Consciousness has an important role in ethics: when a being consciously experiences the frustration or satisfaction of its interests, those interests deserve higher moral priority than those of a behaviourally similar but non-conscious being. I consider the relationship between this ethical role and an a posteriori (or “type-B”) materialist solution to the mind-body problem. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if type-B materialism is correct, then the reference of the concept of phenomenal consciousness is radically indeterminate between a (...) neuronal-level property that is distinctive to mammals and a high-level functional property that is much more widely shared. This would leave many non-mammalian animals (such as birds, fish, insects and octopuses) with indeterminate moral status. There are ways to manage this radical moral indeterminacy, but all of these ways lead to profoundly troubling consequences. (shrink)

Animal welfare is a concept that plays a role within both our moral deliberations and the relevant areas of science. The study of animal welfare has impacts on decisions made by legislators, producers and consumers with regards to housing and treatment of animals. Our ethical deliberations in these domains need to consider our impact on animals, and the study of animal welfare provides the information that allows us to make informed decisions. This thesis focusses on taking a philosophical perspective to (...) answer the question of how we can measure the welfare of animals. Animal welfare science is an applied area of biology, aimed at measuring animal welfare. Although philosophy of animal ethics is common, philosophy focussing on animal welfare science is rare. Despite this lack, there are definitely many ways in which philosophical methods can be used to analyse the methodologies and concepts used in this science. One of the aims of the work in this thesis is to remedy this lack of attention in animal welfare. Animal welfare science is a strong emerging discipline, but there is the need for conceptual and methodological clarity and sophistication in this science if it is to play the relevant informative role for our practical and ethical decision-making. There is thus is a strong role here for philosophical analysis for this purpose. The central aim of this thesis is to provide an account of how we can measure subjective animal welfare, addressing some of the potential problems that may arise in this particular scientific endeavour. The two questions I will be answering are: what is animal welfare, and how do we measure it? Part One of the thesis looks at the subjective concept of animal welfare and its applications. In it, I argue for a subjective welfare view - that animal welfare should be understood as the subjective experience of individuals over their lifetimes - and look at how the subjective welfare concept informs our ethical decision-making in two different cases in applied animal ethics. Part Two of the thesis looks more closely at the scientific role of welfare. Understanding welfare subjectively creates unique measurement problems, due to the necessarily private nature of mental states and here I address a few of these problems, including whether subjective experience is measurable, how we might validate indicators of hidden target variables such as welfare, how we can make welfare comparisons between individual animals and how we might compare or integrate the different types of experience that make up welfare. I end with a discussion of the implications of all these problems and solutions for the practice of welfare science, and indicate useful future directions for research. (shrink)

It seems obvious that phenomenally conscious experience is something of great value, and that this value maps onto a range of important ethical issues. For example, claims about the value of life for those in a permanent vegetative state, debates about treatment and study of disorders of consciousness, controversies about end-of-life care for those with advanced dementia, and arguments about the moral status of embryos, fetuses, and non-human animals arguably turn on the moral significance of various facts about consciousness. However, (...) though work has been done on the moral significance of elements of consciousness, such as pain and pleasure, little explicit attention has been devoted to the ethical significance of consciousness. In this book Joshua Shepherd presents a systematic account of the value present within conscious experience. This account emphasizes not only the nature of consciousness, but the importance of items within experience such as affect, valence, and the complex overall shape of particular valuable experiences. Shepherd also relates this account to difficult cases involving non-humans and those with disorders of consciousness, arguing that the value of consciousness influences and partially explains the degree of moral status a being possesses, without fully determining it. The upshot is a deeper understanding of both the moral importance of phenomenal consciousness and its relations to moral status. This book will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, bioethics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

Observations of animals engaging in apparently moral behavior have led academics and the public alike to ask whether morality is shared between humans and other animals. Some philosophers explicitly argue that morality is unique to humans, because moral agency requires capacities that are only demonstrated in our species. Other philosophers argue that some animals can participate in morality because they possess these capacities in a rudimentary form. Scientists have also joined the discussion, and their views are just as varied as (...) the philosophers’. Some research programs examine whether animals countenance specific human norms, such as fairness. Other research programs investigate the cognitive and affective capacities thought to be necessary for morality. There are two sets of concerns that can be raised by these debates. They sometimes suffer from there being no agreed upon theory of morality and no clear account of whether there is a demarcation between moral and social behavior; that is, they lack a proper philosophical foundation. They also sometimes suffer from there being disagreement about the psychological capacities evident in animals. Of these two sets of concerns—the nature of the moral and the scope of psychological capacities—we aim to take on only the second. In this chapter we defend the claim that animals have three sets of capacities that, on some views, are taken as necessary and foundational for moral judgment and action. These are capacities of care, capacities of autonomy, and normative capacities. Care, we argue, is widely found among social animals. Autonomy and normativity are more recent topics of empirical investigation, so while there is less evidence of these capacities at this point in our developing scientific knowledge, the current data is strongly suggestive. (shrink)

It has been argued that some animals are moral subjects, that is, beings who are capable of behaving on the basis of moral motivations. 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, 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. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept both of the following claims: (1) consciousness matters morally, and (2) species membership doesn’t matter morally. In other words, many reject speciesism but accept what we might call 'sentientism'. But do the reasons against speciesism yield analogous reasons against sentientism, just as the reasons against racism and sexism are thought to yield analogous reasons against speciesism? This paper argues that speciesism is disanalogous to sentientism (as well as racism and sexism). I make a case for the following (...) asymmetry: (a) some non-humans clearly have interests, but (b) no non-conscious entities clearly have interests. This asymmetry, I argue, renders sentientism resistant to the standard argument against speciesism. (shrink)

In this article, we develop and defend an account of the normative significance of nonhuman animal agency. In particular, we examine how animals’ agency interests impact upon the moral permissibility of our interactions with them. First, we defend the claim that nonhuman animals sometimes have rights to self-determination. However, unlike typical adult humans, nonhuman animals cannot exercise this right through the giving or withholding of consent. This combination of claims generates a puzzle about the permissibility of our interactions with nonhuman (...) animals. If animals sometimes have rights to self-determination, but lack the capacity to consent, then when, if ever, is it permissible for us to touch them, hold them, bathe them, or confine them? In the second half of the article, we develop a solution to this puzzle. We argue that while we cannot obtain animals’ consent, they can engage in authoritative communications of will through acts of “assent” and “dissent.”. (shrink)

Animal ethicists have been debating the morality of speciesism for over forty years. Despite rather persuasive arguments against this form of discrimination, many philosophers continue to assign humans a higher moral status than nonhuman animals. The primary source of evidence for this position is our intuition that humans’ interests matter more than the similar interests of other animals. And it must be acknowledged that this intuition is both powerful and widespread. But should we trust it for all that? The present (...) paper defends a negative answer to that question, based on a debunking argument. The intuitive belief that humans matter more than other animals is unjustified because it results from an epistemically defective process. It is largely shaped by tribalism, our tendency to favor ingroup members as opposed to outgroup members. And this influence is distortive for two reasons. First, tribalism evolved for reasons unrelated to moral truths; hence, it would at best produce true moral beliefs accidentally. Second, tribalism generates a vast quantity of false moral beliefs, starting with racist beliefs. Once this intuition is discarded, little evidence remains that speciesism is morally acceptable. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that humans are the only animals who can possess a concept of death. However, the ubiquity of death in nature and the evolutionary advantages that would come with an understanding of death provide two prima facie reasons for doubting this assumption. In this paper, my intention is not to defend that animals of this or that nonhuman species possess a concept of death, but rather to examine how we could go about empirically determining whether animals can (...) have a concept of death. In order to answer this question, I begin by sketching an account of concept possession that favours intensional classification rather than mere extensional discrimination. Further, I argue that the concept of death should be construed as neither binary nor universal. I then present a proposal for a set of minimal conditions that must be met to have a concept of death. I argue that having a minimal understanding of death entails first expecting a dead individual to be alive, and then grasping its non-functionality and irreversibility. Lastly, I lay out the sort of observational and experimental evidence that we should look for to determine whether animals have the capacity for a minimal comprehension of death. (shrink)

In virtue of their capacity for political agency, political agents can possess special rights, powers, and responsibilities, such as rights to political participation and freedom of speech. Traditionally, political theorists have assumed that only cognitively unimpaired adult humans are political agents, and thus that only those humans can be the bearers of these rights, powers, and responsibilities. However, recent work in animal rights theory has extended the concept of political agency to nonhuman animals. In this article, I develop an account (...) of political agency that identifies the capacities that one must possess to be a political agent and captures the fact that political action is a distinctive type of action. Crucially, this account makes sense of the standard assumption that only some humans count as political agents, and explains why few nonhuman animals, human infants, and severely cognitively impaired humans are likely to possess the capacity for political agency. I go on to reject the view, recently advanced by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, that nonhuman animals can be ‘nonintentional political agents’. I conclude by suggesting that most nonhuman animals, as well as human infants and humans with severe cognitive impairments, cannot straightforwardly be assigned rights to political participation. (shrink)

Entomophagy—eating insects—is getting a lot of attention these days. However, strict vegans are often uncomfortable with entomophagy based on some version of the precautionary principle: if you aren’t sure that a being isn’t sentient, then you should treat it as though it is. But not only do precautionary principle-based arguments against entomophagy fail, they seem to support the opposite conclusion: strict vegans ought to eat bugs.

Humanists argue for assigning the highest moral status to all humans over any non-humans directly or indirectly on the basis of uniquely superior human cognitive abilities. They may also claim that humanism is the strongest position from which to combat racism, sexism, and other forms of within-species discrimination. I argue that changing conceptual foundations in comparative research and discoveries of advanced cognition in many non-human species reveal humanism’s psychological speciesism and its similarity with common justifications of within-species discrimination.

This chapter explores the foundation and content of the duty to respect persons. The authors argue that it is best understood as a duty to recognize people’s rights. Respect for persons therefore has specific implications for how competent and non-competent persons ought to be treated in research. For competent persons it underlies the obligation to obtain consent to many research procedures. The chapter gives an analysis of the requirements for obtaining valid consent. It then considers respect for persons as it (...) relates to four common topics: the therapeutic misconception, research with children and adolescents, the use of deception in research, and research on competent adults without their consent. (shrink)

Human–nonhuman chimeras have been the focus of ethical controversies for more than a decade, yet some related issues remain unaddressed. For example, little has been said about the relationship between the origin of transferred cells and the morally relevant capacities to which they may give rise. Consider, for example, a developing mouse fetus that receives a brain stem cell transplant from a human and another that receives a brain stem cell transplant from a dolphin. If both chimeras acquire morally relevant (...) capacities as a result of transplantation, and if those capacities are indistinguishable, should the difference in cell origin matter to how we classify these creatures? I argue that if morally relevant capacities are easy to detect, cell origin is irrelevant to how the chimera ought to be treated. However, if such capacities are hard to detect, cell origin should play a role in considerations about how to treat the chimera. (shrink)

I argue that Schopenhauer’s ascription of (moral) rights to animals flows naturally from his distinctive analysis of the concept of a right. In contrast to those who regard rights as fundamental and then cast wrongdoing as a matter of violating rights, he takes wrong (Unrecht) to be the more fundamental notion and defines the concept of a right (Recht) in its terms. He then offers an account of wrongdoing which makes it plausible to suppose that at least many animals can (...) be wronged and thus, by extension, have rights. The result, I argue, is a perspective on the nature of moral rights in general, and the idea of animal rights in particular, that constitutes an important and plausible alternative to the more familiar views advanced by philosophers in recent decades. (shrink)

This paper examines how three central aspects of personhood — the capacities of individuals, their normative status, and the social aspect of being recognized — are related, and how personhood depends on them. The paper defends first of all a ‘basic view’that while actual recognition is among the constitutive elements of full personhood, it is the individual capacities (and not full personhood) which ground the basic moral and normative demands concerning treatment of persons. Actual recognition depends analyti- cally on such (...) pre-existing normative requirements: it is a matter of responsiveness to them. The paper then discusses four challenges. The challenges claim that pace the basic view, the relevant capacities depend on recognition, that recognition seems to have normative rele- vance, and that the basic view cannot as such explain the equality either of persons, or of humans. Responding to these challenges amounts to refining the basic view accordingly. (shrink)

It is tempting to assume that being a moral creature requires the capacity to attribute mental states to others, because a creature cannot be moral unless she is capable of comprehending how her actions can have an impact on the well-being of those around her. If this assumption were true, then mere behaviour readers could never qualify as moral, for they are incapable of conceptualising mental states and attributing them to others. In this paper, I argue against such an assumption (...) by discussing the specific case of empathy. I present a characterisation of empathy that would not require an ability to attribute mental states to others, but would nevertheless allow the creature who possessed it to qualify as a moral being. Provided certain conditions are met, a behaviour reader could be motivated to act by this form of empathy, and this means that behaviour readers could be moral. The case for animal morality, I shall argue, is therefore independent of the case for animal mindreading. (shrink)

The creation of chimeras by introducing human stem cells into nonhu- man animals has provoked intense concerns. Addressing objections that appeal to human dignity, I focus in this essay on stem cell research intended to generate human neurons in Great Apes and rodents. After considering samples of dignity- based objections from the literature, I examine the underlying assumption that nonhuman animals have lower moral status than personsFwith particular attention to what it means to speak of higher and lower moral statusFbefore (...) evaluating the chimera research in question. I argue that (1) such experiments involving Great Apes should be prohibited out of respect for the research subjects and (2) such experiments involving rodents may or may not be permissible, depending on how we answer unresolved questions regarding rodents’ moral status. In the end, concerns about human dignity prove insignificant. (shrink)

This essay argues that non-linguistic animals qualify not just for externalist notions of rationality (maximizing biological fitness or utility), but also for internal ones. They can act for reasons in several senses: their behaviour is subject to intentional explanations, they can act in the light of reasons - provided that the latter are conceived as objective facts rather than subjective mental states - and they can deliberate. Finally, even if they could not, it would still be misguided to maintain that (...) animals are capable only of (mechanical) behaviour, not of (intentional) action. (shrink)

This article defends a relational account of personhood. I argue that the structure of personhood consists of dyadic relations between persons who can wrong or be wronged by one another, even if some of them lack moral competence. I draw on recent work on directed duties to outline the structure of moral communities of persons. The upshot is that we can construct an inclusive theory of personhood that can accommodate nonhuman persons based on shared community membership. I argue that, once (...) we unpack the internal relation between directed duties, moral status, and flourishing, relations can ground personhood and include nonhuman animals. (shrink)

The argument from relevance expresses an intuition that, although shared by many applied ethicists, has not been analyzed and systematized in the form of a clear argument thus far. This paper does this by introducing the concept of value relevance, which has been used before in economy but not in the philosophical literature. The paper explains how value relevance is different from moral relevance, and distinguishes between direct and indirect ways in which the latter can depend on the former. These (...) clarifications allow the argument to explain in detail how we can make two claims. The first one is that being a recipient of value should be the only criterion for full moral considerability. This follows if we accept that value relevance should determine, directly or indirectly, moral relevance. The second claim is that, given what the main theories of wellbeing imply regarding what entities can be recipients of value, sentience is both a sufficient and a necessary criterion for full moral considerability. The paper argues that this conclusion stands even if we hold views that consider other values different from sentience. (shrink)

Many traditional attempts to show that nonhuman animals are deserving of moral consideration have taken the form of an argument by analogy. However, arguments of this kind have had notable weaknesses and, in particular, have not been able to convince two kinds of skeptics. One of the most important weaknesses of these arguments is that they fail to provide theoretical justifications for why particular physiological similarities should be considered relevant. This paper examines recent empirical research on pain and, in particular, (...) explores the implications of the dissociation between the sensory and the affective pain pathways. It is argued that these results show that the belief that nonhuman animals experience pain in a morally relevant way is reasonable, though not certain. It is further argued that the proposal to explore the relationship between consciousness and various forms of learning challenges the aforementioned skeptics to provide more physiological details for their claims that nonhuman mammals are probably not conscious. (shrink)

The present paper unravels ontological and normative conditions of personhood for the purpose of critiquing ‘Cognitivist Views’. Such views have attracted much attention and affirmation by presenting the ontology of personhood in terms of higher-order cognition on the basis of which normative practices are explained and justified. However, these normative conditions are invoked to establish the alleged ontology in the first place. When we want to know what kind of entity has full moral status, it is tempting to establish an (...) ontology that fits our moral intuitions about who should qualify for such unique normative standing. But this approach conflates personhood’s ontology and normativity insofar as it stresses the primacy of the former while implicitly presupposing the latter; it thereby suffers from a ‘Normative Fallacy’ by inferring from ‘ought’ to ‘is’. Following my critique of Cognitivism, I sketch an alternative conception, contending that, whereas the Cognitivist ontology of personhood presupposes the normative, a social ontology is constituted by it. In due consideration of evidence from developmental psychology, the social embeddedness of persons—manifested in the ability of taking a ‘second-person stance’—is identified as a key feature of personhood that precedes higher-order cognition, and is directly linked to basic normative concerns. (shrink)

This article discusses the problems which concepts pose for the attribution of thoughts to animals. It locates these problems within a range of other issues concerning animal minds (section 1), and presents a ‘lingualist master argument’ according to which one cannot entertain a thought without possessing its constituent concepts and cannot possess concepts without possessing language (section 2). The first premise is compelling if one accepts the building-block model of concepts as parts of wholes – propositions – and the idea (...) that intentional verbs signify relations between subjects and such propositions. But I shall find fault with both (section 3). This opens the way for recognizing a form of ‘holodoxastic’ thought-ascription which does not presuppose concept-possession on the part of the subject (section 4). Section 5 defends this idea against objections. Section 6 turns to the second premise of the lingualist master argument. I press the idea of judgement into service as a label for conceptual thought that need not be linguistic and argue that the possession of concepts is an ability. Section 7 accepts that concept-possession requires the ability to classify rather than merely to discriminate, but suggests that this need not disqualify animals. In the final section I confirm this verdict by returning to the notion of judgement: classification is the deliberate and considered response to a range of options in a sorting or discrimination task. Notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, the capacity for such a response does not presuppose the linguistic ability to answer questions. Judgement is a feature of a type of problem-solving that we share with some non-linguistic creatures. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the problem of the Kantian line. The problem arises because the locus of value in Kantian ethics is rationality, which (counterintuitively) seems to entail that there are no duties to groups of beings like children. I argue that recent attempts to solve this problem by Wood and O’Neill overlook an important aspect of it before posing my own solution.

Bovine tuberculosis is a controversial animal health policy issue in England, which impacts farmers, the public, cattle and badgers. Badgers act as a wildlife reservoir of disease. Policy options for badger control include do nothing, badger culling, and badger vaccination. This paper argues for mandatory Animal Welfare Impact Assessment for all policy that significantly affects sentient animals. AWIA includes species description, and AWIA analysis stages. In this paper, AWIA is applied to impacts of bovine TB policy options on cattle and (...) badgers. Over 4 years, 85,000 badgers will be culled to prevent the slaughter of ~17,750 cattle over 9 years. Hence, about five badgers are culled for every cow which avoids slaughter. The AWIA analyses the impact of badger vaccination on cows and badgers based on a set of stated assumptions. The AWIA estimates badger vaccination to reduce the number of cows slaughtered by 11,600, i.e. a 12.5% reduction. Additional to the harm of killing, culling has greater welfare impacts on badgers compared to non-culling options. Actors in animal health and welfare policy were interviewed about the concept of AWIA. Policy actors supported the idea of AWIA to provide objective data to feed into policy making. The paper concludes with the proposal that AWIA is a necessary stage of just policy making where sentient animals are impacted by government policy. (shrink)

: This article considers what contribution the work of John Rawls can make to questions about animal ethics. It argues that there are more normative resources in A Theory of Justice for a concern with animal welfare than some of Rawls's critics acknowledge. However, the move from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism sees a depletion of normative resources in Rawlsian thought for addressing animal ethics. The article concludes by endorsing the implication of A Theory of Justice that we (...) look for ways other than rights discourse to respect and protect the well-being of animals. (shrink)

Controversy and activism have long been linked to the subject of primate research. Even in the midst of raging ethical debates surrounding fertility treatments, genetically modified foods and stem-cell research, there has been no reduction in the campaigns of activists worldwide. Plying their trade of intimidation aimed at ending biomedical experimentation in all animals, they have succeeded in creating an environment where research institutions, often painted as guilty until proven innocent, have avoided addressing the issue for fear of becoming targets. (...) One area of intense debate is the use of primates in stroke research. Despite the fact that stroke kills more people each year than AIDS and malaria, and less than 5% of patients are candidates for current therapies, there is significant opposition to primate stroke research. A balanced examination of the ethics of primate stroke research is thus of broad interest to all areas of biomedical research. (shrink)

As the world population is growing and government directives tell us to consume more fatty acids, the demand for fish is increasing. Due to declines in wild fish populations, we have come to rely more and more on aquaculture. Despite rapid expansion of aquaculture, this sector is still in a relatively early developmental stage. This means that this sector can still be steered in a favorable direction, which requires discussion about sustainability. If we want to avoid similar problems to the (...) ones we have experienced with livestock farming, we need to generate knowledge of the biology, profitability, environmental aspects, consumer awareness, and product appreciation of particular fish species. However, the discussion about a sustainable aquaculture also raises the question how we should treat fish. This moral question is regularly addressed as a problem of applied ethics with a focus on tailoring ethical principles to practical questions. In this article we do not deny the importance of the practical accounts, but we start from the fundamental question whether and why fish matter in our moral deliberations, i.e., from the discussion on moral status. We elaborate the distinction between moral considerability and moral significance in order to show both the importance and the limitations of the discussion about moral status for practical problems in aquaculture. We illustrate these points with a case-study about the farming of a specific fish species, the African catfish. (shrink)

This paper criticizes Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis of disorder by arguing that the conceptual linkage it establishes between the medical concepts of health and disorder and the prudential notions of well-being and harm makes the account inapplicable to nonsentient organisms, such as plants, fungi, and many invertebrate animals. Drawing on a previous formulation of this criticism by Christopher Boorse, and noting that Wakefield could avoid it if he adopted a partly biofunction-based account of interests like that often advocated in (...) the field of environmental ethics, I argue that integrating such an account of interests into the HDA would generate serious concerns. Specifically, it would make dysfunction sufficient for disorder and so reestablish between dysfunction and disorder precisely the kind of sufficiency relation that harm-requiring accounts of disorder strive to avoid; blur the line between the HDA’s dysfunction and harm components and, in so doing, deprive the HDA of its alleged main advantage over monistic dysfunction-based accounts of disorders like Boorse’s; and tie the HDA to an understanding of harm that is in itself problematic. I argue that these three concerns, and the dilemmas they generate, rob the HDA of much of its prima facie appeal, ultimately indicating that a satisfactory account of disorder should most likely eschew all references to prudential notions of well-being and harm. (shrink)

In Animal Ethics in Context, Clare Palmer tries to harmonise two competing approaches to animal ethics. One focuses on the morally relevant capacities that animals possess. The other is the Laissez-Faire Intuition (LFI): the claim that we have duties to assist domesticated animals but should (at least generally) leave wild animals alone. In this paper, I critique the arguments that Palmer offers in favour of the No-Contact LFI - the view that we have (prima facie) duties not to harm wild (...) animals but no duties to assist them. I argue that Palmer's endorsement of the No-Contact LFI is unwarranted. Her arguments actually provide strong reasons to endorse what I call the Gradient View - a position that posits weak presumptive duties to assist wild animals that become stronger as our relations with the animals grow stronger. (shrink)

Various theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain what makes moral judgments justifiable. One of the main theories currently advocated in bioethics is a form of coherentism known as wide reflective equilibrium. In this paper, I argue that wide reflective equilibrium is not a satisfactory approach for justifying moral beliefs and propositions. A long-standing theoretical problem for reflective equilibrium has not been adequately resolved, and, as a result, the main arguments for wide reflective equilibrium are unsuccessful. Moreover, (...) practical problems that arise in using the method of wide reflective equilibrium undermine the idea that it is a viable approach for justifying moral judgments about cases and policies. Given that wide reflective equilibrium is the most prominent version of coherentism, these considerations call into question the coherentist approach to justification in bioethics. (shrink)

In recent discussions, it has been argued that a theory of animal rights is at odds with a liberal abortion policy. In response, Francione (1995) argues that the principles used in the animal rights discourse do not have implications for the abortion debate. I challenge Francione’s conclusion by illustrating that his own framework of animal rights, supplemented by a relational account of moral obligation, can address the moral issue of abortion. I first demonstrate that Francione’s animal rights position, which grounds (...) moral consideration in sentience, is committed to the claim that a sentient fetus has a right to life. I then illustrate that a fully developed account of animal rights that recognizes the special obligations humans have to assist animals when we cause them to be dependent and vulnerable through our voluntary actions or omissions is committed to the following: a woman also has a special obligation to assist a sentient fetus when she causes it to be dependent and vulnerable through her voluntary actions or omissions. From these considerations, it will become evident that a fully developed and consistent animal rights ethic does in fact have implications for the abortion discussion. (shrink)

The principle of equal consideration of interests is a very popular principle in animal ethics. Peter Singer employs it to ground equal treatment and solve the problem of the basis of equality, namely the problem of why we should grant equal treatment despite the variability of people’s features. In this paper, I challenge Singer’s argument because ECOI does not provide plausible grounds to presume that the interests of diverse individuals are actually equal. Analyzing the case of pain and the interest (...) in not suffering in particular, I contend that there are some insurmountable epistemic and axiological problems in accounting for the equality of interests. Besides criticizing ECOI as a basis of equality, I argue that we need to rely on an equality of moral status. I conclude by providing some considerations on the relation between equality and the principle of proportionality. (shrink)

Greely’s target article outlines six categories of ethical issues associated with human brain surrogate research. Some of these issues are familiar from other research contexts; others, less...

Bovine tuberculosis is an important animal health policy issue in Britain, which impacts farmers, the public, domestic farmed cattle and the wild badger population. The Westminster government’s badger culling policy in England, which began in 2013, has caused considerable controversy. This is in part because the Independent Scientific Group advised against culling, based on the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Those opposed to badger culling support more stringent cattle-based measures and the vaccination of badgers. This paper argues for ethical analysis of (...) public policy options which impact sentient species. It provides a summary Animal Welfare Impact Assessment of a do-nothing approach, badger culling, and badger vaccination. A utilitarian analysis is then applied to these policy options considering human wellbeing and animal welfare. The analysis compares a badger culling policy that achieves a 19% reduction in bovine TB incidence, a badger vaccination model achieving a 12.5% reduction, and a do-nothing approach. Policy options are assessed over 9 years and a longer timeframe, and uncertainty is considered. The analysis finds that non-culling approaches, particularly badger vaccination, result in greater total utility, compared to badger culling. Badger culling causes 30% reduction in the badger population in England as well as substantial harms due to the culling process. Culling is opposed by public opinion and is associated with considerable risks and uncertainty. In contrast, non-culling approaches, such as cattle-based measures and badger vaccination, are supported by public opinion and are not associated with such risks. (shrink)

Bovine tuberculosis is the most important animal health and welfare policy issue in Britain. Badgers are a wildlife reservoir of disease, although the eight-year Independent Scientific Group Randomised Badger Culling Trial concluded with a recommendation against culling. The report advised government that bovine TB could be controlled, and ultimately eradicated, by cattle-based measures alone. Despite the ISG recommendation against culling, the farming and veterinary industries continued to lobby government for a badger cull. The 2005–2010 Labour government followed the ISG advice (...) and decided against a cull. The 2010–2015 Coalition and the 2015-present Conservative governments have followed a badger culling policy. This paper investigates whether a virtuous government would cull badgers. It provides an overview of virtue theory in the context of government animal health and welfare policy. Bovine TB and badger control policy options are then analysed in the context of the virtues of justice, wisdom, integrity, loyalty, curiosity, trust, empathy, compassion and aesthetics. Justice is the first virtue of government, and badger culling is seriously problematic from a virtue perspective given that five badgers are culled per cow that avoids slaughter as a result. Analysis based on other virtues strongly suggests that government should not cull badgers. The paper concludes that a virtuous government would not cull badgers as part of policy to control bovine TB in cattle. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories maintain that consciousness involves the having of higher-order thoughts about mental states. In response to these theories of consciousness, an attempt is often made to illustrate that nonhuman animals possess said consciousness, overlooking an alarming consequence: attributing higher-order thought to nonhuman animals might entail that they should be held morally accountable for their actions. I argue that moral responsibility requires more than higher-order thought: moral agency requires a specific higher-order thought which concerns a belief about the rightness (...) or wrongness of affecting another’s mental states. This “moral thought” about the rightness or wrongness is not yet demonstrated in even the most intelligent nonhuman animals, thus we should suspend our judgments about the “rightness” or “wrongness” of their actions while further questioning the recent insistence on developing an animal morality. (shrink)

A common assumption in the selection of nonhuman animal subjects for research and the approval of research is that, if the risks of a procedure are too great for humans, and if there is a so-called scientific necessity, then it is permissible to use nonhuman animal subjects. I reject the common assumption as neglecting the central ethical issue of the permissibility of using nonhuman animal subjects and as being inconsistent with the principle of justice used in human subjects research ethics. (...) This principle requires that certain classes of individuals not be subjected to a disproportionate share of the burdens or risks of research. I argue for an extension of this principle to nonhuman animal research and show that a prima facie violation of the principle occurs because nonhuman animals bear an overwhelmingly disproportionate share of the risks of research without sufficient justification or reciprocal benefit. (shrink)

This essay examines the fundamental role of veterinarians in companion animal practice by developing the idea of veterinarians as strong advocates for their nonhuman animal patients. While the practitioner-patient relationship has been explored extensively in medical ethics, the relation between practitioner and animal patient has received relatively less attention in the expanding but still young field of veterinary ethics. Over recent decades, social and professional ethical perspectives on human-animal relationships have undergone major change. Today, the essential role of veterinarians is (...) not entirely clear. Furthermore, veterinarians routinely face pressure, often insidious, to refrain from pursuing their patients’ vital interests. In exploring the concept of strong patient advocacy, this essay investigates the increasingly common suggestion that veterinarians have ‘primary obligation’ and ‘first allegiance’ to their animal patients rather than to other parties, such as their clients or employers. The related concept of a fiduciary duty, which is sometimes encountered in medical ethics, is similarly explored as it applies to companion animal practice. The resultant idea of a strong patient advocate places companion animal veterinarians conceptually and ethically close to human health professionals, not least pediatricians. (shrink)

Is nonhuman animal-assisted therapy a form of exploitation? After exploring possible moral vindications of AAT and after establishing a distinction between "use" and "exploitation," the essay distinguishes between forms of animal-assisted therapy that are morally unobjectionable and those modes of it that ought to be abolished.

In this paper I will examine two responses to the argument from marginal cases; the argument from kinds and the similarity argument. I will argue that these arguments are insufficient to show that all humans have moral status but no animals do. This does not prove that animals have moral status but it does shift the burden of proof onto those who want to maintain that all humans are morally considerable, but no animals are.

To be intrinsically valuable means to be valuable for its own sake. Moral philosophy is often ethically anthropocentric, meaning that it locates intrinsic value within humans. This paper rejects ethical anthropocentrism and asks, in what ways might nonhumans be intrinsically valuable? The paper answers this question with a wide-ranging survey of theories of nonhuman intrinsic value. The survey includes both moral subjects and moral objects, and both natural and artificial nonhumans. Literatures from environmental ethics, philosophy of technology, philosophy of art, (...) moral psychology, and related fields are reviewed, and gaps in these literatures are identified. Although the gaps are significant and much work remains to be done, the survey nonetheless demonstrates that those who reject ethical anthropocentrism have considerable resources available to develop their moral views. Given the many very high-stakes issues involving both natural and artificial nonhumans, and the sensitivity of these issues to how nonhumans are intrinsically valued, this is a vital project to pursue. (shrink)

Pain is an unwanted mental state that is often considered a sufficient ground for moral status. However, current science and philosophy of mind suggest that pains, like other perceptual states, might be nonconscious. This raises the questions of whether the notion of nonconscious pain is coherent and what its moral significance might be. In this paper I argue that the existence of nonconscious pain is conceptually coherent; however as a matter of fact our brains might always represent pains consciously. I (...) then characterize the concept of suffering from a naturalistic perspective, distinguishing it from pain. I offer an account of suffering based on some current theories of consciousness, in which suffering consists in the global broadcasting of representations with overall net negative valence. I argue this can explain most of suffering’s properties, such as its wholeness, significance for welfare, and conscious character. Finally, I contend that suffering, but not pain, provides sufficient grounds for moral status. (shrink)

Many people assume that serious reflection on animal ethics arose because of recent technological progress, the sharp rise in human population, and consequent pressure on global ecology. They consequently believe that this sub-discipline is relatively new and that traditional religions have little or nothing to offer. In spite of this however, we are currently seeing a heightened awareness of religion’s important role in all areas of individual and communal life, for better or for worse. As regards our relations with nature (...) in general and with animals in particular, and as regards the foundational idea of creaturehood, religious traditions have played, and are still playing, a central role in molding the subliminal conscience of billions of people, guiding their moral dispositions that often remain unarticulated. This paper therefore explores our relation to animals by referring not only to the binary conceptual structure animality-humanity, as philosophers often do, but by referring also to the triple conceptual structure animality-humanity-divinity. After critically evaluating some of the relevant attitudes that derive from the major world religions, the paper tries to determine the extent to which the doctrine of these religions converge on some useful central principles regarding animal ethics and animal production. The result of this research supplies added support to the claim that the study of religious outlooks in this area serves to rediscover neglected perspectives and thereby to enlarge the horizon of current philosophical work. (shrink)

Many people believe that only humans have the cognitive and behavioral capacities needed for suicidal behavior, such as reflexive subjectivity, free will, intentionality, or awareness of death. Three counterarguments — based on (i) negative emotions and psychopathologies among nonhuman animals, (ii) the nature of self-destructive behavior, and (iii) the problem of model fidelity in suicide research — suggest that self-destructive and self-injurious behaviors among human and nonhuman animals vary along a continuum.