Abstract
This paper addresses the issue of the moral status of non-human animals,
or the question whether sentient animals are morally considerable. The
arguments for and against the moral status of animals are discussed,
above all the argument from marginal cases. It is argued that sentient
animals have moral status based on their having interests in their
experiential well-being, but that there are degrees of moral status. Two
interest-based approaches are presented and discussed: DeGrazia’s view
that sentient animals have interests in continuing to live, and that their
interests should be granted moral weight; and McMahan’s TRIA which
similarly postulates that animals have interests and that in a given situation
we should compare the human and animal interests at stake. Finally, the
paper concludes that the anthropocentric approach to animal ethics
should be abandoned in favour of the biocentric ethics.