In this article, we claim that animal ethics and environmental ethics are incompatible ethical positions. This is because they have incompatible criteria of moral considerability and they have, at least in some cases, incompatible normative implications regarding the interests of sentient individuals. Moreover, we claim that environmentalist views lead to an insurmountable dilemma between inconsistency and implausibility and fail to properly account for the importance of wild animal suffering. From this it follows not only that (a) we can endorse one of the two views but not both at the same time but also that (b) we have overriding reasons to reject environmentalism and endorse some animal ethics view.
I critically examine Jan Deckers' position in Animal (De)liberation, where he defends two main views. The first is "qualified moral veganism": Most humans have a duty to abstain from consuming animal products, even if there are circumstances in which doing so is justified. The author argues, on the one hand, from a pan-sentientist view that attributes sentience to all elementary entities and their compounds. Thus, all living things (such as animals and plants) have a capacity for positive and negative experiences. On the other hand, he develops a consequentialist view that assigns moral agents the unconditional duty to promote their own "holistic health." This is partly constituted by the agent's "moral health," that is, her acting in a morally justified way. On Deckers' view, moral agents must care for the health of all living entities, give greater weight to the interests of organisms to which they are more closely biologically related, and respect the integrity of nature. Diets containing animal products have a very high negative health impact, because of how they affect the environment, human food security, and the well-being of nonhuman animals. In addition, even though plants are sentient, they are likely less so than animals, and their interests must be given less weight. Therefore, most humans should shift to a vegan diet. Deckers' second proposal is that a qualified ban on the consumption of animal products should be enacted. After discarding other alternative strategies, Deckers defends its feasibility relying on data obtained via a series of surveys. Though the argument partly succeeds in developing a coherent account accommodating the author's intuitions, I conclude that his ontological and normative frameworks remain too underdeveloped, his appeal to biological relatedness has implausible implications, and the methodology he uses in defence of his political position is problematic.
Revista de Bioética y Derecho, núm. 32, septiembre 2014, p. 95-103 Esta es una revista electrónica de acceso abierto, lo que significa que todo el contenido es de libre acceso sin coste alguno para el usuario o su institución. Los usuarios pueden leer, descargar, copiar, distribuir, imprimir o enlazar los textos completos de los artículos en esta revista sin pedir permiso previo del editor o del autor, siempre que no medie lucro en dichas operaciones y siempre que se citen las fuentes. Esto está de acuerdo con la definición BOAI de acceso abierto. Esta es una revista de acceso abierto, lo que significa que todo el contenido es de libre acceso sin costo alguno para el usuario o su institución. Los usuarios pueden leer, descargar, copiar, distribuir, imprimir, buscar, o enlazar los textos completos de los artículos en esta revista sin pedir permiso previo del editor o del autor, siempre que no medie lucro en dichas operaciones y siempre que se citen las fuentes. Esto está de acuerdo con la definición BOAI de acceso abierto.
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