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A Practice‐Focused Case for Animal Moral Agency
Author(s) -
Behdadi Dorna
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12486
Subject(s) - moral agency , agency (philosophy) , epistemology , deliberation , moral disengagement , normative , argument (complex analysis) , social cognitive theory of morality , moral reasoning , moral psychology , virtue , sociology , psychology , social psychology , law , political science , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , politics
Abstract Considerations of nonhuman animal moral agency typically base their reasoning and (very often negative ) verdict on a capacity‐focused approach to moral agency. According to this approach, an entity is a moral agent if it has certain intrapersonal features or capacities, typically in terms of conscious reflection and deliberation. According to a practice‐focused notion of moral agency, however, an entity is a moral agent in virtue of being a participant of a moral responsibility practice (MRP). I argue that a practice‐focused approach to moral agency, combined with empirical evidence from research on canid social play and cognition, with support from The Function Argument , makes the notion of nonhuman animal moral agency more likely than usually indicated. However, the support is not absolute, as the practice‐focused approach itself may be put into question. I describe how this objection prompts us to critically assess any empirical, metaethical, or normative assumptions on these matters. These questions, in turn, raise a number of further questions of how we should conceive of, use, and evaluate whatever standards of moral agency we adopt.