Neuroethics and animal ethics: Toward a convergence for the moral consideration of animals

Advances in the neurosciences have transformed the understanding of how the human brain works and have shown that moral processes and the capacity for sentience—that is, the capacity to experience physical pain as well as emotions—have a cerebral basis shared with other species. Most animal studies, however, aim to generate neurobiological knowledge oriented primarily to the benefit of humanity, under the speciesist assumption that animals may be used as models from which results can be extrapolated to human beings. Neuroethics, which on the one hand seeks to understand the neural foundations of moral judgment (the neuroscience of ethics) and on the other reflects on the dilemmas arising from the use of neuroscientific technologies (the ethics of neuroscience), finds points of intersection with animal ethics, whose aim is to question the anthropocentric and speciesist relationship between humanity and animals. In this way, neuroethics provides the foundation concerning the brain processes that underlie sensitivity and morality, while animal ethics translates that knowledge into ethical responsibility and moral action. The convergence of the two fields is still incipient; it nevertheless appears as a fertile territory for reflecting on what is morally permissible in the treatment of other species endowed with sensitivity and cognitive capacity. The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the foundations and points of encounter between neuroethics and animal ethics that may contribute to the moral consideration of animals. Three sections are presented: the first addresses the foundations and points of encounter between the two fields; the next analyzes the implications of animal research; finally, the possibility of an interspecies neuroethics is put forward.