Towards an Animal Ethics for the Anthropocene

In this paper, we will put forward virtue ethics as a promising alternative to the traditional animal welfare and animal rights approaches, an alternative that can also help to overcome the dichotomy between animal ethics’ zoo-centrism and environmental ethics’ eco-centrism. We will deal with three theories within virtue ethics that are important for an alternative animal ethics: the theory of Alasdair MacIntyre on the relationship between virtues and practices, the ethics of care of Carol Gilligan, Joan Tronto and many others, and the capability approach of Martha Nussbaum. We will apply our alternative animal ethics to three of animal-human practices: wildlife parks, zoos, and circuses.

In this thesis, I will claim that—based on a few reasonable assumptions about the capacities many nonhumans most probably possess—capacity-oriented accounts of ethics must recognize the full moral considerability of all sentient animals. Once moral considerability has been established, I will maintain that there are strong reasons to intervene in nature to prevent or reduce the harms wild animals suffer. Even though many animal ethicists have traditionally claimed that humans should stay away as far as possible from the natural habitats of wild animals, I will show that all arguments to relieve us from our general obligation to intervene in nature on their behalf are either inconsistent, or based on a very skewed conception of life in the wild. Consequently, I will argue that (1) we have to raise concern about the subject of wild animal suffering, (2) we have to convince ecologists to shift their resources from conservation biology to "welfare biology," and (3) we must question speciesism, as most of us already accept that we should intervene in nature when human interests are at stake.

The emergence of an ecological consciousness is not in itself enough to resolve the issue of our treatment of non-human creatures. An ethical principle of a non-exploitative, sustainable civilization is the right of all sentient beings to exercise their natural powers in pursuit of their flourishing as individuals. To this end, this essay articulates the “vital-needs rights view” as a philosophical basis for reconciling animal rights with the satisfaction of human vital needs. The vital-needs rights view supports a defensible environmental ethic. Only by ascribing rights to sentient animals can an environmental ethic avoid an unacceptable degree of anthropocentrism. This is because only a rights-based environmental ethic can prohibit humans from significantly interfering with sentient animals where human vital needs are not at stake. Further, a rights view that permits significant interference where this is required for the satisfaction of human vital needs avoids problems that would otherwise plague a rights view. This rights-based environmental ethic suggests an alliance of animal rights with ecofeminism and with deep ecology, and necessitates an understanding of the connections among vital needs, capitalism, and environmental degradation.

De Ethica. A Journal of Philosophical, Theological and Applied Ethics, 2016

Originally, the Capabilities Approach had a strong anthropocentric orientation because of its focus on the entitlements of individual humans. However, as a part of the interest to employ it within animal and environmental ethics, it has been discussed whether the Capabilities Approach should consider also non-human life forms for their own sake. The most influential and elaborated contribution to this debate is Martha Nussbaum’s extension of the Capabilities Approach to include sentient animals. In this article, we argue that Nussbaum’s ascription of capabilities to animals is problematic, since the concept of a capability normally denotes an opportunity to choose between different functionings. When Nussbaum ascribes capabilities to animals, the concept seems to simply denote specific abilities. Such a use is problematic since it waters down the concept and makes it less meaningful, and it may obscure the fact that normal, adult humans, in contrast to sentient animals, can act as c...

Broadview Press, 2009

Can animals be regarded as part of the moral community? To what extent, if at all, do they have moral rights? Are we wrong to eat them, hunt them, or use them for scientific research? Can animal liberation be squared with the environmental movement? Taylor traces the background of these debates from Aristotle to Darwin and sets out the views of numerous contemporary philosophers – including Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Mary Anne Warren, J. Baird Callicott, and Martha Nussbaum – with ethical theories ranging from utilitarianism to eco-feminism. The new edition also includes provocative quotations from some of the major writers in the field. As the final chapter insists, animal ethics is more than just an “academic” question: it is intimately connected both to our understanding of what it means to be human and to pressing current issues such as food shortages, environmental degradation, and climate change.

Revista Brasileira de Direito Animal, 2017

The idea that animals are not be made to suffer has a long tradition in human history, but the idea that animals have actual rights conflict with the interests of people is fairly new and controversial. Among the contemporary perspectives, the Martha

2023

This annotated bibliography is the first assignment for the "Environmental Philosophy" course of the "Philosophy and Religion" master programme at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. In this assignment, I present and discuss four papers in animal ethics and environmental philosophy: * Joel Feinberg, “The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations” (1974) * Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal” (1974) * Paul W. Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature” (1981) * Mark Sagoff, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce” (1984)

1998

A couple of decades after becoming a major area of both public and philosophical concern, animal ethics continues its inroads into mainstream consciousness. Increasingly, philosophers, ethicists, professionals who use animals, and the broader public confront specific ethical issues regarding human use of animals as well as more fundamental questions about animals' moral status. A parallel, related development is the explosion of interest in animals' mental lives, as seen in exciting new work in cognitive ethology 1 and in the plethora of movies, television commercials, and popular books featuring apparently intelligent animals. As we approach the turn of the twenty-first century, philosophical animal ethics is an area of both increasing diversity and unrealized potential-a thesis supported by this essay as a whole. Following up on an earlier philosophical review of animal ethics (but without that review's focus on animal research), 2 the present article provides an updated narrativeone that offers some perspective on where we have been, a more detailed account of where we are, and a projection of where we might go. Each of the three major sections offers material that one is unlikely to find in other reviews of animal ethics: the first by viewing familiar territory in a different light (advancing the thesis that the utility-versus-rights debate in animal ethics is much less important than is generally thought); the second by reviewing major recent works that are not very well-known (at least My thanks to Tom Beauchamp, Maggie Little, and Barbara Orlans for their comments on a draft of this paper.

2023

Animals, like humans, suûer and die from natural causes. This is particularly true of animals living in the wild, given their high exposure to, and low capacity to cope with, harmful natural processes. Most wild animals likely have short lives, full of suûering, usually ending in terrible deaths. This book argues that on the assumption that we have reasons to assist others in need, we should intervene in nature to prevent or reduce the harms wild animals suûer, provided that it is feasible and that the expected result is positive overall. It is of the utmost importance that academics from diûerent disciplines as well as animal advocates begin to confront this issue. The more people concerned with wild animal suûering, the more probable it is that safe and eûective solutions to the plight of wild animals will be implemented in the future.

2021

Agency is central to humans’ individual rights and their organization as a community. Human agency is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through guaranteed rights, such as the right to life, basic education, freedom of expression, and the freedom to form personal relationships, which all protect humans from tyranny and oppression. Though studies of animal agency consistently suggest that we grossly underestimate the capacity of animals to make decisions, determine and take action, and to organize themselves individually and as groups, few have concerned themselves with whether and how animal agency is relevant for the law and vice versa. Currently, most laws offer no guarantee that animals’ agency will be respected, and fail to respond when animals resist the human systems that govern them. This failure emerges from profound prejudices and deep-seated anthropocentric biases that shape the law, including law-making processes. Law and law-making operating exclusiv...