Abstract
Ethicists have tended to treat the psychology of attributing mental states to animals as an entirely separate issue from the moral importance of animals’ mental states. In this paper I bring these two issues together. I argue for two theses, one descriptive and one normative. The descriptive thesis holds that ordinary human agents use what are generally called phenomenal mental states (e.g., pain and other emotions) to assign moral considerability to animals. I examine recent empirical research on the attribution of phenomenal states and agential states (e.g., memory and intelligence) to argue that phenomenal mental states are the primary factor, psychologically, for judging an animal to be morally considerable. I further argue that, given the role of phenomenal states in assigning moral considerability, certain theories in animal ethics will meet significant psychological resistance. The normative thesis holds that ethicists must take the psychology of attributing mental states into account when constructing moral ideals concerning animals. I draw from the literature in political philosophy on ideal and non-ideal theory to argue that non-ideal theories for animals must account for human psychology because—like current social and political conditions—human psychology limits the achievement of moral ideals.
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Notes
For instance, in Practical Ethics (2012) Singer says, “Terms like ‘pleasure’ and ‘happiness’ lack precision, but it is clear that they refer to something that is experienced or felt—in other words, to states of consciousness” (2012, p. 77). He furthermore connects these felt experiences to moral considerability, “If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account” (p. 50). The well-known animal welfare scientist Wemelsfelder (1999) also seems to support this basic idea, “The concept of consciousness, as it functions in common-sense interaction with animals, denotes that animals are not mere objects but subjects; that is, it indicates that a level of behavioural organization is present which requires a non-mechanistic, subject-related, first person perspective level of explanation” (p. 42).
In later writings, Frey (2014) states that animals do have beliefs and desires and can suffer. His discussion of agential abilities also shifted to primarily emphasize the differences in autonomy between humans and animals, rather than language (Frey, 1987, 2014). What I say about Frey in this paper should thus be understood as pertaining primarily to his early views. I adopt this strategy because his early views were widely influential, are illustrative of the pure agential position, and are similar in important respects to Davidson’s.
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Kasperbauer, T.J. Mentalizing animals: implications for moral psychology and animal ethics. Philos Stud 174, 465–484 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0692-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0692-5