Abstract
This paper responds to Elijah Weber’s “Vulnerability, Dependence, and Special Obligations to Domesticated Animals: A Reply to Palmer”. Weber’s paper develops significant objections to the account of special obligations I developed in my book Animal Ethics in Context (Columbia University Press, New York, 2010), in particular concerning our obligations to companion animals. In this book, I made wide-ranging claims about how we may acquire special obligations to animals, including being a beneficiary of an institution that creates vulnerable and dependent animals, and sharing in attitudes that contribute to causing harms or to creating vulnerable animals. Weber finds these claims implausible, and offers an alternative, much narrower, voluntarist account, on which we only have special positive obligations if, in some way, we have agreed to them. In this paper, I defend, against Weber, a non-voluntarist account of at least some special obligations towards animals, and I respond to some of his more specific objections to my account.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Callaway, E. (2013). Deal done over HeLa cell line. Nature, 500, 132–133.
Donaldson, S., & Kymlicka, W. (2012). Zoopolis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fineman, M. (2008). The vulnerable subject: Anchoring equality in the human condition. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 20(1), 1–20.
Hedberg, T. Animals, relations and the Laissez-Faire Intuition (forthcoming). Environmental Values.
Held, V. (2002). Group responsibility for ethic conflict. Journal of Ethics, 6(2), 157–168.
Jackson, F. (2001). The human genome project and the African American community: Race, diversity and American science. In R. Zilinskas & P. Balint (Eds.), The human genome project and minority communities: Ethical, social and political dilemmas. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
O’Neill, O. (1986). Faces of hunger. London: Allen and Unwin.
Palmer, C. (2010). Animal ethics in context. New York: Columbia University Press.
Palmer, C. (2012). Can—and ought—we make reparation to nature? In W. Kabasenche, M. O’Rourke, & M. Slater (Eds.), The environment: Philosophy, science and ethics (pp. 201–221). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pogge, T. (2007) [1997]. Eradicating systematic poverty. In Lafollette, H. (Ed.) Ethics in practice, 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell pp. 633–646.
Scheffler, S. (2001). Boundaries and allegiances. New York: Oxford University Press.
Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence and morality. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(1), 229–243.
Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta lacks. New York City: Broadway Books.
Smith, K. (2012). Governing animals: Animal welfare and the liberal state. New York: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Palmer, C. Response to “Vulnerability, Dependence, and Special Obligations to Domesticated Animals” by Elijah Weber. J Agric Environ Ethics 28, 695–703 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9554-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9554-y