Applying Virtue Ethics to Our Treatment of the Other Animals
Rosalind Hursthouse
Abstract
Abstract Applying a virtue ethical approach to our treatment of the other animals first requires appreciating why we should dismiss an approach in terms of their moral status. Virtue ethics approaches to vegetarianism and medical experiments on them are not ‘human-centred’. The virtues in question do not privilege the human point of view, as the prescriptions of compassion and the virtuous avoidance of cruelty straightforwardly apply to the non-human animals as well (and virtue ethicists can draw easily from utilitarian arguments in this respect). However, virtue ethical approaches have to recognize that the actions they guide us to do may be individually too small, relative to acceptance of the practices, to merit much, if any, praise.