This chapter outlines our dual value theory. At the most general level, the theory consists of two substantive values, a formal distributive principle, and a scope determining the set of beings with moral status. The two values are well-being and respect for rights-holders. The distributive principle is equal consideration for all beings with moral status. And the scope is the set of sentient beings. Although our approach confers equal moral consideration on all sentient beings, it does not regard all sentient beings as rights-holders. On the basis of these ideas, we specify mid-level principles pertaining to nonmaleficence, beneficence, distributive justice, and autonomy rights. We also explain the key respects in which our theory differs from the principle-based approach of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, and comment on other types of ethical theory.

Our account of moral status embraces equal consequentialist consideration for all sentient beings while ascribing the stronger protection of rights to those with narrative capacity. Individuals with the capacity to have narrative self-conceptions or identities have full-strength rights, while individuals with nontrivial temporal self-awareness that falls short of narrative capacity have partial-strength rights. This account of moral status is neutral with respect to species, which means that membership in Homo sapiens is neither necessary nor sufficient for moral status or rights. The final three sections explore ethical implications for research involving human embryos, rodents, and great apes. We defend a very liberal position with respect to embryo research, a relatively restrictive approach to rodent research (granting equal consequentialist consideration to rodents’ interests while permitting their use on utilitarian grounds), and a prohibition of invasive, nontherapeutic research involving great apes.

The rise of humane slaughter and Peter Singer’s support for it have given rise to the view that Singer’s philosophy of animal liberation, rather than requiring veganism, entails only avoiding factory farmed meat. Proponents of this view cite passages in Singer’s work that suggest killing animals can be permissible when it is done painlessly, among other conditions. This reading of Singer raises the possibility that it is possible to endorse anti-speciesism and the equal consideration of interests and continue to eat animals. In evaluating this claim, I examine humane slaughter as it is actually practiced on chickens. I also examine a hypothetical ideal version that eliminates all suffering from the slaughter process. In doing so I distinguish two versions of Singer’s argument for animal liberation, one based on utilitarianism and the other on equal consideration, and argue that regardless of what version of humane slaughter we have in mind, actual or ideal, neither is justified by either of Singer’s arguments. The support Singer has offered for humane slaughter is therefore amore accurately viewed as a pragmatic effort to reduce the suffering of food animals rather than the outcome of applying Singer’s theory at an ideal level.

The philosophy of animal protection traditionally takes for granted our least controversial moral views, such as the idea that other human beings can make genuine moral claims on us. It then seeks to enhance them with further principles of its own. In this way it is like an application for a phone or computer, which achieves functionality by being added to an existing operating system. My primary concern is with the operating system, not the application. I seek to outline two principles that have been common to most versions of animal protection: anti-speciesism and moral individualism. While not every argument for protectionism endorses both claims, the great majority do, and so outlining these two principles are the best place to begin. (Insofar as a critique of protection rejects either of these notions it will be a rejectionist critique rather than a separatist one.) Both principles achieve their force by presupposing certain moral claims that are not unique to protectionism. The most relevant of these are the bedrock claim that causing human suffering requires justification, and that moral judgment commonly (but not universally) involves extending equal consideration to the interests of individuals affected by our decisions.