scholarly journals Kantian Ethics and the Animal Turn. On the Contemporary Defence of Kant’s Indirect Duty View

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 512
Author(s):  
Samuel Camenzind
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Moral Relationship ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Animal Question

Criticism of Kant’s position on our moral relationship with animals dates back to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson, but historically Kantian scholars have shown limited interest in the human-animal relationship as such. This situation changed in the mid-1990s with the arrival of several publications arguing for the direct moral considerability of animals within the Kantian ethical framework. Against this, another contemporary Kantian approach has continued to defend Kant’s indirect duty view. In this approach it is argued, first, that it is impossible to establish direct duties to animals, and second, that this is also unnecessary because the Kantian notion that we have indirect duties to animals has far-reaching practical consequences and is to that extent adequate. This paper explores the argument of the far-reaching duties regarding animals in Kant’s ethics and seeks to show that Kantians underestimate essential differences between Kant and his rivals today (i.e., proponents of animal rights and utilitarians) on a practical and fundamental level. It also argues that Kant’s indirect duty view has not been defended convincingly: the defence tends to neglect theory-immanent problems in Kant’s ethics connected with unfounded value assumptions and unconvincing arguments for the denial of animals’ moral status. However, it is suggested that although the human-animal relationship was not a central concern of Kant’s, examination of the animal question within the framework of Kant’s ethics helps us to develop conceptual clarity about his duty concept and the limitations of the reciprocity argument.

Animals in Political Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 42-64
Author(s):  
Sue Donaldson ◽  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Question ◽  
Blind Spots

Western political theorists have largely ignored the animal question, assuming that animals have no place in our theories of democracy, citizenship, membership, sovereignty, and the public good. Conversely, animal ethicists have largely ignored political theory, assuming that we can theorize the moral status and moral rights of animals without drawing on the categories and concepts of political theory. This chapter traces the history of this separation between animals and political theory, examines the resulting intellectual blind spots for animal ethics, and reviews recent attempts to bring the two together. Situating animal rights within political theory has the potential to identify new models of justice in human-animal relations, and to open up new areas of scholarship and research.

scholarly journals Engaging the “Animal Question” in International Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Fougner
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Question

Abstract By raising the “animal question” in International Relations (IR), this essay seeks to contribute not only to put animals and human–animal relations on the IR agenda, but also to move the field in a less anthropocentric and non-speciesist direction. More specifically, the essay does three things: First, it makes animals visible within some of the main empirical realms conventionally treated as the subject matter of IR. Second, it reflects on IR's neglect of animals and human–animal relations in relation to both how IR has been constituted as a field and the broader socio-cultural context in which it is embedded. Third, it explores various ways in which IR scholars can start incorporating and take animals and human–animal relations seriously in studies on international relations.

Canine Rescue as a Social Movement: The Politics of Love

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 670-687
Author(s):  
Anna L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Advocacy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Animal Bond ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Political Approach ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Politics Of Love

Abstract Canine rescue is a growing movement that affects the lives of tens of thousands of nonhuman animals and people every year. Rescue is noteworthy not only for its numbers, but also because it challenges common understandings of animal advocacy. Popular accounts often portray work on behalf of animals as sentimental, individualistic, and apolitical. In fact, work on behalf of animals has always been political, in multiple ways. It is characterized both by internal political tensions, especially between animal rights and welfare positions, and by complex relations to the broader public sphere. I analyze canine rescue, with a focus on pit bull rescue, to show that an important segment of canine rescue movements adopts an explicitly political approach which blurs the divide between rights and welfare, addresses the social context of the human-animal bond, and links animal advocacy to social justice.

scholarly journals Foruroligende etik i Heinrich von Kleists »Michael Kohlhaas«

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (106) ◽  
pp. 70-95
Author(s):  
Maria Jørgsen
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Central Place ◽  
The Self ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Kant's Ethics

Disquieting Ethics in »Michael Kohlhaas« by Heinrich von Kleist:This article argues that the concept of evil takes a central place in the exploration of the Kantian ethics in Heinrich von Kleist’s novella »Michael Kohlhaas«.Maria Jørgensen argues that not only is the famous duty to which Kohlhaas finds himself obliged conceived in accordance with Kant’s ethics of duty, but also the description of Kohlhaas’ subjectivity in general is constructed by means of Kantian terms. Kleist’s text makes use of concepts such as duty, freedom, pathology, universality and the sublime in order to construct Kohlhaas as an inherently decentered subject. Furthermore Jørgensen argues that the emptying of the concept of the Good in Kantian ethics surfaces in Kleist’s novella as a hitherto unnoticed tendency to a certain tautologisation in Kohlhaas’ qualitative judgments.In the final section of the article the evil act in »Michael Kohlhaas« as an act of freedom, »Aktus der Freiheit«, is investigated with a departure in the Kantian concept of diabolical evil in Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft. If Kohlhaas’ first attempt to act ethically is contaminated by the self-interest which sticks to his initial duty to secure redress for the wrongs done to him and his fellow citizens by the Junker von Tronka, his last act of refusing to negotiate with the Elector of Saxony functions as a purely ethical act in Kantian terms. Kohlhaas’ act can be seen as an ethical act as it neglects the subject’s pathology, which according to Kant can only be done by an act of reason. Furthermore the act is in keeping with the criteria which Kant, according to Alenka Zupančič, delivers in the famous footnote on the execution of Louis XVI in Metaphysik der Sitten: The act is characterized by being purely formal, it arises from a maxim, and it is first of all an act of freedom. This article thus argues that »Michael Kohlhaas« evidently contains a fulfilled ethical act in Kantian terms, but that this act must be found in quite another place than previously assumed.

Wildlife as Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Angus Nurse ◽  
Tanya Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Criminological Perspective ◽  
Psychological Harm ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Welfare Legislation

This chapter examines the notion of wildlife as property or ‘things’ and critically analyses the extent to which anthropocentric notions of wildlife as a resource for human exploitation determines harm caused to non-human animals. This chapter examines how anthropocentric notions of morality and human-centred values underpin the exploitation of non-human animals and the sense in which they are owned. Employing a green criminological perspective, the chapter examines the use and abuse of wildlife within the animal ‘entertainment’ industry. The chapter examines the use of wildlife within aquariums, zoos, and circuses and examines both the legality of this use and the non-human animal harm contained within such uses. Evidence exists, for example, of psychological harm caused to wildlife in zoos that would likely be unlawful if experienced by companion animals. Yet, zoos and safari parks are ostensibly legal operations, thus animal welfare legislation is often the only mechanism through which action can be taken in respect of what would otherwise be deemed unlawful captivity (see also Chapter 7 on animal rights). We end the chapter by touching on how wildlife come to be property – that is a short discussion of wildlife trade, including the online market.

Does Beast Suffering Count for Kant

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Baranzke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Perfect Duties ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Human Responsibility

Ever since Schopenhauer´s accusation, it has been disputed whether Kant´s few remarks concerning the ethical human-animal-relationship in the Lectures and in the Doctrine of Virtue fail to support ethical arguments on behalf of animals. One critique that plays a central role is whether Kant would have forbidden cruelty to brutes for educational purposes. In addition to these old objections, Kant´s ethics is charged to be speciesistic by animal ethicists and animal rights philosophers at present.The following article examines especially §17 of the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the only animal ethical text authorized by Kant himself. The interpretation starts by taking the context of §17 into account, particularly the “Episodic Section on an Amphiboly in Moral Concepts”. The systematic output of the cruelty-account and of the duty classes is then analyzed. Central for the understanding of Kant´s argumentation relating to animals are the perfect duties to oneself, which are linked to Kant´s foundation of human dignity. Finally the roles of the physical and emotional needs of brutes and humans in Kant´s ethics are compared with each other. Some conclusions are then drawn concerning human and animal rights in relation to a duty-based argumentation. The article therefore appreciates Kant´s integration of animal suffering into the very core of his virtue ethics, an integration that may be able to open the door for an enlightened animal ethics based on human responsibility.

scholarly journals Virtue Ethics and Laboratory Animal Research

ILAR Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca L Walker
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Laboratory Animal ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract This article appeals to virtue ethics to help guide laboratory animal research by considering the role of character and flourishing in these practices. Philosophical approaches to animal research ethics have typically focused on animal rights or on the promotion of welfare for all affected, while animal research itself has been guided in its practice by the 3Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement). These different approaches have sometimes led to an impasse in debates over animal research where the philosophical approaches are focused on whether or when animal studies are justifiable, while the 3Rs assume a general justification for animal work but aim to reduce harm to sentient animals and increase their welfare in laboratory spaces. Missing in this exchange is a moral framework that neither assumes nor rejects the justifiability of animal research and focuses instead on the habits and structures of that work. I shall propose a place for virtue ethics in laboratory animal research by considering examples of relevant character traits, the moral significance of human-animal bonds, mentorship in the laboratory, and the importance of animals flourishing beyond mere welfare.

“HOW DOES YOUR COLLAR SUIT ME?”: THE HUMAN ANIMAL IN THE RSPCA'S ANIMAL WORLD AND BAND OF MERCY

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Flegel
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
And Control ◽  
Cruelty To Animals ◽  
Animal World ◽  
As If

There is a central contradiction in human relationships with animals: as Erica Fudge notes, “We live with animals, we recognize them, we even name some of them, but at the same time we use them as if they were inanimate, as if they were objects” (8). Such a contradiction is also, of course, present in human interactions, in which power relations allow for the objectification of one human being by another. In an analysis of images and texts produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the nineteenth-century, I want to examine the overlap in representations of animals and humans as subject to objectification and control. One common way of critiquing human treatment of animals within the RSPCA's journals, Animal World and Band of Mercy, was to have humans trade places with animals: having boys fantastically shrunk to the size of the animals they tortured, for example, or imagining the horrors of vivisection when experienced by humans. Such imaginative exercises were meant to defamiliarize animal usage by implying a shared experience of suffering: what was wrong for a human was clearly just as wrong for an animal. However, I argue that some of the images employed by the society suggest the opposite; instead of constructing animal cruelty in a new light, these images instead work to underline the shared proximity of particular humans with animals. In texts that focus specifically upon humans wearing animal bonds – reins, collars, and muzzles – the RSPCA's anti-cruelty discourse both critiqued the tools of bondage and, I suggest, invited the audience to see deep connections between animals and the humans taking their place. Such connections ultimately weaken the force of the animal/human reversal as an animal rights strategy, suggesting as they do that humans themselves often have use value in economies of labor, affect, and are subject to the same power relations that produce an animal as “animal.”

Individual and Collective Flourishing in Kant's Philosophy

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Denis
Keyword(s):  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Kant's Ethics

In ‘Happiness and Human Flourishing’, Thomas E. Hill, Jr, contrasts Kant's notion of happiness with that of human flourishing, explains the role of happiness in Kant's ethics, and suggests some reasons why Kant portrays happiness rather than flourishing as the non-moral good of the individual. While there is much I agree with in Hill's essay, I disagree with Hill on how best to conceive of human flourishing in Kant's philosophy, and on the importance of human flourishing in Kant's ethics. Comparing my views with Hill's is not what chiefly interests me, however. After section 1, I make little explicit reference to ‘Happiness and Human Flourishing’. Instead, I seek to expand the discussion begun there by Hill of ‘how happiness and human flourishing are (or are not) relevant to [Kantian] ethics’ (HHF 164).

scholarly journals Animal roles and traces in the history of medicine,c.1880–1980

BJHS Themes ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 11-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANGELA CASSIDY ◽  
RACHEL MASON DENTINGER ◽  
KATHRYN SCHOEFERT ◽  
ABIGAIL WOODS
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Experimental Medicine ◽  
Human History ◽  
Turn On ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Communities

AbstractThis paper argues for the need to create a more animal-centred history of medicine, in which animals are considered not simply as the backdrop for human history, but as medical subjects important in and of themselves. Drawing on the tools and approaches of animal and human–animal studies, it seeks to demonstrate, via four short historical vignettes, how investigations into the ways that animals shaped and were shaped by medicine enables us to reach new historical understandings of both animals and medicine, and of the relationships between them. This is achieved by turning away from the much-studied fields of experimental medicine and public health, to address four historically neglected contexts in which diseased animals played important roles: zoology/pathology, parasitology/epidemiology, ethology/psychiatry, and wildlife/veterinary medicine. Focusing, in turn, on species that rarely feature in the history of medicine – big cats, tapeworms, marsupials and mustelids – which were studied, respectively, within the zoo, the psychiatric hospital, human–animal communities and the countryside, we reconstruct the histories of these animals using the traces that they left on the medical-historical record.

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