Ethics writers sometimes test their principles against a hypothetical emergency. For example, picture a lifeboat too weak to carry both the humans and dogs who are in it to safety. Who gets to stay in the boat?

Deciding that human life involves more kinds of satisfaction than a dog’s, The Case for Animal Rights author Tom Regan decided the dog should be sacrificed.

(This isn't species discrimination because the dog would be saved and a mentally disabled human would be sacrificed, in Regan's reasoning.)

The lifeboat loophole is a moral mess. Moreover, it fails to get to the root of the matter. Animals are constantly violated by being selectively bred, genetically domineered, and put “in the same boat” with humans. This is the fundamental unfairness. Animal-rights theory has missed the point that rights for domesticated animals is a contradiction in terms.

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Photo: Elizabeth Krupka, via Pexels.