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Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Volume1 – Finals/ 9/11/2008 19:55 Page 42

In the area of risks to human health, the question iswhether products from cloned animals or their progenycould have adverse and unwanted effects on humans and/or the environment. The research so far shows that this isnot the case (U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2008,European Food Safety Agency 2008). The socioeconomicconcerns relate especially to agricultural applications ofanimal cloning and typically focus on the risk that animalcloning could further trends within agriculture towardfewer players in the market, greater specialization, and adeeper divide between rich and poor countries. Finally,there are concerns that our increasing utilization of animalswill reduce our ability to relate to them as anything otherthan providers for human needs. We will thereby lose asense of kinship and responsibility toward other livingbeings—features deemed essential to the development ofa sound human psyche (Gjerris and Sandøe 2007).

The ethical concerns regarding risks to animals canbe divided into two aspects: risks to animal welfare andrisks to animal integrity and naturalness. The low successrates tell a story of huge welfare problems related to thetechnology. Many animals are stillborn or born withhealth defects. Two things should be noted, though.First, the animal-welfare problems related to cloning arenot special to cloning. They are the same as experiencedwith other reproductive technologies. It is just that theyoccur more often in cloning. Second, most of the prob-lems seem to be related to the first generation of animals.Once cloned animals have reached a certain age, theyseem to develop like conventional animals. Similarly, thewelfare problems do not occur in animals sexually bredfrom cloned animals (Vajta and Gjerris 2006). Still, thewelfare problems in cloning are serious enough that theethical advisory committee for the European Union hassuggested that animal cloning is justified only in researchand medical applications (European Group on Ethics inScience and New Technologies to the European Com-mission 2008).

Some people experience the technology as unnaturaland as violating the integrity of the animals. This concerndoes not relate specially to cloning but rather is closelyconnected to more general concerns about animal bio-technology and human use of animals. Basically, thisconcern relates to the dignity of animals and can beinterpreted as a longing for a less exploitive relationshipbetween humans and animals (Gjerris and Sandøe 2007).

SEE ALSO Genetically Modified Organisms andBiotechnology; Transgenic Animals.

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Di Berardino, M. A. 2001. ‘‘Animal Cloning—The Route toNew Genomics in Agriculture and Medicine.’’ Differentiation68: 67–83.

European Food Safety Agency. 2008. ‘‘Scientific Opinion onFood Safety, Animal Health and Welfare, and EnvironmentalImpact of Animals derived from Cloning by Somatic CellNucleus Transfer (SCNT) and Their Offspring and ProductsObtained from Those Animals.’’ Available from http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/DocumentSet/sc_opinion_clon_public_consultation.pdf

European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologiesto the European Commission. 2008. ‘‘Ethical Aspects ofAnimal Cloning for Food Supply.’’ Available from http://ec.europa.eu/european_group_ethics/activities/docs/opinion23_en.pdf

Gamborg, Chistian; Mickey Gjerris; Jennifer Gunning; et al.2006. ‘‘Regulating Farm Animal Cloning: Recommendationsfrom the Project Cloning in Public.’’ Danish Centre forBioethics and Risk Assessment, Frederiksberg, Denmark.

Gjerris, Mickey, and Peter Sandøe. 2007. ‘‘Ethical ConcernsRelated to Cloning of Animals for Agricultural Purposes.’’ InSustainable Food Production and Ethics, ed. W. Zollitsch, C.Winckler, S. Waiblinger, and A. Haslberger, pp. 455–460.Wageningen, Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers.

Gjerris, Mickey; Anna Olsson, and Peter Sandøe. 2006. ‘‘AnimalBiotechnology and Animal Welfare.’’ In Animal Welfare, ed.Council of Europe Publishing. Strasbourg, France: Council ofEurope Publishing.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2008. ‘‘Animal Cloning: ARisk Assessment.’’ Available from http://www.fda.gov/cvm/CloneRiskAssessment_Final.htm

Vajta, Gabor, and Mickey Gjerris. 2006. ‘‘Science andTechnology of Farm Animal Cloning: State of the Art.’’Animal Reproduction Science 92: 211–230.

Wilmut, I.; A. E. Schnieke; J. McWhir; et al. 1997. ‘‘ViableOffspring Derived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cells.’’Nature 385: 810–813.

Mickey GjerrisPeter Sandøe

ANIMAL ETHICSAnimal ethics is a field of study within environmentalphilosophy. Animals often have been classified as beingsof nature, and in contemporary terminology they forman integral part of concepts central to environmentalphilosophy, such as ecosystems, biodiversity, species,and environments. However, the link between animalethics and environmental philosophy is complex: Animalethics concentrates on individual animals and their value,whereas environmental philosophy traditionally has hadmore comprehensive (soils, waters, and plants as well asanimals) and holistic (species, not specimens; biotic com-munities; ecosystems) concerns. Many animal ethicists,by contrast, maintain that animals should not be valuedonly as members of species or communities.

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Philosophical discussion of the moral status of animalshas a long history. Many ancient Greeks, includingPythagoras and Plutarch, were vegetarians on primarilyethical grounds, and many later philosophers, such asMichel de Montaigne, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and JohnStuart Mill, contemplated the normative dimensions ofthe human-animal relationship. In the nineteenth cen-tury Henry Salt published a thesis on that topic in whichhe defended moral vegetarianism. In addition, seriousdiscussion of the moral status of animals and the norma-tive elements of the human-animal relationship longexisted on the margins of philosophy.

The discussion about animals became more centraland direct in the 1970s, when animal ethics in its con-temporary form took shape. The general interest in ani-mal issues can be traced to various factors, such asgrowing concern for the environment and the ensuingcriticism of anthropocentric values, along with newtrends in political and moral thinking that underlinednonviolence together with equality and the rights of allhuman beings regardless of race, sex, religion, or otherincidental characteristics. Because the cultural climatewas filled with criticism of inherited values and withadvocacy of tolerance and equality, it is not surprisingthat the moral status of animals was reinvestigated. If thehuman-centered worldview had produced an environ-mental crisis and if all equal human interests should begiven equal consideration regardless of their holders’differences, perhaps the equal interests of animals shouldbe given equal consideration rather than being ignored.Perhaps species might be as irrelevant as a moral criterionas sex or race. Further, as more people moved to citiesdistant from agriculture and animal production, ques-tions about the moral status of animals became lessuncomfortable, as a growing number of people no longergained livelihood from animal husbandry.

A work often cited as a groundbreaker in animalethics is Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. Publishedin 1975, it combined detailed descriptions of animalproduction and experimentation with moral analyses.On a practical level it had an impact on the popularityof vegetarianism and animal advocacy. On a theoreticallevel it provoked more philosophical investigation intothe moral status of animals. Tom Regan published TheCase for Animal Rights in 1983, and the next year saw thepublication of Animals and Why They Matter by MaryMidgley. The moral status of nonhuman animals and thenormative nature of the human-animal relationship havebecome mainstream topics in academic philosophy. Notonly philosophers working specifically within animalethics but also philosophers in other fields of philosophy,such as Martha Nussbaum (2004), Alasdair MacIntyre,

and Jacques Derrida (2004), have looked into animalethics. Some philosophers—Singer is the most notableexample—with a background in animal ethics havebecome prominent contributors to philosophical discus-sion of other, more mainstream ethical issues, such asworld hunger and health care.

GENERAL TRENDS

Animal ethics can be divided into three categories: theanalytical school, the postmodern school, and the prag-matic school. Members of the analytical school investi-gate the relevant issues by reference to the familiar ethicaltheories and methods of modern Western philosophy.Standard moral theories such as utilitarianism, deontol-ogy (rights theory), social-contract ethics, and virtueethics have been applied to the animal issue to see if theycould be extended to include nonhuman animals. Thefamiliar commitments of modern Western moral philos-ophy to neutrality, universality, and consistency are hon-ored. Neutrality requires suspending a bias favoringfellow humans, universality requires that morality remainthe same in all contexts, and consistency requires givingequal consideration to similar interests. The most com-mon approach is to take a moral theory and apply it toother animals, often simultaneously amending the theoryto make it more comprehensive. Tom Regan, for exam-ple, amended Immanuel Kant’s deontology, substitutinga robust subjective or conscious life for Kant’s rationalitycriterion for moral rights. Just as theoretical backgroundsin the analytical school differ greatly, so do various

Animal Experimentation. Animal ethics is a relatively newtopic relating to environmental philosophy, and is concerned withthe moral status of animals, among other things. Issues such as theuse of animals in research (like the lab rat shown here),education, for food production, and as companions have all beenhotly debated. ª IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY

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E NCY CLO P EDI A O F E NVI RONME NTA L ET HICS AND P HILOS OPHY 43


theories in animal ethics. Perhaps the most commonexample is the conflict between orthodox utilitarianism,championed by Peter Singer, and modified Kantiandeontology, championed by Tom Regan, as forms ofanimal ethics.

The majority of philosophical approaches to animalethics are of the analytical school. Philosophers who haveused this approach include Peter Singer, Tom Regan,Mark Rowlands, Dale Jamieson, Bernard Rollin, StephenClark, Paola Cavalieri, Evelyn Pluhar, James Rachels,Steve Sapontzis, and David DeGrazia.

The postmodern school approaches animal ethics byreference to Continental and poststructural philosophy. Inmany ways this school is the opposite of the analyticalschool in that its proponents view neutrality, universality,and consistency with suspicion. The divide is meta-ethicalin nature and can be traced back to the general dividethat emerged in twentieth-century philosophy betweenAnglo-American philosophy and Continental philoso-phy. Postmodernists think that neutrality and objectivityare impossible to achieve because humans are inextricablyembedded in their specific epistemologies and perspec-tives. It also is maintained that values are not universalbut socially constructed. In practice this means thatemphasis should be placed on explorations of varioushuman perspectives; those explorations include how gen-der, ethnic identities, biologies, bodily situatedness, andcontexts affect values and understandings of animals. Forinstance, attention has been focused on reevaluatinghuman identity from the animal perspective. Instead ofconcentrating on how humans view animals, emphasis isplaced on how animals may view humans and the possi-ble normative implications of such interspecific points ofview. Also, postmodernists maintain that instead of rea-son and logic, emphasis should be placed on emotionssuch as awe, care, feelings of being bound, and otheraffective and intuitive responses.

The postmodern school is highly diverse, and not allits proponents share all of these characteristics. Philoso-phers who have used this approach include Gilles Deleuzeand Jacques Derrida. More specific to animal ethics, phi-losophers who use the postmodern and continentalapproaches include Cary Wolfe, David Wood, MatthewCalarco, Giorgio Agamben, and Ralph R. Acampora.Some ecofeminist approaches to animal ethics are similarin eschewing rationality, neutrality, universality, and con-sistency and embracing emotion, difference, context, andpartiality. The most notable postmodern-leaning ecofe-minists who have contributed to animal ethics includeVal Plumwood (1993), Carol Adams (1990), Marti Kheel,Josephine Donovan (1990), and Greta Gaard; VandanaShiva and Karen Warren also have touched on the animalissue. Many philosophers who have contributed to animal

ethics deploy the insights and methods of both the analyt-ical and postmodern schools by taking part in both, com-bining the two (e.g., taking an analytical approach topostmodern works), or developing entirely new approaches.Those philosophers include Mary Midgley (1984), ClarePalmer (2001), and Steve Best.

Despite the meta-ethical differences, the analyticaland postmodern schools share many basic premises andconclusions. In regard to shared premises, both resistanthropocentric assumptions and thus seek to explorethe value of nonhuman animals from a viewpoint thatis not biased toward human beings. In practice thismeans that the value of nonhuman animals is not derivedfrom instrumentality; the value of a pig, for example, isnot derived from bacon. Although humans are tied to thehuman viewpoint in an epistemological sense (all humanvaluing originates in the human perspective), they do nothave to be tied to a human viewpoint in a moral sense(privileging humans over all other beings). The originand content of values need to be separated. Althoughhuman sensibilities create aesthetic values, it is not truethat only humans are of aesthetic value, that only humansare beautiful. Analogously, although human ethical sen-sibilities create moral value, it is not necessarily true thatonly humans are of moral value. It is important toacknowledge that other-than-human beings are also val-uing beings aesthetically and possibly morally. Therefore,avoiding anthropocentrism is not a logical impossibility,as some have claimed.

Another shared premise is the rejection of dualism.Historically the human-animal dichotomy was one ofmany forms of dualism. In Plumwood’s (1991) analysis,privilege, difference, and homogeneity are fundamentalto dualism. One of the two terms of the dualism isprivileged and regarded as superior to the other: Classi-cally, men were supposed to be superior to women andwhites were supposed to be superior to people of color.The two terms of the dualism are marked by mutuallyexclusive difference, and those of the other category areregarded as being all the same (white people in the Southused to say of blacks, ‘‘They all look alike to me’’). In theclassical human-animal dualism, humans are defined byculture, rationality, and morality and animals are definedby biology, emotion, and instinct.

The classical human-animal dualism, however, isplagued with problems. Proponents of animal ethicsoften draw from cognitive ethology to point out thatmany capacities traditionally thought of as exclusive tohumans are found among other animals. Many animals,animal ethicists argue, can form beliefs and even abstractconcepts, behave intentionally, have consciousness in thephenomenal sense (are capable of experience), and evenhave social and physical forms of self-understanding.

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This problematizes dualistic notions because it posits thatanimals are not merely instinctual but also cognitivebeings. Humans are biological creatures and one speciesamong other animals. People do not exist outside natureand do not have special value because they somehow havestepped outside animality. Many animal ethicists refer tothe theory of evolution and its insistence that humans arenot at the top of a biological ladder but are a part of anevolutionary tree and an ecological web within which nospecies is objectively more valuable than another. Toremind their readers of this fact, animal ethicists useterms such as nonhuman animals or other animals.

Another shared element is an emphasis on the animalitself. It is the moral status of and the norms concerninganimals, independent of human beings, that are of interest.Animals are not passive objects and a tabula rasa on whichhumans can write different conceptions but active beingswith their own independent abilities and interests. A com-mon conclusion is that the capacity to experience (con-sciousness in the phenomenal sense) is the basis forindividual or inherent value both in humans and in otheranimals. The value of other animals implies that manycurrent practices, from animal production to hunting andanimal experimentation, are morally problematic.

The pragmatic school concentrates on specific prac-tical issues such as particular aspects of animal experi-mentation or agriculture. The work often is carried outby nonphilosophers such as veterinarians, biologists, andothers interested in specific moral problems that arise inconventional interactions between humans and animals.The theoretical input of this school is small, and itsrelevance in philosophy is minor in comparison to theother two schools. Whereas the analytical and postmod-ern schools have come to similar conclusions about ani-mals, the pragmatic school often is guided by a differentset of principles. For instance, whereas most analyticaland postmodern animal ethicists consider meat produc-tion morally unjustifiable, those working in the practicalsector may ignore that conclusion and investigate specificcriteria for the acceptability of various methods of pro-duction and slaughter. Often the philosophical reflectionamong pragmatic animal ethicists is comparatively lim-ited because their interest lies in the details of specificpractices rather than the overall moral nature of thosepractices. A typical example of the pragmatic school canbe found in interdisciplinary approaches to welfare stud-ies in which, for instance, agronomists seek to constructethical guidelines to matters such as dairy farming bytaking into account specific welfare issues brought tolight by ethologists. The development of the pragmaticschool is one of the key challenges for the future ofanimal ethics. From the point of view of the pragmaticschool, analytic and continental animal ethicists do ani-mals a disservice if they simply dismiss animal agriculture

because for the foreseeable future animal agriculture willcontinue despite the condemnation of animal ethicists. Inthe meantime paying more heed to present practicalissues concerning animals could greatly improve theirlot and doing so might encourage more philosophicalrigor within the pragmatic school. The case typifies theconflict between an animal rights/liberation stance andan animal welfare stance, both of which have their merits,but the first one has thus far been theoretically stronger.

In academia animal ethics also is discussed in disci-plines other than philosophy. The analytical and post-modern approaches have coexisted with works in culturalstudies that have attempted to locate normative under-standings of animals in historical and contemporary cul-tural perspectives and create critical theories that wouldquestion anthropocentric views of animals. Authors whohave worked within cultural studies, often with anemphasis on philosophy, biology, and women’s studies,include Donna Haraway (2003), Lynda Birke, JoanDunayer (2004), Eileen Crist (1999), and BarbaraNoske. Themes relevant to animal ethics also have beenexplored outside academia, with one example being thework of the novelist J. M. Coetzee.

THE WORKS OF SINGER, REGAN,

AND ADAMS

The most influential or at least the most widely discussedworks in animal ethics are those of Peter Singer, TomRegan, and Carol Adams.

Peter Singer Peter Singer is a utilitarian theorist who hasapplied that standard moral paradigm to animals. Sing-er’s work is a version of preference utilitarianism, namedfor its emphasis on the satisfaction of interests.

Singer takes as his starting point two claims centralto utilitarianism: maximization of aggregate utility andequality. Under the first principle people should favor theaction that produces the greatest utility, which in Singer’sframework means the greatest satisfaction of the interestsof all those affected by that action. Under the secondprinciple people should consider similar interests equallyirrespective of gender, race, class, intelligence quotient,and species. Traditionally, utilitarianism has maintainedthat gender, race, class, and cognitive abilities are morallyirrelevant. Singer adds to the argument the idea thatspecies should be among the peculiarities consideredirrelevant to moral decision making. People should notoverlook the interests of animals just because of theirspecies; that would be a naked prejudice—speciesism—that is analogous to racism. Furthermore, limited intel-lectual capacities or a complete lack of those capacitiesshould not be used as a reason for excluding the interestsof animals from equal consideration. The fundamental

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ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

Animal experimentation is one of the most controversial areas

of animal use. Politically, it gained attention at the dawn of the

contemporary animal welfare movement as the United King-

dom in the nineteenth century witnessed heated debates about

the justification of what was called vivisection. The trend

continues in the beginning of the twenty-first century, and the

animal rights movement has launched many campaigns against

pharmaceutical industries and universities that take part in

animal research. Experimentation has been a common point of

debate in philosophy and more specifically in animal ethics.

For instance the book often cited as the groundbreaking work

in animal ethics, Animal Liberation (1975) by Peter Singer,

draws examples from the animal experimentation industry.

The emphasis placed on experimentation is under-

standable for three reasons. First, experimentation can

cause severe harm and suffering to the animals involved.

Vivisection refers to the practice of cutting open live

animals and reminds people of the suffering that took

place before anesthesia was developed. In the contempo-

rary context suffering is arguably still commonplace in

areas such as toxicology (testing of chemicals such as

medicines, household cleaners, cosmetics, and pesticides

for their toxic effects), cancer research (in which cancers

are induced artificially in animals by means of genetic

modification or chemical stimulation), neurological

research (in which brain damage may be inflicted on

animals by mechanical or chemical means), and bone and

joint research (in which fractures and other injuries are

induced to the bones, or animals are made ill with con-

ditions such as arthritis). Second, experimentation is a

constantly evolving industry and thus merits ongoing

moral discussion. It includes possibilities that test the

human imagination, ranging from genetic modification,

cloning, and the creation of animal bioreactors to the

creation of hybrids between species. Third, experimenta-

tion is more complicated from a moral point of view than,

for instance, meat eating. It can be argued that meat

eating, if done purely for reasons of taste or custom, is

difficult to justify; however, because experimentation may

save human lives, its moral nature is more complex.

There are three basic criticisms of animal experimenta-

tion. The argument from marginal cases rests on comparison.

The claim is that in the name of consistency, people cannot

kill nonhuman animals for the benefit of humans as long as

they do not condone using humans of similar or less mental

ability in experiments. The argument from benefit concen-

trates on the possible benefits of experimentation. It is argued

that because meta-analyses of experimentation show that the

benefits are statistically very small, experimentation cannot be

justified. The cost-benefit analyses go against experimentation:

It is wrong to cause actual harm for a hypothetical benefit.

This argument often is accompanied by claims according to

which experimentation is scientifically problematic (animals

are not strong models for human physiology) and politically

misguided (experiments are concentrated on common West-

ern ailments that in most cases could be prevented by changes

in lifestyle and are motivated by the economic gains of the

pharmaceutical industries). The argument from value rests on

the value of animals regardless of any comparison or benefit.

People cannot use a being of individual value as an instrument

to benefit another, and this makes animal experimentation

morally unjustified.

Critics have argued that even if one accepts all these

claims, it still is possible to imagine extreme circumstances in

which people would sacrifice a small number of animals to

benefit a large group of people. However, it has been main-

tained that this argument from extreme cases does not justify

experimentation as an everyday practice. First, in a lifeboat

situation in which it is necessary to choose whether to throw

overboard a human or an animal, many people would choose

to save the human. However, altering the choice to concern an

elderly person and a child or a person similar to oneself and a

person very different from oneself points out that it is difficult

to draw general moral principles from such preferences.

Extreme situations may say little about general principles and

the justification of everyday practices; they only describe dif-

ficult choices made in extreme circumstances. It also has been

argued that as opposed to thinking of ethics as a matter of

conflict between two sets of beings (humans and animals), it

would be better to concentrate on taking both into account.

One would not use other human beings in a similar situation

because of their individual value: They are included in the

moral sphere and are thus exempt from being used as instru-

ments. The argument here is that perhaps also animals should

be included in the moral sphere.


Greek, C. Ray, and Jean Swingle Greek. 2000. Sacred Cowsand Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments onAnimals. New York: Continuum.

LaFollette, Hugh, and Niall Shanks. 1996. Brute Science:Dilemmas of Animal Experimentation. London and NewYork: Routledge.

Rollin, Bernard E. 1989. The Unheeded Cry: AnimalConsciousness, Animal Pain, and Science. Oxford and NewYork: Oxford University Press.

Elisa Aaltola

Animal Ethics



utilitarian principle of equality requires that the interestsof animals be taken into account equally with the inter-ests of humans.

This makes Singer’s argument radical in the contem-porary moral climate. A self-consistent utilitarian cannotoverlook the interests of other animals when makingmoral decisions, and in fact those interests must be takenaccount of to the same degrees as the interests of humanbeings. What matters in relation to the moral status ofboth animals and humans is whether a being has inter-ests; no other factors are relevant. Cognitive abilities mayhave a bearing, but only when they are tied directly tointerests. Thus, the interests of rabbits do not have to betaken into account in discussing freedom of religion, forrabbits do not have cognitive abilities that would givethem an interest in participating in that freedom. Sim-ilarly, cognitive abilities may heighten or lessen interests,such as the interest not to feel pain or be killed. However,when it comes to interests of equal measure had by bothhumans and animals, a consistent utilitarianism requiresthat they be taken equally into account.

Singer presents a clear, consistent approach to ani-mal ethics. If one accepts utilitarianism as the mostpersuasive moral theory, it is difficult to avoid his con-clusion. However, those conclusions, though theoreticallystraightforward, are radical in practice. A consistent util-itarian would have to denounce most practices involvinganimals in European and North American societies,such as meat eating, hunting, fur farming, and animalexperimentation.

Singer has been criticized for overlooking the differ-ence between passive (objective) and active (subjective)interests. R. G. Frey (1980) maintained that inanimateobjects such as tractors also may have interests in thepassive sense (it is in their interest to be oiled). It is notpassive interests but active interests that are morally rel-evant, and if an animal lacks cognitive abilities thatenable it to formulate active interests, its interests donot have to be taken into account in moral choices.

Singer has responded to this criticism by maintain-ing that both active and passive interests are relevant andby arguing that inanimate objects do not have interests inanything more than a metaphorical sense. The basis ofhaving morally relevant interests is the capacity to expe-rience. Only when a being experiences the satisfaction ordissatisfaction of its interests do those interests becomemorally significant; whether the interests are passive oractive does not matter. Thus, a cow does not have toconceptualize or be introspective about its interest toavoid pain; all that matters is that it will or will notexperience the satisfaction of that interest. People takeinto account the interests of humans even if the humanwhose interests they are cannot conceptualize them (and

thus have them in an active sense), and the same thingapplies to animals. Further, in many cases passive inter-ests have more moral significance than active interests.For instance, an addict may have an active interest inshooting heroin and a passive interest in remaininghealthy. In this case the satisfaction of the passive interestgenerates more utility. Thus, there is little reason toexclude the interests of animals from the moral spheremerely because many of their interests are passive, formany of the most important human interests are passive.

It has been claimed that some of the conclusionsdrawn by Singer do not by necessity apply within utili-tarianism. Experiments on animals that lead to greateraggregate utility would appear morally justifiable, at leastin some cases. Singer has responded with a version of theargument from marginal cases: If people believe it wrongto use, as subjects of painful medical experiments, humanbeings with similar or less mental ability than that of theanimal subjects of those experiments, they also shouldbelieve that it is equally wrong to use the animal subjectsin those experiments. If, more particularly, people believethat it is wrong to kill ten mentally unable humans tofind cures for ten thousand mentally able humans, theyshould believe that it is just as wrong to kill ten dogs toachieve that goal. Here Singer appears to emphasizeequality—the principle that people should take equalinterests equally into account—more than aggregate util-ity. However, the conundrum of sacrificing a few for thebenefit of many is a problem often cited in relation toutilitarianism per se apart from its extension to animals.Deontologists seize on the intuitive repugnance of delib-erately sacrificing a few for the benefit of many as evi-dence that utilitarianism must be supplemented by theacknowledgment that individuals have rights or intrinsicvalue that protects them against being used as instru-ments for others.

Utilitarianism also may be inadequate in anotherway. If an animal has no comprehension of the futureor the possibility of its own death, it may lack the interestto live, and that would make its painless killing a morallyneutral act. Singer has maintained that because animalproduction usually leads to at least some suffering (and,as he emphasizes, often severe suffering), such a situationwould be merely hypothetical; that is, animal productioncannot be justified by claiming that animals have noactive interest to remain alive because in practice itignores other interests that such animals have. Anotherpossible rejoinder is that even if a cow does not have anactive interest in continuing to live, it does have a passiveinterest in doing so and thus cannot be killed justifiably.Hence, even if a cow cannot conceptualize an interest inremaining alive, it is in its interest to remain alive becauseremaining alive is the prerequisite for the fulfillment ofall of a cow’s other interests.

Animal Ethics



However, as in the case of painful experiments onanimal subjects, this consideration leads to another. Ifpeople should cease raising cows for slaughter and con-

sumption, only a few cows would be raised as museumpieces that illustrate a bygone period in human civiliza-tion. If being alive is a prerequisite for the fulfillment of

THE GREAT APE PROJECT

The Great Ape Project (GAP) is an attempt to extend

fundamental protections enjoyed by humans to individuals

of four nonhuman species (gorillas, bonobos, orangutans,

and chimpanzees) and their habitats. This concept origi-

nated with the philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cav-

alieri in the early 1990s. In 1993 Cavalieri and Singer

published The Great Ape Project: Equality beyond Human-

ity, a collection of thirty-one essays by prominent scien-

tists, philosophers, educators, and activists. The editors

stated in the Preface, ‘‘We seek an extension of equality

that will embrace not only our own species, but also the

species that are our closest relatives and that most resemble

us in their capacities and their ways of living’’ (p. 1). The

founders’ vision of a ‘‘community of equals’’ thus included

humans and the other four great-ape species.

As set out in the organization’s foundational docu-

ment, ‘‘The Declaration on Great Apes,’’ GAP seeks to

offer three specific protections to these closest biological

cousins: protection of life, protection of liberty, and free-

dom from torture. Reasoning that individuals who have

these fundamental protections are entitled to ‘‘equal

respect and concern,’’ GAP advocates that these nonhu-

man animals be protected by such social mechanisms as

legal and moral rights.

GAP’s materials emphasize that modern scientific

findings about the nonhuman great apes establish that they

are complex beings with unique personalities, demonstra-

ble intelligence of several kinds, communication abilities

that exceed those of virtually all other animals, profound

social needs, and true emotions that humans can easily

recognize. According to GAP, these features of the non-

human great apes clearly justify extending fundamental

protections beyond the human species to not only the

individual animals but also their native habitats.

In general, GAP’s reasoning follows two different

paths. One path focuses on the cognitive and other psy-

chological complexities of nonhuman great apes as individ-

uals and as members of families and societies. These features

in and of themselves are sufficient to merit fundamental

protections for these animals. A second path of reasoning is

that since these animals are demonstrably complex and since

some humans with lesser abilities are protected, it is only

fair to protect the nonhuman great apes as well.

GAP’s ideas have been advanced by national organ-

izations in numerous countries, including Australia, Brazil,

Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and the

United States. The furthest penetration into public policy

has come in three countries: New Zealand, where the

national GAP group successfully advocated legally

enshrining basic protections for nonhuman great apes in

1999; Spain, where in 2006 the national organization

succeeded in scheduling Parliament-level votes on adop-

tion of GAP’s basic premises as national policy; and the

Balearic Islands, where the government in 2007 officially

adopted GAP’s recommendations as national policy.

Other countries, including Austria and Britain, have

enacted GAP-inspired legislation or administrative bans on

experiments on nonhuman great apes.

GAP’s theme of ‘‘equality beyond the species line’’

has also appeared in philosophical discussions, the recently

emerged field of animal law, and other scholarly discus-

sions and publications in various areas of human and

animal studies. Some universities have even adopted

GAP’s central ideas as an educational theme for interdis-

ciplinary courses.

Criticisms of GAP’s ideas have varied. Some have

suggested that the emphasis on cognition is a covert way of

affirming a human paradigm for measuring moral worth

(individuals similar to humans may qualify, while dissim-

ilar individuals, no matter how complex in their own right,

do not). Some have argued that GAP relies on an over-

stated view of nonhuman ape minds. Another criticism

sometimes heard is based on the fear that extending fun-

damental protections to some nonhumans risks sliding

down a slippery slope and extending rights to all animals.


Cavalieri, Paola, and Peter Singer, eds. The Great Ape Project:Equality beyond Humanity. London: Fourth Estate, 1993.

Great Ape Project. GAP Web site. Available at http://www.greatapeproject.org/.

Paul Waldau

Animal Ethics



all of a cow’s other interests, the many interests of themany cows that thus would not exist would fail to besatisfied and thus diminish aggregate utility, at least ofthe bovine variety. Therefore, if animal production sat-isfied the interests of animals more than it dissatisfiedthose interests, a utilitarian might have to agree with it.Singer holds that contemporary farming practices lead toa greater dissatisfaction than satisfaction of interests andtherefore argues for moral vegetarianism. However, if thesituation were to change, a strict utilitarian would have toreconsider the case. Such considerations again pointtoward the problems that emerge when all the emphasisis on aggregated satisfaction of interests and the value andrights of individuals are sidelined. Although Singer pro-vides a valuable take on ethics concerning animals, it canbe argued that more attention needs to be placed on theindividual.

Tom Regan Tom Regan has taken an entirely differenttheoretical approach to animal ethics. He espouses deon-tology, or a duty-oriented ethical theory, and especiallyrights theory. Whereas utilitarianism emphasizes the con-sequences of actions, deontology emphasizes the conform-ity of actions to the practical law of universalization andthe logical law of noncontradiction. For example, if every-one always lied—if lying were practiced universally—noone would believe anything anyone said, and thus itwould be impossible to lie effectively. It is possible tolie only if telling the truth is the norm, the rule, themoral law. Because universal lying is self-contradictoryand one’s actions should pass the test of universalization,from a deontological point of view it is wrong to lieregardless of the consequences. A particular lie may leadto felicitous consequences but still be morally unsound;certain acts are wrong in principle regardless of theiroutcomes.

Deontology, which largely derives from the moralphilosophy of Kant, also emphasizes the inherent value ofindividual moral patients. Whereas utilitarianism under-lines utility, deontology underlines the value of the indi-vidual regardless of utility. What is inherently valuable isthe individual being, not the satisfaction of its preferen-ces. Regan explicitly endorses rights theory as opposed toutilitarianism because only rights theory takes the indi-vidual directly into account.

Regan starts by maintaining that certain types ofbeings have inherent value, which is distinguished frominstrumental value. According to Kant, every person is anend in himself or herself as opposed to a means toanother person’s ends. That inherent value is categoricaland hence equal: All beings that have it have it to anequal degree. A person’s inherent value is the foundationof his or her moral rights. Those with inherent valueshould be treated with respect for their rights, which

are universal, equal, and self-sufficient. Therefore, rightsexist regardless of the context, are equal for all beings thathave inherent value, and are not dependent on the vaga-ries of politics; they may or may not be recognizedpolitically, but they are neither created nor destroyed bypolitical fiat. Regan further characterizes rights as justi-fied claims that are made on moral agents. Thus, onecannot have a right against a flood, but one can have aright against a prospective murderer; one can, however,have a right against an agent who causes a harmful flood.Regan argues that the value of an individual is independ-ent of gender, race, intellectual ability, or social class. Healso places a great deal of emphasis on moral principlessuch as the respect principle, according to which beingsof inherent value are to be treated respectfully.

Up to this point Regan endorses the familiar modernunderstanding of human rights: All people universallyhave the same value and basic rights regardless of gender,race, culture, social class, or intelligence. However, likeSinger, he makes a radical claim: Species must, if peopleare to be consistent, also be irrelevant. Therefore, someanimals may have the same basic value and rights ashumans. Again, the consequences are clear: Animal pro-duction and experimentation and other practices thatinstrumentalize animals should be stopped. Kant maderationality the criterion for inherent value and thusrights, but here again the argument from marginal casesmay be deployed. Not all humans are rational: Themarginal cases include prerational infants, subrationalmentally disabled persons, and postrational senile per-sons. By Kant’s criterion they have no inherent value andthus no rights and therefore may be treated just as peopletreat other animals: experimented on in medical research,hunted for sport, made into dog food. Because suchtreatment of the marginal cases would be intuitivelyrepugnant, the criterion for inherent worth and thus forhaving rights must be made more inclusive so that itincludes those cases.

The criterion for inherent value that Regan proposesis being a subject of a life. That subjectivity, according toRegan, consists of the ability to have beliefs, emotions,intentionality, and lasting psychophysical identity andmemory, among other things. However, the fundamentalcriterion that Regan uses is the capacity to experience.Whereas for Kant only moral agents can be moralpatients, Regan is careful to emphasize that the class ofmoral agents is only a subset of the class of moralpatients. As the argument from marginal cases shows,people commonly give equal value and rights to humanbeings who are not moral agents; by parity of reasoning,therefore, animal subjects of a life cannot be excluded onthe basis of their assumed lack of agency. In relation torights he also maintains that moral patients do not haveto be able to make a claim; it is enough that they have a

Animal Ethics



claim. Hence, the moral agents toward whom the claimis directed have the responsibility to ensure that that rightis respected regardless of one’s capacity to insist uponthat right.

Against Regan, Carl Cohen (Cohen and Regan2001) has argued that being a moral agent is necessaryfor a being to have inherent value and rights. He empha-sizes active liberty rights: Rights are liberties to do some-thing, with an example being the right to vote. Suchrights, it is argued, presuppose agency; thus, nonhumananimals, or at least nonhuman animals incapable ofagency, are excluded. However, this criticism does notpay enough attention to passive rights such as the right tolife, which one does not necessarily act upon intention-ally and which primarily rest on corresponding dutiesthat fall on others. Like marginal cases, animals seem tobe capable of having passive rights and also could haveactive rights understood in a broad sense, for instance,the right to follow species-specific traits. Moreover,Regan advocates a correspondence theory between duties

and rights: Any right had by one can be translated into acorresponding duty falling on others. Therefore, animalsdo not have to be able either to assert their rights inten-tionally or to act upon them; it is enough that people asmoral agents recognize their duty to respect those rights.

Another criticism concerns the enforcement of rightsby humans among other animals. It has been argued thatif some animals have a right to life, that right must beprotected not only from violation by moral agents butfrom any violation. Thus, people must prevent predatorsfrom attacking prey. Regan has replied that becausepredators are not moral agents, they can assume no dutiesand thus cannot violate the corresponding rights of theirprey. Critics have responded by pointing out that theissue may concern those in a position to help rather thanthe predators themselves: As people would have a duty tohelp those who are drowning, they may have a duty tohelp those who are attacked by moral agents (whetheranimals, small children, deranged people, etc.). Thus,one could argue that animal rights means that people

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), Midwestern U.S. Hundreds of chickens are seen at a large-scale egg producingfacility in the midwest known as a CAFO. These are massive, sprawling facilities where hundreds of thousands of animals are housed,often releasing enormous amounts of liquid sewage into the local water tables and even infecting drinking water. Such facilities havebeen criticized by environmental groups like the Sierra Club. DANIEL PEPPER/GETTY IMAGES.

Animal Ethics



should prevent predators from attacking their subjects-of-a-life prey by, for example, rounding them up, incarcer-ating them comfortably in large enclosures, and feedingthem soy products until they die a natural death. Someanimal rights proponents have argued that this viewoverlooks the rights of the predators: People cannotprevent predation, for to do so would go against therights of predators. Small children and deranged serialkillers do not have a right to kill, whereas predators,whose survival depends on killing, are in a differentposition. Moreover, it has been pointed out that prevent-ing predation would lead to ecological destruction, whichwould lead to large-scale violation of the welfare andrights of animals. If humans prevented predation, theywould be directly responsible for an environmental cat-astrophe and thus guilty of violating the rights of count-less animals. Perhaps most important, respecting theinherent value of animals requires respecting the inherentnature of animals; preventing the manifestation of species-specific behaviors clearly would go against any suchrespect.

Therefore, the animal rights view does not by neces-sity imply that predation should be abolished. However,it does lead to some dilemmas in the context of environ-mental issues. A holistic approach can be in conflict withan animal rights approach. The topic has raised a lot ofdebate, and animal rights proponents have tended toclaim that the two approaches are compatible: Anemphasis on the value of individuals does not mean thatspecies and ecosystems have no value. The links betweenthe two have become especially evident in the context ofclimate change because animal industries have beennamed as one of the key factors contributing to globalclimate change. Thus, respect for animal individuals mayhave environmental benefits.

Carol Adams Carol Adams has offered an ecofeministapproach to animal ethics that follows some themes fromthe postmodern school. She seeks to locate animalswithin cultural discourses and brings together the oppres-sion of women and that of animals. By doing this shepresents an animal ethics that is based on awareness ofcultural history, vegetarian literature and voices, andwhat she terms the vegetarian body.

Her basic claim is that animals are made into‘‘absent referents’’ in the contemporary culture. Peopleconstantly are met with cultural texts that involve theanimal—most notably dead body parts (meat)—but thereferent of those texts, the living animal, is absent. Adamsargues that the most common referents concerning ani-mals have nothing to do with an animal itself as a living,experiencing being. The absence of animals is empha-sized by objectification (the animal body becomes purebiological matter devoid of subjectivity), fragmentation

(the body is fragmented into different edible parts andinto euphemisms such as beef and bacon), and consump-tion (the animal is valued only in terms of money andflavor). Contemporary discourses deny not only animals’intrinsic value but animal presence and by doing thelatter avoid questions about the former.

Adams maintains that there is a link between differenttypes of oppression because they tend to involve similarstructures, such as violence, absent referencing, margin-alization, and belittling. Not comprehending the connec-tions leads to a type of oppressive ethics that excludes yinstead of x, a fault Adams finds with mainstream femi-nism, which excludes animals. One way to fight oppressiveethics is to bring to light the multiple absent referents inthe culture and make animals present once more. This canhappen through different types of texts, whether fiction,vegetarian voices, or the vegetarian body, which refuses toeat meat and thus leaves the animal intact.

Adams takes part in the ecofeminist tradition thatemphasizes emotion, narratives, shared experience, andcritical theory. Rather than concentrating only on reason,the ecofeminist tradition in regard to ethics also takesemotion into account; rather than abstract theory, itshould take local and personal narratives into accountin which the lives of animals are acknowledged andshared experiences between species are recognized;finally, ethics should give more consideration to theimpact that cultural discourses have on people’s ethicalunderstandings and, when necessary, assume a criticalstance in relation to those understandings.

CRITICISM

Proanimal arguments in animal ethics have beencriticized from several different viewpoints. Among thoseviewpoints are the human species, perfectionist capaci-ties, emotive ties, and cultural meanings.

It often is argued that human species is a morallyrelevant factor. However, the argument faces difficultiesbecause the moral relevance of a purely biological iden-tity is unclear. Perhaps because of this, the argumenttends to turn to perfectionist capacities (rationality,moral agency, etc.): Only humans have individual value,for only humans have specific perfectionist capacities. Ashas been pointed out here, this claim faces the challengeof the argument from marginal cases. Some have sug-gested that such cases some day will be normal adults orhave been such adults in the past and thus have equalvalue. However, this claim also has various difficulties.Potentiality or past capacity cannot be used as the crite-rion for value at the present moment (a person will bedead some day but should not be valued or treated as adead person at the present time). Moreover, makingnormal adults the source of value is prejudiced and gives

Animal Ethics



only indirect value to marginal cases. Also, there arehuman beings who never will be and never have beenmoral agents or otherwise intellectually able but who stillare considered to have equal value. In general, it isimportant to emphasize the difference between the valueof a capacity and the value of an individual. People mayrate a particular capacity, such as rationality, highly, butthis does not by necessity mean that rationality is thebasis of the value of individuals.

In relation to emotive ties, it often is maintained thatthe special value of humans is based on the intrahumantendency to have stronger attachments to other humanbeings. However, this argument requires more premisesto justify its conclusion. If people followed this line ofthought, they quickly would come to the conclusion thatmiddle-class white women have more value if one is amiddle-class white woman; value would become entirelyrelative to the context. In that case if one happened tohave more emotive attachment to pinecones than tohumans, one would be entitled to sacrifice the latter forthe former. Emotions are an important part of life, butvalues cannot be reduced to emotions without facingissues such as bias (Westerners favoring Westerners) andrelativism. Another variation of this argument maintainsthat each species has a biological tendency to favor itsown kind and that humans therefore have special valuefrom the human point of view. This claim also facesdifficulties because one could seek to justify sexism oreven racism on similar grounds. The most fundamentalproblem is derived from the naturalistic fallacy, whichdifferentiates facts from values and norms: The waypeople factually tend to value is a different matter fromhow they should value. Thus, tendencies cannot be thesole basis of ethics.

It has been argued that the special value of humans isa basic cultural meaning—part of human languagegames—and requires no further justification. This argu-ment also faces the naturalistic fallacy because the factualexistence of a particular meaning is taken to be the nor-mative justification of that meaning. One has to scrutinizeexisting cultural meanings from a moral point of view orthere would be little room for criticizing sexism andracism. This leads to the problem of relativism: If onelived in a culture with predominantly racist meanings,according to this argument, one would have little reasonto criticize its practices. On a more fundamental levelproponents of the argument seem to forget that meaningschange, come in the plural form, and are often in conflictwith one another. It is precisely because of these aspectsthat people must engage in moral exploration: The changewithin meanings and resolution of conflicts betweenmeanings ought to be guided partly by morality. Thus,in a time when meanings concerning animals are going

through a rapid change, critical thinking in the domain ofanimal ethics is needed more than ever.

CONCLUSION

Animal ethics is a relatively new discipline that consists ofthree broad schools (analytical, postmodern, and practi-cal). It emphasizes freedom from anthropocentric biasand wishes to investigate the value of and norms con-cerning animals in a direct sense by taking the animalitself as the object of study. Proanimal arguments inanimal ethics have been met with some criticism, butoften that criticism faces problems such as the naturalisticfallacy. It can be argued that animal ethics has presentedimportant approaches to the study of human-animalrelations and offered strong reasons to rethink the humanunderstanding of the value of animals and current prac-tices of using animals.

SEE ALSO Biocentrism; Consciousness; EcologicalFeminism; Factory Farms; Midgley, Mary; Plumwood,Val; Pragmatism; Regan, Tom; Singer, Peter; Species;Speciesism; Utilitarianism; Vegetarianism; VirtueEthics.


Adams, Carol J. 1990. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Continuum.

Bekoff, Marc. 2002. Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, andHeart. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bernstein, Mark H. 1998. On Moral Considerability: An Essay onWho Morally Matters. Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Calarco, Matthew, and Peter Atterton, eds. 2004. AnimalPhilosophy: Essential Readings in Continental Thought. Londonand New York: Continuum.

Cavalieri, Paola. 2001. The Animal Question: Why NonhumanAnimals Deserve Human Rights. Oxford and New York:Oxford University Press.

Clark, Stephen R. L. 1997. Animals and Their Moral Standing.London and New York: Routledge.

Clarke, Paul A. B., and Andrew Linzey, eds. 1990. PoliticalTheory and Animal Rights. London and Winchester, MA:Pluto Press.

Cohen, Carl, and Tom Regan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate.Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Crist, Eileen. 1999. Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism andAnimal Mind. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

DeGrazia, David. 1996. Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Lifeand Moral Status. Cambridge, UK, and New York:Cambridge University Press.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1988. A Thousand Plateaus:Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi. London:Athlone Press.

Derrida, Jacques. 2004. ‘‘An Animal That Therefore I Am.’’ InAnimal Philosophy: Essential Readings in Continental Thought,ed. Matthew Calarco and Peter Atterton. London and NewYork: Continuum.

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