Can Animals be Moral?

Abstract

The dichotomy between moral agents and moral patients is a recognized and well established one in moral philosophy. Animals, if they are thought of as having moral standing at all, are, almost invariably, regarded as moral patients rather than moral agents. The main thesis of this paper is that there is a third option: while animals are indeed moral patients, and not moral agents, they can also be moral subjects, where: X is a moral subject if and only if X is, at least sometimes, motivated to act by moral considerations. By means of a series of arguments, the paper attempts to show that there are no logical or conceptual obstacles to thinking of animals as motivated by moral considerations, specifically by emotions that have identifiable moral content.