Can Animals Be Moral?, by Mark Rowlands

Abstract

Can animals be moral? In his book of that title, Mark Rowlands argues that they can be, in the sense that they can act for moral reasons. In Rowlands terminology, they can be ‘moral subjects’. Whether animals can act for moral reasons hinges on two questions: what capacities does acting for moral reasons require and do any animals have those capacities? The first addresses how high the bar is for moral subjecthood; the second whether any animals clear that bar. A defence of animals’ moral subjecthood is bar-clearing to the extent that it argues that animals possess capacities more robust than sceptics admit. A defence is bar-lowering to the extent that it argues that subjecthood does not require capacities as robust as sceptics allege. Rowlands defence is primarily bar-lowering. Acting for moral reasons does not require possessing the same concepts as we do (it’s enough if our concepts appropriately track theirs) or possessing moral concepts at all (it’s enough if they experience emotions the appropriateness of which presupposes the truth of a moral proposition) (Chapter 2). Nor does it require moral responsibility, acting for the sake of Aristotelian virtue, Kantian consciousness of the principles underlying one’s acts, or the Korsgaardian ability to ask whether one should obey the dictates of one’s inclinations (Chapter 3).