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James Webster Rachels (May 30, 1941 – September 5, 2003) was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights.
As a teenager, he won a national speech contest that enabled him to appear on American Bandstand and to meet John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. He taught chess to his 9-year-old son, Stuart, who became the youngest chess master in American history at age 11.
At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Rachels started in 1977 as Chair of Philosophy, became Dean of Arts and Humanities from 1978–1983, and then one year as Acting Vice-President for University College. After retiring from administration at UAB, he was named University Professor and in 1992, the second Ireland Scholar.
Over the course of his career, Rachels wrote 6 books and 85 essays, edited 7 books, and gave some 275 professional lectures. He argued for moral vegetarianism and animal rights, affirmative action, euthanasia, and the idea that parents should give as much fundamental moral consideration to another's children as they do to their own. Later in his career, Rachels realized that a lifetime of analysing specific moral issues had led him to adopt the general ethic of utilitarianism, according to which actions are assessed by their effects on both human and nonhuman happiness.
Rachels died from cancer on 5 September 2003, in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 1975, Rachels wrote "Active and Passive Euthanasia", which originally appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, and argued that the distinction so important in the law between killing and letting die (often based on the principle of double effect) has no rational basis. He argued that, if we allow passive euthanasia, we should also allow active euthanasia, because it is more humane, and because there is no significant moral difference between killing and allowing to die. The End of Life (1986), a moral treatise on life and death, broadened and deepened these ideas.
Rachels wrote only a few works that were not directly focused on ethics. Created from Animals (1990) made the case that a Darwinism world-view has widespread philosophical implications, including drastic implications for our treatment of nonhuman entities. Can Ethics Provide Answers? (1997) was Rachels's first collection of papers. His second, The Legacy of Socrates, was published posthumously in 2007. Shortly before his death, he wrote Problems from Philosophy (2005), an introduction to philosophy.
Rachels argued that the primary reason why cruelty to animals is wrong is because tortured animals suffer, just as tortured humans suffer.Mappes, Thomas A; Zembaty, Jane S. (1982). Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy. McGraw-Hill. p. 389 He held the view that inflicting pain on animals can sometimes be justified but we must have a sufficiently good reason for doing so. The idea to consume meat just because it tastes good does not come close to justifying the cruelty of the meat industry.
Rachels stated that "from a practical standpoint, it makes sense to focus first on the things that cause the most misery". At the top of this list was factory farming. According to Rachels' basic argument, abstention from factory-farmed animals is necessary as these animals suffer the most.
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