Caring about Animals? A Care Theory Approach to Animal Ethics

Abstract

Engster’s care approach provides an interesting change of perspective to well-established approaches to animal ethics, such as utilitarianism and animal rights accounts: it shifts the focus towards justifying moral status based on dependency-relations between human and nonhuman beings. According to Engster, human beings are morally obligated to care for nonhuman animals as soon as they made them dependent on human care or contribute to their dependence. I discuss the implications of Engster’s account as well as three objections against it and conclude that it qualifies as a relevant option to established accounts of animal ethics.