The moral importance of agency

Frederike Kaldewaij

Philosophy Department, Utrecht University (Frederike.Kaldewaij@phil.uu.nl)

Expert Meeting Fish welfare: the interplay between science and ethics. November 29/30, 2010

The moral importance of agency

• The importance of agency in “Kantian practical reasoning theories”

• Claim: even if animals are not rational (moral) agents, we can have duties regarding animals if they pursue objects of desires

Requirements of practical reason

• Practical vs. theoretical reason: rational requirements on action

• Instrumental or prudential requirements of practical reason:

if your end is x, you ought to do y (take the means to x)

Kantian vs. Hobbesian theories of practical reasoning

• Kantian theories contrasted with Hobbesian theories, which justify moral rules on the basis of mutual self-interest

Kantian theories: categorical duty

• Categorical (moral) duty: a rational requirement that can (even ultimately) conflict with your self-interest:

All moral agents ought to do y (whatever their personal ends are or what is in their self-interest)

Kantian practical reasoning theories and animals

• Constraints in our treatment of animals (and weak humans) are not in our self-interest

• More than just being kind to animals: doing our duty

Kantian theories might offer a possibility to justify duties to animals - BUT…

Possible problem for duties to animals?

• Duties are grounded in our practical reason (not in our desires, e.g. for happiness, or our natural dispositions, e.g. sympathy)

• Moral autonomy: rational self-legislation of moral requirements

• Animals are not autonomous (moral) agents

What moral duties do we have?

• Goal of Kantian theories: specify the content and rational justification of categorical duties

• Do we rationally have to accept a duty not to harm animals (without sufficient justification)?

Indirect duty regarding well-being moral agents

• Doing your moral (categorical) duty is an end in itself, not a means to another end, e.g. self-interest

• Respect for moral autonomy

• Well-being only indirectly morally relevant, because suffering may interfere with our ability to act morally

Indirect duty regarding well-being animals

• Only reason to treat animals well if being cruel to animals will lead us to be cruel to moral agents

• On this picture the suffering of human moral agents isn’t in itself morally relevant either

Direct duty regarding well-being?

• Perhaps we ought not interfere with our own and others’ ability to act on moral duties

• But what are our moral duties? Do they include a direct duty not to harm others, including animals?

What moral duties do we have?

• Moral duties: duties that all moral agents have (universality), no matter what their personal ends are (categorical)

• What does reason require of all moral agents, independently or regardless of their personal ends?

How these arguments work

• If an action is morally justified for me, it is justified for all moral agents

• We are motivated to pursue some end or any end

universalization: duties to others

Examples

• I cannot regard it as permissible to harm others because, universalizing this, others would be permitted to harm me, and I do not want to suffer

• Stronger claim: I cannot regard it as permissible to harm others because I cannot rationally will that others undermine my ability to fulfill any ends

Not prudence but rational consistency

• These arguments are not prudential (they do not ultimately refer to your self-interest)

• They are about rational consistency; avoid self-contradiction when I universalize my intention:

if an action is justified for me, it is justified for all moral agents

The scope of our moral duties (1)

• Problem: I can universalize the intention never to harm anyone who is not called Frederike

• What characteristics are morally relevant?

• Why can’t we will a universal rule that harming others is permissible?

The scope of our moral duties (2)

• Because we do not want to be harmed / cannot rationally will to undermine our ability to fulfill our ends

• Being motivated to act on the basis of desires (sentience?) is sufficient to be the object of a duty not to harm

Conclusion

• Perhaps only human beings are moral/ prudential agents, but that just means that only we are morally/prudentially responsible

• It could still be that we rationally have to accept a duty not to harm animals: animals can be the objects of moral duties