PHI 302 Week 6 Discussion 2

PHI 302 Week 6 Discussion 2 | Assignment Help | Wilmington University 

Week 6 Discussion Question 2

Read the following scenarios and and respond: 

Case 1: Seal Hunting

·         Every year in order to satisfy the demands for seal fur coats, hundreds, even thousands, of baby harp seals are bashed to death on the ice by groups of villagers for whom the sale of such animal skins is the major industry of their village. What occurs is a bloody massacre of a large part of the seal community. Animal rights activists decry this wholesale slaughter of an animal species that is quite innocent and that does not endanger anyone's life. Such slaughter takes place for the sole purpose of satisfying female vanity throughout the "civilized" world when perfectly good synthetic furs could serve the same purpose. The villagers, on the other hand, make their living basically by killing the baby seals and probably would live in poverty if they didn't have this particular business activity.

·         Case 2: Animal Testing and Cosmetics

A certain company that manufactures cosmetics uses rabbits to test the irritancy level of its products to their eyes for purposes of making nonirritating cosmetics for the eyes of women who will use such cosmetics. Large doses of any substance to be used are injected into one eye of the rabbits, while the other eye is left alone for comparison or any damage done. The test is painful, and anesthetics are not used on rabbits. Since large doses have to be used in order to provide a greater margin of safety for possible eventual use on humans, permanent eye damage often occurs. No tests that avoid using animals have ever been developed.

·         Do you think the action taken in each case was moral, why or why not?

·         Is there a relevant moral difference between the cases?

·         If so, what is it? If not, why don’t the differences of circumstance matter?