Virtue Ethics as Animal Ethics in Philosophy of the Islamic World

Abstract

Virtue ethics may seem to be a less useful paradigm for ethical thinking than utilitarianism and deontology, insofar as it seems rather vacuous to be told to act as a virtuous person would act. But the topic considered here shows that this need not be true. Since virtue ethicists (and virtuous persons, according to this ethical approach) value the features that make human lives (more) excellent, they also value the features that make other lives (more) excellent, by way of the virtues of mercy, generosity, and justice. And this is true whether or not the lives in question are human or animal. To put it another way, a good agent will be one who shows goodness towards beings who are capable of having good lives. While that phrasing again sounds close to tautologous, it becomes substantive when we spell out which beings have such a capacity, and in what ways things can go well or badly for them. Virtue ethicists from the Islamic world were especially well placed to do that, since they also inherited from Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) a teleological conception of nature. In light of this, it comes to seem almost inevitable that philosophers in this tradition would endorse compassionate treatment of animals. In cases where they fail to do so, the failure is bound up with a tendency to downgrade the value of practical virtue as a whole. Rigorously intellectualist ascetics are unlikely to show much interest in the welfare of animals, being disinterested even in their own animal souls.