关于动物尊严的伦理争议

尊严已成为生命伦理学中的一个重要新词汇.西方传统思想上对尊严的理解,因强调人与动物之间存在鸿沟、凸显人的独特地位和价值,使“人的尊严”概念盛行.但在当代动物解放运动中,“人的尊严”受到了质疑,引发了关于动物是否也有尊严的伦理争议.支持者将尊严的载体扩及动物,一种主张动物尊严独立于人的尊严;另一种则主张动物可以分享人的尊严.有感受能力的动物具有完全的道德价值,应当像对待其他人类存在者那样同等地对待动物.虽然动物和人均具有感受能力,但两者属于不同的物种,拥有不同的存在方式,动物无法享有与人相同的道德地位和尊严.从否定物种差别的利益平等考虑原则来论证动物尊严是失败的.

The Ethical Debate about Animal Dignity

Dignity has become an important new vocabulary in bioethics. The main understanding of the dignity inthe Western tradition, emphasized on the existing divide of human and animal, and highlighted the unique positionand value of human. But in contemporary animal liberation movement, ＂human dignity＂ has been questioned, eth-ical debates is about whether animal have the dignity yet. Supporters spread the dignity to the animal, one isanimal＇s dignity is independent of human＇s; the other is that animal can share the dignity of human. Animals withsensitivity enjoy completely moral value, should be treated equally like other human beings. Animal and humanhave the sensitivity, but they belong to different species and different way of existence, cannot enjoy the same moralstatus and dignity. It is a failure to demonstrate animal dignity from principle of interesting equal and the negativespecies difference.