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Empirical Methods in Animal Ethics

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Abstract

In this article the predominant, purely theoretical perspectives on animal ethics are questioned and two important sources for empirical data in the context of animal ethics are discussed: (mostly qualitative) methods of the social and (mainly quantitative) methods of the natural sciences. Including these methods can lead to an empirical animal ethics approach that is far more adapted to the needs of humans and nonhuman animals and more appropriate in different circumstances than a purely theoretical concept solely premised on rational arguments. However, the potential tension between lay people’s moral judgements and ethical theory must be handled with care. The thorough analysis of qualitative data can lead to a deep insight into e.g. ethical problems with the application of laws and guidelines, practicality issues with ethical theories, personal ambivalence, and cognitive biases. The interaction between animal ethics theory and empirical findings can lead to both a more context-sensitive and applicable ethical theory and a less arbitrary folk moral system. Findings from the natural sciences can also contribute valuable information to animal ethics theory—the more we know about the properties and preferences of nonhuman animals the better we can respect them. Here, however, it is vital not to justify invasive procedures for the sake of “ethical progress”. It might be ethically required to forego some scientific findings about nonhuman animals if it is not clear how much a procedure would harm them. Only with robust empirical methods will light ultimately be shed on the nature of our moral relationship with animals.

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Notes

  1. In this paper “animal ethics” is understood in a rather narrow sense, referring to the philosophical field that developed in the 1970 s with Richard Ryder, Roslind and Stanley Godlovitch, Peter Singer and others who started thinking and writing about animal liberation and animal rights. Consequentialist and deontological approaches are considered to be the predominant ones while acknowledging that there is a broad spectrum of theories involving virtue ethics, care ethics, contractualism and many more (Wolf 2008).

  2. This is e.g. illustrated in case of a project by the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH): With publications from both fields, biology and philosophy, they present an interdisciplinary perspective on cognition, consciousness and pain in fish. Thereby, they provide the basis for a more profound ethical discussion about how this group of nonhuman animals should be treated.

  3. Folk morality refers to the way people without a special philosophical education/qualification deal with moral problems. It has gained much attention recently by experimental philosophers or neuroethicists (Nichols and Knobe 2007; Kahane and Shackel 2008; Sytsma and Machery 2012) but it can additionally be investigated in a qualitative way, as suggested in this paper.

  4. The expression „naturalistic fallacy”, also known as “is-ought-fallacy”, refers to several concepts of slightly different meanings (Engels 2008). Here it should be understood as: jumping from empirical, descriptive premises to a normative, evaluative conclusion without an explanation for the normative nature of the conclusion. A biologistic argument of that sort might be as follows: We found an evolutionary trend towards a certain trait, therefore we should prefer this trait/breed organisms with this trait/privilege those who carry this trait or consider this trait as something good.

  5. http://www.projetogap.org.br/en/world-declaration-on-great-primates/.

  6. The “Knobe effect” is the name for the main result of a study by Joshua Knobe in 2003: in his thought experiment he presented the situation of a chairman who decides to start a profitable program knowing that its side effects will in case a) harm and in case (b) help the environment. The man does not care about the environment at all but is just interested in the company’s profit. When the program starts and the environment is in (a) harmed and in (b) helped, the experiment’s participant is asked if the chairman (a) harmed and (b) helped the environment intentionally and if he was to be blamed/praised. Although the modification between (a) and (b) is not immediately related to the concept of intentionality, more than 80 % of the participants thought that the chairman harmed the environment intentionally whereas over 70 % found that he did not help the environment intentionally.

  7. This example is part of the authors` empirical work with thought experiments.

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Funding

Kirsten Persson’s research is supported in part by the Haldimann Stiftung in Aarau, Switzerland. All other support for all authors came from the University of Basel.

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  1. Institute for Biomedical Ethics, Universität Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, 4056, Basel, Switzerland

    Kirsten Persson & David Shaw

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  1. Kirsten Persson
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Correspondence to Kirsten Persson.

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Persson, K., Shaw, D. Empirical Methods in Animal Ethics. J Agric Environ Ethics 28, 853–866 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9560-0

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