Abstract
Clare Palmer has recently argued that most humans have special obligations to assist domesticated animals, because domestication creates vulnerable, dependent individuals, and most humans benefit from the institution of domestication. I argue that Palmer has given us no grounds for accepting this claim, and that one of the key premises in her argument for this claim is false. Next, I argue that voluntarism, which is the view that one acquires special obligations only by consenting to those obligations in some way, offers a plausible explanation of the sorts of cases that motivate Palmer’s analysis. I conclude that voluntarism allows us to explain the prevalent intuition that special obligations to assist often obtain for domesticated animals, but rarely obtain for wild animals.
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Notes
As Palmer notes, utilitarian theories of animal ethics don’t draw a distinction between negative and positive obligations to non-human animals. Thus, I’m here following Palmer in thinking that her relational approach fits better with a rights-based theory of animal ethics.
For example, members of a locationally wild population may be trapped and intentionally sterilized to control population numbers.
As Palmer notes, human actions sometimes render wild animals vulnerable and dependent as well.
O’Neill also notes that procreation is not the only way to acquire obligations to one’s children. Adoptive parents clearly do the same thing, despite not procreating, via consenting to such obligations.
Palmer notes that prior harms might also give rise to special obligations to assist wild animals, since human activity can sometimes render certain wild animals less able to provide for themselves.
For the sake of discussion, suppose that this study otherwise meets the requirements for ethical research practices.
Though I won’t elaborate on this point here, this concern is yet another instance of the non-identity problem. See Parfit (1984) for extensive discussion.
References
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O’Neill, O. (1979). Begetting, bearing, and rearing. In O. O’Neill & W. Ruddick (Eds.), Having children: Philosophical and legal reflections on procreation (pp. 25–38). New York: Oxford University Press.
Palmer, C. (2010). Animal ethics in context. New York: Columbia University Press.
Palmer, C. (2011). The moral relevance of the distinction between domesticated and free-roaming animals. In T. L. Beauchamp & R. G. Frey (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of animal ethics (pp. 701–725). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheffler, S. (2001). Boundaries and allegiances. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to audiences at the 2014 Meeting of the Indiana Philosophical Association, and the 2014 APA Eastern Division Meeting for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Funding was received from the Department of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, in support of the completion of this project.
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Weber, E. Vulnerability, Dependence, and Special Obligations to Domesticated Animals: A Reply to Palmer. J Agric Environ Ethics 28, 683–694 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9553-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9553-z