Accountability without Equality in Social Relations with Thinking Animals

Resumen

Summary This essay makes a case that the ethical phenomena of accountability and recognition are not, as is widely believed, grounded in the psychological capacity of self-conscious reflective thought characteristic of persons. We know this because we have relationships of accountability and recognition with some animals who are clearly not self-conscious in that sense. On the other hand, not all conscious animals are capable of accountability or recognition. Thus we must focus on a capacity intermediate between mere conscious awareness and self-consciousness in order to explain accountability and recognition.