If animals are not capable of symmetrical relationships with humans and if Habermas s view is that moral significance hinges on these kinds of relationships, then this is a problem for Habermas s view, since animals do have some direct moral significance. I will argue that this isn t Habermas s view so it does not have these implications for animals. This is because, in part, animals are capable of a kind of symmetrical relationships with human persons under the constraints of Habermas s ethics and that this is sufficient to generate direct moral significance for animals. Thus, it seems to me that Habermas s views hold some prima facie promise for yet another defense of animals. I. A Basic Statement of Habermas s Ethics Habermas s ethics is a form of Kantianism in that it employs a universalizability test.
Discourse requires empathy and seeing things from points of view foreign to our own.
It has been said that Habermas overlooks animals interests as well. But if this objection to animals is unfounded, then the feminists objections are probably defective as well. I will argue that both these objections are unfounded. So this morally-relevant 'discourse' must occur in ideal or hypothethical or counterfactual 'worlds'. Experiments recorded in the novel Black Like Me, works of fiction, and other documentary-type works are often helpful in getting us to see much clearer what it s like to be someone very different from ourselves.