Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Continental Philosophy (4)
- Philosophy of Science (3)
- Epistemology (2)
- Philosophy of Mind (2)
- Animal Law (1)
-
- Animal Sciences (1)
- Animal Studies (1)
- Applied Ethics (1)
- Behavior and Ethology (1)
- Cognition and Perception (1)
- Cognitive Science (1)
- Computer Engineering (1)
- Creative Writing (1)
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (1)
- Engineering (1)
- Fiction (1)
- French and Francophone Language and Literature (1)
- French and Francophone Literature (1)
- Law (1)
- Law and Gender (1)
- Life Sciences (1)
- Psychology (1)
- Social Psychology (1)
- Social and Behavioral Sciences (1)
- Zoology (1)
- Keyword
-
- Animal ethics (4)
- Animal rights (3)
- Tom Regan (3)
- Animal Rights (2)
- Veganism (2)
-
- Abortion (1)
- Animal Autonomy (1)
- Animal Ethics (1)
- Animal Sports (1)
- Animal welfare (1)
- Animality (1)
- Animals (1)
- Autonomy (1)
- Choice Architecture (1)
- Cognition (1)
- Companion animals (1)
- Computer science (1)
- Consciousness (1)
- Das Offene (1)
- Deconstructive criticism (1)
- Domestic animals (1)
- Ethic (1)
- Ethical Antirealism (1)
- Ethical Realism (1)
- Ethics (1)
- Ethics of assistance (1)
- Examples (1)
- Fish (1)
- Google car (1)
- Helene Cixous (1)
- Publication Year
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in Ethics and Political Philosophy
Avoiding Anthropomoralism, Julian Friedland
Avoiding Anthropomoralism, Julian Friedland
Between the Species
The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of anthropomorphizing moralism which I call anthropomoralism, defined as the tendency to project morally relevant characteristics of personhood onto merely …
The Intuitiveness Of Animal Rights: Audi's Epistemology, Kantian Ethics, And Regan's Case, Andrew Nesseler
The Intuitiveness Of Animal Rights: Audi's Epistemology, Kantian Ethics, And Regan's Case, Andrew Nesseler
Between the Species
In this paper, I will argue that ethical intuitionism and Robert Audi’s work on its moral epistemology as applied to Kant’s formula of humanity can offer grounding and support for an animal rights position that approaches that of a view articulated by Tom Regan. The combination of these positions will be done by testing our intuitions concerning non-rational individuals—leading one, I argue, to an animal rights view. Then I will briefly note the skeptical concerns about the role of intuitions in our knowledge of the moral status of human animals and non-human animals alike. Ultimately, I will conclude that intuitions …
Reducing Extreme Suffering For Non-Human Animals: Enhancement Vs. Smaller Future Populations?, Magnus Vinding
Reducing Extreme Suffering For Non-Human Animals: Enhancement Vs. Smaller Future Populations?, Magnus Vinding
Between the Species
This paper argues that ethical views that place primary importance on the reduction of extreme suffering imply that, at least in theory, it can be better to allow enhanced non-human animals to come into existence rather than unenhanced non-human animals. Furthermore, they imply that it would be even better if no non-human animals came into existence at all. However, it is unclear, from the perspective of these ethical views, whether enhancement or reduction of future populations is the more effective strategy in practice, and whether it might even be better to instead pursue a seemingly more robust and less controversial …
Autonomy, Slavery, And Companion Animals, Heather M. N. Kendrick
Autonomy, Slavery, And Companion Animals, Heather M. N. Kendrick
Between the Species
I attempt to resolve the question of whether keeping animals as pets is akin to slavery by considering the significance of liberty to human beings and to nonhuman animals. I distinguish between two senses of liberty: preference liberty and autonomous liberty. Preference liberty is the freedom to satisfy the preferences that one in fact has. Autonomous liberty is the ability to satisfy the preferences that one might have regardless of whether one actually has those preferences. Preference liberty has a value for animals, but autonomous liberty is meaningless for them. As the core wrong of slavery is the restriction of …
Nozick’S Libertarian Critique Of Regan, Josh Milburn
Nozick’S Libertarian Critique Of Regan, Josh Milburn
Between the Species
Robert Nozick’s oft-quoted review of Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights levels a range of challenges to Regan’s philosophy. Many commentators have focussed on Nozick’s putative defence of speciesism, but this has led to them overlooking other aspects of the critique. In this paper, I draw attention to two. First is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s political theory, which is best understood relative to Nozick’s libertarianism. Nozick’s challenge invites the possibility of a libertarian account of animal rights – which is not as oxymoronic as it may first sound. Second is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s axiological theory, which is best …
Harming (Respectfully) Some To Benefit Others: Animal Rights And The Moral Imperative Of Trap-Neuter-Release Programs, Cheryl E. Abbate
Harming (Respectfully) Some To Benefit Others: Animal Rights And The Moral Imperative Of Trap-Neuter-Release Programs, Cheryl E. Abbate
Between the Species
Because spaying/neutering animals involves the harming of some animals in order to prevent harm to others, some ethicists, like David Boonin, argue that the philosophy of animal rights is committed to the view that spaying/neutering animals violates the respect principle and that Trap Neuter Release (TNR) programs are thus impermissible. In response, I demonstrate that the philosophy of animal rights holds that, under certain conditions, it is justified, and sometimes even obligatory, to cause harm to some animals (human or nonhuman) in order to prevent greater harm to others. As I will argue, causing lesser harm to some animals in …
Chasing Secretariat's Consent: The Impossibility Of Permissible Animal Sports, James Rocha
Chasing Secretariat's Consent: The Impossibility Of Permissible Animal Sports, James Rocha
Between the Species
Tom Regan argued that animal sports cannot be morally permissible because they are cruel and the animals do not voluntarily participate. While Regan is correct about actual animal sports, we should ask whether substantially revised animal sports could be permissible. We can imagine significant changes to certain animal sports, such as horse racing, that would avoid cruelty and even allow the animals to make their own choices. Where alternative options are freely available, we can consider the horses to have preference autonomy in that they make their own decisions, and we could thereby claim that we have their hypothetical consent. …
Colb And Dorf On Abortion And Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.
Colb And Dorf On Abortion And Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.
Between the Species
In their recent book, Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf defend the following ethical theses: (1) sentience is sufficient for possessing the right not to be harmed and the right not to be killed; (2) killing sentient animals for food is almost always seriously wrong; (3) aborting pre-sentient fetuses raises no moral concerns at all; and (4) aborting sentient fetuses is wrong absent a reason weighty enough to justify killing the fetus. They also discuss strategies and tactics for activists: They oppose the use of graphic images by activists on tactical grounds, and they categorically oppose the use of violence by …
Singer, Wittgenstein, And Morally Motivating Examples, Ramona Ilea
Singer, Wittgenstein, And Morally Motivating Examples, Ramona Ilea
Between the Species
Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation played a pivotal role in the animal rights movement and the foundation of modern animal ethics. Using an analysis inspired by Wittgenstein’s remarks on ethics, I will analyze the way in which Singer’s book is structured in order to understand why it succeeds in providing people with the moral motivation to change the way they live. I will argue that the success of Animal Liberation is in large part due to the detailed, carefully chosen, emotionally rich examples and the unusual way in which these examples are juxtaposed, structured, and presented. Understanding how examples can have …
Review: Interspecies Ethics By Cynthia Willett, Thomas E. Randall
Review: Interspecies Ethics By Cynthia Willett, Thomas E. Randall
Between the Species
This paper provides a review of Cynthia Willett's book Interspecies Ethics. Willett aims to outline the beginnings of biosocial eros ethics – an ethical outline that sketches the potentiality of a cross-species cosmopolitan ideal of compassion (agape), derived through acknowledging and emphasizing the existence of spontaneous, playful interaction between social animals. Though this book is recommended for offering an innovative framework from which to explore the possibility of non-anthropocentric cross-species ethic, readers should be wary of expecting to find a fully-fledged moral program detailing how this would work.
How To Become A Post-Dog. Animals In Transhumanism, Michael Hauskeller
How To Become A Post-Dog. Animals In Transhumanism, Michael Hauskeller
Between the Species
This paper analyses and deconstructs the transhumanist commitment to animal rights and the well-being of all sentient beings. Some transhumanists have argued that such a commitment entails a moral imperative to help non-human animals overcome their biological limitations by enhancing their cognitive abilities and generally “uplifting” them to a more human-like existence. I argue that the transhumanist approach to animal welfare ultimately aims at the destruction of the animal as an animal. By seeking to make animals more like us the freedom to live their life as the kind of creature they are is being denied to them. It is …
Deontological Ethical System For Google's Self-Driving Car, Edgard Alejandro Arroliga Jr.
Deontological Ethical System For Google's Self-Driving Car, Edgard Alejandro Arroliga Jr.
Computer Science and Software Engineering
Google's Self-Driving Car is a revolutionary product that is riddled with ethical conundrums. It is able to accurately scan and drive through densely populated roads without much difficulty. However, there are some situations where the car will likely have to make decisions that affect, maybe even take, the lives of those on the road. Issues such as the Trolley Problem and the Rear-End Dilemma describe situations where there seems to be no single ethical answer as to how the car should act. In order to solve these issues, I propose that a Deontological Ethical System should be implemented because it …
Veganism And 'The Analytic Question', Adam Reid
Veganism And 'The Analytic Question', Adam Reid
Between the Species
The (practical) dilemma I explore in this paper concerns two advocacy-oriented aims which, though not mutually exclusive per se, are nonetheless quite difficult for vegans to jointly satisfy in practice. The first concerns the need for individual vegans to rebuff (by example) certain familiar stereotypes about vegans as ‘militant,’ ‘angry,’ ‘self-righteous,’ etc.; the second concerns the need to tactfully resist familiar prompts to, as it were, conversationally parse the logic of one’s own convictions ad nauseam. To better explain, and partially respond to, this dilemma, I exploit an instructive analogy with the (so-called) ‘analytic question’ in epistemology (roughly, …
Rights, Solidarity, And The Animal Welfare State, Jes L. Harfeld
Rights, Solidarity, And The Animal Welfare State, Jes L. Harfeld
Between the Species
This article argues that aspects of the animal rights view can be constructively modulated through a communitarian approach and come to promote animal welfare through the social contexts of expanded caring communities. The Nordic welfare state is presented as a conceivable caring community within which animals could be viewed and treated appropriately as co-citizens with solidarity based rights and duties.
Review Of Jean-Christophe Bailly, The Animal Side, Chandler D. Rogers
Review Of Jean-Christophe Bailly, The Animal Side, Chandler D. Rogers
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Book Review: Loving Animals By Kathy Rudy, Nancy Williams
Book Review: Loving Animals By Kathy Rudy, Nancy Williams
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Pest Control, Josephine Donovan
Why We Should Stop Creating Pets With Lives Worth Living, Chelsea Haramia
Why We Should Stop Creating Pets With Lives Worth Living, Chelsea Haramia
Between the Species
Pedigreed breeding often leads to severe health problems for, say, those dogs who exist as a result of the practice. It is also the case that virtually all of those unhealthy animals would not exist at all if it were not for the practice of pedigreed breeding. If those animals have lives worth living, then it follows that they are not harmed by the practice—assuming that a life worth living is better than no life at all. It would seem, then, that the standard account of harm cannot account for the wrongness of our intentionally creating pets with lower welfare. …
The Animal Question In Deconstruction, Rafe Mcgregor
The Animal Question In Deconstruction, Rafe Mcgregor
Between the Species
Review of The Animal Question in Deconstruction, edited by Lynn Turner (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013)
Book Review Of This Is Not Sufficient, Frank Garrett
Book Review Of This Is Not Sufficient, Frank Garrett
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Ethics, Law, And The Science Of Fish Welfare, Colin Allen
Ethics, Law, And The Science Of Fish Welfare, Colin Allen
Between the Species
Fish farming is one of the fastest growing sectors of agriculture, attracting considerable attention to the question of whether existing farming regulations and animal welfare laws are adequate to deal with the expanding role of fish in feeding humans. The role of fish as model organisms in scientific research is also expanding -- a majority of research biology departments now keep zebrafish for the purposes of genome biology, and they are used widely used for basic neuroscience research. However, due to their diversity and distance from mammalian biology, fish pose difficult questions for the application of legal and ethical principles …
What (If Anything) Do We Owe Wild Animals?, Clare A. Palmer
What (If Anything) Do We Owe Wild Animals?, Clare A. Palmer
Between the Species
It’s widely agreed that animal pain matters morally – that we shouldn’t, for instance, starve our animal companions, and that we should provide medical care to sick or injured agricultural animals, and not only because it benefits us to do so. But do we have the same moral responsibilities towards wild animals? Should we feed them if they are starving, and intervene to prevent them from undergoing other forms of suffering, for instance from predation? Using an example that includes both wild and domesticated animals, I outline two contrasting ways of thinking about our moral responsibilities with respect to assisting …
Quantum Mechanics And Ethical Antirealism: A Counter-Analogy To Boyd, Justin Lawson
Quantum Mechanics And Ethical Antirealism: A Counter-Analogy To Boyd, Justin Lawson
Philosophy
In his paper How to Be a Moral Realist Boyd attempts to show how cases of ethical indeterminacy can be accounted for from an ethical realist’s standpoint. Boyd describes cases of extensional vagueness in the life-sciences which arise from knowable and definite underlying structures and draws an analogy to ethics to argue his case. This paper argues that an equally compelling analogy can be drawn between another type of scientific indeterminacy – that in quantum mechanics – and the related ethical cases. Because quantum mechanical uncertainty (on the Copenhagen interpretation) is a real and not merely epistemic limitation on physical …
Ethics Of Human Enhancement: 25 Questions & Answers, Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor, John Weckert
Ethics Of Human Enhancement: 25 Questions & Answers, Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor, John Weckert
Philosophy
No abstract provided.