The moral consideration of nonhuman animals and the neoaristotelism

Abstract

The moral consideration of nonhuman animals has been assessed from different normative theories. Utilitarianism and deontology are often mentioned as examples of them. However, the issue has also been addressed from several others perspectives, such as Aristotelian ethics. As theorists such as Stephen Clark, Daniel Dombrowski and Rosalind Hursthouse, among others, have defended, if we hold a virtue ethics approach we have reasons to reject anthropocentric speciesism. This position is based on the idea that fulfilling our nature as moral agents (in an Aristotelian sense) entails respecting others’ self-realization. And the interests of nonhuman animals can be certainly pondered according to an Aristotelian axiology, as Bernard Rollin and Martha Nussbaum have pointed out.