Widely Agreeable Moral Principles Support Efforts to Reduce Wild Animal Suffering

Every day, wild animals suffer and die from myriad natural causes. For those committed to non-speciesism, what wild animal suffering entails for us morally is a question of the utmost importance, and yet there remains significant disagreement at the level of normative theory. In this paper I argue t...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:Ethics of Zoonosis in Companion Animals
Main Author: Katz, Tristan David (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2023
In: Journal of applied animal ethics research
Year: 2023, Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 221-246
Further subjects:B Nature
B Justice
B Animals
B Principles
B Beneficence
B Autonomy
B wild
B Non-maleficence
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Summary:Every day, wild animals suffer and die from myriad natural causes. For those committed to non-speciesism, what wild animal suffering entails for us morally is a question of the utmost importance, and yet there remains significant disagreement at the level of normative theory. In this paper I argue that in situations of moral urgency environmental managers and policy makers should refer to widely-agreeable moral principles for guidance. I claim that the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice do well to capture our widely-held values, and that the first three principles all support large-scale interventions in nature. I then argue that balancing these against non-maleficence will still allow for the careful consideration of interventions, although is unlikely to support lethal methods. This argument is intended to provide a reasonable starting point for theory-agnostic decision makers, and places the burden of proof on those who oppose intervention.
ISSN:2588-9567
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of applied animal ethics research
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/25889567-bja10038