The moral group

The moral group is expanding. We can chart this expansion quite clearly over the past few hundred years. It has been non-linear, irregular and punctuated by some retrograde and lamentable aberrations. Nevertheless, the direction of travel is clear; while at one point the interests of a select few were elevated above all others, the moral group is now far more inclusive. Through a series of struggles, widespread acceptance of previously excluded individuals and groups has been achieved. Historically excluded groups are now firmly included in our collective moral considerations. Most recently, the moral group has expanded in such a way that non-human animals are at its margins and in some cases within its borders. Of course, these historically excluded individuals and groups were capable of making and being affected by moral decisions prior to their widespread social acceptance, but it is this very acceptance – their interests achieving parity with the interests of others, for example through legislation, emancipation and enfranchisement – that marks their inclusion in the moral group. And this is one way in which we judge the moral health of societies: by their endorsement of and compliance with ethical principles such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The moral group’s gradual progress toward inclusion can be seen as an application of Enlightenment values and liberal democratic ideals. However, there is some disagreement about exactly which types of individuals should be included in the moral group and what the criteria for inclusion should be. One possible solution to these questions is that any being which is capable of recognizing itself over time and is capable of suffering should be considered a person [1], and all persons merit inclusion in the moral group. There is a secular and consequentialist basis for the expansion of the moral group according to this conceptual approach. Only those individuals which meet the Lockean criteria for personhood have interests – wants, hopes, desires, preferences, etc. – and it is by virtue of these interests that they are entitled to moral consideration. This approach is consistent with the Harm Principle, a cornerstone of the liberal democratic tradition and an influential guide to individual and collective action. By asking Jeremy Bentham’s question, ‘Can it suffer [2] ? we can immediately ascertain whether a particular entity is a member of the moral group [3].

But this only addresses one side of what we usually consider relevant to ethics. It gives us guidance as to the types of beings whose interests should be taken into consideration by moral actors, but it does not equip us to identify who these moral actors are. Which individuals or types of individual are capable of making moral decisions? Not all persons have the capacity to do so. For example, we might accept that a pet cat meets the Lockean criteria for personhood, and therefore we should consider its interests when making decisions which could affect its well being. But should we expect the same degree of moral consideration and ethical standards from the cat, or from the other non-human animals with which we share a habitat? Probably not.

The importance of agency

The issue of agency in bringing about desirable or undesirable consequences is extremely important to any theory of ethics. An interesting distinction can be made between those states of affairs which result from the behavior of moral agents and those which result from other factors. Consider the following two scenarios.

• A meteorite strikes a village in the French countryside, killing 85 villagers, maiming 30 others, killing all of their livestock and obliterating the natural environment within a radius of 3km from the impact zone.
• A megalomaniac intentionally fires a missile into a village in the French countryside, killing 85 villagers, maiming 30 others, killing all of their livestock and obliterating the natural environment within a radius of3km from the impact zone.

In both scenarios, the damage and loss of life are to all intents and purposes identical. But are the scenarios morally identical? In terms of consequences, yes: we can say that both states of affairs are bad in that they involve Significant suffering, damage and loss of life. However, example B contains an additional element: the deliberate actions of a moral agent. While both scenarios are bad, we can say that only scenario B involves wrong action; its causal antecedents include the megalomaniac’s decision, and if he had chosen to do otherwise these harmful consequences could have been avoided. There is no such deliberate action in example A. This distinction between preventable and unpreventable harm has significant implications for our attitudes toward praise, blame, culpability and responsibility [4]. Moreover, it is crucial to how we view the asymmetrical reciprocal responsibilities of members of the moral group.

How ought we to view the states of affairs brought about by members of the moral group without the capacity for the type of reasoning necessary for agency? It may be clear that we cannot consider meteorite strikes as ‘wrong’, because the meteorite has no control over its actions. Similarly, the symptoms of a bacterial infection might be bad or harmful to its carrier, but there is no accusation of ‘wrong’ on the part of the bacteria. These are relatively clear-cut cases demonstrating that bad things can happen independently of any wrong action, but there are some extremely difficult gray areas. What of the behavior of the family dog who bites the postman, the whale which capsizes a fishing boat, the circus lioness who mauls her tamer, or the four-year-old child who beats his infant brother? These are all persons in the Lockean sense, and we must therefore have consideration for their interests. But what consideration can we expect in return? What is the relationship between personhood, agency, and the capacity for moral reasoning? Locke and Bentham provide us with guidance on who we should consider members of the moral group. But which members should be considered agents? Could there be degrees of agency which mirror a person’s capacity for moral reasoning?

Traditionally, these questions have been pre-empted by recourse to a distinction between humans on the one hand and nature on the other. Various iterations of this distinction have dominated Western discourse for centuries. A common version was derived from the metaphysics of Descartes, which conveniently made sense of existing – predominantly religious – worldviews. Under the human-natural distinction, humans are the only relevant beings in ethical calculations.

Human interests are certainly the most important and perhaps the only relevant interests in moral calculations; we therefore have no obligations to members of other species.

The human-natural distinction has come to pervade western culture to such an extent that it is axiomatic. Even to question it is to make a profoundly strange inquiry. It is, however, demonstrably false.

The human-natural distinction is based on the assumption that humans are categorically different from all other species and moreover have dominion over them. This categorical difference, according to Descartes, consisted in humans being the only species to possess a soul, an observation which was erroneously derived from Descartes’s cogito. This was entirely consistent with the Genesis story and prevailing contemporary attitudes regarding the place of humans in the world. It has subsequently been used to place human interests above those of any other individuals and to inflict and then justify an incalculable amount of preventable suffering.

We will not join with Descartes in positing the existence of souls, far less in ascribing them to some species and not to others. However, we can legitimately ask whether there any other properties which might justify the continuation of the human - natural distinction.

Differences of degree, not of kind

A common attitude is that humans, as the purported pinnacle of evolution, have certain capacities that set them apart from all other species. If true, this could very well serve as a justification for the human-natural distinction. But do humans really occupy this privileged position? Are we really that special? It is true that humans have some very advanced capacities, and we can manipulate the world around us to great effect. But there are other capacities which are very poor in humans compared to other species, and others which we lack entirely. How good are humans at identifying individual molecules in the air by smell, breathing unassisted under water or navigating using the Earth’s electrical field? Moreover, the capacities which are well-developed in humans, for example language, cooperation, building complex structures, and hunting with weapons, are not uniquely human – they are all observable to some degree in other species [5]. There are no categorical distinctions between the capacities of humans and those of other species – merely evolutionary gradients. The human-natural distinction is unsupportable on these grounds.

Furthermore, even within the human species there are individuals who lack the very capacities put forward as evidence for human exceptionalism. For example, infants lack speech, self-consciousness, and so on. Indeed, there are adults with severe physical or mental disabilities who lack many of the capacities said to set humans apart. Compare Washoe, the famous talking chimp who could communicate using Sign-language, and a day-old infant.” Who is more “exceptional” in terms of sophisticated capacities? In moral considerations, capacities are more important than biological taxonomy. If we are to apply this proposition consistently, we might sometimes be required to treat infants and severely mentally disabled adults in the same way that we treat non-human animals. If we are willing to accept that because animals lack certain capacities we can exclude them from the moral group, consistency would require that we exclude all individuals, including human beings, who lack these capacities. If we are unwilling to accept this logic we must search for another basis for the human-natural distinction. To be clear: this is not intended as an argument for the ill-treatment of some humans, but as an argument for better treatment of some non-humans.

We must also recognize that any argument based on capacities will in any case be anthropocentric. The very capacities we might identify to show how we are different from other species will necessarily be those which we find most useful for understanding the world from a particularly human perspective. To suggest that humans are the pinnacle of evolution is absurd, since other species have evolved different but equally sophisticated capacities. It just so happens that the capacities we have evolved have allowed us to become recently (and perhaps temporarily) dominant. This anthropocentrism is illustrated beautifully by Richard Dawkins:

It makes no more sense (and no less) to aim our historical narrative towards Homo sapiens than towards any other modern species – Octopus vulgaris, say, or Panthera lea or Sequoia sempervirens. A historically minded swift, understandably proud of flight as self-evidently the premier accomplishment of life, will regard swiftkind – those spectacular flying machines with their swept-back wings, who stay aloft for a year at a time and even copulate in free flight – as the acme of evolutionary progress. To build on a fancy of Steven Pinker, if elephants could write history they might portray tapirs, elephant shrews, elephant seals and proboscis monkeys as tentative beginners along the main trunk road of evolution, taking the first fumbling steps but each – for some reason – never quite making it: so near yet so far. Elephant astronomers might wonder whether, on some other world, there exist alien life forms that have crossed the nasal rubicon and taken the final leap to full proboscitude [7].

Human capacities differ from the capacities of other species only in degree, not in kind. This is of crucial importance to the field of ethics, since some of those capacities which humans have developed particularly strongly in comparison to other species are the very capacities which make complex moral reasoning possible. Empathy, conceptions of justice, the ability to formulate intricate rules and to analyze behavior, motives and likely consequences are not uniquely human, but as far as we can tell are more sophisticated in humans than in other species. Our ethical obligations stem not from the fact that we are able to choose what actions we take but from the fact that we can predict and analyze the likely outcomes of different futures and judge their moral worth accordingly. This crucial difference between humans and other species accounts for the fact that while many species should be included in our ethical decisions by virtue of their having interests, it seems that only humans can hold moral obligations by virtue of our combination of sophisticated capacities. It is important to stress, however, that this difference is one of degree, not one of kind.

Ethics as an evolutionary trap

The idea of a categorical distinction between humans and other species is unsupportable. Yet it pervades contemporary policy, ethics and social norms. Humans should rightly be understood as a part of nature, not apart from nature. But what would it mean for us to recognize this fully in the way that we treat one another, other animals, and the rest of the world around us? How might an ethic which eschews the human-natural distinction and acknowledges our obligations toward other species play out? Competent adult humans might have the strongest responsibilities in regards to ethical behavior, but it does not follow that they can expect any special treatment when it comes to deciding courses of action in which their interests conflict with those of others. Consider the following example:

A highly contagious virus evolves which thrives in the digestive systems of mammals. In some mammals it has very little effect. In most mammals it has hugely beneficial effects, strengthening their immune systems, increasing longevity and enhancing fertility. In humans, the virus is deadly, causing a short and painful death. There is no way of inoculating humans against the virus and, once a human has contracted it, he or she cannot be cured. However, the virus could be contained and eradicated entirely using existing compounds. Eradicating the virus would save humanity from certain extinction but would prevent significant benefits accruing to many other species. Should we eradicate the virus?

If the interests of humans do not automatically trump those of other species, what justification can there be for prioritizing human interests above all others? A system of ethics which recognizes the interests of non-human individuals will sometimes require us to place the interests of other species above our own. Indeed, we already do this quite regularly and with good reason, for example in banning cruel sports or denying planning permission for environmentally harmful construction in ecologically valuable areas. However, we are inconsistent in this regard and continue to indulge in practices which seriously harm animals in order to satisfy trivial human interests.[8]. The example asks us to consider how we might consistently apply such a system of ethics in an extreme situation in which the interests of humans are detrimental to those of other species [9]. The asymmetry here indicates that putting the interests of humans first would decrease the amount of total suffering or, put another way, negate a guarantor of increased well being. That suffering and well being are not experienced solely by humans is the foundation of this system of ethics. This means it is not only human suffering or well being that is taken into consideration but the total amount of suffering or well being experienced across species. Therefore, while it might be better for humans to eradicate the virus, it would severely deplete well being or increase suffering in total.

What are we to make of this possibility? Might it be that the evolutionary adaptations that have allowed humans to engage in moral reasoning will eventually be a disadvantage? Could ethics be an evolutionary trap? What would be so wrong with human extinction? Would we be morally obliged to prevent it? Might it be possible that we are obliged to accept it? There might be strong evolutionary reasons for us to resist this possibility, but ethics is very often about denying or eschewing evolutionary imperatives in favor of right action. Such a decision would test our commitment to ethical consistency to its absolute limits.

References

1. Here we are borrowing directly from the work of John Locke and Jeremy Bentham. and indeed others who have carried on their traditions.
2. Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation (l823}.Chapter XVII, Note 122.
3. If the answer to this is negative, that does not mean that the particular entity in question is not morally relevant. It could be relevant in an instrumental sense.
4. For a thorough and clear discussion of how we ought to think of responsibility, see Jonathan Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (London: Penguin Books, 1990), Ch. 7.
5. See, for example, Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
6. Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Ch. 5.
7. Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life (London: Orion Books, 2005), 6.
8. James Rachels portrays this view powerfully. “[Consider] the treatment of the civet cat, a highly intelligent and sociable animal. Civet cats are trapped and placed in small cages inside darkened sheds, where fires keep the temperature up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. They are confined in this way until they die. What justifies this extraordinary treatment? These animals have the misfortune to produce a substance that is useful in the manufacture of perfume. Musk, which is scraped from their genitals once a day for as long as they can survive, makes the scent of perfume last a bit longer after each application ... To promote one of the most trivial interests we have, animals are tormented for their whole lives.” See James Rachels, “The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism,” in Can Ethics Provide Answers? and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (London: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1997), 100.
9. For arguments about consistency in ethics leading to questions about the continued existence of the human species, see David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Gregory S. Kavka, “The Paradox of Future Individuals,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 11, no. 2 (1982).