As a student of Philosophy I've been quite interested in philosophical concepts relating to discrimination.  Concepts such as 'the other' and the status of animals fascinate me.  Over the past few months I've been reading quite a bit of Heidegger and focusing my attention upon how he uses the concept of Dasein to discriminate between persons and non-persons.  While looking around for other interpretations and applications of Heidegger's Dasein I stumbled upon Being and Nothingness by Sartre.

In this work Sartre outlines his position quite well.  For Sartre all consciousness is implicitly self consciousness.  This statement has wide ranging implications for anyone looking at the ethics of discrimination as many non-persons according to many 'main stream' philosophies would be classified as being implicitly self conscious.  Any beings, humans or other animals, that are capable of projecting a representation of their world and acting according to this representation must be at least implicitly self conscious.  Squirrels, for example, need to remember where all of their nuts are buried in the winter and would certainly not be able to do this were they not able to locate themselves within the world around them.  Sartre calls this self consciousness 'being-for-itself'.

So, it would seem, that Sartre is advocating quite an inclusive philosophy here, classifying humans and other animals together.  But this is not so, for Sartre places a clause upon his 'being-for-itself'.  Sartre argues that non-human animals do not act 'for-themselves' but 'in-themselves'.  You'll notice that Sartre uses the term 'being-for-itself' rather than 'being-in-itself'.

So what does this dichotomous distinction mean?  Well 'being-in-itself' refers to beings who may very well be self conscious but their essences, their defining attributes, are static.  Beings who meet the criteria of 'being-for-itself', on the other hand, are able to act upon their essences and decide upon which essences are valuable, and therefore to be kept, and which are non-valuable, and therefore to be discarded.  In other words, and put quite basically, 'beings-for-themselves' are able to make a choice while 'beings-in-themselves' are not.

So how does this impact upon the ethics of discrimination?  What sorts of relationships are to be considered ethical between 'beings-for-themselves' and 'beings-in-themselves'?  Well this is something I'm not sure Sartre answers.  It's not such a popular philosophy today to place ethical sub-categories upon the human species and this is something that Sartre's position does.  Not all Humans are at any given temporal location members of the 'being-for-itself' group.  Babies and infants certainly aren't, neither are many Humans who have cognitive impairments.  It is abundantly clear that these groups of Humans are 'beings-in-themselves'.  Therefore, when we entertain any sort of ethical position based upon Sartre's 'being-for-itself' philosophy we need to keep that not all humans satisfy the 'being-for-itself' argument.

Some of the many species that satisfy the 'being-in-itself' argument, other than some Humans, are Pigs, Cows and, of course, Whales.  We routinely utilise these animals for the material benefit of 'beings-for-themselves'.  If we are to be logically consistent then it should not be deemed ethically repugnant to utilise Humans that are 'beings-in-themselves' in the same way that other 'beings-in-themselves' are utilised.  But this is of course an ethically distasteful position to hold.  No one is going to allow for the factory farming of genetically engineered Humans with cognitive impairments to test our eye shadows upon or to mince up for pet food.  Neither would anyone allow the breeding of cognitively impaired Humans to be traded as pets.  Even more distasteful would be the use of babies as gourmet food items.  So, according to Sartre, is there anything that defines some 'beings-in-themselves' as more valuable than other 'beings-in-themselves'?  I don't think so.  Then what should define relationships between 'beings-in-themselves' and 'beings-for-themselves'?  I think that Sartre would argue that value is the deciding factor.

Value is explicitly important for Sartre as one makes choices, and acts upon them, choices relative to one's essences, in relation to historical facticities of value.  Consider the following, I have been a Philosophy student for many years now and by doing so I have as my primary goal being a Philosopher.  However, the fact alone that I have been a Philosophy student all these years will not guarantee, will not determine, that I will actually be a Philosopher.  This will only occur if I continue to believe the values that I've had all along that have led to my being in this current position.  Tomorrow I could wake and decide that my values are now different and no longer proceed towards the path of being a Philosopher.  Values, therefore, are of primary importance in how one chooses to act.

Values are not static phenomena.  For example, when I was younger I worked as a cleaner in an abattoir, a position that was in accordance with my traditional values.  The values I'd been exposed to leading up to this position and the values that I projected onto my future did not disagree with this position.  However, my values have subsequently changed.  The values of my past remain the same but the values that I ascribe to my present self and those that I ascribe to my future self no longer allow for me to engage in abattoir work.  If we as a community value all Human life, even if this value has only arisen in recent history, then we must place equal value on all beings that satisfy Sartre's 'being-x-itself'.  For there is no reason within Sartre's philosophy to value those Humans that do not satisfy 'being-for-itself', who subsequently satisfy 'being-in-itself', while not also valuing all other beings that satisfy 'being-in-itself'.

I'd appreciate some comments on this thought (esp. Nath, Waz, and Brad) as I would like to explore the validity of progressing this thought in to something a little more formal.