Mrthfx

Most people seem to agree that animals cannot act immorally, even when they inflict suffering. They are thus completely excluded from being subjects of any kind of ethical framework.

At the same time, there is an entire branch of ethics dealing with animals as objects, and trying to describe rules for how they should be treated.

This seems paradoxical. If animals are incapable of recognizing right and wrong in their own actions, how can they possibly do so in actions towards them? And if they indeed cannot, how can actions towards them be morally wrong? How can killing a lion be evil when the lion killing another animal is not evil? Indeed, if animals are incapable of moral agency, how is killing an animal different from destroying a (complex) machine?

Welcome user37552

I'd phrase my answer in terms of a moral community. You might say that only humans can belong to a moral community because only they can have moral agency, owe obligations, deserve moral praise or blame. Only subjects, you seem to imply, can belong to a moral community and only towards such subjects can we act in ways that are morally wrong.

First point, on this logic not even all humans belong to a moral community. For certainly not all humans have moral agency. Sociopaths or psychopaths don't, the irreparably brain-damaged don't, and nor does a person in a coma. Yet we can act morally wrongly towards them.

The second point, following this up, is that since having moral agency is not a necessary condition for being morally 'considerable', we can act morally wrongly to other than moral agents. Moral judgements are sensitive to considerations of suffering; and on this basis non-moral agents such as non-human animals, through their capacity for suffering, fall within the moral community and we can act morally wrongly towards them.

I can't give you a cite, but if you believe animals have no soul and if you believe ethics only apply to things with souls then it would be improper to judge the actions of an animal. Just as it would be improper to judge the rock which falls off a cliff and kills a woman.

Another possible justification would be interpreting Genesis such that morality only applies to humans because they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

With regard to treatment of animals as objects, this would delve into the philosophy of personal property - the animals owners, the owners of property the animals interact with, etc.

Regarding your question on whether animals are sentient, this is a historically contentious topic. I believe all the way from Descartes until Bernard Rollin (1980s) it was not definitively known whether animals could feel pain, let alone have consciousness.

One does not need to have a sense of morals to be sentient. Ethical practices aim to reduce suffering (?), which is present in all sentient life by definition. Sentient life does not have to understand that what is being done to them is wrong/right to suffer from it.

So sentient life (are animals sentient life?) can still be objects of ethics without being subjects of ethics if they don't have a sense of morals.

Where do you draw the line between humans and other animals?

If Neanderthals were still living, would we consider them non-human? Probably so, as all non-African people have Neanderthal DNA. But what about the tiny people who lived on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Would they qualify as human?

Even people who believe that we don't have souls can believe that we should treat each other ethically. We're also expected to treat people who are immoral, amoral, insane or brain-dead ethically. Don't at least some animals deserve the same consideration?

I think it's ridiculous to argue that animals don't feel pain. Are we really the only creatures that have nerves?

Some animals clearly feel emotional pain as well. Some species are clearly disturbed when one of their own dies. Or consider the famous story about the Japanese dog who waited at a train station for its master, who had died, for years.

In addition, how we treat animals can be guided by our concern not for animals but for other people. For example, imagine a person who has no qualms about torturing a cat. Would we want such a person to bring a cat into a classroom in a public school and torture it in front of the students? I guess a key word here might be anthropomorphism.

Of course, there are also ecological principles to consider. The North American bison was nearly exterminated as a means of defeating the plains Indians. Its destruction thus had a terrible impact on both Native Americans and wild predators (e.g. the wolf) as well as the environment as a whole. Considering that we're in the midst of one of the greatest extinction events, the lives of individual members of some species are especially valuable. Killing a lion may be tantamount to killing a pice of the Serengeti.