Following in the tradition of Montaigne and Rousseau, a number of recent philosophers have argued that reflection on the relationship between humankind and certain animals yields good reasons for a misanthropic verdict on the former. One reason, of course, is the terrible treatment and exploitation of animals by human beings. Another reason—the one focused on and endorsed in this paper—is that humankind does very badly in the moral comparison with animal species that Hume thought was essential to any moral verdict on our species. I argue that animals are favored by such a comparison since they are free of the vices and moral failings of human beings. To the objection that, in that case, they are also without the virtues that we have, my reply is that this objection is mistaken. (Even if it weren’t, animals would come off better than humankind, since it is morally more important to be without vices than to have virtues.) Simply put, the “innocence” of animals—perhaps like that of young children—is incompatible with being morally vicious, but it is not incompatible with manifesting and exercising certain virtues. Innocence does not exclude experiencing benign moral emotions, such as compassion.

Contemporary Philosophy | General Interest