PUPPIES, PIGS AND PEOPLE

Introduction to Philosophy First Paper: Puppies, Pigs, and People

Purpose The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your comprehension of an original piece of

moral philosophy.

Skills This assignment will help you practice the following skills:

• Reading comprehension.

• Identifying the parts of an argument.

• Critiquing the force of an argument.

• Presenting a philosophical idea in writing.

Knowledge This assignment will help you become familiar with the following content:

• Animal Ethics

• Logic

Task In this paper you will be summarizing and explaining Alastair Norcross’s argument that it is

immoral for consumers eat the meat of factory-farmed animals.

Step One

Begin by describing the puppy torture story and its purpose in Alastair Norcross’s paper.

What is Fred doing and why? How is Fred supposedly analogous to your average

American meat eater? (2 paragraphs minimum, 20 points.)

Step Two

At the end of section 1, Norcross says “No decent person would even contemplate

torturing puppies merely to enhance a gustatory experience… If we are prepared to

condemn Fred for torturing puppies merely to enhance his gustatory experiences,

shouldn’t we similarly condemn the millions who purchase and consume factory-raised

meat? Are there any morally significant differences between Fred’s behavior and their

behavior?”

This can be paraphrased as the following premises:

1. What Fred is doing when he tortures puppies for his gustatory pleasure is

wrong.

2. If what Fred is doing when he tortures puppies for his gustatory pleasure is

wrong, then either what the average American meat eater does when they buy

factory farmed meat is wrong or there is some morally significant difference

between Fred’s behavior and theirs.

At the end of section 2, Norcross says “I have been unable to discover any morally

relevant differences between the behavior of Fred, the puppy torturer, and the behavior

of the millions of people who purchase and consume factory-raised meat, at least those

who do so in the knowledge that the animals live lives of suffering and deprivation. If

morality demands that we not torture puppies merely to enhance our own eating

pleasure, morality also demands that we not support factory farming by purchasing

factory-raised meat.”

This can be paraphrased as the following premises:

3. Either what the average American meat eater does when they buy factory

farmed meat is wrong or there is some morally significant difference between

Fred’s behavior and theirs.

4. There are no morally significant differences between Fred’s behavior and the

behavior of the average American meat eater when they buy factory farmed meat.

And although he himself leaves his conclusion implicit, we can state it thus:

5. Therefore, what the average American meat eater does when they buy factory

farmed meat is wrong.

Put these premises and the conclusion into your paper as a deductively valid argument,

and explain what it means that the argument is valid. You have permission to copy

statements 1-5 verbatim without citing this prompt. (2 paragraphs, 20 points.)

This section depends on ideas in logic that we haven’t covered in-depth. So, all you need

to do in this section is to copy the argument consisting of 1-5 into your essay (keep the

numbers), and explain that the argument is valid since, if all of its premises are true,

then its conclusion must be true as well, and therefore, if we want to reject Norcross’s

conclusion, we must also reject one of his premises.

Step Three

Describe three of the possible differences between us and Fred that Norcross considers

in section 2 and explain how he dismisses each possibility as ingenuous or morally

irrelevant. (3 paragraphs, 30 points.)

Step Four

Although he himself does not endorse it, in section 4 Norcross introduces the idea he

calls “the rationality gambit” that says that humans possess a moral status superior to

that of animals because humans possess superior rationality (i.e. humans are much

smarter than animals). Norcross quotes Bonnie Steinbock, Mary Anne Warren, and Carl

Cohen defending this idea. In your own words, describe the reasons these philosophers

give for thinking that our superior rationality also gives us a moral status superior to that

of animals. (2 paragraphs minimum, 20 points.)

Step Five

Norcross claims that rationality is not the defining condition of moral worth. Explain

why. Be sure to mention marginal cases, the concepts of moral patienthood, moral

agenthood, their definitions, and which one applies to animals. (2 paragraphs minimum,

20 points.)

Step Six

Do you agree or disagree with Norcross’s conclusion that the vast majority of meat eaters

in America (and elsewhere) are no better than a puppy torturer? If you agree with him,

will this change what you eat and how you think of meat eaters? How so, and why or why

not? If you disagree with his conclusion then there must be something wrong with his

premises. Which of his premises would you reject and why? (1 paragraph minimum, 20

points.)

Criteria for Success Your paper must be in double-spaced, professional 12-point font. The text must be left-aligned.

Give it an appropriate title and bold and/or underline the title. Make sure your name and date

are on it, but don’t put the name of the professor.

• Every step of the task is completed, and in the proper order.

• Every step is written primarily in your own words. You may quote Locke or Parfit, or any

of the course material, but if you do be sure to use proper attribution, and don’t go

overboard with it. You should not be citing or quoting outside sources.

• The paper does not contain any “filler,” i.e. sentences unrelated to the prompt or their

paragraph’s main idea.

• The paper has the proper typesetting spelling, grammar, paragraph structure and

editing.

Correctly following these criteria is worth 20 points.