Can elephants act morally? Towards a theory of animal morality
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2025-11-09
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en
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This paper argues for a reassessment of morality beyond rational reflection, challenging Christine Korsgaard’s essentialist notion that excludes non-human animals as moral agents. According to her, animals do not have access to their reasons for acting and can therefore not act for the right or wrong reasons. I argue that this notion fails to account for many human moral actions as well as the empathetic actions of animals. Drawing on Mons´o’s concept of minimal moral empathy, I propose a gradualist and pluralist understanding of morality: gradualist, in viewing morality as an evolutionary continuum; pluralist, in recognising multiple pathways through which moral sensitivity can be expressed—whether through rational
deliberation, empathy, or other social mechanisms. Using the case of Grace the African elephant alongside evolutionary and empirical evidence, I show that behaviours often regarded as uniquely human display strong continuities with those observed in other social animals.
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Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen