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Moral Moments

Turning The Tables: We Matter Because We Are Animals

by Joel Marks

Recent times have seen an ever-increasing interest in our similarity to other great apes and ultimately to all other animals. While sometimes this research has been motivated by sheer curiosity, it also forms a backdrop to a heightening moral concern about other animals. Earlier philosophical efforts tried to establish human uniqueness by distinguishing us from other animals: for example, Aristotle took us to be the rational animal, and Descartes highlighted our language ability. The new research program seeks to establish the opposite thesis of the moral considerability of other animals by demonstrating their similarity to us. Sometimes the similarity is found at the genetic level, where human and animal genomes turn out to be much more alike than different.

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