Singer and Regan's perspectives on animal treatment in zoos

Zoos are categorically utilitarian in their purpose and function. Even when zoos participate in the preservation of species, education, consciousness raising, and fundraising, they are still performing a utilitarian function that precludes the individual rights of the animals therein. The zookeeper works on the principle of utility -- that it is useful to maintain an institution that promotes education and research, as well as promotes ecological integrity via the preservation of species. Most zookeepers would also claim that their facilities and their working procedures ensure the humane treatment and welfare of the animals; that animals are being treated well by being regularly fed, offered time to play and interact with others in their species, and not being harmed. Any restrictions to the animal's freedom is conceived of as being part of the "greatest good for the greatest number" utilitarian concept -- which in this case can even be extended to some species of animal such as those about to go extinct. If a zoo is preserving the endangered species and breeding them in captivity, then those programs restrict the individual freedoms of individual animals for the collective good of their entire species. Because he builds much of his animal ethic on utilitarianism, Peter Singer is far more likely than Tom Regan to acknowledge that zoos are -- or at least can be -- morally acceptable institutions.

Yet when zoos do things like put on entertainment shows, they are more blatantly exploiting the animals individually and collectively, for the utilitarian goal of profit-making and mass-market entertainment. The latter type of zoo is more obviously unethical than the former, and it also raises questions about the perceived utility of animals for human benefit. Both Peter Singer and Tom Regan would decry the type of zoo that puts on shows and allow their animals to mope in cages, but would do so for different reasons. Singer would claim that while the individual elephants being paraded around the zoo cannot be considered to necessarily have individual rights, the individual suffering of those animals must be taken into consideration. Singer would also claim that there is no actual utility in abusing animals in this way, and that it does not promote the greatest good for the greatest number for either the animal or human communities. Even if an individual animal has no inherent rights (as Tom Regan would claim), the human being has a moral duty to respect all animals with the capacity for suffering.

It is important to alleviate suffering, and therefore important to liberate the animals in their collective condition of oppression in an exploitative zoo. Tom Regan would argue that the exploitative zoo infringes on the rights of the individual animals -- as Regan does claim that animals have the same rights as human beings. Therefore, it is more likely that Regan would denounce all zoos including those designed for species preservation -- because Regan would not place any perceived utility before rights. Regan's thesis is based on a belief that animals have inherent value, worth, and consideration. Even if the zoo is helping critically endangered species, it does so at the expense of the dignity and intrinsic worth of the individual animal. Although animals cannot express their desires in ways other than the fight or flight response, humans can assume that no animal would voluntarily live in a zoo.