Can Animals Be Moral?

By: Mark Rowlands

Narrated by: Shanet Clark

Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

From eye-witness accounts of elephants apparently mourning the death of family members to an experiment that showed that hungry rhesus monkeys would not take food if doing so gave another monkey an electric shock, there is much evidence of animals displaying what seem to be moral feelings. But despite such suggestive evidence, philosophers steadfastly deny that animals can act morally, and for reasons that virtually everyone has found convincing.

In Can Animals be Moral?, philosopher Mark Rowlands examines the reasoning of philosophers and scientists on this question - ranging from Aristotle and Kant to Hume and Darwin - and reveals that their arguments fall far short of compelling. The basic argument against moral behavior in animals is that humans have capabilities that animals lack. We can reflect on our motivations, formulate abstract principles that allow that allow us to judge right from wrong. For an actor to be moral, he or she must be able scrutinize their motivations and actions. No animal can do these things - no animal is moral. Rowland naturally agrees that humans possess a moral consciousness that no animal can rival, but he argues that it is not necessary for an individual to have the ability to reflect on his or her motives to be moral. Animals can't do all that we can do, but they can act on the basis of some moral reasons - basic moral reasons involving concern for others. And when they do this, they are doing just what we do when we act on the basis of these reasons: They are acting morally.

©2012 Oxford University Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Great Book, Though The Performance Lacks

This is actually a philosophical treatise requiring some initiation into the jargon of ethics and logic. It isn't a book of anecdotes on animals acting in cute ways. Personally, I got exactly what I wanted, which was an interesting philosophical argument for why we should consider animals capable of moral acts and deserving moral respect. Interestingly, it also touches on questions of free will and moral responsibility. Being a hard determinist, I disagree with Rowlands' final conclusion that human beings have moral responsibility, but he expressed his arguments well and in an engaging style. The only downside of this audiobook is the narrator's strange vocal intonations and cadence. It took a second to get used to his way of speaking. Would recommend the audiobook to anyone interested in the technical aspects of metaethics.