Regan argues that what is fundamentally wrong about the way humans treat nonhuman animals is not the pain or suffering we inflict upon them, but the way we view them as our resources rather than individuals with interests and that simply improving animal welfare will not eliminate this basic wrong. His central claim is that all individuals, regardless of their race, sex, intellectual abilities, or species, have equal inherent value and what qualifies them for this inherent value is their status as experiencing subjects of a life. Regan defines an experiencing subject of a life as any living being that has preferences and expectations, meaning trees and rocks are excluded. Therefore, acting in a way that shows a lack of respect for an individual’s inherent value is immoral because it violates their rights.
I disagree with Regan’s criterion for moral standing because, although trees do not have preferences and expectations, they play an instrumental role in ecosystems containing many experiencing subjects of a life: without trees, many animals would die. I would argue that anything that is an experiencing subject of a life or supports an experiencing subject of a life has inherent value and should be given equal moral consideration. Animals, for example, are able to maintain their status as experiencing subjects of a life by breathing oxygen from trees, so assuming animals would die and lose their inherent value without trees, it is clear that they get their inherent value partially from trees. Therefore trees have inherent value despite not being experiencing subjects of a life.
However, someone might object that, although trees support experiencing subjects of a life in the wild, they do not have inherent value because, if animals didn’t exist, the trees would have no experiencing subjects of a life to support and therefore no inherent value: if the trees were killed, it wouldn’t matter because there would be no nonhuman animals to experience the consequences. I would point out that this is a theoretical extreme, and given that both nonhuman animals and trees do exist, they both have inherent value based on my previous logic.
Regan criticizes utilitarianism for using a good end to justify an evil means. He argues that, for example, killing his Aunt Bea would be morally permissible from a utilitarian perspective because utilitarianism is an aggregate theory and the happiness brought about by donating her life savings to a children’s hospital would outweigh the pain she brought to her when her life is taken away from her without her consent. Regan claims that utilitarianism can be used to justify morally repugnant acts and therefore that it is flawed. He argues that killing Aunt Bea is a violation of her rights because the act fails to take her inherent value into consideration. In other words, Aunt Bea has rights and under no circumstances can she be denied those rights for the sake of helping unrelated individuals.
He states that what has value for utilitarians is the satisfaction of an individual’s interests, not the individual whose interests they are, and that, arguing from a rights-based perspective, he disagrees. I agree with Regan’s criticism of utilitarianism because, although some acts may be considered useful in terms of the happiness they bring about, they are illegal. Although killing Aunt Bea is a useful act in this particular situation, the killer would be charged with first degree murder, and a paradigm shift within the judicial system to favor acts which bring about the most joy would be impractical since the whole point of justice is to give every individual a fair defense.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi