equality, be extended to all beings, black or white, masculine or feminine, human or nonhuman.” (Singer 34). Singer is challenging traditional views on nonhuman animals that believe humans possessing rationality or consciousness gives them special moral status. According to him, his view ignores sentience as a primary characteristic of moral consideration and argues that simply being able to feel is the only necessity for equality. Singer’s perspective on sentience as a limiting factor for the basis of morality has far-reaching ramifications for how we treat nonhuman animals. Moreover, Singer believes pleasure and pain experiences are morally significant when they affect an animal’s capacity for experiencing pleasure or pain and not just human beings. He asserts, “The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way” (Singer 37). He clarifies this statement to include nonhumans, stating, “A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests–at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road, because it will suffer if it is.” (Singer 37). Similarly to Kittay, the sentiments in Singer’s position display some respectable attributes of his overall view, such as his support for equality and his belief that all living things that feel pain (or have an interest in not feeling pain) are equally morally deserving of care and consideration. However, the troubling sides of his argument, particularly his justification of murder, reveal the paradoxical nature of his view toward disabled people. 

Singer’s position on disability remains concerning for many individuals, including myself. Despite arguing for equality between humans and nonhumans, he seems to believe that sentient beings can have unequal worth, stating, “I conclude, then, that a rejection of speciesism does not imply that all lives are of equal worth” (Singer 54). Singer then justifies the killing of disabled people, first when choosing between disabled people and “normal” human beings and then when choosing between disabled people and nonhumans. “Since pain is pain, whatever other capacities, beyond the capacity to feel pain, the being may have–these capacities are relevant to the question of taking life. It is not arbitrary to hold that the life of a self-aware being, capable of abstract thought, of planning for the future, of complex acts of communication, and so on, is more valuable than the life of a being without these capacities…if we had to choose to save the life of a normal human being or an intellectually disabled human being, we would probably choose to save the life of a normal human being…the same is true when we consider other species…if we have to choose between the life of a human being and the life of another animal we should choose to save the life of the human, but there may be special cases in which the reverse holds true because the human being in question does not have the capacities of a normal human being” (Singer 54-55). From this, we can understand and gather Singer’s belief that when comparing a disabled person to an animal, it is moral to kill the disabled person because they are apparently of less value than the nonhuman. 

Although I can understand and empathize with Kittay’s perspective stemming from the want for her child to be loved and for the world to love her child, it is much harder for me to understand Singer’s purpose for justifying the killing of disabled people. I cannot even understand the purpose of including an argument that revolves around deciding to kill a disabled person, and much less so in an essay that was primarily about the advocacy for the equality of all sentient beings. Singer spent the majority of Chapter 1 arguing how racism, sexism, and speciesism have no place in society because they involve claiming superiority for a certain group of humans solely due to some difference in a characteristic, “Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.” (Singer 38-39). Despite this, he ended his essay with an argument justifying killing disabled people. I believe this is in poor taste, and it completely dismisses what his essay worked so hard to argue, the point that equality is solely based on the interests of the being and extends to all beings, human and nonhuman. Morally, this should include disabled people as well. Because Singer’s argument so clearly does not, this is why Kittay’s argument is by far the more intelligible and morally acceptable perspective. Conclusively, I believe that Singer fails to assume his role as “moral philosopher,” and as a result, a more appropriate title for him would be “hypocrite.”

Works Cited 

Singer, Peter, 1946-. 19771975. Animal Liberation. New York, Avon Books. 

Kittay, Eva Feder. “THE PERSONAL IS PHILOSOPHICAL IS POLITICAL: A PHILOSOPHER AND MOTHER OF A COGNITIVELY DISABLED PERSON SENDS NOTES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD.” Metaphilosophy 40, no. 3–4 (July 1, 2009): 606–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2009.01600.x.