Unitarianism or Hierarchical Approach for Moral Status? A Very Subtle Difference

Abstract

The article is inspired by Shelly Kagan’s recent book “How to Count Animals”, which focuses on the alternative between a unitarian and a hierarchical conception of the moral status of beings in the animal ethics debate. The paper finds a way of compromise between the two perspectives in the principle of equal consideration of interests, but above all it lessens the role of such opposition – especially its practical relevance – by emphasizing that, regardless of the fact of conceiving moral status in terms of all or nothing or in gradual terms, what really counts in our attitude towards non-human animals is to assign them an important moral consideration, that protects them not only from suffering, but also from an induced death in advance of natural times, a thesis that is compatible with both unitarianism and a hierarchical approach.