Kantian Animal Moral Psychology: Empirical Markers for Animal Morality (original) (raw)
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What Rationality Adds to Animal Morality
Biology & Philosophy, 1996
Philosophical tradition demands rational reflection as a condition for genuine moral acts. But the grounds for that requirement are untenable, and when the requirement is dropped morality comes into clearer view as a naturally developing phenomenon that is not confined to human beings and does not require higher-level rational reflective processes. Rational consideration of rules and duties can enhance and extend moral behavior, but rationality is not necessary for morality and (contrary to the Kantian tradition represented by Thomas Nagel) morality cannot transcend its biological roots. Recognizing this helps forge a complementary rather than competitive relation between feminist care-based ethics and rationalistic duty-based ethics. Moral behavior requires rational reflection. Philosophers regard that as a common starting point for examinations of morality, a textbook truth that defines moral inquiry. Behavior without moral reflection does not qualify as morally good. A virtuous act must be done deliberatively for the right reasons, and a virtuous life requires reflective development of a virtuous character. Whatever its philosophical charms, this standard position is misguided. Rational reflection is not necessary for moral behavior. True enough, moral behavior requires a deeper level. If one saves a child from toppling over the ledge, we require further investigation before judging the act virtuous. If a clumsy would-be murderer was attempting to shove the child off the ledge, the act was vicious. If the rescuer's hand stretched out due to a sudden seizure the motion is fortunate but not morally significant. If the rescuer was motivated solely by hope of rich reward, then the act loses its positive moral worth. So we must look deeper than the rescuer's extended hand to determine moral worth; but it is motives-rather than reasons-that must be examined, and those motives need not stem from deliberation. If I am a vicious and mercurial but clumsy killer, my spontaneous nondeliberative attempt to shove you from a ledge is morally vicious though it accidentally saves your life. The spontaneous loving unreflective rescue of a child is morally virtuous: if the act is motivated by affection for the child the absence of deliberation does not imply absence of moral worth. 1
Expanding Horizons of Morality from Man to Animal – A Critical Appraisal
2018
Morality is a strong instinctive force which develops from within and cannot be externally imposed. It leads to the creation of a strong conscience which recognizes actions that are virtuous and generates happiness for the maximum numbers. Man is regarded as the most evolved and superior species and hence a group of scholars argue that humans possess traits of morality while other animals do not. They also claim that men are born with a universal moral grammar which is significantly influenced by environmental variables. However, another group of theorists assert that humans and animals have the same origin which makes the presence of a rudimentary moral sense common to both. They consider morality as a set of largely primitive psychological instincts which are inherited and present in both humans and animals. Researchers and scientists have validated the claim made by the latter group of theorists by stating examples of moral actions and complex emotions which are witnessed by all ...
Re-framing the debate over animal morality
2020
Is morality uniquely human or does morality exist in at least some non-human animals? Are animals full-fledged moral creatures or do they merely exhibit proto-morality-evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article? Such questions, prompted by remarkable advances in empirical research into the social and emotional lives of non-human animals, have aroused much recent interest amongst scientists, philosophers, and in the popular media, not least for their apparent bearing on questions of human uniqueness, evolution, and the ethical status of animals. The debate over animal morality has produced many valuable contributions and stimulated new areas for empirical and theoretical research. However, focusing on these questions has led researchers to talk at cross-purposes and down some unproductive paths (Fitzpatrick, 2017). The problem concerns the terms "morality" and "moral". One initial source of confusion stems from the fact that many have interpreted the question of whether morality exists in animals to amount to asking whether animals act in ways that we might judge to be good according to our own normative standards-chimpanzees consoling friends who have lost a fight, rats helping a drowning companion. But, Joseph Stalin was surely a moral creature, even if we don't judge his deeds kindly, and we typically regard resentment as a moral attitude, even if we don't think it good to resent others. So, it seems better to ask whether animals have a moral psychology : mental states and processes that are somehow about, or connected with, things that are of moral significance. On that question, researchers have ostensibly divided themselves into three camps: the human exceptionalists, who hold that nothing like a genuine moral psychology can be found in other species, the anti-exceptionalists, who hold that core features of a moral psychology are definitely shared with many other species, and the building-block theorists, who hold that at least some species possess elements of human moral psychology, but not the full thing. However, the disagreement between these camps stems from their endorsing different definitions of what it is to have a moral psychology. Korsgaard (2006) is an exceptionalist because she ties our moral psychology to a kind of self-reflection referred to as "normative guidance", widely
Animal Morality: What It Means and Why It Matters
The Journal of Ethics, 2018
It has been argued that some animals are moral subjects, that is, beings who are capable of behaving on the basis of moral motivations (Rowlands 2011, 2012, 2017). In this paper, we do not challenge this claim. Instead, we presuppose its plausibility in order to explore what ethical consequences follow from it. Using the capabilities approach (Nussbaum 2004, 2007), we argue that beings who are moral subjects are entitled to enjoy positive opportunities for the flourishing of their moral capabilities , and that the thwarting of these capabilities entails a harm that cannot be fully explained in terms of hedonistic welfare. We explore the implications of this idea for the assessment of current practices involving animals.
THE ASCENT OF MORALITY, FROM NON-HUMAN TO HUMAN ANIMALS: AN EMOTION-BASED ACCOUNT
2021
The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether morality is uniquely human, and to argue that emotions are the basis of morality in the sense that moral behavior is produced by emotions. In order to support my suggestion, I first intend to investigate the nature and function of emotions. Furthermore, I adopt an evolutionary perspective suggesting that our biology pushed us toward caring about certain things surrounding us. In accordance with this assertion, I endeavor to examine whether moral judgments and moral beliefs can be illustrated in a non-cognitivist way from the perspectives of both naturalist philosophers and evolutionary scientists. Accordingly, I defend the view that moral judgment is a non-propositional, psychological attitude. From a contemporary perspective, we might argue that Hume‘s interpretation of moral judgment adopts a non- cognitivist and non-propositional attitude. Moreover, moral judgment does not express a proposition that describes facts and is truth evaluable; rather, it expresses feelings. In this sense, moral judgment is a psychological inclination to feeling a specific emotion and, accordingly, the particular emotion comprises approval or disapproval in terms of moral judgment.
Moral Motivation and Nonhuman Animals
In this paper I criticize an explanation of the nature of moral emotions that restricts moral motivation to humans and then argue for a novel account of human and nonhuman emotions that entails that it is possible for nonhuman animals to be morally motivated. I label the restrictive kind of explanation that I critique "strong cognitivism." Strong cognitivism holds that moral emotions consist of complex moral judgments. Because of this, strong cognitivism implies that nonhuman mammals cannot be morally motivated. Accordingly, my critique of strong cognitivism serves as a partial defense of the possibility of some nonhuman mammals being able to be morally motivated. I begin my critique of strong cognitivism by arguing that it is untenable as an explanation of amoral human emotions because: (a) it does not have the resources to explain a wide variety of mental states that are pretheoretically considered to be paradigmatic emotions; (b) it cannot explain how emotions are value determining in a way that can override judgments; and (c) it cannot adequately explain the phenomenology and physiology that accompanies emotional states. Then I argue that strong cognitivism imposes too strict a criterion for specifically moral motivation in the case of humans. Since strong cognitivism cannot adequately explain even human amoral and moral emotions, it can give us no reason to reject the possibility of ascribing moral emotions to nonhuman animals. I conclude by suggesting an alternative model of amoral and moral emotions that explains how animal emotions might acquire moral content. This model of moral emotions implies that some nonhuman animals might be able to be morally motivated without being able to understand moral norms and selfreflectively regulate their behavior on the basis of moral judgments.
A Practice-Focused Case for Animal Moral Agency
Considerations of nonhuman animal moral agency typically base their reasoning and (very often negative) verdict on a capacity-focused approach to moral agency. According to this approach, an entity is a moral agent if it has certain intrapersonal features or capacities , typically in terms of conscious reflection and deliberation. According to a practice-fo-cused notion of moral agency, however, an entity is a moral agent in virtue of being a participant of a moral responsibility practice (MRP). I argue that a practice-focused approach to moral agency, combined with empirical evidence from research on canid social play and cognition, with support from The Function Argument, makes the notion of non-human animal moral agency more likely than usually indicated. However, the support is not absolute, as the practice-focused approach itself may be put into question. I describe how this objection prompts us to critically assess any empirical, metaethical, or normative assumptions on these matters. These questions, in turn, raise a number of further questions of how we should conceive of, use, and evaluate whatever standards of moral agency we adopt.
Con-textos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy, 2019
My main goal in this article is methodological: I want to spell out how a Kantian perspective could accommodate current empirical work on cognition, and in particular on emotion. Having chosen John McDowell as a guide, I try to characterize his view of moral experience and underline its Kantian traits (McDowell 1998a, 1998b, 1998c, 1998d, 1998e, 1998f). I start by identifying the conception of freedom as exemplified in the rational wolf thought experiment in Two Forms of Naturalism as the main Kantian trait. I then go through the characterization of two other crucial aspects of our moral experience – (responsiveness to) reasons and value. I suggest that McDowell’s approach to moral experience, although not itself strictly Kantian in all of its details, is an instance of a transformative view of rationality, as defended by Matthew Boyle (Boyle 2016) and that such transformative view is the key to accommodate empirical research on cognition within a Kantian perspective.
Animal morality: What is the debate about?
Biology & Philosophy, 2017
Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. However, these different positions on animal morality generally appear to be motivated more by different conceptions of how the term "morality" is to be defined than on empirical disagreements about animal social behaviour and psychology. After delving deeper into the goals and methodologies of various of the protagonists, I argue that, despite appearances, there are actually two importantly distinct debates over animal morality going on, corresponding to two quite different ways of thinking about what it is to define "morality", "moral cognition", and associated notions. Several apparent skirmishes in the literature are thus cases of researchers simply talking past each other. I then focus on what I take to be the core debate over animal morality, which is concerned with understanding the nature and phylogenetic distribution of morality conceived as a psychological natural kind. I argue that this debate is in fact largely terminological and non-substantive. Finally, I reflect on how this core debate might best be re-framed.
Moral Animals? A Review of Mark Rowlands' Can Animals be Moral?
The topic of animals and morality is something of a burgeoning field, with many different disciplines contributing: from cognitive ethology, evolutionary biology, and social neuroscience, to moral psychology and philosophy. Ethologists studying animal behavior have investigated and explored the presence of seemingly moral or proto--moral emotions and behavior in other animals. Others have focused on the historical evolution of morality, giving plenty of attention to how other animals fit into this evolution. Amidst this work, some scientists and philosophers have begun to argue that animals can act morally, with differing understandings of this claim.