Abstract
Simple SummaryCriticism of Kant’s position on our moral relationship with animals dates back to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson. Against this, Kantians have continued to defend Kant’s view that animals lack a moral status. Kant’s contemporary defenders have, however, highlighted extensive practical consequences for the protection of animals in favor of Kant’s position. This paper explores the argument from these extensive duties to animals in Kant’s ethics and seeks to show that Kantians underestimate essential differences between Kant and his rivals today (including proponents of animal rights and utilitarians) on both a practical and fundamental level. It also argues that those defending Kant tend to neglect theory-immanent problems in Kant’s ethics arising from unfounded value assumptions and unconvincing arguments for the denial of animal moral status. It is suggested that although the human-animal relationship was not a central concern of Kant’s, examination of the animal question within the framework of Kant’s ethics helps us to gain conceptual clarity about his duty concept and the limitations of the reciprocity argument, i.e., the notion that morality is a system of reciprocal relationships.Criticism of Kant’s position on our moral relationship with animals dates back to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson, but historically Kantian scholars have shown limited interest in the human-animal relationship as such. This situation changed in the mid-1990s with the arrival of several publications arguing for the direct moral considerability of animals within the Kantian ethical framework. Against this, another contemporary Kantian approach has continued to defend Kant’s indirect duty view. In this approach it is argued, first, that it is impossible to establish direct duties to animals, and second, that this is also unnecessary because the Kantian notion that we have indirect duties to animals has far-reaching practical consequences and is to that extent adequate. This paper explores the argument of the far-reaching duties regarding animals in Kant’s ethics and seeks to show that Kantians underestimate essential differences between Kant and his rivals today (i.e., proponents of animal rights and utilitarians) on a practical and fundamental level. It also argues that Kant’s indirect duty view has not been defended convincingly: the defence tends to neglect theory-immanent problems in Kant’s ethics connected with unfounded value assumptions and unconvincing arguments for the denial of animals’ moral status. However, it is suggested that although the human-animal relationship was not a central concern of Kant’s, examination of the animal question within the framework of Kant’s ethics helps us to develop conceptual clarity about his duty concept and the limitations of the reciprocity argument.
Highlights
Criticism of Kant’s position on our moral relationship with animals dates back to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson, but historically Kantian scholars have shown limited interest in the human-animal relationship as such
Recent Developments in Kantian Ethics Regarding the Animal Question To begin with a terminological note, I will introduce the distinction made by Onora
“Kant’s ethics” refers to Kant’s own moral philosophy, developed in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), and the lecture notes to his moral philosophy
Summary
Basaglia summarized several reasons why Kant’s ethics is attractive for contemporary Kantians (cf. [38]) (pp. 1725–1728). Among them are the strictness of our Kantian duties to animals (a point further explored below) and the immunity of Kant’s ethics to two difficulties besetting utilitarianism and Schopenhauer’s ethics of compassion: first, the problem that the interests of the majority will trump those of the minority; and second, the “universality” problem that compassion cannot be the ground for a stable system of morality because the capacity for it is not distributed and universally within humankind) Those who favor what I have called the third response to Kant’s denial of moral status to animals and defend an indirect duty view highlight the far-reaching practical consequences of Kant’s position read in this way. The reach of these duties, and their standing within the system of duties, explain why some Kantians argue that animals are protected sufficiently in Kant’s framework
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