Daniel Elbro

PhD Thesis

Agency as the Grounds for Moral Standing

My thesis (which you can see here) asks whether we have direct obligations to non-human animals—that is, whether they have moral standing—and if so, what are the grounds of their moral standing? I argue for three main claims:

  1. Although many influential accounts of the moral standing of animals appeal to the capacity for sentience as their grounds, this appeal cannot do the explanatory work required of it.
  2. Animals, both human and non-human, have the capacity for volitional agency: we have control over what we do, and therefore can (and must) make choices by acting on our desires.
  3. There is good reason to think that volitional agency is the grounds of the moral standing of human and non-human animals

Other Research in Progress

[Title removed for blind review]

I show that an influential argument for the moral standing of sentient animals relies on an untenable explanatory structure.

Refraining and Deciding to Refrain

I argue, against the prevailing view of the nature of refraining, that it is possible to refrain without deciding to do so. I argue that the prevailing ‘decision’ view fails to account for many ordinary not-doings. I defend an account of the nature of refraining according to which refraining is not doing something one has the ability to do, and argue that my account solves the problem with the ‘decision’ view.

On the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests

Shelly Kagan has recently defended the view that our obligations to persons are stronger than our obligations to non-human animals. However, philosophers like Peter Singer reject Kagan’s view on the basis that the interests of any two individuals should be given equal consideration, regardless of e.g. gender, race, or species. But our obligations to, say, friends seems stronger than our obligations to strangers. I ask whether there is a salient difference between one’s species membership on the one hand, and one’s relationships on the other, that explains why preferential treatment is impermissible in the former case but permissible in the latter. I argue that there is a difference: like one’s race and gender, but unlike one’s relationships, one’s species membership is intrinsic to one.

'Harmlessly' wronging other animals

It seems that we can wrong a person without harming them. For example, if we treat someone disrespectfully behind their back, then it is plausible that we wrong them but it is unclear where the harm to them would be. Cheryl Abbate has recently argued that we can likewise ‘harmlessly wrong’ animals. But the wrongness of being treated disrespectfully, even behind one’s back, seemingly depends on understanding that treatment as disrespectful, and animals cannot understand that. How could such treatment wrong them? Is there any other basis for the claim that animals deserve respectful treatment?

Public work

Here is review I wrote for the KCL Philosophy blog of a talk by Cécile Fabre.

I appeared on a KCL PPE student podcast, The Lion's Share, discussing the ethics of true crime.