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Animals, pain and morality.

Alan Carter1

  • 1Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, 67-69 Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland. A.Carter@philosophy.arts.gla.ac.uk

Journal of Applied Philosophy
|June 14, 2005
PubMed
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Nonhuman animals likely feel pain, challenging the view that inflicting harm is moral. This study suggests their behaviors indicate suffering, making needless pain inflicted upon them immoral.

Area of Science:

  • Animal Ethics
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • The morality of inflicting pain hinges on the capacity for suffering.
  • Some argue nonhuman animals do not suffer, as their pain responses may be maladaptive.
  • This perspective questions the ethical implications of actions causing apparent pain in animals.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To argue that the capacity to feel pain should be considered the proximate cause of behavioral responses to harm.
  • To establish that nonhuman animals possess the capacity to feel pain.
  • To assert that inflicting needless pain on nonhuman animals is immoral.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of behavioral responses to organismic harm.
  • Distinguishing between adaptive pain signaling and maladaptive behavioral reactions.
Keywords:
Biomedical and Behavioral ResearchPhilosophical Approach

Related Experiment Videos

  • Philosophical argumentation based on evolutionary and cognitive principles.

    • Main Results:

    • The ability to feel pain is adaptive, while certain behavioral responses to harm can be maladaptive.
    • Nonhuman animals exhibit behavioral traits that are occasionally maladaptive in response to harm.
    • These maladaptive traits in animals provide evidence for their capacity to experience pain.

    Conclusions:

    • Nonhuman animals possess the capacity to feel pain.
    • It is possible to inflict needless pain on nonhuman animals.
    • Inflicting needless pain on nonhuman animals is an immoral act.