Précis of 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.

Wild Animal Ethics

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

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 The ethics of wild animal suffering

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ole Martin Moen
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
In The Wild

<p class="normal">Animal ethics has received a lot of attention over the last four decades. Its focus, however, has almost exclusively been on the welfare of captive animals, ignoring the vast majority of animals: those living in the wild. I suggest that this one-sided focus is unwarranted. On the empirical side, I argue that wild animals overwhelmingly outnumber captive animals, and that billions of wild animals are likely to have lives that are even more painful and distressing than those of their captive counterparts. On the normative side, I argue that as long as we have duties of assistance towards humans suffering from natural causes, and we reject anthropocentrism, we also have duties of assistance towards animals suffering in the wild.</p><p class="normal">Article first published online: 22 MARCH 2016</p>

Animal Ethics in Animal Research

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Rocklinsberg ◽  
Mickey Gjerris ◽  
Anna Olsson
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Animal Research

Animal Ethics Orientation Scale

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bøker Lund ◽  
Sara Vincentzen Kondrup ◽  
Peter Sandøe
Keyword(s):  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Orientation Scale

DETECTION OF XENOBIOTIC SUBSTANCES IN MUTE SWANS’ (CYGNUS OLOR) BLOOD

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanta STANKEVIČIŪTĖ ◽  
Solveiga Marija BARKAUSKAITĖ ◽  
Gediminas BRAZAITIS
Keyword(s):  
Animal Species ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
Cygnus Olor ◽  
Ecological Scale ◽  
Literature Reviews ◽  
Baseline Information ◽  
Mute Swans

During recent years the attention towards the effects of xenobiotic substances on wild nature has been steadily increasing. Literature reviews have revealed that active hormone-disintegrating substances might affect the reproduction of some wild animal species. Research shows anomalies of reproduction and development in various animal groups such as birds, fish, invertebrates and reptiles. Species inhabiting water and its surroundings cause the highest concern. Due to insufficient baseline information it is difficult to determine the extent of the problem in these wild populations on an ecological scale. The research described in this article is the first attempt to analyse xenobiotic substances and evaluate possible accumulation of pharmaceuticals in animals higher up in the food chain in Lithuania. This research tests new methods for to analyse for xenobiotics substances, which might be used in the future. Blood samples of 7 swans were examined using liquid chromatography, however, no xenobiotics were detected. Negative results do not eliminate the necessity for further investigate of larger samples, other species or to search for non-pharmaceutical xenobiotics.

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