Humans’ Best Friend? The Ethical Dilemma of Pets

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the need for a reassessment of the moral status of pets. I argue that pets rest on an undefined ethical borderline, which brings several puzzling problems to both human-centered ethics and animal ethics and that neither of these fields adequately handles these issues. I focus specifically on human relationships with companion animals as one of the most significant interspecific relationship involving humans and pets. I also show that a deeper questioning of the moral status of pets is a required step toward the moral rethinking of human-animal relationships.

Keywords

• Pets
• companion animals
• animal welfare
• animal liberation
• animal rights
• impartialism
• partialism
• intrinsic value
• special duties
• relational ethics
• contextual ethics.