Animals inhabit diverse environments: our homes, our settlements, agricultural land, the wild. Some animals never directly encounter human beings. Others are deliberately created by us. Do these different contexts and relations matter—morally?
Animal Ethics in Context argues that they do.
Debates about animal ethics have, to date, focused on whether and when benefits to humans can justify causing suffering or death to animals. These are, of course, important questions. But, as in human ethics, there’s much more to think about than when or whether harming can be justified. For instance, we also need to know when and whether we should help. And here, I argue, context is crucial.
Suppose there’s a storm followed by floods: must we assist wild animals in distress? Would it be wrong to leave them to suffer, if we could do something to help? I maintain that in these cases, there’s no obligation to help. What goes on in the wild is not our moral business.
But suppose, instead, human beings have damaged a habitat, causing similar animal distress? Then, I argue, we should do something to help, though what this help will turn out to be varies by context.
Additionally, billions of animals are not wild at all. We are responsible for their existence, we breed them in ways that suit us, and we keep them in environments we’ve created. This often makes them dependent on us and vulnerable to our neglect. I argue that creating dependent and vulnerable animals generates special caring responsibilities—responsibilities that we don’t have towards independent wild animals.
So, while there’s an important place for arguments about what not to do to animals, I open up a new area of ethical debate. This book argues for, and begins to develop, a richer, more complex account of our positive relations with the animals that surround us.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
Animals inhabit diverse environments: our homes, our settlements, agricultural land, the wild. Some animals never directly encounter human beings. Others are deliberately created by us. Do these different contexts and relations matter—morally?
Animal Ethics in Context argues that they do.
Debates about animal ethics have, to date, focused on whether and when benefits to humans can justify causing suffering or death to animals. These are, of course, important questions. But, as in human ethics, there’s much more to think about than when or whether harming can be justified. For instance, we also need to know when and whether we should help. And here, I argue, context is crucial.
Suppose there’s a storm followed by floods: must we assist wild animals in distress? Would it be wrong to leave them to suffer, if we could do something to help? I maintain that in these cases, there’s no obligation to help. What goes on in the wild is not our moral business.
But suppose, instead, human beings have damaged a habitat, causing similar animal distress? Then, I argue, we should do something to help, though what this help will turn out to be varies by context.
Additionally, billions of animals are not wild at all. We are responsible for their existence, we breed them in ways that suit us, and we keep them in environments we’ve created. This often makes them dependent on us and vulnerable to our neglect. I argue that creating dependent and vulnerable animals generates special caring responsibilities—responsibilities that we don’t have towards independent wild animals.
So, while there’s an important place for arguments about what not to do to animals, I open up a new area of ethical debate. This book argues for, and begins to develop, a richer, more complex account of our positive relations with the animals that surround us.