This is Environmental Ethics: An Introduction

2 TWO EXAMPLES OF MORAL EXTENSIONISM: PETER SINGER, TOM REGAN, AND THEIR CRITICS

2.1 The Capacity to Suffer: The Utilitarian Extensionism of Peter Singer

2.1.1 What Is Moral Extensionism?

A bit like hybrid apples, the philosopher’s version of moral extensionism comes in many varieties, a feature both a great strength and an Achilles’ heel.¹ Broadly, it’s the view that while our traditional concepts of rights, moral standing, and moral considerability were intended for human beings, it may be possible to extend some or all of these concepts to at least some others typically assumed to be outside the moral community, or what some call the social contract. The extension of a moral principle depends, of course, on how we understand to what it would apply, and for what reasons. That project in turn demands that we sharpen key concepts such as “environment,” “living,” “sentient,” “rights-bearing,” “community,” “contract,” and “value,” clearly enough to justify to what a specific principle would apply, to what it would not, and why. As we’ve seen already, this turns out to be more difficult than it seems at first glance. Indeed, moral extentionism is challenging for anyone who takes seriously human-centeredness as foundational to the examined moral life. Any moral agent who seeks to realize value beyond narrow self-interest, who takes “centeredness” as a call to responsibility as opposed to privilege, must offer justifying criteria, and must be willing to wrestle with the potential ...