Can Kantian ethics explain why we have moral obligations to other animals?

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Christine Korsgaard, a preeminent moral philosopher, argues that our duties to animals are rooted in the nature of agency itself. By re-examining Kantian thought, she challenges the traditional divide between humans and other creatures, proposing a framework where all beings with a final good deserve our moral consideration.

Christine Korsgaard, who retired from Harvard in 2020, has spent her career investigating the foundations of moral philosophy, practical reason, and personal identity. Her work is deeply engaged with the history of ethics, particularly the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. In her 1996 book, The Sources of Normativity, she explores the origins of obligation, while her collection Creating the Kingdom of Ends further develops Kantian approaches to contemporary moral issues.

A central theme in Korsgaard's research is the nature of agency. In her 2009 work, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity, she posits that morality is fundamentally tied to how we constitute ourselves as agents. This perspective extends into her recent focus on human-animal relations. In Fellow Creatures, she argues that our obligations to animals are not merely sentimental but are a logical extension of a Kantian framework. She suggests that because animals possess a final good—meaning things can be good or bad for them—they must be treated as ends in themselves.

Korsgaard’s approach distinguishes between 'active' and 'passive' ends-in-themselves. While humans are active, self-governing beings capable of legislating moral laws, animals are passive ends. She argues that because we value our own ends, we are rationally committed to valuing the ends of all beings who possess a final good. This nuanced position moves beyond traditional anthropocentric ethics, suggesting that the moral status of animals is tethered to their own capacity to experience what is good for them, rather than being granted importance solely by human decree.

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