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Moral Individualism, Moral Relationalism, and Obligations to Non-Human Animals

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Moral Individualism, Moral Relationalism, and Obligations to Non-Human Animals bs_bs_banner Journal of Applied Philosophy,Vol.31, No. 2, 2014 doi: 10.1111/japp.12055 Moral Individualism, Moral Relationalism, and Obligations to Non-human Animals TODD MAY ABSTRACT Moral individualists like Jeff McMahan and Peter Singer argue that our moral obligations to animals, both human and non-human, are grounded in the morally salient capacities of those animals. By contrast, what might be called moral relationalists argue that our obligations to non-human animals are grounded in our relationship to them. Moral relationalists are of various kinds, from relationalists regarding assistance to animals, such as Clare Palmer and Elizabeth Anderson, to relationalists grounded in a Wittgensteinian view of human prac- tice, such as Cora Diamond and Alice Crary.This article argues that there are, in fact, two dis- tinct types of moral reasons, those based on salient capacities and those based on relationships. Neither type of reason is reducible to the other, and there is no third type to which to reduce them both.Any attempt at reduction would run counter to deep intuitions about our moral relation to non-human animals as well as to other humans. Among the implications of this is that certain kinds of arguments, such as the argument from marginal cases, seem to be incomplete precisely because they do not capture the complexity of our moral relations to non-human animals. Moral individualism is the view that, as James Rachels put it, ‘how an individual may be treated is determined, not by considering his own group memberships, but by consid- ering his own particular characteristics.’1 One might say, with little exaggeration, that the most ardent defenders of the elevated moral status of animals, such as Peter Singer,Tom Regan, and Jeff McMahan, are all moral individualists.2 They differ in their specific views, but they converge on the idea that it is characteristics rather than species mem- bership that determine the moral status of living beings. In Singer’s case, to the degree that an animal can suffer, it is worthy of moral recognition. For Regan, to the degree that and animal is a subject of a life, it requires our moral consideration.While the particular characteristics of these theorists differ, underlying them is a common commitment to moral individualism. We might contrast moral individualism with a spectrum of positions that we could call moral relationalism. Relationalism is the view that the moral status of a living being is determined not by solely its particular characteristics but more importantly by the relations it has with human beings. This spectrum would run from the more to the less exclusive regarding the moral status of non-human animals. At one end would be those, like Carl Cohen, who deny all but the most minimal moral status to non-human animals. For Cohen, in order to enjoy full moral status, one must be capable of membership in a moral community. And since non-human animals are not so capable, their moral status is limited to not being properly subject to arbitrary torture. ‘But with all the varied capacities of animals granted, it remains impossible for them to act morally,tobe © Society for Applied Philosophy, 2014, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 156 Todd May members of a moral community.’3 The difficulty a position like Cohen’s faces is what to do with what are often called ‘marginal cases’: infants and the severely mentally handi- capped in particular. His answer is essentially to ‘grandfather’ them into the human moral community. ‘Human children, like elderly adults, have rights because they are human. Morality is an essential feature of human life; all humans are moral creatures, infants and the senile included.’4 This, of course, is precisely the kind of inconsistency that motivates moral individualism. Further along the spectrum that runs toward moral individualism is what might be called Wittgensteinian relationalism. This is the position, championed in particular by Cora Diamond and more recently by Alice Crary, that our moral relations to non-human animals are derivative from our moral relations with other human beings.5 Wittgensteinian relationalism accords a much greater moral status to non-human animals than Cohen does, but that status remains parasitical on interhuman moral status. This position will be discussed in what follows, but only after a treatment of the position closest to moral individualism. We might call this final position assistance relationalism. Its main proponents are Elizabeth Anderson and Clare Palmer.6 Both hold that many animals that do not have a relationship with human beings have a right to non-interference with their lives. They also hold that animals that do have a relationship with human beings gain their moral status in good part from that relationship. Moreover, in order to have a claim on any sort of assistance from human beings, assistance relationalism holds that there must be a relationship with human beings to ground that claim. Palmer is explicit in this commit- ment. Anderson is not so explicit, but it is implied by what she does say.To be sure, moral status is not entirely dependent on the relationship. My pet cat has a richer moral claim on me than my pet frog. However, the fact that they are pets gives them a moral status, and moral claims on me, that they would not have had they not been my pets. This article argues that the debate between moral individualists and relationalists is at cross-purposes. There is a distinction that has not been adequately recognised in the debate. This is the distinction between what might be called relation-based reasons, or RBRs for short, and reasons based on the possession of morally salient capacities, or CBRs (capacity-based reasons). Once this distinction is recognised, two things emerge. First, the claims that are being defended in the debate are rooted in two distinct grounds of moral standing. These distinct grounds, although at times passingly treated in some of the above philosophers, have implications for moral theorising about non-human animals that block any sort of reduction, either to moral individualism or moral relationalism. Second, and related, there are situations in which it may be impossible to sort out one’s obligations, which is why some of the dilemmas posed in the debate feel forced or superficial. A capacity-based reason, or CBR, is a reason one has to treat a being with moral regard in virtue of the capacities possessed by that other being. The two most common proposed capacities are those for sentience and self-consciousness; however, for my purposes it does not matter what capacities are considered morally salient. CBRs are the heart of moral individualism. It is because of the possession of one or more morally salient capacities that a particular being enjoys a certain moral status, and must be treated in accordance with the obligations that arise for others on the basis of that status. A relation-based reason, or RBR, is an obligation based on membership of some form or another in a particular moral community or having a relevant relation to that moral © Society for Applied Philosophy, 2014 Moral Individualism, Relationalism, and Obligations to Non-human Animals 157 community. A common example would be pets, who are adopted into the human community. Now one might argue that pets cannot be members of a moral community because they cannot participate in it in the way that humans can. That claim is a controversial one. Vicki Hearne, for instance, argues that dogs (unlike most chimpan- zees) are capable of relations of trust with humans that allow them to be participants in a moral community with them.7 However, the objection can be conceded without damage to the definition. If one insists that no animals fulfil the condition of membership in a moral community, then it is simply the latter condition — that of having a relevant relation to a moral community — that is the appropriate one.We will use the locution of membership here in order to avoid cumbersome phrasings, but one can substitute the idea of a relevant relationship to a human moral community if one likes. I will use the term human moral community to refer to a community delineated at least primarily by human membership. Roughly, a human moral community is a community of interdependent individuals whose characteristic projects are human projects and who, in this interdependence, have a set of moral obligations to one another. We are not committed to there being only one human moral community. And even if we do think that there is more than one moral community, this does not entail that there are no moral obligations across communities. What constitutes a human moral community is a set of interactions and dependencies that give rise to obligations based upon those interactions and dependencies. If all of humanity is woven together into such a set, then there is a single human moral community. If not, then it could be the case that the interactions and dependencies of a particular community give rise to a particular set of obligations, while other moral obligations are grounded in characteristics other than those interactions and dependencies. (This possibility allows CBRs to exist alongside RBRs, a point whose importance will emerge later.) In short, whether there is more than one such community does not matter for the purposes of this article. Furthermore, referring to a human moral community does not entail, as we saw a moment ago, that such membership is restricted to human beings. For some, there might be puzzlement about why we should concede that there are RBRs in the first place.Why should the existence of a relational bond confer, or enhance, the moral status of an animal? There are at least two reasons for this.
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