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Punishing Moral Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2021

Eli Shupe
Eli Shupe*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Humanities, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

There has been recent speculation that some (nonhuman) animals are moral agents. Using a retributivist framework, I argue that if some animals are moral agents, then there are circumstances in which some of them deserve punishment. But who is best situated to punish animal wrongdoers? This paper explores the idea that the answer to this question is humans.

Keywords

Moral agencyanimal cognitionretributivismphilosophy of punishmentnonhuman animalspunishmentanimal moral agency
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 51 , Issue 5 , July 2021 , pp. 351 - 366
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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