Can Animals Be Moral Agents? Why the Debate Matters for Animal Ethics

In animal ethics, animals have been traditionally described as moral patients, a category that encompasses those beings towards whom we have obligations but who cannot fulfil obligations towards human beings or other animals. Starting from the 1980s, in particular, over the last decade, philosophers have challenged this conceptual paradigm by arguing that animals possess some capacities relevant to the exercise of moral agency and that these may not be best captured by the notion of moral patient. These philosophical developments have also been supported by extensive work in ethology on empathetic, cooperative, and normative behaviour in social mammals and birds. In this chapter, I provide a brief overview of the scientific literature on the moral capacities of animals. I then discuss the current state of the philosophical debate on animal morality. Finally, I explore the debate’s implications for animal ethics and how recognizing animals as moral beings may lead us to widen our understanding of animals’ rights, well-being, and moral responsibility.