The Moral Value of Animal Sentience and Agency

Abstract

In this chapter, I provide a set of guidelines to navigate the thorny question of choosing between agency or sentience as a basis for moral status in animal ethics (and beyond). I will argue that both options have advantages and limits, and the choice depends on what one wants to do with the idea of moral status. In assessing the merits of each approach, I will critically discuss Singer’s equal consideration of interests principle, Regan’s egalitarian agency-based account, Cochrane’s attempt to ground an inclusive egalitarian approach via sentience, Kagan’s limited hierarchy, and McMahan’s sentience-based inegalitarian gradualism. I will argue that irrespective of whether we opt for sentience or agency, equality can be meaningfully attributed only to qualified classes of beings because, if it is attributed to very general classes, it suffers from the same problems with the basis of equality as human-based accounts. Hence, a restricted form of egalitarianism seems the only viable possibility that does not violate the minimal requirement of proportionality. But current forms of restricted egalitarianism struggle too to square their (limited) egalitarian commitment with the basis of moral status.