Do We Have Any Duties To Non-human Animals, According To Immanuel Kant?

Kantian ideals has struggled terribly with the challenge of incorporating not-human animals equally beings to which we can owe obligations. Christine Korsgaard'due south Fellow Creatures is a bold, substantial attempt to meet that challenge. It is a significant book. In this essay, I won't attempt a chapter-by-chapter summary. I volition set up the scene for the book'due south cadre statement (which comes rather late, in Affiliate 8), offering a reconstruction of that argument, and reflect on its strengths and limitations. I'll as well briefly compare the view at which Korsgaard arrives to that of Tom Regan in The Case for Fauna Rights (1983).

Kant'southward fauna trouble

Kant's ethics, notoriously, assigns central value to rational beings, where "rational" is understood in an unusually demanding sense. One might wonder whether fifty-fifty members of the species Human being sapiens possess the relevant kind of rationality, which, for Kant, seems to require an incompatibilist course of free will. Even if Human being sapiens qualifies, not-human animals seem conspicuously exterior the telescopic of moral obligation. Cardinal worth, for Kant, goes with autonomy and moral agency. Not-human being animals are not autonomous in the relevant sense, and they are non moral agents, so they take no fundamental worth. There is no room, within Kant'south ethics, for a category of being to which we owe moral obligations even though it is not itself autonomous or leap by moral obligations.

Suppose, for example, you torture a canis familiaris. Y'all have not, in Kant's view, violated any obligations you owe to the dog. Yous take done the domestic dog no incorrect. A dog is not the sort of thing that tin be wronged.

The trouble hither is non that the framework has yielded a 1-off counterintuitive consequence. The problem is that, once yous see that the framework (at least at first glance) regards creature suffering equally morally irrelevant, the framework as a whole appears draconian, inhumane, uninterested in the psychological side of suffering. It looks as though the theory doesn't care about suffering at all except in so far equally it impairs the rational agency of the sufferer. It is, it seems, an ethical theory for the heartless. ^{Footnote 1}

Kant himself grapples with this problem in the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant 1797/2017) although he does not, I think, capeesh its gravity. He offers a partial solution: we may not owe obligations to animals, merely we can have obligations in regard to animals that we owe to ourselves. The idea is that, in torturing animals, killing them inhumanely, hunting them for sport or treating them without gratitude, one acts without due respect for one's ain humanity. Why? Because mistreating animals dulls one'due south "shared feeling of their suffering and and so weakens and gradually uproots a natural predisposition that is very serviceable to morality in one'south relations with other human being beings" (Kant 1797/2017, 6:433).

Kant's position is not merely that in mistreating animals I make myself more likely to wrong other people. It is rather that, in mistreating animals, I violate a duty I owe to myself by weakening my disposition for "shared feeling", or empathy. From the formula of humanity (discussed in more than particular in the next section), I have a duty to cultivate morally good dispositions, and I violate this duty if I erode dispositions that are "serviceable to morality". This has come to exist known as the "indirect duty" view.

Kant's view is non equally ghastly as is sometimes claimed. Nozick (1974, p. 36), for example, suggested that the Kantian view would permit beast cruelty as long as the agent kept in mind a clear line between humans and animals, and so that torturing animals did not in fact produce any "moral spillover" in the form of cruelty towards humans. Kant would reply that, even if no actual "spillover" occurs, the agent has violated a duty to himself by failing to cultivate a sense of empathy.

Yet, the view is still beastly. The deepest trouble, every bit I see information technology, is that Kant'south view makes our duties apropos animals dependent on contingent psychological facts about what does, or does non, erode our sense of empathy (a trouble emphasized by Wood 1998). If Kant'due south psychological assumptions were shown to be incorrect for at least some humans, those humans would have no duties concerning animals. Consider, for case, people who are incapable of developing empathy, and therefore cannot erode that chapters past torturing an animate being. It appears that, for Kant, they violate no duty by doing and so.

Korsgaard is no fan of the "indirect duty" view. In Chapter 6, she notes some further problems, though they seem to me to be less serious. Kant, she suggests, takes his position to imply that we should love the animals we own and express gratitude towards them, yet it is not clear that information technology is fifty-fifty possible to honey sincerely, or to be grateful towards, a creature you regard as incapable of making any moral claim on you. Korsgaard's arguments here appear to rely on a partly cognitivist conception of love and gratitude, on which both constitutively involve judging the object to be valuable for its own sake. Kant could evade these complaints by appealing to a kind of quasi-love or quasi-gratitude: simulacra with the affective components of love and gratitude in identify, but with the cognitive components stripped away. He could say that nosotros should quasi-love our animals, and be quasi-grateful for their service. But this merely serves to underline the moral ugliness of the view, and its vulnerability to the deeper problem noted above.

The formula of humanity

Tin can a modernistic Kantian do improve? In the Groundwork, Kant famously offers three "formulas" of the moral law (Kant 1785/2012). The 2d formula, the formula of humanity, commands us to "human action that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end and never simply equally a ways" (4:429). The formula has a low-primal role in theGroundwork, interim as a span between the formula of universal law ("act only co-ordinate to that maxim through which you tin can at the same fourth dimension volition that it become a universal constabulary", 4:421), which Kant introduces equallythe categorical imperative, and the idea of autonomy, which provides the metaphysical bedrock of Kant'due south ethics.

1 might be forgiven for assuming Kant attaches relatively little importance to the second formula, which is given the evidently heuristic role of bringing the moral law "closer to intuition" (iv:436). Nonetheless, when Kant'south thoughts turn to practical ethics in theMetaphysics of Morals, it's the second formula that seems to practice most of the work. The formula of universal police turns out to be too abstruse to yield useful moral guidance in the real world, so Kant repeatedly relies on the idea of humanity as an end-in-itself. Indeed, this is the formula that underlies the "indirect duty" view.

In before work, Korsgaard (1996a, b) recast the formula of humanity every bit the central principle in Kantian ethics, arguing that we could find in the Background an argument for that principle that did not rely on prior endorsement of the formula of universal police. Here is Korsgaard'due south own summary of that argument, from a contempo paper:

[B]ecause nosotros are rational, we cannot determine to pursue an cease unless we take information technology to be good. Almost of our ends, however, are simply the objects of our inclinations, and the objects of our inclinations are not, just as such, intrinsically valuable. So we need some further story about why we take them to be good. That further story is that nosotros attribute to ourselves the power to confer value on our ends by rationally choosing them. In so doing, we aspect a central kind of value to ourselves. We attribute value to our ain humanity, a property which Kant identifies with our capacity to determine our ends through rational choice. I summed this all up by saying that humanity is the unconditioned condition of all value, and every bit such, information technology must be valued. (Korsgaard forthcoming, pp. 1–two)

I notice it helpful, for my own sake, to attempt to reconstruct arguments similar this in a premise-decision format. So, here is my best endeavor, with apologies to Korsgaard if it isn't quite correct: ^{Footnote 2}

Argument for the formula of humanity:

(Premise 1) We cannot rationally make up one's mind to pursue an end unless we take it to be good.

(Premise 2) We cannot have our ends to be good unless we take ourselves, qua rational agents, to be beings that confer value on ends past choosing them.

(Premise 3) A beingness that confers value on ends past choosing them is a being of central value.

(Premise 4) We cannot take ourselves, qua rational agents, to be bearers of cardinal value unless we besides take other rational agents to exist bearers of fundamental value.

(Conclusion) We cannot rationally decide to pursue an finish unless we have all rational beings to exist bearers of cardinal value.

I go out out the word "humanity" because it is misleading. For Kant, "humanity" is a technical or quasi-technical term. As Korsgaard notes, it ways what nosotros would more than naturally call "rational bureau", the capacity to prepare our ends through rational choice. Note, so, that Kant is not "speciesist": he does not broil anthropocentrism into the core of his ethical framework. The framework is "logocentric" (rationality-centred) and its anthropocentrism is a contingent result of its logocentrism, on the supposition that Homo sapiens is the Earth'south only rational species (Wood 1998; O'Neill 1998).

Much tin can be said and has been said about this argument (for a recent entry-point to the debate, see Bukoski 2018). I will have to limit myself to three brief notes. Showtime, Premise 1 is not uncontroversial. It is a version of the thought that we act "under the guise of the skilful", and it expresses a demanding picture of what rational agency involves. I experience the pull of information technology, still I also suspect that my obsession with acting "nether the guise of the expert" is more likely a contingent product of my enculturation than a deep truth most rational agency. If I eat a cake, I volition agonise for a while most whether I can regard the eating of the cake as skilful—but I'd exist no less rational, it seems to me, if I regarded eating the cake as bad and ate information technology anyway, deciding on this occasion to do something bad (Velleman 1992; Setiya 2007).

Second, the determination is tantalisingly conditional. It says that if we are to exist capable of rational action in the sense required past Premise ane (phone call it "big-R Rational action"), we must regard all rational beings as fundamentally valuable. Korsgaard wants us to utilise the conditional for a modus ponens, but we might likewise exist tempted to use it in a modus tollens: "Sorry, I don't have all rational beings to be bearers of fundamental value—and so I guess I'yard just incapable of Rational activeness."

Third, I want to note the difficulty, at face value, of getting obligations towards non-rational animals out of this type of argument. The argument starts with a constraint that is allegedly built into the structure of rational agency: a "self-valuing" constraint. Information technology then highlights the tension involved in taking oneself, qua rational agent, to be of fundamental value, while failing to see fundamental value in the rational agency of others. The way to resolve the tension is to take all rational bureau, everywhere, to be of central value. The only style to go a conclusion assigning value to non-rational animals from an statement with this general shape is to debate that rational bureau builds in an even stronger self-valuing constraint than we initially supposed: to act rationally, we must value ourselves not justqua rational agents, but too qua animals.

This, information technology turns out, is exactly the move Korsgaard makes in Affiliate 8 of Beau Creatures.

Extending the formula

Hither is how Korsgaard herself summarises her core argument towards the end of Chapter 8:

Equally rational beings, we need to justify our actions, to think there are reasons for them. That requires us to suppose that some ends are worth pursuing, are absolutely proficient. Without metaphysical insight into a realm of intrinsic values, all we have to continue is that some things are certainly proficient-for or bad-for us. That then is the starting point from which we build up our organisation of values—nosotros have those things to exist good or bad absolutely—and in doing that we are taking ourselves to exist ends in ourselves. But we are not the only beings for whom things tin be good or bad; the other animals are no different from united states in that respect. So we are committed to regarding all animals as ends in themselves. (Korsgaard 2018, p. 145).

This is rather as well brief to provide much insight into the construction of the argument. Indeed, it glosses over some of Korsgaard'southward subtlest moves. So, I will again take a stab at reconstructing the argument in a premise-decision form. My aim here is to highlight its structural similarities with the meliorate-known argument in the previous section, while also bringing out the differences:

The new argument: ^{Footnote three}

(Premise ane*) We cannot rationally determine to pursue an end unless nosotros take it to be proficientearlier deciding to pursue it.

(Premise 2*) Nosotros cannot take our ends to exist adept earlier deciding to pursue them unless we take ourselves,qua sentient beings, to be the sort of beings such that the satisfaction of our natural inclinations is practiced.

(Premise 3*) A being such that the satisfaction of its natural inclinations is good is a being of fundamental value.

(Premise 4*) We cannot take ourselves, qua sentient beings, to be bearers of central value unless we also take other sentient beings to exist bearers of fundamental value.

(Determination*) We cannot decide to pursue an end unless we accept all sentient beings to be bearers of key value.

Notation that, merely as I omitted "humanity" from my reconstruction of the original argument, I omit "animate being" from my reconstruction of the new argument. It too is misleading. For Korsgaard, "creature" is a quasi-technical term for any being that has subjective experiences with a valenced (positive or negative) graphic symbol, such as experiences of hurting, frustration, stress, feet, pleasance, joy and love. "Sentient being" is a ameliorate term for this. It leaves open up the question of which animals in the biologist's sense are sentient beings. Some animals, such as jellyfish and sponges, may well exist not-sentient. Others, such as arthropods, molluscs and fish, are sources of on-going argue (Birch 2017). Korsgaard doesn't need to have a stand on which animals are sentient and which are non, but it would be lamentable if animal ethics in general were to outset using the term "animal" in a way that departs from its meaning in biology.

As I understand information technology, the logic of the new argument is the same every bit that of the quondam argument for the formula of humanity. The pivotal shifts are those from Premise 1 to Premise one* and from Premise 2 to Premise 2*. For Korsgaard, Kant'south core mistake is this: Kant noticed our need to regard our ends equally skilfulonce chosen, but he did not encounter that we as well need to regard them as good in prospect,before we decide to pursue them. This led him to misjudge the nature of the presupposition that a rational being needs to make most its own value.

Kant thought that that, in order to act rationally, I must have myselfqua rational decision-maker to exist of fundamental value—so that, when I decide, my choices confer value on my ends. But this results in a picture on which my ends, viewed earlier I choose amid them, are all on a par and equally worthless: whichever I select will therebygo good, but none is good in prospect. This, says Korsgaard, doesn't answer our need to regard our ends every bit skillful both earlier and after choosing to pursue them.

What Kant should have said, says Korsgaard, is that, in club to act rationally, I must accept myself qua sentient beingness to be of key value. As a sentient being, I feel natural inclinations (east.k. to swallow when hungry, to sleep when tired) and these natural inclinations shape the range of options from which I can rationally cull. What I really need to presuppose, in lodge to act rationally, is that these options (when morally permissible) are proficient. That is, I need to presuppose that the satisfaction of my natural inclinations (when morally permissible) is good. Information technology is good (and good admittedly—not simply good for me) that I eat when hungry; it is good that I sleep when tired. And then, I demand to presuppose that the source of these inclinations—sentience—is of key value.

Now the rest of the old argument slots into place, with minor changes, around Premises 1* and 2*. If I take myself qua sentient being to be of key worth, and so I must too take other sentient beings to be of fundamental worth. I tin can't rationally deny to other sentient beings the worth I take myself, qua sentient beingness, to have.

In short, and to oversimplify a little, Kant said "rational" when he should have said "sentient". His rationality-centred theory should take been sentience-centred, and it should be recast as such. Kantian ethics tin be rehabilitated.

The problem resurfaces?

Or can it? Does the new argument piece of work? It's not piece of cake for me to project myself into the head of Korsgaard's orthodox Kantian opponent, but I can endeavor. I'll assume this opponent grants Premise i*: they grant that, to deed rationally, I must view my ends as skillful in prospect, non just equally becoming good after they are rationally endorsed. I presume the orthodox Kantian would still want to resist Korsgaard's merits that nosotros must substitute "sentient beings" for "rational beings" in Premise 2. I can meet them arguing roughly as follows:

The old argument for the formula of humanity rests on considerations about what we must presuppose about our own value in order to deed rationally at all. I grant that we can presuppose ourselves to be of key value qua sentient beings, and non but qua rational beings. I fifty-fifty grant that we sometimes practise presuppose this. But I doubt that we must presuppose this. For your argument to piece of work, you take to testify non just that we can and do, but that nosotros must. To do that, y'all'd have to find at least one articulate case of an end that we must value even though it is not good for united states of america qua rational beings, and I don't remember you tin can do that.

Korsgaard considers a respond of this type in Section 8.5.4, and responds as follows:

[1 might object] that I presuppose that what is good for autonomous rational beings, and only for autonomous rational beings, should exist treated as good absolutely. Just that conclusion is not driven by the statement …. And in fact it seems arbitrary, because of form we also value ourselves as animate beings. This becomes especially clear when we reflect on the fact that many of the things that nosotros have to be good-for u.s.a. are non practiced for united states in our chapters every bit democratic rational beings. Food, sex, condolement, freedom from pain and fear, are all things that are good for u.s. insofar as we are animals. (Korsgaard 2018, p. 144)

This is a crucial passage, however it does not, I think, bargain with the objection. Korsgaard'due south list of activities that are "expert for us insofar equally we are animals" immediately suggests a divide-and-rule strategy for her orthodox Kantian opponent. Some of the activities in the list can exist plausibly interpreted equally activities that are too skillful for usa qua rational beings, because they sustain the conditions in which our rationality tin be exercised. Food, condolement, and freedom from hurting and fear are in that category. These are not counterexamples to the claim that all I must presuppose, in order to act rationally, is that what is good for a rational being is adept absolutely.

Sex is the odd one out in the list. If washed solely in society to reproduce, perhaps it too (at a stretch) falls in the category of activities that are skillful for me qua rational beingness, because information technology helps perpetuate a customs of rational beings. By contrast, if done for enjoyment, it is much less articulate that there is whatever sense in which Imust accept it to be adept admittedly. If I do so, this is just a contingent psychological fact about me. Many rational agents in human history, Kant himself amongst them, accept seen no practiced in not-reproductive sex.

This raises the question of whether Korsgaard'southward list could exist bolstered with amend examples of activities that Imust regard as good, even though they are not adept for me qua rational beingness. I doubt it. I suspect the aforementioned separate-and-rule strategy tin can be extended beyond the board: the activities that I must regard as practiced are those that sustain my chapters for rational action, and activities that don't sustain my chapters for rational action need not be regarded by me as skillful, even if, every bit a thing of contingent fact about human psychology, some of these activities are extremely popular.

It's a familiar feel in philosophy that when you have grappled for a long fourth dimension with a difficult trouble and come with a solution, the problem will resurface in a new guise, like a lump under the carpeting. This seems to be what is happening here. Our original problem was that, if you start with the Kantian idea that nosotrosmust presuppose the key value of our rational capacities in social club to act rationally, it is possible to come across how obligations towards other rational beings might follow (and Korsgaard has done more than anyone to bear witness how they might follow), notwithstanding very hard to meet how any obligations towards non-rational beings could follow.

Korsgaard now tells the states that nosotroscan value ourselves qua sentient beings, and that many of united states often do so, and that it is "arbitrary" to restrict our self-valuing to our rational nature alone. We might add: non just capricious, but also ascetic, monkish, self-denying, Vulcan-esque. Merely the accuse of arbitrariness is non enough to turn a "can" into a "must", and nor are any of these other charges. Vulcans are even so capable of rational action. The statement for the formula of humanity rests on premises about what wemust presuppose in order to act rationally, and information technology is simply not truthful that wemust presuppose the fundamental value of the non-rational parts of our nature in society to act rationally.

The question of "abolition"

Korsgaard's core argument is sure to generate substantial discussion. But I need to draw this essay to a close, and earlier I do that I should say something about the position at which Korsgaard ultimately arrives, and how it relates to more than familiar "animate being rights" positions.

Korsgaard's view ends upward surprisingly close to that of Regan (1983). Indeed, Regan is cited favourably several times. Korsgaard and Regan have reached similar terminate-points by very different routes. Regan felt the problem of beast cruelty mandated a rejection of Kant'due south rationality-centred ideals and its replacement past a new deontology based on the principle that all conscious "subjects of a life" have fundamental value. Korsgaard argues that Kant'south own framework, when interpreted with care, already leads to the view that conscious subjects of a life have fundamental value, provided they have at least some valenced experiences (e.g. experiences of pain or pleasure). Strikingly, Korsgaard agrees with Regan that information technology is impermissible to kill animals for nutrient or to use them for scientific purposes.

Yet Korsgaard parts ways with Regan in Affiliate 12, where she argues against "abolitionism": the view that all human uses of animals should end. She declares a conflict of involvement: the book is defended to her v cats. Still, her cadre argument also gives her a reason to reject abolition. Korsgaard does non claim that all sentient beings are autonomous. The whole point is that nosotros can contend that non-rational sentient beings have a grade of fundamental value that does not require autonomy. This creates room for her to argue that it is autonomy, not sentience, that is morally incompatible with buying.

For Korsgaard, "in that location is no reason to treat the other animals in a way that tries to mimic the detail kind of respect we owe to autonomous beings, considering the other animals are not democratic" (p. 219). What is morally required instead is that we treat the beast "in a manner that is consistent with her expert" (p. 226), where the animal's expert consists in satisfying her natural inclinations for food, sex, comfort, liberty from hurting and fear, and other things conducive to her survival and reproduction. Pet-keeping, Korsgaard argues, tin exist consistent with this requirement when washed well (p. 235). The keeping of guide dogs, search-and-rescue dogs and police dogs is likewise permissible if the animal'southward adept is respected (p. 226).

The abolitionist position at to the lowest degree has the virtue of clarity. The implications of Korsgaard'south intermediate position are harder to tease out. Very many human uses of animals may be said, by their defenders, to be consistent with the beast's good. For Korsgaard, the spaying or neutering of pets is consistent with their expert, fifty-fifty if they take a natural inclination to heighten immature, because we can provide our pets with "effective substitutes for the conditions and activities that are naturally skillful for them" (p. 233). The thought seems to exist that we tin satisfy our moral obligations past giving the animals in our intendance a adept life, fifty-fifty if that life is confining in important ways.

Given this qualification, information technology's no longer clear that Korsgaard'due south position implies the impermissibility of killing animals for nutrient. In virtually societies around the world, the received wisdom is that farm animals raised for food can also be given expert lives, fifty-fifty though their lives are circumscribed in important means. Korsgaard faces the question: if curtailing an animal's reproductive capacity is consistent with its practiced, provided we care for it well in all other respects, why is curtailing the animal's lifespan by slaughter not also consequent with its good, provided we treat it well in all other respects? This tension is left unresolved.

Conclusion

The arguments of this book are subtle, intricate and clever, and they deserve careful attention. The volume is also unusually tasteful, from the lovely embrace to the fine starting time-of-chapter epigraphs from George Eliot, J.M. Coetzee, Darwin, Aristotle and others. Does it succeed in solving Kant'southward animal trouble? I fear it does not. ^{Footnote iv}

I expected to take result with Korgaard's assumptions about biology, only this did not happen, the idiosyncratic usage of the word "animal" notwithstanding. Instead, it was the psychological assumptions that I found hard to digest. I am doubtful of the "guise of the good" assumption: the idea that nosotros must take our ends to be good absolutely to act rationally. Accordingly, I can't buy the stronger assumption that we must take our ends to be good absolutely, even before we decide to pursue them, to act rationally. This stronger assumption is what the new argument needs. In short, even if Korsgaard could overcome the objection to Premise 2* presented above, I would remain sceptical of Premise one*.

The book falls within the long tradition of using strong assumptions near the nature of rational agency as a foundation for ambitious ethical theories. Kant showed us that, given some very stiff assumptions, we must take rational bureau to exist of fundamental worth in social club to act rationally. Korsgaard argues that, given an even stronger assumption of the same general type, we must take all sentient life to be of fundamental worth in lodge to act rationally. Those unmoved by arguments of this general shape will be unmoved by this ane. Those with some prior sympathy for the Kantian approach may find themselves surprised by where the arguments pb.

Notes

1. A line of criticism pressed by Broadie and Pybus (1974), Regan (1983) and Skidmore (2001). Regan'due south approach is nonetheless sometimes described as "broadly Kantian", and information technology bears some resemblance to Korsgaard's. I will revisit the comparison after.

2. Bukoski (2018, p. 200) offers a slightly different reconstruction.

3. An early version of the argument appears in Korsgaard's (2004) Tanner Lectures, so it is not wholly "new", but in this volume it receives its most detailed and careful presentation.

4. Might in that location be other ways to find a place for animals in Kantian ethics? See Woods (1998), Timmermann (2005) and Breitenbach (2009) for other notable attempts.

References

• Birch J (2017) Animal sentience and the precautionary principle. Anim Sentience 2(sixteen). https://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol2/iss16/1/. Accessed 24 June 2019

• Breitenbach A (2009) Dice analogie von vernunft und natur: eine umweltphilosophie nach Kant. De Gruyter, Berlin

  Book  Google Scholar

• Broadie A, Pybus EM (1974) Kant's handling of animals. Philosophy 49:375–383

  Article  Google Scholar

• Bukoski M (2018) Korsgaard'southward arguments for the value of humanity. Philos Rev 127:197–224

  Commodity  Google Scholar

• Kant I (1785/2012) Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, Gregor M (trans). Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Printing

• Kant I (1797/2017) The metaphysics of morals, Gregor M (trans). Cambridge Academy Press, Cambridge

• Korsgaard CM (1996a) Creating the kingdom of ends. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  Book  Google Scholar

• Korsgaard CM (1996b) The sources of normativity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  Book  Google Scholar

• Korsgaard CM (2004) Fellow creatures: Kantian ethics and our duties to animals. In: Peterson GB (ed) The Tanner lectures on human values, volume 25–26. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/m/korsgaard_2005.pdf. Accessed 24 June 2019

• Korsgaard CM (2018) Fellow creatures: our obligations to the other animals. Oxford University Press, Oxford

  Volume  Google Scholar

• Korsgaard CM (forthcoming) Valuing our humanity. In: Sensen O, Dean R (eds) Respect for persons. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~korsgaar/CMK.Valuing.Our.Humanity.pdf. Accessed 24 June 2019

• Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, New York

  Google Scholar

• O'Neill O (1998) Kant on duties regarding nonrational nature 2. Proc Aristot Soc 72:211–228

  Article  Google Scholar

• Regan T (1983) The case for beast rights. Routledge, London

  Google Scholar

• Setiya K (2007) Reasons without rationalism. Princeton Academy Press, Princeton

  Google Scholar

• Skidmore J (2001) Duties to animals: the failure of Kant's moral theory. J Value Inq 35(iv):541–559

  Article  Google Scholar

• Timmermann J (2005) When the tail wags the dog: animal welfare and indirect duty in Kantian ideals. Kantian Rev x:128–149

  Article  Google Scholar

• Velleman JD (1992) The guise of the good. Noûs 26:iii–26

  Commodity  Google Scholar

• Forest AW (1998) Kant on duties regarding nonrational nature I. Proc Aristot Soc 72:189–210

  Article  Google Scholar

Download references

Acknowledgements

I give thanks Alex Voorhoeve and Angela Breitenbach for their comments and advice.

Author data

Authors and Affiliations

1. Section of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland

   Jonathan Birch

Respective author

Correspondence to Jonathan Birch.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This commodity is distributed nether the terms of the Artistic Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted employ, distribution, and reproduction in whatsoever medium, provided yous requite advisable credit to the original writer(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Eatables license, and signal if changes were made.

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Birch, J. The place of animals in Kantian ethics. Biol Philos 35, 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9712-0

Download citation

• Received: 12 September 2019

• Accepted: 03 Oct 2019

• Published: 24 December 2019

• DOI : https://doi.org/x.1007/s10539-019-9712-0

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-019-9712-0#:~:text=He%20offers%20a%20partial%20solution,respect%20for%20one's%20own%20humanity.

Posted by: hortonanderfarom.blogspot.com

Share this post