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Kantianism for humans, utilitarianism for nonhumans? Yes and no

Philosophical Studies (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Should we accept that different moral norms govern our treatment of human and nonhuman animals? In this paper I suggest that the answer is both yes and no. At the theoretical level of morality, a single, unified set of norms governs our treatment of all sentient beings. But at the practical level of morality, different sets of norms can govern our treatment of different groups in different contexts. And whether we accept that we should, say, respect rights or maximize utility at the theoretical level, we might also accept that we should apply a relatively Kantian set of norms to our treatment of humans and a relatively utilitarian set of norms to our treatment of nonhumans in practice, with many caveats. I argue that this moderate “monist in theory, hybrid in practice” view has many advantages over fully monist or hybrid alternatives.

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Notes

  1. Note that, moving forward, I will mostly talk in terms of humans and nonhumans, or in terms of agents and patients, rather than in terms of people and animals, since I think that animals are people too. For more on this point, see Andrews et al. 2018.

  2. Bentham 2018.

  3. Kant 2012.

  4. Aristotle 2016.

  5. For an example of someone who accepts that there can be multiple basic goods, see Chang 1997.

  6. For an example of someone who accepts that there can be multiple basic duties, see Ross 1988.

  7. For an example of someone who accepts that there can be multiple basic virtues, see Swanton 2005.

  8. Nozick 1974.

  9. Scanlon 1998, 179.

  10. Fischer in preparation. For related discussion, see Chang 1997 and MacAskill, Bykvist, and Ord 2020, Chap. 5.

  11. Hare 1981.

  12. Brink 1989: 256.

  13. See, for example, Sidgwick 2014, Railton, 1984, and John and Sebo 2020.

  14. Parfit 1984: 24.

  15. Scheffler 1982.

  16. Nozick 1974.

  17. This interpretation of rights theory partly draws from the interpretation of “restricted deontology” that Shelly Kagan develops in 2019.

  18. For discussion, see Schukraft 2020.

  19. In particular, rights theorists might hold that we have this right in theory, and utilitarians might hold that we have this right in practice, since the capacity for agency shapes what kinds of interests we can have and, as a result, what can bring us pleasure and pain.

  20. For discussion, see Sebo 2017.

  21. For discussion of why we might have a duty to help to wild animals, see Horta 2010, Johannsen, 2020, and Sebo 2022.

  22. For an example of such a view, see Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011.

  23. For an example of such a view, see Gabardi 2017.

  24. Thanks to David Killoren and Richard Rowland for editing this special issue, and for organizing the Oxford Workshop on Utilitarian Approaches to Animal Ethics in September 2019, at which I presented related material. Thanks also to the participants at this workshop and three anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback, and to Dale Jamieson for helpful discussion.

References

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  1. Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, 285 Mercer Street, 8th Floor, 10003, New York, NY, United States

    Jeff Sebo

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Sebo, J. Kantianism for humans, utilitarianism for nonhumans? Yes and no. Philos Stud (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01835-0

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