Ethicists have become increasingly skeptical about the importance of empathy in producing moral concern for others. One of the main claims made by empathy skeptics is a psychological thesis: empathy is not the primary psychological process responsible for producing moral concern. Some of the best evidence that could confirm or disconfirm this thesis comes from research on empathizing with animals. However, this evidence has not been discussed in any of the prominent critiques of empathy. In this paper, I investigate six (...) different empirical claims commonly made about empathy toward animals. I find all six claims to be problematic, though some are more plausible than others, and argue that empathy is indeed not psychologically central to producing moral concern for animals. I also review evidence indicating that other moral emotions, particularly anger, are more strongly engaged with producing moral concern for animals, and are thus more capable of achieving various normative aims in animal ethics. The conclusion of my argument is that empathy should lose its currently privileged place. (shrink)

This book draws on Iris Murdoch's philosophy to explore questions related to the importance of attention in ethics. In doing so, it also engages with Murdoch's ideas about the existence of a moral reality, the importance of love, and the necessity but also the difficulty, for most of us, of fighting against our natural self-centred tendencies. Why is attention important to morality? This book argues that many moral failures and moral achievements can be explained by attention. Not only our actions (...) and choices, but the possibilities we choose among, and even the meaning what we perceive, are to a large extent determined by whether we pay attention, and what we attend do. In this way, the book argues that attention is fundamental, though often overlooked, in morality. While the book's discussion of attention revolves primarily around Murdoch's thought, it also engages significantly with Simone Weil, who introduced the concept of attention in a spiritual context. The book also engages with contemporary debates concerning moral perception and motivation, empirical psychology, animal ethics, and Buddhist philosophy. The Ethics of Attention will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on Iris Murdoch, Simone Weil, ethics and moral psychology, and the philosophy of attention. (shrink)

: The treatment of animals and the Holocaust have been compared many times before, but never has a thoroughly detailed comparison been offered. A thirty-nine-point comparison can be constructed, whether or not one believes that animals are oppressed. The question of whether or not the comparison ought to be expressed merely brings into question whether animal liberationists have liberal-democratic rights to express themselves, which they surely do. Four objections are considered: Is the comparison offensive? Does the comparison trivialize what happened (...) to the victims of the Nazis, overlook important differences, or ignore supposed affinities between animal liberationists and Nazis? These four lines of attack are shown to fail. The comparison stands to help us to reflect on the significance of how animals are treated in contemporary times. (shrink)

Ethical approaches rooted in care are distinct and important contributors to ethical discussions surrounding animals. Recently, however, concern has been raised that practices of care can facilitate the instrumentalization of animal life in a way that is antithetical to an ethical relationship toward animals. This article explores this debate through a discussion of contemporary apiculture practices. This analysis reveals that the practices of care that constitute contemporary apiculture are the very same practices that have facilitated the instrumentalization of the honeybee. (...) This suggests that accounts of care ethics regarding animal life need to be complicated and that care ethicists need to be more attuned to the ways in which care can become complicit in the practices they would seek to oppose. (shrink)

In light of research showing that climate change policy opinions and perceptions of climate change are conditioned by pre-held values, Max Scheler’s axiology, conception of ethos, and sociology of knowledge are revisited. Scheler provides a critical analysis of the values surrounding modern technology’s relation to nature, especially in his assessment of the subordination of life to utility, or, the “ethos of industrialism”. The ethos of industrialism is said to influence the modern understanding of the environment as a machine to be (...) controlled for human aims. Scheler’s phenomenological proto-environmental sociology can contribute to the environmental social sciences in three ways: articulating the axiological basis of human knowledge of the environment; offering new values to consider in future research on the social dimensions of human-nature relations; and a framework for connecting socio-ecological analysis with evaluation, specifically for evaluating different types of technologies based on their relation to the environment. (shrink)

The time is ripe for a greater interrogation of assumptions and commitments underlying an emerging common ground on the ethics of animal research as well on the 3 R (replacement, refinement, reduction) approach that parallels, and perhaps even further shapes, it. Recurring pressures to re-evaluate the moral status of some animals in research comes as much from within the relevant sciences as without. It seems incredible, in the light of what we now know of such animals as chimpanzees, to deny (...) that these animals are properly accorded high moral status. Barring the requirement that they be human, it is difficult to see what more animals such as chimpanzees would have to possess to acquire it. If the grounds for ascribing high moral status are to be non-arbitrary and responsive to our best knowledge of those individuals who possess the relevant features, we should expect that a sound ethical experimental science will periodically reassess the moral status of their research subjects as the relevant knowledge demands. We already can observe this reassessment as scientists committed to humane experimental science incorporate discoveries of enrichment tools and techniques into their housing and use of captive research animals. No less should this reassessment include a critical reflection on the possible elevation of moral status of certain research animals in light of what is discovered regarding their morally significant properties, characteristics or capacities, or so I will argue. To do anything short of this threatens the social and moral legitimacy of animal research. (shrink)

Many familial and cultural traditions rely on animals for their fulfillment - think of Christmas ham, Rosh Hashannah chicken soup, Fourth of July barbeques, and so forth. Though philosophers writing in animal ethics often dismiss interests in certain foods as trivial, these food-based traditions pose a significant moral problem for those who take animals’ lives and interests seriously. One must either turn one’s back on one’s community or on the animals. In this paper, I consider the under-theorized area of intra-cultural (...) critique. My focus is how we should think about and seek to resolve inter-animal conflicts of interest that arise within our own communities and cultural or religious groups. How should a theory that takes animals seriously approach a conflict between animals’ interests and culturally important human interests in the context of one’s own cultural, ethnic, or religious group? How, for example, should we think about the person staring down at a bowl of her grandmother’s chicken soup while recognizing the moral impermissibility of slaughtering chickens for human consumption? In contrast to traditional approaches that fail to take these robust, food-based, interests into account, I offer an ecofeminist approach that highlights the importance of respecting animals’ interests while also undertaking the work of moral repair to address damage done to relationships of love and care in the process. (shrink)

: This essay examines the content and significance of the notion of "identification" as it appears in the works of theorists of deep ecology. It starts with the most frequently expressed conception of identification—termed "identification-as-belonging"—and distinguishes several different variants of it. After reviewing two criticisms of deep ecology that appear to target this notion, it is argued that there is a second, less frequently noticed type of identification that appears primarily in the work of Arne Naess—"identification-as-kinship." Following this analysis, it (...) is suggested that identification-as-kinship may be less vulnerable to the criticisms that are aimed at identification-as-belonging. (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)