Citation

Author Website

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~db71/

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophy/dept/staffprofiles/?staffid=216

Thread

Colin A. Chapman and Michael A. Huffman, Why do we want to think humans are different?

Abstract

Chapman & Huffman suggest that we might change people’s behavior toward animals by resisting an argument that because humans are intellectually superior to animals, they are also morally superior to animals. C & H try to show that the premise is false: Humans are not intellectually superior. Several commentators have resisted this response. We suggest that there are other ways of attacking the argument: The notion of moral superiority on which the argument relies is dubious, and the obvious ways of reformulating the argument are instances of the “naturalistic fallacy.”

Author Biography

Derek Ball, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St Andrews, does research on philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Co-editor of The Science of Meaning (OUP 2018), he is currently writing a book about metasemantics. Website

Benjamin Sachs, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St. Andrews, does research on applied ethics, coercion, political philosophy, and philosophy of law. The author of Explaining Right and Wrong (2018), he is currently writing a book arguing for contractarianism as a political morality. Website

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1432