Exploring Animal Ecofeminism
By: Lizzie Bestow
Tags: Philosophy, Animals, Vegan, Women, Feminism

Care Ethics

Much of animal ecofeminism involved an emphasis on care ethics. This is an interesting ethical theory; much of the interest it evokes stems from its intrinsic resistance to traditional categorization.

Shaking Things Up

Traditionally, theories like Utilitarianism fell into the category of consequentialist ethics (ethical theories that place moral importance on an act’s consequences). Deontological ethical theories, like Kantianism, placed moral importance on the action itself, as it corresponds to rules and obligations, rather than the consequences of that action.

For most consequentialists, the CEO of a business who lies about their income or assets at a board meeting because of greed commits an immoral act. The consequences of that act will be that the board might agree to give them something that they shouldn’t have based on a false misrepresentation they knowingly made.

Conversely, say I hide a friend in my house who had entered into a bet with an acquaintance. That acquaintance had become very angry when he lost and tried to beat my friend up. If the acquaintance comes to my door and asks for my friend’s whereabouts, I am doing the right thing if I lie and say I have no idea. I’m doing the wrong thing if I tell the truth because I have strong reason to believe my acquaintance will run up the stairs and assault my friend.

For the deontologist, lying is always wrong. For the Kantian, this is true even if you’re hiding your friend from an ax-murderer! Care Ethics contends that we ought to place the onus on — you guessed it! — caring, rather than consequences or rules and obligations. As Encyclopaedia Britannica states, ‘the ethics of care perspective stands in stark contrast to ethical theories that rely on principles to highlight moral actions…and is not meant to be absolute and incontrovertible.’

Care ethics is focused on societal links, friendship, and interpersonal relations. We should do things for people we care about out of a desire to see their needs met. Britannica draws on Nel Noddings’ theories of care:

‘According to Noddings, each caring relation consists of at least two people, the “one-caring” and the “cared-for.” Such a relationship can certainly be more than merely dyadic (an influence-based relationship between two people) as the one-caring and the cared-for may come to exhibit a reciprocal commitment to each other’s well-being. However, what is distinctive in all such relations is that the one-caring acts in response to a perceived need on the part of the cared-for. The act is motivated by an apprehension of the cared-for’s reality, where the one-caring feels and senses what the cared-for is experiencing and initiates a commitment to help.’

Caring involves, in part, a kind of sensitivity to the needs of others. When it boils down to it, animals have similar needs to us. They need food, shelter, water, warmth, a place for safety. Animal ecofeminism involves addressing those needs.

Moral Circle

The moral circle is a concept oft-spoken about in philosophical ethics. The moral circle includes entities that are worthy of moral recognition. So, we might think about human beings as being worthy of moral recognition.

Some people might be no longer worthy of moral recognition because of an act they have committed — like murder or sexual assault — or, for others, everyone might be worthy of moral consideration no matter what they have done. But even if you believe the former, rather than the latter, you maintain that human beings, before they act abhorrently, are worthy of moral consideration.

For an animal ecofeminist, we should expand the moral circle to include nonhuman animals. This might not be all animals, but instead, animals that are capable of sentience or consciousness.

Most people will believe that animals are worthy of some moral consideration; the availability of free-range eggs proves that many consumers want animals to have happy lives. But we are letting animals into the moral circle by halves; claiming that they ought to be able to enjoy living a free and happy life with others of their kind, but then cutting that life short. And labeling it compassionate slaughter. But can anything really be slaughtered humanely if it doesn’t want to die?

Adams writes how animal ecofeminists began redefining the moral circle when they made the link between care and attention:

‘In the writings that Josephine Donovan and I have done together, one of the words we use is attention (from Simone Weil, a twentieth-century French thinker, and mystic). She says, “What is attention? Attention is being able to ask your neighbor what they are going through — and then being willing to hear the answer.”

The question is, and it’s a very political one, “Who is your neighbor?” The ethic of care recognizes how we have failed to acknowledge that who our neighbors are could be defined as much more expansively.’

The moral circle is generally considered to have expanded over time. In Ancient Greece, slaves were afforded fewer rights; non-slaves were more morally worthy. Gradually, the moral circle began to widen; most humans were widely xenophobic — affording a lesser moral status to those who looked different to them — centuries ago. There has been a gradual acceptance that people of different races, genders, and sexualities are worthy of moral consideration.

Sure, there are still plenty of people who are racist, sexist, or homophobic. But most societies now recognize that all human beings have value. For animal ecofeminists the question is simple: is it not time to move on to nonhuman animals, too?