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ABSTRACT One of the overarching problems of the world today is that too many people see themselves as dominating other groups of people, and dominating nature. That is a root problem. And thus part of a core solution builds from Kohlberg’s commitment to a universal moral orientation, though extended to include not only all people but the more-than-human world: animals, trees, plants, species, ecosystems, and the land itself. In this article, I make a case for this form of ethical extensionism, (...) |
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Robert Nozick famously raised the possibility that there is a sense in which both deontology and utilitarianism are true: deontology applies to humans while utilitarianism applies to animals. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in such a hybrid views of ethics. Discussions of this Nozickian Hybrid View, and similar approaches to animal ethics, often assume that such an approach reflects the commonsense view, and best captures common moral intuitions. However, recent psychological work challenges this empirical assumption. We review (...) |
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This paper explores the debate between personists, who argue that the concept of a person if of central importance for moral thought, and personists, who argue that the concept of a human being is of greater moral significance. On the one hand, it argues that normative naturalism, the most ambitious defense of the humanist position, fails to identify moral standards with standards of human behavior and thereby fails to undermine the moral significance of personhood. At the same time, it contends (...) |
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This paper is a summary of my book 'Wild Animal Ethics'. |
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Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild animals give birth to large numbers of uncared-for offspring, and thus child mortality rates are far higher in nature than they are among human beings. In light of this reproductive strategy – traditionally referred to as the ‘r-strategy’ – does concern for the interests of wild animals require us to intervene in nature? In this paper, I argue that animal rights theorists should embrace fallibility-constrained interventionism: the (...) |
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The spectacle of the relentless use and abuse of animals in various human enterprises led some human beings to formulate animal welfare policies and to offer philosophical arguments on the basis of which the humane treatment of animals could be defended rationally. According to the animal welfare concept, animals should be provided some comfort and freedom of movement in the period prior to the moment when they are killed. This concept emphasizes the physiological, psychological, and natural aspects of animal life (...) |
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Oscar Horta has argued that speciesism is wrong by definition. In his view, there can be no more substantive debate about the justification of speciesism than there can be about the legality of murder, for it stems from the definition of “speciesism” that speciesism is unjustified just as it stems from the definition of “murder” that murder is illegal. The present paper is a case against this conception. I distinguish two issues: one is descriptive and the other normative. Relying on (...) |
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Meat production in South Africa is on an increasing trend. In South Africa rising wealth, urbanisation and a growing middle class means South Africans are eating more processed and high-protein foods, especially meat and dairy products. These foods are more land- and water-intensive than fruit, vegetable and grain crops, and further stress existing resources. Traditional agricultural farms cannot keep up with the increasing demand for animal products and these farms are being replaced with concentrated animal feeding operations. There are a (...) |
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The aim of this paper is to take normative aspects of animal welfare in corporate practice from a blind spot into the spotlight, and thus connect the fields of business ethics and animal ethics. Using insights from business ethics and animal ethics, it argues that companies have a strong responsibility towards animals. Its rationale is that animals have a moral status, that moral actors have the moral obligation to take the interests of animals into account and thus, that as moral (...) |
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I begin by briefly tracing the history of the split between environmental ethics and animal liberation, go on to sketch a theory of value that I think is implicit in animal liberation, and explain how this theory is consistent with strong environmental commitments. I conclude with some observations about problems that remain. |
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This article calls for an end to the use of the term ‘invasive species’, both in the scientific and public discourse on wildlife conservation. There are two broad reasons for this: the first problem with the invasive species narrative is that this demonisation of ‘invasives’ is morally wrong, particularly because it usually results in the unjust killing of the animals in question. Following on from this, the second problem is that the narrative is also incoherent, both from scientific and philosophical (...) |
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By 2050, global livestock production is expected to double—growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector—with most of this increase taking place in the developing world. As the United Nation’s four-hundred-page report, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options , documents, livestock production is now one of three most significant contributors to environmental problems, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, water pollution, and increased health problems. The paper draws on the UN report as well as a flurry of other (...) |
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I claim that there is pro tanto moral reason for parents to not raise their child on a vegan diet because a vegan diet bears a risk of harm to both the physical and the social well-being of children. After giving the empirical evidence from nutrition science and sociology that supports this claim, I turn to the question of how vegan parents should take this moral reason into account. Since many different moral frameworks have been used to argue for veganism, (...) |
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Critics of industrial animal agriculture have argued that its practices are cruel, inhumane, or otherwise degrading to animals. These arguments sometimes form the basis of a larger case for the complete abolition of animal agriculture, while others argue for more modest welfare-based reforms that allow for certain types of industrial farming. This paper defends industrial farming against the charge of cruelty. As upsetting as certain practices may seem, I argue that they need not be construed as cruel or inhumane. Any (...) |
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The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 59, Issue 3, Page 270-308, September 2021. |
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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 (...) |
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The Disenhancement Problem in Agriculture: A Reply to Thompson Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0138-2 Authors Soraj Hongladarom, Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. |
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In this paper I examine the connection between accounts of biological teleology and the biocentrist claim that all living beings have a good of their own. I first present the background for biocentrists’ appeal to biological teleology. Then I raise a problem of scope for teleology-based biocentrism and, drawing in part on recent work by Basl and Sandler, I discuss Taylor and Varner’s responses to this problem. I then challenge Basl and Sandler’s own response to the scope problem for its (...) |
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The Animal Rights Thesis (ART) entails that nonhuman animals like pigs and cows have moral rights, including rights not to be unjustly harmed. If ART is true, it appears to imply the permissibility of killing ranchers, farmers, and zookeepers in defense of animals who will otherwise be unjustly killed. This is the Militancy Objection (MO) to ART. I consider four replies to MO and reject three of them. First, MO fails because animals lack rights, or lack rights of sufficient strength (...) |
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In this paper I look at moral debates about animal disenhancement. In particular, I propose that given the particular social institutions in which such disenhancement will operate, we ought to reject animal disenhancement. I do this by introducing the issue of animal disenhancement and presenting arguments in support of it, and showing that while these arguments are strong, they are unconvincing when we look at the full picture. Viewing animal disenhancement in a context such as high intensity food production, we (...) |
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Many authors in ethics, economics, and political science endorse the Lottery Requirement, that is, the following thesis: where different parties have equal moral claims to one indivisible good, it is morally obligatory to let a fair lottery decide which party is to receive the good. This article defends skepticism about the Lottery Requirement. It distinguishes three broad strategies of defending such a requirement: the surrogate satisfaction account, the procedural account, and the ideal consent account, and argues that none of these (...) |
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Slaughter sets the debate about what is acceptable to do to animals at an extremely low bar. Recently, there has been considerable investment in developing cell-based meat, an alternative meat production process that does not require the raising and slaughtering of animals, instead using muscle cells cultivated in a bioreactor. We discuss the animal ethics impacts of cell-based and plant-based meat on human-animal interactions from animal welfare and rights perspectives, focusing on industrial meat production scenarios. Our hypothesis is that the (...) |
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Since the first successful attempt to clone a dog in 2005, dogs have been cloned by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer for a variety of purposes. One of these is to clone dogs as companion animals. In this paper we discuss some of the ethical implications that cloning companion dogs through SCNT encompasses, specifically in relation to human–dog relationships, but also regarding animal welfare and animal integrity. We argue that insofar as we understand the relationship with our companion dogs as one (...) |
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In this book review, I assess the merits of John Nolt's Environmental Ethics for the Long Term: An Introduction. Although the book is written as a primary text for an environmental ethics course, some of its later chapters are clearly written more for academic philosophers than undergraduate students. As a textbook, Nolt's book is excellent and an ideal choice for those who want to emphasize the long-term impacts of various environmental problems (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss) in their courses. Regarding (...) |
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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 (...) |
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A notable feature of recent philosophical work on climate ethics is that it makes practically no reference to ‘traditional’ environmental philosophy. There is some irony in this, since environmental ethics arose as part of a broader movement within philosophy, starting in the 1960s, aimed at developing different fields of applied philosophy, in order to show how everyday practice could be enriched through philosophical reflection and analysis. The major goal of this paper is to explain why this branch of practical ethics (...) |
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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 (...) |
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The concept of animal welfare in confinement agriculture—and an ethical theory based upon this concept—necessitates an idea of what kind of being it is that fares well and what “well” is for this being. This double-question is at the heart of understanding and adequately defining welfare as qualitatively embedded in the experiencing subject. The notion of telos derives (philosophically) from Aristotle and is a way of accounting for the good life of an animal from the unique speciesness of the animal (...) |
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This article discusses the notion that the invisibility of the animalness of the animal constitutes a fundamental obstacle to change within current production systems. It is discussed whether housing animals in environments that resemble natural habitats could lead to a re-animalization of the animals, a higher appreciation of their moral significance, and thereby higher standards of animal welfare. The basic claim is that experiencing the animals in their evolutionary and environmental context would make it harder to objectify animals as mere (...) |
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It appears that utilitarian arguments in favor of moral vegetarianism cannot justify a complete prohibition of eating meat. This is because, in certain circumstances, forgoing meat will prevent no pain, and so, on utilitarian grounds, we should be opportunistic carnivores rather than moral vegetarians. In his paper, ‘Puppies, pigs, and people: Eating meat and marginal cases,’ Alastair Norcross argues that causal impotence arguments like these are misguided. First, he presents an analogous situation, the case of chocolate mousse a-la-bama, in order (...) |
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Answers to the question, “What is a farm animal?” often revolve around genetics, physical attributes, and the animals’ functions in agricultural production. The essential and defining characteristics of farm animals transcend these limited models, however, and require an answer that avoids reductionism and encompasses a de-atomizing point of view. Such an answer should promote recognition of animals as beings with extensive mental and social capabilities that outline the extent of each individual animal’s existence and—at the same time—define the animals as (...) |
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This paper presents a moral argument in support of the view that the mind is a nonphysical object. It is intuitively obvious that we, the bearers of conscious experiences, have an inherent value that is not reducible to the value of our conscious experiences. It remains intuitively obvious that we have inherent value even when we represent ourselves to have no physical bodies whatsoever. Given certain assumptions about morality and moral intuitions, this implies that the bearers of conscious experiences—the objects (...) |
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Burgess-Jackson argues that the duties we have to our companion animals are similar to the duties we have to our children. Specifically, he argues that a person who takes custody of either a nonhuman animal or a child elevates the moral status of the child or animal, endowing each with rights neither had before. These rights obligate that person to provide for the well being of the creature—animal or child—in question. This paper offers two arguments against this position. First, a (...) |
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This paper provides an account of the Aristotelian virtue of temperance in regards to food, an account that revolves around the idea of enjoying the right objects and not enjoying the wrong ones. In doing so, the paper distinguishes between two meanings of “taking pleasure in something,” one that refers to the idea of the activity and one to the experience of the activity. The paper then connects this distinction to the temperate person’s attitude towards enjoying the right things and (...) |
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Purebred dog rescuers are doing their part to reduce the problems of homeless pets and pet overpopulation. The volunteers studied are doing the daily and invisible work of saving dogs. Because of their perception of the animal rights movement, however, they do not consider themselves part of the animal welfare or animal rights movement, nor do they care to be. Dog rescue organizations agree with academics and activist organizations on the cause of the problem of homeless pets and pet overpopulation, (...) |
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In 2035 global egg demand will have risen 50% from 1985. Because we are not able to tell in the egg whether it will become a male or female chick, billons of one day-old male chicks will be killed. International research initiatives are underway in this area, and governments encourage the development of an alternative with the goal of eliminating the culling of day-old male chicks. The Netherlands holds an exceptional position in the European egg trade, but is also the (...) |
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Due to the increased interest in ecology, global warming and numerous environmental problems, ecological issues are becoming extremely important in education. Many researchers and thinkers believe that solutions to environmental problems are affected by the environmental ethics adopted. This article identifies which of the three branches of environmental ethics are present in formal environmental education in Poland. This has been achieved by analysing the content of textbooks used by science teachers in the fourth grade of elementary schools. The results show (...) |
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This paper examines the challenges that climate change raises for animal agriculture and discusses the contributions that may come from a virtue ethics based approach. Two scenarios of the future role of animals in farming are set forth and discussed in terms of their ethical implications. The paper argues that when trying to tackle both climate and animal welfare issues in farming, proposals that call for a reorientation of our ethics and technology must first and foremost consider the values that (...) |
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Neither of the seemingly straightforward approaches of retaining the human at the top of the hierarchy of beings and of flattening human personhood solves the question of non-human personhood. But the concept of personhood does have the resources to address this issue, if we take it as a kind of moral agency. The way that humans develop moral agency through their temporality, historicity and community must be mapped onto the personhood of animals, but this is extremely difficult and must await (...) |
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Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. Neither of the seemingly straightforward approaches of retaining the human at the top of the hierarchy of beings and of flattening human personhood solves the question of non-human personhood. But the concept of personhood does have the resources to address this issue, if we take it as a kind of moral agency. The way that humans develop moral agency through their temporality, historicity and community must be mapped onto the personhood of animals, but (...) |
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Working with current methodologies of art, biology, and genetic technologies, the stated aims of artists working in this area include attempts both to critique the implications and outcomes of genetic technologies and to forge a new art practice involved in creating living beings using those technologies. It is this last ambition, the development of a new art practice involved in creating living beings, that this essay will particularly take to task by questioning the ethics of that goal and the uses (...) |
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In response to Evelyn Pluhar'sWho Can Be Morally Obligated to Be a Vegetarian? in this journal issue, the author has read all of Pluhar's citations for the accuracy of her claims and had these read by an independent nutritionist. Detailed analysis of Pluhar's argument shows that she attempts to make her case by consistent misappropriation of the findings and conclusions of the studies she cites. Pluhar makes sweeping generalizations from scanty data, ignores causal explanations given by scientists, equates hypothesis with (...) |
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In her recent Counter-Reply to my views, Evelyn Pluhar defends her use of literature on nutrition and restates her argument for moral vegetarianism. In his Vegan Ideal article, Gary Varner claims that the nutrition literature does not show sufficient differences among women, men, and children to warrant concern about discrimination. In this response I show how Professor Pluhar continues to draw fallacious inferences: she begs the question on equality, avoids the main issue in my ethical arguments, argues from irrelevancies, misquotes (...) |
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Three views of sustainability are juxtaposed with four views about who the members of the moral community are. These provide points of contact for understanding the moral issues in sustainability. Attention is drawn to the preferred epistemic methods of the differing factions arguing for sustainability. Criteria for defining membership in the moral community are explored; rationality and capacity for pain are rejected as consistent criteria. The criterion of having interests is shown to be most coherent for explaining why all living (...) |
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