Wild Animal Ethics: Well-Being, Agency, and FreedomApproved

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Delon
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Wild Animal

Defending Wild Animal Ethics

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Johannsen
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal

Should We Offer Assistance to Both Wild and Domesticated Animals?

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Clare Palmer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
Habitat Destruction ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
Domesticated Animals ◽  
Special Obligations ◽  
Oriented Approach ◽  
Do So ◽  
Call Capacity

In this paper, I consider whether we should offer assistance to both wild and domesticated animals when they are suffering. I argue that we may have different obligations to assist wild and domesticated animals because they have different morally-relevant relationships with us. I explain how different approaches to animal ethics, which, for simplicity, I call capacity-oriented and context-oriented, address questions about animal assistance differently. I then defend a broadly context-oriented approach, on which we have special obligations to assist animals that we have made vulnerable to or dependent on us. This means that we should normally help suffering domesticated animals, but that we lack general obligations to assist wild animals, since we are not responsible for their vulnerability. However, we may have special obligations to help wild animals where we have made them vulnerable to or dependent on us (by habitat destruction or by captivity, for instance). I consider some obvious difficulties with this context-oriented approach, and I conclude by looking more closely at the question whether we should intervene, if we could do so successfully, to reduce wild animal suffering by reducing predation.

scholarly journals The moral status of animals: Degrees of moral status and the interest-based approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-295
Author(s):  
Zorana Todorovic
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Status Of Animals

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.

Précis of Wild Animal Ethics

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Johannsen
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal

Unitarianism

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Shelly Kagan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
Common View ◽  
Do So

This chapter identifies a common view in contemporary discussions of animal ethics, which the author calls unitarianism. According to the unitarian, animals have the very same moral status as people have, so that otherwise similar interests of animals and people should be given the very same consideration in moral deliberation. At first glance this seems to have the implausible implication that forced to choose between saving a mouse, say, and a person, one should flip a coin. But the objection can be avoided by noting the fact that people generally have much more well-being at stake than animals do (so that more harm befalls a person if she dies, than would befall a mouse if it died). The chapter closes by clarifying the sense in which unitarians deny the existence of a moral hierarchy.

Wild Animal Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Johannsen
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal

scholarly journals Vegan Men’s Food and Health Practices: A Recipe for a More Health-Conscious Masculinity?

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 155798832110443
Author(s):  
Kadri Aavik ◽  
Marta Velgan
Keyword(s):  
Health Behavior ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Men’S Health ◽  
Ecological Sustainability ◽  
Men's Health ◽  
Health Practices ◽  
Mental Well Being ◽  
Health And Well Being

In the age of the Anthropocene, questions of ecological sustainability, animal ethics, and human health are intimately entangled. From a gender perspective, compared to women, men’s diets tend to be less healthy and sustainable. This is linked to worse health outcomes for men. Therefore, alternative, more ethical ways of eating that have the potential to improve men’s health and well-being and simultaneously contribute to better public health and sustainability outcomes should be encouraged. Veganism addresses issues of food, health, climate change, and animal justice simultaneously. This article explores vegan men’s food practices in relation to health and well-being, drawing on qualitative interviews with 61 vegan men. The interview material was analyzed using the method of thematic analysis. Our findings suggest that becoming vegan encourages positive changes in men’s health behavior. This includes paying more attention to nutrition and taking better care of one’s health. Vegan men report experiencing better physical and mental well-being upon going vegan. Based on these findings, we argue that vegan men’s food and health practices contribute to the emergence of healthier masculinities, as vegan men help to challenge links between risky health behavior and masculinity.

scholarly journals Beneficence, Non-Identity, and Responsibility: How Identity-Affecting Interventions in Nature can Generate Secondary Moral Duties

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary David O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Identity Problem ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Moral Duties

AbstractIn chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” (p.32) which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses.

scholarly journals Human dominion and wild animal suffering

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Dustin Crummett
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Right

Abstract It may be possible, now or in the future, for humans to technologically intervene to reduce the amount of suffering experienced by wild animals. There is a debate about whether, if humans can do this, they should. Here, I consider the implications for this debate of the theological claim that humans have been granted dominion over the other animals. I argue that it's more plausible to interpret the dominion claim as granting humans (i) the responsibility to care for the well-being of individual animals than to interpret it as giving humans either (ii) the right to do whatever they want to other animals or (iii) the responsibility to care only for the well-being of aggregates of animals (such as whole species). I then show how this understanding of dominion undermines a range of arguments against intervening to reduce wild animal suffering. These arguments claim that humans do not stand in the right sort of relationship for intervention to be obligatory (or perhaps even permissible). But if we possess such dominion, we do stand in the right sort of relationship for it to be obligatory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document