Abstract
Morally unequal treatment of different nonhuman species, like pigs and dogs, can seem troublingly inconsistent. A position Todd May calls moral individualism and relationalism appears to justify the moral discomfit attending such species-differentiated treatment. Yet some of its basic assumptions are challenged by a philosophical style Roger Scruton called narrative philosophy. Expanding upon Christopher Cordner’s discussion of narrative philosophy, this paper develops a narrative-style philosophical critique of Todd May’s moral individualism and relationalism, especially its reductionist understanding of moral reasons, consistency, and relevance. Such criticism opens up the possibility that the unequal treatment of nonhuman species like pigs and dogs is perfectly consistent and even justified. However, the paper then presents a narrative-style argument that such species-differentiated treatment may be morally inconsistent and unjustified after all.
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Notes
Thus, NSP does not imply that prejudices like racism may properly shape our moral views. Although racism can have its own influential narrative-style features – think of the elaborate anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda in films, books, images, metaphors, and practices – we can and do reject those features as self-indulgent, shallow, and marked by a brutal contempt for the people depicted in them.
There are potential practical obstacles for pigs as animal family in many human homes, such as their size and aspects of their behaviour. However, my argument does not require that pigs are as easy as dogs or cats to live with (but note: many households could not accommodate a Great Dane). My argument simply requires that pigs satisfy the conditions for the application of the narrative-style concept possible family member.
Some conventionalists may truly be unaware that pigs are intelligent, affectionate (etc.) animals like dogs and cats. If so, they formally somewhat resemble the classical racist. However, the idea that pigs are as intelligent (etc.) as dogs has been repeated so often it is almost a cliché. It may partly be a lack of attention and imagination that stops people accepting the idea that pigs are possible family members.
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Coghlan, S. Moral Individualism and Relationalism: a Narrative-Style Philosophical Challenge. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 19, 1241–1257 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9734-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9734-5