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70 I THE Puttosopny or Eco-Pouirics and pain. For the guestion is not whether they can speak but whether they can suffer, as Peter Singer argues with reference to the position of the Enlightenment-era moral philosopher and advocate of animal rights, Jeremy Bentham." The pathocentrists, such as Richard Ryder, naturally condemn the experiments conducted on live animals for the purpose of scientific research or finding a cure.» They drew attention to the terrible fate of the livestock languishing in the hell of industrial biomassproduction. In their opinion, the wellbeing or health of man cannot justify the suffering inflicted upon other beings. To the common objection that suffering belongs to the order of nature and is therefore unavoidable, the thinkers defending animal wellbeing had an easy answer: it is not for us to interfere in the order of nature, but merely to at least not cause suffering to other beings intentionally in the service of our own human interests. We should at any rate to attempt to minimise the suffering caused to them. Serious counter-arguments have also been raised by other extensionists against the argument from suffering, however. The bioegalitarians, such as Kenneth Goodpaster, find the newly demarcated borders of the ethical universe just as arbitrary as the old ones, claiming that suffering is not necessarily bad and pleasure is not necessarily good and that what is good or bad in a given case depends on whether it serves the maintenance of life.*’ What is unequivocally good for living beings - regardless of whether they can experience joy or suffering — is life itself, in the interest of the maintenance and renewal of which they are capable of astonishing and inventive efforts. Their behaviour proves that what happens to them matters to them: things can have a good or bad outcome for them. Insofar as the chief characteristic of living systems is distinguishing between good and bad, then (according to the bioegalitarian point of view), the ethical law can be none other than respect of life. We, who are capable of recognising the will to life working in every living thing, should see it as our duty to act with this in mind. Such is one of Paul Taylor’s final conclusions.** Taylor effectively proceeds according to the spirit of the Kantian ethics of duty, with the not inconsiderable difference that while Kant reserved the ability for autonomous action and the corresponding respect solely for beings 1° Peter Singer: 4 Animals Are Equal! Philosophical Exchange 1.5., 1974. 32 Richard Ryder: Victims of Science: The Use of Animals in Research. Davis-Poynter Ltd. 1975. 33 Kenneth Goodpaster: On Being Morally Considerable. Journal of Philosophy 75,1978. 34 Paul Taylor: The ethics of respect for nature. Environmental Ethics 3(3), 1981.
