In this study, researchers conducted a series of surveys to try to better understand the role of “harmfulness” in how humans perceive moral standing, especially with animals. Working from the hypothesis that animals who are perceived to have a “harmful disposition” are accorded a lower moral standing – in the same way that humans who are seen as inherently harmful are accorded less moral standing – the researchers considered different angles to better understand why such moral inconsistencies might exist. The results go beyond the usual discussions of moral agency and patiency, and shed light on an often overlooked aspect of how humans do their moral calculus.

What makes a living being worthy of moral consideration? A great deal of philosophy has focused on issues of “agency” (the ability to make conscious decisions based on a moral contract) or “patiency” (the ability to suffer or feel pain) as relevant aspects of moral standing. In this paper, the authors argue that when it comes to moral standing, agency and patiency don’t cover it all: “harmfulness (i.e., having a harmful disposition, or, conversely, a non-harmful or benevolent disposition) is an equally, if not at times more important, source of moral standing.” The term harmfulness is meant “to capture the attribution of a harmful underlying disposition. That is, when an entity is perceived to be ‘harmful,’ we mean that it is perceived as having a disposition that leads to behaviors that harm others.” The authors note that research in moral psychology shows that human individuals who are found or perceived to be guilty of harmful acts are often perceived to have their moral rights (like that not to be harmed, or to be deprived of freedom) temporarily withheld. If people act that way with other people, it is perhaps not surprising that they may act the same way with non-humans, potentially to an even larger degree. This study aims to begin to address the gap in literature about harmfulness and how it relates to animal ethics.

The authors conducted four online surveys of various numbers of American respondents, looking at different angles on the question of harmfulness. Through the different stages of the studies, they asked respondents to rate different animals based on their perceived harmfulness and describe their thought process. The first study used just photographs of a range of real animals, both domesticated and wild; the second study described an “alien species” with various traits that may be perceived in different ways (including harmful); the third study asked participants to consider the moral standing of a stray dog in their neighborhood based on some of the dog’s traits; the fourth study was similar to the third, and asked respondents to evaluate the moral standing of the dog, based on his or her traits, and his or her behavior towards other dogs, as well as humans. Through these various layers of inquiry, the researchers arrived at a relatively consistent set of conclusions: “While previous studies have focused on the role of intelligence and patiency in the decisions people make regarding the attribution of moral standing to animals, the present research has shown that perceptions of an animal’s harmful disposition are an equally if not more important factor driving such judgments. Much like we perceive people who harm others to be less deserving of moral consideration, we seem to apply this same kind of thinking more broadly to other, non-human entities as well.”

What does this research mean for animal advocacy? In their concluding comments, the researchers note that an unfortunate consequence of this tendency to “hold animals responsible” for their perceived “harmful dispositions” is that “when the welfare of a notorious predatory species is under consideration, misperceptions about the actual ferociousness of an animal (reinforced by sensational media stories) may interfere with level- headed decision-making.” That being said, in stage one of their study, they found that, “on a more positive note, this research seems to validate efforts made by some biologists and animal-welfare groups to amend the public’s distorted perception of the ‘brute’ nature of wild animals.” If that is the case, it seems that advocates would do well to pay attention to the harmfulness of how animals are perceived, and actively work against it.

Original Abstract:
Entities that possess moral standing can be wronged and deserve our moral consideration. Past perspectives on the folk psychology of moral standing have focused exclusively on the role of ‘‘patiency” (the capacity to experience pain or pleasure) and ‘‘agency” (usually defined and operationalized in terms of intelligence or cognitive ability). We contend that harmfulness (i.e., having a harmful vs. benevolent disposition) is an equally if not more important determinant of moral standing. We provide support for this hypothesis across four studies using non-human animals as targets. We show that the effect of harmfulness on attributions of moral standing is independent from patiency and intelligence (Studies 1–2), that this effect pertains specifically to an animal’s harmful disposition rather than its capacity to act upon this disposition (Study 3), and that it primarily reflects a parochial concern for human welfare in particular (Study 4). Our findings highlight an important, overlooked dimension in the psychology of moral standing that has implications for real-world decisions that affect non-human animals. Our findings also help clarify the conditions under which people perceive patiency and agency as related versus truly independent dimensions.