Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Parental Responsibility and Our Special Relationship with Animal Companions

  • Published:
The Journal of Value Inquiry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

What is the basis of our obligations to our animal companions? This is an important question for practical reasons, as the relationship that many individuals have with their animal companion is amongst the most intimate of relationships they share with a non-human animal. It is also important for theoretical reasons. One of those reasons is that our commitments to animal companions may appear to present a kind of puzzle. If we think that we have moral commitments to animal companions that we do not have to other animals, such as livestock or free-roaming animals, what could explain this? I argue that the explanation for this difference in moral commitments is the result of the special relationship we have with our animal companions. More specifically, the basis of our moral commitments to animal companions are like those incurred by parents. Further, it is argued that causing the existence of or voluntarily taking on commitments of care for especially vulnerable and dependent sentient organisms implies robust responsibilities aimed at nurturing and promoting individual flourishing. This conclusion has implications regarding several related moral issues, such as whether animal companions require a moral education, what end-of-life commitments animal companion caregivers have, and whether it is justified to feed our animal companions other animals or let them engage in predation. Further, these issues are of practical interest to animal companion caregivers, law makers, and veterinarians, as well as being of theoretical interest to legal scholars and ethicists.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Regan, Tom. 2004. The case for Animal Rights. University of California Press. [1983].

  2. Singer, Peter. 2009. Animal Liberation. HarperCollins, [1975].

  3. Abbate, Cheryl. 2023. “The Animals in Our Living Rooms: Friends or Family?“ The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Friendship, edited by Diane Jeske, Routledge, pp. 138 – 50.

  4. Jordan, Jeff. 2001. “Why Friends Shouldn’t Let Friends Be Eaten: An Argument for Vegetarianism.“ Social Theory and Practice, vol. 27, no. 2, Apr. pp. 309 – 22. https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract200127214.

  5. Rowlands, Mark. 2011. Friendship and animals: a reply to Frööding and Peterson. Journal of Animal Ethics 1(1): 70–79. https://doi.org/10.5406/janimalethics.1.1.0070.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Townley, Cynthia. 2010. “Animals as Friends.“ Between the Species, no. 10, Aug. pp. 45–59. https://doi.org/10.15368/bts.2010v13n10.3.

  7. Townley, Cynthia. 2017. “Friendship with Companion Animals.“ Pets and People: The Ethics of Our Relationships with Companion Animals, edited by Christine Overall, Oxford, pp. 21–34.

  8. Aristotle. 1999. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terrence Irwin, 2nd ed., Hackett Publishing Company, [340 BCE].

  9. Milligan, Tony. 2009. Dependent companions. Journal of Applied Philosophy 26(4): 402–413. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.2009.00460.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Sapontzis, S. F. 1980. Are animals Moral Beings? American Philosophical Quarterly 17(1): 45–52.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Burgess-Jackson, Keith. 1998. Doing right by our animal companions. The Journal of Ethics 2: 159–185. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009756409422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Stewart, Heather. 2018. “Parents of “Pets?“ A Defense of Interspecies Parenting and Family Building.“ Analize - Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies, vol. 1, no. 11, Nov. pp. 239 – 63.

  13. Norcross, Alastair. 2004. “Puppies, Pigs, and People.“ Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 18, pp. 229–245. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2004.00027.x.

  14. Archard, David. 2010. “The Obligations and Responsibilities of Parenthood.“ Procreation and Parenthood: The Ethics of Bearing and Rearing Children, edited by David Archard and David Benatar, Oxford University Press, pp. 103 – 27.

  15. Bigelow, John et al. 1988. Parental autonomy. Journal of Applied Philosophy 5(2): 183–196. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.1988.tb00241.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Blustein, Jeffrey. 1997. Procreation and parental responsibility. Journal of Social Philosophy 28(2): 79–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.1997.tb00377.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Nelson, James Lindemann. 1991. Parental obligations and the Ethics of Surrogacy: a causal perspective. Public Affairs Quarterly 5: 49–61.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Weinberg, Rivka. 2008. “The Moral Complexity of Sperm Donation.“ Bioethics, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 166 – 78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00624.x.

  19. Brake, Elizabeth. 2005. Fatherhood and Child Support: do men have a right to choose? Journal of Applied Philosophy 22(1): 55–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.2005.00292.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Brake, Elizabeth. 2010. “Willing Parents: A Voluntarist Account of Parental Role Obligations.“ Procreation and Parenthood: The Ethics of Bearing and Rearing Children, edited by David Archard and David Benatar, Oxford University Press, pp. 151 – 77.

  21. Hill, John. 1991. “What Does it Mean to be a “Parent”? The Claims of Biology as the Basis for Parental Rights.“ New York University Law Review, vol. 66, pp. 353–420.

  22. Parker, Philip. 1982. Surrogate motherhood: the Interaction of Litigation, Legislation and Psychiatry. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 5: 341–354. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/. https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-2527(82)90028-0.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Shultz, Marjorie. 1990. Reproductive Technology and intent-based parenthood: an opportunity for gender Neutrality. Wisconsin Law Review 2: 297–398.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Stumpf, Andrea. 1986. Redefining mother: a legal matrix for New Reproductive technologies. The Yale Law Journal 96(1): 187–208.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Brake, Elizabeth, and Joseph Millum. 2022 Edition). “Parenthood and Procreation”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/parenthood.

  26. Benatar, David. 1999. The unbearable lightness of bringing into being. Journal of Applied Philosophy 16(2): 173–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5930.00119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Rogers, Wendy et al. 2012. “Why Bioethics Needs a Concept of Vulnerability.“ International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 11–38. https://doi.org/10.2979/intjfemappbio.5.2.11.

  28. Abbate, Cheryl. 2020. A defense of free-roaming cats from a hedonist account of Feline Well-Being. Acta Analytica 35(3): 439–461. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00408-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Abbate, Cheryl. 2021. Re-defending Feline Liberty: a response to Fischer. Acta Analytica 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-020-00457-7.

  30. Fischer, Bob. 2021. Keep your cats indoors: a response to Abbate. Acta Analytica 463–468. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-020-00431-3.

  31. Abbate, Cheryl. 2014. “Nonhuman Animals: Not Necessarily Saints or Sinners.“ Between the Species, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1–30. https://doi.org/10.15368/bts.2014v17n1.4.

  32. Bekoff, Marc, and Jessica Pierce. 2009. Wild justice: the Moral lives of animals. The University of Chicago Press.

  33. Sandøe, Peter et al. 2016. Companion Animal Ethics (UFAW Animal Welfare). Wiley Blackwell.

  34. Sommerville, Rebecca et al. 2017. Why do dogs play? Function and Welfare implications of Play in the domestic dog. Applied Animal Behavior Science 197: 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2017.09.007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the helpful feedback I received at various stages of the writing process. A special thank you to Matthew Kisner, Christopher Tollefsen, Kathryn Lindeman, Bob Fischer, Natalie McCosker, and anonymous reviewers. Thank you to the organizers and attendees of the Georgia Philosophical Society 2022 Online Conference on Contemporary Issues, the 15th Annual Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, and the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals 2021 Virtual Colloquium Series, where versions of this paper were presented. The responsibility for the content and any errors remains exclusively with the author.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA

    Dustin Sigsbee

Authors
  1. Dustin Sigsbee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dustin Sigsbee.

Ethics declarations

Declarations

The author was personally supported by the Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Dissertation Fellowship during authorship. The author has no other relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sigsbee, D. Parental Responsibility and Our Special Relationship with Animal Companions. J Value Inquiry (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09973-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09973-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation