Question How can speciesism, be immoral for people, but moral for the animals that clearly prefer their own species? If animals are morally culpable for speciesism, can animals be held morally responsible for other things like murder?

Accepted:
April 25, 2006

Comments

Ethicists often distinguish moral objects from moral agents. Moral objets are those things whose preferences, interests, rights and so on should be taken into consideration in our moral deliberations, while moral agents are those things which can properly be held morally responsible (praised, blamed and so on) for their decisions and actions. Ethicists disagree about exactly which things fall into which category, but most agree that not all moral objects are moral agents. My infant niece, Evelyn, is a good example. Evelyn's interests in health, food and safety should surely be taken into account when I am deciding how to act, but it's also clear that she is not (yet) to be held morally responsible for her actions. Peter Singer, Tom Regan and other moral philosophers who argue against speciesism hold, in effect, that sentient non-human animals are moral objects, even though very few (if any) are moral agents. But holding that a pig's interests should be taken into consideration even though it is not to be held morally responsible for its actions (which may favor other pigs over animals of a different species) is no more problematic than the stance I adopt towards Evelyn.

I agree with John Moore's response. I'd add these two additional considerations.

First, it might be a bit strained to say that non-human animals are guilty of "speciesism" insofar as it may not really make sense to say that those animals possess the concept of "species," much less act upon it. To be a speciesist, I'd say, requires something like this: that "one use the concept of species to justify excluding certain beings from moral consideration" (one might add, I suppose, "in an indefensible way"). Other animals might in practice discriminate among prey and non-prey in ways that we can articulate through the ideology of species; but I don't think they themselves use that ideology to make their discriminations.

Secondly, I think it an interesting question as to the extent to which non-human animals might be initiated in meaningful ways into the moral world we humans inhabit. Vicki Hearne, I think, has some interesting thoughts along these lines. In my own work, I've used Hume's theoretical framework to address the issue. My sense is that the extent to which non-humans can be moral agents is rather limited but perhaps not entirely non-existent.

Question How can speciesism, be immoral for people, but moral for the animals that clearly prefer their own species? If animals are morally culpable for speciesism, can animals be held morally responsible for other things like murder? Accepted:April 25, 2006

Question How can speciesism, be immoral for people, but moral for the animals that clearly prefer their own species? If animals are morally culpable for speciesism, can animals be held morally responsible for other things like murder?

Accepted:
April 25, 2006