Question

Please make some annotations of this passage of Singer in Equality for animals.

''If I give a horse a hard slap across its rump with my open hand, the horse may start, but it presumably feels little pain. Its skin is thick enough to protect it against a mere slap. If I slap a baby in the same way, however, the baby will cry and presumably does feel pain, for its skin is more sensitive. So it is worse to slap a baby than a horse, if both slaps are administered with equal force. But there must be some kind of blow - I don't know exactly what it would be, but perhaps a blow with a heavy stick - that would cause the horse as much pain as we cause a baby by slapping it with our hand. That is what I mean by 'the same amount of pain' and if we consider it wrong to inflict that much pain on a baby for no good reason then we must, unless we are speciesists, consider it equally wrong to inflict the same amount of pain on a horse for no good reason.''

Answer 1

Peter Singer Equality of Animals in this passage describes about the view of humans in treating an animal and human .The pain caused to a horse by slap is less when compared slapping a baby but a blow with a stick can cause pain in the horse .This pain is compared to the pain in the baby by slapping.In short it describes about speciesism ,practical ethics ,animal ethics.Overall the moral equality between these two species is explained briefly.