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The Moral Status of Animals

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Stanford Encyclopedia Is there something distinctive about humanity that justifies the idea that
humans have moral status while non-humans do not? Providing an answer
of Philosophy to this question has become increasingly important among philosophers as
well as those outside of philosophy who are interested in our treatment of
non-human animals. For some, answering this question will enable us to
better understand the nature of human beings and the proper scope of our
moral obligations. Some argue that there is an answer that can distinguish
humans from the rest of the natural world. Many of those who accept this
Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson
answer are interested in justifying certain human practices towards non-
Principal Editor Senior Editor Associate Editor Faculty Sponsor
humans—practices that cause pain, discomfort, suffering and death. This
Editorial Board
https://plato.stanford.edu/board.html latter group expects that in answering the question in a particular way,
humans will be justified in granting moral consideration to other humans
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ISSN: 1095-5054
that is neither required nor justified when considering non-human animals.
In contrast to this view, an increasing number of philosophers have argued
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1. The Moral Considerability of Animals
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Copyright c 2021 by the publisher 1.1 Speciesism
The Metaphysics Research Lab 1.2 Human Exceptionalism
Center for the Study of Language and Information
1.3 Personhood
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
1.3.1 Rational Persons
The Moral Status of Animals
c 2021 by the author
Copyright 1.3.2 Legal Persons
Lori Gruen 1.4 Sentience
All rights reserved. 2. The Moral Significance of Animals’ Moral Claims
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 The Moral Status of Animals Lori Gruen

3. Alternative Perspectives on Human Relations to Other Animals the racist violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight
Bibliography to the interests of members of his own race, when there is a clash
References Cited between their interests and the interests of those of another race.
Further Reading Similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to
Academic Tools override the greater interests of members of other species. The
Other Internet Resources pattern is the same in each case. (Singer 1974: 108)
Related Entries
Discrimination based on race, like discrimination based on species is
thought to be prejudicial, because these are not characteristics that matter
1. The Moral Considerability of Animals when it comes to making moral claims.

To say that a being deserves moral consideration is to say that there is a Speciesist actions and attitudes are prejudicial because there is no prima
moral claim that this being can make on those who can recognize such facie reason for preferring the interests of beings belonging to the species
claims. A morally considerable being is a being who can be wronged. It is group to which one also belongs over the interests of those who don’t.
often thought that because only humans can recognize moral claims, it is That humans are members of the species Homo sapiens is certainly a
only humans who are morally considerable. However, when we ask why distinguishing feature of humans—humans share a genetic make-up and a
we think humans are the only types of beings that can be morally distinctive physiology, we all emerge from a human pregnancy, but this is
wronged, we begin to see that the class of beings able to recognize moral unimportant from the moral point of view. Species membership is a
claims and the class of beings who can suffer moral wrongs are not co- morally irrelevant characteristic, a bit of luck that is no more morally
extensive. interesting than being born in Malaysia or Canada. As a morally irrelevant
characteristic it cannot serve as the basis for a view that holds that our
1.1 Speciesism species deserves moral consideration that is not owed to members of other
species.
The view that only humans are morally considered is sometimes referred
to as “speciesism”. In the 1970s, Richard Ryder coined this term while One might respond that it is not membership in a biological category that
campaigning in Oxford to denote a ubiquitous type of human centered matters morally, but rather the social meaning of those categories,
prejudice, which he thought was similar to racism. He objected to favoring meanings that structure not only the institutions we operate within, but
one’s own species, while exploiting or harming members of other species. how we conceptualize ourselves and our world. Humans have developed
Peter Singer popularized the term and focused on the way speciesism, moral systems as well as a wide range of other valuable practices, and by
without moral justification, favors the interests of humans: creating these systems, we separate the human from the rest of the animal
kingdom. But the category “human” itself is morally contested. Some
argue, for example, that racism is not simply, or even primarily about

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discrimination and prejudice, but rather a mechanism of dehumanizing social hierarchies and to maneuver within them. One of the ways that non-
blackness so as to provide the conditions that makes humans white (see human animals negotiate their social environments is by being particularly
Fanon 1967; Kim 2015; Ko& Ko 2017). According to this line of thought, attentive to the emotional states of others around them. When a
speciesism isn’t focused on discrimination or prejudice but is a central tool conspecific is angry, it is a good idea to get out of his way. Animals that
for creating human (and white) supremacy or exceptionalism. develop life-long bonds are known to suffer from the death of their
partners. Some are even said to die of sorrow. Darwin reported this in The
1.2 Human Exceptionalism Descent of Man: “So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss of
their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain kinds” (1871:
Like speciesism, human exceptionalism can be understood in different 40). Jane Goodall’s report of the death of the healthy 8 year old
ways. The most common way of understanding it is to suggest that there chimpanzee Flint just three weeks after the death of his mother Flo also
are distinctly human capacities and it is on the basis of these capacities suggests that sorrow can have a devastating effect on non-human animals
that humans have moral status and other animals do not. But which (see Goodall 2000: 140–141 in Bekoff 2000). Coyotes, elephants and
capacities mark out all and only humans as the kinds of beings that can be killer whales are also among the species for which profound effects of
wronged? A number of candidate capacities have been proposed— grief have been reported (Bekoff 2000) and many dog owners can provide
developing family ties, solving social problems, expressing emotions, similar accounts. While the lives of many, perhaps most, non-humans in
starting wars, having sex for pleasure, using language, or thinking the wild are consumed with struggle for survival, aggression and battle,
abstractly, are just a few. As it turns out, none of these activities is there are some non-humans whose lives are characterized by expressions
uncontroversially unique to human. Both scholarly and popular work on of joy, playfulness, and a great deal of sex (Woods 2010). Recent studies
animal behavior suggests that many of the activities that are thought to be in cognitive ethology have suggested that some non-humans engage in
distinct to humans occurs in non-humans. For example, many species of manipulative and deceptive activity, can construct “cognitive maps” for
non-humans develop long lasting kinship ties—orangutan mothers stay navigation, and some non-humans appear to understand symbolic
with their young for eight to ten years and while they eventually part representation and are able to use language.[1]
company, they continue to maintain their relationships. Less solitary
animals, such as chimpanzees, baboons, wolves, and elephants maintain It appears that most of the capacities that are thought to distinguish
extended family units built upon complex individual relationships, for humans as morally considerable beings, have been observed, often in less
long periods of time. Meerkats in the Kalahari desert are known to elaborate form, in the non-human world. Because human behavior and
sacrifice their own safety by staying with sick or injured family members cognition share deep roots with the behavior and cognition of other
so that the fatally ill will not die alone. All animals living in socially animals, approaches that try to find sharp behavioral or cognitive
complex groups must solve various problems that inevitably arise in such boundaries between humans and other animals remain controversial. For
groups. Canids and primates are particularly adept at it, yet even chickens this reason, attempts to establish human uniqueness by identifying certain
and horses are known to recognize large numbers of individuals in their capacities, are not the most promising when it comes to thinking hard
about the moral status of animals.

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1.3 Personhood reflective structure of human consciousness. We can, and often do, think
about our desires and ask ourselves “Are these desires reasons for action?
Nonetheless, there is something important that is thought to distinguish Do these impulses represent the kind of things I want to act according to?”
humans from non-humans that is not reducible to the observation of Our reflective capacities allow us and require us to step back from our
behavior best explained by possessing a certain capacity and that is our mere impulses in order to determine when and whether to act on them. In
“personhood”. The notion of personhood identifies a category of morally stepping back we gain a certain distance from which we can answer these
considerable beings that is thought to be coextensive with humanity. questions and solve the problem of normativity. We decide whether to
Historically, Kant is the most noted defender of personhood as the quality treat our desires as reasons for action based on our conceptions of
that makes a being valuable and thus morally considerable (for a ourselves, on our “practical identities”. When we determine whether we
contemporary utilitarian discussion of personhood, see Varner 2012). Kant should take a particular desire as a reason to act we are engaging in a
writes: further level of reflection, a level that requires an endorseable description
of ourselves. This endorseable description of ourselves, this practical
…every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely identity, is a necessary moral identity because without it we cannot view
as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will…Beings our lives as worth living or our actions as worth doing. Korsgaard suggests
whose existence depends not on our will but on nature have, that humans face the problem of normativity in a way that non-humans
nevertheless, if they are not rational beings, only a relative value as apparently do not:
means and are therefore called things. On the other hand, rational
beings are called persons inasmuch as their nature already marks A lower animal’s attention is fixed on the world. Its perceptions are
them out as ends in themselves. (Kant [1785] 1998: [Ak 4: 428]) its beliefs and its desires are its will. It is engaged in conscious
activities, but it is not conscious of them. That is, they are not the
And: objects of its attention. But we human animals turn our attention on
to our perceptions and desires themselves, on to our own mental
The fact that the human being can have the representation “I”
activities, and we are conscious of them. That is why we can think
raises him infinitely above all the other beings on earth. By this he
about them…And this sets us a problem that no other animal has.
is a person….that is, a being altogether different in rank and
It is the problem of the normative…. The reflective mind cannot
dignity from things, such as irrational animals, with which one
settle for perception and desire, not just as such. It needs a reason.
may deal and dispose at one’s discretion. (Kant [1798] 2010: 239
(Korsgaard 1996: 93)
[Ak 7: 127])
Here, Korsgaard understands “reason” as “a kind of reflective success”
More recent work in a Kantian vein develops this idea. Christine
and given that non-humans are thought to be unable to reflect in a way that
Korsgaard, for example, argues that humans “uniquely” face a problem,
would allow them this sort of success, it appears that they do not act on
the problem of normativity. This problem emerges because of the
reasons, at least reasons of this kind. Since non-humans do not act on

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reasons they do not have a practical identity from which they reflect and judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity
for which they act. So humans can be distinguished from non-humans which it is his duty to show towards mankind. If he is not to stifle
because humans, we might say, are sources of normativity and non- his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for
humans are not. he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with
men. ([1784–5] 1997: 212 [Ak 27: 459])
1.3.1 Rational Persons
And one could argue the same would be true of those human beings who
are not persons. We disrespect our humanity when we act in inhumane
But arguably, Kant’s view of personhood does not distinguish all and only
ways towards non-persons, whatever their species.
humans as morally considerable. Personhood is not, in fact, coextensive
with humanity when understood as a general description of the group to But this indirect view is unsatisfying—it fails to capture the independent
which human beings belong. And the serious part of this problem is not wrong that is being done to the non-person. When someone rapes a
that there may be some extra-terrestrials or deities who have rational woman in a coma, or whips a severely brain damaged child, or sets a cat
capacities. The serious problem is that many humans are not persons. on fire, they are not simply disrespecting humanity or themselves as
Some humans—i.e., infants, children, people in comas—do not have the representatives of it, they are wronging these non-persons. So, a second
rational, self-reflective capacities associated with personhood. This way to avoid the counter-intuitive conclusion is to argue that such non-
problem, unfortunately known in the literature as the problem of persons stand in the proper relations to “rational nature” such that they
“marginal cases”, poses serious difficulties for “personhood” as the should be thought of as morally considerable. Allen Wood (1998) argues
criterion of moral considerability. Many beings whose positive moral in this way and suggests that all beings that potentially have a rational
value we have deeply held intuitions about, and who we treat as morally nature, or who virtually have it, or who have had it, or who have part of it,
considerable, will be excluded from consideration by this account. or who have the necessary conditions of it, what he calls “the
infrastructure of rational nature”, should be directly morally considerable.
There are three ways to respond to this counter-intuitive conclusion. One,
Insofar as a being stands in this relation to rational nature, they are the
which can be derived from one interpretation of Kant, is to suggest that
kinds of beings that can be wronged.
non-persons are morally considerable indirectly. Though Kant believed
that animals were mere things it appears he did not genuinely believe we This response is not unlike that of noted animal rights proponent, Tom
could dispose of them any way we wanted. In the Lectures on Ethics he Regan, who argues that what is important for moral consideration are not
makes it clear that we have indirect duties to animals, duties that are not the differences between humans and non-humans but the similarities.
toward them, but in regard to them insofar as our treatment of them can Regan argues that because persons share with certain non-persons (which
affect our duties to persons. includes those humans and non-humans who have a certain level of
organized cognitive function) the ability to be experiencing subject of a
If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of
life and to have an individual welfare that matters to them regardless of
service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot

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what others might think, both deserve moral consideration. Regan argues valuable for agents, the ability to experience similar needs and desires in
that subjects of a life: patients should also be valued.

want and prefer things, believe and feel things, recall and expect
1.3.2 Legal Persons
things. And all these dimensions of our life, including our pleasure
and pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and
In the courts, all humans and some corporations are considered persons in
frustration, our continued existence or our untimely death—all
the legal sense. But all animals, infants and adults, are not legal persons,
make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced,
but rather, under the law they are considered property. There have been a
by us as individuals. As the same is true of … animals … they too
few attempts to change the legal status of some nonhuman animals from
must be viewed as the experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent
property to persons. The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) founded by
value of their own. (Regan 1985: 24)
Steven Wise, has filed a series of cases in the New York courts seeking to
A third way of addressing this problem has been taken up by Korsgaard establish legal personhood for particular chimpanzees being held in the
who maintains that there is a big difference between those with normative, state, with the goal of protecting their rights to bodily integrity and liberty,
rational capacities and those without, but unlike Kant, believes both and allow them to seek remedy, through their proxies, when those rights
humans and non-humans are the proper objects of our moral concern. She are violated. Chimpanzees are a good test case for establishing nonhuman
argues that those without normative, rational capacities share certain legal personhood as they are, according to the documents filed by NhRP,
“natural” capacities with persons, and these natural capacities are often the autonomous beings with sophisticated cognitive abilities including
content of the moral demands that persons make on each other. She writes,
episodic memory, self-consciousness, self-knowing, self agency,
what we demand, when we demand … recognition, is that our referential and intentional communication, mental time-travel,
natural concerns—the objects of our natural desires and interests numerosity, sequential learning, meditational learning, mental state
and affections—be accorded the status of values, values that must modeling, visual perspective taking, understanding the experiences
be respected as far as possible by others. And many of those of others, intentional action, planning, imagination, empathy,
natural concerns—the desire to avoid pain is an obvious example metacognition, working memory, decision-making, imitation,
—spring from our animal nature, not from our rational nature. deferred imitation, emulation, innovation, material, social, and
(Korsgaard 2007: 7) symbolic culture, cross-modal perception, tool-use, tool-making,
cause-and-effect. (petition of NhRP v. Samuel Stanley, p. 12, see
What moral agents construct as valuable and normatively binding is not Other Internet Resources)
only our rational or autonomous capacities, but the needs and desires we
have as living, embodied beings. Insofar as these needs and desires are The legal arguments to extend personhood beyond the human parallel
more general ethical arguments that extend ethical consideration outward
from those who occupy the moral center. Turning to empirical work

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designed to show that other animals are really similar to those considered humans they experience the pain of anticipating a never-ending
legal persons, primatologists submitted affidavits attesting to what they situation. (Osvath affidavit, pp. 4–7, in Other Internet Resources)
have learned working with chimpanzees. Mary Lee Jensvold suggests
These claims, as well as those of others experts, identify the relevantly
there are numerous parallels in the way chimpanzee and human similar capacities that chimpanzees and other great apes share with
communication skills develop over time, suggesting a similar humans and it is in virtue of these capacities that legal personhood is
unfolding cognitive process across the two species and an sought.
underlying neurobiological continuity. (Jensvold affidavit, p. 4, in
Other Internet Resources) 1.4 Sentience
James King notes Using rational nature or cognitive capacities as the touchstone of moral
considerability misses an important fact about animals, human and
chimpanzees and humans resemble each other in terms of their
nonhuman. Our lives can go better or worse for us. Utilitarians have
ability to experience happiness and the way in which it relates to
traditionally argued that the truly morally important feature of beings is
individual personality. (King affidavit, p. 8, in Other Internet
unappreciated when we focus on personhood or the rational, self-reflective
Resources)
nature of humans, or the relation a being stands in to such nature, or being
And Mathias Osvath makes remarkable claims about chimpanzee the subject of a life, or being legal persons. What is really important,
personhood: utilitarians maintain, is the promotion of happiness, or pleasure, or the
satisfaction of interests, and the avoidance of pain, or suffering, or
Autonoetic consciousness gives an individual of any species an frustration of interests. Bentham, one of the more forceful defenders of
autobiographical sense of it self with a future and a past. Chimps this sentientist view of moral considerability, famously wrote:
and other great apes clearly possess an autobiographical self, as
they are able to prepare themselves for future actions… they likely Other animals, which, on account of their interests having been
can, just as humans, be in pain over an anticipated future event that neglected by the insensibility of the ancient jurists, stand degraded
has yet to occur. For instance, confining someone in a prison or into the class of things. [original emphasis] … The day has been, I
cage for a set time, or for life, would lose much of its power as grieve it to say in many places it is not yet past, in which the
punishment if that individual had no self-concept. Every moment greater part of the species, under the denomination of slaves, have
would be a new moment with no conscious relation to the next. been treated … upon the same footing as … animals are still. The
But, chimpanzees. and other great apes have a concept of their day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire
personal past and future and therefore suffer the pain of not being those rights which never could have been withholden from them
able to fulfill one’s goals or move around as one wants; like but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered
that the blackness of skin is no reason why a human being should

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be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may 2. The Moral Significance of Animals’ Moral Claims
come one day to be recognized, that the number of legs, the
villosity of the skin, or the termination of the ossacrum, are That non-human animals can make moral claims on us does not in itself
reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the indicate how such claims are to be assessed and conflicting claims
same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is adjudicated. Being morally considerable is like showing up on a moral
it the faculty of reason, or perhaps, the faculty for discourse?…the radar screen—how strong the signal is or where it is located on the screen
question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they are separate questions. Of course, how one argues for the moral
suffer? (Bentham 1780/1789: chapter xvii, paragraph 6) considerability of non-human animals will inform how we are to
understand the force of an animal’s claims.
Contemporary utilitarians, such as Peter Singer (1990, 1979 [1993]),
suggest that there is no morally justifiable way to exclude from moral According to the view that an animal’s moral claim is equivalent to a
consideration non-humans or non-persons who can clearly suffer. Any moral right, any action that fails to treat the animal as a being with
being that has an interest in not suffering deserves to have that interest inherent worth would violate that animal’s right and is thus morally
taken into account. And a non-human who acts to avoid pain can be objectionable. According to the animal rights position, to treat an animal
thought to have just such an interest. Even contemporary Kantians have as a means to some human end, as many humans do when they eat animals
acknowledged the moral force of the experience of pain. Korsgaard, for or experiment on them, is to violate that animal’s right. As Tom Regan has
example, writes “it is a pain to be in pain. And that is not a trivial fact” written,
(1996: 154).
…animals are treated routinely, systematically as if their value
When you pity a suffering animal, it is because you are perceiving were reducible to their usefulness to others, they are routinely,
a reason. An animal’s cries express pain, and they mean that there systematically treated with a lack of respect, and thus are their
is a reason, a reason to change its conditions. And you can no more rights routinely, systematically violated. (Regan 1985: 24).
hear the cries of an animal as mere noise than you can the words of
a person. Another animal can obligate you in exactly the same way The animal rights position is an absolutist position. Any being that is a
another person can. …So of course we have obligations to animals. subject of a life has inherent worth and the rights that protect such worth,
(Korsgaard 1996: 153) and all subjects of a life have these rights equally. Thus any practice that
fails to respect the rights of those animals who have them, e.g., eating
When we encounter an animal in pain we recognize their claim on us, and animals, hunting animals, experimenting on animals, using animals for
thus beings who can suffer are morally considerable. entertainment, is wrong, irrespective of human need, context, or culture.

The utilitarian position on animals, most commonly associated with Peter

Singer and popularly, though erroneously, referred to as an animal rights

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position, is actually quite distinct. Here the moral significance of the would be associated with the end to factory farming is largely an empirical
claims of animals depends on what other morally significant competing question. But utilitarians are not making unreasonable predictions when
claims might be in play in any given situation. While the equal interests of they argue that on balance the suffering and interest frustration that
all morally considerable beings are considered equally, the practices in animals experience in modern day meat production is greater than the
question may end up violating or frustrating some interests but would not suffering that humans would endure if they had to alter their current
be considered morally wrong if, when all equal interests are considered, practices.
more of these interests are satisfied than frustrated. For utilitarians like
Singer, what matters are the strength and nature of interests, not whose Importantly, the utilitarian argument for the moral significance of animal
interests these are. So, if the only options available in order to save the life suffering in meat production is not an argument for vegetarianism. If an
of one morally considerable being is to cause harm, but not death, to animal lived a happy life and was painlessly killed and then eaten by
another morally considerable being, then according to a utilitarian people who would otherwise suffer hunger or malnutrition by not eating
position, causing this harm may be morally justifiable. Similarly, if there the animal, then painlessly killing and eating the animal would be the
are two courses of action, one which causes extreme amounts of suffering morally justified thing to do. In many parts of the world where economic,
and ultimate death, and one which causes much less suffering and painless cultural, or climate conditions make it virtually impossible for people to
death, then the latter would be morally preferable to the former. sustain themselves on plant based diets, killing and eating animals that
previously led relatively unconstrained lives and are painlessly killed,
Consider factory farming, the most common method used to convert would not be morally objectionable. The utilitarian position can thus avoid
animal bodies into relatively inexpensive food in industrialized societies certain charges of cultural chauvinism and moralism, charges that the
today. An estimated 8 billion animals in the United States are born, animal rights position apparently cannot avoid.
confined, biologically manipulated, transported and ultimately slaughtered
each year so that humans can consume them. The conditions in which It might be objected that to suggest that it is morally acceptable to hunt
these animals are raised and the method of slaughter causes vast amounts and eat animals for those people living in arctic regions, or for nomadic
of suffering (see, for example, Mason & Singer 1980 [1990]). Given that cultures, or for poor rural peoples, for example, is to potentially condone
animals suffer under such conditions and assuming that suffering is not in painlessly killing other morally considerable beings, like humans, for food
their interests, then the practice of factory farming would only be morally consumption in similar situations. If violating the rights of an animal can
justifiable if its abolition were to cause greater suffering or a greater be morally tolerated, especially a right to life, then similar rights violations
amount of interest frustration. Certainly humans who take pleasure in can be morally tolerated. In failing to recognize the inviolability of the
eating animals will find it harder to satisfy these interests in the absence of moral claims of all morally considerable beings, utilitarianism cannot
factory farms; it may cost more and require more effort to obtain animal accommodate one of our most basic prima facie principles, namely that
products. The factory farmers, and the industries that support factory killing a morally considerable being is wrong.
farming, will also have certain interests frustrated if factory farming were
to be abolished. How much interest frustration and interest satisfaction

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There are at least two replies to this sort of objection. The first appeals to important interests are weightier than replaceable interests, and all are
the negative side effects that killing may promote. If, to draw on an weightier than trivial interests or mere whims. When there is a conflict of
overused and sadly sophomoric counter-example, one person can be interests, crucial interests will always override important interests,
kidnapped and painlessly killed in order to provide body parts for four important interests will always override replaceable interests, etc. So if an
individuals who will die without them, there will inevitably be negative animal has an interest in not suffering, which is arguably a crucial interest,
side-effects that all things considered would make the kidnapping wrong. or at least an important one, and a person has an interest in eating that
Healthy people, knowing they could be used for spare parts, might make animal when there are other things to eat, meaning that interest is
themselves unhealthy to avoid such a fate or they may have so much stress replaceable, then the animal has the stronger interest and it would be
and fear that the overall state of affairs would be worse than that in which wrong to violate that interest by killing the animal for food if there is
four people died. Appealing to side-effects when it comes to the wrong of another source of food available.
killing is certainly plausible, but it fails to capture what is directly wrong
with killing. Often, however, conflicts of interests are within the same category. The
Inuit’s interest in food is crucial and the explorer’s interest in life is
A more satisfying reply would have us adopt what might be called a multi- crucial. If we assume that the explorer cannot otherwise provide food for
factor perspective, one that takes into account the kinds of interest that are the hunter, then it looks as if there is a conflict within the same category. If
possible for certain kinds of morally considerable beings, the content of you take the interests of an indigenous hunter’s whole family into account,
interests of the beings in question, their relative weight, and the context of then their combined interest in their own survival appears to outweigh the
those who have them. Consider a seal who has spent his life freely hapless explorer’s interest in continued existence. Indeed, if painlessly
roaming the oceans and ice flats and who is suddenly and painlessly killed killing and eating the explorer were the only way for the family to survive,
to provide food for a human family struggling to survive a bitter winter in then perhaps this action would be morally condoned. But this is a rather
far northern climes. While it is probably true that the seal had an extreme sort of example, one in which even our deepest held convictions
immediate interest in avoiding suffering, it is less clear that the seal has a are strained. So it is quite hard to know what to make of the clash between
future directed interest in continued existence. If the seal lacks this future what a utilitarian would condone and what our intuitions tell us we should
directed interest, then painlessly killing him does not violate this interest. believe here. Our most basic prima facie principles arise and are accepted
The same cannot be said for the human explorer who finds himself face to under ordinary circumstances. Extraordinary circumstances are precisely
face with a hungry Inuit family. Persons generally have interests in those in which such principles or precepts give way.[2]
continued existence, interests that, arguably, non-persons do not have. So
one factor that can be appealed to is that non-persons may not have the The multi-factor utilitarian perspective is particularly helpful when
range of interests that persons do. considering the use of animals in medical research. According to the
animal rights position, the use of animals in experimental procedures is a
An additional factor is the type of interest in question. We can think of clear violation of their rights—they are being used as a mere means to
interests as scalar; crucial interests are weightier than important interests, some possible end—and thus animal rights proponents are in favor of the

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 The Moral Status of Animals Lori Gruen

abolition of all laboratory research. The utilitarian position, particularly are minimal, condone such an experiment. Of course, it is easier to
one that incorporates some kind of multi-factor perspective, might allow imagine this sort of extreme case in the abstract, what a utilitarian would
some research on animals under very specific conditions. Before exploring think actually morally justified, again depends on the specific empirical
what a utilitarian might condone in the way of animal experimentation, let data.
us first quickly consider what would be morally prohibited. All research
that involves invasive procedures, constant confinement, and ultimate In sum, the animal rights position takes the significance of morally
death can be said to violate the animal’s crucial interests. Thus any considerable claims to be absolute. Thus, any use of animals that involves
experiments that are designed to enhance the important, replaceable, or a disregard for their moral claims is problematic. The significance of an
trivial interests of humans or other animals would be prohibited. That animal’s morally considerable interests according to a utilitarian is
would mean that experiments for cosmetics or household products are variable. Whether an action is morally justified or permissible will depend
prohibited, as there are non-animal tested alternatives and many options on a number of factors. The utilitarian position on animals would condemn
already available for consumers. Certain psychological experiments, such a large number of practices that involve the suffering and death of billions
as those in which infant primates are separated from their mothers and of animals, but there are cases in which some use of non-human animals,
exposed to frightening stimuli in an effort to understand problems and perhaps even human animals, may be morally justified (Gruen 2011:
teenagers have when they enter high school, would also come into ch. 4; Gilbert, Kaebnick, & Murray 2012).
question. There are many examples of experiments that violate an animal’s
crucial interests in the hopes of satisfying the lesser interests of some other 3. Alternative Perspectives on Human Relations to
morally considerable being, all of which would be objectionable from this Other Animals
perspective.
Given the long-standing view that non-humans are mere things, there are
There are some laboratory experiments, however, that from a multi-factor still many who reject the arguments presented here for the moral
utilitarian perspective may be permitted. These are experiments in which considerability of non-humans and the significance of their interests.
the probability of satisfying crucial or important interests for many who Nonetheless, most now realize that the task of arguing that humans have a
suffer from some debilitating or fatal disease is high, and the numbers of unique and exclusive moral status is rather difficult. Yet even amongst
non-human animals whose crucial interests are violated is low. The those who do view animals as within the sphere of moral concern, there is
psychological complexity of the non-humans may also be significant in disagreement about the nature and usefulness of the arguments presented
determining whether the experiment is morally justified. In the case of on behalf of the moral status of animals.
experimenting in these limited number of cases, presumably a parallel
argument could be made about experimenting on humans. If the chances Increasingly, philosophers are arguing that while our behavior towards
are very high that experimenting on one human, who is a far superior animals is indeed subject to moral scrutiny, the kinds of ethical arguments
experimental animal when it comes to human disease, can prevent great that are usually presented frame the issues in the wrong way. Some
suffering or death in many humans, then the utilitarian may, if side effects philosophers suggest that rational argumentation fails to capture those

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 The Moral Status of Animals Lori Gruen

features of moral experience that allow us to really see why treating animals were situated in it shifted. (Hursthouse 2000: 165–166; see
animals badly is wrong. The point, according to commentators such as also Diamond 2001 [especially chs. 11 and 13], and Clarke 1977)
Stephen R.L. Clark and Cora Diamond, for example, is that members of
our communities, however we conceive of them, pull on us and it is in Alice Crary argues that shifting perceptions of our moral landscapes occur
virtue of this pull that we recognize what is wrong with cruelty. Animals because these landscapes, and more precisely the rich worlds of those who
are individuals with whom we share a common life and this recognition inhabit them, are not morally neutral. The characteristics that philosophers
allows us to see them as they are. Eating animals is wrong not because it is tend to look for in other animals to determine whether or not they are
a violation of the animal’s rights or because on balance such an act creates morally considerable, according to Crary, are already infused with moral
more suffering than other acts, but rather because in eating animals or importance, “human beings and other animals have empirically
using them in other harmful, violent ways, we do not display the traits of discoverable moral characteristics” (my emphasis, 2016: 85) that are, as
character that kind, sensitive, compassionate, mature, and thoughtful she puts it “inside ethics”. These values often sneak in under a supposedly
members of a moral community should display. neutral gloss. By explicitly locating these characteristics inside ethics, the
texture, quality, and purposes of our ethical reflection on moral
According to some in the virtue ethics tradition, carefully worked out considerability changes. Arriving at an adequate empirical understanding
arguments in which the moral considerability and moral significance of requires non-neutral methods, identifying historical and cultural
animals are laid out will have little if any grip on our thoughts and actions. perspectives as shaping how we consider other animals morally. What
Rather, by perceiving the attitudes that underlie the use and abuse of non- ethical questions we think are important and how we frame and answer
human animals as shallow or cruel, one interested in living a virtuous life them, will be different if we see our lives and the lives of other animals as
will change their attitudes and come to reject treating animals as food or already imbued with moral values.
tools for research. As Rosalind Hursthouse recognized after having been
exposed to alternative ways of seeing animals: Other feminist philosophers have taken issue with the supposedly morally
neutral methods of argumentation used to establish the moral status of
I began to see [my attitudes] that related to my conception of flesh- animals. For many feminists the traditional methods of rational
foods as unnecessary, greedy, self-indulgent, childish, my attitude argumentation fail to take into account the feelings of sympathy or
to shopping and cooking in order to produce lavish dinner parties empathy that humans have towards non-humans, feelings they believe are
as parochial, gross, even dissolute. I saw my interest and delight in central to a full account of what we owe non-humans and why (see Adams
nature programmes about the lives of animals on television and my & Donovan 1995; Donovan & Adams 2007; Adams & Gruen 2014).
enjoyment of meat as side by side at odds with one another…
Without thinking animals had rights, I began to see both the wild Feminist philosophers have also challenged the individualism that is
ones and the ones we usually eat as having lives of their own, central in the arguments for the moral status of animals. Rather than
which they should be left to enjoy. And so I changed. My identifying intrinsic or innate properties that non-humans share with
perception of the moral landscape and where I and the other humans, some feminists have argued instead that we ought to understand

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 The Moral Status of Animals Lori Gruen

moral status in relational terms given that moral recognition is invariably a otherwise. It therefore also enhances our own experiences, develops our
social practice. As Elizabeth Anderson has written: moral imagination, and helps us to become more sensitive perceivers.

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Rachels, James, 1990, Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Affidavit by Mathias Osvath
Darwinism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rowlands, Mark, 2012, Can Animals Be Moral? New York: Oxford Related Entries
University Press.
Ryder, Richard D., 1989, Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Toward animal: consciousness | Bentham, Jeremy | consequentialism | emotion |
Speciesism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. feminist philosophy, interventions: ethics | feminist philosophy,
Sapontzis, Steve F. (ed.), 2004, Food for Thought: The Debate Over interventions: political philosophy | Kant, Immanuel | rights
Eating Meat, NY: Prometheus Press.
Notes to The Moral Status of Animals
Academic Tools
1. For one of many summaries of tool-use in animals, see Griffin 1992: ch.
How to cite this entry. 5; see also Attenborough 1998: ch. 5. For primary research see, for
Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP example, S. Chevalier-Skolnikoff 1989; Weir, Chappell, & Kacelnik 2002,
Society. and Visalberghi 1997. For elaborate stories of family-ties, see Galdikas
Look up this entry topic at the Internet Philosophy Ontology 1995 and Goodall 1986 & 2000. For an interesting discussion of Meerkats
Project (InPhO). see “All For One: Meerkats”, National Geographic. For examples of non-
Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers, with links human “culture” in chimpanzees, see Whiten, Goodall, et al. 1999; in
to its database.
whales and dolphins see Rendell & Whitehead 2001; and for a general
discussion Griffin 1992: ch. 4. Two useful discussions of non-human
Other Internet Resources “social knowledge” can be found in Cheney & Seyfarth 1990 and
Tomasello & Call 1997: Part II. See Bekoff 2000, 2007 and King 2013 for
The Moral Status of Animals, webpage at Ethics Updates (Larry
an account of animal emotion. For a discussion of warlike behavior and
Hinman, University of San Diego), now only available at the Internet
alliance building see de Waal 1989. Bonobos have sex not just for
Archive.
reproduction, but to relax, to bond, or just for pleasure. They also don’t
Bentham, J., An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
seem to have taboos about who they have sex with or how. For a
Legislation, at the Library of Economics and Liberty.
discussion see de Waal & Lanting 1997. See Bekoff & Byers 1998 for

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 The Moral Status of Animals

discussion of play among many different species. Studies of language use

among non-humans have a long and interesting history. See, for example,
Pepperberg 1999 and Premack 1986. Critics have contended that while
some animals can be taught to use words they do not use a language with
syntax, defenders have argued that the non-human animals in the language
studies, particularly the bonobos, not only have large vocabularies, but are
capable of communicating novel information, of combining words in new
ways, and of following simple syntactic rules. See Rumbaugh & Savage-
Rumbaugh 1999. For a discussion of deception see, for example, Byrne &
Whiten 1988 and Byrne & Whiten 1997. For a nice introductory
discussion of other forms of cognition see Roberts 1998. See also Hauser
& Carey 1997 and Bekoff, Allen, & Burghardt 2002.

2. Unfortunately, in our complex world, it does appear that the

extraordinary is becoming more ordinary; that conflicts of crucial interests
are occurring more regularly. Some have suggested that in order to cope
with such conflicts additional factors be considered in the process of
conflict resolution. Donald VanDeVeer has proposed that the level of
psychological complexity be a determining factor such that if a being has a
higher level of this complexity then his crucial interest would outweigh
the crucial interests of a being with lesser complexity. There are clearly
refinements needed with this proposal; see VanDeVeer 1979: 55–70.

Copyright © 2021 by the author

Lori Gruen

34 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy