Traditionally, discussions of moral participation – and in particular moral agency – have focused on fully formed human actors. There has been some interest in the development of morality in humans, as well as interest in cultural differences when it comes to moral practices, commitments, and actions. However, until relatively recently, there has been little focus on the possibility that nonhuman animals have any role to play in morality, save being the objects of moral concern. Moreover, when nonhuman cases are (...) considered as evidence of moral agency or subjecthood, there has been an anthropocentric tendency to focus on those behaviors that inform our attributions of moral agency to humans. For example, some argue that the ability to evaluate the principles upon which a moral norm is grounded is required for full moral agency. Certainly, if a moral agent must understand what makes an action right or wrong, then most nonhuman animals would not qualify (and perhaps some humans too). However, if we are to understand the evolution of moral psychology and moral practice, we need to turn our attention to the foundations of full moral agency. We must first pay attention to the more broadly normative practices of other animals. Here, we begin that project by considering evidence that great apes and cetaceans participate in normative practices. (shrink)

Can nonhuman animals and artificial intelligence (AI) entities be attributed moral agency? The general assumption in the philosophical literature is that moral agency applies exclusively to humans since they alone possess free will or capacities required for deliberate reflection. Consequently, only humans have been taken to be eligible for ascriptions of moral responsibility in terms of, for instance, blame or praise, moral criticism, or attributions of vice and virtue. Animals and machines may cause harm, but they cannot be appropriately ascribed (...) moral responsibility for their behavior. This thesis challenges the conventional paradigm by proposing an alternative approach where moral agency is conceived as the competence to participate in moral responsibility practices. By shifting focus from intra-individual to contextual and socially situated features, this practice-focused approach appears to make the attribution of moral agency to nonhuman animals and AI entities more plausible than commonly assumed. Moreover, considering the current and potential future prevalence of nonhuman animals and AI entities in everyday settings and social contexts, a potential extension of moral agency to such entities could very well transform our social, moral, and legal practices. Hence, this thesis proposes that the attribution or withholding of moral agency to different entities should be carefully evaluated, considering the potential normative implications. (shrink)

According to the practice-focused approach to moral agency, a participant stance towards an entity is warranted by the extent to which this entity qualifies as an apt target of ascriptions of moral responsibility, such as blame. Entities who are not eligible for such reactions are exempted from moral responsibility practices, and thus denied moral agency. I claim that many typically exempted cases may qualify as moral agents by being eligible for a distinct participant stance. When we participate in moral responsibility (...) practices, we are not only participating as potential targets of moral reactions, but also as sources of such address, i.e. as moral addressors. By consequence, there are entities towards which we seem to have reason to adopt an addressor participant stance, regardless of their eligibility as moral addressees. This expanded theoretical room for moral agency may also be of normative import. (shrink)

Once upon a time, not too long ago, the question about apes and ethics had to do with moral standing—do apes have interests or rights that humans ought to respect? Given the fifty years of research on great ape cognition, life history, social organization, and behavior, the answer to that question seems obvious. Apes have emotions and projects, they can be harmed, and they have important social relationships.

Animals are often presumed to lack moral agency insofar as they lack the capacities for reflection or the ability to understand their motivating reasons for acting. In this paper, I argue that animals are in some cases morally responsible. First, I outline conditions of moral action, drawing from a quality of will account of moral responsibility. Second, I review recent empirical research on the capacities needed for moral action in humans and show that animals also have such capacities. I conclude (...) that though it may be difficult to engage in the practice of holding animals morally responsible, given the communication barrier and lack of mutual understanding, some animals nevertheless act in ways for which they are morally responsible. (shrink)

This essay draws on Adam Smith’s moral sentimentalism to critique primatologist Frans de Waal’s gradualist theory of human morality. De Waal has spent his career arguing for continuity between primate behavior and human morality, proposing that empathy is a primary moral building block evident in primate behavior. Smith’s moral sentimentalism—with its emphasis on the role of sympathy in moral virtue—provides the philosophical framework for de Waal’s understanding of morality. Smith’s notion of sympathy and the imagination involved in sympathy is qualitatively (...) different from animal sympathy. I argue that Smithian sympathy includes the ability to represent propositional attitudes and take into account multiple perspectives which are then synthesized into a singular impartial perspective. Furthermore, Smithian moral judgment requires the capacity for emotion regulation and moral self-cultivation, or the ability to shape and control one’s reactive attitudes. Taken together, these capacities far outstrip the capacities of animals, disrupting de Waal’s gradualism. (shrink)

About the extent of moral agency in the animal kingdom, one view is that only humans are moral agents. Holding a different view, I argue that moral agency depends on the capacity for other-regard and the capacity to be attuned to significance—such that things matter to one. I derive a criterion where a creature is a moral agent if she performs an action that promotes others’ significant interests and brings great costs to herself where she is aware of these significant (...) interests and imposed costs. Failure to confirm that she has this awareness is a weakness of examples of moral agency in animals that writers provide, since she may be unaware of the significance of what she is doing. Since species of non-ape Primates and aquatic mammals satisfy the evidential criterion, moral agency is likely prevalent throughout much of Mammalia. I consider possible objections from Kant, Singer, and Korsgaard. (shrink)

It has been argued that some animals are moral subjects, that is, beings who are capable of behaving on the basis of moral motivations. In this paper, we do not challenge this claim. Instead, we presuppose its plausibility in order to explore what ethical consequences follow from it. Using the capabilities approach, we argue that beings who are moral subjects are entitled to enjoy positive opportunities for the flourishing of their moral capabilities, and that the thwarting of these capabilities entails (...) a harm that cannot be fully explained in terms of hedonistic welfare. We explore the implications of this idea for the assessment of current practices involving animals. (shrink)

It is tempting to assume that being a moral creature requires the capacity to attribute mental states to others, because a creature cannot be moral unless she is capable of comprehending how her actions can have an impact on the well-being of those around her. If this assumption were true, then mere behaviour readers could never qualify as moral, for they are incapable of conceptualising mental states and attributing them to others. In this paper, I argue against such an assumption (...) by discussing the specific case of empathy. I present a characterisation of empathy that would not require an ability to attribute mental states to others, but would nevertheless allow the creature who possessed it to qualify as a moral being. Provided certain conditions are met, a behaviour reader could be motivated to act by this form of empathy, and this means that behaviour readers could be moral. The case for animal morality, I shall argue, is therefore independent of the case for animal mindreading. (shrink)

Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. (...) However, these different positions on animal morality generally appear to be motivated more by different conceptions of how the term “morality” is to be defined than by empirical disagreements about animal social behaviour and psychology. After delving deeper into the goals and methodologies of various of the protagonists, I argue that, despite appearances, there are actually two importantly distinct debates over animal morality going on, corresponding to two quite different ways of thinking about what it is to define “morality”, “moral cognition”, and associated notions. Several apparent skirmishes in the literature are thus cases of researchers simply talking past each other. I then focus on what I take to be the core debate over animal morality, which is concerned with understanding the nature and phylogenetic distribution of morality conceived as a psychological natural kind. I argue that this debate is in fact largely terminological and non-substantive. Finally, I reflect on how this core debate might best be re-framed. (shrink)

In December 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a cage in a shed in rural New York (Barlow, 2017). Under animal welfare laws, Tommy’s owners, the Laverys, were doing nothing illegal by keeping him in those conditions. Nonetheless, the NhRP argued that given the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of chimpanzees, Tommy’s confinement constituted (...) a profound wrong that demanded remedy by the courts. Soon thereafter, the NhRP filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of Kiko, another chimpanzee housed alone in Niagara Falls, and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees held in research facilities at Stony Brook University. Thus began the legal struggle to move these chimpanzees from captivity to a sanctuary, an effort that has led the NhRP to argue in multiple courts before multiple judges. The central point of contention has been whether Tommy, Kiko, Hercules, and Leo have legal rights. To date, no judge has been willing to issue a writ of habeas corpus on their behalf. Such a ruling would mean that these chimpanzees have rights that confinement might violate. Instead, the judges have argued that chimpanzees cannot be bearers of legal rights because they are not, and cannot be persons. In this book we argue that chimpanzees are persons because they are autonomous. (shrink)

Social norms are commonly understood as rules that dictate which behaviors are appropriate, permissible, or obligatory in different situations for members of a given community. Many researchers have sought to explain the ubiquity of social norms in human life in terms of the psychological mechanisms underlying their acquisition, conformity, and enforcement. Existing theories of the psychology of social norms appeal to a variety of constructs, from prediction-error minimization, to reinforcement learning, to shared intentionality, to domain-specific adaptations for norm acquisition. In (...) this paper, we propose a novel methodological and conceptual framework for the cognitive science of social norms that we call normative pluralism. We begin with an analysis of the explanatory aims of the cognitive science of social norms. From this analysis, we derive a recommendation for a reformed conception of its explanandum: a minimally psychological construct that we call normative regularities. Our central empirical proposal is that the psychological underpinnings of social norms are most likely realized by a heterogeneous set of cognitive, motivational, and ecological mechanisms that vary between norms and between individuals, rather than by a single type of process or distinctive norm system. This pluralistic approach, we suggest, offers a methodologically sound point of departure for a fruitful and rigorous science of social norms. (shrink)

New theological understanding can emerge with the advancement of scientific knowledge and the use of new concepts, or older concepts in new ways. Here, the authors present a proposal to extend the concept of “rescue and recovery” found in the United Nations Law of the High Seas, off‐world and within a broader purview of other intelligent and self‐aware species that humans may someday encounter. The notion of a morality that extends to off‐world species is not new, but in this analysis, (...) rescue and recovery become an imperative when any intelligent and self‐aware species is in harm's way. Rescue and recovery encompass a necessary action component except perhaps in those cases where rescuers are in danger. The authors explore three biblical examples of rescue and recovery to derive a fundamental meaning of the concept. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life has important implications for the debate about our obligations to non-human animals. If animal lives can be meaningful, then practices including factory farming and animal research might be morally worse than ethicists have thought. We argue for two theses about meaning in life: that the best account of meaningful lives must take intentional action to be necessary for meaning—an individual’s life has meaning if and only if the individual acts (...) intentionally in ways that contribute to finally valuable states of affairs; and that this first thesis does not entail that only human lives are meaningful. Because non-human animals can be intentional agents of a certain sort, our account yields the verdict that many animals’ lives can be meaningful. We conclude by considering the moral implications of these theses for common practices involving animals. (shrink)

Heidegger argues that for being x to count as ‘alive’ it must satisfy three metaphysical conditions. It must be capable of engaging in active behaviour with a form of intentional directedness that offers to us a “sphere of transposition” into which we can intelligibly “transpose ourselves.” Heidegger’s discussion of these conditions, as they apply to the being of animals, is well-known. But, if his argument is sound, they ought also to apply to the being of plants. Heidegger, unfortunately, does not (...) supply this part of his ontology of life in any systematic detail. However, my thesis is that it is possible to interpret the nature and activities of plants, along the lines of –, and thus to make good on Heidegger’s omission. The key to this reconstruction is a reconceptualization of plant movements as constituted by a form of representationally blind, motor-intentionality. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that scientists working on the animal morality debate have been operating with a narrow view of morality that prematurely limits the variety of moral practices that animals may be capable of. We show how this bias can be partially corrected by paying more attention to the touch behaviours of animals. We argue that a careful examination of the ways in which animals engage in and navigate touch interactions can shed new light on current debates on (...) animal morality, like the study of consolation behaviour, while also revealing further forms that animal morality may take and that have been neglected so far, like capacities of tolerance or trust. This defence is structured as an analysis of the three main functions of touch: the discriminative function, the affiliative function, and the vigilance function. (shrink)

Many of us will find it intuitive that there exists an important link between the ability to feel for others on the one hand and the ability to care for them and attend to their needs on the other—that is, between a capacity for empathy and a capacity for morality. But spelling out the details is hard to do. Not only must we say something about what having these distinct capacities amounts to; there is also the problem of specifying how (...) precisely empathy enables morality. Does empathy provide cognitive or epistemic support, insofar as it enhances a person’s moral sensibilities? Or does it simply provide motivational support by way of raising the likelihood of morally praiseworthy behaviour? We may also ask questions in the other direction: to what extent (if any) does a capacity for morality implicate or enhance a capacity for empathy? (shrink)

The differences and similarities between human and non-human animals are constantly up for discussion and an overview is needed. Four central fields of behaviour related to complex symbolic activities, tool making and tool use, culture and social transmission and sociality and morality, are surveyed and comparatively analysed to identify particular human characteristics. Data from a broad range of sciences are brought together to introduce light and shade into the picture. The differences found inside field four are especially striking. Humans are (...) “ultra-social”. Evolution seems to have favoured a more collaborative kind of sociality in our species, and features like other-regarding preferences, large scale cooperation with non-kin, and strangers as well as third-party sanctions, appear to be derived properties of humans that have evolved after Homo and Pan diverged. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—within their social groups, and to make evaluations of others’ behaviour in light of such norms. A number of scientists and philosophers have argued that such a sense of normativity does exist in chimpanzees and in several other non-human primate and mammalian species. However, the dominant view in the scientific and philosophical (...) literature is that psychological capacities for social norms evolved uniquely in the human lineage, after our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. After reviewing some of the existing evidence for normative capacity in chimpanzees, I defend the thesis of chimpanzee normativity against three key theoretical objections that have been presented in the literature, each of which have played a part in motivating the dominant sceptical position. I argue that, while we still have much to learn about the nature and extent of the normative capacities of other animals, there is strong prima facie evidence for social norms and normative evaluation in chimpanzees and the main theoretical objections to chimpanzee normativity are not at all compelling. (shrink)

Commentary on Kyle Johannsen, Wild Animal Ethics (Routledge, 2020). I want to unpack what we should understand by wild animal well-being, and how different interpretations of what matters about it shape the sorts of interventions we endorse. I will not offer a theory of wild animal well-being or even take a stance on the best approach to theories of well-being as they pertain to wild animals. My aim is to bring into view a concern that WAE has largely overlooked: agency (...) and freedom. To Johannsen’s credit, the issue of liberties does feature in his Wild Animal Ethics (2020) (36–39, 41, 47). The interventions that he favors are those that, for a given amount of harm prevention, involve fewer liberty infringements. Liberties can act, to an extent, as constraints on permissible interventions. For all that, Johannsen’s primary focus remains welfare in a sense that does not appear to give much consideration to agency. Fortunately, his approach is open-ended enough to accommodate some of my concerns. My hope is that he sees them as possible ways of specifying the duties of beneficence, if not justice, that he rightly argues we have to wild animals. (shrink)

Can animals be agents? Do they want to be free? Can they have meaningful lives? If so, should we change the way we treat them? This paper offers an account of animal agency and of two continuums: between human and nonhuman agency, and between wildness and captivity. It describes how a wide range of human activities impede on animals’ freedom and argues that, in doing so, we deprive a wide range of animals of opportunities to exercise their agency in ways (...) that can give meaning to their lives. (shrink)

Our closest relative the chimpanzee seems to display proto-moral behavior. Some scholars emphasize the similarities between humans and chimpanzees, others some key differences. This paper aims is to formulate a set of intermediate conditions between a sometimes helpful chimpanzee and moral man. I specify these intermediate conditions as requirements for the chimpanzees, and for each requirement I take on a verificationist stance and ask what the empirical conditions that satisfy it would be. I ask what would plausibly count as the (...) behavioral correlate of each requirement, when implemented. I take a philosophical look at morality using the chimpanzees as a prism. We will talk of propositional attitudes, rationality and reason in relation to the chimps. By means of the chimps I intend to arrive at a notion of objective morality as conceived from a first person point of view in terms of propositional attitudes and reasons. (shrink)

Andrews argues for a pluralistic folk psychology that employs different kinds of practices and different kinds of cognitive tools (including personality trait attribution, stereotype activation, inductive reasoning about past behavior, and ...

The nominal ground that entwines human beings and animal behaviours is unwilling to admit moral valuing as a non-human act. Just to nail it down explicitly, two clauses ramify the moral conscience of human beings as follows: a) Can non-humans be moral beings?, b) Unconscious animal behaviours go beyond any moral judgments. My approach aims to rebuff these anthropomorphic clauses by justifying animals’ moral beings and animals’ moral behaviours from a meta-ethical stance. A meta-ethical outlook may enable an analysis of (...) ethical and normative views through the limit of moral motives and reasoning. Animals’ sense of moral motives and their apparatus of getting involved in moral acts cannot be compared with human actions. In human moral engagement, we abide by moral paradigmatic theories and their diversified attitudes that could have conceptual and linguistic use in our societal discourses. However, animals’ intentional apparatus may have the propensity to choose an act following the moral consequences (care, utility, responsibility, etc.) in their life-forms. (shrink)

I argue that a Kantian inspired investigation into animal morality is both a plausible and coherent research program. To show that such an investigation is possible, I argue that philosophers, such as Korsgaard, who argue that reason demarcates nonhuman animals from the domain of moral beings are equivocating in their use of the term ‘rationality’. Kant certainly regards rationality as necessary for moral responsibility from a practical standpoint, but his distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal means that he can only (...) establish it as a marker for morality from a theoretical standpoint. This means that when it comes to evaluating the moral capabilities of others, rationality can be neither necessary nor sufficient for morality, leaving open the possibility of other empirical markers for moral responsibility. I argue that the higher faculties, character, implicit knowledge of universality, and antecedent practical pleasures (which provide a way to distinguish between morally motivated behaviour and other types of socially motivated behaviour) can all serve as empirical markers for morality. There is empirical evidence that at least some animals have conceptual capabilities and therefore the empirical marker of the higher faculties. In addition, there is suggestive evidence that merits further investigation for the other three markers. While this will not provide a definitive answer on whether animals are capable of acting morally, it will provide a Kantian outlook that can be used to evaluate empirical and philosophical work on animal morality. (shrink)

Entry for the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy.

The debate over ape personhood is of great social and moral importance. For more than twenty-five years, attorney Steven Wise has been arguing that animals who have cognitive complexities similar to humans should be legally granted basic rights of au- tonomy. In my view, granting personhood status and other rights to great apes are at- tainable goals. But how should we go about it?

I argue against inferentialism about logic. First, I argue against an analogy between logic and chess, before considering a more basic objection to stipulating inference rules as a way of establishing the meaning of logical constants. The objectionthe Mushroom Omelette Objectionis that stipulative acts are partly constituted by logical notions, and therefore cannot be used to explain logical thought. I then argue that the same problem also attaches to following existing conventional rules, since either those rules have logical contents, or (...) following those conventional rules is done for logical reasons. Lastly, I compare this argument with other arguments found in Quine’s early work, and consider two attempts to reply to Quine. (shrink)

Book Panel on Zoopolis including articles by Clare Palmer, Dinesh Wadiwel and Laura Janara and a reply by Donaldson and Kymlicka.

This thesis inquires into our ‘human nature’ through an interdisciplinary approach that considers some of the radical changes in intellectual thought at those key points in Western culture in which this concept has been centrally deployed. The broad historical sweep that this study covers finds the preoccupation with defining who we are and what we are capable of inextricably linked with the focus, at most of the pivotal moments examined, on a dominant impulse to conceive human beings as moral creatures.

Is morality uniquely human or does morality exist in at least some non-human animals? Are animals full-fledged moral creatures or do they merely exhibit proto-morality—evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article? Such questions, prompted by remarkable advances in empirical research into the social and emotional lives of non-human animals, have aroused much recent interest amongst scientists, philosophers, and in the popular media, not least for their apparent bearing on questions of human uniqueness, evolution, and (...) the ethical status of animals. The debate over animal morality has produced many valuable contributions and stimulated new areas for empirical and theoretical research. However, focusing on these questions has led researchers to talk at cross-purposes and down some unproductive paths. The problem concerns the terms ‘morality’ and ‘moral’. (shrink)

This essay examines the recent Planet of the Apes films through the lens of recent research in primatology. The films lend imaginary support to primatologist Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism; however, the movies also show that truly moral motions outstrip the cognitive capacities of the great apes. The abstract moral principles employed by the ape community in the movie require the ability to understand and apply a common underlying explanation to perceptually disparate situations; in contrast, recent research in comparative (...) psychology demonstrates that the great apes lack this capacity. Since the capacity for abstraction is required on even the most basic version of moral sentimentalism—Shaun Nichols’ sentimental rules account—the lack of the capacity for abstraction reveals a qualitative distinction between primate social behavior and human morality. (shrink)