Ethics, animals and the nonhuman great apes (original) (raw)
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Ethics and Nonhuman Animals: A Philosophical Overview
The central purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the relationship between ethics and nonhuman animals. That is, in what way ethics has been understanding and incorporating nonhuman animals as participants in our moral community. To that end, I present how some of the different ethical perspectives concur to offer a more adequate response to the question of how we should include nonhuman animals in morality. The theoretical contributions offered by Peter Singer (utilitarianism), Tom Regan (law), Karen Warren (care) Martha Nussbaum (capabilities) and Maria Clara Dias (functionings) are called for the construction of this panorama and to the development of this debate.
Many people believe that all human life is of equal value. Most of them also believe that all human beings have a moral status superior to that of nonhuman animals. But how are these beliefs to be defended? The mere difference of species cannot in itself determine moral status. The most obvious candidate for regarding human beings as having a higher moral status than animals is the superior cognitive capacity of humans. People with profound mental retardation pose a problem for this set of beliefs, because their cognitive capacities are not superior to those of many animals. I argue that we should drop the belief in the equal value of human life, replacing it with a graduated view that applies to animals as well as to humans.
Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals
Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 2017
This paper reflects on the question, "Is there a sound justification for the existential view that humans have a higher moral status than other animals?" It argues that the existential view that humans have a higher moral status than animals is founded on a weak and inconclusive foundation. While acknowledging various arguments raised for a common foundation between human and non-human animals, the paper attempts to establish a common ground for moral considerability of human and non-human animals. The first common foundation is based on the existential notion of being in the world, which is common for both human and non-human animals. The second idea is based on the common desire to actualize different needs. The paper demonstrates these common foundations by referring to Heidegger and Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
2020
Simple Summary: Many animal ethicists consider cognitive capacities as being the basis for the moral status of an animal. On this view, animals that have, for instance, complex experiences, future preferences, or at least the ability to suffer, impose an obligation on us. Those beings that do not share these capacities do not have a moral status. This would also apply to embryos, infants, or severely cognitively impaired humans, but this seems to be at odds with many of our shared ethical intuitions. As a response, so-called relationalists argue that our different relations to different kinds of beings form the basis for moral obligations. However, on this view, it remains unclear (a) why it is particularly our relations to kinds of animals that are morally relevant; and (b) how we can criticize and change these relations. This paper seeks to combine both accounts of animal ethics to overcome these pitfalls. It argues that it is individual vulnerability that forms the basis of moral obligations, but that social structures and relations predetermine how we perceive and recognize vulnerability. However, particular relationships with animals as well as open possibilities to treat animals in different ways (e.g., to treat a dairy cow not as a mere resource) render critique and change of current practices possible. Abstract: This paper presents vulnerability and the social structures surrounding recognition of vulnerability as fundamental elements of animal ethics. Theories in the paradigm of moral individualism often treat individual rational capacities as the basis of moral considerability. However, this implies that individuals without such capacities (such as human or nonhuman infants) are excluded even though we grant them special protection in our lived morality. It also means that moral agents are pictured as disembodied, impartial observers, independent of social relations and particular relationships. Relationalists take moral obligations to be rooted in different kinds of beings. However, relationalism runs the risk of losing the individual animal and her capacities. It cannot also it adequately explain what forms different kinds of being, or the constitution of normativity through relations. Moreover, it lacks resources to explain how critique and change are possible. This paper argues that vulnerability and its recognition are the source of our moral obligations to animals. It seeks to combine individualist and relationalist arguments by using a social ontology of the bodily individual which can be applied to human agents and to any vulnerable being. Social structures predetermine the ways in which we perceive and recognize the vulnerability of living beings. However, we are not fully determined by these structures; particular relationships and direct encounters with individual animals as well as the open possibilities of treating animals differently that are immanent in common practices render critique and change of current conditions possible.
The moral value of animal sentience and agency
Fellow Brethren, Slaves and Companions (Human/Animals Relations in Transformation), 2021
Sentience and agency are the two main competing properties for the attribution of moral status in animal ethics and beyond. Those favoring sentience usually subscribe to an approach giving preeminence to welfare as the most important moral currency. By contrast, those grounding moral status in agency give more importance to an individual's autonomy and capacity to act morally. In this chapter, I provide a set of guidelines to navigate the thorny question of choosing between agency or sentience as a basis for moral status in animal ethics (and beyond). I will argue that both options have advantages and limits, and the choice depends on what one wants to do with the idea of moral status. In assessing the merits of each approach, I will critically discuss Singer's equal consideration of interests principle, Regan's egalitarian agency-based account, Cochrane's attempt to ground an inclusive egalitarian approach via sentience, Kagan's limited hierarchy, and McMahan's sentience-based inegalitarian gradualism. I will argue that irrespective of whether we opt for sentience or agency, equality can be meaningfully attributed only to qualified classes of beings because, if it is attributed to very general classes, it suffers from the same problems with the basis of equality as human-based accounts. Hence, a restricted form of egalitarianism seems the only viable possibility that does not violate the minimal requirement of proportionality. But current forms of restricted egalitarianism struggle too to square their (limited) egalitarian commitment with the basis of moral status. Moral status is an elusive notion in animal ethics, as well as more generally in value theory. A status is a comparative value notion, which defines the comparative value of a class of individuals with respect to other classes. If it is to serve normatively, it should be thought of as a shorthand for a set of information that we should have about a being: how to regard it and what do to about it. A moral status should tell us what kind of attitude we should have towards a being and what we are required or permitted to do. In sum, moral status provides us with evaluative and prescriptive information about a being. But this information is not freestanding, as if moral status were a property of
Capacities, Context and the Moral Status of Animals
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2004
According to a widely shared intuition, normal, adult humans require greater moral concern than normal, adult animals in at least some circumstances. Even the most steadfast defenders of animals' moral status attempt to accommodate this intuition, often by holding that humans' higher-level capacities (intellect, linguistic ability, etc.) give rise to a greater number of interests, and thus the likelihood of greater satisfaction, thereby making their lives more valuable. However, the moves from capacities to interests, and from interests to the likelihood of satisfaction, have up to now gone unexamined and undefended. I argue that context plays a morally significant role both in the formation of an individual's capacities, and in the determination of the individual's interests and potential for satisfaction based on those capacities. Claims about an individual's capacities and interests are typically presented as unconditional; but on closer examination, they are revealed to be contingent on tacit assumptions about context. Until we develop an understanding of how to account for the role of context within our moral theories, attempts to defend special moral concern for human beings based on their superior capacities are less firmly grounded than is commonly thought.
CONTRACTARIANISM AND THE MORAL STANDING OF NON-HUMAN ANIMALS AND NON-RATIONAL HUMANS
Contractarianism is not a moral theory that is usually thought of in connection with non-rational creatures. It is almost commonplace that the whole idea behind the establishment of moral rules through a social contract is that such rules will then protect the contractors themselves. Because the framers of the contract are considered to be rational agents, a contractarian theory simply cannot generate moral principles that would apply to non-rational agents. It has been argued by some however, that this widely accepted view is false and that contractarianism, if properly understood offers moral protection to non-rational individuals. In this article, after considering both sides of this debate, I shall argue that contractarianism has strong resources to justify normative claims regarding our duties towards non-rational agents such as non-human animals and non-rational humans. The paper focuses on one particular version of contractarianism developed by John Rawls. I will claim that there are certain inconsistencies in Rawls’ theory which need to be corrected. Once this is done, the contractarian position on the moral protection of animals and humans with severe mental disabilities will change significantly. However, I will argue that under a social contract, contractors would still distinguish between animals and humans in situations where there is a serious clash of interests. Such a distinction is a psychological necessity which explains why rational agents might come to the conclusion that their duties towards non-rational humans are greater than their duties towards animals.
"Ethical Perspectives on the Treatment and Status of Animals [Encylopedia Addendum]."
Bioethics. Ed. Bruce Jennings. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2014. 252-254. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 June 2014.
Ethical concerns about nonhuman animals arise from the recognition that many animals, such as mammals, birds, and vertebrates generally, as well as some invertebrate species, are conscious and sentient, that is, capable of negative and positive sensations. Further mental states attributed to many animals include beliefs, desires, reasoning, memory, expectations for the future, rich and varied negative and positive emotions, social engagement, self-awareness, and a psychological unity that enables identity over time. A growing body of research in cognitive ethology, the branch of scientific research focused on animal minds, is providing increasingly stronger reasons—beyond common sense, observations, and arguments from analogy to human behavior, physiology, and evolution—to believe that many animals are, like human beings, minded, psychologically complex beings whose lives can go better and worse for them and thus are capable of being harmed (Armstrong and Botzler 2008). Little scientific research supports an opposing view that all animals are mindless, incapable of suffering or experiencing negative emotions, or are otherwise incapable of being harmed or made worse off. In light of this understanding of animals' cognitive and emotional lives, most contemporary ethicists who address these issues argue that there are some direct moral duties owed to conscious, sentient animals, although they disagree on the extent and seriousness of these obligations. And there are debates about what difference the cognitive sophistication of the species might make to our obligations concerning individuals of that species: for example, might a prima facie obligation to not harm be stronger concerning chimpanzees, less toward chickens, and even less for fish? Answers here depend on our scientific understanding of the mental lives of the species, as well as our moral theorizing.
The Limits of the " Human " An Alternative Ethics of Dependence on Animals
In this chapter, I explore mainstream culture's ambivalent relationship to our dependence on animals, particularly the animals in our homes, by turning to discussions at the intersection of disability studies and animal studies. Critically revisiting the debate between some from disability studies (Eva Kittay and Licia Carlson) and some from animal studies (Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan), over the comparative moral status of animals with higher IQs and some severely mentally disabled people, points to problems with the very framework of the debate. Furthermore, comparisons between supposedly non-rational human beings and non-rational animals—so called " marginal cases " —continue to vex both utilitarian (Singer and McMahan) and Kantian (Cheshire Calhoun and Christine Korsgaard) approaches to animal ethics, as well as disability studies. Here, spelling out some of the problems with both of these mainstream approaches to questions of animal ethics, I propose the need for an alternative approach to questions of both animals and disabled persons. Drawing on postmodernist resources, including Jacques Derrida's writings on the human/animal opposition, Cary Wolfe's Derridean-inspired analysis of posthumanism, a critical engagement with Julia Kristeva's work on disability, and my own past work on animal ethics , I suggest some ways forward through the thickets of moral status when it comes to living beings considered " non-rational, " particularly those with whom we share intimate domestic space. I begin with the nonhuman animals literally at the intersection of disability and animal studies: service dogs. 10_Castricano_Oliver.indd 269 16-07-22 11:26 AM