...genuine morality [is] outraged by the proposition...that beings devoid of reason (hence animals) are things and therefore should be treated merely as means that are not at the same time an end. [Kant says] "man can have no duty to any beings except human"; and ... "cruelty to animals is contrary to man's duty to himself, because it deadens in him the feeling of sympathy for their sufferings, and thus a natural tendency that is very useful to morality in relation to other human beings is weakened." Thus only for practice are we to have sympathy for animals, and they are, so to speak, the pathological phantom for the purpose of practicing sympathy for human beings. ...I regard such propositions as revolting and abominable. 

Arthur Schopenhauer
On the Basis of Morality,1840
translated by E. F. J. Payne

Schopenhauer, along with many others, criticise Kant's ethics for being to anthropocentric, too human centred. This focus on humans is a direct consequence of Kant saying that morality derives from reason. Moral decision making is an outworking of reason, hence the first formulation's two contradiction tests. However, humans are capable of free rational thought and this makes them 'ends in themselves', they are intrinsically valuable, they must not be treated as things, hence the second formulation: So act as to treat humanity, both in your own person, and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means.

A consequence of this is that, for Kant, there is no such thing as animal rights. This contrasts sharply with utilitarianism which will only be concerned with whether the animal can experience pleasure and whether it can suffer, not whether it can reason.

This does not mean Kant was indifferent to cruelty to animals. For example, he was opposed to animal experimentation when the same results could be obtained in other ways. He allowed that animals might be killed, presumably for food, and that they could be used in various kinds of work, as long as this did not cause undue suffering.

With regard to the animate but nonrational part of creation, violent and cruel treatment of animals is far more intimately opposed to a human being's duty to himself, and he has a duty to refrain from this; for it dulls his shared feeling of their suffering and so weakens and gradually uproots a natural predisposition that is very serviceable to morality in one's relations with other people. The human being is authorized to kill animals quickly (without pain) and to put them to work that does not strain them beyond their capacities (such work as he himself must submit to). But agonizing physical experiments for the sake of mere speculation, when the end could also be achieved without these, are to be abhorred. – Even gratitude for the long service of an old horse or dog (just as if they were members of the household) belongs indirectly to a human being's duty with regard to these animals; considered as a direct duty, however, it is always only a duty of the human being to himself.

Immanuel Kant
The metaphysics of morals (1797)
in Practical philosophy
trans. and ed. by Mary Gregor

However, as Schopenhauer pointed out and, indeed as Kant says himself, none of this is because we have a duty to the animal. It is only because we have a duty to ourselves and other humans. By treating animals badly we are dulling the feelings that we need in order to treat other humans well. The way we treat animals is only important to the extent that it impacts on the way we treat ourselves and others.

This position does raise some troubling questions. Some animals are clearly capable of more rational thought than a new-born human baby. Respecting someone's wishes once they have died would also be nothing to do with a duty to them but only about cultivating appropriate feelings towards ourselves and others. There would also be questions about people in a coma or those who, for one reason or another, are not capable of rational thought.

Similarly, there would be questions about environmental ethics. It is relatively easy to see how some care for the environment might be derived from a duty to ourselves and others. However, not destroying natural habitats would not be anything at all to do with having a duty to the non-human animals with which we share planet Earth. It would be solely to do with what's good for us.

 

 

 

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