Equal consideration of interests

Principle in utilitarian ethics

Utilitarianism
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Predecessors Mozi Shantideva David Hume Claude Adrien Helvétius Cesare Beccaria William Godwin Francis Hutcheson William Paley
Key proponents Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill Henry Sidgwick R. M. Hare Peter Singer
Types of utilitarianism Negative Rule Act Two-level Total Average Preference Classical
Key concepts Pain Suffering Pleasure Utility Happiness Eudaimonia Consequentialism Equal consideration Felicific calculus Utilitarian social choice rule
Problems Demandingness objection Mere addition paradox Paradox of hedonism Replaceability argument Utility monster
Works An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780) On Liberty (1859) Utilitarianism (1861)
Related topics Rational choice theory Game theory Neoclassical economics Population ethics Effective altruism
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The principle of equal consideration of interests is a moral principle that states that one should both include all affected interests when calculating the rightness of an action and weigh those interests equally. The term "equal consideration of interests" first appeared in Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation. Singer asserts that if all beings, not just humans, are included as having interests that must be considered, then the principle of equal consideration of interests opposes not only racism and sexism, but also speciesism. Jeremy Bentham argued that a being's capacity to suffer is what is morally relevant when considering their interests, not their capacity for reason.

The principle is related to broader philosophical concepts of impartiality, though impartiality can refer to many other senses of equality, particularly in justice.

References

Guidi, Marco E. L. (2008-02-01). ""Everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one" . The Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests from Bentham to Pigou". Revue d'études benthamiennes (4). doi:10.4000/etudes-benthamiennes.182. ISSN 1760-7507.
Singer, Peter (1975). Animal Liberation. New York: New York Review Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-0394400969. Many philosophers and other writers have proposed the principle of equal consideration of interests, in some form or other, as a basic moral principle; but not many of them have recognized that this principle applies to members of other species as well as to our own.
Duignan, Brian (2010-07-30). "Speciesism". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
Bentham, Jeremy. 1780. "Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence." pp. 307–35 in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: T. Payne and Sons. "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
"Impartiality". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2002.

Animal rights

Topics (overviews, concepts, issues, cases)

Overviews

Concepts

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Animal agriculture	Animal product Battery cage Bile bear Chick culling Crocodile farm Concentrated animal feeding operation Fish farming Fur farming Fur trade Insect farming Intensive animal farming Intensive pig farming Livestock Poultry farming Slaughterhouse Wildlife farming Working animal Feedback (pork industry) Foam depopulation Ventilation shutdown
Animal testing	Alternatives to animal testing Animal testing on non-human primates Animal testing regulations Great ape research ban Green Scare Huntingdon Life Sciences Model organism Nafovanny Operation Backfire Vivisection
Animal welfare	Animal euthanasia Cruelty to animals Pain in animals Pain in amphibians Pain in cephalopods Pain in crustaceans Pain in fish Pain in invertebrates Pain and suffering in laboratory animals Welfare of farmed insects
Fishing	Commercial fishing Fishing bait Recreational fishing
Wild animals	Culling wildlife Hare coursing Hunting International primate trade Ivory trade Predation problem Seal hunting Wild animal suffering Wildlife management
Other	Abandoned pets Animal sacrifice Animal slaughter Animal trial Animals in sport Live food Live export

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Academics
and writers

Contemporary

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Activists

Contemporary

Historical

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Groups

Contemporary

Historical

Parties

Animal Justice Party (Australia)
Animal Politics EU (Europe)
Animal Protection Party of Canada (Canada)
Animal Justice Party of Finland (Finland)
Animals' Party (Sweden)
Animalist Movement (Italy)
Animalist Party with the Environment (Spain)
DierAnimal (Belgium)
Human Environment Animal Protection Party (Germany)
Italian Animalist Party (Italy)
Party for the Animals (Netherlands)
People Animals Nature (Portugal)
V-Partei³ (Germany)

Activism

Animal Rights National Conference

Media (books, films, periodicals, albums)

Books

On Abstinence from Eating Animals (3rd century)
An Essay on Humanity to Animals (1798)
Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824)
The Rights of Animals (1838)
The Ethics of Diet (1883)
Animals' Rights (1892)
Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology (1897)
Better-World Philosophy (1899)
The Universal Kinship (1906)
The New Ethics (1907)
Animals, Men and Morals (1971)
Animal Liberation (1975)
The Case for Animal Rights (1983)
Morals, Reason, and Animals (1987)
Zoos and Animal Rights (1993)
Animals, Property, and the Law (1995)
The Lives of Animals (1999)
Eternal Treblinka (2001)
Do Animals Have Rights? (2005)
Striking at the Roots (2008)
An American Trilogy (2009)
An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (2010)
Animal Rights Without Liberation (2012)
Political Animals and Animal Politics (2014)
Animal (De)liberation (2016)
Sentientist Politics (2018)
Wild Animal Ethics (2020)
Animal Ethics in the Wild (2022)
Making a Stand for Animals (2022)

Films

The Animals Film (1981)
A Cow at My Table (1998)
Shores of Silence (2000)
The Witness (2000)
Meet Your Meat (2002)
Legally Blonde 2 (2003)
The Meatrix (2003)
Peaceable Kingdom (2004)
Earthlings (2005)
Behind the Mask (2006)
Your Mommy Kills Animals (2007)
The Cove (2009)
Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home (2009)
Forks Over Knives (2011)
Vegucated (2011)
An Apology to Elephants (2013)
Speciesism: The Movie (2013)
The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013)
Unlocking the Cage (2016)
Dominion (2018)
Seaspiracy (2021)

Periodicals

Journals	Animal Sentience Between the Species Cahiers antispécistes Etica & Animali Journal of Animal Ethics Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism The Animals' Defender
Magazines	Arkangel Bite Back Muutoksen kevät No Compromise Satya

Albums

Animal Liberation (1987)
Tame Yourself (1991)
Manifesto (2008)
Salvation of Innocents (2014)
Onward to Freedom (2014)

Fairs and exhibitions

Holocaust on your Plate (2003)

Category ( 139 )

v t e Effective altruism
Concepts	Aid effectiveness Charity assessment Demandingness objection Disability-adjusted life year Disease burden Distributional cost-effectiveness analysis Earning to give Equal consideration of interests Longtermism Marginal utility Moral circle expansion Psychological barriers to effective altruism Quality-adjusted life year Utilitarianism Venture philanthropy
Key figures	Sam Bankman-Fried Liv Boeree Nick Bostrom Hilary Greaves Holden Karnofsky William MacAskill Dustin Moskovitz Yew-Kwang Ng Toby Ord Derek Parfit Peter Singer Cari Tuna Eliezer Yudkowsky
Organizations	80,000 Hours Against Malaria Foundation Animal Charity Evaluators Animal Ethics Centre for Effective Altruism Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research Center for High Impact Philanthropy Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Development Media International Evidence Action Faunalytics Fistula Foundation Future of Humanity Institute Future of Life Institute Founders Pledge GiveDirectly GiveWell Giving Multiplier Giving What We Can Good Food Fund The Good Food Institute Good Ventures The Humane League Mercy for Animals Machine Intelligence Research Institute Malaria Consortium Nuclear Threat Initiative Open Philanthropy Raising for Effective Giving Sentience Institute Unlimit Health Wild Animal Initiative
Focus areas	Biotechnology risk Climate change Cultured meat Economic stability Existential risk from artificial general intelligence Global catastrophic risk Global health Global poverty Intensive animal farming Land use reform Life extension Malaria prevention Mass deworming Neglected tropical diseases Risk of astronomical suffering Wild animal suffering
Literature	Doing Good Better The End of Animal Farming Famine, Affluence, and Morality The Life You Can Save Living High and Letting Die The Most Good You Can Do Practical Ethics The Precipice Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies What We Owe the Future
Events	Effective Altruism Global

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