Ethology and Ethical Change

Abstract

Cora Diamond’s discussions of the ethics of our treatment of animals offer a critique of conceptions of morality which regard our ethical responses as founded on reasons which ought to be reasons for anyone. Diamond takes issue with accounts of our treatment of animals based on their possession of capacities which are shared with us. She offers instead a concept of the moral life, as a form of life—inherited, shared and negotiated—only within which can moral reasons count as reasons at all. Our fellow creatures have some share in this life, but one that must be recognized as partial and problematic.

In this discussion, we offer an account which is consistent with Diamond’s general perspective. But one which also offers a more generous account of ways in which the discoveries of the ethological sciences dynamically reshape the place of animals in our shared moral life.

The more we come in contact with animals and observe their behaviour, the more we love them, for we see how great is their care for their young (Kant and Beck 1980, p. 240).

—Kant