Biased Conclusions

As I understand it (and perhaps I misunderstand, given that I read Regan's essay at a late hour) Regan claims that, in the lifeboat scenario, one is justified in casting the dog overboard rather than one of the humans because the dog, in dying, is losing less than would any of the humans.  "...the harm that death is, is a function of the opportunities for satisfaction it forecloses, and no reasonable person would deny that the death of any of the four humans would be a greater prima facie loss ... than would be true in the case of the dog."

This seems like rather an assumption.  It is true that, from a human's point of view, a human life offers many more opportunities for satisfaction than does the life of a dog; but one has no evidence to suggest that a dog would agree (if it were capable of agreeing).  While a dog's life offers less opportunities overall than a human's life, there is no reason for one to believe that the dog would derive less satisfaction from these limited opportunities than a human would from their relatively greater number of opportunities.  Humans are famously unsatisfied with even the most apparently best of circumstances.

I agree with Regan's eventual conclusion that it is better to push the dog overboard than to push one of the humans.  However, I argue that the basis for this conclusion is not as Regan suggests, but instead because the humans possess a greater degree of sentience.  While the dog might well live out a satisfied life were it not drowned, it lacks the potential to do so in as much depth as any of the humans.  Even less-than-complete satisfaction on the part of one of the humans is a greater good than complete satisfaction on the part of the dog, because (due to greater mental capacity) a human can almost certainly experience satisfaction in more detail than can the dog, and can further sustain a memory of this satisfaction which will continue to have the power to affect them even after the satisfying circumstances have passed.  Thus, I think that one is still justified in casting the dog overboard.

Thoughts?

Introduction

This is my  introductory post for Ethics and Animals, Spring 2013.
Hello, fellow MCLA bloggers, and anyone who happens across this blog by chance.  My name is Avery Finnivan.  I am a sophomore at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.  I am majoring in philosophy, with minors in English (concentration in journalism) and arts management.  My non-academic interests include Uechi-ryu karate, reading, playing the harp and guitar (and assorted other instruments in which I have little skill), and philosophizing for fun with friends.  In the past, I have only encountered questions of animal ethics in academic settings, with the exception of the idea of vegetarianism.  I am an almost-vegetarian at the moment; I sporadically eat shellfish, due to their lack of sentience, and so am technically a pescetarian.  Philosophically and religiously, I call myself an agnostic and a fallibilist who conceals his fallibilism under a thick veneer of realism.  I very much look forward to reading my fellow blogger's contributions over the course of this semester, and also welcome any comments (from fellow bloggers or random other people) or questions.  If a comment sparks a debate, so much the better!  Philosophy is fun.