ABSTRACT
The varieties of interest Much was made in Chapter 1 of the problems involved in the weighing of interests since practical decisions of any complexity involve conflicts. Animals give rise to particular problems as Bentham’s criterion of their capacity to suffer was gradually augmented by claims that some of them, the higher mammals, were both self-aware and capable of rational thought. This accumulation of capacities brought with it an expansion of possible interests: Figan, if we take Goodall at face value, might now be claimed to have an interest in outwitting competitors and even in living for as long as possible with an indefinite right to life. But this all seems very unsystematic. Is it just a matter of what people or animals want? Goodall, generously interpreted, gives us grounds for thinking that Figan wants the banana, but are there any for supposing that he wants to live out his natural span? These problems require that we hark back, beyond our acquaintance with Figan and Goliath, to the controversial quotation involving Singer’s afflicted mouse:
It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we could do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is.
