Disentangling Obligations of Assistance. A Reply to Clare Palmer’s “Against the View That We Are Usually Required to Assist Wild Animals”

Abstract

Animals are sentient individuals. They can be harmed and benefited by what happens to them. A significant number of nonhuman animals live under human control, yet the overwhelming majority of them live in the wild (Tomasik 2014). Many of the harms wild animals endure are due to natural events, rather than to human agency. Given the means at our disposal, wild animal suffering could be, to some extent, prevented or, at least, alleviated. This raises the question of whether we are morally required to intervene in nature to assist them or, alternatively, whether we may permissibly choose not to. Clare Palmer is one of the few philosophers who directly tackles this problem 1, answering it from the relational account of the moral consideration of nonhuman animals which she has developed (2010, 2013, 2015). As it can be surmised from her contribution to this issue, her claim is that we are not usually required to assist wild animals. However, we may be permitted to do so.