Abstract
Animal ethical approaches often focus on certain individual animal features and capabilities for attributing moral standing to them. These features are usually considered from a moral point of view as not differing for wild, semi-wild, and domesticated animals . However, several authors have argued for more relational approaches, in which relationships between humans, human society, and animals are taken into account, implying that wildness may be considered, in a sense, as a morally relevant aspect. This approach is especially relevant in the Anthropocene , since this new geological epoch is characterized by a significant impact on the part of human society on global geological and ecological systems, and thus on many wild and semi-wild animals . In this chapter some conceptual approaches to domestication and wildness are discussed, and it is argued that we should consider wild animals as entities that are highly and critically dependent on the environment, which should be considered as a network of biotic and abiotic elements, whether that environment is natural or human. Accordingly, it is argued that we need a contextual care approach, as an environmental virtue ethics, implying an attitude of care for the threatened natural environment of wild animals in the Anthropocene.
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Notes
- 1.
Palmer (2010, 63) also distinguishes dispositional/behavioral wildness, which refers to the wild–tame spectrum and especially to the animal’s behavior: A tamed animal shows non-aggressive behavior toward humans (or its owner). This aspect is, however, set-aside in her approach.
- 2.
Feral animals are animals that have gone wild after being domesticated.
- 3.
Thus, according to the symbiotic view, humans did not intentionally domesticate animals in ancient times: Instead, animals became adapted to a human environment because of reproductive benefits. Domestication is considered here as the animal’s answer to the rapidly changing environment in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene (O’Connor, forthcoming).
- 4.
However, we cannot consider all forms of domestication from such a coevolutionary perspective, since it is clear that modern breeding technologies, such as, e.g., artificial insemination and embryo selection (Swart 2014), cannot be considered as examples of the animal’s answer to a changing environment.
- 5.
The IJsselmeer was a result of the closure of the Zuiderzee by a sea wall in the early 20th century. Its original surface was 590,000 ha. However reclamation and diking projects reduced and divided the lake into two lakes (IJsselmeer and Markermeer), with a total surface area of 180,000 ha now.
- 6.
Most of the animals do not die from starvation but are killed by early-reactive culling, as a response to public concern concerning the welfare aspects (Staatsbosbeheer 2013).
- 7.
According to the management plan, the aim is to cull 90 % of the animals requiring culling, while they are still capable of standing. However, recent reports show that this objective is not achieved every year (Beheeradviescommissie Oostvaarderplassen 2014).
- 8.
The concept of special obligations refers to obligations “to those with whom we share a special relationship, understood as placing the demands and interests of one subset or group of persons above those outside such relationships” (Murphy 2012).
- 9.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Henk van den Belt of the Social Sciences Department of Wageningen University for his comments on a previous version of this chapter. I also thank Han Olff of the Conservation Ecology Group, and my colleague Koen Beumer of the Science and Society Group, both at the University of Groningen, for their discussions on this topic.
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Swart, J.A.A. (2016). Care for the Wild in the Anthropocene. In: Bovenkerk, B., Keulartz, J. (eds) Animal Ethics in the Age of Humans. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44206-8_11
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