QuestionsDo animals matter as much as we do?Pity, the foundation of morality, extends to animals
Do animals matter as much as we do?A duty of compassion

Pity, the foundation of morality, extends to animals

The ethics of pity (Mitleid); duties to animals

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 · 1860Life swings between suffering and boredom.
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What it claims

We have direct moral duties towards animals. The morality that recognises none (Kant's) is revolting.

Why

The only truly moral motive is compassion, and it extends to all suffering, including that of animals.

The same idea through history
Michel de Montaigne1580Montaigne states his horror of cruelty, including towards beasts, and speaks of "a general duty of humanity". It is a moral feeling, which Schopenhauer will raise to the rank of a principle.Jean-Jacques Rousseau1755Rousseau puts before reason a natural feeling, the repugnance at seeing a sentient being suffer, and concludes that animals share in natural right through their sensibility. Schopenhauer will take up this idea, making pity the sole source of morality.
Arthur Schopenhauer1840In his essay on the foundation of morality, written for the Royal Danish Society of Sciences, which did not crown it, he makes pity (Mitleid) the sole moral motive, and criticises Kant, who recognises no direct duties to animals.
In short

"Pity, the foundation of morality, extends to animals" is an argument by Arthur Schopenhauer (On the Basis of Morality (1840), §§ 8 and 19, 1840) on the question "Do animals matter as much as we do?" (answer: a duty of compassion). Its claim: We have direct moral duties towards animals. The morality that recognises none (Kant's) is revolting. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

On the Basis of Morality (1840), §§ 8 and 19
Valid with an implicit premise

For Schopenhauer, what gives an action moral worth is that it comes from pity (Mitleid): suffering with another and wanting to help without thinking of oneself. This pity does not stop at the human species: it is addressed to every being that suffers. He draws a consequence he judges decisive: a morality that denies any duty towards animals is a false morality. He judges Kant's (§ 8) "odious", and says (§ 19) that claiming that "there are no duties towards animals" is a doctrine "of revolting coarseness", a barbarism. He adds an explanation that makes this passage hard to read: he ascribes the doctrine to Judaism. That is not an argument, it is a prejudice, and we do not take it up here. The reasoning on pity stands without it. In the question "Do animals matter as much as we do?", he defends the "A duty of compassion" camp.

P1Pity is the only motive that is not egoistic, and therefore the only truly moral one: it, and not an imperative or a command, gives good actions their worth.
P2Pity is addressed to all suffering, whoever suffers. A morality based on it therefore protects animals, whereas the other European systems, he says, have left them aside.
P3 · implicit premiseIf the foundation of morality is pity, and if pity extends to animals, then we have moral duties towards them, and not only towards men.
P4Pity towards animals is so closely tied to goodness of character that, in his view, whoever is cruel to them cannot be a good man: this is a confirmation from experience.
Therefore we have direct moral duties towards animals. The morality that recognises none (Kant's) is revolting.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where pity is the foundation of morality and extends to animals, yet we have no duty at all towards them: pity would remain a feeling that commands nothing. P3 is what moves from feeling to duty.
The argument is valid with the hidden premise P3. P1 says what morality is: pity. P2 says that pity extends to animals. To get to "we have duties towards them" we need P3: a morality founded on pity gives duties towards every being that can be its object. Schopenhauer takes it as evident. P4 is support from experience, not a logical step. Whoever rejects the conclusion can challenge P1 (pity is only a feeling, not a foundation), P2 (do animals suffer as we do?), or P3 (a feeling creates no duty).
Analogy. If we say a good doctor is someone moved by the pain of his patients, we cannot add that the pain of some of the patients does not count. For Schopenhauer, pity does not choose: if it is the source of morality, it applies to whatever suffers.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Immanuel Kant 1797 · attacks the conclusion

He writes that, by reason alone, man has duties only towards man: a duty is a moral constraint coming from the will of a rational being, and animals are not that. He admits, however, that cruelty towards them is wrong, but as a duty to oneself.

Schopenhauer replies
see the argument
Arthur Schopenhauer 1840 · Schopenhauer's reply
He quotes Kant and replies that in this doctrine one would pity animals only to practise pity towards men: they would be a kind of "pathological phantom" for training. He finds such tenets "odious and revolting". For him, pity is turned towards the animal itself.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Disputed. Schopenhauer denounces a real consequence of Kant's thesis: if beasts count only for our training, their suffering has no weight in itself. A Kantian replies that Kant does condemn cruelty. The basic disagreement remains: is the animal's suffering an evil in itself, or only an evil for us when we cause it? (our summary).
Friedrich Nietzsche 1881 · attacks premise 1

He holds that pity, in so far as it really gives rise to suffering, is a weakness: it increases suffering throughout the world.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1881, after the author's death (1860).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Disputed. Nietzsche writes after Schopenhauer's death (1860) and does not speak of animals. His objection concerns the foundation (P1): a morality of pity would be a symptom of weakness. The basic disagreement is whether pity is what should guide morality, or whether it should be judged by its effects. This objection does not say that animal suffering does not count (our summary).
Peter Singer 1975 · attacks premise 1

He defends the cause of animals without grounding it on pity. For him, it must rest on a moral principle, the equal consideration of the interests of all beings that can suffer, and not on loving animals or feeling pity for them.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1975, after the author's death (1860).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Open point. Singer and Schopenhauer reach a close conclusion (animals matter) by two roads. One can draw a difficulty for pity from it: a feeling varies from person to person and says little about how much each suffering weighs, whereas a principle does. A defender of Schopenhauer will reply that without pity no principle moves us to act (our summary, from Singer's general thesis).