"Ethical Perspectives on the Treatment and Status of Animals [Encylopedia Addendum]." (original) (raw)

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.