Requiem for a myth. Dismantling the compatibility between animal ethics and environmental ethics

Abstract

Environmental ethics and animal ethics are incompatible ethical positions. They defend irreconcilable theses regarding the problem of moral consideration and give rise to contradictory normative prescriptions. In other words, they diverge on which entities matter and how we should act toward them. This is particularly clear considering the case of animals that live in nature. While for animal ethics we must act in a way to satisfy the interests of these animals, not harming them and helping them when they are in a situation of need, for environmental ethics, given that what we must do is act in a way to preserve natural entities and processes Doing so often involves harming rather than helping these individuals. This incompatibility remains true regardless of the fact that, on occasion, pursuing environmental goals supposes some benefit for certain non-human animals; that ontological holism is true or that we defend an (eco)feminist position. Despite this, the compatibility between environmental ethics and animal ethics remains a widespread belief. This is largely explained by entrenched cognitive biases, such as motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5887430

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