Il dilemma etico dei pet. Tra bestie, animali e persone

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the need to discuss the moral status of pets, showing how this can even offer an opportunity to rethink the entire set of relationships between humans and non-human nature. I start by asking “who” or “what” pets are and why they should be treated morally different from other “beasts”. I also show how both anthropocentric and animal ethics are unable to solve the dilemma. In conclusion, I explore two possible coordinates to use in order to solve the dilemma: “interest” and “appropriate relational partiality”. I claim that these two key concepts could also be useful to show the need to find a mutual theoretical and conceptual framework toward which both anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric environmental ethics could refer.

Keywords

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