Kant e a natureza não racional: algumas interpretações contemporâneas

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to locate animals within Kant’s ethical framework and to expose the interpretation that Christine Korsgaard and Onora O’Neill have about this theme on the philosopher. Kant considerates that we have direct duties only to rational beings; in other words, human beings are ends in themselves and cannot be used as means to others’ ends may be achieved. Regarding other beings, like animals, plants and ecosystems, Kant states that, to them, we only have indirect duties, and therefore we can use them as means to our ends; they are considered things, in opposition to the concept of the “end in itself”. The debate is necessary, because the interpretation of these concepts described above, namely the most traditional, guide us to conclusions seem as anthropocentric and to actions that don’t consider morally nothing but the rational life. This view is against the intuitions that the interaction with the non-rational nature has a wider moral meaning. Although this is the most traditional interpretation of Kantian ethics, the author’s text L, and the contemporaries debates made by other authors like Christine Korsgaard and Onora O’Neill offer us different suggestions about how to think about animal ethics through Kantian ethics. From that, in this paper we propose ourselves to think if the concept of indirect duties, as Kant presented it to us can in deed answer animal ethics dilemmas.