Oscar Horta

• University of Santiago de Compostela

La souffrance animale porte sur la condition animale dans ses aspects les plus douloureux, en un sens le plus large possible. Cet ouvrage interdisciplinaire s’intéresse aux animaux placés sous la tutelle humaine, mais n’ignore pas la souffrance de ceux qui vivent libres. Il donne la priorité aux situations concrètes au cours desquelles les animaux...

This paper presents some of the most promising ways wild animals are currently being helped, as well as other ways of helping that may be implemented easily in the near future. They include measures to save animals affected by harmful weather events, wild animal vaccination programs, and projects aimed at reducing suffering among synanthropic anima...

Este artigo apresenta um quadro conceitual para examinar a questão do especismo. Começa definindo-o como a consideração ou tratamento desfavorável injustificado daqueles que não pertencem a uma determinada espécie. A seguir, esclarece alguns dos mal-entendidos comuns acerca do que é e do que não é o especismo. Depois disso, argumenta contra a confu...

There are different meanings associated with consequentialism and teleology. This causes confusion, and sometimes results in discussions based on misunderstandings rather than on substantial disagreements. To clarify this, we created a survey on the definitions of ‘consequentialism’ and ‘teleology’, which we sent to specialists in consequentialism....

Este artículo examina de qué formas pueden defenderse conjuntamente los métodos de investigación con animales no humanos, el rechazo de los métodos que no impliquen el uso de animales, y la oposición a la experimentación con humanos. El artículo argumenta que la apelación a un salto axiológico o normativo entre el peso de los intereses humanos y de...

This paper argues that the Repugnant Conclusion which the Mere Addition Paradox generates is not the same as the one which a sum-aggregative view like impersonal total utilitarianism leads to, but a slightly more moderate version of it. Given a spectrum of outcomes {A, B, C, …, X, Y, Z} such that in each of them there is a population that is twice...

A bstract The term “speciesism” has played a key role in debates about the moral consideration of nonhuman animals, yet little work has been dedicated to clarifying its meaning. Consequently, the concept remains poorly understood and is often employed in ways that might display a speciesist bias themselves. To address this problem, this article dev...

Available here: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ateliers/2018-v13-n1-ateliers04192/1055119ar/ This paper examines the extent of the opposition between environmentalists and those concerned with wild-animal suffering and considers whether there are any points they may agree on. The paper starts by presenting the reasons to conclude that sufferin...

There are many circumstances in which vegans are treated or considered worse than nonvegans, both in the private and the public sphere, either due to the presence of a bias against them (‘vegaphobia’) or for structural reasons. For instance, vegans sometimes suffer harassment, have issues at their workplace, or find little vegan food available. In...

The argument from relevance expresses an intuition that, although shared by many applied ethicists, has not been analyzed and systematized in the form of a clear argument thus far. This paper does this by introducing the concept of value relevance, which has been used before in economy but not in the philosophical literature. The paper explains how...

Seres humanos intervêm frequentemente na natureza por razões antropocêntricas ou ambientalistas. Um exemplo de intervenção consiste na reintrodução de lobos em áreas previamente habitadas por eles com a finalidade de se criar o que é conhecido como “ecologia do medo”. Na primeira parte deste artigo discutem-se as razões que têm sido utilizadas em f...

In his chapter, Oscar Horta outlines that according to a widespread view, nonhuman animals live happy lives in the wild. The truth, he points out however, differs significantly from this. Population dynamics and other findings in biology show that most animals live extremely short and hard lives, and never survive to maturity. Evidence suggests tha...

The use of the concept of moral status is commonplace today in debates about the moral consideration of entities lacking certain special capacities, such as nonhuman animals. This concept has been typically used to defend the view that adult human beings have a status higher than all those entities. However, even those who disagree with this claim...

Mientras las posiciones favorables a la consideración moral de los animales defienden que el criterio para ser objeto de respeto radica en la sintiencia, el ecologismo defiende otros criterios para proteger la consideración de entidades como los ecosistemas o especies. Esta diferencia acerca del criterio para la consideración moral tiene consecuenc...

Many people think we should refrain from intervening in nature as much as possible. One of the main reasons for thinking this way is that the existence of nature is a net positive. However, population dynamics teaches us that most sentient animals who come into existence in nature die shortly thereafter, mostly in painful ways (due to starvation, p...

h1>Este artigo examina o problema do mal na natureza, isto é, a questão de qual é o desvalor presente nesta e se tal desvalor prevalece ou não sobre a felicidade existente nela. O artigo sustenta que este último é o caso. Essa é uma consequência dificilmente evitável da existência de um processo evolutivo em um contexto em que os recursos são escas...

This paper examines the problem of evil in nature, that is, the issue of the disvalue present in nature, and the question of whether or not it prevails over happiness. The paper claims that disvalue actually outweighs happiness in nature. This is an unavoidable consequence of the existence of an evolutionary process in a context where resources are...

In standard cases of discrimination the interests of the discriminatees are considered comparatively worse than those of others. Accordingly, discrimination is often defined as some form of differential consideration or treatment which, among other features, entails a disadvantage for discriminatees. There are some apparent forms of nonstandard dis...

The argument from species overlap has been widely used in the literature on animal ethics and speciesism. However, there has been much confusion regarding what the argument proves and what it does not prove, and regarding the views it challenges. This article intends to clarify these confusions, and to show that the name most often used for this ar...

According to the Internal Aspects View, the value of different outcomes depends solely on the internal features possessed by each outcome and the internal relations between them. This paper defends the Internal Aspects View against Larry Temkin’s defence of the Essentially Comparative View, according to which the value of different outcomes depends...

This article examines and rejects the view that nonhuman animals cannot be recipients of justice, and argues that the main reasons in favor of universal human rights and global justice also apply in the case of the international protection of the interests of nonhuman animals. In any plausible theory of wellbeing, sentience matters; mere species me...

It is now widely assumed that all and only human beings merit full moral consideration, that human interests count for more than similar interests of other creatures. Thus, if a human being feels exactly the same pain as a nonhuman animal, then barring some other morally relevant consideration, ending the human's pain is morally more important. How...

This paper examines the methodological, axiological and normative assumptions on which Animal Liberation —arguably the most poular work by Peter Singer— rests. It explores the tensions between the normative position this book intends to adopt, which tries to compromise as little as possible with any specific normative theory, and Singer's views on...

It is often maintained that (nonhuman) animals cannot be considered persons, so it is not possible to sue on their behalf. This article examines this idea. Firstly, it analyzes the different meanings that the term "person" has in the colloquial, the metaphysical, the moral and the legal realm. It shows that there is no necessary connection between...

Larry Temkin and Stuart Rachels have argued that the " _ is better than _ " relation need not be transitive. In support of this claim, they have presented several spectrum cases towards which our actual preferences appear not to be transitive. In this paper I examine one of them, and explain that there are several solutions we may give to the probl...

This paper defends two claims. The first is that, despite the extensive use of nonhuman animals in research, this issue has not been really taken seriously in the field of bioethics. This claim is supported by a survey of recent literature in bioethics. The second claim is that this lack of attention is unwarranted. It is commonly assumed that the...

This article tries to define what discrimination is and to understand in particular detail its most important instances: those in which the satisfaction of interests is at stake. These cases of discrimination will be characterized in terms of deprivations of benefits. In order to describe and classify them we need to consider three different factor...

El igualitarismo axiológico defiende que una situación mejora al menos en algún respecto si el valor que contiene es distribuido más igualitariamente. En este artículo defiendo esta forma de igualitarismo y apunto algunos de sus corolarios. Tras considerar y rechazar la objeción de la igualación a la baja, sostengo que del igualitarismo se sigue un...

In spite of the considerable literature nowadays existing on the issue of the moral exclusion of nonhuman animals, there is still work to be done concerning the characterization of the conceptual framework with which this question can be appraised. This paper intends to tackle this task. It starts by defining speciesism as the unjustified disadvant...

Conforme al antropocentrismo moral, está justificado tratar de forma desfavorable a los animales no humanos frente a los seres humanos. Esta idea se mantiene a menudo indicando que hay ciertas capacidades o relaciones, defendidas como moralmente relevantes, que solo tendrían estos últimos. El argumento de la superposición de especies apunta, sin em...

El argumento de la superposición de especies muestra que no hay criterios no definicionales y de cumplimiento comprobable que sean satisfechos por todos los seres humanos y solo por ellos. Varias respuestas a este buscan defender la relevancia de tales criterios para excluir a los animales no humanos, pero manteniendo la plena consideración moral d...

Humans often intervene in the wild for anthropocentric or environmental reasons. An example of such interventions is the reintroduction of wolves in places where they no longer live in order to create what has been called an “ecology of fear”, which is being currently discussed in places such as Scotland. In the first part of this paper I discuss t...

The relation between the problem of the temporality of value and the problem of our diachronic persistence has virtually not been explored so far. However, the analysis of these questions can shed light on each other in an interesting way This paper argues that an explanation of the connections between the asymmetry of our attitudes towards the fut...

RESUMENEl particularismo moral rechaza la pertinencia del recurso a los principios en ética. Una serie de autores de filiación postanalítica neowittgensteiniana han asumido esta posición conducidos por planteamientos antiteóricos, que rechazan el rol evaluativo de la filosofía moral. En este artículo se presenta y examina críticamente esta posición...