Animal agency

Abstract

This chapter considers whether animals are agents. It considers some arguments for thinking they could not be – together with a range of possible responses to those arguments, and also reasons for thinking, on the contrary, that it is much more plausible that animals should be accorded agential status. I argue, on the basis of these reasons, that theories of action which make it seem possible or probable that animals are not agents are likely to be mistaken. I then go on to consider the question which animals are agents and what criteria we might use to include or exclude particular categories of creature from the class. Finally, I turn to two questions about the kind of agency animals might be accorded –first, whether animals are rational agents; and second, the question whether they are morally responsible agents. Though there are interpretations of both these ideas according to which animals might meet the requisite criteria, I conclude that it may be less misleading to endorse the traditional view that animals are neither rational nor moral agents – provided their agency itself has been recognised and accounted for. And this recognition alone, I argue, should have consequences for the question what duties are owed to animals; I suggest that we may owe to agents a respect for their agency which creates a pro tanto obligation, in so far as it is in our power, to allow them to lead their lives in as natural a way as possible, unobstructed by our interference.